Crown Of Blasphemy: Rise Of The Legendary Villain

Mr. Valen woke to darkness, a regular occurrence by now, but it wasn't your regular type of darkness.

It was different, the kind that pressed from all sides, the kind that was alive.

'Was I not supposed to wake atop a tree?' Mr. Valen was forced to ask himself, as the last thing he remembered was falling asleep in a large tree.

Whatever he remembered, though, was rendered irrelevant, as the current issue prevailed:

He could not move, and any time he tried, the pressure around him tightened, like a vice squeezing his entire body simultaneously.

A tentacle, or something akin to one, coiled around his chest, arms, and legs, making each breath a labored struggle.

"Crunch!"

Suddenly, his ribs creaked, and something oozed across his skin, thick, sticky, and burning.

It was acid, or at least it felt like acid—corrosive.

It started slowly, a tingling across his chest, but the moment it lingered for more than a few seconds, the pain exploded.

"Argh," Mr. Valen screamed, but stopped himself as he realized that by screaming, he was only letting out air with no means to suck it back in.

The thing that was restricting him also squeezed tighter after discovering the leeway, but that was only the beginning of his agony.

Courtesy of the acid, his skin bubbled, peeled, his muscles and nerves melting away like candle wax, and for any other person, the agony would have ended as they would be long dead.

Unfortunately, Mr. Valen was not a normal person, as his healing factor kicked in almost immediately.

Torn flesh knitted itself back together; nerves regrew; pain receptors flared back to agonizing life just in time for the next wave of acid, the next wave of torment.

But this time, he could not scream; the thing had coiled around Mr. Valen's throat like a noose.

His heart kept beating, his lungs kept working, and the cycle continued.

Melt. Heal. Melt. Heal—a terrifying, repeating circle with which he could feel the acid something seeping into his lungs, burning, piercing, redefining his perception of pain.

He didn't know how long it lasted, seconds? Minutes? Hours?

Time blurred when every second felt like a lifetime of pain; he couldn't think, he couldn't plan—all he could do was endure.

And just when he thought he would perish there, just when the pain had become as unbearable as at its beginning, he heard a sharp crack.

And the pressure loosened slightly, murky acid pouring out of what he perceived as crack, and for the first time in a while, he felt cool air, air that made the pain worse, more piercing.

As his healing factor kicked in—regrowing his damaged and malformed skin, another crack sounded, then a burst of blinding light flooded his vision.

Something or someone had torn open the thing that confined him.

And then he felt something grab onto him, jerking him out with a force that was not of man, but he could not see, he needed to see but he had no eyes.

But in the next moment, despite the burn of acid remnants prickling at his skin, his eyes regrew, and he saw darkness—lesser than the one he had been subjected to—the darkness of the world before him.

Mr. Valen coughed violently, collapsing to his knees in the wet moss, the stench of acidic sap still burning in his throat.

He looked back and saw the hacked remains of the thing that had nearly digested him twitching beside him like a dying serpent.

It was the tree, of course it was! How could anything in this world be safe, this world of horror and madness?

His vision swam; a ravenous hunger assaulting him as the cold black rain touched his skin. But then, he thought, as all men ought to think, brood, or whatever fancy word there was for rationalizing. 'Who had saved me? Who had freed me from my torment?'

This thought led him to raise his head up, and gaze at the ones in front of him, three figures that looked human at first glance but were not quite there.

Seeing these figures, he blinked hard so as to confirm that they were not some figment of his unreliable fancy, and when he discovered that they were real, his instincts screamed as one might when confronted with something unknown.

What made them alien? What made them so fearsome?

Well, it was the uncanny feeling their eyes evoked, particularly their shape.

If one overlooked this detail they seemed humanoid enough.

The largest of the bunch was a broad man wrapped in stitched animal hide, he stood in front, his posture confrontational.

His shoulders appeared too wide for any city-bound man, his stance shaped by blood and battle.

His eyes, which sat beneath heavy brows, were blood red, like those of the Wizard's and Witches he was familiar with from his world, but worse, crueller.

They scanned Mr. Valen not with curiosity but with calculation and a certain expression Mr. Valen was sure he knew but could not quite put his finger on.

To the left of the larger man, a woman moved, tilting her head, though none had spoken, she was somehow quieter, steadier.

