59 (Ch 59)Faithless Hope

"Faith… Oh, no." Eshir whispered to herself, seeing the shadows visible blockade every exit from the room the hall they were currently located in.

She was still in her armour, longsword in hand, defending her two infants. But no longer was any of the Silver Armoured Abandoned fighting, nor any of the guests. They all just blankly stared at the thing wrenching himself out of a marble pillar, radiating an aura of bloodlust so violent it brought many weaker men and women to their knees, emptying their guts and struggling to breathe under pressure of it.

"Eshir… what happened? Faith's never felt even remotely like this" Alzeor asked, feeling his skin shudder. The fire inside him had reacted to Faith. It told him in no uncertain terms that whatever that thing rising from the pillar was, it no longer classified as a dragon.

"I…I… I don't know." Eshir mumbled in response, her eyes cloudy trying to piece together what exactly was happening to her son. There was nothing in Faith's life, not even the innate wrath of a demon… that could create such a vicious feeling.

"Anima… do you have any clue how the hell that thing is… ANIMA!!" Athren shouted seeing his daughter bleeding from the nose and eyes, clutching her head on the ground.

Unlike everyone here, she could see and feel it, the all encompass oblivion that was coming towards them, carrying nothing but pure hatred and malice. Her empathic vision was a double-edged blade and right now it was cutting her.

"We need to run!!" She screamed to her father, trying to warn him.

There was no fighting that thing, whatever it was. Anima had seen how bright Faith shined… but she'd never expected this. For his shadow to be so deep and laced with enough rage to drive any man past the point of insanity.

Faith slowly stood, his white hair being devoured by his own shadow which slowly crawled up his back, dyeing parts of his skin in a black darker then midnight. His face was already partly swallowed by the shadow, streaking along his face like scars. His eyes no longer had any whites, replaced by a pitch black that had leaked from his slitted pupils.

He scanned the area, wanting to see with his own eyes instead of the shadows what truly was happening. His heart sighed in relief for a moment, seeing both his mother and sisters okay. Yet when he spotted Krus… all that relief disappeared, staring dead eyed at his friend.

He felt happy. So happy that now he could feel some sense of sorrow, even if he hadn't really been that close to Krus. The dead dark elf still caused his heart to quiver. Informing Faith that he now access to emotions which would've otherwise been devoured by whatever the hell was lurking behind that gate.

The rooms fighting resumed a moment lator, the main players and leaders eyeing Faith but he didn't spare them a glance. None of were on the list, not yet at least. He noticed Reasla, wrestling against a particularly potent Ogre, adorned in the same Silver coloured armour as all the walking dead men.

'Give her hand' Faith casually commanded the shadows, moving his sight away without another glance.

He saw the dead elf next, only really caring about Ervis who despite his age seemed to be in a frenzied rage, smashing through the enemies who could not be killed like that fact didn't matter one bit.

Faith moved his swept his gaze over everything else, including a glass haired girl collapsed under the weight of his malice, until he came upon something he couldn't ignore.

A thing that broke the damn of emotions still held back by sheer willpower. A reasonably large silver fox, the size of a wolf lay on the grand halls floor. Faith's shadows couldn't tell whether or not she was alive or dead. The sheer size of the gash over her stomach it was hard to believe the Familiar has survived.

A black, deep seated rage boiled in Faith, his vision turning red as he clenched his fists so hard they bled. Many Silver armoured warriors were approaching Faith despite the efforts of his two parents, yet in the next moment their efforts proved futile as Faith muttered a single, vicious word. "You."

A silver armoured Orc who didn't understand how the boy hadn't died from his attack stood motionless as the shadows in front of him bent to the side, revealing a far less pitiful version of Faith Exodus.

In the next moment Faith glanced at Luna again before picking up Ervis and forcibly throwing the man towards her. He was a light Mage capable of healing and right now Faith didn't have enough empathy to let his pointless rampage continue.

"Do your best to heal her, Leave the torture to a demon. We know evil best." Faith spoke to him through shadows, returning his rage filled eyes to Crollen.

"I have no mercy for a murder, your words not mine" Faith said, smashing his fist into the armoured Crollen. Fully reinforced with mana, Faith's physical strength was great, but not nearly enough to send Crollen flying into a pillar like he once had. No, it was something else deeper within his strange shadow surrounding Faith's Body like glue that seemed to give the boy the strength of a minotaur. Or at least a portion of it.

"So pray to whatever god's you wish that you aren't one. Although I lack mercy for murders trust me when I say that my cruelty towards anything that touches my Light is as endless and twisted as myself" Faith said, arriving in front of Crollen and giving him the most chilling smile the Orc had ever seen.

Other abandoned noticed their comrade pinned down by Faith and came to the collective consensus that the boy was their next target. Sure he could radiate a bloodlust but did that mean he had the strength to stop weapons blessed with law? They were confident that he didn't possess such power.

"Ervis, is Luna still alive?" Faith asked through the shadow, voice seething with hatred.

"I don't know." The elf replied.

"You will die for this, I'll slay your murderous self." Crollen said, struggling through the pain. Even with those word's he wasn't nearly as confident as his approaching comrades.

A Dragon's one and greatest weakness was their heart. Without the defensive aspect scales provided, Faith should've been all but slain after Crollen's sword pierced through it. But there he stood, a foreboding silhouette shrouded in malice and shadow. Blades of law followed all rules of normality for their power and no normal sword could cut through shadows.

"Tsk, you sure love to band together, don't you," Faith spat out, sensing the oncoming infantry of silver.

Faith held out his open palm to the side, willing the connection between his dragon claw and his heart into reality. A slithering black chain appeared which Faith promptly yanked, pulling his sword towards him.

