An Incomplete History

Chapter 8 - Gluttony.

A vast scape of  stone and mist, in the center lies Gale and a being beyond even his nightmares. The being has 8 eyes, a spider-like head with thick horns coming out of either side, 8 legs protruding from its round purple body, its mandibles shudder slightly. This beings aura is immense, stronger than Julio's. "Gale, you're still naive. Though every archdemon has placed a special interest in you, but I need to get to you first, your valuable, which means you grant power. I don't expect you to understand, but even you can understand the greed of all beings. The power you grant me will make me stronger than the rest, I will be able to-" The beings monologue gets interrupted by Gale abruptly yelling. "Alright, I don't know who the fuck you are, I don't know what the fuck your doing to me, but I can assure you if you continue this, your death will be eminent." Gale's face is stern, standing tall in front of horror that stands ahead of him.

The misty plane gets filled with laughter, a deep laughter from the being but thousands of small voices from the darkness all laughing at Gale, all directions filled with this overbearing laughter. Gale looks back at the being barely visible now, only his glowing yellow eyes staring at Gale as the laughter persists. Silence fills the room as one of the beings legs steps towards Gale, followed by the ground shaking in intervals as the being gets closer and closer. Jolts of fear sent through Gale's body at every step.
An electrifying haze fills the plane and Gale feels his vision blurring. "GALE!" A voice from outside the plane calls his name, a familiar voice. Gale looks at the being in front of him and gives him a smug smile. "I'd be more scared, but you're not in control right now."  Gale now fully realizes that he's in a dreamscape and he is still partially in control. Gale alters his body in the dream, giving himself back his eye, and transforming the plane to a small concrete path, and turning the being into the size of an ant, stepping on it and walking off.

As Gale walks down the concrete path a shadow covers him completely as the being rises back and the sky goes pitch black. The intense aura hits Gale again and a putrid stench fills the area. Gale's eye goes back to being the crater it was before as he loses control of his own dream. The being grows larger and larger as it looks over the now panicking Gale as he begins to yell in fear. The moon casts some light on the being to reveal him in his entirety, a spider-like entity with bug-like purple skin, Incredibly large legs that make Gale look like the ant and glowing yellow eyes, horns that look like a crown. The beings mandibles salivate and twitch as it takes a step that digs into the earth beneath it. "Gale... Don't keep me waiting here much longer" the deep voice of the being sends horror through Gale's entire body as he jolts awake.

Gale immediately sits up in his bed, looking around to see Tomasi smiling at him. "You're finally up, I heard you yelling in here so I've been trying to wake you up." Tomasi raises an eyebrow "Everything is okay... right?" Gale doesn't respond to any of Tomasi's words. "I need to talk to Ryuma where is he?" Gale says panicked, he gets out of bed and heads towards the door. "He's out with Aquila, they went to grab Visci for you." Tomasi starts to look concerned. "When did they leave?!" Gale shouts in his panic. "They should be back fairly soon, Gale what's going on?" Tomasi's voice is filled with concern. "I saw something, I don't know what it was but I know something connected to my dream that shouldn't have been there." Gale's voice is shaky and higher than usual, the alarm in his voice is apparent. Tomasi is speechless and Gale opens the door in haste, almost hitting P who was about to knock.  Makya notices the commotion and walks over to see what's happening. "Oh it's just you Gale, how do you feel are you ready to start training again soon?"  Makya watches as Gale turns around and she sees the panicked expression on his face. Gale puts his palm on the wall and shuts his eyes for a moment but immediately sees the massive figure again causing him to jump back and Tomasi to grab his shoulder. "Let's go to the entrance and wait for Ryuma and Aquila to get back, come on." Tomasi guides the disoriented Gale to the entrance and sits him on a stool, Makya stands Infront of him and P stands beside her. "What's going on Gale." Makya asks, Gales breathing is heavy, he stares at the ground, sweat pearls form on his face. "I-i don't know.." as Gale talks the doors open and Aquila walks in with a smile holding Visci and Ryuma walks in behind him. The smile on Aquila's face immediately dropping the second he sees the situation. Ryuma walks over and puts the bag he was carrying down. "Gale look at me." Ryuma squats down Infront of Gale, and Gale looks back up at Ryuma. "What happened." Ryuma's voice is stern, demanding and understanding at the same time.

