A bored Demigod and A Heretic - Chapter One

The moon illuminates an expansive grassy field. Unsullied by human hands, and untouched by animals. Yet the grass was short as if not allowed to grow uninhibited. The air is thick and restrictive, weighing down on the land and standing as a wall against the wind, causing the atmosphere to be still and stagnate. On one side of the clearing the grass gives way to hard rock, and further still the rock climbs, reaching out for the hanging moon with white fingers, but falling short after five kilometres. The remaining circumference of the clearing is enclosed by forest and dense foliage, tall evergreens block any attempts to see through, and thick bracken mar any attempts of traversal.

As the full moon climbs towards the apex of its journey it gazes down upon the land, and the ground bathes in its ethereal light. As the light grew with the raising of the moon, a strange phenomenon was made apparent, a thin shadow stretching across the clearing, and from the shadows origin, at the clearing's centre, the air began the glow. Like mist reflecting the moonlight, growing steadily stronger each second, a tower of mist spreading the moonlight and drawing in the heavy air around it slowly, allowing fresh air to once again fill the clearing. As if unaware of the bizarre scene below, the moon marched on, until it reached its final height.

A silent tremor tore through the world as the moon halted its trajectory. The earth shuddered, wrenching some trees from the earth, and causing snow and ice to cascade down from the mountains. But such events are secondary, as the oppressive air that have momentarily drawn back spread out once again, this time carrying the mist like substance, breaking through the natural shield surrounding it and seeping throughout the forest. Various woodland animals felt the encroaching miasma and tried to escape, but were caught in its onslaught and sapped of their strength, succumbing to its weight.

Where the mist had once gathered, a towering construction now stood, looming over the forest as if watching it be consumed by the miasma. Comprised of three sections from ground to ceiling with the ground section being five times wider than the highest section, and supported on all sides by huge ornate stone pillars. The side walls being pure white stone and the front of the building facing away from the mountains being comprising mostly of a giant ornate stained glass window. The window depicts the god of light Nohramun adorned with great flowing robes, looking down with arms outstretched in yellow and orange, with the goddess of the moon Metz in the centre, curled up and surrounded by Nohramun's presence, coloured in dark and pale blue and holding the moon in her hands in the centre of the piece. The building was topped with a large dome, with a two-part glass window at the very top, a smaller clear circle, with a larger yellow circle around it. This was the Dualumin, the dual light library, collection of all knowledge revealed by the god's light, and blessed by both such that it cannot be destroyed. The windows were also laced with magic to only allow light through belonging to their respective lords, and as such, only Metz's section was clearly visible.

The view of the library in its pristine glory with a backdrop of cascading snow belied the state of its grounds however. Where once was statues there was leveled rubble, and where flowers used to flourish they had been crushed underfoot by rows upon rows of iron-clad soldiers. Thousands of soldiers, each sporting full plate armour, lined orderly in front of the library, with a few who stood head and shoulders above the rest placed in front of distinct groups. As the miasmatic air pushed outwards from the library, it carried with it the sickly sweet stench of decay, and a closer look revealed liquefied flesh dripping from the joints in the soldiers armour like black sludge.

High above the undead legion, the centre piece of the glass window, the moon, rotated outwards to form a platform, and a figure stepped forwards. A woman, clothed in robes not unlike the ones worn by the gods in the glass around her, but not as large or elaborate in their windings. Pure white, undamaged and yet wispy at the edges by design, with a headpiece that covered her head and extended behind her, obscuring her hair. Lit up by the pale light of the moon she appeared ethereal, a ghostly apparition that could be swept away by a breeze. This image was ruined, however, by her face, twisted by anger and hatred, as she looked out over the forest and beyond at the flickering lights of fires and the silhouettes of towns in the distance.

"Finally" she whispered. "Finally... after hundreds of years in that timeless nightmare I should have enough. I'll drag this world into ruin and crush the spirits of those 'Gods' before I tear them from this world." Her voice dripped with venom as she spat out her intent. She looked down upon her army, "Go out and kill everyone you find, turn as many of them as you can. If you find any High Priests or Divine Representatives, prioritise killing them before keeping them intact." Her voice projected across the plain and the soldiers stood at attention. She pointed her glare at the moon above, she had chosen this night carefully. Tonight was the turnover for the lunar calendar, and [Metz] was likely attending a great festival along with her supporters and not likely to be focusing on any other matters. She was betting on it in fact, in order to strike a damaging enough initial strike to gather the required dead to keep up the momentum of her attack she needed to reduce the chances of being found early. She lowered her head to look directly out at the blurred horizon, stood straight in preparation for the final call to advance, and took a deep breath.

