The symbols began to revolve around Forus, gushing crimson light outwards in all direction. The ray of redness infested the surrounding with a scent of filth and evilness, turning the dull, colourless world into the bloody abyss. Countless shadow of unidentifiable abominations emerged from the summoning ritual, laughing and screaming in distress as they passed through the gate between worlds and dimensions. Their appearance varied in all varieties. Some were fleshly and life-like while others were lifeless and rigid.
Each of the shadows exerted the unfathomable presence that dwarfed everything in existence, causing Ocelia to kneel before their might involuntarily. Time slowed down and space warped around according to their will, controlling and altering every law of permanence with a thought.
Although numerous intruders had entered the realm without its consent and permission, no actions and defensive mechanism of the worlds or the Fleeting Emotions Ruin had activated as if nothing had happened. The white figure that protected the dull realm also didn't appear to enforce the laws, hiding somewhere at the edge of the world.
The revolving ritual trembled and shook, breaking the rifts between the fabrics of reality, opening the barren space towards the plane of existence. From within the unknown place, the black tendrils slowly crept outwards, entangling the closing rifts and forcefully tore them apart. The permanent destruction in space and time made the dull world to tremble, disrupting the order of the world and twisting the laws that governed this realm.
From the inside, many bubbles that contained visions of an unknown origin floated into the dull world, displaying various sceneries of death and destruction, life and creation. The scream of the abominations intensified as the bubbles multiplied in numbers, turning more real and enhancing the visions they carried. The bubbles told countless stories, shared diverse knowledge, and records infinite events.
The hellish creatures began to transform from the incorporeal spirits into corporeal monstrosities. While the power from the unknown place was creating a body for them, the enormous, rusty chains also attached to each one of them, chaining them from creating destruction. The end of the said chains tracked down into the rift between space, leading into the wicked realm where all cowered in fear.
With their physical vessel, the might of the infernal demons increased to the unknown degree, influencing the surrounding with their presence alone, corrupting the greyish land into the crimson, corpse-filled region of resentful spirits. The Earth soy turned bloody as the sky rained black filth, enveloping the death grey trees, turning them spiky and pitch-black.
Their menacing aura caused Ocelia to gasp for breath, clutching her throat as if she had just inhaled a mouthful of pure corrosive gas, burning her inside-out and destroying her respiratory system. Blood seeped out from her mouth, flooding her tongue with the bittersweet taste of life. Her fragile soul shook as the corrupting aura infested her mind, blackening her pure, white soul with its filth and twisted power.
However, as the corruption worsening, the Snowflake Tattoo shone brightly, producing the icy gas that fought against the invading wickedness, wreaking havoc in her soul and body. The impact created various extensions of the pure sorcery energy, lying around waiting for the fated one to devour them.
The soul slowly digested the overflowing crystals, using their condensed energy to heal her failing body, forcefully holding the fabric of her identity intact. However, as time passed, the mysterious power that lingered within the orbs of energy began to pile up, increasing in quantity and quality. The soul that devoured them gradually changed from its complete humanoid frame of mind into something higher.
The corruption of the abyss assaulted its enemy, the transformation of the Snowflake, mutually destroying each other, lowering the danger and side-effects that Ocelia would get. Although her body still changed from its fleshy skin into the smooth stone surface, the change was not as fast as before and had a hint of blackness in them. Her temperament also changed from the previous unsteady mind into that of the twistedly indifferent sentiments.
While Ocelia was dealing with her problems, Forus focused all of his utmost attention into the whispers of the monsters, engraving every piece of information into his soul. With each engravement appeared on his grey soul, the mysterious blurry light trembled in joy and slowly spread outwards, encompassing his realm of consciousness. Every time he drew an engravement in, his soul shivered in pain, shrieking out soundless agony as it bent out of its spherical shape.
The grey tendrils that previously grew out from the light wrapped around Forus' soul, attaching themselves onto the rifts on his soul created by the engravement. The tentacles fused with the surface of the soul, turning into a part of the soul, freely controlled by Forus' mere will. The spherical shape of the soul turned into the spikey ball of tendrils, turning ugly and unnatural.
As Forus' soul gradually fused with most of the tentacles, his body also experienced a change. The previous madness that caused his newly-created arm to turn into the twisted limbs had corrupted his body further, mutating his natural skin into the tentacles-filled membrane. The wild, beast-like thoughts began to infiltrate his mind, shouting at his conscious to rest and let them take over, for they were the primal state of his existence.
However, compared to the mysterious and tyrannical Life Aura, whose power drove all things mindless, the savage nature of the tentacles failed to do anything worth noting. The Death Aura could only send the living into their end, turning them into the void, closing the door of their existence. It could never give the beings the sentiments as it was the one who confiscated said emotions.
The greyish soul, although impressive, was not an absolute force of reality, and thus could not content against the authentic Life Aura and Death Aura. However, it was evident that both Auras that Forus had experienced was not the full power of said concepts of truth. If the Auras from the myth surprisingly appeared, the entire Mountain Union would crumble like dust, killing or driving all things insane. Even the great sorcerers from the legend feared their existence, not daring to research about them.
