Shutting his eyes for a split second to mourn, David steeled his heart. He had watched this woman, and half a dozen others die dozens of times in horrific ways.
David raised his head once more and fired at the pile of rocks he had placed. The shot shatter one of the rocks and caused the rest to fall and roll towards the hoard.
'That isn't enough, those rocks won't stop them.'
He fired a second shot at the same spot, rock broke free from the wall and a crack formed in its worn surface. The chunks of rock tumbled down and hit the hoard. Cries of rage and anger rose from the mass, but all it did was cause the hoard to fight each other to reach him with an even greater fervor. He fired two more shots before the rock wall finally gave way and crumbled.
It started with small rocks breaking, crumbling and falling. Then the large chunks shifted in their cracks. Soon the entire wall was trembling and shuttering as it fell apart under its own collapsing weight. Large shifting blocks of gray and brown broke, fell and rolled into the writhing mass of possessed as they pushed and forced each other further into the chokepoint. Wet crunches, strangled cries and roars, pained screams, and inhuman rage filled the chokepoint as the rocks crushed and broke the possessed. They died by the dozens but with each death another twisted amalgamation of flesh took their place.
Soon the choke point was filled with rubble, crushed and mutilated corpses, and half crippled possessed. The rock cliffside looked like it had been hit with an artillery shell. A large crater in the side of the wall was the beginning of the mini landslide. Where once had been a wind and nature worn rock face, there was now deep gouges and ravines, pock marked with holes were large chunks of stone broke and tumbled down onto the hoard.
David subconsciously coughed inside his helmet as the dust and stray lose rock pelted and covered his injured, worn and degrading body.
Still, a few of the monstrosities remained. They climbed and clawed their way through the rubble, the dead and the dying. Madness, blood and puss flooded from their mutated forms like rivers. The sound of screeching claws and snapping maws filled the air.
David fired off the last three remaining shots of his hell gun before the power pack finally died out. He dropped both the pack and his gun; the added weight would only slow him down. In the fight he was entering every millisecond counted and extra weight or a slowed movement would mean death.
He fought with a viscous tenacity. His blade ran red and orange with the mutated blood of the possessed. When his blade got stuck, he used his knees, elbows, fists and feet. When the blade became dull and shattered, he used the possessed mutant's own limb. When the limb was useless, he used a rock. When the rock crumbled, he used his mangled shoulder guard and his hands.
David breath came in ragged, shuttering gasps. His once pristine gray and brown carapace armor was covered in dirt, debris, dust, mud and blood. Hundreds of scratches, gouges, and dents covered the armor plates like a visual tapestry of history. A large, twisted hole in the armor, surrounded semi dried blood and torn fabric gave way to the torn and sundered flesh beneath.
Dozens of small cuts and stab wounds led to mere tatters being all that remained of areas of exposed utility fatigues. A large gaping hole was in his side. From it you could see shattered bone and torn muscle. Improvised bandages and blood covered grass littered his exposed flesh and openings in his battered armor. The bent and scarred metal of his neck protector was wedged into the neck seal preventing David from both fully sealing his helmet or taking it off. The power system that powered and recharged his hell gun had been damaged beyond repair over the course of the fighting. The Hell gun had been lost. Most likely pushed from the trial down into the forest below, leaving David with no way to ever hope of being able to recharge or use his hell gun.
His right arm dangled limply. The armor from his bicep to his hand was a twisted, deformed ruin. The flesh and bone once protected, was shattered, tenderized and pulped. His broken and twisted hand spasmed violently with a mix of missing and destroyed fingers. Spikes of broken bone exited and reentered the skin with each violent shake of the wrist.
David's mind didn't register the pain. He could barely even register his own survival, let alone anything else. His body stood as if uncertain of if it should collapse or slowly fall.
Gravity and nature made the choice his paralyzed body could not. The weight pushed him, and his body crumpled. Face first towards the dirt he fell. No reaching out or attempt to stop.
His body hit the dirt with a thud and blood began to pool around him.
His final thoughts came slow and hazy.
