∼ Strange Man ∼

Chapter - 004

Akin to a dam breaking, the haziness clouding the impling's head washed away with a flood of clarity, leaving only the rapturous feeling of its body and mind becoming ever more strengthened. The impling didn't even realize it, but even as its wounded and pained body was changing, it was cackling maniacally while its thin limbs ever so faintly filled out with some muscle and its eyes became more vibrant with the light of intelligence.

Although its body was still somewhat bloody and battered from the seemingly endless hardships it had been thrown through coming up to this point, the demon rose to its feet, reveling in the sensations of power coursing through every fiber of its being.

It also felt as if there was something new, just on the edge of its mind - as if something new was just at its fingertips, waiting for the impling to simply conjure it, though the demon could not fathom what.

The demon’s exultation didn't last long, however, as a sudden disturbance in the space right beside the book caught the impling’s attention. Space itself was torn apart, and a rift to a plane unknown ripped itself open. From it, stepped something that the impling had never seen before and it had the demon taking an unconscious step backward.

Thin and dark of skin color, a person clad in modest but form-fitting black robes inlaid with colors of gold and purple now stood in the temple, inspecting the scene with a curious glint in his eyes that were as dark as midnight.

"Hmm... the Aether is quite thick here..." He muttered to himself with a pleasant hum.

Seemingly absentminded in his purview of the temple, he let his gaze glance towards the closed book that had sent the impling flying. At finally seeing the tome on the ground, the mysterious man let out a surprised exclamation of joy.

"Aha! I've been looking for you!" He grabbed the book with both hands, opening it and flipping through the pages with apparent ease and delight. "But... how come it ended up here, a lower world - and in the domain of a few younglings to boot?"

Closing the book, he frowned and raised his hand. As if responding to his motion, energy coalesced from the surroundings to form a series of wild and unreadable patterns, symbols, and translucent diagrams in the wake of his palm."How - curious." He muttered, scratching his chiseled jawline. "I see... it's one of those worlds… huh,"

"But then again, I haven't seen the Aether take form in such an exact way before." He added, tapping a few of the diagrams that changed shape and sizes to reveal other intelligible things. "Hmm, if I can just study this world a bit further then-" He suddenly cut himself off, finally glancing towards the impling that was standing frozen in place, unsure how to react to the strange man.

"Well - hello there, little one." He smiled, dispelling the many diagrams and glowing symbols rotating in the air with but a wave of his hand. Finally facing the reality of the situation, the impling hissed as it made eye contact with the stranger. At first, the demon took another few steps back, hissing all the while - like some scared animal. 

However, with its newfound intelligence, the impling managed to forcibly quell the abject fear coursing through its mind and face the strange man.

Had it not just become much stronger than mere moments before? Was its glorious red self not someone who deserved to have others quake at its feet, and not the other way around?

The feelings of its body becoming stronger were still ongoing even now, and the demon felt almost invincible as the power intoxicated its mind that was already stricken with illusions of grandeur. 

Then why? Why was it scared of this individual? The demon, now undoubtedly both the smartest and assuredly the strongest of all imps - as it kept having to remind. So why was it cowering in the face of this unknown creature?

For the third time in a very short time, the mark running across its eye faintly started to glow with its arrogant splendor. Gaining courage in turn, the impling righted its posture, puffed out its chest, and swaggered towards the man who was simply eying the impling with naked amusement.

The diminutive demon tried its best to look as imposing as possible, in hopes that this man would cower in his presence. Even though he was many times larger than the impling, it was just that drunk on pride and power that the thought of backing down didn't even remotely occur.

The robed man merely chuckled with mirth at its display. "I'm not going to hurt you, child," He said. But as brief curiosity flashed across the man's face, his gaze went from the book to the pedestal, and then back to the impling. Brow raising in surprise, he muttered to himself. "Hmm... let's see..." 

With a swipe of his hand, another series of odd images appeared in the air before him which he quickly scanned. "Ah-" He exclaimed, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly. "You opened it, didn't you?" Not understanding the man's words in the slightest, the impling simply took the intelligible nonsense he spouted as a challenge. Mustering up the last dredges of courage and pride fueling the impling right now, it charged at the man with a mighty battle cry that surely had the man shaking in his boots.

It lunged for him. The impling, very high on power, latched itself to the man's leg and bit down with unrestrained ferocity. For some reason though, the apparent ruthlessness of the attack seemed to do nothing to draw out a reaction from the man as he absentmindedly scanned the symbols floating in front of him rather than the impling's attempt at savaging his legs.

As the man looked over whatever his heirloom had done to the impling, he didn’t spare it a glance. He wasn't even remotely afraid of something happening, seeing as; how could a mortal ever manage to hurt an entity such as himself? But what he did feel some slight amount of trepidation towards where the remnants of Aether in the air and the strands emanating from the impling. Everything that had happened just moments before he had arrived in this lower world was told clearly by the Aether to his experienced eyes.

Abruptly whipping his head to the side, that small amount of trepidation he felt suddenly rose a great magnitude, many times over, as he detected another disturbance in the plane.

"Crap!" He cursed, looking around hastily to locate the impling before remembering it was still gnawing away at his shins. "I, ah-uh..." His mind was running through a hundred different options. "Urgh- screw it." He gave up on any clever solution with a groan. Without missing a beat, he drew his leg back on which the impling was still latched on, and swung it forward with more than enough force to dislodge it.

Letting out a cry of surprised gibbering as it flew through the air, the impling did not land on the ground - but instead disappeared into another, but much smaller, rift in space that opened just before it would've otherwise landed. The man let out a sigh, watching as the new rift finalized its collapse of space and the Aether forming to create a temporary gateway between this world and the Aethos. Through this gateway, a tall and lithe figure stepped through it, the expression on her face telling him all that he needed to know as to why she was here - and what she thought of him being here.

"Rowan!" She barked, her mention of his name lashing out at him like a whip. "What in the eternal blazes are you doing loitering around in a lower world!" The beautiful woman clad in metal armor that flexed and moved like molten silver asked with no small amount of irritation.

"Ah- Ayrie, fancy seeing you here..." He tried with a weak smile, only feeling the cold sweat running down his back intensify as her glare deepened. "Y-you see... I found one of my... ah - here! One of my heirlooms." He lifted up the runed-carved book for her to see as his fumbling attempt at speaking seemed to do nothing but further inflame her anger.

Barely restraining herself from lunging at him and strangling him till blue and purple, she just glowered at the whimsical man. "You broke into a lower world just to... get one of your cursed Demonomicons?" She droned out, annoyance dripping off her otherwise melodic voice. "I-uh... yes...?" He responded hesitantly.

Letting out a sudden exclamation of surprise as invisible tendrils of power grasped tightly around his person, Rowan was unceremoniously lifted into the air, floating horizontally behind the woman as she spared him not even another glance, already walking back to the still open rift in space - the gateway. He tried to get out another word, but she beat him to it. "We have to go now, lest we do anything that might affect this world," She seethed. "You realize the repercussions if we were to, so shut your sorry trap."

It was lucky that she didn't look his way as the man's troubled expression only deepened upon the reminder of his very recent blunder. But he said nothing to reveal it, just hoping that whatever had just happened with the red little creature wouldn't come back to bite him in the ass later. Ah - what was he even worried about? That little red demon? He'd might as well recognize himself paranoid if he really began fretting over such an inconsequential creature.

Because surely, nothing would come of it - right?