NOVEL NEXT B2 Chapter 9
Hearing that choice, Angar let out a soundless sigh of relief.
Saint Thryna had resisted Hell's corruption for centuries as a prisoner on a Hellworld. But she was a Seraph, and an exception to the rule, a miracle worthy of her 'Defiant,' epithet. Angar was brand new to the second Tier.
If Aas chose to cage him, he'd be powerless to prevent it. His will would eventually crumble until he was just another slave of Hell, his soul damned to its torments forever.
But if he was being offered death? Dying now would give him the eternal bliss he had earned, and earned roughly, through battle and righteous slaughter, plenty of it.
He pointed at his mouth, indicating he couldn't talk, or give reply.
Aas' sigh rasped, heavier with weariness and disgust than in the vision they'd just watched. "Aas was my slave name," he snarled venomously. "My true name is Azgoth, given to me upon joining the Abyssal Sons, where I was granted true freedom, where I formed a pact with an ancient power of Hell."
His form warped to his true self. Galvornium armor melting into a flayed and muscular hide, glistening like skinned flesh. Barbed, rusted chains dangled from his frame, moaning with tormented spirits. His helm fused to his skull, a single cyclopean eye blazing red, searing Angar's resolve like a brand. Serpentine tendrils coiled from his lower body, sizzling the ground with corrupted ooze.
And as the form warped, the last scene and the Crusader's corpse on the ground dissipated, replaced by the fleshy and ribbed chamber with the bulb on the far side, the walls pulsing, the ribs glistening with mucus.
"I'm impressed, brother," Azgoth sneered, his voice dripping with predatory glee. "With your staunch mind and your willpower, withstanding the corruption effect of a Nofelim while so low. This way's better for you, joining with me. You can keep your identity intact, though you'll need to form a pact now."
He leaned closer, the air around him reeking of rot. "I'll guide you down the dark path myself. You're in a unique position, one that can be exploited. When your natural Resilience score increased to 75, you got lucky. The Mind of Shaloth'Eshk Feat was made available to you, marking you with psychic potential. I can feel it. But, under my psionic assault, your potential manifested naturally, without the Feat."
A guttural laugh rumbled from his mouthless face, like bones grinding in a pit. "And this Feat is still available for you to take, as I still feel it on you. I'm curious as to what taking it will do. Its purpose is to realize psychic potential, something you naturally accomplished. Most must receive guidance before manipulating psionic energy, but you're fighting against my assault without training. A remarkable deed."
Angar strained to speak, but no sound broke free, his voice locked still. The strange energy battering his mind strengthened. Now knowing the source of that small part of his mind resisting this assault, he tried utilizing what information he had learned about psychic control.
But he didn't know much, and this part of his mind was still too slippery and defiant, resisting his attempts. Trying to control it was like clutching smoke.
Azgoth's cyclopean eye narrowed, its baleful glow pinning Angar like prey. "You'll form a pact with my dark master," he growled out. "I believe you know of him. Your mother certainly did. Moloch, King of the Damned. Throwing your life away now would be a true sin. Join the side destined to win."
Angar realized Azgoth wasn't just trying to control him with Dominate, but reading his thoughts, his cyclopean eye boring into Angar's mind, maybe even his soul.
But this made the loss of his voice unnecessary. He wondered why he wasn't allowed to speak.
There was only one answer he'd ever give this Nofelim abomination. His choice was death. It would always be death when the alternative was becoming unholy filth, a pawn of Hell.
The Fallen plucked his answer from his mind easily enough.
The monster's laugh erupted, a creepy bellow shaking the chamber, setting the pulsing bulb on the far end of the chamber quivering.
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"Before you speak, and gave answer in earnest," Azgoth growled, his mouthless face somehow twisting into a grotesque sneer, "let me tell you some truths your evil Empire keeps from you."
He leaned forward, his piston-fist creaking, barbed chains rattling with the moans of tormented souls. "On ancient Terra, its whole population, four billion souls, entwined in Neural Communion, dared to contact and bargain with Mammon.
"They craved not power, just more pleasure. Their bargain was pitifully small. By surrendering the souls of their young to Mammon, they'd receive a torrent of bliss to drown their minds in thoughtless rapture for the rest of their lives."
Azgoth's voice became a venomous hiss that slithered through Angar's mind. "Such a trivial pact, harmless really. Yet your false God, in His spiteful wrath, tore away the veil and flung open the first gateway, a scourge to punish their sin of trading innocents for ecstasy.
