Chapter 105 [Bonus ] 10: Darkness!

AN: Mature Content Warning! Themes of a dark, violent and tragic nature . Only read if over 18.

----

The twisted boughs of the gnarled trees loomed overhead, their grey leaves rustling ominously in the breeze. As dark as the shadows that blanketed the village, black trunks swayed in unison with the wind's melody.

A small hamlet was built of gothic stone, its architecture twisted and bent like the trees surrounding it.

Two blood moons hung high in the sky, casting their ruddy glow upon the village below as if the heavens were watching the proceedings with a keen, malevolent eye.

Tonight's sky was a canvas of inky blackness, the stars obscured by the heavy darkness descending upon the village like a shroud. The village courtyard lay beneath this ominous sky, a small island of light in a sea of darkness.

In this small hamlet, blood flowed like rivers, and a dozen small demons devoured people's corpses with fierce golden eyes.

It was a massacre, and few still survived.

Sadly, those females that survived now howled in pain as they were infringed upon by those wretched creatures, slapping away, unable to fight back.

A game? Or was that something their breaking minds repeated to convince themselves otherwise?

Yes, it's all a dream. This isn't happening, oh sweet child; believe as you will.

But the Apocalypse is nigh.

The sounds of blades clashing rapidly with a vibrant dance of sparks and clanging echoed in his ears; two women fought beside each other, one taller with blonde hair and a more voluptuous figure, while the other shorter with a good and athletic body.

"Tessa! On your left, be careful! Don't waste the sacrifice he made to save you!"

Woosh! Her mother, Alizée, deflected the blow of a hulking demon's strike with a powerful swing. Her body sent sliding metres across the ground, dragging a deep ditch as she stabbed the floor with her sword to stop her pace.

"Mmm!"

Tessa spun in a circle; her body illuminated in a silver light brightening this dark and dim forest.

However, with each blow she took, the blade she dodged, the radiance began to fade, and her increased breathing speed and bleeding lips and nose.

She was overworking herself; long ago, her mana had run dry since Zell was killed and cleaved in two by the demon's axe. All the girls knew that soon this world would fuse, that death in the game could suddenly become real in but a moment.

They heard Zell telling them repeatedly, trying to say it vaguely so they could understand without triggering the providence of god or divine punishments.

'Yet we didn't listen; we took it as a joke... Like a game we could easily clear... and now he is dead!'

Her thoughts went to the boy who sacrificed his life, even though it was a game; Zell and her mother insisted this was no longer a game and death should never be taken for granted.

Tessa fought on; her sword began to crack, fingers trembled from excessive use of her swordsmanship as small fractures started to fill her bones.

'Ah, this is what it feels like, to fight with everything you have and not be enough?'

Bang! Clink! Her sword snapped as a huge hulking demon grabbed her arm, which was weakened and unable to counter after that massive axe crushed her blade and only form of resistance.

Snap!

The demon crushed her arm before tearing off below her elbow and tossing it into his mouth, devouring it with a delighted smile.

"Ah, the flesh of a virgin is the most delectable." (Demon Speak)

Held into the air, she began to hammer the demon's hand with her only remaining resistance; long ago, the sounds of her mother's fighting ended, and no longer did that howling gale resound through the forest.

''Mother... It hurts... Please help me... A game would never hurt like this..."

The demon seemed amused about this girl's cries for her mother, as a moment later, a woman, or what used to be a woman, appeared, her body torn in half; only the upper part remained but mostly crushed and mangled by the tall, muscular demon.

Some might say these women were lucky, as the Demon Brutes didn't have lust or sexual desire. Anything above a whelp lacked those organs altogether, instead replaced with a hunger for flesh and an appetite for destruction.

The two demons looked at each other with sharp, crooked mouths that opened with a smile, each one bigger than the female's body.

'M-mother... You can't lose... you are the most powerful...'

Tessa looked at her mother, filled with acute wounds and bloody marks, her eyes dull only the crushed left hand still refusing to release the grip of her sword, without blade but resolute in grasping her sword even in death.

Having lost her support, Tessa almost crumbled before she saw him...

The man who was torn apart to save her...

The man who helped her from the beginning after her mother told her some hidden truths about the "Previous" world and the males Zell made impotent...

His mangled body twitched with strange black tendrils and horrifying scales alternating between something like a dragon and other times like these monstrous beasts.

