The Sundering
Out in the depths of the newly formed abyss the mass of severed flesh continued to spew cloud after cloud of thick, viscous darkness. Streams of tar-like shadow slowly flowed out from the monstrosity in every direction, painting over the inert, flat grey stone with its cold, barren emptiness. Propelled by the streams jetting continuously from its flayed body, the mass of ruinous, semi-sentient flesh traveled in jerky, frenetic movements without direction or guidance. Only when it realized that it was not being followed did the mass of flesh finally stop its hasty retreat into the abyss.
Now that its fear began to fade, the pain flooded back in. Wave after wave of consuming anguish coursed through the flesh’s every fiber. Every inch of each severed tube screamed in profusion of singing nerves producing a cacophony of torment. The agony was so intense and unending that it threatened to fracture whatever meager budding intelligence that festered inside. Mouths opened along the numerous scarlet hued sacs that constituted the core of its body, each releasing a guttural shriek or warbling cry as the mass of flesh convulsed and spasmed from the onslaught of pain.
Desperate to no longer be wracked by these crippling waves of ceaseless agony, the mass of offal tried to manipulate the substance flowing from its body. Concentrating on the image, it molded the darkness into hubs of flesh which sealed each severed tube. Giddy relief flooded into the flesh’s core, its mind swept up in the simple euphoria of being hale and whole. Then it spied its own flailing intestinal limbs, mouths reopened, now screaming out in pure horror.
Deep down, the flesh had always known it to be a repugnant thing, but seeing its own twisted form was more than it could countenance. Its limbs were tubes of intestinal tracts connected to a mass of indigo hued organs, wine colored blood vessels intersected the mass, pumping more of that viscous black fluid through each organ. Appalled by its hideous form, the flesh focused on creating a new body for itself.
An amorphous stream of darkness flowed sluggishly, first forming into layers of scarlet hued muscular tissue. Wine colored tubes wriggled upwards to pump sustaining vitality in the new tissue. A layer of pale hued flesh coagulated over the exposed muscular layer, covering the sensitive flesh. Its organs now shielded with layers of insulating muscle and covered in flesh, the darkness reached out yet again, but this time to form limbs of its own.
Twisting tendrils of darkness solidified into a pair of athletic legs, followed by another two tendrils which congealed into a pair of lithe, pale arms. Finally, a swirling pool of darkness consolidated at the top of the torso, forming into an oval shaped, youthful face. Short black hair sprouted from the top of the pale crown. Darkness deeper than the abyss pooled into the bottomless depths that opened upon the youth’s visage.
No longer bleeding and being subjected to endless torment, the Youth simply sat in the abyss for an indeterminable period. Although its body was now completely repaired streams of viscous darkness still seeped from its pores, leaking outwards and flowing along the diffuse trails of cosmic wind. Flowing outwards, the viscous streams of abyssal material expanded the regions of the cosmos slowly but steadily, ever expanding the open emptiness barren of anything but the dark.
Growing tired from its own ennui, the youth began to explore the cosmos, dark, leathery wings formed from the surrounding abyss, propelling the youth through the abyss. It found nothing but more endless dark, and soon grew bored traveling via flight. It tried tapping into the dark to shift from one region to the next, but this soon proved just as tiresome.
Thinking there must be a better way, the Youth closed its eyes on instinct. Vision shut off, its mind began to drift, stirred by its singular desire to view deep into the abyss. Swirling images of dark regions began to flood into the Youth’s sightless eyes, arranging themselves into an organized grid. A prideful grin stretched across the youth’s face as it watched the map of the cosmos arrange itself piece by piece. Moving outward from its starting position, the Youth’s mental vision continued to expand further as with each added region.
As it neared the place of its birth, the Youth spied something curiously new. Shining off in the far horizon, a faint golden glow flashed briefly before disappearing into the dark. Curious to see the source of this new phenomena, the Youth quickened the pace of expanding the mental map. The faint golden flashes increased in brightness and intensity, growing into faint luminous beams of golden light into blinding beams of white-hot radiance that seared into the youth's brain. Tears burst from both of its closed eyes and its flesh began to heat up from simply the mental contact.
