THE LOST GOD OF CHAOS

Chapter 4 – Bloodbath Offering

JIE had no idea how long he had been knocked out. He slowly opened his eyes; it was pitch black. It took him a moment to realize what was going on.

“Holy shit!” He swore hard, realizing he was still inside this nightmare.

He noticed that he wasn’t leaning on the wall beside the forbidden gate. He was near the vermilion orb, and his body was in a kneeling position.

“What the hell happened to me?” He heightened his senses to prepare himself for another monster ambush.

There was something wrong. Jie wondered if he had an ear injury because he couldn’t hear a thing—just a deafening silence.

What kind of onslaught took place while he was unconscious? He couldn’t remember a single thing. Worse, he noticed that his eyes, nose, and ears were bleeding. He saw the blood after he wiped it off, and the orb slightly flickered one last time.

“Darn!” His jaw tightened, ignoring his injuries.

Jie got up, but when he was about to turn, something held his ankle. He almost kicked it, thinking it was a monster. However, it was a man heavily injured.

“Help…”

Jie’s conscience wouldn’t let him leave the man to die. Even though his knees were weak, he managed to help the stranger.

“I saw everything…” the man whispered.

“Save your energy. We’re going out.” Jie breathed heavily.

“The monsters…gone.” The man coughed.

Jie ignored him. His feet moved on their own as if so familiar with the place, even though it was also a mystery to him. Perhaps the real owner of this body still lives inside him.

After struggling for thousands of steps, they finally reached the forbidden gate.

“The exit…” Jie continued to take the path, going to the dark borders. The man must be telling the truth; he could not hear the snarling monsters around him. They walked continuously, notwithstanding several corpses they stumbled upon along the way.

After the arduous trek to the Stygian Border, Jie and the injured man finally reached the base of the lift. His face somehow beamed to see Nyssa and Kali there, as if waiting for him. Blue fireflies were swirling over them.

Jie’s attempt to smile disappeared when he saw Kali sobbing.

“Father!”

Jie’s jaw dropped upon seeing Klatus in such a horrible condition. His limbs were cut open, and he was even missing one hand. There was a pool of blood around him.

“Oh, god!” Jie gasped.

“Father fought hard to let our people go!” Kali was hyperventilating.

Nyssa immediately ran to her brother. “Ethros, you made it!”

Jie toughened his face. “Kali, help this man. He’s still alive. Your father is dead; we have to move forward.”

“I won’t leave him here! He deserved at least a decent burial.” Kali wiped her tears.

“Do whatever you please, but we need to be in a hurry. If I were you, I’d leave him here,” Jie said coldly.

Kali glared at him. “How dare you disrespect the remains of my father after saving you!”

“I get that you’re emotional. But Nyssa and I have been to the surface, and I’m telling you our survival isn’t carved in stone. The long winding stairs will surely exhaust your body carrying a dead man,” Jie was being rational.

Kali drew her dagger and pointed it at Jie’s neck while she gritted her teeth.

“Do it!” Jie urged. He’d do anything to escape from this hellhole. Even if it meant being disrespectful to someone who died a hero.

Kali slowly put her weapon down. She gazed down at his father, lying motionless on the ground.

“If you can’t decide now, Nyssa and I will have to go.” Jie put the injured man inside the lift.

“W-wait…” Kali whispered upon seeing him being serious. She came back to her senses when the familiar snarling sound coming from the darkness reached their ears.

“Damn it, you should all go!” Jie grasped Nyssa into the lift. Even though he felt sorry for Klatus, Jie dragged his dead body a few meters away from them.

“Brother, what about you?” Nyssa gaped at him, realizing he meant to be the last to go because the loads could not withstand all of them.

“Pull the lever down as soon as you reach the top. I’ll make sure no monster comes after you, I’ll be the decoy.” Jie turned his back after pulling the lever up without any warning. He had anticipated the next wave of monsters to arrive. Although he could not remember what had happened in the village, his instinct was telling him that he could protect himself.

The wind suddenly turned turbulent, and Jie lost his balance. He was vigilant, especially when he heard a voice as if coming from the deepest chasm of the earth. The language was different, but the same mystery happened, he could understand it again!

“You are back…”

Jie thought he was just imagining things. “Who are you?”

The voice was gone, as if it had merged with the stormy wind. His mind was probably just tricking him. Because he was sure that voice did not come from someone who was a human.

Jie gripped the metal bar while waiting for the lift to go down. Enduring a little wouldn’t hurt if those people made it to the surface. They held the answers to his question once he was out of there. He’d make sure to know the origin of his sudden transmigration into this body.

When the wind finally abated, Jie was surrounded by a battalion of monsters that was bigger than he had encountered before. They looked fiercer as they glared at him with killing intent. They even appeared to be sentient beings, compared to the beasts he encountered a while ago.

The monsters made a path to the center, which made Jie’s eyes gape in shock. Behind those creatures was a mountain of dead bodies! Those were the villagers who were unrecognizable because of the blood all over their corpses.

And then the familiar voice he heard earlier resonated in the darkness again.

“Take this, our offerings…” the voice said before it dissipated again into thin air.

Jie was too stunned to speak. He scurried when the lift came, and he quickly pulled the lever up. He prayed that those monsters would not come after him. He was never religious, but he kept praying to any deity who could hear his plea.

ON THE winding stairs, Kali tended to the injured man, whose breathing finally became stable. However, the man rarely blinks, as if traumatized.

“Do you know him?” Nyssa asked.

Kali nodded. “I remember him as one of the chief’s guards tasked with looking around the artificial sun.”

A few meters away from Kali, Nyssa gazed at the lift’s entrance, “I wonder if Ethros made it.”

“I know he will.” Kali focused on the injured man again. “What is your name? You lose so much blood.”

“Aelec,” the man answered, then coughed hard.

The two kept looking at the lift but were dumbfounded when Aelec spoke again.

“I saw…the chaos…” Aelec’s eyes filled with fear.

Nyssa and Kali stared at each other and spoke in unison. “Chaos?”

“Everything it touches... was obliterated.” Aelec grimaced in pain, but he continued, “Our village is gone.”

The fireflies illuminating around gave comfort that they could see each other’s faces. The other group of villagers was still horrified that they stood waiting at the base of the winding stairs. No one wanted to go first since everyone was afraid of the surface.

“How many of us survived?” Kali looked around.

“I guess no more than forty.” Nyssa estimated. She had seen how the other villagers were being slaughtered by the creatures of the Abyss, and she only relied on her determination to survive.

Then there was a loud thud. The lift finally opened. Ethros came up and sprinted toward everyone.

“They are coming. We need to move to the surface, quick!” Ethros hurriedly came to Aelec and helped him up. Then he led everyone to the exodus, still unsure if the surface would be the best place to live after spending thousands of years underground.