Chapter 126: Cementery

Watching the monstrosity in front of his eyes, made Fen knees quickly give up. For some reason, just the aura that oozed out from this giant body of some titan was enough to make the young man feel nauseous. 

Looking up, Fen could barely make out the details of this thing abhorrent face. From the way it was chiselled down in what looked like the purest stone that could exist, the young man could clearly see the trace of the human origins that served as a base for making this disgusting thing. But with the two additional sets of eyes and huge horns that decorated its forehead, rather than a human, this thing could only be described as a demon.

And just like that, Fen's vision changed once again. He was now standing on a huge grass field, with absolutely nothing or no one to speak off in the visible distance. Yet, the position of the body that Fen could observe right now, clearly indicated that not everything was fine. 

A distant rumbling.

The body on the ground didn't react to the sound of the entire world trembling, still kneeling on the ground with his hands outstretched forward. Despite not even a slightest movement from his body, Fen could tell that the entire area around was overflowing with energy. Curious about how the situation looked like from the perspective of the person whose memories Fen was visiting, he dived deeper into the psyche of his host, striving to fully understand what was going on.

But Fen couldn't have even the slightest idea of the horrors he would see by doing so.

Blood.

Blood, intestines, bodyparts of humans and beasts alike. Obviously, it wasn't there in a physical sense. It was the aura of the air around Fen's host body that gave off those feelings. And there was something extremely important going on in Fen's host mind. Even though the young man couldn't be any wiser about the topic that his host was tackling in his mind right now, somehow he was also able to tell that it was inherently connected to the bloody aura around him.

Raise.

Feeling his head raising to allow for a wide view, Fen could see how this peaceful area looked like in his host's eyes. A hellish landscape covered with pulsating blood, calling to the soul of that man through the very deepest channels.

'What is the price of power?'

A question appeared in Fen's mind as he suddenly changed his perspective to one appearing outside of the man's body. Now, he could finally see something that while upsetting, explained what was going on right now. 

It was his very own eyes. 

Yes, it wasn't some stranger lying on the grass, but it was Fen himself!

Older, for sure. Clearly experienced by his life given all the scars all over his body, focused on some inconceivable entity still hiding outside of his view. But it was those eyes of his, completely devoid of any emotion or human reason, that made Fen realise what kind of trade was going on right now.

'Power or humanity?'

Given the rules of all his vision, Fen couldn't influence the ongoing events in any way or form. He could only observe. He could only observe where his older body suddenly jerked upwards with a look of determination appearing in his eyes.

'Power to save the humanity of others.'

Maybe because Fen dared to invade the thoughts of the man that looked like his older self, he could feel the distant echo of what was happening in that man's soul. Only a small, broken fragments of the truth, but given how deeply did those decisions cut on his older self's character, even with this broken way of feeling it, Fen could still perfectly guess what was happening in his older self's mind.

Blood.

All at once, the entirety of this insanely ugly and repulsive feeling disappeared. Stunned by this sight, Fen actually allowed for his perception to be sucked in as well, finally revealing what was going on in his older self's mind.

A raging sea of fire. 

All the blood in the area, all the horrors that scared the shit out of Fen, now turned to energy. The purest, volatile form of energy. One, to which the liquid fire couldn't even hold a damned candle!

Soon, even the material world was affected by the change. As if the air combusted by itself, the entire wide plain suddenly turned into a surface of nothing but flames, burning everything down equally. 

And it was then, that the already familiar monster appeared.

Ranging for at least a good forty meters high, it was the embodiment of everything bad, ugly and repulsive that humanity or monsters could even dream off. In a sense, it was the end of the world itself.

But right as Fen's older self tensed in, clearly planning to wash this abomination away with this insane beyond any understanding amount of power that was currently flooding through him… The vision changed once again.

Suddenly snapped away from the minds of his ancestors, descendants and his past or future self alike, Fen stood atop a wide plain. 

As far as his eyes could see, nothing but grass of blades freely fluttering on the air could be seen. A paradise.

Feeling the strange power coursing once again through his veins, Fen understood that he was now back to his original self. Moving his arms around to prove this theory, Fen quickly turned his attention to another problem.

'Just where the hell am I?'

This question was solved relatively quickly. Or rather, whatever was behind his sudden appearance in this place, wasn't willing to give him any time to rest.

"GRAWL!"

With a huge eruption of the ground that seemed as if it would split the world in half, something appeared. 

Looking at the thing in front of his eyes, Fen lacked the worlds to describe how hideous it was. If the demon from before was an embodiment, an avatar of all the evil in the world, then the thing before him was the evil in its truest form.

Lacking any shape, it was just an enormous mass of condensed energy and intent, slowly crawling its way up the slope of a small hill, constantly closing the distance towards Fen.

But there was no doubt or hesitation in the young man's eyes. As if fueled by the antics, habits and memories of his bloodline, his body weight shifted forward, before Fen blinked forward.

Not even bothering to invoke a catalyst, his body by itself was made out of fires and fires alone, temporarily taking the tangible form of his flesh and bones. By the time the distance between Fen and the monstrum before him shortened by half, his rapid descend down the hill ignited the air behind his back, quickly surrounding the young man in a potent barrier of infernal flames. 

And then, his body melted. Blurring the line between being tangible and intangible, the flames that covered the young man's body formed up, turning his body to the core of a huge, dark phoenix. With the same, repulsive feeling from before appearing, the already dark colour of the phoenix turned even darker, as if some kind of dye suddenly covered its entire surface.

At the same time, the enormous bird that neared the size of this unshaped form of vile energy exploded with even more energy. Its eyes turned dark red, focused on a single point inside this vile creature. Gaining several hundreds of meters of the distance with just a single swing of its wings, the phoenix spread its entire glory on the skies, before shifting its angle and suddenly started to pike down at the true evil.

"FEN!"

A call.

That was it, a simple call of a voice completely foreign, yet perfectly familiar. It was as if Fen's inner self suddenly took a woman appearance, reached its hand to the consciousness of the young man, before uttering his name with longing voice.

"FEN!"

This time, all the mystical feeling of the call disappeared, replaced with the mundane reality that quickly washed of all those apocalyptic visions form the young man's mind. Once again, his feet were firmly lodged on the soft ground of the fire flower garden, his shoulders held tightly by the female from another academy.

His body was trembling.

'What the hell was that…'

Even though Fen managed to return to his usual self, he felt as if a part of his soul remained on those strange battlefields he saw. It was as if he exchanged a part of himself with his ancestors, with his past self and also with who he would become in the future.

Looking around, the young man could feel a distinctive stench of the blood coming from all over the garden. Focusing on this feeling just for a moment was enough for the young man to realise that this place wasn't a garden at all.

It was a cemetery.