The Jester of Apocalypse
Chapter 97: Escape

Marven looked at the improvized sword, noticing the bending and tearing it had endured after he used the massive technique. It wasn’t a big deal; the blade could last longer, and Dukean could fix it in seconds if needed.

However, even if he had the Glass Shard, he wasn’t confident he could face this crisis. All they could do was run.

Before their eyes, the demon absorbed piles of limbs and grew with every piece of flesh that sank into its body. What stood before them could only be described as a titan, a giant, three-meter-tall pile of muscle and raw power.

They couldn’t run. They couldn’t fight.

Marven chuckled a bit. "Well… looks like we won’t be much use against the messenger after all."

The demon bent forward, preparing itself to move.

Then, a metallic flash descended from above, smashing right into its head and shattering the stone beneath. The demon didn’t move, despite there being a large sledgehammer embedded in its skull.

"Yo, what the hell, this thing is so tanky!" Neave observed as he pulled the hammer out, and it swung from the side, landing with a terrifying thud that could be felt in one’s chest.

But still, the demon stood, so, with a click of his tongue, Neave swung his weapon from the side, knocking it back a bit.

He appeared before it, spinning the sledgehammer. "This thing is so tough… I can’t use a true strike, either. You guys are too close. Hmmm…" Neave shrugged, then disappeared, reappearing next to the muscle mass struggling to get up…

And swung the hammer from above, putting some extra strength into it. That was all. It was a simple, straightforward downward swing. Then he did it again and again, repeatedly bashing the broken body of the enemy, leaving behind nothing but a pile of shattered limbs and putrid blood.

"What are you guys…?" Neave tried asking as he looked at his horrified allies but— "Pffff—" He clamped his hand to his mouth, but that wasn’t nearly enough to contain it.

He cackled uncontrollably, rolling on the ground and pointing at them. "Holy shit! I thought it was only that crazy bastard, but y’all lost your minds, too!"

The glass puppet flew from nowhere, dropping the aforementioned ‘that crazy bastard’ on the ground beside the others.

Upon his arrival, he was given quite an intense death stare, and Marven stepped forward., "Gabrias… what did you do to us, and why!?" Every word dripped with fury as hetook another step toward the sweating man.

The naked figure on the floor pushed back but seemed more confused than frightened, "What do you mean?"

"You know damn well what I mean!" Marven screamed as he gestured at… well… the fact that he was bald and naked.

Neave laughed even harder in the background, gripping his stomach and rolling around in circles.

Taking a moment to cool himself, the old cultivator breathed deeply and asked, "Why did you take the Glass Shard and leave?"

Gabrias seemed honestly unsure why he was being asked this question. "To gather leather for a couch, of course."

“Wha—!? But why did you strip us?”

“I needed the material! What—why are you attacking me?” He asked.

The way he said it was genuinely confused, to the point where the others deflated. It was hard to get angry at him when it was so apparent that he was barely in control. They weren’t much better, either. At least all of them were warriors, while Gabrias was a damn construction worker.

Rather than remain angry at Gabrias, they all turned to Neave instead—who finally stopped laughing and got off the ground, but an amused expression was still firmly seared into his face.

And could they get angry at him, either? Frankly, compared to even Gabrias, Neave was in an entirely different league of insanity.

Harel, however, rushed forward, gripping an obsidian branch that she prepared to stab him with.

He casually restrained her, of course, without even breaking a sweat, and his face lit up with realization. "Uh-oh, someone is feeling stabby! Ah! I get it!” He beamed at them. “I see you are all on your way to adjusting to this place!" He nodded in satisfaction, "Well, you should be more careful. Wandering around will get you killed, but…" Neave contemplated a bit. "You aren’t in that much danger yet. You should be set with better weapons and maybe a couple of spirit powers. Follow me, let’s go and…"

"Neave." Marven stepped forward, and Neave turned around.

"What is it, old man?" Neave turned around with a slight look of annoyance at being interrupted.

Marven didn’t know what to say. So he didn’t rely on his knowledge. Something within him cracked. "We can’t go on like this…” he said, feeling his voice crack unpleasantly. “This—this place is—” his breath sped up. “—it is a nightmare." A lot more emotion poured out of him than he expected.

But he couldn’t contain it any longer. His son stood before him, having spent far longer living in far worse conditions, but he dared—

“I—” he tried, but he felt cowardly. He could no longer meet Neave’s eye as he gripped the skin around his heart, feeling more naked than he had ever felt in his life.

