"And that...was the last ti I ever heard from teor Horn," Daria said before pausing so that she could take a breath and emotionally recover.
"Damn...just...damn."
[That was...sad.]
To say the last few minutes of Daria’s story was intense would be an understatent.
Throughout the course of her retelling, Daria had dug up a lot of emotions and mories she hadn’t thought about in years due to the simple fact that life and ti waited for no one.
Tempers cool, grudges eventually fade from mory and all injuries heal to so extent over ti.
Besides, Daria had a promise to keep.
"Alright now...I should probably explain what happened after teor Horn...broke down."
________________________________________
I didn’t see what happened during teor Horn’s last monts, since I was too busy hiding at his request.
But...I could hear it.
I could hear the bellows of a beast that was both a natural disaster and a waking nightmare all at once, mixed with what I could only assu were the screams of the damned.
But, I could recognize the voice as still being his.
I could hear the voices of those elders, their allies, all echoing across an empty landscape.
They were not cries of battle, nor of jubilation nor of victory.
They were screams.
Desperate screams.
The type of screams that only those who were facing an inevitable death released when they were facing an overwhelming force and were praying for a miracle to the very last mont.
It was rather surreal, hearing these screams coming from warriors I knew slaughtered n as easily as a butcher slaughter chickens.
To hear cries of rcy from elites that would rather kill soone than grab clency.
It was terrifying and strange...but oddly relieving.
Eventually though, everything went silent.
I couldn’t feel any additional fluctuations of aether.
I couldn’t hear any more cries of terror, roars of pain and desperation nor any pleas for rcy.
All I could hear at that point was the howls of the desert wind.
Thinking it was over, I decided to leave my hiding spot to go and see just how much devastation had occurred during teor Horn’s last stand.
I won’t say it was a mistake, but...what I saw that day made realize just how small my worldview was.
And how weak my clan really was in the grand sche of the world.
...
When Daria first found teor Horn’s ho, the Tomb of the Star Caller, it was on a rocky plateau that was surrounded by several dozen spires of stone that were like the fingers of fallen giants reaching towards the heavens and dunes of sand that appeared to be as endless as the sea.
"By all the ancestors and saints...," Daria said in disbelief.
That wasn’t the case anymore when she exited from the tomb.
The plateau was still surprisingly intact, but the terrain surrounding it had been drastically altered.
The spires of stone had all been deford in a way that suggested that they were destroyed, lted into magma and then rapidly cooled into new shapes. Embedded in several of these "new" stone structures, Daria could make out indents that were clearly body parts, fossilized human skeletal remains and rock deformities shaped like screaming faces.
Amongst the faces, Daria could make out the screaming face of Elder Maximo, a fellow who she recalled having a strange fascination with the scent of blood.
Not in a cannibalistic way, but in a sexual way...which might’ve been worse all things considered.
Moving on from the new landmarks though, when Daria surveyed the terrain she had no choice but to shield her eyes with her hands.
Because the dunes of sand within who knows how many ters in either direction surrounding the plateau had been lted into glass.
So of parts of the sand had been turned into tempered structures, formations that would never bend or break without powerful external intervention.
A majority of the glass in the area though could be seen as shattered shards scattered about, clear signs that they had ford structures that were so delicate that the slightest breeze rendered them into powder.
In this pool of tempered glass and shards though, Daria could see the molten remains of another warrior, the face and bones of which so badly damaged that she couldn’t identify a single defining trait.
However, she didn’t really care for any of these human remains, even if she was vaguely related to so of them.
"Where is he, where is he..."
The only one she actually cared about probably wasn’t even remotely humanoid looking at this point, but was more of a family mber than even her parents or siblings.
"Co on, co-wait...there he-oh no..."
Unfortunately, it was also as bad as assud it to be.
[D...da...]
"I’m coming, teor Horn! Just don’t die on yet! [Shadow Breeze Dance]!"
Several hundred feet away from the plateau, well beyond the glass floor and the mutated rock structures, Daria managed to spot what appeared to be giant dying beast that was leaking smoke-like energy from several massive wounds all over it’s body.
The beast in question looked...off, even by aether beast standards.
From a distance, it appeared to look like a giant rhinoceros, covered in a thick brown hide and a golden horn.
However, if one were to examine the beast up close, they would notice details that didn’t match up to any rhinoceros aether beast in existence.
The beast didn’t have four legs and grinding teeth, but instead had a pair of curled up arms like sothing that would be on a gorilla and a maw of razor sharp teeth that could tear the flesh off of anything. Caught in these aforentioned teeth by the way, was the upper torso of a warrior from the Dragon Breaking Pavilion.
The thick brown hide was actually mottled teor stone, too thick and too deep to just be armored plating. Evidently, the massive sword wounds cutting into this beast made it obvious that it had no ans of pumping blood or sending nerve signals.
On top of all this though, the golden horn that was growing from the beast’s nose appeared to have been covered with an etched mural of so kind.
If anyone were to take notice of this mural and get a closer look, they would find that it seed to depict the story of a young girl dancing alongside strange and fantastic monsters that all seed to have constellations marked upon their torsos.
However, the one person who could’ve noticed this part was a bit too busy panicking and running.
"Co on teor Horn, please keep it together a little longer..."
Daria knew for a fact that this beast was none other than teor Horn...although at this point, he didn’t have that [Na] anymore.
Regardless, Daria moved as fast as she could to get to teor Horn’s side, building up what little [Chaos] she could muster all the while.
’Please, please, please!’
teor Horn had once taught her that [Chaos] was a strange form of energy that could do anything, but it had to be directed by a strong will, a strong desire.
Which is why she was going to try and heal teor Horn with it.
"Stop disappearing, stop disappearing!"
She knew it was probably hopeless and pointless.
She knew what was going to happen.
And yet...she had to at least try.
[Chaos] was all about defying reality, and what was death but a rule of reality?
"Yes! I made it and now I just...huh?"
Unfortunately, what was happening to the beast was a rule of unreality.
"Why...why can’t I touch him?!"
The mont Daria tried to place her hands on the beas•’s fading form, she ended up touching thin air. Then, as she moved her hand up the bea•’s body, the sa thing kept happening over, and over, and over again.
Until, she finally reached the h••• and realized that...there was barely anything left.
The last bit of hope left her body when all that seed to be proof of this ____ existence was a fading eye.
At the sight of this, Daria fell to her knees and began to cry, harder than she had ever cried before.
That is...until she heard a small voice.
[D...d...]
"Huh? teor Horn? You’re still alive?!," Daria exclaid with hopeful joy. "Oh thank, wait no! This is the ti for action and not prayers. Stop disappearing on ! Maybe if I channel more [Chaos], I can-"
[D...Dahlia?]
"Wait...what?"
[Dahlia is that you?]
Needless to say, Daria was incredibly confused at this sudden change to her na.
[Dahlia...]
"No, it’s Daria. My na is-"
[Dahlia...did...did you see that? I...I made a friend. A little girl...just like you were.]
"O-oh..."
After realizing what was actual happening, Daria proceeded to stay quiet.
[Her na...is similar to yours too. Isn’t that...funny?,]•••• continued to say. With every word though, the last remaining bit of •••• beca fainter and fainter.
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