Slazar stepped back, eyes wide, heart pounding violently as if trying to escape his chest. He stared at the man before him.
the one who wore his face, spoke with his voice, even smirked like him… but there was something else.
Something far more wicked than he ever dared to be.
He asked, fear lacing his voice:
"What do you mean… you're me?"
The man laughed, a deep, chilling sound that felt like it rose from the depths of a crypt.
He stood slowly, scanning the walls of the altar chamber that seemed to breathe and gasp with every word spoken.
"I am you, Slazar… but I'm the part you buried. The part that… enjoyed it."
He leaned forward slightly and whispered:
"I didn't bring you here just to meet me… I brought you here to test you."
The space around them shimmered.
The veins running along the walls turned a deep crimson, as if the blood within had started to boil.
"Rahigh has completed his part of the ritual… now it's your turn."
His voice dropped into something more ancient, more ominous:
"But don't think you'll inherit Rahigh's power so easily… you must earn it. And I will be the one to decide if you deserve it. Understood?"
Before Slazar could respond, the fleshy ground in front of him split open.
From the pulsating wound emerged a massive mouth, its lips parting like gates to a hellish abyss. Inside it… the hilt of a sword.
The man reached forward and pulled it free.
What emerged was not a sword… it was a living nightmare.
It was forged from raw, pulsing flesh, covered in human eyes that darted in every direction, and tiny mouths that screamed, sobbed, and laughed, spewing distorted noises like imprisoned souls.
All the mouths released a collective wail, a wave of twisted red energy that flooded the chamber.
Slazar's nose began to bleed uncontrollably, and a piercing pain stabbed through his mind like a poisoned blade.
The man smiled as a skull-shaped sigil manifested in his hand, pulsing with the beat of a dead heart.
"Let's see now… if you are worthy of inheriting the power of the Altar Demon… or just another vessel I'll break and steal."
Then, with inhuman speed, he vanished.
In a blink, he was in front of Slazar. In the next, the fleshy sword struck.
The blade screamed with every swing, the entire place trembling with its fury.
Slazar narrowly dodged the attack, crashing to the ground.
The meaty soil beneath him began to coil around his limbs, as if trying to devour him.
The boy laughed and said:
"Good… but that's not enough. Draw your sword, Slazar. Reveal your truth."
Slazar growled:
"Damn you, you bastard! How the hell am I supposed to do that?!"
The man crouched, his voice now a whisper of poison:
"Remember… your victims."
"Remember that knife…"
"…the knife you used to take your first life."
Slazar's right hand trembled. He pressed it against the ground, mirroring the man's gesture.
He closed his eyes.
He searched his memory—and the memory responded.
He was back on that night. His first kill.
A conman. A target. Marked by the elder of the organization. No questions asked, no hesitation… but now he remembered the victim's eyes.
Eyes filled with terror… shock… pleading.
"Please… don't…"
Then the blood. The smell of blood.
The sound of flesh tearing, skin melting, bones cracking.
He didn't feel a rush of pleasure
. No. What he felt was something else… a dark satisfaction. As if fulfilling a will not his own.
The knife the old, rusty blade began to fade from his memory and take shape on the ground.
But it was no longer a knife.
The world twisted again.
The earth became living flesh once more. Black veins erupted from his hand and wrapped around the knife.
His body trembled.
It felt as though every sin he had ever committed ran through his veins, being reborn in steel.
He opened his eyes, and his hand now gripped a flesh-blade, eerily similar to the man's, but longer its surface covered in closed, bleeding eyes.
The man smiled widely.
"There you are…"
"Welcome… to the Baptism of the Altar."