Chapter 2: Restoration
"Vos des!"
Mike's voice cracked through the heavy air, ragged and desperate, each breath a labored wheeze. "I know… this must be why the cult sent us." Blood pooled beneath him where his leg had been severed, dark and viscous against the churned earth. "We have to kill him before he grows any stronger."
"Vos," Kakarai intoned flatly, his finger jabbing toward the empty space where Mike's limb had once been.
Mike's gaze followed—and the world tilted.
"My leg… it's gone?"
For a heartbeat, pure terror carved itself across his face, eyes wide, mouth slack with disbelief. Then the expression shattered, twisting into something broken and unhinged. Laughter spilled out—high, frantic, teetering on the edge of madness.
"Ahahahaha—Kakarai! Please…" He clawed at the dirt, dragging himself closer. "Give me your blood! Heal me!"
But Kakarai stood motionless, head tilted at an unnatural angle, eyes gleaming with something far darker than loyalty.
"Why are you hesitating?" Mike rasped, voice thinning as blood loss dragged him toward the edge.
"Hi."
Kakarai's lips peeled back into a smile that belonged to no human thing—a demon freshly clawed from the abyss, all teeth and hunger.
With deliberate slowness, he shrugged off his blood-red robe. Beneath, his torso was a map of ritual scars, but the centerpiece was the festering inscription carved deep across his chest—letters that writhed like living worms, pulsing with sickly crimson light. The wound breathed. It hungered.
"Haha… so that's how it is," Mike whispered, tilting his head back to stare at the bruised, indifferent sky. Acceptance settled over him like a shroud. "The way of the cult. Let the world drown in blood. Vos… do it. Consume me."
Step.
Step.
Kakarai advanced, bare feet silent against the gore-soaked ground.
Stab.
His arm punched forward—clean, merciless—driving straight through Mike's chest. Bone cracked. Heart ruptured. Kakarai lifted the corpse effortlessly with one hand, then slung it over his shoulder like a butcher hauling fresh slaughter.
Blood poured in thick rivulets down his extended arm. But it did not drip. It moved.
It crawled.
It slithered.
It sought.
Drawn by invisible threads, the crimson streams coiled toward the rotting inscription on Kakarai's chest, sinking into the pulsing letters as though the wound itself drank greedily.
"Vos!" Kakarai shrieked, voice rising into ecstatic delirium as Mike's body began to sink into his flesh. Skin split and reknit. Bone ground against bone. In moments, Kakarai's right arm bloated and twisted into something grotesque—demonic, veined with black, ending in claws that gleamed wetly. Mike's head protruded from the shoulder like a tumor, eyes now burning with sickly emerald flame, mouth frozen in a silent scream.
From his storage ring, Kakarai drew forth a massive, leather-bound tome. The cover read, in letters that seemed to bleed: Worship the Blood River.
He opened it with reverent care, tracing the ancient script with a blood-slick finger.
"Vos! Vos vos vo… Vos des."
He nodded slowly, as though the book whispered secrets only he could hear.
"Vos ehh."
Meanwhile, Dax was far from idle.
"You almost had me," he said quietly, rising from the crater where Kakarai's blow had hurled him. Shattered rock crumbled into fine dust beneath his feet, drifting away on the thickening wind.
Boom.
With effortless grace, telekinesis lifted him into the air. He hovered above the cultists, blood still trickling from the corner of his mouth, yet his eyes burned with cold amusement.
"Oh? They're preparing something."
He watched the final stages of the horrific ritual with detached curiosity, head tilted slightly.
Interesting.
Almost casually, he reached down and plucked Mike's severed leg from the ground. He examined it for a moment—then brought it to his lips and tore off a slow, deliberate bite. Chewed. Swallowed.
The act was not rushed. It was not savage. It was the calm consumption of a man sampling dried jerky on a leisurely afternoon.
"Father!"
The scream tore downward from the heavens themselves—raw, anguished, laced with divine fury.
The ground shuddered violently.
The air itself seemed to recoil.
And then the rain began.
Pat.
Pat.
Pat.
Droplets struck Dax's upturned palm. He stared at them, brow furrowing faintly.
"It's raining…"
The liquid was warm. Thick. Metallic.
"Crimson," he murmured. "Blood."
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
A cascade of ethereal chimes rang inside his skull.
Congratulations, Master. You have broken 105 chains.
Restoring physical body to the Trait Master realm.
Power flooded back into him like a dam finally bursting—warm, familiar, intoxicating.
"Ahhhhh…"
Dax exhaled, long and low, his entire body vibrating with deep, bone-level satisfaction. Veins lit faintly beneath his skin as ancient strength reawakened.
He turned his gaze downward, savoring the horror etched across Kakarai's twisted face.
"Fucking bug."
With serene composure, Dax crossed his legs midair, settling into a perfect lotus position. Behind him, reality tore open—a perfect black hole yawning wide, edged in absolute darkness. Above his head, two radiant halos materialized and stacked, glowing with soft, deceptive gentleness.
At first, the pull was subtle.
Then it became ravenous.
Every drop of blood-rain falling from the sky curved toward him—streams defying gravity, spiraling into the void. The black hole drank greedily, and with every swallowed droplet, Dax's presence grew heavier, more oppressive.
Vo!
Vosss!
Kakarai staggered, legs trembling beneath the crushing pressure radiating from Dax's body. His knees buckled involuntarily, demonic arm scraping the dirt.
"What are you doing?"
Vabon's voice erupted from the earth as he burst partially upward, face pale with dread. "We need to report back. We've failed. Kakarai—move!"
Without another word, Vabon sank back into the ground, fleeing like a bolt of shadow—desperate, dishonorable, alive.
"Damn… that boy is a monster," he muttered as he tunneled deeper, body shaking uncontrollably. "Why did he let his companions die if he had this kind of strength? The cult miscalculated. I will not die here."
"Halt."
Dax's voice drifted down—quiet, eyes still closed, yet carrying the absolute weight of divine command.