Heir of a forgotten lineage

Inside a huge hall filled with the smell of death and blood, its ancient walls are covered with dark red marks, as if they were paintings created with a brush of madness.

In the center of the hall, branching smears form split horns. Two naked fighters stand, their bodies covered in deep wounds, their last breaths colliding in the air charged with futility.

Their crossed swords glisten in the pale glow, then comes the decisive move: the first lunges with a sword stroke that cuts a deep gash in his opponent's chest, almost splitting his bones, while the other responds by coldly cutting his throat.

The two bodies fall together, blood flowing like small rivers intertwining on the ground, while a mocking laugh rises like the creaking of the doors of fate from a young man sitting on a throne beneath a mound resembling a hill of severed heads, his features hidden behind a dark red curtain.

"What is this boredom? The previous confrontation was more exciting!"

Suddenly, a person wrapped in clothes as black as night appears, his face hidden behind a dark veil.

His only visible eyes behind the veil bear an old scar. He moves coldly, then strikes with lightning speed, severing the head of one of the corpses and throwing it onto the pile of disfigured faces, which appear to be frozen in terror and pain.

The bodies twisted under his grip, squeezed like sponges until they were drained of blood, then burned with black flames, turning into black ashes mixed with crimson liquids. He collected the ashes in small vessels, then bowed reverently, his voice dripping with submission:

"Great priest, do you wish to use the remains of my blood as an offering to strengthen your powers, or would you prefer that I offer them to the sorcerers so they may benefit from them?"

The priest shakes his head from behind the bloody curtain, his voice dripping with contempt:

"No need. The royal does not accept gifts from the corrupt commoners. Take this trash to the sorcerers."

As he leaves, he hears a strange voice emanating from the darkness, a strange tone heavy with foreboding:

" "Where do you think you're going, you lowly shadow soldier?" "

Suddenly, a demonic presence engulfs the place, as if the very air has become suffocatingly thick.

The soldier feels as if his soul is being squeezed in a press of torment, while the severed heads around him begin to scream, and from their smoky gray eyes, a huge bull's skull with twelve horns forms, blocking the light like a sudden eclipse and plunging the hall into thick darkness.

The soldier falls on his face, his voice trembling with fear:

"I offer my humble greetings to the Holy King of Torment, Lord of the Twelve Demons!"

The priest laughs a poisonous laugh:

" "As usual... you weak humans never change. Give me your report on this branch now!" "

The soldier trembles:

"It's not my responsibility, sir!"

He spits from behind the curtain, his voice filled with disgust and contempt:

"You dare to evade me? How many necks must be slit before you learn obedience?!"

The soldier begins to bang his forehead on the ground until blood flows from under his veil, then the priest orders him to leave and bring the spy leader.

The soldier bows as if his back is carrying the weight of centuries, then disappears like the moon behind a poisonous cloud, and after thirty seconds.

The skulls melt in one corner, revealing a man wrapped in black flames, wearing a dark crimson uniform engraved with satanic talismans that move like a crawling snake, and a hooked horn sprouting from his forehead like a poisoned sword.

He sways like a slave dragged by chains of desire and extends an old scroll.

A ghostly arm made of smoke appears to receive it, and minutes of heavy silence pass before the paper burns with dark purple flames.

"No progress in the reports... Are you mocking me?!"

The demonic aura intensifies, until the spy leader is almost drowned in the suffocating currents of energy.

He tries to utter any word that will save him from the terrible fate he imagines, but suddenly the iron door opens violently, and another man appears in similar clothes, but without horns.

He immediately kneels down:

"My great lord, I have a new report that will please you!"

He laughs with a distorted voice, anger clinging to his thoughts:

"Show it to me, or you will taste eternal torment, not as punishment, but as a sacred gift!"

The soldier whistles, and a raven with red eyes appears. The priest grabs the bird's neck with his fragile, cracked hand and easily breaks it, then turns the corpse into red ash between his fingers, using his purple flame to melt it into a small brown pellet.

He raises it to the blood curtain, and harsh chewing sounds are heard, then he bursts into loud laughter, while the sounds of tortured heads rise like a symphony from hell.

"If this is true... I have found the perfect vessel that is born once every thousand years to bear the sins of all mankind!"

Memories flow into the priest's consciousness like an accelerating volcanic torrent, the sounds breaking into loud screams, then his consciousness plunges into its deep stream, getting rid of all memories until the last one.

