25

  Halluburg seemed to be no different than any other ordinate night in the dream realm. The city was silent as always with Diborn catching up with each other at bars and various places around the main town. The night was a pale one. Spirit wolves howled at the edge of the dream realm, echoing for miles across the forever scattered bridge leading to Halluburg. The fog around the city was dense, and eerie, but whispered to the audience of Diborn like a feral reaver.

  “So the Blade of Elysium,” Omar stated.

  He pointed at a small hand-drawn map on a secluded metal table. A small lamp kept the empty meeting room from being seen from afar. His shoulders weighed down on the table, as the pressure of the situation rose to an all-time high. At the corner of Halluburg, right beside his dream portal, this closed-off cabin became a known vantage point to keep away from those aligned with the Specters.

  Omar drew his finger on the map. “You say it is here on the islands of Gaia?”

  The dark elf Shay nodded. His gray fingers rubbed the table, moving to the side of Omar, he unveiled his silver long hair down his black robes. Worry crept on his face, aging him from stress. “Yes.” He paused himself. His eyes shut and opened within a millisecond. “But, the blade is not meant for Diborn.”

  “I know that, and I do not care,” Omar grumbled. “If I can hold it for a second my mother can sense the energy in that moment to ward the realm.” Despair was lost on his face. Not a soul could detect any worry across his expression, for Omar was prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. His body didn’t tense, he became at ease with himself.

  Shay walked to one of the walls stunned by his friend's appeal. He wiped his face with his hand, hoping this would all scramble what he heard. Yet, the reaction to his statement painted across Omar’s accepting grin.

  “What of everything we worked for? Your family? Luna? Magnus? Me? Those who look up to you!?” Shay barked out.

  Omar played with the map, moving some of the figurines that acted as people on it. “They will be fine without me. I am just a man. Men can be replaced.” He sighed. Omar couldn’t lift his glance at Shay, without feeling guilty. “It’s best this way. We said we would kill every Diborn right?”

  “Hmph. And you think suicide by destroying yourself with a sacred relic is the way to go.” Shay churned shaking his head. Shay’s jaw clenched from the frustration he managed to hold inside of him. He tightened his grip around the table, breaking off a corner of the wood. “You are chancing a life's work on a mere possibility.”

  Shay rushed towards the side of Omar, who immediate crossed his arms defensive. “You mean to tell me. Everyone in your life and mine who has died holds no value to this journey we agreed to take on. After – “ Shay’s voice climbed to new heights on a horizon he never could have saw. His mind boggled from even the thought of Omar’s intent. Shay could only laugh at his friend. “You mean to say after all we have been through. You get beat up, you just what?”

  Omar couldn’t find his voice. He turned to his left side at the table, but Shay snapped his fingers in his face to gauge his attention. “You want to just sacrifice yourself? To what? Hold them back for some months?” Shay dismissed himself in disgust. “Then what?”

  The tension between both men boiled hotter than the smelting iron of a blacksmith. The conversation became a earful from Shay instead of a conversation between men. The silence was unbearable as Omar couldn’t muster any explanation behind his intent. Shay couldn’t take it anymore, slamming his fist onto the table.

  “By the gods, speak!” Shay demanded. Omar’s attention pulsed, buffing his chest out and closing the distance between them both.

  “Watch yourself, Shay,” Omar warned. His glare sharpened the same as his knife. “I will not be called a fool for taking a path to benefit us all.” The words spewed from Omar’s mouth like a relentless wave of anger that was released from its cage.

  “Why must we struggle, when people ahead of me, can simply find another way? I am a Diborn. A monster. At least let me leave with dignity if setting the wards of the Pale casts out the monsters within it, that is good enough for me. So what if I am to die? The people I leave in my wake will be better off without me. Here I can finally rest knowing I do good. We suffer day in and day out, struggling for what?” Omar snapped, his hands flailing into the air, erupting the shrieking cabin into a pause.

  “All I ask is for one win.” He finished.

  Shay’s posture relaxed, rubbing the delicate table. “One win, huh?” Shay reiterated. “Fine.”

  Shay walked out of the cabin without hesitation. “Shay!” Omar commanded his friend to come back. In a matter of seconds, Omar followed behind. They kept their distance from each other, being out of sight nearly from one another.

  “Which is why our Night Empress Sheiva has commanded we Diborn fight!” A Diborn in catholic robes continued to preach to a couple of passing men and women who gave him their ears, preaching about the Specters Goddess.

  “These sermons are everywhere now…” Omar muttered, slowly walking past a dozen Diborn who listened to the preacher. His words carried far and wide, as many listening ears came from the bar.

