(warning that this chapter may be full of filthy logic and reason, please be careful with the mental contamination)
The beast roar in a harsh twisting voice as if it could tear its own throat, the voice is filled with sorrow and anger. In the forest not a soul in sight, no one hears or understands the meaning behind the roar, no one knows ‘who’ is roaring despite there is only one left in the forest. This is the story on another side after despair and craziness crossing through each other like a spiral. What lies beyond the end of the spiral? Would it be the darkness where the craziness engulfed the despair or another exit of light?
“Wonderful, my dear hound. I shall embrace you. I want you to destroy the world for me. Now, bring the malevolence all over the world!” Tartarus laughed when he finally get this done, still, the ‘beast’ is not going to listen to him easily, it is mindless, or pretending to be mindless.
“It doesn’t matter if you are not listening to me, I will take your body instead. Spirit release, arte activate-- ‘ Alice’.” Tartarus doesn’t surprise with the fact that the beast doesn’t listen, he planned to take its body from the beginning.
Tartarus is troubled that he can’t release malevolence and he can’t be turned into a dragon. All the clone he produced doesn’t possess emotion since it is not taught to them except the two escaped. Although the external malevolence may let them turn hellions, it would not be a strong hellion that may release a large amount of malevolence since they have no emotion. Yet, it is a different case for Velvet. It is completely an accident that Tartarus woke in the earthpulse and then found the hidden place that sealed Innominat and Velvet with guardians there. He gained the memory of earth about the story of Velvet and Artorius and so he basically knew a lot about Velvet, he may easily turn her into a hellion or lead her to release malevolence if she awakes. Let’s admit that though he knew all things about Velvet, the plan still not worked normally when Velvet restrained her malevolence very well.
Now Velvet is turned into a hellion, he enjoys to taint the land himself whether than ask the other to do it, therefore, he decided to take over her body in full control with the mental invading arte. To the hellion turned from despair and guilty, her mental state is empty enough to welcome the invader taking over the ‘place’.
To fall, to collapse, to tumble down the world of void. Here is the despicable interloper roughly invaded and dived into the One’s deepest part in the sea of spirit. There is a space of void, no cliff, no moon, no forest or any other things Eleanor has seen in Velvet’s mental world, nothing exist here, the scenery is filled with emptiness and darkness. This is the absolute calmness of void, not a single breath of life or light of hope to be felt in the space, this is the abyss of despair. The sudden invade of the interloper waves the space like waves on shallow water, in the moment his leg touched the ‘ ground’ in the space, waves appear. A woman is lying on the water like a dead body, there is no lightness in her eyes.
“Do you despair?” The interloper Tartarus teased.
“..............” The woman doesn’t answer, only gaze at the front without focus, her eyes are not gazing at anything.
“My bad, indeed, I know the answer,” Tartarus smirked as he received no response.
“You want to achieve something for the other, but it is not possible. You can’t gain anything, or achieve anything or be anything. You can’t, because you are the void, the calamity, you only know to destroy.” Different from usual time, Tartarus said the words out of pity but not as a teaser, a more tender tone.
“But you do well for me, so here are the little presents from me. Take it, Velvet.”
As Velvet is not hearing, that is why Tartarus allows himself to speak with a tender tone. As Velvet is not looking at anything, he allows his eyes filled with empathy. He just can’t let himself to reveal his true feeling to her, from the day he saw her story, he has the feeling that this person will be the same kind as him. Yet, the people around her are the obstruction for her to find the ‘true self’, so he found ways to remove the constraint.
“Ecila.” Tartarus activated another seraphic arte that invade the space with the view of Scarlet Night, painted the empty world with his color without permission. From now on, this world became his world and Velvet became the outsider.
“If it is you, maybe you will realize,” Tartarus said while pushing down Velvet into the water below and frozen the water there.
‘After seeing his story, she will be his companion on his side.’ Tartarus thought when he decided to show his memories to Velvet that he once not allow Sorey to keep peeking in.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqNIquLk6Fz
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Velvet doesn’t care or want to see Tartarus’s memory like Sorey since she never tries to communicate with him. She thought it is impossible to communicate with him, but Tartarus just forcefully shows it to her, so Velvet sees memories of Tartarus from his childhood period.
