It was wider than it should have been—as if its head had reconfigured itself to accommodate this monstrous maw. Its tongue slithered out like a ravenous worm, writhing in the air, dripping thick saliva that smoked with toxicity. Its teeth were not teeth, but shattered bone fragments, and the depths of its throat stretched into nothingness—into something never meant to be seen.
The man's face was a mirror of agony. His eyes were not staring—they were being *pulled inward*, his eyelids torn, his mouth gaping in a soundless scream. His skin melted slowly, turning to green ash, dissolving into the void as if he had never existed at all.
The sky behind them was no sky.
It was a shredded tapestry of overlapping realms devouring one another, of collapsing galaxies made of floating skulls, their eyes burning with black fire. The moon was a face—distorted, split open, a single eye watching, cracked lips trembling in a voiceless laugh, as if mocking everything—Gabriel, humanity, existence itself.
Then the beast began to laugh.
A laugh that was not a laugh.
A strangled scream, a tremor in the fabric of reality, a vibration that made everything feel on the verge of tearing apart. The laughter came from *everywhere*—from the walls of space, from the air itself, from inside Gabriel's bones—filling him with an icy shudder, a terror that refused to fade.
Then the entity spoke, its voice shaking the very marrow of existence, its eyes slowly turning toward him:
*"You are not human. You are the Hunter of Darkness."*
And still, Gabriel fell.
Fell beyond nothingness.
Fell where no return existed.
---
Then, Gabriel stopped falling.
He found himself drifting slowly into a dimension of pure white. He stood on his feet, walking through this blank world, only to see Zolish—the God of Fear—hovering in the void. In one hand, he held black fire; in the other, a star the size of our sun, shrunk by his power.
He turned to Gabriel and commanded:
"Freeze."
And Gabriel froze.
His eyes turned black.
The white dimension around him began to burn—black flames mixed with crimson, yet they did not consume him.
Zolish descended, his black cloak billowing, his eyes now a piercing blue. This undead creature was terror incarnate. As he walked, the white dimension quaked, spacetime itself trembling under his footsteps. It seemed Zolish had stopped restraining his power—even slightly.
He spoke to Gabriel, his voice radiating immense arcane energy, a cosmic mix of all celestial colors:
Before time existed... before anything existed... there was the Void. And before the Void you endlessly fall through... there were the Old Ones."
In that moment, Gabriel could see them—all the cosmic entities.
The Whisperers in the Dark. Irakanta. The Seraphim. The Dreadful Spider. Cthulhu. Beings beyond comprehension. Even Demofsy Tempest was there.
But one was missing.
The Shadow Devil—ĤĚ.
Zolish spoke with chilling certainty:
"Do you know?"* His voice did not align with any human language.
"There is one being... whose name none of us dare even think. But it is here... beyond our reach, even in this place, in this time."
And in that moment—when even the faintest trace of this being faded—the terror eclipsed anything a human mind could fathom.
---
*"He is the Shadow Devil—the one whose end I shall write with my own hands. And then... I will bring Rose back to life. Isn't that what you wanted, O Hunter of Darkness?"*
Gabriel trembled in horror: *"Why do you keep calling me that?"*
The God of Fear whispered:
*"I will leave you to discover that for yourself, O mortal."*
Then the fleshy winds began to howl.
The white dimension dissolved, peeled away by the gales, revealing the grotesque landscape beneath—a hell of pulsating flesh. The sky returned, a bleeding red moon rising among the stars as mountains of skin loomed in the distance.
Gabriel sat before the cosmos on the frozen ground, his true curse now unraveling. He slumped, indifferent, head bowed, staring hopelessly at the fleshy sea. With one finger, he drew a pentagram in the snow.
Tears fell from his eyes onto the fleshy lake—tears so cold they froze the very air, though even the frost could not extinguish the black fire now burning in his heart.
---
He forced himself to stand and trudged through the snowstorm, the aurora illuminating the island as always. He ventured beyond the fleshy lake, beyond the Witches' House, until a thick green mist coalesced before him.
Then, slowly, it parted.
There she stood—the other girl, the one imprisoned by the God of Fear.
Her skin was pallid, as if painted white. Her green eyes had elongated, slit pupils—predatory, sharp. Beautiful. Terrifying. Her pale yellow hair, loose and tangled, whipped in the wind. Her bone-white face was splattered with blood. Her arms were bound in plaster casts, and around her neck coiled the giant red serpent, its belly streaked with blood, venom dripping from its fangs like acid, melting the snow where it fell.
She stared at Gabriel with unwavering intensity, her gaze so severe it made him tense. He glared at the horizon and demanded:
*"Who are you, girl? How did you get here? Where is your mother?"*
She did not answer.
For half an hour, she stood motionless, staring at him with pure, seething rage. The wind howled, threatening to tear them both apart. The serpent's venom sizzled against the ice.
Gabriel's patience shattered. He roared:
*"Who the hell are you, little girl?!"*
Then—she mimicked the serpent's hiss.
And when she spoke, her voice was *not human*. It was the sound of creatures unrecorded in religion or folklore—a voice that could drive listeners to madness:
*"You know exactly who I am."*
Then, like mist, she faded—her form dissolving, her presence thinning until she was nothing but a whisper in the wind.
As if she had never been seen.
As if she had never spoken at all.
---
The Cosmic Owl
Gabriel exhaled in relief as the eerie girl vanished, as if a weight had lifted from his chest—yet his body still trembled, heavy with dread. Fear of the unknown. What now awaited him in this cursed, fleshy realm that had birthed itself from the void?
He trudged forward, each step a mournful creak against the ice, like the groan of a corpse slowly collapsing in its grave. Snow fell in unnatural spirals, as though sketching indecipherable sigils in the air, while the wind lashed his face like dead flesh—slapping, caressing, *recognizing* him. This was no ordinary ice. It was *alive*. Watching. Breathing beneath him.
Then the thick fog began to recede.
Slowly...
As if something didn't want to be seen... yet chose to reveal itself.
There, in the depths of the haze, the vision unfolded.
Gabriel froze.
He could no longer move. His breath turned to stone. His pupils dilated as if the universe had vomited forth a sight no mortal should ever witness.
Before him stood an *entity*.
An immense bird... yet not a bird.