Heat and light continued increasing exponentially, the flesh of the youth crispen and darkened, in some places it sloughed away from bones or dispersed into mists of blackened ash. Not even registering the slightest iota of pain, all thought of its creator blasted from its mind, the Youth stared upon the source of the Light. Floating in perfect sequence, stood a dazzling crystalline structure comprising over 900 different panes, each emitting a different hue of light ranging from blue, red and gold. Even as one of its eyes melted into a slurry of viscous jelly, the youth continued to stare, fueled by an incessant, unknown hatred for the thing.
Fearing that it might permanently blind itself, the Youth shut off its mental vision, clenching its teeth as the obstructed agony rushed into its mind. Layers of new epidermal flesh grew in moments, replacing the sloughed flesh of its face. Ruddy, dark jelly flowed into the empty socket, congealing into a new milky white orb. Teeth gritted as it fought through the last echoes of fading anguish, the Youth turned its thoughts inward, all bent towards the destruction of this newly found nemesis.
Driven by this intense loathing and fear, the Youth began to ponder on how to destroy the crystal. Facing it in person would be suicidal, the Youth would be destroyed before it could even approach the crystal. The only solution then was to create a horde of minions to attack the crystal in its stead and hope that sheer force of numbers could overwhelm the crystal’s defensive capabilities. If the crystal proved impossible to destroy then the youth would have to think of other alternatives, though it loathed to run and hide like some slinking vermin.
The youth’s first attempts were childishly simple in their design and execution. It simply molded the darkness into a similar facsimile of its own person. Though simple, the bipedal frames were easy to construct and soon the youth had a host of humanoid shadows with burning crimson eyes. As the youth created each shade its deft control over manipulating the darkness increased as well its comfortability molding the oily dark material. The later shades all had sculpted muscular features and chiseled visages while the earliest look like crude blotches drawn by a child.
Smiling at the thought, the youth began to experiment with creating more terrifying monstrosities than the simple dark shadows. Molding the darkness into a slinking mass of indigo hued tendrils, the youth created a shambling horror that grasped anything nearby to feed to its series of circular maws lying at the depths of their tangled tentacles. Inspired by its own detestable true form, the youth molded darkness into scarlet hued sacks of flesh supported by purple hued veins that drooped and swayed, moving by their own malign will.
Still not satisfied, the Youth carved whatever depraved imaginings that wandered into its twisted psyche. It created bloated torsos supported by a sprawling confusion of limbs. The torsos split open vertically to reveal rows of dagger-like teeth lining both sides. It shaped flesh into mounds of pink hued offal studded with an uncountable number of miscellaneously colored eyes, each brimming with tears of the most forlorn despair. Lastly, as if to mock the source of light, the youth fashioned a series of fragile appearing pods glinting with a faint prismatic hue. Tethered by silver threads, those seemingly weak pods might be the youth’s best weapon against the Crystal.
“Now for someone to lead this rabble,” the youth spoke in a cheerful tone though only pure malice shone in its depthless gaze.
Condensing the darkness, the youth molded the abyssal material into a grey hued mass of flesh. Tendrils of coiling darkness solidified into over a thousand grasping limbs. Hands moving swiftly, the youth grafted each tendril of grey-hued flesh into the central mound. A knife of pure shadow manifested by the will of the youth and it took the instrument and carved a giant maw into the center of the lump of offal. Fingers deftly working it molded the slimy, exposed flesh into countless rows of pearly white teeth. Alternating between flat molars and sharpened incisors the youth continued sculpting the new horror while whistling tunelessly to itself.
Once the last row of teeth were formed, the youth moved onto carving the sockets for its eyes. Scalping and digging the grey-hued flesh away, it soon had to perfectly equal depressions carved just above the endless maw. With a flick of the knife, the youth gashed its own wrist and held the bleeding limb above the empty sockets. After each depression was filled with murky, viscous blood the youth mended the wound on its wrist and then solidified the pools into amethyst hued orbs. Staring deep into the dead, waxen orbs the youth poured its will and power directly into the empty vessel.
The purple hued orbs flared into malicious sentience, tentacles writhed and flexed, eager to grasp and rend its foolish creator. Hand upraised, the youth stopped its flailing motions with just a simple exercise of pure will. Eyes still radiating spite, the newly created entity stared balefully at its creator, all too eager and willing to tear it apart and consume it.
“Well aren’t you keen, I might have gone a little overboard with your creation. Now what should I name you…how about H'chtelegoth, that which stalks the deep?”
