Chapter Text
{Cid Kagenou}
So, after a bit of thinking I decided to bring the blob of flesh, after all, the amount of magic it was leaking was more dense than the magic of those who have lived their whole lives.
The thing is, with how I cured my own possession was a brute force method and took a while for my new magic pathways to settle.
So because of the forceful creation of new pathways it strained my output for a few days.
So I’ll use this as an opportunity to create a less painful and forceful method.
I’ll also use this as an opportunity to learn how to manipulate the magic of someone else’s body.
“Whats that?” A voice behind me ask, which was Nero.
“It’s what most people know as a ‘possessed’, which the church tells the public they can’t be saved and are cursed by demons.”
“Are they actually cursed?” Nero asks
“Not at all, it’s actually the cause of having too much magic, which I have named ‘magic overload’.”
“Can they be saved?”
I smirk slightly “Of course they can, after all the person in front of you is someone who had been so called cursed.”
“Ohh!” Nero’s eye shine in astonishment, heh.
I place my hand on the blob of flesh, sending more waves of magic to examine its magic system.
Just as I thought, every pathway has large cracks, just how long has it been since their symptoms started?
I concentrate magic into my eyes as I start sending little strings of my own magic into its core, I’ll have it start out slow if I want to truly learn.
{A month later}
Well after a month of experimenting on the blob of flesh, and it’s many close death experiences, due to many unexpected blunders, I have learned how to manipulate magic more effectively.
I also took this as an opportunity to learn how to mess with someone’s biology, well I changed any messes I made after my experiments.
Probably.
But what interested me is that after closer inspection this blob of flesh had slight differences in both it’s genes and its magic system.
The genes that make up the ears were different, I used myself as a comparison when it came to the body and magic.
About their magic system, the pathways, compared to mine when I went through magic overload, are more complex, it resembles more of a tree and branches rather than simple paths.
More interestingly enough, where the most noticeable magic breaks were there was a swirl like path.
Their blood was also different, it had small amounts of concentrated magic in it, although magic overload does cause this, the magic in the blood cells seemed natural, not out of error.
So I decided to check my blood, since I mostly focused on magic, how magic affects your body, and body building since I can’t always rely on magic.
And, in my blood, but by a smaller, and less noticeable margin was magic, which made sense why blood was such a great conductor to magic.
But back to the possessed magic system, if I tried to cure them it would be difficult as the huge amounts of leaks and branch sizes if retreated, would cause an explosion.
So I trying different methods on each separate path, hence why the possessed nearly died multiple times.
But then I realized, all this time I’ve been trying to stabilize it by creating new branches.
So I decided to try something new, evaporating the magic within someone, and expelling it from them.
As well as destroying branches, and moving them.
Because of all the experiments, the blob of flesh ended up expanding to the size of my small hut, so I had to make a new base.
So with the help of Nero, I made a small house, made with wood, stone, and glass.
So what I found to be the best solution was to expel magic while destroying the broken branches and replacing them.
I tested a bit on the possessed, and then one on me, without the expelling part, this time because I have more experience and far better magic control, it didn’t hurt as much.
“The time is ripe.” I declare dramatically.
Nero, who has been laying next to me in slime form, perks up at his.
”Do just as practiced.”
Nero nods, his jello body jiggling.
[Third person Point of View]
Cid walks up towards the blob of flesh, and reaches his hand out, white magic particles starting to swirl around his palm, before a violet-blue colored magic softly erupts from his palm.
His own magic dyes the outside magic, and the magic starts taking form into a soft flame.
“Be free from your shackles.” He whispers as he places his hand on the rotted flesh, the soft flame flowing towards the blob of flesh.
As soon as the beautiful flame etched into the rotten flesh, the violet-blue flame erupted into a large wildfire.
The fire softly swirls around the blob of flesh, a figure becoming more visible as each flicker of flame happens.
‘Everything burns… Yet there’s warmth in it…’ A string of thought forms for the blob after a long time.
And as the flames extinguished, the once blob of rotten flesh was now a blonde, beautiful elf.