"Excuse me?! Down here!"

Startled, she returned to looking at the army below, her face finally free of any negative emotion, replaced instead by confusion. There, between her army and the forest, she saw him. A tall man with plain dark cloth clothes with the sleeves removed, peasant attire. His boots however were clearly of a different status, more well crafted than a peasant could afford to waste money buying. He had a well-built stature, and balanced, like a soldier or a labourer, but without any of the roughness. He had a clean face, without blemish or stubble, and long black hair that reached down to his legs tied up in ponytail.

"What?... Who are you?"

"Oh, no one important, been waiting for you to show yourself for a while though." He flashed a smile up at her.

"What do you mean?" she said, regaining her composure.

"Well, when you're sat in a big empty field where no animals dare go and the greenery never changes, it kind of screams out foul play you know? The gods might not care enough to pay attention, but I do."

"So you're here to as a watch dog are you?

"Not really, I'm more just here out of boredom than anything else honestly. Hey, you said something about destroying the world with this lot, right?" He gestured towards the army.

"That's right, I'll have these festering corpses spread their affliction across this world and bring it to its end."

"Oooh, you sound pretty confident, they must be pretty strong then, mind if i test 'em out?" he said, a grin forming on his lips.

"What, you stand before an army of the dead and instead of begging for your life you ask to battle them? Hmph, no matter, I don't know whether you're some over confidant mage or priest or if you're just insane, either way, you won't live to regret your actions tonight. Kill him."

The undead soldiers lurched towards him, a ghastly screech emitting from their helmets.

The man's grin expanded, his eyes squinted and he leaned forwards.

"Marvelous."

The ground behind him exploded, and he rocketed forwards, plunging his pointed hand through the chest plate of one of the larger soldiers.

"Oh, this feels gross."

He slammed his foot on the ground and flew upwards, tearing his hand through the plating like it was paper and exiting the corpse through its skull, completely destroying its upper half in the process.

"...What?"

The woman whispered in shock as the man landed and immediately shot forwards again, cleaving through her army like they weren't even there with his bare hands, cackling like a madman the whole time, earth being thrown into the air away from him whenever he hit the ground.

"S**t. S**t s**t s**t s**t s**t! This can't be happening! He must be a disciple of the god of war! I need to prepare something to stop him!"

She turned around, and began levitate, before accelerating towards the ceiling. The library had three sets of floors, each thinner than the one below because of the building's shape, but also didn't extend as far from the rear wall as the last set, which left the upper floors the smallest. The top floor showed signs of having bookcases across it just like the other floors, but they had been replaced by two things, a large conference table with a map of the continent and various calendar materials laid out on it, and a large pentacle drawn on the floor, with many smaller ones surrounding it.

The woman landed on this highest floor, the domed ceiling extending above her, echoing back sounds of the battle outside. She began to stride towards the pentacle at the rear of the floor, and her clothes began to morph. Black seeped into the robes and they began to spread out, connecting with themselves and forming one whole piece. A black dress, like one worn in mourning, her blond hair fell down her back as she reached the pentacle.

"I don't have any choice, I need to summon from outside, if he's a disciple of the god of war I won't be able to beat him with a regular summon, and I don't have the time for a large-scale summon or to prepare a new attack. I just have to do it and hope it works. All I have to do is survive, I can hide away again and rebuild if I have to but get rid of him first!"

Whilst she was talking, various ingredients and materials made their way towards her from the side of the floor and she worked on altering the smaller pentacles around the larger one. less than a minute later and she was ready to begin. Silence fell as she collected herself to begin.

"Wait, silence...?"

"Hellooo."

The woman turned around in horror, and at the edge of the floor, leaning on the railing, was the man, covered in black decayed viscera but very much unharmed.

"How?" She whispered meekly.

"Oh please, don't mind me, please continue." He said, flashing her another smile.

"...What?" She fearfully whimpered.

"You're summoning something to try and stop me right? Do it. I want to fight whatever it is you bring out."

He plonked down on the floor, his wide smile still plastered on his face, and his bare feet poking out the bottom of his boots where the soles had been torn off by his aggressive assault. He leant his back against the stone railing, showing he was willing to wait as long as it takes, whilst black ooze began to seep off of him, puddling on the floor beneath him.

"O... Okay..."

Shocked and stunned for a second, she slowly turned back to the summoning circle, as the stench of decay emanating from the man behind her washed over her, she began to work.

