As soon as he had arrived, Rhenakos was off hunting. Zets’ki itself was a beautiful place, but the insane demon hunter saw none of it. Immediately he hit the streets and taverns for information, and within the day he had a possible location for the demon that had stolen his life and eye away from him. He had yet to give himself time to rest. His ribs, which had been fractured in his last fight, had not yet had time to heal, and with each step he risked a greater injury.
He had yet to think of the woman he had killed since it had happened.
The hunter trudged through the freshly fallen snow on the outskirts of the town, leaving a faint trail behind him. Aside from the crunching his boots made, there was a calm, if not slightly unnerving silence. After everything that had happened, he had not stopped. He had refused to. And now, things were starting to catch up. His mind was racing now…
Now that he was so close…
What would happen when he killed the demon? Would he reclaim an eye from his childhood? It was likely gone by now. Would the demon even remember him? It didn’t matter. Would she understand?
Rhenakos stopped walking. The silence was almost deafening. “She’s gone.” His words seemed to hang in the air, echoing back at him as if to convince him that he had done something wrong. And he knew he had. But it didn’t matter. She was nothing more than a stepping stone. A tool. That’s all she had ever been.
The hunter started forward again. It was almost an hour of suffering through the bitter cold before he found the illuminated cavern system that he had been searching for. The demon’s lair. At long last. “I’ve searched my entire life…”
At this point, he was feeling something akin to giddy. He was light headed, almost faint. Perhaps it was from the lack of rest. He hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink either. Or, perhaps it was because he could almost feel the demon’s blood dripping from his hands after he ripped it’s heart out with his hands. The thought sent a shiver down his spine.
“Wish me luck,” he said, glancing to his side, almost expecting to see her.
The cavern system was a lot warmer than it was outside, and soon Rhenakos felt himself starting to sweat. He abandoned his heavy coat, taking only what he thought would be needed for the fight, and leaving the rest. Overall, the cave system wasn’t complicated. There were a few times where he hit a dead end, but at long last, he came to the main area; a wide open space with magical flames illuminating it.
There were runic symbols engraved in the walls, and intricate patterns chalked on the ground. Near the center of the room was a pitch black, obsidian floorpiece with gold and silver rings on the outer edge. It was a ritual room for summoning and sacrifice.
Rhenakos took a few steps forward. He could feel all of his senses fire off their warnings simultaneously. The very room itself was something that shouldn't have existed. It was beyond dangerous. Still, he took another step.
“20 years,” a voice called out, resonating through the cave. It sounded like a male human. Plain. Ordinary. Yet, the voice shook Rhenakos to his core, and the hunter nearly collapsed.
“Twenty years, and three months, and ten days,” the demon stated as a figure appeared in the center of the obsidian floorpiece. “That is how long it took you, Rhenakos Raize, to find me. I want to say I’m impressed, but others have found me faster. However, I’m quite surprised to see you still alive after all of this time. That, within itself, is something impressive. You can take quite the beating…”
The demon’s appearance was that of a slender man in his mid-forties, with slicked back, greying hair and a short, trimmed beard. He was wearing a sporting vest and tunic, with black pants. A proper gentleman in all sense of the word. He walked forward to where Rhenakos had fallen, and offered his hand. “Now, now…You’ve come this far.”
Rhenakos growled, and slapped the demon’s hand away, staggering up on his own. At this point, the wear on his body had hit it’s maximum effect. He was wobbling as he tried to stay up. His vision was blurring. He tried to focus on the demon’s form, but everything kept going in and out.
At some point, he thought he saw her, standing behind him, a concerned look on her face….
“You bastard…” Rhenakos took a step forward, swinging with his right arm. The demon took a single step back, causing the hunter to fall flat from the weight of his punch.
The demon clicked his tongue. “And here I thought you’d put up a better fight.” He sighed, and walked back to the center of the room. “Oh well. I’ll just mark this experiment down as a failure as well. It would seem the limitations on humans are fairly well set in stone.”
“…what…the hell….did you say….?” Rhenakos gasped out as he pushed himself to his knees, panting.
“You see, my dear Rhen,” the demon said, pulling out a notebook and jotting things down. “I’ve found that possessing humans is a fantastic way to stay alive long past your…expiration date, so to speak. So, I thought it best to find a suitable candidate for myself. So, as any grand scholar would, I started experiments to see what would produce the best results. And you were one of my hopefuls. But sadly…you pushed your body past it’s limit. Even if we were to perform the transfer, your vessel wouldn’t last.”
Rhenakos coughed, falling to all fours. After a fit of hacking, he spat up what was a mixture of bile and blood.