He was a child with a strange appearance among people, he possessed red hair with a hint of black and red eyes. The surrounding people in that time always talk about him as the presence of curse and misfortune because of the external characteristic. Plus he had a single-parent family with his mother, people saw the family as forbidden and unfaithful, they are not welcome in the village. Since Tartarus helped the village in some way that they still had value to the village, they kept the family in the village and there is never an assurance that the village would not sell them out when it is needed.
Just like how the village Aball sold Velvet’s family out when the bandits came to the village, the villagers in Aball didn’t believe in Arthur as an exorcist at that time. For their home at the outermost location from the village, the easiest to be sold out to defend the whole village, they chose to sell them out. There is not even a single guilty glow inside their heart, they think it is correct, to sacrifice the least to save the whole, the proof is that there was no one in the village turned into a daemon.
The boy kept helping the village with the power he born with, sarcastic that this power is more powerful proof to the villagers that the boy is born with a curse. Therefore, his family was sold out to bear the responsibility of the failure when the village was using them to seek wealth from the king. The people at that time were superstitionists, in the name of punishing Evil by just letting Tartarus’s family bears the name of Evil and burn to die, the villagers seek pity and blessing from the ‘God’ and hope that would suppress the anger of ‘God’. They heard no pray from the ‘sinners’ when they deeply believed that the existence of Tartarus and his mum are the ‘sin’ of the ‘sinners’.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDv3B9z0ORV
His mum died in the ‘flame of justice’ but he survived thanks to his special strength born with him, the ‘judgment’ by the villagers triggered him to activate a seraphic arte to burn down the whole village. The village turned into barren land in a night, guess that the people thought it was some cursed land so no one dares to come since then. Tartarus was not freed but tied on the cross he chained because of the judgment.
Unknown the time flow since then, a rare visitor, a seraph accurately, arrived. He is a seraph possessed red iris and red hair with a hint of black just like the Tartarus. The seraph found the boy was interesting that he can see him while most of the human has low resonance, and the boy looked like him in the physical characteristic while the boy also knew about the name of a female he just spoke. Tartarus thought the seraph has a bad attitude but he must agree that his appearance is very similar to him as if they are family. Whether they have a relationship or not, out of his own interest, the seraph freed and took Tartarus away with him and brought him to the heavenly realm.
“Here is the heavenly realm, boy.” The seraph said.
“............”
Then he got the chance to enter a place very different from the earth, style or atmosphere, both too different from what he knew from the ground realm. The place called ‘Heavenly Realm’ is full of brightness, architectures here are mostly in white and golden color shining with light reflection. It is surrounded by holy breath as if the country of ‘Gods’. People lived here dress strange that their clothes are kind of a unique folk custom with similar patterns on the clothing and most of them are wearing gold jewelry. Passengers possess various fresh color in their eyes and special hair color change with a hint at the end, those are the hair and iris colors that humans don’t possess such as light blue, orange, green, purple and red is only one of those colors. For the first time, the boy thought he has found his kind in a place but he didn’t notice the strange sight from the passengers.
“Surprised?”
“............” The boy doesn’t respond but his eyes honestly reflect his excitement.
“I haven’t asked for your name, boy. My name is Chaos, what’s your name?” The seraph possessed red hair and iris just as he asked.
“....Tartarus.”
“What a boring name!” The seraph smirked.
Tartarus had no idea why the seraph brought him to such a place, but he was thankful to him despite the seraph is such a teaser.
“See, that the child between me and the human I have mentioned.” Then Chaos introduced Tartarus to his friend as ‘his dad’.
“Chaos, that is an unforgivable thing. That thing is not allowed to exist…..” The friend of Chaos looked at Tartarus with sadness in eyes as if he is sorry for his existence. Of course, Tartarus noticed that as he is sensitive to such things to survive as a ‘human’. In the end, he is not accepted in this place either. However, he still tried to survive in this place as a ‘seraph’ , he paid effort and successfully joined the government of seraphim in the heavenly realm.
