THE RELIC GUILD (and other stories) Updated regularly.

CHAMPION OF DEAD TIME (part 1)

The demon's axe rose and fell, chopping off the blubbery creature's arm. The creature hissed putrid breath, raising a fat hand before its grotesque face to ward off a second attack, but to no avail. Blood poured as thick and rusty sludge, and the hand joined the other limb on the scorched earth.

    Although the creature was twice the demon's size, it was not made for combat; its ovoid head and two remaining limbs were connected to a huge slug-like body, lumbering, flaccid, slow. Its voice was a distorted and childlike wail as the demon dismembered the last of its arms, and buried the axe deep in its face. With a wrench, the demon split its adversary's head in two. The creature slumped, dead, and the demon wasted no time. With speed and seemingly unlimited strength, it proceeded to butcher the corpse, hacking the slug-like body into bloody, steaming chunks.

    This filthy creature was an abomination, an abnormality; wherever it dragged its blubber, it secreted a mucus that enriched the barren, lifeless earth, turning it into fertile soil. To breed order was the creature's sole purpose; to pervert the land so life could flourish naturally. It was the demon's duty to eradicate such blemishes from the Retrospective, where the chaos of dead time had to be preserved.

    As always, the Retrospective accepted the demon's offering. The creature's remains steamed and melted to a viscous soup that was sucked down through cracks in the red and blackened rock. The Retrospective fed. It wasted nothing. And the raw matter that it devoured would soon be used to create true wild monsters who would roam this savage House and keep it untamed.

    The demon looked out across the broken landscape. In the distance, behemoth storm clouds had gathered. Bloated and poisonous, raining acid and barking great spears of lightning at the ground. Beneath the storm, countless monsters fought in the perpetual war that raged across the Retrospective. Ten million of them at least, forming a writhing sea of corrosion. They were locked together in pandemonium, knowing no other way than violence and hate. But the demon had no interest in joining the monumental battle. It had its own war to fight.

    The demon stiffened as a sudden, alien presence stroked its mind. Turning, huge axe raised and ready to attack, it was confronted by a strange sight, one it had never before seen in the Retrospective.

    There was a rent in the air, a ragged hole that led to somewhere far from this House of dead time. And there, standing in the glow of silver light, was not a monster but a man. Dressed in a black cassock, long white hair falling about his shoulders, his skin was as pale as death, and he bore scarring upon his forehead. The demon did not know what to make of the man in the silver light. It only understood that he was an intruder and had to be expelled from the Retrospective.

    With the axe held high, the demon ran at the man. He barely moved, only flexing his hands, but an energy came from him unlike anything the demon had experienced before, a foul kind of magic. As easily as swatting a fly from the air, the energy punched the demon onto its back. Axe slipping from its grasp, it slid along the ground and lay still, momentarily stunned.

    Confused, daunted, the demon jumped to its feet, retrieving the axe and shaking it above its head threateningly. But it dared not launch a second attack. The man stared, again barely moving as more magic came from him, this time as subtle and slithering as a snake. It enveloped the demon, sank into its mind and memories, and a voice spoke in a language that did not belong to the Retrospective. And it asked a question: Do you remember who you used to be . . .?

    For the first time, the demon knew fear. It turned and fled from the man in the silver light.

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