Chapter 10

Nathan had never felt more alive and mighty in his life. All around him was chaos, chaos that he had created. His monstrosities both winged and climbing up from ladders of flesh, were fighting the stars of the night sky. 

As he flew upon Ebb and Flow, he clawed through the flesh of the star guardians with his claws. When he was unable to do that, Nathan injected them with poison from the many snake-mouths growing from his body. Ebb and Flow could beat their wings with intense force to blow back the star guardians away. This combination of many points from which he could launch attacks allowed Nathan to take down more star guardians than any soldier in his army.

The beings blurred by white and yellow light were becoming fewer and fewer with each spawn Nathan ordered to attack. The waves of creatures he sent up felt endless, dragging many to their doom below. Of course, Nathan had many of his spawns he lost, but he felt he was winning the battle. 

And when he would look back at the tower he had constructed, it had reached through the heavens at this point. The layers added onto it by his workers was beyond imagination. It had actually pierced the night sky itself.

It had pierced into the black night itself and a strange thing happened once the tower penetrated the black, murkiness of the night itself. When the tower’s latest heights had touched the heavens above it was like slamming into wet concrete. Nathan ordered his followers to work through the liquid that hampered them, commanding their backs to be put into it. He knew it was difficult for them as it was like laboring while bathed in pudding. And he lost many soldiers fending off the star guardians as attackers.

 But once the workers penetrated the night sky above, the tower broke through the layer of the murky semi-solid of the heavens. A large, gaping hole surrounded the tower where it had pierced the blackness of the sky that allowed those crawling and flying from below to enter the new layer of heaven. They had pierced the portion of the heavens the star guardians did not want them to. 

Many star guardians had lost their place in the sea of blackness and been replaced by his spawns. The spawns placed themselves within the gunky blackness, the substance adhering to their backs as they laughed in delight. Once they did, the spawns seemed to gain a new power. Fire appeared in their hands and their breath seemed to create strong winds. Their bodies crackled with lightning. Upon seeing this, Nathan raised his voice as loudly as he could.

“Show your power to the Earth below!” Nathan commanded. “Exercise your might on the puny earthlings and declare my might as my children! Then the world shall know the heavens have a new master when they see what power even my brood is capable of!”

And they did. The spawns of his that had replaced the star guardians by burrowing their backs into the murky black created harsh weather. Streams of fire shot down from their hands, lightning blasted from their bodies and their very breath whipped up hurricanes. 

Rather than their disastrous powers stopping with the large stream of blood below, their elemental streams created large holes in the sea of blood. Rather than the blasts of fire, lightning and wind piercing through the red liquid, the sea opened immensely large holes for them to pass through. When the red liquid made cavities for their disasters, one could see cities and mountains through it from above. 

It was as though the sea of blood was obedient to whomever fixed themselves in the sky. Forests were set ablaze with the flames of the creatures while the winds blew human dwellings to smithereens as their lightning obliterated anything so that nothing was left standing.

“Interesting,” Nathan said as he stared down at the phenomena. “My creations have ascended as the new guardians of the heavens. This night sky must give any creature that makes it its dwelling untold powers of destruction. Now the world shall know to bow before me and never not fear my might and wrath.”

Once Nathan commanded Ebb and Flow into the space between the tower walls and penetrated blackness. The absence was as wide across as a stadium once it was broken through, giving them more than enough room to ascend upward. Once he soared up, Nathan was surprised at what new territory the heavens offered him. Once he flew into this new level, Ebb and Flow set themselves down on top of the newest layer of the tower.

He stared up to find the moon looking back at him, its pale, silver glow enticing him. Nathan stared back up at her with immense pride, wishing to claim her. He recognized that he could see her through from below but this was the level in which she resided. 

Above the moon floated a piece of what he assumed to be earth about as wide across as the space between the wall of the tower and night layer of the heavens. It was somewhat odd to see a collection of bare dirt hanging above the ornate celestial body. As closely as he examined it, Nathan could not make out anything more than a flat collection of soil with no life growing from the top or the bottom.

But beyond that, this place was more wondrous than the realm of death had been. The layer of black had been replaced with a golden one as pure as gold. Rising from the floor of pure gold were many structures such as gates and castles decorated with gems from rubies to green and blue emeralds. Everywhere Nathan looked there was a palace to be dwelt in, a sight that only increased his ambition. The sky above was a vague white which he couldn’t tell was pure or somewhat foggy. As Nathan floated there in the upper part of the heavens he felt power, the entirety of the scenery making his pride soar. 