A dragon's wing... A demon's tail... His body was unstable, yet he still moved towards her as his chest healed before her eyes, yet what remained within his chest was not a heart! It was black and red... throbbing with a sticky gel that oozed from within, filling her saviour's body.

'This isn't a dream, nor a game... What's going to happen to Zell... I will wake up just fine, maybe a little scared, but...'

He dragged himself towards her, a single eye filled with burning anger, a desire to fight.

Thud!

A powerful black fist covered in spines smashed into Tessa's body, causing her to vomit blood and what might have been broken organs; her health dropped below zero, but somehow, she couldn't die...

A strange curse was placed upon her, and she needed to suffer a certain amount of damage before death.

In return, she took 200% pain from all damage.

"Ugh!"

Her eyes were filled with tears, no longer able to withstand this powerful blow, as her mind began to shatter; only Zell's figure, holding his broken sword as he looked directly into her eyes, those bloody damaged lips mouthed. "I will save you..."

-

"T-this wasn't how it was supposed to be...." Zell said with trembling lips, his broken sword dragging along the ground, forming a deep trench as he stumbled forward.

'How? Yinfra, Yanfra? Are you there?'

He called out, but nobody answered. Only the pain of his body that was cleaved in half remained; by rights, he should have been logged out, yet the moment he lost his consciousness, those two existences spoke to him, both reaching out to him to make a choice.

"Fuck... where is everyone...."

"Argh!" Tessa's voice came from the distance as he heard the sound of a blade breaking. His feet slowly moved towards that sound, only to notice a mangled corpse beside him, her lips filled with blood and eyes torn out.

Beside him was the bloody body of Elizabeth Bathory, the vampire that became his [Love Slave].

Her chest was cleaved open with a bloody and terrifying wound, and he could not look any longer; he moved forwards, trying to find a guiding light.

Unlike the other women, she was still a pure NPC; Elizabeth, the former queen of vampires, was dead.

Zell's head slowly moved, looking around him with a sad expression.

All around him were the corpses of players that began spasming on the ground lifeless; he gripped his sword tightly as the broken axe lay in the centre of the courtyard, bloody water spraying into the air from the fountain.

He could hear women being violated by the lesser demons and monsters they brought along, only feeling solace that everyone was listed as offline; thus, their bodies were already safe.

Only Tessa and Alizée remained; thankfully, the two were located away from that vile cave of obscenity, or he might explode in anger.

Cryska, Nora, Rika and Veronica's bodies were gone, thanks to Yin and Yanfra's interference...

A pair of hulking demons slowly walked towards Zell, who stood with cracked scales, bloody arms and a broken left arm.

One of them held up a beautiful woman he had met not long ago; she was Tessa's mother, now split in half and visibly dead. However, the curse that showed in his eyes for her kept her alive just like Tessa as his body moved forward, trying to lift his broken sword once more.

His horns were broken, and he could only see from his right eye as the left one was pierced by a shard of his helmet that had fallen off long ago as he held up his broken sword with the right hand,

"Choose!" (Zelgan Tyrant)

"Decide!" (Dragon Emperor)

Zell couldn't give a fuck about their voices, Tessa was someone he had wanted to save since the very beginning, and he failed... His lips and body trembled before a huge pain began to tear out from his back before a single dragon's wing began to waft, blowing the air in a huge storm.

"Ahhhh! Argh...Nnngh!"

Snap! The demon ripped off Tessa's other arm. As she began to scream in pain, her eyes filled with tears as she looked at him as if begging for help.

"Oh, does the little hybrid want to cry?" (demon speak)

"Haha, why is one of our siding with those rats?" (Demon speak)

Suddenly, just like in the past life, its axe shot towards him as scenes of his life and the past few moments flashed through his eyes.

The two voices began to ring out as time stopped. The axe was a metre from his face, the wind was no longer blowing, the tree's no longer rustled, and the women no longer cried.

Silence

Darkness.

The blood around his feet began to bubble and rise, slowly submerging him as the voices continued to ring out.

"Choose!"

"Decide!"

Suddenly everything stopped as the blood vanished, now alone with no demons or Tessa, a world of darkness with only the forest, black sky, and its twin red moons.

