Chapter 239: In Darkness, We Pray (2).

“The Seals of Sin are the essence of a being’s corruption, hence, their soul. They are the chains that bind them to this world. Once they are taken or destroyed, then they are no more, and they are shattered. Scattered back into the eternal flow of the Ein Sof. That is the might of the Heretic! It is liberation! It is salvation! It is damnation!”

***

Enormous, muscular arms as though they were forged of Darksteel.

A body covered in welts and dark scales, standing over seven feet tall.

Bone spikes jutting out of a curved spine.

Claws the extended from every thick digit.

In its hand was a silver spear thrumming with power.

The man had become an Abomination.

The creature seated on the throne let out a baleful screech as it finally rose to its full height of over ten feet tall, even as the lower half of its body dragged on the ground.

The rumbling below persisted as more and more Abominations came pouring in from the lower floors. The tips of the silk threads covering the chamber hardened and shot towards the being at the center.

With a mighty leap, the enormous creature turned into a dark blur, moving faster than the eye could make out.

A blitz? A blur? A shadow?

The tip of Gungnir scratched the floor, drawing a flaming arc as it pierced through the air towards the Brybernos Taintbrute. It’s soft flesh was ripped apart by the blazing weapon, but the creature was too maddend to feel pain.

Their bodies crashed together.

The floor caved and they fell into the abyss.

Crashing through the layers of the keep, Nero and the Taintbrute didn’t stop, their arms throwing out raking claws, blows and strikes as their bodies slammed all over the place in a rather graceless descent.

Stone, silk, and ancient masonry shattered around them as they fell. The air howled past them, filled with debris and dust, chunks of ceiling tearing loose as their combined mass punched through floors that had already been weakened by centuries of decay.

Nero twisted mid-fall, driving his elbow into the creature’s face. Bone cracked beneath the blow, but the Taintbrute only screamed, its sound distorted by madness and hate. One of its massive arms wrapped around Nero’s torso, claws biting deep into flesh and scale alike. The grip tightened, crushing, trying to tear him apart before they even hit the next level.

Nero roared back.

Gungnir flared in his grasp, its silver shaft blazing as Ein Sof surged violently through it. He drove the spear down into the Taintbrute’s shoulder at point-blank range. The weapon punched through corrupted muscle and bone, pinning the creature’s arm to its own body. Black ichor exploded outward, splattering across the falling debris.

They struck the next floor like meteors.

The impact obliterated the chamber beneath them. The old stone vaporized as the shockwave rippled outward, collapsing the walls and tearing open corridors as the keep groaned in protest. Nero felt the ground give way immediately, and they plunged again, faster and more violently than before.

It was a descent towards annihilation.

The Taintbrute slammed its forehead into Nero’s face, the blow snapping his head back hard enough that his vision flared white for a fraction of a second. Nero answered by sinking his claws into the creature’s abdomen, ripping upward. Chitin plates cracked and tore free, exposing the pulsing, corrupted flesh beneath.

The keep vanished around them as they burst into a massive vertical shaft, one that must have once connected the upper levels to deep storage chambers below. They fell through open space now, debris raining alongside them like shrapnel.

The Taintbrute tried to pull away.

Nero did not allow it.

He wrapped one arm around the creature’s neck and drove Gungnir straight down, impaling them both through the shoulder and chest as they fell. The spear’s tip carved a blazing line through the air, embedding itself in the Taintbrute’s torso and erupting out its back in a spray of molten corruption.

The creature shrieked, thrashing violently.

Nero tightened his grip.

He let go.

Not of the spear’s shaft.

But of restraint.

His body convulsed mid-air as power flooded every limb and corrupted muscle fiber of his.

The fall seemed to slow for a moment.

Nero twisted them in the air, using the sheer force to reverse their orientation. He drove the Taintbrute downward, positioning it beneath him as they continued their descent. The creature’s limbs flailed uselessly, silk threads snapping and tearing as it tried to anchor itself to the walls.

They hit the ground with a loud crash.

The chamber they landed in was vast and circular, with its walls carved with ancient symbols. The impact had cratered the stone, sending fractures racing outward like lightning. Nero rose from the wreckage slowly, dragging the impaled Taintbrute up with him.

The creature convulsed, coughing up thick streams of black ichor.

Its bloodlust surged wildly with a loud shriek.

Abominations poured in from everywhere.

Dozens of them.

They did not matter.

Nero planted his feet and wrenched Gungnir free in a single, brutal motion. The spear tore out a massive chunk of corrupted flesh as it came free, leaving the Taintbrute staggering, its chest cavity exposed.

This was the moment.

Nero stepped forward and drove his clawed hand into the creature’s chest.

The world seemed to slow.

His fingers closed around something.

A beating heart.

Nero squeezed violently.

Its heart shattered in his grip like glass.

The creature’s eyes met his for a brief, horrifying instant.

In the depths of them, Nero could see them well.

Relief. Gratitude.

Nero pulled.

He ripped out the remains of the crushed heart still squirming in his palm.

The spoiled body of the monster trembled as the light of life faded away.

And then…

The chamber fell silent.

The sound of rumbling and shrieks seized the air as the Mourning Hollows desperately climbed up towards the surface in hopes of escaping the monster while chasing freedom.

Meanwhile, the monster in question stood there in the now silent hole. With the corpse of another monster laying right before him.

Tears ran down his face as he cried.

He cried bitterly.

Softly, his lips mumbled a prayer.

“You are free.”

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