To think I have accomplished this by my own hands. He thought. Is there a greater creature than me, to have so quickly ascended to this height? 

Nathan began laughing as he was so ecstatic with self-congratulation. He wondered how he could mold this layer of heaven to his own will. What statues or monuments of himself he could make. Nathan sensed that whoever controlled this realm controlled all of what could reasonably be called the universe. He also wondered if there was a layer beyond this one.

“Only one way to find out,” he answered himself. 

However, just as his spawns began wandering through the city streets, various strange lights appeared in Nathan’s vision. Hundreds of bursts of gold light appeared before, in their place, stood tall, humanoid creatures that looked like their surroundings. Their skin was bright gold and they were decorated with different gems. 

Their individual characteristics were mostly their height and the gems that adorned their bodies. They looked like humans created from liquefied gold that had cooled with spiral, rectangular or scale-like patterns of gems covering them from head to toe. Their eyes were human-like but their bright irises hurt to look at as they burned like fire and observing closely hurt Nathan’s vision. Each one looked sternly at Nathan and his creations. 

“Who are you?” Nathan asked.

“We are the treasured ones,” one of them with rubies displayed in circles on his skin and emeralds in a rectangle pattern said. “We live in this realm of the heavens after being created by the grand star.”

“You have broken through the second layer of the heavens,” a taller one said with rings of blue sapphire decorating his body. “We of the treasured have seen the evil you have wrought. And the grand star is not happy.”

“Surrender now,” another said with straight rows of pink diamonds running vertically along his body. “As we are far more formidable than the star guardians.”

“Yes,” another treasured one who had horizontal rows of black gems surrounding his body. “Give up, puppet of the black serpent.”

Nathan laughed.

“Puppet?” Nathan asked. “I don’t think you know who you’re talking to. I am the new king of the heavens.”

“Are you really that dense?” a treasured one with a single transparent diamond in his chest asked. “Do you not know you have been manipulated this entire time?”

Nathan laughed.

“By whom?” he asked. 

He grimaced.

“I don’t think any of you understand how powerful and accomplished a being your dealing with,” Nathan said. “I rose from the dead through my own sheer force of will, created a new living species unlike anything seen before or since and scaled to the heights of heavens so high it’s never been seen by mortal eyes.”

He flexed his claws and willed the snakes sprouting from his body to hiss at the treasured ones.

“You would all do wise right now to bow before me, renounce your insubordination and apologize while I’m still in good spirits,” Nathan said. “Lest I utterly destroy you and this place you call the heavens. Because nothing is too big for me to accomplish now.”

He roared with jubilation.

“No one has used me,” Nathan said.

“Not quite,” a familiar voice spoke.

He looked down at the source of the voice. Wrapping itself around the near fifty feet of the cylindrical tower that had risen from the golden floor was an impossibly long black snake. Nathan recognized it but in the oddest of ways. 

The memory of it was like something he had witnessed long ago in childhood or at his birth but was now suddenly arising in his mind. The sight of the black serpent cleared away the fog of forgetting just for a moment and now he could see clearly the truth. And the truth was…that black snake’s voice had been behind him at every juncture since he entered this new stage of life.

“You,” Nathan said. “You were the one who told me to build the tower.”

“Yes,” he said, his voice as smooth as marble.

“Did…?” Nathan ask. “Did you…? Did you plan…for me to reach here?”

“Why yes,” the serpent said. “Now…I shall thank you for your cooperation in returning me to my rightful place…”

The serpent opened its mouth wide and lunged toward Nathan. Nathan felt every nerve in his body want to vomit with disgust as the innards of the serpent surround his body. Nathan kicked and struggled with every muscle he could but there was nothing he could do. Nathan attempted to stretch his arms and snakes growing from his body but they were pressed so tightly against him it hurt. 

The innards of the snake were as wet as fresh dew on the grass while the texture reminded him of his own cheek. It was like being surrounded by a slipping slide that was covered in sticky slime. However, as flexible and wet as the inside of the snake was, it was a vice to his body.

He began to gag as the inside of the serpent reminded him of dog feces and skunk spray mixed together. He could no longer breathe the stench was not only so repulsive but so thick it was like shoving his face in sewer water and gasping for air. Nathan began screaming in discomfort as there was no way out.

