Chapter 65: Dreamscape

After the pact with Liliana, the demoness had given control over the body back to Lily.

His exclusive maid hadn’t bothered questioning how he knew so much about them, she just prepared a bath for him and left to do other things.

Azazel had taken a long relaxing bath but then, his fatigue caught up to him.

He didn’t even bother putting on clothes, he just slumped on the bed in his underwear, then slept properly, for the first time in a while.

During his slumber, Azazel had noticed within his subconscious that his essence was being drawn out of him rapidly.

At first he thought it was lily but the demoness herself seemed a little too tired before she had left him, and somehow his gut feeling was telling him it wasn’t her afterall, she wasn’t the only one trying to devour his essence.

The tainted blade could but it hadn’t done so yet, that left one other thing.

The unhatched raven Huginn.

He didn’t recall releasing the egg from his jester’s garment but that garment was somewhere in his inventory slumbering away within his soul mirror.

He wasn’t certain but he felt like it was the unhatched raven devouring his essence at a rapid pace.

It was fine since it was something he had planned to do.

The egg needed his essence in order to hatch but Azazel had been too tired to do anything after dealing with Liliana.

Currently he was somewhere within another type of dreamscape.

Remembering the pain of the last time, his body shuddered against his will.

He tilted his head softly, taking in his surroundings.

The surroundings spread across a dim woodland where sunlight had never once made an appearance.

The towering trees twisted towards a perpetually ashen sky with branches curled like talons.

The forest floor was littered with a carpet of charcoal leaves and scattered bones bleached pale with the passage of time.

A slow wind moved through the branches, carrying a plumage of dark feathers drifting endlessly from the canopy above.

They descended in slow, silent spirals, landing upon mossy roots and stones.

The atmosphere was heavy and Azazel could feel the ominous air, reminiscent of a funeral. It was revenant and the redhead trickster couldn’t help but feel like he was being watched by something from the trees above.

Regardless, he walked deeper into the woodland until he got to a barren section.

From a distance he could still see the dark trees beyond, reaching for the ashen sky as though the earth was too small to accommodate its presence.

The ground here was grey and cold like petrified ash, and scattered upon it were blades—thousands of blades driven deep into the soil forming its own miniature version of a metallic forest.

From rusted swords to jagged daggers and curved sabers smeared in blood alongside fractured great blades, each of them were stabbed into the ground as though it was the remains of the aftermath of a massive battle.

Above it, a sickly moon hung in stagnancy.

The moon never moved, never left its position in the ashen sky. The blades below reflected its pale light, glimmering faintly with cold reflections which turned the field into a sea of ghosty crescents.

Many of the weapons were broken while some were strained.

They hummed faintly in the wind producing a thin choir of thrumming metals.

But the blades weren’t what caught Azazel’s attention.

It was the ridiculously large skeletal remains of a dead serpent curling over itself to form a perfect circle around the eerie grounds.

Its spine arched from the earth like a pale mountain range while enormous ribs curved inwards forming a colossal ring of bone that encased the sanctuary like a cathedral of death.

Azazel didn’t notice when he passed the forest below but the serpent remains literally circled a part of the entire forest.

The skull was somewhere deep within the other section of the woodland and Azazel was certain that it he could see it then he had no doubt that he’d find the fangs of its skull locked around the last vertebrae of its tail.

’Ouroborus.’ He thought, his gaze darkening.

He walked slowly.

Past the blades and into the arch of the skeletal remains.

Every step grew heavier.

The air thickened in his lungs, as if the bones themselves were warning him to turn back.

He exhaled.

Then pressed forward.

He didn’t know why but he continued moving, despite his body warning him against it.

Somehow he could feel it, a faint connection to whatever was waiting for him at the end of the serpent remains.

The closer he got, the heavier the pressure became and the harder breathing felt.

It was like trying to walk under water, every step he took required more effort than the last.

Until he arrived.

What greeted him was the sight of a magnificent longsword with a blade which looked like it was crafted out of a mystic obsidian material, its hilt was adorned with silver accents and an air of dark divinity surrounded which surrounded its form like a dark mantle.

It was a blade he knew all too well but it was several times larger than he remembered.

Its size was easily over thirty feets but that wasn’t all.

Perched upon the guard of the blade was a human silhouette.

The person was tall with an athletic build and a pale skin leaning towards an alabaster tone.

He wore a dark tunic alongside dark pants which was unlike anything Azazel had ever seen, yet what surprised him was the frightening resemblance they bore.

The figure looked exactly like Azazel did but unlike Azazel who had bright red hair and icy blue eyes, the figure had dark raven hair and an attractive set of hazel eyes.

Azazel froze

Although he had never met this person before, he knew that appearance.

Of course he did.

That face.

The same jawline, same eyes.

It was the face of the same man who had bled out in a filthy alley after a truck had crushed him.

It was himself.

Or rather, a more attractive version of himself which blended his current appearance with his past.

The figure glared at Azazel with disdain then snarled.

“What are you doing here, mortal?”

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