A Fated Prelude

Pilfering of souls, lives. A vivified, enrapturing malady that sings in tearful tones of canticles, melodies and an ensemble's craft; beauty and oh-so virtuous dismay.

Virtuous. Virtue? What a strange word that was. Or is? Holding such an alluring... scent, like a flower no less grand than life, than death.
A madman's banter. Banterous even in thought. Even banter, oh... indeed, eloquence be its anima; even such ramblings are a flap, a flab. Too utterly pointless, so they even border with the concept of... noise.

And that, itself, was a funny thought. Eerily meaningful on its sundry backdrop. Dangerously so. Noise speaks of music and of taste. Of personality and preference. Of order. Contrived, machinated systematic input-output based anchors to existence, and that is too, too, too...!


A small grunt, chewed and spat out, incised the noise.
He was never really sure about it, what the grating sound was. Not the snort; that was his, but... the other thing that resembled coherent speech, uttered in forced exaltation. Solicited praise spoken like a prayer to a deity that did not care. What was that?

Ludwig felt refreshed. By the scene, perhaps, so he took what was left of the moment to clear his mind, still groggy even though it had not slept. Or perhaps 'groggy' was the wrong word. 'Hazed' suited it more, for better or worse.
As if tasked with a mundane ritual, the crimson-clad man forced his senses active: the sight of orange flames and blood; the smell of sizzling flesh coupled with a rigid texture to the touch. 'Exquisite,' he'd call it, and the notion pierced him with elation.

Yes, steady understanding soaked into him. Mystery loosed a clutch or two and, suddenly, the present seemed much less alluring than it was, for he could understand it.
It was a village, where he stood. A dull settlement in a meaningless place full of boring mammals. Except that the settlement burned, the place was wilting and the mammals... came pre-butchered. 'Like broken toys.'

Slowly, Ludwig keeled his stature straight as demanded of him by some enigmatic notion of dignity. He wanted to survey the surrounding carnage for the rest of the time-deprived moment he was given. It wasn't an oft-claimed painting that he was suddenly drawn, thus he cherished it even if it was spontaneous and made no sense. Confusing? Probably. But so was existing, and then there is the paradoxical paradigm of peremptory and pre-built, purposeful destination often called 'profuse' for its petulant finality. Death. A most divine motif, votive and serene.

But indeed, glossed over or no, the present is one and just that. Ludwig could not avoid adhering to its simplistic factuality. A burning skeleton of a village, a burning remnant of what were villagers and amidst their fertile demise -- confusion, sprouted like a weed. Where death has passed now remained Ludwig, not fully aware of the what or the why.

So he stood, mired by the hideousness of such an unholy conclave.
Awaiting...?

The silencing winds picked up, twisting. A siphon spiraling outwards, dispelling the senseless heat of the moment which never ends.

Shapes slithering shapelessly. Wriggling, writhing in chaos; a silent outcry. A thousand edges ground in the suite of a cask. Which way will those weightless souls be blown asway, astray? Will----


Voiceless laughter, like a blade designed to crumble. Seeping through the emptiness surrounding, his switchblade cackle ended the singing of whatever time-forgotten song was mused. Yet did it truly end?
The crimson man twitched. Twirled and hopped, like a freed soul in freedom's fields. A mad mirth in madder hues, it couldn't have been more everlasting within wherefore's clasp.
Evanescence.
A bow.

And reversion gusting through. Heated breeze, humming in communion with the madness of it all.
"A scene not unlike Hell.
Therein lies naught greater defilement.
Shedding coils,
Libera. Libera. Libera.
To crown the zenith, Hell.
Bahahahahaha! Hell!"

The deranged cackle echoed like an infernal feast. Chewing flesh and bones snapping; could a laughter be described as such? Disembodied joy too pure to have sprouted from that crimson nightmare.
But the madder shape did not care. He conducted his experiment like he would an orchestra, each beat gorging on red to make crimson. Insanity. Each fling of slithered motion, all too impossibly human, shook the landscape, too much alike a dream. Every beat harnessed a butterfly's lunacy to enhance, nay, evolve divine debauchery into transcendent sin.

There was no comprehensible explanation. A mad dance in madder clad, skipping amidst the brutally deceased. But was it insane? Or partnered with insanity? How could it be truly red without the blood of the world boiling in that corrupted cesspit? The crimson one knew it; he was self aware.
And not alone; nothing was more irritating.



The death of laughter stretched liquefied, ensuing silence. Perhaps, in some twisted sense of comedy, a small ray of light penetrated the smog, seeped through the only window in the low-hanging ceiling; a vermilion sky.
No words truly suited the deep red painting. Only stillness spread through the ripples of crushed humanity. Like a memory...

"... Why?"
A lashing glare aimed for nowhere. Or perhaps something only visible to those clouded eyes met with blood.