"We can’t… We can’t handle this. This is not how people are meant to live. This place is insane. It’s driving us insane; everything is constantly dark and cold, and horrifying creatures lurk in the shadows… just… can we…?"

"No," Dukean spoke, and they all turned to face him. "Calm down, Marven."

He gazed at Dukean, eyes bloodshot and wide open, as he forced himself to calm down. As he did, he felt shame set in. How could he crack under pressure like that?

After looking at everyone, not with amusement or mockery but with an utterly neutral expression, Neave nodded. "Alright, follow me."

He started walking back, and everyone followed him, unsure of what he was doing. They walked slowly at first, but he gradually sped up, and eventually, they found themselves in a large room with the massive glass brush.

***

Neave told them to sit down, and he sat before them, observing them individually. They were a mess—sunken eyes, shrunken pupils, caved cheeks, pale skin, skinny bodies, wretched nails, ones that had clearly been bitten and chewed continuously, and they all acted weird.

Despite everything he had gone through in the loop, he had never looked like they did. He died way before his body could reach such a state. After all, he didn’t have food or water. They did. And they weren’t in a loop, either, so their state hadn’t been resetting every so often.

With a sigh, he pinched his brow, feeling like an absolute moron for his previous thinking. They hadn’t been acclimating to the nightmare realm.

They had been dying from severe bodily and mental deterioration.

Now… How should he handle this?

Neave nodded at them and told them to wait here a bit.

He left them alone with the glass shrub for a few minutes as he went to one of the sealed chambers.

Phasing through a wall of obsidian, he appeared in the room of slimes. Neave picked up a few slimes and ran back outside.

Once he was next to them, he made a few glass containers. Then, he killed the slimes and poured the goop into one of them.

Several containers later, and with some help from Dukean, Neave had three containers—one of water, one of his own blood, and one of slime. The blood container was massive, yet he wasn’t sure it would be enough. He was betting on his peculiar set of powers to help him out a bit.

He grabbed the blood container and repeatedly used alchemy techniques, layering incredibly complex methods. Occasionally, he would click his tongue and start from the beginning, as he couldn’t quite do what he was trying to do.

Eventually, however, the blood was processed. A pile of red goop sat on the ground, and the container was left with a somewhat muddled, yellowy liquid.

As he used countless techniques on this liquid as well, gradually, it grew more transparent, and the liquid was reduced to a minuscule portion of what it used to be.

After dipping his finger into it and giving it a lick, it left him slightly displeased, but he shrugged and decided it was good enough. He used a few more techniques on the liquid, but nothing changed visibly.

Then, he turned to the slime and extracted a bit into a smaller cup, where he used a different process, one that the others recognized as the method that transformed slime into a sweet syrup. He seemingly did something else, but nobody remembered the process well enough to notice anything different.

A final container was put forward, where he combined all the other liquids. What was left was a considerable amount of yellow liquid, one that he presented to the others.

Marven winced a bit, "Neave, what is this?"

Unable to muster a smile, he merely shrugged and pushed the container forward. "Why don’t you try it?"

He handed them a small glass and told them to just scoop up a bit and drink.

As was common at this point, the burden of trying it fell on his father, who gave him a shaky smile, carefully scooped up just a bit of the liquid and gave it a cautious sip. His surprise nearly made him spit it out. "Alcohol!?"

"Yup!" He nodded, "My blood has a lot of sugar in it,” he said with a mischievous smirk.

Taking a second, more confident sip, the old man blinked a few times and grimaced. "This is… extremely strong." However, he didn’t seem displeased. "I wouldn’t have minded you keeping the process a secret, but I have to concede. This isn’t half bad. Making I just haven’t had a drink in too long. So,” he said, getting to the point. “What do you want us to do with it?

Neave grinned. "Go ahead. Drink."

The others looked confused. Dukean was the first to ask, “Is there some sort of unique property to it?”

“Nope,” Neave shrugged. He glanced away somewhat awkwardly and scratched his cheek. “Don’t people get drunk when they feel bad?”

They stared at him blankly for a second. Marven and Dukean broke into ravenous laughter; Harel rolled her eyes while Hunter and Gabrias nodded sagely, albeit for entirely different reasons.

The others all hesitated a bit, but it didn’t take them long to each grab their glass.

Marven chatted with Hunter as they drank; Gabrias savored every sip as if it were a sacred liquid, while Dukean and Harel seemed to be in a drinking competition. She was winning hands-down.

Soon enough, the container was empty, and they all lay on the ground, unconscious.