'Is this how I die? After so much struggle? After fighting so hard? Is this how I die? I was so close, so very close to the end. All to restart and try again. What is the meaning of this? What am I supposed to learn? I have learned to fight. I have learned to kill and disable. I have saved someone. I have watched them die. What am I here to truly learn?'
'Odessian what is the purpose of this trial? Am I making you proud or am I failing you spectacularly? How far must I fight? How many times must I watch or hear those I want to protect die? You told me this was a trial. Is it a trial of will? A trial of endurance? Or a trial of seeing how much I would break, so you can rebuild me?'
The cold numb sensation of death slowly began to consume David as his life slowly died in a soundless whisper. A black abyss encroached on his vision, leading him back to another reset of fighting and pain.
A hollow, robotic chime sounded in his fading mind like a mocking bell of a judging god.
The encroaching abyss recoiled as the cold numbness faded and was replaced by a flood of warmth. David felt like he was in a warm blanket next to a fire after nearly freezing in the cold. He closed his eyes, saw the glowing boxes and happily listened to the automated robotic voice as it read him the notification.
"Congratulations! You have successfully fended off and killed the possessed hoard preventing you from escaping damnations plateau."
"You have been awarded +5 to all stats, 500XP, 25 summon slots, and 5 summon keys"
'Yes!!! I finally have enough XP and summon slots to start summoning useful and deadly items, servitors, and even guardsmen! Oh, thank you system. Thank you'
David clenched his hand, dragged his arms under him, and pushed himself off the ground. He gritted his teeth from the pain as his severely battered body protested the movement.
"Warning! Bonded soul is in danger! Assist immediately or bonded soul will be devoured within 15 minutes."
'WHAT!?!? What bonded soul? Who have I bonded with?' David's eyes widened in surprise.
"Congratulations, you have successfully bonded with the soul of the being known as Ephrien. The system has predicted an 75% chance of a romantic future between the host and Ephrien. There is a 25% chance of Ephrien burning the host alive."
'WHAT THE FUCK SYSTEM!!!!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN BURNED ALIVE!!!! WHY WOULD I EVER TRY ANYTHING ROMANTIC WITH A CRAZY, SOCIOPATH, FANATIC??? SYSTEM ARE YOU INSANE!?!?!?'
"Host, calm down. The system has predicted based off observed emotional, mental responses between two physical beings."
'System shut off your romance feature, it doesn't work.'
"Host the bonded soul has been removed from the physical body and is in the process of entering the warp. If host wishes to save bonded soul: Ephrien, act immediately."
'I am not bonded with that zealot.'
'How do I save her from being devoured or entering the warp?'
"Host must reach the body and recover the not bonded, fated soul of Ephrien"
'System, I thought I told you to disable your romance function. I am not bonded. I am not fated. I am not romanced. I am not anything with Ephrien. Am I clear?'
"Host should stop getting angry at the system. The system is giving notifications and cannot actively enable or disable features. Host should focus on completing the trial, instead."
Instead of continuing to argue with the system, David began to scavenge the corpses to find some sort of weapon he could use. With a strained grunt he ripped a spiked, mutated limb from one of the dead possessed. Pain lanced through David's body. The increase in stats kept him from dying but that didn't mean the pain wasn't still there.
David's first step was shaky and unbalanced. A gasp and wince escaped him as his body weight shifted. His body groaned and shook. Pain lanced through him with every movement. He no longer had the adrenaline and overwhelming chaotic nature of fighting for survival to distract him from the brutalization his body had endured.
The increase in stats had healed his internal injuries and stopped the major bleeding, but the pain from the wounds was still present and so was the exhaustion of his muscles. Over a thousand small cuts, scratches, and bruises covered his body.
Even as the pain, exhaustion and stiffness tried to overwhelm him, David continued to half walk half drag himself down the path towards where he would most likely find the corpse of Ephrien.
'I told her to run. I told her I would keep her safe. She died again, but I don't know if she will be alive again if I die.'
The gravel crunched and shifted as David limped his way down the trail. His damaged left leg dragged slightly, creating a shallow channel of displaced gravel in its wake.