The youth felt the tentative thoughts of its newly created entity flow into its mind. And what should I call you, oh great lord and master?
“While that’s nice, it seems a little pretentious for my taste. Let's just go with Azathoth from now on and save us both the wasted effort. I have a job for you my minion, and if you do it well you might even get to live afterwards.”
How magnanimous of you my lord.
Azathoth smirked “Aren’t I?” Then it projected the image of the crystal directly into H'chtelegoth mind, eliciting a shrieking, furious hiss. Writhing in pain, its tentacles snapped out in retaliation, creating a blinding flurry of whipping destruction. Some of these limbs sharpened into claws while others expanded into heavy mallets, all smashing about in a abandon as H'chtelegoth vented its wrath. Azathoth dodged nimbly through the chaos of writhing, smacking limbs, a malicious grin plastered on its face.
Most of the horde were not so fortunate. Over half of the night-gaunts were flattened into darkened, mushy paste. A quarter of the grotesques were dismembered into errant piles of bleeding, amputated limbs and mutilated torsos. The shambling eye-studded abholos disappeared in swirls of darkness similar to their creator while the Bathysae dodged with swift, deft movement, gliding through the darkness on their trailing intestinal limbs, though scores of them had also been flattened or dismembered into piles of steaming offal. All the orthocanna survived though, bringing no small relief to Azathoth, they shielded themselves in barriers of silvery light that deflected every strike from the raging new borne god.
“Is that a yes?” Azathoth teased, still beaming that malicious little grin.
My answer is redundant, I will obey because I have little choice. Though I doubt even I will be able to achieve what you wish with these paltry numbers.
“They weren’t paltry before you smashed the lot of them into mash, now I have to go and remake the entire batch, just because you decided to throw a little tantrum.”
I apologize, my lord. The beast’s sarcasm was obviously apparent, even without Azathoth being able to read its feeling via thought transference.
Azathoth tsked, waving its finger “Try and behave, I promise you can feast on whatever is destroyed by the Light but contain yourself till then.”
Turning its back to the beast, Azathoth waited for more darkness to seep from its being, shaping each nebulous cloud into clusters of grotesques, hordes of gaunts, packs of abholos, and strings of orthocanna. On and on, the God of darkness weaved and wove the flowing streams of midnight into horror after, shambling, floating, phasing or stomping the mass of monstrosities continued to swell. As the horde passed the point Azathoth could view them with its own eyes a tired but proud grin stretched across the youths face.
“I think that should just about do it. If they fail, worry not, I can always make more.” Azathoth promised, his tired grin stretching even wider. With a wave of its hand numerous portals of shimmering darkness opened across the horizon. Mind still blazing with fury at its creator, H'chtelegoth began to herd the packs of monsters into the various shimmering gateways, its mind consumed with thoughts of violence and vengeance. Its smile and eyes darkening into cruel slits, Azathoth waited gleefully, eager to watch the unfolding cataclysm.
***
Spinning slowly at the center of the cosmos; warm, golden light shining from each of the 999 panes that comprised its surface, floated the sundered core torn from the first primordial entity. A burgeoning intelligence nestled deep in the crystal grew stronger with each complete rotation. Sensation flowed into the crystal which spurred its first nascent thoughts. Cold, freezing cold and endless darkness farther than my rays can pierce. What is this place? Who am I? Why was I born? Who made me? Why didn’t they tell me what to do? What am I supposed to do now? Is there anyone else out there?
Desperate for answers, the intelligence in the crystal took control of each ray emitted from its panes. Brilliant golden rays swept across the inky darkness, scanning every inch of the abyss for any signs of life. For a while it found nothing at all, then its rays stopped in mid-sweep, as one ray across the first signs of life. A body drifted on by invisible winds, its flesh held a similar translucence as the crystal, but its midsection was gored open and its body stained with smudges of black ichor. The Light continued to observe the body for sometime, aware on a subconscious level that it was looking at the remains of its creator.
Any hope for answers was now gone, the Light thought. It was alone in this universe. Though if I am alone, who then made the darkness?