Zell looked up into the stopped words silent sky, the two blood moons shining down on him; tears of blood rained down his cheeks as he lamented, regretted and loathed himself, unable to cast out his humanity, thinking that everything might be okay.

He could have trained harder.

He could have killed more.

He should have been more selfish.

He should have lived out his desires

Why did he continue pretending to be human?

His body shuddered to collapse to the ground as the blood once again greeted him, the soft red mud wrapped around his deformed and broken body, as a girl slowly dragged herself towards him with a pale face.

The bloody girl with a loose white dress leaned against a tree beside him. Her silvery white hair was in slight curls filled with blood and dirt. She clutched at her chest as the last of her golden blood seeped from her lips, nose and eyes.

"Hehe~ you are so stupid, Zell; why didn't you just let her die... It was only a game..."

The soft but cute voice echoed in the distance; Zell could only look up, his eyes widening as he saw her, like a radiant goddess, with such a wonderful smile despite her wretched state.

"But that's why I fell in love with you. Hehe~."

"So, this time... Don't mess it up, okay? Make your choice... Then return to three hours ago... Give me your past love, okay? She's damn crazy about you....An..."

Before she could finish, her mouth vomited blood, and she collapsed onto his chest, the golden blood oozing out of her body and penetrating the black and red wretched orb that replaced his head, forming some stabilizing gel, holding the pair together.

His head began to throb; now the voices began to grow angry and frustrated before he used the last of his strength to scream out into the dark abyss as everything began to fade.

-

-

-

"I CHOOSE YOU BOTH TO SUBMIT TO ME!"

"Please... Help me, Veronica!"

'What are you like... I've already died, and you now want my blood to help you..... Haha... You owe me lots of dates, kisses and cuddles while watching movies together! Don't forget.... please....'

The voice vanished... as the golden blood began to spread out and envelop the entire core, not just the blood. Veronica's body began to melt into the golden blood; a vessel created for a goddess must be made with the blood of a god.

"NO! This isn't how this should go!" (Zelgan)

"Fool! Do you think a human could seal out bloodlines and fuse them with this pathetic excuse for a dying goddess!?" (Crimson)

Zell's dim eyes suddenly flashed with a dark red light pulsing with a demonic light before his aura soared like a dragon crushing the surrounding area as the orb slowly became a dark golden sphere that beat like a normal heart, with blood-red veins and black patterns.

"I am no longer human. Lizard"

"I am a Zel-Dragan"

He used the "Zel" from his name and the "Dra" from his crimson dragon bloodline and added the "an" from his incubus bloodline to form his race's new name; even the goddess that resided in his heart seemed to be pleased with that.

After his words, he began to dissipate as both voices stayed silent moments later, starting to laugh out loud, feeling delighted yet angry. He didn't choose them but found his path.

"Good, my future descendant shouldn't be a clown like a sheep... Make sure you don't make women cry, or I'll reincarnate and beat your ass!" The Ancestor of the Zelgan bloodline said, with a less demonic voice and more like an old man.

"Haha, such arrogance, to even change the spelling of dragon... Ah, fuck, this is why I named my flight the crimson dragons! Listen, boy, take this choice and never look back. Unlike that woman-loving man slut. I still exist! Find me when you gain your dragon or Dragan form, haha! Don't forget the alcohol and snacks! This old man hasn't seen a relative in aeons!"

The two voices vanished as his body became a mixture of golden, red and black lights.

"Good luck, our successor!" A final whisper reached his ear before suddenly his mind snapped back to the moment before they entered the forest three hours ago.

Zell instantly looked towards the women, who smiled at him and looked excited about the future raid; only two people seemed different.

Tessa, who looked at him with concern and deep affectionate eyes as if he would die the next moment, looked like she could cry the next moment.

To test her, he mouthed the words.

"I will save you, for sure... this time!"

Only for her to quickly turn away, holding her hand over her mouth, and letting out a quiet whimper as she trembled.

Before anyone could notice her strange actions, Zells spoke loudly; he saw Veronica give him a love heart with her hands and kiss him.

Zell nodded, feeling her confidence in him reassure him.

His dark golden heart began to beat rapidly; he was no longer the Zell who would hesitate or think of the good or bad.

'I will do what I like, whenever I want and if something needs doing. It shall be done my own way!'

"So, my cute girls, I have bad news! We are going to change our plans...."