'Even if I do reach her in time, how am I supposed to assist or save her soul? If her soul is already in the warp or being attacked by demons, there is nothing I can really do is there?'
He rounded the bend in the trail and halted as he stared at the sight before him. Across a small chasm a hideous, bloated thing, shifted in and out of reality. Flies buzzed around it as maggots wriggled and dug on and in its skin. A brownish sludge-like mucus drippled down its body from a floating, diseased head. Tenacles made from intestines, rot and pieces of bone wrapped around a severely bloated and decaying corpse. Dozens of centipede-like legs twitched and clicked as the thing delighted in its kill. Pustules randomly manifested and burst across its body, releasing flies and creatures.
The corpse and creature made David vomit just by looking at them. The corpse looked as if had been crushed, ripped open and burst from the inside out all at the same time. More of its internal organs were on the outside of the body than the inside. Rot and decay encased the corpse as if it had died weeks ago. Fungus, mold, leathery bloated skin, weeping sores, opened rotting wounds, puss and mucus, maggots, worms, and carrion feeders covered the corpse.
'NURGLE' David's mind said instinctively. He wanted to wipe the remaining vomit from his lips, but his helmet prevented him. Thankfully the ruined neck protector had partially broken the seal of the helmet or else he would have drowned in his own vomit. The rotting and decaying stench hit his nostrils a few moments later. The stench nauseated and polluted his body and mind. Fatigue washed over his body like a wave. The vomit dripped and dribbled down through the broken seal.
As it rolled down his armor it began to fester. Maggots and rot seemed to birth from his own vomit.
David's eyes widened in horror as he felt the wriggling, itching and buzzing of flies, maggots and worms inside his helmet. He tried to scream but his mouth and throat filled with rot and creatures.
He vomited more as greenish puss began to leak from his eyes. His skin was becoming diseased as he felt himself rotting and decaying. His eyes began to turn a milky white.
He desperately tried to remove his helmet as the worms and maggots began to burrow and eat away at his face and head. His body and armor were beginning to rot and decay. His teeth turned a sickly yellow color.
David stumbled towards the entity as boils and sores open across his body. Despite the pain, despite the nausea, the feeling of turning into a pile of rotting sludge, he could hear it. He could hear the faint pleas for help. The cries for protection and salvation.
The corpse's lips twitched over and over again. Its blank, lifeless eye slowly turned towards David as it quivered. "Emperor." "Holy warrior." "Protector." "Save." "Me."
The words came out in a gurgle, but David could hear them clearly. Ephrien was alive. Her body had been turned into a monument to the god of plague and rot but within the rot and disease, Ephrien endured.
David continued forward even as he armor rusted, and his flesh turned to sludge and sloshed off his bone and muscle. His bone became visible and turned yellow with rot. Every part of him began to decay and fall apart.
Despite his body turning to sludge and rotting away, David continued his stumbling journey towards the chasm. The diseased warp spawn of Nurgle let out a gurgling laugh, causing bubbles of mucus and puss to squirt and pop from the eyes, ear, nose, and mouth of the floating head. It watched the helmet rust and eroded, till it was nothing more than dust in the rotting flesh of the man beneath.
Its laughter died with a sickening squelch as it noticed the faint blue flames emerging from the exposed portions of the skull of the human. The human's eye sockets were hollow, the eyes had been eaten by the maggots and worms, but the maggots and worms were now nothing more than embers. The eyes sockets held piercing blue flames. The flames swayed with the wind and flickered but they did not fade. Their center was focused and intense, like a diamond being formed under extreme pressure and heat.
The rotting bones broke and fell apart, leaving nothing but a flaming skull with burning eyes. The skull slowly rotted and fell away, leaving nothing but a pair of twin flickering flames where the eyes sockets once were.
****
'NO! No! don't give in. Don't give in'
Pain flooded through David as his energy and strength were sapped from his body. As his flesh fell from his bones, he did his best to contain the screams of agony. Waves of pestilence and lethargy hit his body over and over again like waves crashing and rolling on a beach. Diseased flies burrowed into his skin as his flesh rotted and birthed diseased creatures.
