Animal was the first to try and avenge his comrade by
leaping towards Ghast with teeth and claws ready to exact justice
upon him. But again, it was all in vain, Ghast caught Animal by the
throat and cast him into the emerald throne he had originally had
been perched upon. But Animal did not merely fall to the ground upon
colliding with the pillar, Ghast sought to keep him out of play by
using his powers to simultaneous pin him to the emerald throne with a
shard of crystalline debris , skewering Animal through the shoulder,
leaving him to dangle from it, unable to heal his wounds or avenge
his compatriot.
My lord stayed vigilant, though he was unable to move
and remained collapsed on bent knees. Ghast motioned towards Animal,
still writhing and desperately attempting to free himself. “You
should relax, Styx... My dear brother will not die just yet. He will
live to witness the end of you and your vile accomplice. Isn't that
right?... Wraith?” Wraith stood motionless, eyeing Ghast like prey
even though it was clear who the predator really was among them.
“That's quite the hateful gaze, Wraith. Are you calculating how you
will save your comrades? Are you so desperate that you will deny to
yourself the false sense of hope that you have?” Wraith replied, “I
don't blame you for what you've done, Ghast. In truth, I am, in part,
responsible for what has happened to you. But make no mistake, you
take your vengeance out on the wrong Primerans. Animal is not Styx, I
don't understand how you cannot see it. You must know that Styx died
long ago. He was executed by the Zodiac Ministry, I was there, I saw
his head roll when the guillotine fell. You have no reason to do
this!”
Ghast turned towards Animal, still struggling in vain
to free himself. “It is true. I know that what my eyes see is
indeed not the same wolf that betrayed me, and yet... Do you not feel
it? Do you not hear it? The beating of a Black Heart. Belphagor's
Heart. The power of the Sloth King echos from within him. He
inherited the same vile darkness that Styx once wielded. Belphagor
has chosen this mutt to succeed his will as an apprentice, just as
Mammon had chosen me. So yes, I know that he is not Styx, but the
power remembers. It holds in it a small remnant of each apprentice
that has wielded it in the past. So to do I feel it in me, each of
the poor souls who were given Mammon's dark gift and eventually fell.
He is not Styx, but what little of him remains in this world I will
extinguish!” Ghast moved with a great determination towards Animal,
his weapon ready to enact a harsh, but misguided revenge.
“Then you doom yourself to relieve this nightmare
over and over again!” Wraith bellowed. “ If what you say is true,
then once Animal is slain, then the powers given to him will only
eventually be bestowed upon another! Styx will remain in this life no
matter how many times you cut down a heir to Belphagor's power!”
Ghast stopped in his tracks and turned to Wriath once more. If his
skeletal visage could have contorted into a smile, he would have done
so with great glee. “How little you know, old friend. The barrier
between this world and ours strong, so strong that our kind can never
bring with us the same degree of power we wield in our homeland. You
know this, as well as my fool of a brother. When you two first came
to this world you may not have noticed it, but in time you must have
come to realize that you were weaker than you once were. The physical
laws of our world or in contrast to those of this one, and so, we are
weaker here. But for me, I am cut off from my master. I can not feel
him nor hear him. I know that if I were to perish here, my essence
would not return to my master without my will to guide it. Mammon
would be perpetually weakened, forever losing the degree of power he
has given me. But it will not be my master who suffers, it will be
his. Belphagor will permanently lose a portion of his strength, and
when the other Black Hearts learn of it, they will descend upon him
and destroy everything he has built. His people, his legacy,
everything to his name will disappear! The power that Styx wielded
will be gone forever! Then, and only then will my vengeance be
complete!”
Wraith must have been unsure of what frightened him
most. Was it fear for the future of Ferus Mundus if Ghast's
prediction came to pass? Or was it the truth buried deep in his soul
that he would have to make the ultimate sacrifice if he wanted a
chance to stop him. Either way, my lord believes at the very least
that Wraith did what he felt was right, even if he made his decision
for a reason as selfish as trying to redeem himself to his friends.
As Ghast approached Animal ever closer, a deafening sound echoed
across the tower's apex, the sound of a large object crashing to the
floor. Ghast turned quickly back towards Wraith, but he was nowhere
to be seen, only the massive lock that he carried upon his back
remained, embedded in the crystalline floor from its sheer weight.
Ghast said not a word as he approached cautiously. He branded his
weapon as he moved closer and closer to the metallic construct. Then,
without warning, and with speed he had never anticipated, Ghast was
grappled by a hideous and massive black hand that erupted from within
the key hole on Wraith's lock. The clawed appendage was composed of
what appeared to be a liquid darkness. So large was it, that it
clenched around Ghast's entire frame and raised him into the air. The
hand came crashing down and implanted Ghast firmly into the floor
leaving my lord and Animal to stare on in awe.
When the dust cleared, Ghast was struggling under the
weight of the dark hand and tried to repel himself away using his
powers. But it was futile, for the darkness continued to pool out
from within the lock and amassed itself into a terrible creature. Its
face was that of a distorted human skull, its body a chitinous
elongated appendage, like that of a snake, and all supported by two
arms that ended in massive claws, one of which pinning Ghast to the
floor with a strength that the human world had forgotten long ago and
only remained in nightmares.
The creature that had emerged from within the lock Wraith carried was described to me, by my lord, as a poltergeist. This rare creature was once said to be members of the ghost clan who chose to no longer carry their sins from their past lives and instead allow themselves to be consumed by them. The “ghosts,” as many Primerans have come to call them, are humans who decided to settle in Ferus Mundus during the Primeran retreat from Earth centuries ago. But humans lead such short lives compared to us, and when their existence came to an eventual end, Ferus Mundus gave them new life. When a human dies on Primeran soil, the body quickly turns to bone and dust, just as we do. But for humans, their bones are absorbed by the earth, and in time, a ghost resembling the human will appear. The ghosts seem to have little to no memory of their past lives, or what they have experienced beneath the surface of Ferus Mundus. But all return with two distinct features, a mask resembling a human skull is fixated to their faces, as well as a padlock and chains attached to them. The size of the lock is believed to be related to the misdeeds the human committed in life. Considering the size of the lock Wraith carried, he must have been a human of great cruelty, and yet, he was so willing to abandon his second chance at life by allowing his own sins to swallow him whole for even a small chance to save his comrades.
The poltergeist beast can range in a variety of shapes
and sizes, but they all maintain similar abilities. They each have
the power become completely invisible to the senses and can move
several objects at once when doing so. They are tremendously strong
and nigh invulnerable to all techniques and weapons known to Primeran
warfare. In fact, only a few have ever been considered defeated, and
that was at the hands of elder Primerans. Such power unleashed in the
defense of my master came as a relief to me when I heard his tale,
but in truth, I had not considered to full extent of just how
dreadful the power of the Black Heart could be.
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