In that time, the seraphim hadn’t descended onto the earth but only observed their activities to measure the effect of malevolence. The situation maintained until the arrival of Tartarus, his existence changed the view to humans negatively, boosted the group of seraphim who extremely disagrees to coexist with humans as the evidence of impurity of seraphim. However, there is still a group of seraphim who insist it is possible to coexist with humans despite the release of toxic malevolence to the seraphim. To solve the issue of coexistence between seraphim and human, someone proposed the experiment that to send part of the seraphim to the earth to learn coexistence with humans.
However, when the day to start the experiment of coexistence, Tartarus was descended with the participants as the observer when he didn’t ask for it.
“You are the observer for this proposal, let’s see how it ended up with. Oh, yeah, you have no right to refuse. Dirt will return to dirt, you won’t earn a proper position here but to doom with the human.” The president of the government said to Tartarus with a clear stance to hate the existence of humans and Tartarus.
That day, a large number of seraphim descended on the earth and daemons and dragons started to appear since that day. Also, it is the day Tartarus is refused by the Heavenly Realm to exist in their place, just like the existence of Lord of Calamity which is not acceptable by people.
Tartarus hates everything in the world especially humans and seraphim and he waited for the world to doom. Yet the doom never comes because Innominat cleansed the malevolence in the world. Therefore Tartarus started to find a way to doom it instead. However, his plan was stopped by a human called Claudin. At first, Claudin tried to communicate with Tartarus just like Sorey, but his words didn’t reach Tartarus since he closed his heart and not willing to listen.
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“I had hoped that we can understand each other, but it appears not. Sorry, it is the only way to stop you.” A man standing Tartarus said, like saying words to a friend, it looks like that he casts an exorcist arte.
“Damn it! I will break the seal one day! That you will regret not killing me. Claudin!” Tartarus cursed at Claudin.
“Maybe, I hope there is a person to stop you at that time then. Goodbye, my friend.” The man who is called Claudin says with fondness like a farewell to a friend. Claudin has the oath ‘not to kill’ so he chose not to kill Tartarus but seal him underground instead. At the same time, he hoped there is someone to realize and talk to him in the future.
“Claudin!!-----------” However, Tartarus didn’t notice that and he hated Claudin for that.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu6LRvjrkVE
Now the seal is broken and Tartarus awakes in the world again.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHseik5eBBc
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“Velvet, I told you that it is not good to oversleep,” a familiar voice said beside Velvet’s ears, a low, hoarse but somehow tender female voice. It is a voice Velvet could not forget--Seres’s voice.
It is a very long time hasn’t heard Seres’s voice. Velvet thought it would not be possible to meet her again since the last conversation in the dream, seeing her memory in the earthpulse was already a surprise. Seres should have gone, that was Velvet’s thought, but she is here again now…..No, it is just another illusion of her thinking towards her in the brain, though she thought that she is cold-blooded enough to not miss her again.
Opening the eyes, as expected, Velvet sees a woman with tied red hair with white tips, dresses in a twin-tails white dress featured in butterfly wings in black and blue colors. The woman is watching Velvet with her red iris.
“Seres? Why are you here?” Velvet asked when sat up from the bed. She is apparently in an empty space with a door and a bed beside a closed window.
“Why ask if you have an answer?” Seres smirked while they both knew that they just want to talk a little longer.
“I am a fragment of Seres left in you mixed with your think of Seres and I will disappear after anyway. Yet, I can’t let go of my little sister, you are getting me a headache.” Seres said a troubled expression, and there is a moment, Seres turns Celica again.
Although Seres denied herself being the same person as Celica but their core is still the same. If Seres hasn’t loved Arthur as Celica, she would not hate Artorius in depth as Seres. Hatred is caused by love, and indifference is the opposite of love.
Heh, Velvet wants to say ‘5 more minutes’ as Seres comes to wake her. It has been a while she is not being affectionate since the person is no longer there. But then she knew it is not time to sleep yet when Seres comes to wake her.
What can be done after ‘wake up’? Seems nothing left to be done now.
“You are not here only to wake me, right?” Velvet asked while looking at Seres’s eyes.
“Correct, I am calling you to defeat the invader together.”
“Invader?”
