Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 107: Collapse

Uriel exhaled, deeply.

He looked at the Sin in front of him, then smiled.

He’d lived sixteen years in utter and absolute, horrifying fleshy agony. What would a lifetime of spiritual agony be?

He could handle it, and if not, he’d learn to.

To live was to fall, then inevitably rise, after all, or sometimes to fall and inescapably remain in the abyss.

To live was to gamble and oscillate between the two.

"I accept."

...

A grand cave.

The ground was of old cobblestone, stained dark by years of moisture that had sunk in, and the walls were of old, roughly textured dark rock, rising high into the curved boundaries of the cave.

All across the walls, lit lamps could be seen, and beneath them, dark tunnels stood, leading to winding paths across the underground network the cave was connected to.

The cave, and the scope of the tunnels, was of such grandeur that one could only imagine this place had been built by titans, for even greater behemoths.

Here, a human would feel like nothing more than an ant, paralysed by the sheer scale of this half-natural and half man-made dark sanctuary.

It was cold, deathly so, and apart from the flames that flickered above every tunnel entrance, it was dark.

And it was also quiet. Very quiet.

SPLAT!

A portal opened over the center of the cave, and from it, a limp body surged forth, falling down and harshly impacting against the cold stone ground.

Uriel’s body lay unmoving on the ground, his breaths so strained they might as well have been absent, and his heartbeat a faint echo.

His body was bloodied and riddled with injuries, more blunt wounds than gashes, but what did it matter, if these blunt wounds were even more lethal?

Across his chest, a massive and nasty wound tore from his shoulder, across his chest, and down to his waist—a gash that shredded flesh and shattered bone, revealing his innards and struggling heart.

"..."

His eyes snapped open, red and bloodshot, and he heaved for air, something he immediately regretted as pain spiked through his body.

"I’m alive!" he couldn’t help but gasp aloud, the world suddenly feeling surreal after the time he’d spent in his mind palace.

But before he could even assess his situation or surroundings, his body froze.

His body froze and shook, and suddenly, a violent cough tore out of his maw, ripping through his throat and summoning cold sweat to soak his back as he shivered.

As Uriel had found out, the more physically injured he was, the worse his disease would get. Not only would its symptoms worsen, but his injuries would cause him to violently cough.

But it had been a long time since he’d been this injured.

No, in fact, he’d never been this injured. When his grandmother had cut him open in the past, he’d never coughed, as her skills somehow suppressed any symptoms.

It was the first time he was this injured.

"Argh—!"

He coughed and coughed, his vision blurring and his body shivering, sweat soaking him and mingling with the dried blood caking his body.

But then, his coughs rapidly turned to vomiting, blood pouring out of him in waves, through his mouth at first, but then through his nose, ears, and eyes.

From his pores, blood pooled out, weakness consuming him whole, his breath too short for him to gather himself.

The pain was intense.

And then—

[You have assimilated your Sin!]

It couldn’t be put into words.

In nothing but a breath, all his muscles relaxed, his eyes becoming vacant, and his heart stopping entirely. His core, usually bright and lustrous, became dull.

He stopped breathing.

And then—

"Hahahahaha!"

He started laughing.

But as he laughed, he cried. His hands moved on their own, gripping his flesh and skin as if trying to tear them off himself.

"Uriel!"

His coughing and vomiting returned, but he didn’t seem to notice, rolling on the floor, cycling from booming laughter to roaring declarations to low whimpers.

"Uriel!"

And then he stopped entirely.

"Uriel!"

And then he started again.

"Uriel!"

Rage, joy, madness, clarity, hate, love, sorrow, and an infinite spectrum of emotion rammed into his mind—so powerful his mind shattered on impact, and spiritually, he died.

He died instantly.

Uriel wasn’t simply receiving the emotions of his past selves, and that was because he wasn’t just anyone. He was Uriel, someone with a spark specifically attuned to the spiritual and to emotion.

He was receiving the emotions of behemoths, innumerable amounts of them.

"Uriel!"

He had no chance.

He didn’t even have a chance to fight, to react, to think, to despair, to hope. It was instantaneous and absolute.

His mind collapsed, each shard falling into an inescapable storm of madness, one so deep it consumed every single inch of his identity.

And as it happened, his body broke and collapsed from the inside out; from his bones, to his flesh, to his organs.

His laughter echoed loudly, his cries shook the ground, and his indecipherable murmurs eerily reverberated across the cave.

He was weak, yet strong enough to tear mounds of flesh off himself, to pierce through his shell, tear his skin away, and rip his bones from within.

The line between pain and pleasure blurred, just as the line between sanity and madness did.

Uriel was no more.

"Hahahahaha!"

...

"URIEL!"

No one answered.

"URIEL!"

Memories.

"URIEL!"

Every time the voice called out, endlessly echoing, a storm of memories erupted, seemingly hitting no one and nothing.

"URIEL! WAKE UP!"

The storm continued, emerging with every call of the voice.

The voice called out again and again, the storm obediently following, yet nothing happened.

Nothing, and nothing, and nothing, and nothing—

"CIEL!"

Uriel shook, and his laughter ceased, his body frozen in place.

Something seemed to click within him, and finally, the storm of memories, his own memories, proved powerful enough to momentarily overwhelm his broken mind.

It consumed him whole.

That brief moment of respite was all Ophanis, the one who’d been calling out, needed to spring to action. From the tattoo on his back, her influence surged, and she harmonised with his body.

She dug deep, then forcefully sparked his core into action, sucking in a massive amount of aether before activating Uriel’s uniqueness.

The world slowed to an absolute crawl—

Then froze entirely.