His fingers ran over a small tablet, drawing a picture of a raven he had carved in a forgotten moment. His body moved involuntarily, flying over a tall building, watching its doors intently, until suddenly a blue family car appeared, speeding toward the guards as if about to run them over.

The crow—the priest—tenses up, excited by the horrific scene, but his disappointment is confirmed when the car suddenly stops without an accident, and a couple emerges carrying a tall, injured young man.

He tried to get closer to see his face, but his body refused to obey, rooted to the nearby building like a dead branch with strong roots. Then a girl came out hesitantly, as if she were being dragged, and when he saw her, his heart was filled with certainty:

"Short brown hair, green eyes... It's the wild girl who woke up a year ago in the white feather incident! How enchantingly beautiful she is! If only she belonged to my master..."

Ignoring his waking dreams, the raven moves toward the company, approaching and retreating cautiously so as not to be discovered. The moments pass like melting ice, until the priest suddenly realizes his movement: 

"They entered so quickly? Is she the candidate to become the vessel that will carry my master, who devoured one of the incarnations of the sacred beasts? How I wish so!"

The hours pass like scattered fog, until the crow lands near a tightly closed window.

The priest gazes at the medical room filled with equipment, where a young man lies on a bed and three people wearing sterile clothing, one of whom shouts:

"Where is the chief physician? His condition is beyond our surgical capabilities!"

An assistant replies nervously:

"All the healers and saints are on missions to the continent of Naitrin and neighboring countries!"

The chief surgeon wipes the sweat from his forehead, his voice harsh and condescending as he addresses his assistant:

"And where are the trainers responsible for training the new healers?"

The assistant was taken aback by his boss's unusual arrogance, but he didn't wait long to reply:

"They don't have any training scheduled for today, so they're probably on vacation!"

A woman slapped the surgeon hard, angry at his arrogance: 

"Is this the time to complain about staff shortages?! Prepare the doses before he dies of pain!"

The surgeon suppressed his anger and calmed down.

"Don't you know that these drugs are lethal if not injected in the right concentration?!"

The surgeon's assistant exploded with anger as he grabbed his tools:

"Stop arguing! He's between life and death! I'll repair his intestines, my skills allow me to do so!"

The chief was shocked by the assistant's loud voice, as if it were the first time it had happened.

"How dare you...?! No, I will treat his broken bones, and Susan will take care of the anesthesia! Before that, call Nicholas to treat his lung!"

I trembled at his statement, as it was like a death sentence for both the wounded man and the boy.

"But he's still in training! He's only been recognized as a second-level saint, and he's only seventeen! It's too dangerous to let him do this—"

The chief surgeon couldn't stand her hesitation and pointed his scalpel at her neck with a sharp voice:

"There's no time for hesitation! We'll take any help we can get! If he makes a mistake, I'll take responsibility and resign!"

He slowly moved the scalpel away, his hand trembling, as a tear rolled down his cheek:

"Let Martin be my witness... I, Neil Gorrell, take full responsibility, and if he makes the slightest mistake, I will resign!"

Martin put his tools on the table, and his contemptuous gaze turned to sincere respect.

Susan was stunned by his audacity, while the raven watched the scene from afar. The priest was impressed by the introduction, but he was displeased with the ending: 

"If you had cut her arteries, I would have applauded the magnificence of the scene! But fate ruined it!"

Susan rushed out to fetch Nicholas, revealing her beautiful face, short blonde hair, and sky-blue eyes. She rushed through the corridors, got into the elevator, and pressed the buttons randomly until she reached 10049.

She went down to a luxurious underground residential complex and knocked on a specific door:

"Nicholas Freandis! We need your help with an emergency surgery!"

She was panting as if she had run a marathon, but before she could say a word, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Her anxiety and negativity disappeared.

She turned to see a tall boy with blue hair and features that combined kindness and melancholy, with dark eyes and a deep burn scar on his neck that looked like thousands of leeches had gnawed at it.

"Please, the patient is in critical condition! You can just treat his left lung, and we'll take care of the rest!"

His face remained impassive, and he asked her in a voice as dry as autumn leaves:

"Who is this patient who needs the help of an unrecognized trainee?"

She said in a trembling voice that hid her anger and buried feelings:

"We only have a quarter of the medical staff! All the therapists are on assignment, and the trainers are on vacation! It's—"

He interrupted her with a stony tone that shattered her fragile calm:

"I didn't ask you for details! Who is it?"

In a moment of anger, she grabbed his thin shirt:

"It's Darren Leras, the son of Verkel and Verla Leras! Are you satisfied now?!"