"Last night, when I was trying to sleep.. I closed my eyes and after a few minutes I woke up in a misty plane, made of granite. Thi-This Thing! It stood Infront of me, it looked like some sort of demonic spider, after a bit I realized it was a dream and was able to alter the situation to be in my favor, then it changed. It controlled my dream, and it spoke to me, telling me to not keep him waiting." Gale's voice is intense, filled with fear. The room goes silent as Ryuma seems to have been sent into a deep thought. "It seems we have less time than I anticipated."
Ryuma says and the rooms focus moves to him. "What Gale made contact with I'm afraid is none other than the Archdemon of Gluttony - Gulosus . He's arguably one of the weakest archdemons but it's strength still overwhelms us easily. It's main focus is to attack through dreams when people are most vulnerable, eating the person's mind from the inside out, then once that's done it becomes you for a while, it takes over your body and transfers from mind to mind. Only needing a fraction of his strength to do this. I'm confused on why Gulosus didn't kill you immediately. If what I think his plan is, is actually his plan we have around 3 days before his servants attack us, he will want Gale brought towards his actual body meaning he won't kill Gale over his dreams.
Gale I need you to put in all the effort you can to start controlling the energy you have, there's no chance you can master it. Though I have a plan, I need to polish it more then we can go over it tommorow. Tomasi and Aquila, go get ready and start training, P and Gale continue your training as well, Makya I trust you to supervise them." Ryuma stands up and starts walking towards his office and looks back to see everybody staring at him. "Go already." Everyone stands up and go to do as instructed.

Aquila and Tomasi go into their rooms grabbing their respective gear and heading to the field, they get there at the same time as P and Gale who seem a bit on edge from the situation. Makya sits down on the bench and yawns, Tomasi kicks it into over drive throwing targets into the air and hitting a bullseye for every single one while Aquila continues to fight a punching bag, taking a quick break to wrap some bandages around his knuckles.

On the other side of the field P and Gale stand against eachother again, Gale grips his sword and stares her down. P's face is more intense from the added stress. P puts her fists Infront of her and rushes at Gale who swings at her, using her wrist guards she pushes on his blade throwing herself into the air landing a kick on Gales back. Gale flys foward but quickly recouperates and concentrates, taking a deep breath to try and find the energy he used the day prior, in his stomach he feels a massive pit, a massive feeling of fear and stress, there he feels a pool gathering, it feels like fire. The fire spreads through every limb of his body. Gale's wound starts to glow again, his iris of his other eye turning a bright purple. Gale launches foward at P again, swinging his sword but she blocks it barely in time, for once they are fighting on a tier equal to eachother.

In Ryumas office, Ryuma sits at his desk drafting up a plan for exactly how to deal with the impending attack of Gulosus. His plan consists of 2 main parts. Rather than fighting the Archdemon physically he plans to utilize the dream invading ability the Archdemon has. This would mean Gale fighting the Archdemons dream form by himself while leaving the physical body of the Archdemon to the rest of the group. If he can get Gulosus to fall into the trap of invading Gale's dream again they have a chance at defeating the Archdemon. Not fully taking into account the servants of the Archdemon, Ryuma devises 2 groups of the people fighting the Archdemons physical body: Aquila, Makya, and P will take down servants while Ryuma and Tomasi will head towards the main body and wait until the Archdemon has been killed spiritually. This entire plan hitches on the idea that Gale can kill such an entity. All Gale needs to do is take control of his dream.. However with an entity such as Gulosus he can slowly drain the life force from anybody within a dream. Final preparations start now.

[Chapter end]