Forus' body became an unrecognizable pile of flesh and tendrils, growing out various new organs and limbs. His appearance was not any different from the monsters that came from the unknown abyss, except for their ungodly power, Forus looked just like one of them. Numerous new mouths attached on his limbs, bearing their sharp needle-like teeth, making cracking sound as they moved.
The echo from the rifts across time and space trembled, shaking the worlds along with it. Myriad chains flung out from the hole, darting towards Forus' monstrosity figure, trying to bind his very being with the abyss, trapping him under the command of the void. Little by little, the screams and cries of the infernal creatures became laughter and cheerings in Forus' mind. The more Forus' adapted to the change in his soul and body, the more he instinctively knew about the expressions and characteristics of the infernals.
Although Forus was aware of his situation and tried to struggle, not waiting idly for the chain of sealing to restrain him, his power was insignificant compared to the previous victims of the said chains, not worth any attention. He could only watch as the shackles bound him.
However, the chain unexpectedly stopped in front of him, not going any further than that. The said chain trembled under the restaining force that obstructed it, struggling feebly before getting pulled back into its origin.
Somehow, every infernal monster abruptly silenced their noises, stopped their struggle to break free and stand motionlessly like a statue, not daring to do anything. Accompanied by their utter-silence welcome, the rift cracked open broader than before as the fluid-like darkness gushed out from it, showering the world with perpetual blackness.
The chaotic flow of elemental particles and the everchanging weather of the dull world turned stagnated, decreasing in their activity all at once. The rain of filth and the destructive atmosphere turned colourless and tranquil. Without any motions and sounds, space sank onto itself as they slid down into the hole in the void, bending the reality and the matter around it to distort and followed along with the flow. Like the quicksand, the world melted and leaked into the abyss.
A faint echo of the disgusting laughter resounded from the rift across time and space, shaking the ancient world with its rhythm. The entirety of the realm sank onto itself along with everything else, revealing the blurry silhouette of a ball of twisting tentacles. Its appearance changed with each passing second, depended on the onlookers, the angles, and the time, everyone would get a different image of the entity.
Uncontrollably twisting, the tendrils slowly grouped collectively and formed a hand-shaped mass of tentacles, pointing its tip at the monster that once had an appearance of a male human, Forus Ander. The man was kneeling on the ground, withstanding the pain of the sudden transformation and adapting to the newly-created body parts, trying to control them from acting carelessly.
The overwhelming Death Aura around him had turned the surrounding into the wasteland, corrupting and decaying the hellish landscape, consuming even the aura exerted by the ungodly demons from the abyss. The string of pitch-black Death Aura gradually condensed into the purer and more destructive power, advancing its quality from a fragmented shadow of its real self into a higher tier of force.
Under the presence of the same entity that was the origin of his grey soul, Forus could feel that the Death Aura had stagnated a lot, giving him a room for some breathing. He willed his soul to absorb the leaking Death Aura, condensing them into a spherical shape, solidifying them into a physical structure.
The ritual naturally detected the process of creating the last remaining step to complete Forus' breakthrough, the Withering Core. It madly sent out the Death Aura, supplying him with significant Death Aura to condense the Core. This overload in Death Aura enhanced the rate of decay of his body, forcing him to use more of his sorcery energy.
The solidification of the Withering Core triggered the chain reaction, sending the other Cores into the frenzy. The Wooden Core, the Flaming Core and the Icy Core all gathered near Forus as they revolved around the Withering Core. Once they became one, the process of ascension would start, ridding Forus of the mortal status and helping him break through the barrier of knowledge, closing in towards the truth.
However, before the Withering Core could complete itself, the twisting hand-shape tentacle sent out a black light towards Forus, moving at the speed where time stopped, hitting him without any chance of dodging or resisting. The energy penetrated his inhumane body and interlocked with his soul, fusing into one while leaving behind a mark inside his realm of consciousness.
The tiny mark gradually turned transparent and hid within the deepest corner in his consciousness, not waiting to reveal itself to the outside world. The brand would occasionally surface from its hiding to release the purer version of Death Aura and condensed them into a point mass, hovering around the greyish soul.
The instance the entity released its power, the realm let out a collective cry of agony as the invisible energy swept through the land multiple time, breaking out from the boundary of space and invading other domains. This leakage of energy caught the attention of the floating orb in the river of the void, activating its defensive mechanism.
Countless strings of light stopped their routine interactions and grouped up into a giant ball of brightening whiteness, spreading across the realms that got disturbed and quickly ascertained the abnormality and moved to contain it. The string of light crashed with the power from the abyss, violently shaking the void and impacting the realms, destabilizing the order of the domains.
Like Death Aura and Life Aura, the two opposing force merged and split into numerous elemental particles, releasing mountains of energy with every passing moment. The battle for domination lasted only a fraction of an instance before the string of light broke down into nothingness, sustaining severe damage that would hinder its operation.