“You fucking bastard…:” the hunter said, his voice barely audible.
“I’m sorry, what?” the demon asked. “I couldn’t quite hear you over your dying spasms…”
“I…said…” Rhenakos pushed himself up with sheer willpower, white hot rage boiling over. “You. Fucking. Bastard!” He took a step forward, and planted it. And then another.
“At this point, it’s just a waist. You should really give up.” The demon shook his head. “But if you insist, I’ll just have to feed you to my pets…” He took a step back from the obsidian floor, and snapped his fingers. A hellish gateway opened, and three hellhounds bounded forth from the gate, and rushed to greet Rhenakos.
Like the natural predators they were, they started to circle him, looking for the perfect moment to strike and feed. Rhenakos swayed slightly, barely standing, but pulled something out of his pocket, as well as a dagger. The first one lunged, tackling Rhenakos with its full strength. Anticipating the attack, the demon hunter rolled with it, shoving something into the beast’s mouth while simultaneously slitting it’s throat, and then threw the now dead hound into the second. Immediately, the artifact activated, and a bright blue barrier formed around the two hounds. The second hound started to recover, and viciously tried to attack, but rebounded off of the magical barrier that had been created.
The third, taking advantage of the distraction from the other two hounds, lunged at the hunter, latching on to his arm. As the teeth started to sink into his flesh, Rhenakos let out a cry,but stabbed his dagger into the hound’s head, killing it instantly. With a bit of a struggle, Rhenakos pushed the body aside, and staggered back up.
As he swayed, he could see her, the look of shock and horror on her face at his condition.
“Shut…shut up…and get out…of my way…” he said with a growl as he stumbled forward.
The demon started to clap, a smile on his face. “Well, well…I did not give you quite enough credit. However…” With little effort, he appeared before Rhenakos, and shoved the man to the ground. “I’m sorry to say, that playtime is over…”
Once more, Rhenakos had the vile demon over him. Once more, he felt the demon caress his flesh, his hands burning hot as they slowly scratched at his face. The hunter’s heart beat was pounding, nearly beating out of his chest. It was going to end the same way it began.
The demon smiled, and started to dig his fingers into the place where Rhenakos’ left eye should have been. The searing pain caused the hunter to nearly black out, his struggles amounting to nothing against the demon’s strength. Finally, he blacked out.
—-
Even in the darkness the pain never stopped. But in the end, he was alone, just like he knew he would be. This was the end that had been waiting for him ever since he began this quest of mad vengeance.
“This is the end then….I guess….” Rhenakos said. “I give up…”
““What the fuck do you mean ‘I give up!?’,” she said, as if she had been there the whole time. “You stabbed me in the fucking heart, and for what!?”
I did, didn’t I… He closed his eye. I’m sorry you know. I never meant to involve you. He started to laugh. “I’m sorry…but we won’t be seeing each other again, will we? There’s a special place reserved for me.”
“Fuck you.”
“No,” Rhenakos replied with a smile. “Fuck you.”
“You’re such an idiot. And to think, I gave my fucking heart to you.”
“You gave me……”
—-
Rhenakos’ eye shot open, and through the overwhelming pain that he was feeling, he punched his arm into the demon’s side. “Inima!” The blade exploded with life, a brilliant orange cutting through the demon. With a slick motion, the demon was cleaved in two at the waist, and the pressure was gone.
The demon started to cackle madly, as if this were nothing more than a comedy to him.
Coughing, Rhenakos shoved the demon’s upper half off of him, and rolled over, pinning it down. “You. Fucking. Bastard!” He slammed the blade into the demon’s chest, over and over, blood pouring all over the stab wounds, his left eye socket bleeding profusely.
The demon was still laughing.
Rhenakos tossed the blade away, and with his bear hands, dug into the demon’s left eye, and with a tug, yanked it out. Surprisingly, that was what shut the demon up.
“Finally…” Rhenakos said as the silence permeated the air.
“It’s…it’s done…”
Rhenakos fell to the side, rolling onto his back. He held the demon’s eye above him, the grotesque thing staring back at him. The hunter started to laugh. The laughter, though, turned into sobs. His right eye weeping tears, his left eye socket weeping blood.
Everything. I sacrificed everything for this one, tiny thing…. Slowly he brought it down. With a sickening popping sound, he pushed it into his left eye socket, as if to procure some sick, twisted trophy. The tears, though, did not stop.
Everything was hitting him all at once. He had become worse than a demon. He was something more hideous than any creature he had ever seen. And the one person who saw anything in him, he had killed. It was all crashing down. There was no escape.
“Osiria…I love you too.”