"But Nexus interfered, saving Terra. Punishment denied, more gateways tore open. Then more, and not just on Terra. Instead of only those responsible being punished, your false God demanded all to be punished."
His cyclopean eye flared, its red glow searing Angar's vision as he stepped closer, the ground smoking under his tentacles. "Do you truly believe Mi Alcyone was His Messiah, anointed to carry out His will? Why, then, would He choose one that defied His own command, that subverted His Divine mandate that Terra burn for its sins?
"No, brother, she was no Chosen of His. She was the opposite. When she merged with Nexus, she sealed this galaxy's damnation. Your God is false, but He's powerful, and He will get His way. All will be punished, and the Underworld shall triumph, for He is the eldest of evils, the Sovereign who wields Hell's legions with a fell hand. Glory unto Him."
The energy bombarding Angar's mind surged with a relentless tide of psychic force drilling down, trying to embed these lies deep into his consciousness as truth.
Angar knew of this psychic power too. It was the final evolution of the Telepathic Insights chain, Sow Thoughts, which inserted ideas or commands into the target's mind, making them believe the thoughts as their own.
The rasp of the pulsing bulb echoed sickeningly, and Azgoth's blasphemy took root, tendrils of doubt worming into Angar's soul.
The assault was succeeding, each word a hammer blow against the reality he held to be true, and the bedrock of his faith.
The energy was unyielding, a crushing weight that forced Angar to the ground, his knees buckling as he collapsed into a sitting position, his gauntlets braced behind him on the slick floor, his arms trembling with effort.
His mind quaked, the slippery part of it giving resistance dimming like a dying ember, Angar unable to control the defiance coming from it.
He closed his eyes, shutting out the chamber's unholy horror, and the whole world, everything. He focused inward, desperate to block the falsities, to shield his soul from Azgoth's blasphemies, but the bombardment raged on, its strength swelling like a typhoon of lies.
"They're not lies," Azgoth growled. His cyclopean eye blazed with malevolent fire, its red glow casting strange shadows across the chamber. "This is the absolute truth as revealed to me by Moloch. Think, brother, doesn't this explain everything? What makes more sense? Think!
"The unholy Empire's dogma is a tapestry of lies, woven with nonsensical threads that crumble under scrutiny. Accept the truth. Accept that I am the one upholding God's ancient decrees, fighting to fulfill His command. You stand against God Himself, a pawn of evil. You don't have to stand in His way. Join us, in His name."
The words clawed at Angar's soul, each like a venomous barb seeking to break his reality, filling his mind with poison.
Angar sank deeper into a meditative trance, desperate to purge the filthy profanities before they took further root.
No matter how long or how hard he tried, he couldn't figure out how to control the slippery source of defiance within him.
But what he could do was nurture it, channel his will to stoke its ember. To create a spark.
Focusing inward, he poured his resolve into that defiant spark, and stoked it, and stoked it more.
Time blurred, minutes or hours lost in the struggle, but the effort bore fruit. It flared brighter, the spark becoming a fire. His resistance strengthened, a bulwark against the lies, preventing them from further embedding into his consciousness.
Gradually, the energy bombarding his mind shifted, changing. Angar seized the moment, his will surging as he resisted, slowly, defiantly.
His legs steadied, and with a trembling effort, he rose upright, his armor creaking under the strain.
"I choose death!" he screamed in defiance. "By God's Divine wrath, I choose death!"
The psychic bombardment ceased, and suddenly, as if dam slammed down into a river.
Angar's eyes snapped open, the sick chamber of bone and flesh filling his vision.
And Azgoth. The monstrous Nofelim stood right before him, his flayed hide glistening, barbed chains moaning with tormented wails.
"Death it is, then," the Fallen growled with vicious glee.
Angar was pinned, probably with psychic power, and couldn't move. He tried Ground Current, but a searing pain erupted from his core again.
The mouth-tentacles eating the armor of his chest unlatched, falling away as green energy blasted into the spot they had been chomping on.
Azgoth's piston-fist hauled back, its rune-studded knuckles glinting with profane light, and shot forward, quick as lightning, striking Angar's torso with fantastic force.
The blow shattered his armor into shards, caving his chest into a crumpled ruin of crushed bone and squirting blood, and hurled him backward, crashing into the stone door blocking the stairway with a thunderous crack.