The loose camp fire flickered weakly like a dying ember in this forsakened world, its glow devoured by the creeping dark. The night had thickened, unnaturally dense, so dense that it began pressing against the edges of the loose camp like something alive. The space around Agon no longer felt real... no it wasn’t real.... it no longer felt like the world or the loose camp he was in a moment ago. There was no noise, no murmurs, no faint movement, no distant chattering of other wanderers....
Something had changed.
The embers shuddered. The warmth of the loose camp fire turned distant like a falling star, fading as if swallowed by something unseen. The silence stretched, impossibly vast.
And In that moment... A noise... A laugh..
Low, raw, and wrong.
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It came from everywhere.
It came from nowhere.
The sound slithered like a burrowing worm into the breathless air, crawling through the very fabric of this world’s existence, twisting into something vast, something unbearable. something wrong... It did not belong here. It did not belong anywhere.
But even as all this was happening, Agon’s lips couldn’t help but curled up, even if it was but the slightest moment....
"So," he murmured, voice calm, steady, unshaken. His deep yellow eyes gleamed faintly in the dying loose camp faint light, the reflection of stiffened fire pulsing hauntingly soft in them like distant stars.
"You’ve finally arrived,"
"With your real body... Haran."
After he said that, there was a deafening silence as if the whole world held it’s breath for a sound, any sound..
Then, a voice cut through the deafening silence.. Smooth, taunting.
"What do you mean?" It was Haran’s voice, his tone dripped with amusement.. "I was with you, having a nice warm liquor with you, we both sharing our experiences and life struggles moments ago… before I died by your hands."
Agon exhaled slowly after hearing this, he tilted his head slightly as if considering the words..
"I think you got it wrong," Agon said, his voice calm, almost lazy. "Died by me?"
A flicker of something passed through his deep yellow eyes.
"No."
He let the word settle, let it sink into the heavy air around the area..
"You died by trying to poison my drink, which lead to you recklessly poisoning yourself."
Silence... a still silence
Then, another laugh cut through the silence... Softer this time, edged with something darker.. something more sinister.
"You always talk with a calmness that is too mysterious, with a boldness, like you know everything," Haran mused. His voice did not come from one exact place or location... it came from all places, all locations.. all at once, shifting, breaking, stretching, bending around the space. "But tell me, Agon..."
A deadly whisper.
"Does that knowledge comfort you in anyway?"
Agon remained still, his posture relaxed, effortless. His fingers flexed slightly at his side, barely perceptible.
"You said you had a team leader and he went for a sub-mission," he said, tone unchanged. "Was that a lie?"
Agon asked though he already knew the answer...
A quiet chuckle.
"What do you want me to say?" Haran’s voice rippled, filling the hollow stiffened air. "Another lie?"
The dragged space trembled....
The camp fire was nothing but dying embers now, barely clinging to life In a lifeless place. Thick shadows stretched unnaturally long, churning, twisting, curling... The very air felt thinner.
Agon’s yellow gaze sharpened ever so slightly.
"You know Haran... If something is hidden from me," he said, voice barely above a whisper, "I see it clearly no matter what it is or what power it uses to hide or deceive.. I see it.. every single details that make up it’s very essence."
In that moment, there was a shift.
A break in the air... a fracture in existence...
Haran wanted to speak...
But in that instant, Agon was no longer there.
The space he occupied blurred, his form unraveling, dissolving into ever formless mist. It happened in less than an instant, in a fraction of something smaller than time itself. The very concept of motion fractured.. one moment he was standing, the next, he was gone....
Far.
Distant.
Beyond reach.
Then... In that moment... A sound.
A crack in the air itself.
A distortion In the trees as if an impact had already landed before deafening BOOM! shattered through the open field in the forest...
The ground quaked.
The air distorted.
The world trembled at the sound of a clash...
*****
The BOOM! echoed again. A violent rupture in the very fabric of silence.