  “Sheiva, our Diborn Goddess. Said to have been cast out to the world of man from the heavens, tells us, we should not fear man or any being the gods created. For we are living and breathing deities ready to be hatched from our shells. When we come together shall we create the new world and our glorious vision of our goddess.”

  The audience who listened cheered on the preacher, who bowed to them. Others from the bar clapped along, raising their drinks in the air. “Join our movement. Join the Specters!” The preacher offered.

  Shay brushed passed the crowd, silently and without making a scene like the skilled assassin he was. He walked in the shadows undetected by the Diborn who ran to the preacher. The preacher shook the hands of the eager men and women accepting that monster inside of them to finally be awakened. That thrust and hunger for power.

  “The life of Diborn is only survival. When the world casts them out by magical wards, how else may they survive.” Shay muttered his whispers to the point Omar could hear them, even from the distance between them. “You think you have it hard, look at some of these Diborn who have nothing and ask yourself, how you struggle. None of these men or women have a loving family, a lover, or friends. They only have each other, and sad as it may be Halluburg may be the only place they can connect, even if it is through shared despair.”

  Omar’s mind shattered like glass to Shay’s point, he slowly carried himself behind Shay’s footsteps. The Diborn swayed and moved passed Omar in lightning speed. Over sixteen of them were in a collective group by the preacher. The preacher's grin turned malevolent and full of devilish intentions. He welcomed those lost monsters to a place of meaning.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  “The Specters. Maybe eighty percent of the order is full of men and women like that. People without homes. Dragni and the blade warp those destroyed from within to their purpose. As dark as that may seem, I don’t believe a world without purpose is life.”

  Shay stopped in the middle of the street, underneath the bar. The shadows consumed him to the point he was invisible. Omar stared into the darkness, listening to the voice from within it.

  Shay’s voice commanded the sliver winds around Omar, as he whispered aloud. “You say you're doing this to save people, but you don’t even know who you're saving, or even who you’re destroying. You want purpose, survive the day for yourself. This path you walk isn’t living. It’s just existing.”

  Omar couldn’t fathom the truth. He grudged and clenched his jaw in disgust with himself. “I find it pathetic to watch you go down this path because it isn’t like you don’t know where you’re going. But pretending you don’t care about who you hurt by your selfishness, makes me view you in another light now.”

  Omar hesitated before he answered. “Shay,” he whispered embarrassed by his foolishness. He was already gone. Shay disappeared into the shadows. Omar dropped his head, glaring at the ground below him. “I just exist.” He shut his eyes realizing his absurd path. “Fuck.”

  …

  “Halluburg’s endless nights warranted silence amongst the later parts of them. Diborn is to answer for the mistakes that brought them here. Aether the Void god, sees it so. It was justice in the eyes of the gods to command the Diborn to suffer for an eternity. It is that endless suffering that brought us here today.”

  The preacher brought forth a crowd of over fifty now. A light shined around him, where he could not be touched. The audience of Diborn cheered, as behind him lied a large sheet. The preacher searched the void skies, before he continued his speech.

  “Today friends. That changes. I bring to you, the leader of the Diborn.” The crowd dropped its small chatter amongst itself. The preacher gestured a hilarious smile, while goosebumps grew all around his arms.

  “Lord Dragni, creator of the Specters.” The crowd awed in shock, as the Demon God stepped forth before them.

  The slender tall frame of the overbearing monster he truly was suffocated all the air from their lungs. Dragni held his hand into the sky with a brief smile that faded behind an angered but determined grin.

  The main staple of Halluburg gathered closer, whether to be afraid of the demon or respect him as an equal. Men and women gathered cracked bottles and dedicated every inch of a movement to ensure it was not their last. They circled the stand the preacher preached upon, as Dragni reached higher into the sky.

  “Do you know what makes a monster?” Dragni asked the group of people. He pulled a small lotus flower from the sky, staring at the beauty of the white and purple flower. The crowd silenced. “A monster is something man creates. A monster is a being created through suffering and hatred. Every one of us has monsters inside of us. That doesn’t mean we are all evil. The humans who condemn us monsters have monsters inside of them. But in life, man needs to depict something as a greater evil, so they chose the Diborn to be their monster.”

  The crowd listened, dropping their guards and clinging to every word. They heard him. The monster inside of them heard Dragni. He called for their attention and they listened. Guilt clouded their consciousness for every one of them had been called a “monster.” Each one of their guts spread a disease of guilt punching them several times with each of his sliver words spreading that very disease.

  Dragni softened his tone with a sigh. “Diborn are called monsters because they possess a great power humans wish they could bere.” Dragni began to point out certain Diborn. From regular humans gifted the curse, to Sakarians, lizardmen casted from their tribes with the curse, orcs, elves, the whole lot of them were called out.