The smell of decay was no stranger to her, she had languished in its presence for many years whilst building her army. Starting with the bodies of her friends and family and those they had fought that had been hidden away along with the library centuries ago, and then steadily increasing as she summoned more corpses over the years. The first few attempts were failures, only pulling in pieces of bodies, or sometimes failing to bring anything altogether. She had plenty of time to practice however, and she was a studious learner. The library held many books relating to the magic employed by the servants of the gods, and as much as she despised them, she only had a limited store of food and water, so she didn't have much choice. Over the years she grew more adept at summoning, enough so for the summoning of multiple bodies a painless process, though not any less time and energy-consuming. The process of reawakening those bodies came much easier to her, as a skill she'd been practising for most of her life. Eventually her proficiency became such that she reached to the pinnacle of accepted methods for summoning, and reached the forbidden section. A section of the most advanced tome on summoning she could find that was preceded by a warning, stating that under no circumstances, by accident or intent, should this specific circle ever be used. It stated that the following circle would connect to worlds beyond the world of the Gods, to worlds of monsters and demons that would bring ruin upon the world. She of course, experimented as soon as possible with this technique that even the gods feared. She started small, and the first thing she pulled through was an insect, long, thin and black, it held itself completely still at first, but scurried away when she reached to touch it. More experiments followed, with small birds, lizards and fish, hairless mammals and one-eyed, spine-riddled creatures. Each attempt left her tired and whilst she grew stronger with the years, she never dared try to pull a larger being. She came to the conclusion that the Gods didn't know what was on the other side of these summoning circles, and whilst that scared them a they could bring threats to their rule, it did not mean that any creature would not equally be willing to tear her apart as well.

Half an hour after the man joined her at the top floor, the woman's hands began to slow down. She had transformed the circle previously used to collect the bases for the huge corpses that until a short while prior had stood at the front of her army into one designed to punch a hole through reality and drag unknown beings from other worlds into hers. Regaining her calm as she worked, she had realised that she would not be attacked as long as she was working. By her reckoning, the man behind her was one of two things: A sadist, waiting for her to summon her final hope so that he could crush it in front of her eyes before he took her away to be punished, or, as he presented himself, a battle crazed madman with only a lust for combat on his mind. Based on his lack of insults or threats, she was tempted to believe the latter, but either way, as long as she summoned a being powerful enough to deal with him she wouldn't have to find out.

"It's done."

She rose off of her knees, looking at her work. Many more smaller, intricate circles surrounded the large one, designed to draw magic from the world, available now that the library had returned. This would allow her to summon stronger beings without being limited by her own power, although she would still bear the brunt of the expense.

'If I miscalculated,' she thought to herself, 'I may not be able to get away if it gets dangerous.'

"Marvelous"

The man picked himself off the ground, having not moved since he sat, and a large clump of liquidised flesh dropped off of him where it had accumulated on his behind.

"Well?" He stepped forward. "What should I expect?"

"I don't know." She averted her eyes and stepped to the side. "It'll be from another world so I don't know."

"Another world? There are other worlds?" He hummed out a chuckle.

"Well, this is interesting, show me then, show me what a mystery being from another world looks like."

She didn't say anything, just took a step back and focused, she could tell he was no longer paying any attention to her. 'Battle crazed madman it is then.' She thought, before pouring her energy into the circle.

The lines etched onto the floor began to glow, and as the intensity began almost blinding, there was a pop and a small shake in the air as it was forced to accommodate a new being, at the same time, the woman collapsed to her knees, panting. The man gazed on, and in the centre of his vision stood his opponent. A hulking man a few shades darker than the two he shared a room with. Standing at around 10 feet tall, he would have towered over even the excessively large front soldiers of the now re-deceased undead army. Dressed in only thin leather and animal pelts sparsely decorating his body, and holding a spear that whilst large, was still clearly not made for a man of his size.

"What, what is this?" He asked, his deep voice reverberating in the air.

"This is a library" The filth covered man replied, visibly tense with anticipation.

"Oh?" The goliath growled, "and why am I here?" the aggression in his voice clearly mounting.

"I brought you here," the woman interjected into their conversation, "in order to defeat this man."

She looked to him with a weakly restrained desperate plea in her voice. The monster of a man's brow furrowed in anger.

"You would dare presume to command ME?" The woman's face crumpled in despair, no matter who won, she realised, she would not survive. "

Such insolence demands punishment, and death shall be your reward!"