"Warning! Host you, your body, and your soul are under attack by a demon of the plague god."
'I WILL NOT GIVE IN!!!! I HAVE FOUGHT TOO HARD! NURGLE!!!'
David's exposed bone slowly rotted away. The pain was extreme, as if designed to break a person's will. When his skull finally revealed itself from beneath the diseased flesh, blue flames flickered on it. Diseased flies swarmed forward, crashing against and being incinerated by the flames. With each fly's death the flames flickered and weakened. Plague and pestilence beat against the flames like fists beating against a wooden door.
Tendrils of disease shifted in and out of reality as they wrapped around the fading, flickering flames, dragging David's soul towards the demon. The relentless, unending barrage against the fading flames, wore down David's will. Leaving his mind and will in a state of exhaustion.
'Endure! Endure David! You need to endure. Think of Loken, think of Dantioch, of Garro, of Tarvitz, of Rylanor. THINK OF ODESSIAN!!!! YOU CREATED HIM!! THIS IS HIS TRIAL FOR YOU!'
The fading flames burned brighter, the piercing intensity in the center of the flame, crystalized. The pestilence was slowly beaten back. The flies and maggots burned in their hundreds. The flames flickered like candles in the wind.
The demon let out a wet gurgle of annoyance. The barrage of decay and plague intensified as if trying to smother the flames with disease.
'I killed for the living. I killed for the dead. From Iron, comes Strength. From Strength, comes Will. From Will, comes Faith. From Faith, comes Honor. From Honor, comes Iron. IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT! NURGLE, I REJECT YOU NOW AND FOREVER!!!'
The flames burst outwards, scorching everything in their path. Diseased creatures writhed and burned as they were consumed. The ground blackened, boiled and turned to molten slag as the flames moved like a tidal force towards the demon of Nurgle.
The demon's flesh boiled, and ruptured. Its shifting body caught on fire and burned. Pain, a sensation the demon had never felt before surged through its form. Fear flooded the demon. It was in pain; its god had never let it experience pain before. If it was in pain, then its god could not protect it.
The sores charred as the leaking puss boiled. The demon let out a shriek of agony and flailed its limbs around. Panic overtook its thoughts. It desperately tried to flee back into the warp. It tried to take its kill with it only to feel nothing. The diseased floating head turned. The milky white eyes rolled to spot its meal. The rotting corpse was completely consumed in flame.
The demon tried to flee as its body was consumed. Its diseased body burned away leaving the writhing energies of the warp behind. The warp energy fueled the flames to burn even faster and hotter. The demon could feel its ethereal form being consumed and pulled back towards the floating burning eyes of the being it had seen as easy prey.
The demon lashed out in desperate attempts to escape and flee. Its rotting tentacles turned black and burned into puddles of boiling liquid. Howls of pain and fear escaped from the engulfed floating head. The eyes bubbled and burst due to the heat. The flames burned away the disease leaving the demon as nothing more than a writhing collection of warp energy.
The flames eagerly licked and lapped at the energy, feeding and growing stronger as they consumed. The energy was refined and grew dense. The dense orb of energy began to crystalize under the extreme heat and pressure of the flames. The crystal shot towards the tiny crystals that were in the positions that David's eyes once had been.
The large crystal of writhing green energy stopped inches away from the raging flames that were shaped like David's face. The flames parted and snapped shut down on the green crystal. The crystal shattered like imploding glass. The flames launched into the sky like a pillar, dispersing the clouds in their path. The gravel and earth burned, melted, boiled, and reformed.
When the flames died, a large area was barren and blackened. In its center stood a severely wounded man. His brown hair has streaks of flaming blue, flickering near its roots. His once brown eyes now shown with an electric blue light. Scrawling lines of ethereal blue and gold ran down his exposed, bleeding skin.
'What? What is happening? I lost control. I should be dead. I was killed by the demon. why am I still here? shouldn't I have reset once I died?'