And then he felt himself moving deeper into the maw of the creature’s body. Nathan felt himself slip headfirst further and further down the snake’s digestive tract. He screamed in fear as loudly as he could at the top of his lungs. Nathan shouted until the echoes inside the serpent ricocheted like pebbles thrown off a brick wall. He became jailed by his own gasps for mercy until he was convinced there was no escape.

“No!” he shouted. “No! No! No!”

He could feel his body spiral further and further down the length of the tower. Nathan sensed his body pressed not only against the inner wall of the serpent but the outside of the tower to such an extent he almost felt he would vomit his own innards. The only thing he could compare it to would be a steamroller pressing him against a stone cylinder in circular motion. The tube of the snake’s body made him cycle back and forth in a helix shape until he was dizzy from it. Nathan had almost gone unconscious from the mixture of whirling motion and sickening air before a new sensation overtook him.

His body caught on fire as he reached the serpent’s pool of vomit colored stomach acid. Searing pain spread across every square inch of Nathan’s body as he was pressed headfirst into the liquid. Once his feet were consumed he began splashing helplessly as his body melted.

The flesh that had once been armor turn to something akin to melted butter. His very bones and horns began no more solid than the acid surrounding him. As Nathan screamed and tried to keep his head above the liquid with his quickly disintegrated body, he swallowed much of it.

“No!” he shouted, his words drowned out by the disgusting liquid traveling down his throat. “How?! Why?!”

He spit more of it out.

“I was supposed to rule the heavens!” Nathan shouted. “How could you do this to me?! How?!”

“I needed a sacrifice,” the serpent said. “And someone with a physical body.”

He could hear the snake’s voice from within his own belly. Nathan shook his head in disbelief at how smooth the sound was. Even drowning it felt remarkably soft to hear.

“Phy-!” he shouted. “Physical body?!”

“Yes,” the serpent said. “As an immortal being I have more and more of a physical body the higher I am in the heavens. Which is why Earth was my prison…it was so far down I had no way of directly manipulated anyone.”

“Impossible!” Nathan said. “I-I should be invincible-!”

He was drowned out as more acid rushed into his mouth.

“I have no real way of interacting with the physical world back on Earth,” the serpent said. “As the grand star stripped me of said privileges. I had nothing despite being amongst the greatest of his creations and now I shall seek my revenge by overthrowing him. So thank you, my pawn.”

Nathan looked up at the sinewy muscles to find them contorting in laughter.

“No!” he said. “Why-why did you–you lead me to this?!”

“I had to find a human who I could manipulate,” he laughed. “I needed someone to become a ghoul, give me an army to fight with and build the tower. It was the only way I could reach the heavens I was thrown out of. And the grand star allowed me you to have.”

“B-B-But why me-?!” Nathan asked.

His voice became drowned out with acid he was swallowing as he could no longer support his body weight above the surface of the pool of liquid.

“Why not my brother?!” he shouted. “He started this whole thing!”

“Because your brother would not obey me,” he said. “You would. Your brother and you represent the two core drives of the human nature: power and love.”

As Nathan further sunk into the stomach acid he could hear the serpent’s voice better than the gurgle of the liquid around him.

“Your brother killed you in order to resurrected his beloved Yui,” he said. “She was his true love. Calvin was guided by the core desire of love while you were guided by the desire for power. Success was your chief motive you sought while Calvin desired nothing more than affection from its greatest source he could find.”

His laughter was so loud it drowned out the gurgling of the acid.

“And let me tell you, Nathan,” he said. “It is far easier to manipulate someone whose prime motivator is ambition than one driven by relationships and affection. Those set on building their own pride cannot comprehend they are being manipulated while those who wish for love will eventually understand a relationship where they are being toyed with has nothing to offer them. For all your boasting and power, you are still easier to be used as a pawn than your worm of a brother.”

With what little of his eyes he had left, Nathan began crying. 

“My wimp of a brother…?” he thought. “Better than me?”

“In this circumstance,” the serpent said. “Yes. And finally…I needed a ghoul that had eaten a great deal of humans so that I could transform. Digesting you will give me a great deal of power.”

“What?!” Nathan shouted as half his face had melted into the stew of his liquefied body and the acid around him.

“You are very nutritious right now,” the serpent said. “The thousands of humans you’ve consumed shall now be inside me as well, nourishing me to achieve my most powerful state. So…I thank you.”

Nathan began to lose all consciousness as the acid completely consumed him.

“Dear sacrifice,” were the last words the serpent spoke to him.