The Light’s thoughts were stolen away as the buffeting blasts of freezing abyssal winds careened against every exposed pain. Booming blasts of heat exploded out from the crystal as glowing goblets of superheated plasma poured from numerous panels. Rivulets of reddish-orange plasma began to congeal into an amorphous sphere, covering the entire crystal in a ball of writhing primordial plasma. Tongues of red and orange flames burst from the surface of this fiery sphere before quickly dispersing into nothingness. Encapsulated in the superheated sphere, the Crystal no longer suffered from the chill, cruel touches of the abyss.
After it finished creating the protective sphere, the Light began searching the abyss once again, its desperation increasing tenfold. Something must have created this foul expanse of endless darkness and whoever did so was no friend of the Light. That leeching cold stole away the vital heat which comprised the essence of the Light’s very being. If it had not shielded itself, those cold winds would have drained all heat from its core. Golden beams arced through the darkness in frenetic sweeping patterns, driven by the Light’s desperate urgency to find the source of that foul abyssal material.
The Light found not the slightest trace of the source, but it was not long before it spied the horde.
Its sweeping rays passed over countless forms surging forwards as fast as their twisted, hideous bodies would allow. Slithering monstrosities, slavering beasts, insectoid horrors, some a combination of two or more crawled, phased, jumped, swan, flew, and ran across the different astral streams. All these horrors shared two similar qualities, all had the same sleek black skin nearly the same color as the surrounding abyss and all held some configuration of blood-red eyes upon their horrid frames. Many of their forms warped and melded in mid flight, some beasts split into newly formed hordes of vermin while others melted into one another creating titanic monstrosities with a host of ungainly limbs protruding from nonsensical locations.
Vibrating with pulsing power, pools of superheated magma were concentrated into condensed azure beads. The beads popped, releasing rays of bright blue light of fire that scythed across the abyss in the space of a single moment. These beams of super-heated energy tore through the approaching monstrosities without resistance. Scales, carapace, fur, bone, and sinew all were burnt instantly, leaving only trailing motes of scattering ash.
The monsters tried to disperse into smaller pockets, hoping their separation would allow some of them to escape those devastating azure beams. Undeterred by the efforts, the Light effortlessly tracked their movements. Beams of bright blue energy arced across the dark sky, turning any approaching monstrosity instantly into ash. Drifting clouds of dark ash were swept away by the cosmic winds, only to meld back into the weft of the abyss.
Pulsing slower, its light now slightly dimmer, the Crystal felt its stores of internal energy lessened from the toll. Any relief was only fleeting, for the Light realized it had only defeated the minions, and not the master. As if to prove its fears true, another horde materialized instantly at the edge of the Lights visions. This horde of aberrations was massive, nearly double the size of the first horde. Worse yet, they had instantly appeared in its temporal vision, even though the Light continued to scan the abyss for traces of movement.
Once again it was yet another horde of those dark-skinned monstrosities, no two sharing a similar form but all rushing forward with a singular purpose. Their frames began to melt and warp from the intense heat emitted by the crystal. Instead of slowing down this only seemed to spur them to even greater speeds, careless of the damage caused to themselves in the process. Nearly a quarter were melted into piles of congealing dark muck that still burbled forwards futilely.
In an act of pure desperation, the Light released small spheres of its protective plasma at the oncoming horde. Rumbling blasts echoed out, causing the Crystal to tremble under the onslaught of released energy. Massive conflagrations of golden-orange flames exploded out from each of the spheres, burning countless monstrosities to ash with their blinding radiance. The crystal felt its own body being jolted and pummeled by the titanic forces released by the cataclysmic release of heat and energy.
Although many had been burnt by the fierce heat emanating from the crystal, more than half the other horde had been alive before the destructive release of plasma. The survivors stood little chance. Many joined their brethren and were burnt instantly to ashy motes which drifted back off into the abyss. Golden-orange waves of primordial fire washed over the remaining horrors, melting and congealing the rest into an amorphous mass of reeking, burnt flesh. Screams of agony and rage echoed faintly from the amalgamated sphere of ruinous offal. The light ended their suffering by vaporizing the remains with another destructive blast of plasma.
Slowly spinning in place, the Crystal began to recover its energies after destroying the first two hordes. The Crystal hadn’t realized while fighting the hordes but its light had dimmed in each panel during the battle, turning from a lustrous sheen of gold to only a mere bright yellow hue. Its heat had also been reduced and the combination produced a sluggishness of thought and will that worried the intelligence controlling it. If its foe's supply of this nebulous darkness was endless, and that seemed most likely, then the Crystal was doomed to lose eventually.
