Chapter 4
Location: Vabos Forest
"Kakarai… we should go now."
Vabon extended his hand cautiously toward the priest.
"He!"
Kakarai's eyes bulged with manic delight. He reached toward Vabon as well—but the moment their hands nearly touched, Vabon leapt back as if struck.
"You dare?" Vabon's voice cracked with outrage. "What is wrong with you?"
The word thundered through the space between them:
**Condemnation.**
Vabon froze.
_So that's it…_
His mind trembled.
_He knelt. He knelt to that monster. And now… he has been abandoned by the cult._
Slowly, Vabon's eyes drifted back toward the source of all this terror.
And he felt his soul collapse.
"D–Demon God…" he whispered, trembling. "This guy… this thing… he can only be a Demon God."
Before his horrified gaze, Dax's human flesh sloughed off in sheets, melting like wax in the rain. Skin dissolved, muscles unraveled, blood washed clean by the crimson downpour.
What remained was an abomination of majesty:
A skeleton—black as the abyss, glistening with vitality no corpse had the right to possess.
And above its skull floated two halos, divine and blasphemous at once, contradicting the very faiths of the world.
It was a scene the gods themselves would fear.
---
Dax found himself drifting in an endless ocean, a boundless inner cosmos, familiar yet alien.
"This place…" he murmured. "I've been here before."
Above the horizon floated two infants—one black, one silver—back-to-back like twin suns. Their bodies radiated opposing light, the embodiment of his traits and the fractured duality of his being.
Dax sat atop the ocean's surface, sinking into deep meditation. The water rippled, lifting him higher and higher until he overshadowed the twin infants.
Then—
Darkness swallowed everything.
The tranquil water churned violently, waves rising like mountains.
**It was a battle.**
A cosmic struggle for supremacy—body fighting soul, instinct fighting consciousness, hunger fighting purpose.
This conflict, rare even among the greatest beings, was the test that defined his path.
---
Dax's skeletal body inhaled sharply—yet without lungs.
The world convulsed in response.
Air, dirt, stones, roots, even the very essence of the ground were pulled toward him, devoured into his bones. The forest floor collapsed inward, forming a spiraling tower of debris that wrapped around him like a cocoon.
Then—
Flesh birthed itself anew.
Tendons slithered across bones. Muscles braided together in pulsing cords. Blood flowed like living worms, weaving into the veins of a reconstructed body.
"Ahhhhh…"
Dax exhaled with serene satisfaction.
The blood rain ceased instantly.
Clouds parted.
Light returned to the sky.
**Ding.**
System notifications chimed like bells of judgment.
---
The storm had ended.
Dax now floated beneath the twin infants. The ocean was calm, perfectly still.
**Trinity.**
A word echoed through his mind—powerful, sacred, terrifying.
"Hahahahaha!" Dax erupted with joy. "I remember now. My body… fought my soul for my mind."
His entire being quivered with ecstasy.
"The mind can serve only one master… and I have always belonged to the body."
Desire.
Greed.
Hunger.
"My nature… my truth… I gladly accept it."
His laughter shattered the ocean, ripping apart the inner realm and hurling him back to reality.
---
Dax opened his eyes.
The world was rewritten.
Invisible threads—thousands, millions—covered the land and sky like a shimmering web. Each strand pulsed with ethereal energy.
**Mana.**
He touched one. His fingers passed through.
"Fascinating…"
His gaze shifted toward where the cultists had stood. They were long gone.
Far away, a figure darted between the trees—Vabon.
Dax did not chase. Instead, he summoned a black robe from his storage and wrapped his waist.
Then, with a single step, he flickered from existence and reappeared in a distant shadow.
"They're fighting."
---
Vabon was dominating the fight, but Kakarai—transformed, mutated, condemned—refused to fall.
Vabon's expression twisted into a mix of disgust and purpose.
"Book Two of the Wretched Grimoire… _Tongue of the Damned_."
He licked the blood on his fingers—Kakarai's blood.
"You have been forsaken by god, Kakarai. I will end your suffering."
He whispered the command:
**"Kill yourself."**
"Vooooos!"
Kakarai's body jerked violently. His eyes rolled. His arm trembled upward—
Then stabbed directly into his own chest.
Thud.
He collapsed.
Dead.
Or so Vabon believed.
**Thum.**
Kakarai appeared behind him, unharmed, his presence now monstrous.
"Danger!"
Vabon spun and blocked the blow. His expression darkened.
"Fine. I'll get serious."
He slammed his hand to the earth.
**Corrupt the land and obey my call—
Petrified Soul Weaver!**
The forest floor ruptured. A massive stone pillar surged upward, its surface etched with agonized faces frozen mid-scream.
Three statues stepped forward—each bearing three faces and wielding colossal weapons, one with a bow, the others with swords.
They were linked to Vabon through a thread of corruption trailing back to the pillar.
"Let's begin."
Their battle erupted with terrifying force.
---
Dax watched silently.
Every motion.
Every shift of mana.
Every ripple of destructive intent.
His eyes narrowed.
"My eyes… no." He touched his temple. "_I_ am different."
His voice was calm, almost reverent.
"I am beyond my own understanding now."