Arising from the ink, Kade clawed the liquid, powering through the overwhelming darkness that consumed him. With one palm clenched on the altar's boundary, with the grip now established, he pulled himself up with all of his strength.
The ink latching onto his battered body, as if refusing to let go, but Kade pushed through the feeling. Reaching his upper body out of the depths of darkness to back inside the shrine. The commander was eyes closed, still praying as if to finally finish the sacrifice.
Yet the condition for such a sacrifice was for the victim to have perished, and Kade, despite functionally having one damaged lung, was still alive, just mortally wounded. So he kept praying to war, waiting for the surely inevitable death of the heretic.
Straining his muscles, Kade gave a final push, the bottom of his body exiting the ink, the final pieces of the inky darkness falling by the wayside and back to its origin. Emerging onto the scene, Kade stepped out of the altar and slowly towards the commander.
Standing just in front of the awakened lost in prayer, Kade thought about his next action. He would get the advantage of attacking freely, but could he truly take the life of the commander in just a single swing of his fists?
He couldn't, so there was only one way he could kill the commander without any opportunity for him to fight back.
Kade reached for the bloody dagger twisted into his chest and drew it like Excalibur, the pain roaring in response, and the blood poured out like a fountain. Kade immediately felt his strength drain from him.
But with the dagger in his grasp, he could do it; bleeding to death would be far slower.
Bringing the dagger ready, Kade clenched it with all of his strength and readied the finishing blow.
"Wakey wakey," Kade growled, pushing the dagger with all he could muster.
The killing intent pierced the air and impaled the commander's neck.
The commander opened his eyes in shock as Kade thrust the dagger deeper and deeper into the man's throat. The commander quickly attempted to strangle Kade while he choked on the steel, but Kade ignored his futile efforts.
The commander attempting to spit out his final words only managed to cough blood, painting Kade's face. Red blurred vision. Kade saw the same death he had watched with his father. All those years ago.
The memory sharpened his blade, wrenching the blade one last time.
Then let go.
Warren's body slumped forward, collapsing at Kade's feet, his warm lifeblood cascading onto the cool floor of the shrine.
And in the silence, the spell softly whispered his success.
[You have slain an awakened human, Warren of the war legion.]
[You have received a memory...]
"Good riddance," Kade spat. Now free from the threat of the commander, he glanced a final time at his surroundings, realising that the broken artefacts and furniture started to glow a light blue as the lighter objects started floating a few feet above the air.
The Devil had come back to its shrine, and with that, signaled its victory over the zealots, Kade being the only invader left. Sniffing out his soul to its lair.
"Well, I guess this is it. There is only one more thing to do."
Picking the commander's corpse into his arms, he glanced at the ink; it still had refused to calm down back into its solid state, the animous liquid tendrils reaching out from the altar, and to Kade and the commander, desperately reaching out for their blood.
He stood above the altar, the black limbs of the ink reaching towards him, and dropped the corpse.
The Ink reacted with immense joy as the commander sank into its pitch-black body, quickly consuming the meal, as the awakened warrior vanished from eyesight, gone into the nothingness of its hold.
Immediately a surge of power flooded Kade's dying body, the strange euphoria steadying his heart.
And burst.
He gasped.
His surroundings shifted.
Kade's mind was pulled from the shrine and into somewhere else, an eternal void of nothing, with the only stipulation being a distant presence that shook Kade to his very core.
In the nothingness, the sleeping presence stirred.
An entity too cursed for his mortal eyes.
For his sacrifice, Kade didn't hesitate for his reward.
"Get me out of this hellscape," he said. "Send me back to my world."
His voice sounded out into the emptiness.
The presence shifted — not in hearing his command, but in the will and request of his soul.
And in its dreams
It acknowledged.
[You have sacrificed an apostle of war to the unknown]
[Wake up, Kade Your nightmare is over.]
[Prepare for appraisal…]