Fighting against the creeping despair, the Light hurried its revolutions and focused solely on recovering its energies.
If there was one reason for hope, it was that the Light could recover its energy eventually. Each complete rotation generated more heat and light and with that its thoughts became quicker and its senses sharper. With each rotation more panes shifted from the bright yellow sheen back to the lustrous golden hue it originally had. If given time, it would eventually recover all its lost energy and maybe even more. Just how long it would take to recover, the Light did not know but it doubted the Darkness would allow such an opportunity.
The Lights' fears were soon proven true as a third horde approached, this time appearing from all sides of the crystal. This horde held over a hundred times the numbers of the first two combined. Even worse, they appeared only after a few cycles and held not only the simple dark-skinned aberrations the Light was used to dispatching. Fighting against the revulsion and terror, the Light forced itself to scan the approaching mass of horrors.
Floating at the back of groups of shadowy figures were trailing masses of intestines wrapped around scarlet hued organs. Eyes and mouths opened along the fleshy sacks and spoke in deep guttural voices, shuffling the shambling horrors into battle formations. Scuttling between the groups were pink hued mounds of flesh riddled with countless eyes, each staring out with a profound sense of dread and terror. Most worryingly were the drifting bioluminescent pods attached by silver threads. As the golden waves passed over these creatures the pods opened and began to absorb the trailing rays of light in mere moments. A prismatic shiver coursed along these drifting aberrations, their silvery cords now sparkled with faint shifting colors.
Horrified to see its own essence being absorbed, the Light hurriedly devised a new method of attack. It began oscillating in place and released the building pressure into invisible waves of force. These invisible waves of power washed over the strange light-sucking creatures. Their bodies fractured apart instantly, releasing small explosions of golden light and heat as the stolen primordial energy was violently released. Destructive blasts of golden orange flames erupted amongst the ranks of the shambling horrors, destroying any of those unfortunate enough to be nearby.
Those that were not caught in the blasts fared little better. Many were either flattened into organic mush or had their innards shook so hard that their sustaining organs were forcibly ripped free from the tethering cords sustaining them. Still over half of this new horde remained intact and they surged past the ruined, melted bodies of their kin and through the wafting clouds of corpse ash with reckless abandon. The Light released more burning azure beams and destructive blasts of golden orange flames now that the light-absorbing aberrations had been destroyed.
Color fading in each panel, the Light continued to burn and blast apart the creeping horrors though its energy began to wane with each blast or beam. Some of the horrors released their own rays of energy, bilious green rays or vile dark bolts and the crystal’s shield of heat was slowly peeled away. A shimmering golden globe appeared, deflecting the pernicious rays, though this further increased the toll on the Crystal.
Waxen yellow light emanated from nearly half the panels and yet the horde continued their relentless advance. Despair wracked the sentience controlling the crystal. Its efforts seemed futile in the face of such endless horrors. The despair deepened when the Light realized it had not even found the source of these horrors. How could it win if its nemesis could produce countless creatures in little to no time at all?
Then the Light spied something that nearly stripped any remaining fragments of its defiant will away. Squatting at the back of the horde, tentacles coiled around its gargantuan body, sat a mound of grey-hued flesh almost half the size of the crystal itself. A cavernous maw opened and closed continuously as tentacles reached out to grasp the burnt, melted corpses killed by the Lights' efforts. Teeth gnashing constantly, gullet slurping noisily, the beast gluttonously feasted on the fallen. Dark purple eyes stared out balefully towards the Light but the beast made no move to approach within the destructive limits of the crystal.
If its nemesis could create something like this, were there any limits to its powers? Just what else could it be creating in the darkness? And just how was the Light supposed to defeat such an opponent? The answer came in a flash, as gloriously simple as it was horrifying. If I am to die, I might as well die with the knowledge that my nemesis followed in kind.
Oscillating once again but this time with greater frequency than before, the crystal began to accumulate its own internal energy. Prismatic shivers coursed along the crystal’s fracturing surface as more primordial energy of pure light and heat was gathered for one awesomely devastating blast. As if realizing its intentions, the remnants of the horde surged forward in one last panicked rush. Their bodies were flattened into organic mush or were fused into amalgamous mounds of melted flesh before they could get near enough to strike at the crystal. Blossoms of red-orange flames snapped violently to and fro, striking any remnants into ashy fragments of raining detritus.