He grabbed her arms so tightly that he almost broke them, and lowered his head until his eyes met hers, where she saw sparks of ambiguous feelings:

"Why didn't you tell me from the beginning?!"

He didn't let go of her hand, and Susan cried out in helplessness as she scratched his arms

"Let go of my hand, you're hurting me!"

He pushed her away, then turned toward the elevator:

"Come on! Time is of the essence!"

She got up, hugging her arms, and noticed that the burn scar on his neck was glowing with a faint light.

"Wait for me!"

He called out to her excitedly, smelling the fresh air and rubbing his scar.

"Hurry up, my patient is on the verge of death."

He gave her a cold look, his eyes shining like stars in the polar night: 

"Today I will repay her debt... even if it is through her son. Look, world, I will shine and cast the ugliness of the past into the abyss of oblivion!"

They took the elevator to the operating room, and as soon as it stopped, Nicholas carried Susan, who was surprised, without looking at her.

He said coldly as he continued walking:

"You're slow, so guide me while I carry you, to save time."

She nodded in agreement and began pointing her finger left and right, while he rushed forward like a bullet, slowing down only at turns to give her a chance to guide him.

In less than two minutes, they reached the sterilization room leading to the waiting patient. Nicholas gently set her down, and they began to prepare for the operation.

Less than a minute later, they entered the room where the chief surgeon and his assistant were waiting, looking ready. Nicholas asked in a tone of suppressed excitement:

"Where is Mrs. Ferla's son? I'd like to take a quick look at him before we start."

The chief surgeon looked at his assistant with a shudder, then Martin said in a confused tone:

"Don't stare at me like that... It's your job on the line, not mine."

Nicholas approached Darn cautiously, and as soon as he saw his face, his features shook, as if shock screamed from behind his mask:

"Impossible! You must have tricked me, Mrs. Susan, right?"

Susan shook her head in denial, confirming the truth of his lineage, and Nicholas replied, grinding his teeth in anger:

"This is no time for jokes... How can a criminal immersed in the world of gangsters be the son of that saint, Mrs. Ferla? Tell me I'm just a fool who was tricked into his treatment."

Then the chief surgeon's voice rang out, mixed with guilt and suppressed anger:

"Damn you... Your words fill my heart with regret for believing in a child like you."

Martin stepped forward and intervened in a firm tone:

"Enough of this ridiculous argument. He is in no condition to confirm his identity."

Nicholas replied heatedly:

"What do you want from me? I came to repay a favor, not to save a young man who bears the scars of a war he has been fighting since childhood!"

In the midst of the quarrel, Darn suddenly moved his body, violently removing the devices connected to him, then pointed at them with a trembling hand, closing his eyes in pain, black liquid flowing from his mouth, his voice carrying cold hatred:

"You fools... How much more of your disgusting triviality must I endure? "

Everyone froze in their places, terror creeping into their bones. His eyes rolled in their sockets, Nicholas did not understand why they were frozen, while they thought what they were seeing was just an illusion.

Nicholas stepped forward heavily, his voice tinged with deadly suspicion:

"Are you really Mr. and Mrs. Leras' son?"

Darn replied, spitting blood with every word:

"And who are you... that I should introduce myself?"

Nicholas said, trying to compose himself:

"A man who owes your mother a debt, and I will repay it no matter the cost... Even if it's to cure your lungs."

Nicholas was about to ask another question, but Martin stopped him, his knees trembling, unable to bear the responsibility any longer.

Then Neil turned to Susan, laughing sarcastically from behind his mask:

"Did you really drug him? All I see is a bleeding corpse."

She replied decisively:

"Yes, I used enough to put a cheetah into a deep sleep."

Nicholas's heart pounded violently as he stared at the blood-covered Darn.

Martin shouted in panic:

"Mr. Neil, get ready for surgery immediately! Nicholas, stop shocking the teenagers and help me with the blood transfusion! Susan, do everything you can to get B+ blood bags and increase the dose of anesthetic to a level that would knock out an elephant!"

Everyone immediately obeyed the orders and began to carry out their assigned tasks.

Due to severe damage to his pulmonary capillaries, Darn lost consciousness, babbling in an unknown language that no one could understand.

Amidst their busyness, a black raven watched the scene silently from behind the window, and a priest in the shadows applauded warmly.

He said in a calm voice:

" What an ominous scene... worthy of being immortalized in the library of the lower realm. Darn... tall and silent, mixed with a unique contempt."

Behind him, the sky was the color of ripe wheat, and the crow moved its beak, making a sound that was a hybrid between a hiss and a faint caw.

