Shadow Of A Man
-Arabella, ??? Years Old-
Arabella watches Alexis battle the knights inside of the cathedral with bated breath. She is shocked that he had ran afoul of an Oracle of the Gods so soon. She wants nothing more than for him to slay all the Oracles and the filthy Gods they served, but it is much too soon. She has a bad feeling that something was going to go very wrong in their battle. As Alexis fights off two knights, she watches as the sole Oracle Knight creeps around the edges of the room and approaches Alexis from behind. He doesn't notice him in time and is impaled by a sword.
She immediately feels the connection with her mate begin to wane. He is dying, bleeding out on the stone floor. Arabella sets about starting an incantation to help him, but it is too late. Alexis Lycan is dead.
It was a sudden and violent end for her mate and future liege. She stares at his lifeless body, through the viewing crystal, with an icy feeling in her heart. She drums up her resolve and begins starting another incantation. This particular one is forbidden, and the Gods that had locked her away would sense the spell. They will devise an even worse punishment, but she doesn't care.
Arabella will bring back her instrument for revenge, her mate, by any means necessary.
As she finishes speaking the ancient words of the incantation, she pieces the veil between the mortal realm and her domain and speaks.
"Arise, My Liege." she whispers, and unleashes the forbidden spell.
-Alexis Lycan, 18 Years Old-
Alexis stands in a room of nothingness. It is pitch black and mist swirls around him. He instinctively knows that he is dead. He met an unceremonious end as an apostate of the Gods. He is filled with sadness as he thinks of the people he left behind. He thinks of his loyal vassals, the villagers, and the people he saved. He worries about their uncertain future now that he is gone. But more than anything he is filled with a soul rending feeling of regret, for not liberating his mother.
As he stands in the nothingness, the emotions crash into him repeatedly, never waning. He wallows in a sense of pity for what feels like an eternity. Time flows differently in other realms it seems.
He is curled up in a ball when he hears the familiar voice of Arabella, his contractor, calling out to him.
"Arise, My Liege."
-
Alexis' eyes shoot open, and he lets out an ungodly screech. His body is restitching the wound on his stomach, regrowing skin, organs, and blood. It is excruciatingly painful. Black smoke and mist flows from him as his body flickers in and out of existence itself. His skin darkens and the clothes on his body fall away. He pushes himself up off the cold floor and barely registers what he sees. His body is unrecognizable. He is now an all black, shadow-like being in the shape of a man.
He teeters back and forth in a daze, staring at the blood on the ground. His blood.
"Gods! What the fuck is that!" A voice loudly screams out in horror, pulling him out of his dazed stupor.
Alexis looks up and registers the knights standing before him with ghost white faces. Their mouths are hanging open, and they are quaking in fear. To the knights, Alexis has become a demon, a monster of which the like has never existed before.
"Oh Goddess Amanda, protect your flock from this pitiful soul! This wayward lamb has sold his soul to the false Gods, please forgive him!" The Oracle cries out, still praying. As she kneels on the floor, a golden barrier surrounds her and her knight.
At the sight of the Oracle, and the golden blade which slew him, Alexis grows furious once again. Rage builds up inside him until it spills over.
He withdraws a sword from his shadow and stalks towards the knights. They fearfully ready their weapons, unbelieving in their ability to even stop him. As he pulls back his sword to strike, the men are illuminated in a golden aura. This is a rare blessing from the still praying Oracle.
"Ahhhhh! For the Gods!" One of the knights screams, reinvigorated.
Alexis spits as he swings his sword savagely, it cleaves through the knight's blade and splits the man in half. Intestines and guts fly everywhere as he lunges for the next man. The next knight is fairly skilled and evades Alexis' first wild swing. The knight's blade flies past his guard and grazes Alexis. Yet it leaves no mark nor wound on his shadowy body.
Alexis slams his shoulder into the dumbfounded man and lops off his head. Even more blood splatters, caking the floor with it.
"Fucking hell! Get around the bastard!" The remaining knights gather in a crescent moon formation in front of him. The two ends slowly wrap around him.
Alexis snarls like an animal, lost to his rage. Not all of which is his own. His eyes catch sight of the beggar girl, left strung up above the altar, and a ghastly grin spreads across his inhuman face. He reaches his hand toward her and mumbles a quick spell. Smoky tendrils fly from his hands and enter the lifeless body. She jerks and spasms violently for a few moments before stilling. Slowly, the girl sits up. Her eyes are completely black, and her veins are the same inky color. Like a marionette, her movements are jerky at first, but soon normalize as time passes. She stares at Alexis, seemingly awaiting something.
"Slaughter them." He commands. The girl obeys and springs onto one the knights. Her teeth gnash and sharp nails rend. The man is filleted alive, leaving ribbons of flesh upon the floor. His screams echo throughout the cathedral. They are haunting screams, reminiscent of the screams the girl let out while she was brutally murdered.
"Oh Gods! There's anoth-" A man starts bellowing before being cut off by Alexis' sword. The pair set upon the knights and brutally dispatched them. Soon, there is only the Oracle and her Knight left.
Alexis stalks towards the barrier that protected her and runs his blade along the surface. Sparks fly where it touches, but it holds firm. The Oracle slowly opens her eyes and stares at Alexis mournfully.
"Poor soul, why have you sold yourself? Why have you done this? I only wanted to save you." Her words are sincere and confusion genuine. In her mind she had been doing the right thing as ordained by her Goddess.
"Fuck you." Alexis snarls. He strikes the barrier repeatedly. His mind is blank, filled with only rage.
"Come now, give yourself up to the Goddess' mercy. You cannot pierce this divine barrier. It was created by the holy Amanda herself." The Oracle says.
Alexis continues to bang savagely on the golden bubble with his now deformed sword. The beggar girl stands behind him silently watching.
As he strikes, a familiar voice speaks in his mind.
"Enough, my Liege. Rest."
At these words, Alexis stumbles. His mind is going hazy, and he feels weak. His knees are buckling and he can't support himself anymore. As he collapses on the ground, a portal opens up which swallows him and the girl up. It deposits them inside his bedroom in Starfall village.
He gazes up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused, and passes out.
-
Afterwards, he would look back on the events of the cathedral and come to the realization that he was hardly in control of himself after he came back from death. It was like someone else was controlling his body.