Her cloak clung to her, in layers of damp leather and dark feathers fitted with a chaotic precision, a craftsmanship his world had long lost.

Her face was sharp and pale, her lips chapped, eyes glowing red like enchanted blood. Thick braided hair crowned her skull, and there was no softness to her gaze, only practiced readiness.

The third figure crouched behind the duo, a thin and angular male, his spear half raised—not threateningly but not relaxed either.

His lower face was masked by the ornamental jaw of some beast, though the pale skin around his glowing red eyes was veined from cold and wind.

Wrapped in tight bands of hide, he looked more like a stalker than a man, every inch tuned for motion.

But that was not all; if one were to observe them—truly observe, they would notice that these beings all possessed larger eyes that almost made them appear like some sort of owl or bat.

Their hair was also thicker, more lush, though it was soaked.

As for their skin, it was pale, far paler than any semblance of a normal, healthy hue, and to thank for these traits was the harsh environment they inhabited.

Mr. Valen swallowed and glanced at the the remains of the tree.

He felt as though he had been freed from one predator... and handed straight to three others, but he did not panic, they seemed intelligent, though the extent of that intelligence remained unclear.

The only way to find out was to attempt communication, so he did.

"Thank you," he rasped, his voice weary, his bestial instincts catching sight of those delicious milky white threads that flowed freely around their form.

He almost lunged at them, but he controlled himself.

To his attempts at communication, none of the three replied; rather, they stepped back slightly as though appalled by the sound that had emerged from Mr. Valen's mouth.

But they did not leave; rather, they turned to each other and began speaking in a language he did not understand.

In fact, the language was so bizarre that Mr. Valen was not sure that the vocal folds of the human body were capable of replicating it.

Yet, still naked and kneeling, stripped of all dignity and afflicted with hunger, he watched them converse.

'Do they plan to kill-' Mr. Valen grimaced as pain overrode him, it appeared that he had still not regained the ability to think.

Abruptly, the trio finished speaking and approached him, the two men taking the lead in their attempt to communicate.

But unlike him, they were astute enough to recognize that verbal communication was pointless, so they resorted to acting out their meaning

The bulky man pointed at his companions and then pointed to his eyes then pointed to him, and when Mr. Valen squinted his eyes in confusion, he turned around himself, and attempted to look at his back, signalling him to repeat.

The burly man pointed first at his companions, then at his own eyes, then at Mr. Valen. When Mr. Valen squinted in confusion, the man turned around and pretended to look at his own back, signaling for Mr. Valen to repeat the action.

Still confused, Mr. Valen slowly rose under the watchful eyes of the duo and turned his back. As he did, he saw something on his naked back that he had never seen before.

A rune or sigil depicting something that bore a faint resemblance to an eye, though he was not quite sure.

'When?' Mr. Valen thought in shock not being able to comprehend where the rune had come from.

He turned back to the burly man, and when he did, he noted that he was signalling again, this time miming that he wanted to place his palm on the mark—a gesture that confused Mr. Valen.

At first, he was hesitant, but after realizing that he would have died if not for these people, he decided to trust them a bit more, and so he turned his back.

As he did so, the larger man then stepped forward and placed his palm firmly on the mark.

Said palm felt rough and warm against his skin, a heavy feeling to it despite the man's evident control over his weight.

But all the reservations he had about said situation would have to wait, for a single message seeped into his mind:

[Poor outsider, allow us to free you from your pain. You will become our companion, unable to oppose us. In exchange, we offer protection, food, and shelter. Do you agree?]

'My god, how are you in my head?' Mr. Valen yelled in his mind, the shock on his face evident.

The man seemed to have heard his exclamation as he responded shortly:

[It is by the power of the world brand, but that is irrelevant. Do you accept our conditions?]

'Y-yes! Yes, I do!' Mr. Valen gasped mentally, driven by desperation rather than thought.

Almost immediately, he both felt and saw a strand of the milky white energy that flowed within the man seep into him.

But, of course, his body devoured it instantly.

With that, the man stepped back and nodded his head in satisfaction.

"Come with us," he commanded in that strange language. Yet this time, in that micro-instant, a mystical force translated it: he understood.

"I-I understand you," Mr. Valen rasped, staring at the three figures before him in shock.