With the monster bear reduced to nothing but a grotesque puddle of gore, the logical thing to do was move on to the next goal.
We saved what was valuable, the obvious core—something to sell later.
But no—he had other plans.
Plans that involved... dragging things out for a bit longer...
His body began to shift and warp, as though it was unraveling itself. He traded the mass from his torso to sprout tendrils from his neck, writhing with dark intent.
He was reshaping himself—returning to his first, original form.
Heads, once lost to time, appeared at the end of each living wire, a chaotic call that made the very sky tremble—as if it remembered the agony of being devoured by their insatiable hunger...
The heads — eldritch horrors that once did the unthinkable...
Grotesque forms that ate the abyss itself...
Demonic entities; their jagged, fang-filled maws stretching unnaturally wide — their teeth gleaming like the Reaper's Scythe...
Its eyes — hollow glows.
Its features — nonexistent.
A viscous mass that knew nothing of mercy and took joy from suffrage.
They eyed the remains, and smiled.
They jumped without hesitation.
Chomping at the meat.
Mauling it.
Crunching it.
Slurping whatever could be slurped, including the blood-stained dirt and grass.
They devoured the disgusting aftermath, as if it were some sickly treat.
The taste was unbearable.
Absolutely awful.
I could feel his stomach twist, yet he kept going at it...
At least the process was quick—efficient, even. The grotesque display had gone away as soon as the last drop of blood was consumed, which, I guess, was a relief.
But something lingered at the back of my mind.
His hair's...
Gotten longer?
And the black nails... sharpened into claws...
Had the act of consuming the bear caused them to grow?
Once his grotesque feast came to an end, his body began to... shift. It melted into the shadows, as though it was never truly solid to begin with. The once tangible form dissolved into a single, fluid tendril of molten flesh. It twisted, coiled, and undulated, morphing into something entirely new. What emerged was an oversized serpent—a creature of pure blackness, its form a swirling mass of fog and inky shadows. Each ripple of its body seemed to hypnotize the senses, a mesmerizing dance of darkness that stretched endlessly before it.
Stolen story; please report.
Honestly?
As long as that Beheaded Angel transformation ceased, I didn’t care what form he took.
Anything was better than that.
At the tip of its tail, a fine, almost delicate net formed—carefully, purposefully—wrapping itself around the core to ensure it wouldn’t be harmed on his journey.
He was meticulous, even in the wake of such destruction.
The tendril slithered across the walls, effortlessly defying gravity as though it had never known the limits of the physical world. It moved with a silent grace, swift and deliberate, leaving behind only a faint echo of discomfort—a lingering sense that something was deeply wrong, yet invisible to the eye.
In this new form, he surged through the dungeon, a blur of shadows and molten flesh. The very concept of space seemed to bend around him. The stone walls blurred in his wake, but the dungeon remained as cold and unmoving as ever, standing as a mute witness to his passage.
***
Even when the void is devoured by absolute nothingness...
Something stirs within the absence.
Even as my thoughts unravel, dissolving into silence...
A wretched existence dares to take form.
A mockery of life—no, a reflection of my own.
Salazar.
I fail to unshape myself, and in that failure, something else takes its turn.
This is me.
No—this is I.
But... not me?
As I drift into the abyss of sleep, as I cease to be, I greedily steal the ractured remnants of humanity.
And that is all explanation needed...
All that is required to know him...
Salazar!
He is me, yet stripped of that fragile humanity.
A whisper born from the corpse of reality—murdered in cold blood by the most primal of instincts.
And yet, even as a being of nothingness, he retains intelligence.
He still has a voice.
He still has a will.
He still clings to—pur?po??se?
He still clings to...
Grudge.
***
Meanwhile, back at the café I had just left, a tall, elegantly poised woman with flawless golden hair approached Kai and Ryna’s table. Her every step carried a quiet confidence, the click of her heels aggressive against the hum of the mob.
"Excuse me," she said, her voice smooth yet commanding. "Are you, by any chance, Mr. Lucifer?"
Kai blinked. "Huh? No, I—"
Before he could finish, the woman cut him off with a knowing look.
"Really? My intuition led me here. Was I wrong...?"
Kai exchanged a glance with Ryna before sighing and leaning back in his chair. "Well… actually, yeah. I’m Kai. Lucifer’s acquaintance. He left the job to me."
The woman nodded approvingly before gracefully lowering herself onto the seat across from them. She slightly hesitated at first, as if she were still assessing the situation.
"I see. In that case, allow me to introduce myself," she said, folding her hands neatly on the table. "I am the real estate agent sent by my company to meet with Lucifer. My name is Letiche… and I am a Lich."
She let the words hang in the air for a moment before finally settling into her seat, her golden hair shimmering under the café lights.