The stiffened air trembled, waves and ripples of unseen pressures rolling outward like a living tide... The open field stood beneath a void-torn sky, its once-settled mist now writhing like living tendrils. The trees at the edge swayed as if caught in a storm that did not exist, their branches creaking under an invisible insurmountable weight..
And there... In the distance.
Agon.
He had already materialized, his form shifting from vapor of pure unseen mist to flesh in a single seamless instant. His stance was firm, unwavering. The mist had already solidified into a blade The Mist Sword, its edge as thin as a whisper, its presence as undeniable as death.
And it was already at Haran’s throat.
But it did not cut.
The mist sword hovered midair, its edge mere fractions from severing flesh and dissolving bones, yet it did not pass through. It did not bite. It did not kill.
A flicker of realization crossed Agon’s deep yellow eyes.
This wasn’t a mistake.
This was Haran’s ability that Agon didn’t know that he had...
Liquid Manipulation.
A slow smile widened stretched across Haran’s lips. Deep brown eyes gleamed beneath the pale darkened moonlight, reflecting a madness that had never known failure..
"We finally meet," Haran murmured. His voice was smooth, calm, untouched by the blade resting against his neck.
"Oh how long I’ve been waiting for this day, ever since I saw you and your team fighting The Lords Of Teka, and now you are here... right in front of me."
Agon instantly moved... Or he tried to.
But his body did not respond.
An unseen force gripped him from the inside, sinking deep, wrapping around something more than just flesh and instantly he felt it...
An untamable raw pain..
A sharp, unbearable pull.
His veins twisted, his skin bulged. His muscles convulsed. His body began to tear like fabric meeting an unquenchable flame.. not from an external wound, but from within. Blood seeped through the fabric of his skin, thick and unnatural, pulled forth by an unseen hand.
"You’re not leaving yet," Haran said, tilting his head, the motion slow, deliberate. His smile widened, eyes watching as Agon’s body ripped, piece by piece.
More blood, thick, dark.
Dripping. Spilling.
Pooling at his feet.
"I really need that larvae worm of yours," Haran mused, his tone light, almost casual.. too casual in this kind of scene..
Agon’s body expanded more, ripping under the sheer weight of Haran’s control..
Then... His body burst..
Splat!
pools of red darkened ichor splattered across the earth, thick and raw, soaking into the already damp soil. The crimson stain stretched outward, tendrils of red merging with the mist curling through the air.
Haran’s fingers twitched as he noticed something was wrong.
There was no black larvae worm.
For a brief second, a flicker of confusion danced through his mind... Just for a brief dance of a second...
Just then.. Understanding.
Haran’s head snapped up, his expression twisting into something sharp, something exhilarated.
"Agon…!"
His laughter erupted, raw and unrestrained. It shook through the very condensed air, condensing it even more.. the laugh, a fractured, uncontrollable sound...
"Is this all you can do?" Haran called out, his voice carrying across the open field. His breath was uneven, not from exhaustion, but from something deeper... something intoxicating.
"Don’t be pathetic! Fight me with all you have! Show me more of what you’ve got under your sleeves... Let me see the type of wanderer you really are.."
He exhaled sharply, then shot a glance toward one of the distant aged trees, where the shadows clung heavier than before.
His deep brown eyes locked onto something...a figure.. someone’s figure..
Sitting atop the highest branch of the tree, barely visible against the void of the night, was a figure...
Still. Watching. As If it has been there accessing everything right from the start like a beholder of everything...
Thick Mist coiled around his form, twisting, shifting, a living calmly deathly tide that moved with silent purpose.
Golden eyes gleamed through the darkness.
Haran’s breath hitched.
A quiet dreadful whisper left his lips, unbidden...
"I want it."
His fingers twitched... His pulse quickened.
His body trembled.. not from fear, not from anger, but from pure, undiluted burning desire.
"I want it all."
And then...
The world trembled...
The earth quaked violently beneath the weight of two beings whose mere presence fractured the very existence of this forsakened world.
This was far from over....