He moved to take a step towards her, and her head dropped down, her hair falling to cover her face.

"But I'm the one that wanted to fight you though."

The giant stopped, and turned to look at the owner of the voice, laying his eyes upon the filthy man, who still had a wide smile plastered on his face.

"You? Ah, I see, you wanted a battle so you had this tart summon me here?"

"Something like that."

"I assume then that you are the strongest person in this land? Or are you merely a fool with no idea what he just wrought upon his world?"

"I can't be both?" His smiled opened slightly to a grin, and his eyes began to widen.

"Ha, true." The giant threw aside his spear and clenched his fists.

"You not gonna need that?"

"The truly powerful don't need weapons to crush their enemies!"

"Well said."

His grin now as wide as his smile was, and his eyes open wide, the man looked upon his opponent with a crazed glee.

"Listen well, fool!" The giant roared. "I am Akachi-Dike! Conqueror of the four lands, blessed by God and ruler of the kingdom of Mazdaya!"

"Hehe, alright then. I am Timori Ulcisca! Representative of the God of Humanity-"

"Eh?" the woman's head jerked up, confused. "Humanity...?"

"-Exalter of Aspiration, Bloody Tempest and Slayer of the God of War!"

"Wha-" Her eyes widened, 'the God of War is dead?' she stared stunned at the man who flung flecks of filth as he gesticulated with his arm.

"But you can call me Tim."

"No need. Die!"

'Akachi' pushed forward with his right foot, bring his left side forward whilst pulling back his right arm, preparing to launch his fist at 'Tim'. Tim leant forward, and for a split second, his body seemed to flash with a transparent flame, unseen by the eyes, but noticed by the woman. He then exploded forward, the stone floor beneath his shattering from the force. Akachi barely had time to pull his left arm in front of his body to intercept Tim's right fist, but it didn't seem to slow him. Akachi's arm was crushed against his own chest, and his bones shattered as he flew backwards, slamming in the stone wall at the back of the room. Without time to even try to recover the air forced from his lungs, Tim appeared before him, crazed grin staring at him with leg raised. Then Tim's foot went straight through his chest, tearing through his muscle and bone, pushing his heart into his spine and then pulverising them both into a paste. The wall behind him barely stopped the impact, leaving a crater in the middle and cracks tearing through the wall in every direction. Tim pushed from the wall and landed near the balcony's edge, eagerly awaiting Akachi's counter. The counter of course, never came. Akachi had suffered great internal trauma when his short flight came to an end and then having his heart and spine obliterated killed him almost instantly.

Akachi-Dike, unifier of his world, the victor of countless battles and an iron-willed leader, met his end.

"Hmm? Oh. Well, that was disappointing. Guess he wasn't blessed after all. Or maybe being dragged to another world removed his blessing? Doesn't really matter now either wa-a-hey is the wall repairing itself?"

True enough, as he stood there lamenting the farce that just occurred the walls of the library had been recovering from his attack.

"Well I guess this place was blessed, by two gods no less." As Tim watched the wall repair, the woman stared at him with a fearful awe.

'The one I summoned with all my power and extra from the world didn't stand a chance, is it because I'm too weak, or is he just too strong? And what was that about the god of war? Was it him who killed it or was it his god, it wasn't clear. I've never even heard of a god of humanity, did a new god appear? Is that even possible? I wouldn't have thought so but he clearly isn't a normal human or even a high priest and I don't think he'd bother lying in this situation.'

"Hey!"

"Yes!?" The woman startled, whilst she was thinking she failed to notice Tim's attention had turned to her.

"Can you do that again, but with someone stronger?"

"What?"

"Can you summon someone stronger?"

"I, y- yes but I would need weeks to prepare and more practice."

"Alright then, I'll drop by later."

"Wha-?"

"Name's Tim by the way, sure you heard." He flashed another smile.

"Um, Megaira, Megaira Tasoula."

"Well, I'll see you later Meg." He then hopped over the stone barricade, and after a second 'Meg' heard a crack as he hit the floor and bounded forwards into the night.

After a few seconds, Meg stood up. The whole debacle, including the time taken to set up the summoning circle, had taken less than 45 minutes. The total time spent fighting was less than 10. She looked around her, at the pools of blood and gore where Tim had stood and the body of Akachi still lay. She looked over the splatters of blood that covered the floor and walls, and then faced the large window at the front of the building, through which she could see the mangled remains of the army she had planned to use to take over the world. "Yeah." she said to herself.

"Bloody tempest is about right."