Rowan slowly drew out his finger from Jerediah’s brain and looked at him closely. The revelations that he had gained from the mind of this man were astounding, and even for him, it took a while to digest it all.

Even though the reaction speed of Jerediah’s thoughts was pathetic in comparison to his own and the Chaos Door, the Ascendant knew that his fate was no longer his own, and yet there was no panic in his heart, the void inside his soul did not allow Jerediah to feel even this emotion. He simply waited, and he raged.

Rowan had entered the mind of Jerediah and read his soul to find out when this man had fallen, and he had led down an unexpected path because the trail that led Jerediah up to this point where he stood before Rowan was created long before he was born, he was a victim of fate.

Rowan saw that the void in the heart of Jerediah was born from his cry of resurrection after he was slaughtered by the Calamity God beneath the earth.

Nearly a million years ago when Rowan arrived in this world and fought against its Will, the battle rippled across time and space and its effects on reality although subdued by the Will of the world, remained in certain places and people.

The ancestor of Jerediah was affected by the cry of his resurrection when Rowan was reborn, at that time, Rowan’s consciousness was dormant and his real nature unfiltered by his firm Will rippled out through time and space, and it was mostly harmless to all since only higher dimensional beings could sense the working of power at such a level, still, extremely talented people could pick up on those traces his angered cry left behind, and one of those people who could catch a glimpse of that cry was Jerediah’s ancestor. That cry dwelled inside him and was passed down to his children and their children, and for most of them who carried this cry in their soul, it was harmless to them, it was even a source of blessing to their family during the long age of war because Calamities could sense the rage of Rowan’s bloodline in that cry and they mostly fled, it was the reason the cry had existed in the bloodline of a mortal family for so long without breaking.

It continued being passed down through the ages and nothing inside these people resonated with the bleakness of Rowan’s cry, nothing could resonate with that cold emptiness of his soulless heart, that is, until Jerediah.

Even without his touch this child was born bent, something in him was missing, an innate quality that made existence colorful, the ability to feel, either pain or joy, or anything at all was not made inside of him at his conception, he was born empty, every mortal’s soul gave off a wide colorful stream of light, Jerediah’s emitted nothing, his soul instead drank the light of others around him, making even his mother unconsciously hate the sight of him at his birth, for he could give nothing to the world but take.

It was unknown if in the future he might have learned how to grow this missing part of himself or fake it enough that he could live a relatively normal life, but his fate was decided the moment he was born and this emptiness that he possessed called to the poison inside his soul that had dwelled in his bloodline for almost seven hundred thousand years.

It fed off its emptiness and he fed from it also. A vicious cycle like a snake eating its own tail, never satisfied, the Primal nature of his Ouroboros Serpents was represented inside the body of Jerediah, but he was a mortal and could not fit into the nature of the Ouroboros Serpent, he could not control his emptiness, so he was consumed by it.

When nothing could fill him up, Jerediah thought that perhaps the only thing that could do this thing for him would be power, so he joined the Resistance, and he fought many battles against their oppressors, but the power did not fulfill his wishes, the emptiness only grew ever wider, and so Jerediah unknowingly found the one thing that could make bearing the emptiness a bit manageable, and that was hate.

The suffering of others delighted him, for in those moments he believed that they felt his emptiness and he could reach across to them. He loved to see the hope in the eyes of others fade away to despair because sometimes, he could see flashing fleetingly across their eyes, a small portion of his emptiness, and those moments made him feel alive, and not so alone anymore.

He hated everything in existence, and he wanted everyone to feel the emptiness inside of him, but he knew of no way to do this, and Jerediah in his growing hate that was rapidly turning feral turned to the sea where he sailed far from any land, and daily he cursed the heavens and the earth, he cursed his bloodline and wished darkness upon everything that lived. His hate turned his blood black.

Jerediah tore his body open with his fingers and his black blood turned the sea to poison, and he did this for years without counting.

Despite his constitution as a Deific Explorer, the abuse he imposed on his body for the many centuries that he sailed upon the ocean weakened him to the state of death, and a shadow that had followed him for all these centuries that he thought was nothing but a figment of his imagination came to his dying form and crouched by his side.

Its cold breath that stank of endless ages of slaughter and feasting on the dead washed over the face of Jerediah, and for the first time since he was born, the emptiness in his heart shook, and retreated before a greater evil.

Jerediah opened his mouth weakly and spoke, “Are you, my god.”

The shadow was silent for a long time before it replied, “I am not your god, and you can not find him because I killed him.”

Jerediah eyes lit up, “Are you here to kill me too? To bring me to him so I can rest at his bosom.”

The shadow laughed, and for anyone else, be its Ascendant or Calamity their mind would have been broken by that sound, but Jerediah was empty and madness would be a solace, and so he waited for his answer patiently while evil laughed,

“Your god is not one to rest in peace, even now in death his skin stirs across my surface like maggots, and his intestines slowly tighten a noose around my neck, but, he is dead, his remains only need to be reminded of that. Do you understand what I am saying and why I am saying it to you?” ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

Jerediah paused in thought, although he was mad, he was always keen of mind, and he possessed no shred of fear in his heart, and so before this thing that would make every god under the heavens run mad at its sight, Jerediah took his time to consider the question, finally, he spoke, and the figure went silent in shock.

The words spoken by Jerediah were simple, he had said; “You want to bury him, and I am to be your hand.”

The shadow chuckled after a long moment of silence, “If not for my hatred of him and his poisonous nature, I would have placed his darkness alongside my own. You are a peculiar find mortal, I do not want you to be the hand, you shall be his coffin.”