"Kill... Yourself. It is rude to be alive in the presence of us all. Undress yourself. I want..."
The blurred figure half-turned, his hand crawled up the near-tangible stench. Like a snake's crooked tongue, tasting the death of something alien, his motion was less than methodical, yet placidly steady. Fundamentally feral, yet too controlled. Eerie. Far beyond imitation and too unnaturally human.
It was human. A human's reaching... Yet far too surreal.

"... Your sputtering spark. Remove it. Light only agitates..."
A truly disembodied voice, but summoned by his will. Rasp murmurs, lacking depth while richly abrasive echoed against walls too transparent to understand.

"Agitation, die."

None of it made sense, but that was not a place for reason. There is none in Hell. For we fear it...
Our souls are claimed in purgatory.

As if the gore thickened, the crimson one's sinister approach ceased, though absent-minded eyes grew sharper. A response to a reply; vaguely reminiscent of something, too closely resembling something... what.... conversation, was it?

The experience was new. Still, too old to be new, but equally as refreshing... And smile-soliciting.

"Erase."
The faintest smile. Breathless emotion, but a feeling still. There is only one memory that may ever be tied to its deathly clutch.

"... Erase..."
The corners of his mouth reached for his ears. Erase, end, death, killing, end, end, end, end. The end played out before his eyes with the sheen of something long-forgotten. Something for too long remembered.




"ERASE!"
A massive pillar of obsidian fire erupted in the space all around him. The entire village was engulfed in flames of memory. With a the power of a raging volcano, the darkness pillared like a lance for the smoke-obscured sun, aiming to not kill, but end the very notion of existence. To erase.
Corpses that were already half-decomposed began dissolving -- fueling the tormented flames. Of what immediately fell victim, small particles only remained, briefly, as they floated upwards in a dance to quell the hungering destruction. Like paper-flakes set ablaze, their ephemeral, fragmented existence was a sandstorm of forgotten lives; sparks of presence devoured by one's unending ire.

His body was no longer defined as a shape. There was no room for constants within that flame-like hellscape. Lines curved, curled and bulged into exploding rage; manifested will to cut a path straight to eternal nightmare.
But within the shape, two eyes shone with the brilliance of suns. Golden arrows that coalesced ire to caress their soft glow.
For every hue of black that could describe that pillar of annihilation, there was a darker, more soul-devouring ink that erupted within it. It traced the body of the one inside faithfully; it could not be mistaken. That pure expression of hatred was his outcry against life.

The tar-like fire covering the village thickened to a point where in place of heat, one could sense their devouring nature. What few of them were near the intruder, however, were much more sinister. Like willful tendrils, they coiled around Ayeseru, shadows which paled in comparison to the death black that would engulf him.
It was a death sentence. Execution by way of obliteration. A doom that stood near-tangible.

A massive rumble shook the notion of space within the landscape of damnation. Ludwig surged towards his victim with a single step that with just mere presence overruled the meek laws of nature. Nothing could stop his hatred. Nature was nothing, life was nothing, everything was nothing. And even if they weren't...

They would soon be reduced to it.

"Oh~"

It lived, yet could retain the spark for longer than other living things. What was it... power? The strength to protect one's self?
The crimson one twirled diagonally around the feeble thing -- shadow? -- attacking him and for the briefest of moments, in the silence of fire and decay, Ludwig's eyes truly locked with the intruder's. A challenge. A foreboding warning. Or rather, mockery.
What was this scrawny spark trying to do; kill? Destroy Ludwig, struggle against the nightmare. Overcome the nightmare...
Ludwig can hear them still. The memories in their viscous impunity confining him to a singular path -- no! Something lied there, in between the discarded fractals. Spread between memories of death could only lie simple things. Instances that were not his. Azure dreams, dreams he never had!

Is this why life must end? To preserve the dream where it must belong?

...

...

...

... A heartbeat.
In a single span.
Breath.

... Thum thum.
The sound of life.
Blue... soothing blue.

... Thum thum.
The image flickers.
The heartbeat flickers.

... Thum.... thum...
Echoes in passing, all around.
Vena kes!
A monster! Kill the monster!

...
A fateful night.
Birth in blood.

Death by fire is the purest.
But, in the end, it is still only death.

---

It was only a single moment. A smile, piercing glare.

Before the breath could even begin, the crimson one had already reached the intruder. Cracking air -- two fists flew incomprehensibly, each more fatal, each dancing the flaming ire.
Another tremor as Ludwig kicked backwards at half speed, then lunged back in. His body defied laws... Rather, it set its own. His speed could not be measured, for it did not belong to the realm of humanity at all. Space began to distort where he moved, as if glass work cracked there. This was his reality, after all.

The infinite moment could only extend so much between the two deranged fighters. Ludwig's advance ended, yet, as if his momentum went on, the reality around and behind his target continued to crack, each fissure beginning to spew those sickly black tendrils. And then true Hell broke loose.