The crow asked sarcastically:

"Did you like this theater, was it enough to entertain you?"

The priest replied humbly:

"Yes, scenes ranging from horror to amazement, and an ending that made my heart flutter like a seagull over a turbulent ocean."

The raven said with a proud laugh:

"I like your way of thinking, but don't get too caught up in events... Your consciousness is not resistant to fission in the void of nothingness."

The priest asked curiously:

"Sir, but where is the vessel? I have been watching for a long time, as if a decade has passed without me seeing it."

The raven was silent... no answer.

But suddenly, Nicholas' injury caught the priest's attention, evoking in him a painful feeling of dark longing and dark love.

He said thoughtfully:

"That boy... a copy of me. Would we have been friends if we had followed the same path? I don't know if he is lucky or if misfortune is playing with the threads of his destiny. I long to see him... perhaps I can melt some of the ice in this suspicious heart."

As he stared at Nicholas's scar, a torn memory came to him, in which he could not see the features of his face. He laughed innocently, exhausted on all sides, while homeless men beat him for a piece of stale bread.

One of them provoked him and grabbed a piece of wood to kill him, but before he could swing it, a man with white hair and a face so disfigured it looked as if it had been burned to a crisp twisted his arm. He smiled, revealing his fangs, and the man screamed from his arm, which twisted around itself like a snail shell, forming a strange aquatic shell.

The others fled, and the child continued to laugh.

Moments passed. The alley became a pool of stagnant blood, and the homeless people were crucified on fragile walls, their bodies squeezed and dripping purple liquid. The white man turned around, blood soaking his white suit, and headed toward the boy who was clutching the piece of bread as if it were a brick.

His innocent laughter turned into dry hysteria. The man slowly approached, wiped his face with a fragrant handkerchief, then whispered in his ear, and the sound of small bells rang out, welcoming a full blood moon, spreading its light over the alley and clearly reflecting the view from above.

"You are neither guilty nor insane, but fate has forced you to live in filth where you cannot realize your worth. Your laughter at all this is clear evidence that your spirit is oppressed and awaiting liberation."

He removed his teeth from the boy's ear, stood up, and extended his hand to him:

"I will not give you a false creed, but I will grant you the right to break as many chains and shackles as possible, so that you may see with your own eyes a world without hypocrisy or deceit."

He finished with a terrifying smile splitting his jaw:

"Follow me, my lord, the holy king of torment, and be in a position that allows you to fulfill your desires. Sacrifice the weak, exploit those who need you, and satisfy your sick desires to the point of satiety, for you are more deserving of them than slaves who drift after their futile desires, hiding behind false names such as ambition.

The boy fell silent, his empty eyes looking at the man as if he were a savior, someone who understood what he wanted without clichés. He accepted his offer and shook his hand, and then some devilish words came out of his mouth in a language that had been lost since ancient times.

A purple liquid formed above the boy's head, forming a small ball that gently fell onto his dirty head.

A muffled scream burst forth, carrying unbearable pain, while thick blood flowed from the dead to the boy, wrapping around his thin body like a black snake, weaving a sticky cocoon that breathed with a faint moan.

Then suddenly, the cocoon split open from the inside, its fragments flying through the air like broken glass, while a man stood in the center of the storm, laughing maniacally as he danced in an endless whirlwind.

He spins around the destroyed cocoon, the ground shaking beneath his feet, strange words coming out of his mouth in a forgotten language, black spells flowing like poison, repeating them endlessly, his voice turning into something inhuman, its layers cracking like the skin of a snake being shed.

The remains of his skin are engulfed in a deep black flame, consuming them until only ashes remain, scattered in the stormy wind.

On the horizon, the blood moon shines with a crimson light that floods the alley, like a giant eye watching the scene.

Bells toll in the darkness, their ominous chimes harmonizing with the cries of those crucified on the walls, who moan with terrifying melodies, as if they were a choir of the dead performing a song to welcome the coming monster.

Then, from the heart of the shattered cocoon, a pale-skinned creature emerges, its hair like strands of frozen blood, while two horns sprout from its forehead, curved like swords. A man falls to his knees in feigned reverence, his voice rising in mad exaltation:

"Hail the twelfth heir... King of Holy Torment, Lord of Demons, and Conqueror of the Innocent!"

Around him, shadows move as if alive, climbing the walls to join the crucified bodies, which begin to chant in unison, their cries turning into a demonic hymn, completing the circle.

The whole world reels, and the moon bathes everyone in a dark light, like frozen blood in the night sky.