Xyanor started at the abyss surrounding him, feeling the subtle coolness and weightlessness of the moment. He stretched all his fingers, surveying his condition. There were a few minor problems he had to face, like not being able to inhale oxygen for starters.
'Huh.. not bad'
He looked around to catch a glimpse of his wife and son, but no one was in sight. 'Interesting. ' He knew that this was not the reality but rather a weave of illusion. He gripped his warhammer and tried to swing it, but it just clumsily moved forward.
Xyanor smiled. That hell of a creature. Xyanor and his family were being tracked by a 'little cult', as Xyanor would say. Their planet was divided between four supremes: Volcrona, Atasia, Dyorkan, and Rezanca. After their planet was split between the four supremes, their merry rule continued a while.
The perfect little utopia didn't last long. The rulers of Dyorkan and Rezanca started on a quest to conquer the Volcronian and Atasian Empires. Xyanor was a man for Volcrona, and having dethroned the tyrants, was now escaping from their old supporters. One thing which Xyanor failed to grasp was which ruler managed to spare such a dangerous creature that could control the abyss itself.
Xyanor wearily gripped his warhammer and started to think. He had no gravity to work with, which presented a massive problem. All his forms of battle were trained in the presence of it. Should he use a gyroscope-like mechanism, but none hit the mark.
'Who knew gravity was so important?'
Though he knew their homo species didn't continue because of expertise…..
He held his hammer tight and felt his wings open up.
…. It was because they could adapt.
Xyanor smashed his hammer into metallic scales, which caused the void to flicker.
'You are just a stupid beast, aren't you?'
Having the ability to barter made one smart but not wise, and the creature was no exception. The creature has a beautiful snowy face with bright red eyes, and matching its majestic horns with a grizzly white mane, giving it an appearance of a dragon, which thoroughly complements its gorgeous, long scaly body with its two massive wings.
It had encased Xyanor in a cocoon-like structure where it had fabricated the void. He saw his wife and young son holding onto the 20-foot-tall horns, which were the creature's blind spot.
This beast was not one he could easily kill. He tapped his hammer on the beast's scales in a form of Morse code. His wife clearly understood it. Run. She let out her wings and flew towards Pluto, the planet where they were heading before being intercepted by the creature.
They were still in space at some point between Neptune and Pluto. Yet Xyanor could breathe here. He had to distract the beast from Pluto else it would annihilate it. Xyanor smashed the scales of the beast with the newfound vision. He started frenzying through the cocoon, causing the beast to groan and coil harder. The void was flickering back and forth like a badly tuned radio.
'Radio? What is that?'
Xyanor had a vague memory of his great-grandfather showing him an old, battered electronic device which looked as if it was long before it was even recognisable. "See this, dear? It was an old form of Ri. Both could only play music, though Ri was much better."
Xyanor had also used a recreation of the radio to communicate, as all Ri were being tracked. The best roared, bringing Xyanor back to reality. He had had enough of this. His hammer and hand started to get encrusted into bone, giving it a horrifying yet beautiful design. The hammer now boasted an intricate pattern of a god on the ivory of the bone. The god of death. With all his might, he struck the beast. He heard a satisfying noise of bones cracking as the beast screeched.
He started attacking again, but this time the beast knew better. He released Xyanor from his cocoon and decided to fight him face to face. It roared through space. The realisation hit Xyanor that the beast can fabricate matter. His face paled.. It can destroy it, too. They were not fighting in the void of space but in a domain the creature had created to suit itself. It needed oxygen to breathe, Xyanor needed it too. It wanted its voice so it could make an illusion, so they were able to speak. The creature, Aftabet as it was called, was immensely powerful. It made sense why it was the perfect assassin, even though with his size, he looked as if he could eat small asteroids for breakfast.
But the Aftabet packed one thing that Xyanor had. Sapienity. Xyanor's mind started to feel light as if he had taken some beer from Tarista back home. At home, he felt sad that he couldn't return. "Fine, you bastard, you win," he said to no one in particular. The next second, he felt as if his right eye was tearing apart. Soon, the pain ended, and they were replaced with another where the whites of their eyes were black and the blacks were white. "So," an ancient commanding voice said through Xyanor's mouth, "You have chosen death at last." The Aftabet's eyes dilated as it saw the transformation, but it had no choice now.
He had to fight as per their code. An event marked must be fought with till one loses.
And so the King of Death and the almighty Aftabet clashed.
Far away, the Volcronian princess and the wife of Xyanor had reached the planet Pluto, which was inhabited by medical geniuses known as Furtonics. They were the reason diseases no longer existing. Warriors from all around came to three planet to heal seemingly incurable wounds and many retired people who had managed to make a lot of enemies also stayed there.
Such a wonderful planet that provides us with our necessities, who wants to destroy it? It was an unspoken law that no one will attack Pluto. But if some insane lunatic even decided to lay even an hand on the furtonics they would die in their sleep and it seemed as if the gods themselves took upon the challenge to slay anyone who stood in the path of the planet.
The queen landed on the planet with a soft thud, but her belly hurt as it bore a child.
"Scefen," she mumbled, and kept repeating it.
The Aftabet's poison was jangling her nerves. She was clinging to her elder son for comfort.
"Stay strong, mother, we are just there," he said.
They ventured upon the terrain to find the village where the man lived. Soon they came upon after walking miles. It was less a village, more a giant hospital. The stench of blood, rot, and medicines attacked their nose. This was a comparatively less developed village. The queen vomited at the smell of her face was now as white as paper, her eyes were red, giving a horrifying ghostly appearance. The worst of all was that her veins were appearing out of her body as if they were rolled around her. The veins sporting an acidic green colour gave the chills to watch.
The Aftabet's poison. He couldn't help to wonder how his dad managed to survive through this. They moved through the village to find Scefen. Soon, a woman approached them. She was a Furtonic, her son could make it out by her fox-like but completely trustworthy features. Ears having a pointed tip, and her agile figure. Her nimble fingers caressed one of the veins showing from the queen's neck. "Aftabet's poison," She said, "Please dear, you must understand what happens next, don't judge me too quickly." It all seemed to be a bit cryptic. His mother realised it too. And the hands of the medic pierced the mother, his mother cut off the medic's neck too. Both fell to the ground as the son watched abashed, the lava-like carnasian blood mixing with the silver blood of Furtonic's