The Damned Demon
chapter-414

As Raziel kneeled motionless on the forest floor, disoriented and struggling to piece together what had just happened, time lost all meaning.

Minutes or hours passed - it was impossible for him to tell.

All he knew was that when he finally started to regain consciousness, the world around him sounded and felt different.

The chirping of insects and rustling leaves filled his ears once again, replacing the deafening howl and jeering of the werewolves.

Raziel slowly pushed himself up. His head throbbed, his limbs trembled, and his throat felt raw and parched.

The werewolves' laughter had faded, leaving behind a desolate echo of destruction.

He approached the pool of blood where Matron Selene had met her gruesome end.

The sight of the dark, congealing blood under the bloody moonlight was a stark, visceral reminder of the brutality he had just witnessed, "Matron Selene..." he whispered, his voice a mere shadow, laden with grief and disbelief.

His fingers trembled as they touched the cold blood, the reality of her absence hitting him like a physical blow.

She could have escaped on her own if she wanted to, but she let herself die for his sake. The guilt was crushing his chest and causing his body to tremble.

But her last words kept echoing in his mind.

Compelled by a desperate hope that there might be survivors, Raziel forced himself to move, each step heavier than the last.

The village, once a haven of warmth and communal bond, now lay in ruin, its once vibrant life snuffed out in an instant of savagery.

As Raziel staggered through the remnants of his village, a ghostly silence enveloped the air, pierced only by the faint crackling of the lingering flames.

The sight of the burning houses was a macabre sight. Flames danced mockingly around the charred remains of his people, their burned faces frozen in their final moments of agony. The air was thick with the acrid smell of burning flesh.

Some of the corpses had already broken down into ashes, making it impossible to recognize them.

The heat in the area was stinging his skin and making him feel suffocated, but he didn't let these sensations deter him.

He realized that the werewolves purposefully used very weak flames to torture and slowly burn them to death, and the thought of it made his heart writhe.

"Mother..." he choked out, tears streaming down his face. It was the only house that wasn't blazing. Could they have spared her? His heart pounded with dread as he neared his home, fearing the worst yet clinging to a sliver of hope.

His house, a modest structure that had housed so many tender memories, now stood eerily silent, its door ajar and inviting a foreboding sense of despair.

Raziel's steps echoed in the haunting silence as he entered his house, his heart plummeting with dread.

His heart dropped at the sight before him. A frail figure lay crumpled on the floor, blood drops riddled around her. His breath caught in his throat as he recognized his own mother.

Her form was untouched by the flames that ravaged other homes and corpses. Raziel held his breath as he rushed to her side, hope and fear warring within him.

"Mother!" he called out, his voice a mix of desperation and faint hope.

With trembling hands, he turned her body, his eyes widening in horror at the sight before him.

Her eyes, once kind and loving, were gouged out, her tongue cruelly pulled out, and her ears torn away. Blood coated her cheekbones, mixed with dried tears that bore witness to the horror she must have faced.

His stomach churned at the sight, and low grunts of pain escaped his lips as his emotions threatened to overwhelm him.

"M-Mother…" He gently lifted her head onto his lap and tried to wipe away the blood smearing her face.

It was as if those monsters knew her eyesight was crippled and went on to rob her of her other senses in the most barbaric way to amuse themselves.

How could they do this to a defenseless woman who had never harmed a soul in her life. She hasn't ever taken a single quest in her life, nor did she know how to use a weapon because of the way she grew up.

His heart shattered into a million pieces, his mind struggling to comprehend the full extent of this tragedy.

The realization that his poor mother had been subjected to such torture was unbearable. He now realized why Grandpa Caius said he had been protected all this time and how he had no idea of the cruel world outside.

He then noticed her clenched right hand and gently opened it, revealing a small, mirror-like object. It was a Memory Mirror, glowing softly with an image of his smiling face.

She always held onto it whenever he wasn't around, and it seemed like she was praying for his safety until her last breath.

"AARRGHHHH!!!!"

A raw, primal roar of anguish and fury erupted from Raziel's throat, reverberating through the walls of his house.

In the eerie quiet that followed Raziel's agonized roar, his gaze drifted to the window, drawn irresistibly to the blood moon's eerie luminescence.

The night sky, painted in hues of crimson and shadow, framed the majestic silhouette of the supreme being, Drakaris.

Its tail, a monumental span of awe-inspiring power, floated ethereally against the lunar backdrop, a symbol of strength and supremacy that seemed almost within reach.

The sight of the mythical creature, an entity of unparalleled might, ignited a fierce determination within Raziel's shattered heart.

Standing amidst the ruins of his life, with the remnants of his mother's love clasped in his hand, a resolve as unyielding as the mountains took root within him.

"Just wait, everyone," he whispered into the stillness, his voice laced with a profound resolve, "I will avenge you all."