“You should have known when you have finished watching his memory enforced to you. The body will be taken away. If Eleanor has not casted the same seraphic arte and left the purification flame here before, this body may be taken away in a second without such long resisting time of mental resistance.” Seres continued.
“That jerk is here…...Right, I can’t lend my body to him again.” Velvet stands up from the bed and walks towards the door in this ‘room’.
“Velvet, I should tell you something before we go face him. Unlike the previous you met Eleanor in this mental world, you will feel pain and you will not remember it this time no matter how the fight turns out. Since you are seen as the outsider under Tartarus’s effect and you are a hellion now.” Seres stated.
The words implied that no matter how things turn out here, it is not going to change the fact that she despaired and became a hellion in reality, and she can’t take back the control of her body that easily either.
“Heh, I don’t care. Why would I want to remember myself, it is silly and unnecessary.” Velvet waved her hand and opened the door.
“That’s it, that’s why it could be brought back. This existence of the small part of Velvet with the hope hasn’t engulfed by the despair may bring the chance……” Seres murmured when Velvet has left the ‘room’.
CRACK---
The flame spreads through the cracks while it burst the ice ground out. There are two people standing inside the circle of the flame, it is Velvet and Seres. Velvet stands slightly humpbacked, and the light still doesn’t return into her eyes, but at least she is standing.
“You always give me surprises,” Tartarus smirked and turned to the person. He doesn’t expect Velvet to awake and break the frozen seal. He narrowed his eyes when seeing Seres since he doesn’t expect to see one more person in this mental world, but then he decided to ignore her and talk with Velvet.
“Don’t you think that we are similar?” Thinking that Velvet has seen his memory, Tartarus asked, somehow wishing Velvet to agree.
“.......In which parts are we similar?” Velvet smirked coldly.
“All! We are both not allowed to exist in this world! You can’t stand this world just like me, can you? We are the same kind! We can end the world together!” Tartarus speaks with the crazy tone bring up his emotion.
“That’s the reason why you do all kinds of things? To draw me into a picture as same as you, huh?” Velvet isn’t moved by a single word, they are all just nonsense to her. She isn’t going to hear that and she strikes directly straight with a clockwise spin to Tartarus with her ejected Gauntlet Blade coating with flame.
“You are a Lord of Calamity, aren’t you?” Tartarus blocked her blade with a seraphic arte barrier and blinked.
“I am.” Velvet said while continues to attack with a series of rising gauntlet-blade and boot-blade slashes to with a diving thrust to finish her arte.
She is not going to deny it as she feels guilty again for what she did even if she has killed people indirectly and destructed fewer towns in this era then that when she was a Lord of Calamity.
“Then you should hate the world, the world brings you misfortune and it doesn’t accept your existence.” Tartarus is still trying to persuade Velvet to be his side. That is something he doesn’t understand about himself, maybe he really wants someone to be his kind so he would not feel himself so strange to the world.
At the same time, he continued to cast the barrier to counter the attacks, so he can only see sparkles of slashing when the barrier encountered the attack.
“Seres!” Velvet shouted as she turns to slash at Tartarus immediately after her previous arte. Tartarus blinked as he keeps ignoring Seres in the beginning while talking and fighting with Velvet.
“Here you go.” Seres casted ‘Flare Vortex’ that she created a tornado with flames rising from the ground, burns and flows Tartarus into air.
“Take that!” Velvet activated her ‘therion claw’ and swings it upwards with red streaks behind, it knocks Tartarus to great beyond. Then the claw returned normal hand with bandages, Tartarus slowly sits up from the ground.
“That’s the difference between us. I only hate one person in the world and he is gone, I only destroyed the world by the way. I am aware that destroying the world is wrong but I chose to perform the act.” Velvet understated her thought as a Lord of Calamity.
“.......Such a dabbler as a Lord of Calamity. This must be something wrong in your mind!” Tartarus created numerous blades of wind flying around Velvet to slice her and Seres tries to dismiss the wind blades with fireballs.
“I don't need your instructions to act like a Lord of Calamity. Besides, even if we were the same kind of people, we won't be on the same side. You are going to take my body, aren't you? Then we will never be a companion if you don’t accept or trust a person.” Velvet claimed coldly while jumped and torn the surrounding air by her claw and unleashes her gantlet blade with blue flames.