Neave had done something a little sneaky to the slime without them noticing. There was a method that could turn slime into a weak sedative. It was an obscure alchemy method, and it could barely put a mortal child to sleep, but in large amounts and coupled with alcohol, oh yeah; it could knock a motherfucker out.

He nodded proudly and let them sleep.

As he stared at his allies, he felt… A sigh escaped his lips while he contemplated.

Their lives—real lives—were at stake, in no small part due to Neave’s involvement with them. Even though they had agreed to come in…

Was dragging them in really a good choice…?

The deal was rather simple. They would spend their time here working on grasping as much potential as possible, so when they left he realm, with help from Neave, they would work on reaching as high on the path as they could.

He would give them weapons, a set of spirit powers perfectly suited for them, and all the training they would ever need in their lives. In turn, they would use that power to defend him until he found a way to overcome his current bottlenecks.

It was a pretty fair deal, at least on the surface it appeared to be. But was it really? What happened after he was done with his goals? Would he, no, could he allow five near-godlike individuals to walk free into the world?

For heaven's sake, he barely knew any of them, including his own father. And even then, he was hardly a good judge of character.

He felt his hand itch. So he got up and—

Jumped back, grasping his arm as he sweat profusely. For a fraction of a moment, he had the thought to kill them and kick them out. It was a thought that smelled of manipulation, but… he really couldn’t tell.

Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself.

Wasn’t risk like this par for the course? Truthfully, he was in a war against forces the motivation of which he wasn’t certain of. He knew too little. But he had decided that he had no desire to compromise long ago.

Whether he was a villain or a hero, it didn’t matter. His belief that the world had to be reformed still stood firm. At that moment, the time to question himself had long passed. He chuckled. Then he cackled.

Already, he could sense faint whispers of ambient energy in the air. His desired threshold was about to be passed.

Monsters would begin growing independently, and he didn’t even have to do anything.

That was right. The moment had arrived.

So fuck it.

Regret, slowing down, taking a step back, trying to take a moral high ground—it had all become pointless when he touched a tome that had doomed him, an innocent eleven-year-old boy, to an eternity of torment.

The world that allowed for that was unjust at its core.

No matter the cost—no matter the consequence—he would crack it open and take a look inside.

***

Astrador held a tiny baby gently in his arms. Then, he lifted it by the skin on the back of its neck and dropped it above the soil. Its soft, squishy body plopped against the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Time to train again, Sateron," Astrador commanded.

The baby coughed and spoke in a deep, manly voice, "Yes, Father," as he got up to obey his command.

He got into a stance and started doing pushups. At first, the baby boy did them slowly, limited by his meager physical prowess. But as he focused and a faint mist enveloped his body, he sped up until he did so many per second that a mortal would only see a blur.

Unable to continue, Sateron plopped, breathing heavily. Yet again, he failed to crack five thousand, and the disapproval in his father's eyes drove baby Sateron to tears.

"What did I say about crying?" Asked Astrador as he got up and kicked Sateron full force, sending his little body slamming against the impenetrable barrier. “Useless. If only I could afford another attempt.” He lamented the price he had to pay to manifest Sateron.

But as it stood, this little guy was his best chance of getting rid of those pests. Whatever they were doing outside his anchor's reach wasn’t good news. The border had already started flickering, and while it was far from stable, the core approached existence with each moment that passed.

Baby Sateron got up, spat some blood on the ground, and returned to doing pushups.

They were running out of time.

“Better hurry, Sateron,” Astrador encouraged his new servant. “Remember our deal. If you fail to kick them out, you will never get a chance at a true life.”

“Ye… yes, father.”

***

Another demon squirmed, dropping to the ground. Then, it got up and stood contemplatively.

Should it go after the humans again? No, the opportunity to deal with them easily had passed. He needed more than a meager body like this. Those pests, they… they were getting in his way. And that meddling god…

With its jaw opening wide, the demon screeched a wretched, bone-piercing tone that echoed through the land and sent even his loyal little minions into hiding.

No… It needed more. This wouldn’t be enough. They all needed to leave. And the other had to wake up and open his eyes to the truth.

The demon ran, moving through the thick forests. It soon encountered another demon, one it swiftly dispatched and consumed.

It kept running. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the NʘvᴇlFire.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

Far past mountains, valleys, ravines, abysses, and depressions, it finally reached it.

The enormous, black sea of sludge. Its shores putrid, its depths darker than the abyss. With a frilly, bouncy dance, the demon jumped head-first into the sea, submerging itself in its horrid waters.

Distant, whispery echoes could be heard all around the abyssal shores.

And deep within, movement shook the waves, hidden, unseen…

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