Raziel, fueled by a relentless determination, found himself scaling the most treacherous mountain he knew, the very embodiment of his quest for retribution.

Legends said that to meet even the eyes of Drakaris, one should reach the summit of this mountain, though no soul in history had ever managed to do so since most either gave up or died trying.

But this fact didn't deter a desperate Raziel since nothing else mattered to him than climbing to the top.

The environment was as unforgiving as the sorrow that gripped his heart – a piercing cold that bit at his flesh, winds that howled like the ghosts of his fallen tribe, and a relentless, icy chill that sought to sap his will.

Every hair on his body stood up as faint yet unmistakable roaring sounds echoed through the mist below.

His heart raced as he could feel multiple spine-chilling gazes falling on him from the dragons watching him from afar.

The deafening flap of their massive leathery wings cut through the wind, each flap causing Raziel to flinch.

He feared whether he accidentally offended them, and if so, would they smack him off the mountain. But to his relief, none of them seemed to get any closer to him.

His every step was a battle against the mountain's might. The rugged terrain, blanketed in snow and ice, made each footfall a test of endurance and resolve.

As he ascended, the air grew thinner, the cold more biting, but his spirit remained unyielding. His breath formed clouds of vapor in the frigid air, each exhale a testament to his unwavering resolve.

With no blood to sustain him, his body screamed in protest, muscles aching with fatigue, his throat parched and raw.

Yet, he pushed on, driven by the images of his people's cruel demise, especially those of Matron Selene and his mother, their unavenged spirits spurring him forward.

Hours turned into an endless, grueling ordeal, the mountain seemingly stretching into infinity.

Raziel's vision blurred, a disorienting mix of exhaustion and the relentless white of the snowscape.

Still, he climbed, his fingers numb, his body shivering uncontrollably, but his heart ablaze with a fierce resolve.

"O Supreme One…" he called out, his voice barely a whisper against the howling wind, "H-Hear me. Please…let me speak to you," His words, almost lost in the mountain's breath, were filled with a desperation born of loss and a desire for vengeance.

With each step, Raziel's body grew weaker, but his spirit, fueled by the memories of his mother's gentle smile and the laughter of his tribe, grew stronger.

He knew that if there was any hope of avenging his people, it lay with Drakaris. His only hope was to ask for his help to punish those monsters.

Under the watchful gaze of the blood moon, he trudged onward. The silhouette of the legendary being loomed ever closer in the distance, yet still remained frustratingly out of reach.

On the brink of exhaustion, Raziel's world began to spin out of control as he felt the cruel, unyielding grip of the mountain slipping away.

His fingers, numbed by the cold and fatigue, could no longer cling to the rough, icy surface.

A sense of despair washed over him as he started to fall, his body succumbing to the gravity's merciless pull.

His heart, weighed down by unfulfilled vengeance and the heavy burden of failure, seemed to stop for a moment.

"No...no..." he whispered, his voice a mere breath in the vast, empty expanse.

The names and faces of his tribe, his mother, Matron Selene, flashed before his eyes, "I am sorry everyone...I am too weak..." The words echoed in his mind, a final admission of defeat to the cruel fate that had befallen him and how he let everyone down.

But just as the darkness threatened to consume him completely, something miraculous happened.

Raziel felt an invisible, powerful force catch him mid-fall, lifting him with an almost gentle, yet insistent urgency. His body, limp and defeated, was carried upwards as if cradled by the hands of an unseen deity.

Gasping for breath, Raziel's eyes flickered open in disbelief. He found himself being propelled upwards at an incredible speed, the wind howling past him, a cacophony of a thousand whispers.

The ground below receded rapidly, becoming a distant memory as he soared higher and higher.

In a matter of moments, Raziel's ascent slowed, and he found himself falling upon the summit's rocky surface.

The cold, hard ground under him felt strangely comforting, a solid reality amidst the surreal experience. He lay there for a moment, gasping, his mind racing to comprehend what had just occurred.

However, suddenly, he felt the winds around him becoming silent and still.

The stillness of the mountaintop was overwhelming, the silence almost tangible, as Raziel's heart pounded in his chest.

He gazed upwards, his breath caught in his throat, as he saw a pair of glowing crimson eyes, vast and unworldly, piercing the veil of darkness, their gaze penetrating deep into his very soul.

Each eye was a glowing orb of fiery red, set within the shadowy clouds, casting an otherworldly light that bathed the mountaintop in an eerie glow.

The vertical pupils, narrow and keen, seemed to dissect his essence, reading his deepest fears, his pain, his burning desire for vengeance.

Raziel stood frozen, rooted to the spot, dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of the being before him. He felt like a grain of sand lying before a towering mountain.

He couldn't believe he was really standing before the legendary Drakaris!