Crollen got to his feet just in time to standoff against the child much smaller, yet far more frightening than himself. The sword's long white blade glimmered with a hint of anger, enraged by the Orc who dared to attack its master.

A cut from the side came down from Doubt's edge, splintering Crollen's sword he raised in hasty defence.

'I just need to hold out, then this Heathen can be cleansed for the greater good' Crollen thought, trying to fend off the blackened barrage.

Faith's strength was far off what it'd been and his method of combat had changed completely. Before he'd simply been defending, now he viciously assaulting Crollen at any point he could, uncaring for the blood or skin that his own power slowly ripped off, exposing raw bone and muscle beneath.

"Crollen hang in there!!"

Abruptly, Faith felt a force bare down on his entire body, restricting it from further destroying the Orc in front of him. Purple scales with a smooth magenta underbelly wrapped around his legs arms and bodies before the shadow demon could react, half the body covered in silver armour that made Faith's blood boil.

"Harra… thank the gods" Crollen muttered, seeing the black-haired Lamia adorned in silver armour constrict Faith.

His size was a glaring weak point anything long enough could exploit. The Lamia nodded in response, tightening her grip on Faith who struggled and torn at her skin in ravenous dismay. The longer Faith's enemies stayed alive, the more rage and pain he was exposed to. More power and less sanity.

"Embrace death child, it is what you deserve" The Lamia spoke, further contracting her tail against Faith's body, causing creacking and cracking to echo out from his bones.

His shadow was still slowly slithering its way up his back and around his body, yet it had failed to do anything. Faith was losing almost immediately after gaining his second gate and his mind failed to understand how.

"WHY WON'T YOU ALL JUST DIE!?" He screamed further enraged and slowly losing every essence of hope within him.

Crollen got up and was joined by a Orge twice his size. Both begun to attack a defenceless Faith struggling to free himself, More and more silver infantry coming on top. Faith called for his shadows to help… but they felt unwilling like they were scared to even go near him.

'Useless, all of this is so damn unless. Why can't I even kill one Orc? I was suppose to be stronger, I felt stronger. What am I doing wrong?!' Faith asked himself, confused and further enraged by his predicament.

His body was bruised and broken further and further by the second and Faith could feel his life force slipping out, soul pleading for death. No one other than Eshir or Alzeor attempted to help, too wary of what Faith might do. Most just said their prays for the trapped demon and left him to die, focusing on their own fights.

Only a silver Rexel who refrained from showing any signs of life worried.

'Why can't I help him, what's gone wrong. In fact, what was even the point of tricking him, all you did was expose trauma and make him suffer' Luna asked, close to begging for the slothful entity keeping her alive to help.

'He should be stronger…' Was what Luna got as a reply.

Sloth, sitting on his brimstone throne watching the entire hall and event play out, couldn't understand why Faith was still trapped. The boy should've been able to break free, the thing sleeping inside was supposed to react by now.

"But you're still lazily watching. Is it such a sin for you to show me what you are already, after all the effort I put through to wake you up" Sloth asked, wondering why the strange entity he'd stuck inside Noah for fun didn't react.

After completing his last Trial of Ascension long ago, Sloth had been rewarded with a gem. He'd completed a A+ difficulty task with 100% and yet he was rewarded nothing but a gem. If not for the power his previous Trials had given him, along with his own wit, Sloth might've broken the thing outta spite.

Nevertheless, he kept the mundane gem. Until he found Noah, then for whatever reason, the thing reacted. Sloth took interest in the boy purely because of this and let the thing infest him.

"So why won't you react. If you like the kid so much, surely these angelic weapons on a lower world should call you to." Sloth wondered, waiting for whatever would happen, regardless of the outcome I'd have on Faith.

Faith suffered blow after blow, dipping deeper and deeper into death as his frustration grew. It felt like there was an inch somewhere and no matter how or where, he just couldn't scratch it. The power rested at the tips of his fingers but Faith just couldn't grasp it.

'You fail to understand what role you play. You are not a sudden destroyer or some god of vengeance. Just a sculptor of damnation.'

A voice deep within Faith's own shadow spoke, no words or sounds, just pure intent unlike anything shadow sense had ever given him before. Spitting out a mouthful of blood the little demon tried to focus on it's words instead of the gapping ditch death was opening for him.

Harra tail left Faith battered and bleeding by the silver soldiers who came one after another. Even more Lamia joined Harra, bending and constricting Faith's broken body. But he did not care. His only concern was the shadow that now guided him. His own.

'The reason you fail is because you attempt to sculpt something magnificent without first gathering materials. With your young body even releasing your demon bloodline ability wouldn't matter much, for the frame it enhances could not hold.'

'So what must I do?'

'It is simple really. If you do not have materials, you take them. Build yourself up upon the graves of the damned so you may spell the damnation of those who truly deserve it.'

Faith listened, unbothered by the questionable morality of such an action.

'And how do I do that.'

'You imitate a blacksmith. For to forge the strongest blade…'

"…You must first burn down all others" Faith spoke, shadow completely covering his face, leaving only his eyes to see the light. He saw it, understood what needed to be done. Then with his last breath opened a blacken maw filled to the brim with sharpened white teeth.

And let free all that which fuelled the fire inside him, burning any and everyone around him in a black, lightless inferno.

All present once again were forced to look back at the demon, seeing the bonfire of bodies that would inspire fear in anyone. But more than anything that triggered the mass loss of life and confidence in everyone's eyes, regardless of race, gender, status or power.

Were the burning bodies melting away and…

…Their wailing screams of utter, inescapable Despair.