  “So you what…? Gather around like weak little lambs. Sit around the fires of a hell created here to torment you further? Is that how destructive these humans and their gods tormented you?”

  Doubt cast shadows around the crowd. The preacher was even astonished by the question, for each man and woman who stood around the circle yearned. They forced themselves to ask the same question of why they were here. None of them held a solution as the silenced dug a little deeper.

  Dragni hopped off the preacher stage into the crowd of Diborn. He took the hand of a Novaleon, the talking animal race from Nova Overpass, who lived in the far north of Eurafalia. “Is this what your people yearn to see? Walloping every night and dreading to close your eyes. Do you not dream of bliss?” Dragni asked a black cat man, wearing shrouded leather armor. The cat dropped his head, slightly nodding to his question.

  Dragni moved into the crowd, grabbing another Diborn’s hand. A woman. Her soft brunette hair flowed down the side of her freckles as she nervously shook at his touch. “Do you wish to let the world see your beauty, instead of shunning you for those magnificent black diamonds for eyes?” She blushed and eased her nerves.

  The so-called “Demon God” moved like a savior among them. Diborn has never seen a god come before them before. It was restricted. They were monsters, yet Dragni walked amongst them as they once were. People.

  Leonidas moved to the preaching stage with the preacher. “Doi Fang.” He called the preacher. “What’s our lord doing?”

  The preacher observed along with Leonidas in utter disbelief. The sight of the center of Halluburg’s city brightened. “He is announcing our arrival it seems.” Doi Fang put his hands together in a prayer. “That the Specters have come.”

  The Diborn reached out for Dragni, grasping his shoulders and then taking his hands like beggars. They chose him. The deity Diborn had searched years of suffering for stood right before them now. There he was—the protector of them all, a true god in their eyes who let them seem like the men and women they were.

  “We are Specters.” Dragni echoed in the middle of the Diborn mob. “We are the ghosts of our pasts. Ghost who should be feared for what we now are. Humans should worry and fear you at your very sight, for you are all greater warriors than they could ever be. That is what makes you a monster. Even on your worse day, man could never match your strength.”

  Dragni pointed to Doi Fang and Leonidas. The cloth sheet behind them continued to move with the whirlwind. “You are Diborn. Embrace the chaos and become free.” Leonidas grabbed the sheet and threw it into the sky. “The gods cannot hurt you anymore!”

  Underneath the cloth, the greatest fear of the Diborn curled in fear. Aether their tormentor.

  “Aether of the Void. The being who has seen to it you suffer all these restless nights.” Dragni came onto the stage, grabbing the thick shadow neck of Aether.

  Aether is a being as ancient as darkness itself. It forms fluid, formless but imposing enough like a mass of shadows banned together woven from the fabric of the abyss. Its anatomy shifted constantly, as the void created this form, as the void god created it. No light bounced off of it, even if it neared the being, Aether's presence absorbed the shallow light. He left nothingness leaving in all a swallow of empty black space.

  He had no face, only a large gaping hole for a mouth, determined to suck the life force out of the enemies of the gods. Dragni lifted Aether like a weightless object. The snaking slithering whispers echoing from the void mouth of Aether were closed by Dragni’s grip. The sight of Aether turned the cold winter into a frozen blizzard of another.

  “This being who tortured you all.” Dragni squeezed its throat. “He was sent to the gods to put you in your place. They fear you all, do you know that? Celestial Garden fears you. The gods who live in harmony there call you spawn. Blaming the night empress Sheiva and her lover… myself. They took her from me, to ensure we would answer for defying their order.”

  Dragni whimpered for a moment, yet his hand clenched Aether tighter. Red tears fell down his face, infuriated by anger. He couldn’t let his resolve overtake him again. “We were to suffer because they feared us.” Dragni’s expression shifted to that of a devil. “And they should.”

  The crowd around them agreed, yelling their opinions. “Celestial Garden has failed the Diborn. They call us monsters, then we will show them what monsters can accomplish together.” Dragni demanded the approval of the crowd who was fully behind him. The support came in great stormy waves.

  Dragni smiled coercing the Diborn together under the banner of the Specters. He laughed at Aether. “And they said to fear you. How wrong they were.”

  Aether attempted to speak, but his throat was logged by Dragni’s thumb. “Diborn are the monsters who will take back this world for our own. Every man and woman who feared us will know our name. We are Specters! The gods will obey us. Celestial Garden will be ours!” Dragni demanded.

  The crowd cheered proudly, and the way of man ended. A new era began from one snap of a neck, Dragni tore the head of Aether clean off and threw it to his mob. The Specters rules Halluburg.