“……Your reaction was similar to me, your experience was similar to me. Why aren’t we the same kind?” Tartarus disagreed while releases a light projectile into the ground.
“It is simple. We made different choices.” Now Velvet is charing at Tartarus in the air, prepare to strike him again.
“How is that different? You burn towns and killed people again, your core isn’t changed, just like me.”
“And I am telling you that we are different in the core. You thought what you do is right but I thought what I do is wrong.” At the moment Tartarus doesn’t move and Velvet may strike him to create a fatal wound in the next second.
“Ridiculous.......Very well, to spread malevolence in the world, shaping the world I want, a world will accept me. If you won't be on my side and won't give your body, I will take it by force.” Tartarus once again returned his calm tone.
Admitting Velvet’s word, he understands that he is alone. He is trained to not trust anyone by the environment so he won’t accept anyone easily. He will not have a companion if he doesn’t accept and trust anyone but only using them, and he is not going to give his trust to anyone even after knowing it. That’s why even he actually wants someone just like him to be his companion, he will not have one. That’s also why Velvet is different from Tartarus as she has companions even if she doesn’t realize it.
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“Velvet!” Seres shouted when she just noticed what is going to happen, but she can’t help her this time. She can’t push Velvet away from the attack like the last time when they encountered a drake in Titania, Velvet is not going to be happy if this happens again anyway. It is nearly a zero-distance attack to Velvet that it doesn’t give time for both Seres and Velvet to response, not to mention that Velvet can hardly change her posture in the mid-air.
At the same time, a series of golden chains emerge from beneath Velvet before she actually struck Tartarus, they directly strike her with the burst of power. Some of the chains just slash Velvet to create small wounds, but some of the chains cause serious assault that they pass through Velvet’s body. It is very easy to predict Velvet’s position when she is attacking Tartarus, he prepared a serious assault to her. Now the golden chains seriously hurt and chained Velvet onto the ‘ground’.
“-----!!” Velvet tried to stand from the ground against the great pain brought by the sudden assault, but she got an immediate stamp of Tartarus foot, the stamp of foot tramped her shoulder bone and the chains still tightly bound her onto the ground.
Seres unleashes great Calamity flare and scatters many pieces of paper to conjure up a tower of flame. The power is not strong enough to send Tartarus into the air as she mentioned herself as a fragment of Seres so she doesn’t have the same power as the true Seres does, but it is enough to distract Tartarus’s mind away from Velvet and makes him dismissed the arte of ‘Deceiving Pummel’.
“ …….Discord!” Tolerating the pain, Velvet said while turns her left arm into a daemonic claw and swings it to slash Tartarus to push him back a certain distance. Then she immediately stretches the distance between Tartarus and her with a jump.
“........You took away my last things in the world now, and at least I won’t let you have my body again this easily.” Velvet exclaimed. Thinking of the time she ‘killed’ Sorey, Velvet hates Tartarus so much that she can’t let him take her body again. To her, the man trampled her dignity, making her do things she doesn’t want to do, took away her friends which is also the reason bearly tied her to live, and the man turned her into a monster again. She despaired and is urging herself to die but not happen when this man can have her body. At least, she is going to decide how this body ends up with but not be taken by him.
Meanwhile, silver slits start to appear in the ‘sky’ and the flame invades and spreads through the cracks, seems that the world starts breaking when there is silver flame slowly burns down ‘the view of Scarlet Night’. The red sky is slowly engulfed and lighten up by the silver flames, painting the space with brightness and peace, turning the space returning to its original tranquility. During the destructing process, some ‘fragments of the view’ burning with the silver flames fell down from ‘the sky’ like aerolites, the place is the endpoint of the meteor shower, the burning fragments fell on the ‘ground’ and just separates Velvet and Tartarus, the flame starts to melt down the ice field here.
“The kids are making it happen.” Seres murmured while quickly comes and heals Velvet by her seraphic arte. She thought that may also be the reason why Tartarus’s reaction tends to be conservative and guarding for it is hard to fight ‘two sides’ at the same time.