From each crack a black flame image of Ludwig broke free and assailed the target, each of them transcending logical speeds. Where one jabbed for his face, another three tried to crush his body between a multi-sided onslaught of kicks; and each of them dressed in incinerating hatred. No escape existed. There were too many to hunt the fleeing down.
Ludwig himself circled around his prey and struck for its head, though it was intended to be avoided. Immediately after, he traced the exact location of it and surged, pivoting around his waist with a flaming hand, then clutching it for an earth-shattering suplex. But it did not end there; he kept his grip and flipped over his target so he can suplex him again and again, chasing if needed.
When he did finally let go, it was to pivot once more, but this time for a sweep chained into a splitting axe kick that seemingly multiplied itself. Cracking air, distorted reality and sundered earth, all set on fire while the scattered gore on the ground squished and splashed. Where one leg was raised, seven came crashing down as if to smite Gaia herself.
And that was only followed by a short jab to the chest which seemed too momentous to perceive. The force was sufficient to send a shock wave to topple a building.
Bone chilling laughter. The shades of a hundred bodies melded into a surging body of hatred, spiraling in outcry against life. If they were the lightning, then Ludwig's fist was the lightning rod to drive them into the ground with a fist like an orbital rail gun. A supernova of hatred, it exploded like a nuclear bomb.

Razed.
Vaporised.
Annihilated.

Little of the village would be left standing. Barely even a memory.

The destruction was accompanied by a blinding light. Such is the way of explosions, sure, but that one in particular went beyond mere combustions. Killing a land already dead required vigor beyond normal logic. A bestial need for devastation; an avatar of End.

But not all was destroyed.

"..."
Ludwig's cretinous smile had no end, but his eyes blazed with childish irritation. The intruder lived.

How? That face of his had no life to it. He was already dead inside to begin with.
The crimson man could understand in retrospect; his mind was still and steady, and it was a new sensation. Somehow, the sight of the broken figure staggering to a straight felt unnaturally heavy, pacifying. A mighty presence.
Curled into its deathbed, the body that should have faded instead held itself like royalty. Like a king...

It was too confusingly clear. For the briefest of instances, beneath that livid stare shone a spark, forever miring, eternally enticing. Too vividly obvious.
Sparks and lightning lashed around wildly. The air was rippling with power.

Each ripple spreading...

In an ocean of life...

The primal sea.

To its beauty, this moon shone silver.


A forced cancellation.
Overrule the flaws with will.
Rip matter from its origin.

Trace route -- Skarra and Lyth are both needed.
Twist the leylines.
Force open the Path.

No way...

Compensate variables.
...

Separate the ripples into twin streams.
Retrace the Spiral Concept -- stabilize the coil.

Channel Lyth into the concept of Primal Life.
Weave Skarra into the concept of Eternal Presence.

Impossible...!

Plant the seed.


The overwhelming pressure extended beyond the scope of perceivable reality. Ludwig knew that feeling. Somewhere deep inside he was aware of exactly what was happening: it was his origin, after all.
But the intruder was unprepared. Simple humans were not designed to wield such complicated magical theories---- How does he even know them?!

And yet he could see it. The small pulsating seed of Belthicor, siphoning incessantly the fuel of the twin coils built around it. Such fabulous sorcery, divine might! Absolute destruction embodied in nothing short of a miracle.

It did not take long before he reached it. But that's not quite right, either; that man had already surpassed his limits prior to that stunt, and yet... for whatever reason, he refused to die. In the blink of an eye, that simple encounter became more important than life and death to him. He demanded power and, from the bowels of his soul, a small reply must have echoed... Too small to be heard. Foolishness.

The currents reversed not long after. All that focus; a mass of Lyth condensed enough to end a small city danced at his finger tips. It was eerily satisfying to watch as the small miraculous light drained every last drop of life from his paling body, all for naught. When the eyes of that brazen mage widened, that's when the long-overdue effect was clear. He was not nearly prepared enough to perform those stunts; his technique resembled an infant juggling knives. Death was the only natural result of his wistful thinking. Yet what he gained was so much more final. The very definition of end.

"... Bahahahaha!"
The magus' wide-eyed expression betrayed his failure. He was no longer amongst the living. Only his body remained, and even that briefly, as his hazy eyes seemed to peer into the distant sky like they hoped to find an explanation.

"Idiot. Was suicide the answer you hoped for? Or did your amateurish fingers twitched and went for the wrong spell?"
Ludwig could sense a plethora of unnatural emotions in himself. Disdain. Amusement. Interest. But more than any of that, he felt clear-headed. That lowly illusionist flaunting his parlor tricks died to non existent effort, and despite it he looked far too familiar. The crimson man was irritated. This was not a fitting end at all.

"But will you truly end, I wonder..." he voiced over his shoulder, seeming to banish his flames to the wind. "Your kind of irritants never quite do.
A last smirk to send him off and Ludwig started for the opposite direction; straight for the restart he was so terribly accustomed to.

He was not prepared.
And yet...

He knew Akala.

A small light pierced the clouds and, before the sun could truly reclaim the battlefield, he had faded.
Like the memory of the village that once was.