Eyes now wide with dread, the great shambling horror also had realized just what the Light planned to do. Tentacled limbs whipping about in furious haste, the beast hurled itself away from the crystal, fleeing with all the speed it could muster. The Crystal vibrated faster and faster, pulses of bright light quickened as the gathering energy reached a destructive crescendo. Thunderous booms reverberated around the oscillating Crystal along with exploding conflagrations of seething crimson flames. Cracks appeared along all of its panes, widening and extending to create a spiderweb of imminent destruction.
Finally the Crystal could no longer contain the accumulated light and energy. Panes fracturing and warping from the intense heat, the crystal shattered apart into millions of tumbling shards. Propelled by an expanding ring of kaleidoscopic flames, the shards that weren’t burnt to drifting motes of prismatic ash were rocketed across the cosmos. Golden-orange waves of flames washed out in every direction, consuming not only the remnants of the horde but the swirling patches of deep, freezing darkness as well. The Light’s final thought that its work had been well done, satisfied that nothing could survive such complete devastation, its mind drifted into the encroaching dark.
***
Hissing in pure rage and fear, H'chtelegoth fled deeper into the abyss, limbs flailing to propel itself faster though it realized there was no escaping those waves of crimson-gold flames. Even if those waves didn’t flow across the entire cosmos, there was no way it could outpace their lightning speed. Skin already melting from the encroaching heat, H'chtelegoth knew it was only a matter of moments before it too was consumed by those relentless golden flames. The irony that its fate was to be consumed when it encapsulated the very idea of hunger only fueled its ire. Flames licked across its grey hued flesh, hungrily consuming every inch with their crimson-gold tongues.
Skin sloughed away in scabrous piles, tentacles burnt to wisps of ash, fire burning into the depths of its psyche, H'chtelegoth refused to perish. It poured all its sentience into the smallest part of unburnt flesh. One of the few remaining tentacles, flesh already charred a deep hue of grimy black, transformed into a sharpened spike and carved away the mound of flesh. Limb moving by the final commands imparted to it, the tentacle reformed into smooth paddle and heaved the mound deep into the abyss before it too was consumed by the rolling waves of primordial fire.
A singular eye full of fathomless spite opened at the center of the grey-hued goblet of flesh, thinking of the time it would gain vengeance on both the Light and its creator. Sustaining itself on thoughts of vengeance, H'chtelegoth soared into the depths of the abyss. Past Azathoth’s notice, but then again the God was pre-occupied at the time.
***
Out in the depths of the abyss, the youth writhed in indescribable agony. It could feel the crimson-golden light sear into the weft of the cosmos, melting the surrounding space as if it were the entity’s own skin. Intense burning agony seared every fiber and nerve of its newly forged being as it experienced every mote of suffering the cataclysmic blast of light unleashed upon the abyssal weft of the cosmos. Writhing so violently its limbs began to pop and crack out of shape, Azathoth spasmed uncontrollably as regions of darkness evaporated into nothingness.
Space collapsed on itself, open emptiness folding inwards with a sickening crunching noise akin to bones being ground into powder. Vacuous openness collapsed, leaving behind regions of barren grey, 2-dimensional space. Azathoth did not care, its body still writhing from the unending torment, it focused all its thoughts on detaching its psyche from the surrounding abyssal weft. A sense of loss and emptiness swelled up, drowning out the blazing agony searing through Azathoth's harried nerves. It would never again be able to freely manipulate the surrounding darkness to do its bidding, it could only rely on the amounts produced by its own body.
Pinions of flashing light sparkled across the cosmos, causing Azathoth to squint from the furious glare. A harsh laugh barked out from the youth as it surveyed its efforts to destroy the crystal. Scattered across the blanketing darkness were now countless luminous shards, each bleeding that repugnant strain of prismatic light. Spinning in the center of the sundered space, the fractured core still rotated though no longer smoothly, its rotations were erratic and stuttered.
Not only had it failed to destroy the crystal, it had helped spread that damnable light and been forced to lose most of its power in the process, or it might not have even survived the sundering. It was harder to imagine a greater failure possible, retreating into the depths of the abyss, Azathoth promised it would never interact again with that damnable crystal.