“......He gets angry.” Velvet stated, thinking it would be bad if the emotion makes the enemy start fighting them with full power.
“You see the silver flame, right? It may burn us too since we are still ‘outsider’ to this world because of that man. Even if we have the controlling right back, the flame may bring you far away from this deepest place in the mental world, then you can’t fight the man. You better finish him as soon as possible, we will lose if he fights us seriously.” Seres suggested while explaining things which quite difficult to understand.
“In short to finish him ASAP, got it, we shall finish him in the next move while not allowing him to cast an arte.”
“How do you plan to do?” Seres doubted.
“Do you know about the dual mystic artes between Phi and me?”
“Through your memory, I know a little bit, but I can’t cast the exactly identical arte as Laphicet did.”
“Just do the similar things will be fine.”
“I will try.”
With the cover of Calamity Flare and the felling silver flames, Velvet jumps and charged at Tartarus while Seres scatters numerous paper into the air and burns them by waving her hand, sweeping the enemy back off for a certain distance by the effect of the defensive barrier of Tartarus. Then Velvet unleashes her claw and swings it upward, hitting Tartarus into the air while Seres arrange the scattered paper into spiral magical glyph beneath him.
“Blood moon.” Raising a large red from the ground and trapping Tartarus in it, the arte just dismissed his magical barrier and Velvet immediately slashes Tartarus with her gauntlet blade while ascending by stomping and jumping on the scattered paper arranged in spiral orbit. The attack ended while Velvet reaches the end of the paper orbit, she sees Seres has finished the cast with the glyph under her glowing, Velvet let Tartarus falls down. Seres summons the Flared tornado that it sweeps and engulfs the arranged paper unleashes the mana and artes stored in it, a continuous explosive artes then caused.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkRiAcYIgOP
Despite the explosions still continue, following Tartarus, Velvet then jumps down with her daemon claw activated to strike Tartarus with its extreme power. Now Velvet and Tartarus form a straight vertical line.
“Blessed bolts, seal my triumph! Divine Saber!” Lightning appeared and pierced through Velvet and Tartarus from the upper sky. Of course, Velvet takes most of the damage from the lightning, but she still finished her final act to strike Tartarus and Tartarus realized he lost this time.
Tartarus lost, he started to fade, but he laughed, and ‘loser’ is still a word can hardly be linked to him now.
“Heh. Let’s say I lose this time, but I will be back.” Tartarus said when he is slowly disappearing from the space with the silver flame cleaning the world and his mental existence.
“No, there will not be next time.” Velvet gave a meaningful smile, grabbed the metal collar appeared on her neck. As she starts to gain back the control right of her body, objects in reality appear in the mental world again under her control.
“Farewell.”
Velvet tore off the collar with her claw. The metal collar exploded at the moment it is broken, causing a large damage to Velvet.
“.......What a crazy and foolish human.” Tartarus finally disappeared from Velvet’s mental world.
After the disappearance of Tartarus, the world once again returned to the original color of pure white under the effect of silver flame.
Velvet fell down and fainted on the ‘ground’ with wounds everywhere again, maybe it takes a longer time to heal this time.
“You go to sleep so quickly, and there is a guest….” Seres sighed while preparing a bed and lifts Velvet to the bed.
“Guess, you are really tired. Goodnight, Velvet.” Seres whispered and gave a light kiss on Velvet’s forehead.
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A.N.
You may feel it is writing completely different things from the previous chapter because it is happening on another side in the mental world as you see I implied that Tartarus is fighting both sides at the same time while the silver flame entered the world. It is a chapter combined with some new settings and a summary of the backstory of Tartarus I created so far. The mental world is a great place to give random things a chance to happen.
I am not trying to raise anyone's sympathy to Tartarus, but I am trying to make him a little human when he may want to seek his kind in a twisted way. Since I want him to be kind of the final boss during this part in the story, I can’t make him too weak. Thus again I don’t design a great fight or referred from a great fight that both sides fight with all out as I decided to let Velvet win this time. The other reason is I don’t have a great inspiration to write a fight like this again.
About Seres(fragment), Yeah, I just want to make her presence in the story, probably, only 1-2 times presence as Lailah is existing too.
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