‘Just as I expected, it was a girl, and it was elf… I kinda wanted it to be a dark elf though… A banished race that now is the subordinate of the eminence in shadow had a nice feel to it.’ Cid feels slight disappointment, but brushes it off.
Cid walks back towards the wooden bench, crosses his legs and Nero lays on his lap.
The suspiciously well placed moonlight shined down on both of them, giving an aura of mystery.
The nameless elf slowly opens her eyes, the surroundings unfamiliar, and with trembling hands she realizes her flesh is no longer rotted.
“Where…?How…?” She can’t form the right words, her eyes slightly teary.
“The curse that has been causing you eternal Suffering has been broken.” Cid shifts a slightly deeper voice “You are now free, you can dream once more.”
The elf continues looking at her arms, shock carved into her face. “W-What, Was it you…” Her eyes shook “Did you… Restore my body?”
A small smile grows on Cid's face “Yes I have cured you of your curse.”
‘Curse?’ The word echos in her mind.
He reaches out his palm, slime emerging from seemingly nowhere, “The curse of Diablos, an ancient evil curse casted by the first demon king, Diablos.”
The slime shifts into a silhouette, a boxy body, with big shoulders, large claws, and horns.
The elf stares in curiosity, at both what the boy in front of her was saying and the slime on his palm, moving to his will.
”You mean the made up one from a fairytale? How… exactly does that correlate with me…?”
His smile grows slightly bigger as he reaches out his other palm. “That fairytale is anything but fiction, it’s lies, upon lies, to hide the real truth.”
The Diablos silhouette merges back into the slime, and five new ones arise, one with sharp pointy ears, one with two triangles on their head, one shorter than the rest, one with butterfly like wings, and one mundane one that didn’t have any distinct features.
”As the tale tells, the elf, the therianthropian, the dwarf, the fairy, and the human came together to defeat the Demon known as Diablos.”
Nero’s body swirls a bit before shifting into the same figure as Cid previously did.
“As the tale tells it the hero’s fight against the Demon King Diablos.” Cid moves the hero’s silhouettes towards Diablos silhouettes.
And as mimicking a fight, the silhouettes start turning, the slime bodies clashing against each other.
“And, as told in the story, the hero’s get their happily ever as they defeated the first demon king.” Cid does one final hit as Nero’s slime silhouette collapses.
”But” Nero’s slime silhouette raises an arm, magic swirling in its palm “True to its nature, Diablos put a curse on all of the hero’s who had slain him.”
Cid’s slime silhouettes suddenly are set on fire as Nero’s slime silhouette disappeared, the bodies of the silhouettes trembling.“The curse was rooted with such hatred that it wouldn’t stop at the hero’s.”
The hero silhouettes disappeared and get replaced by smaller silhouettes. “The curse reached the descendants of the hero’s, and cursed them to twist into an unlovable for, a pile of rotten flesh.”
“The oh so called ‘Demon-possessed’ that is cursed upon by all is actually proof that the blood of a hero runs through you.”
The slime silhouettes disappear, Cid and Nero continue striking mysterious like poses, as the little show comes to an end.
“B-But then why?! Why does nobody know this?! Why are people who suffered my fate killed?!” The elf shouts, her voice and face trembling in anger and sorrow.
‘Ah it was good that I practiced that whole show with Nero.’
”Because the story has been twisted to the point that it’s called a fairytale, leaving the hero’s descendants forgotten, to suffer, and die alone because of that.”
The elf clenches her fist in anger “Just who exactly is doing this? Why do they continue to let us suffer?”
”The ones who have caused orchestrated the downfall of the hero’s descendants are…”
Everything turn grey as all slows down, Cid's eyes now crimson as he puts his hand on his chin.
‘I didn’t think this far… Let’s see the church is corrupt, this follows the same old cliches, greedy people, politicians, or cultist.’
‘If the church follows the goddess Beatrix, and praises the hero’s, then the cult should follow the demon king Diablos, and praise demons?’
Cid nods to himself before color returns as time flows normally again.
”The Cult of Diablos, those who hide in the shadows and seek the resurrection of the first demon king Diablos.”
The elf’s brows furrow deep as she grits her teeth, her eyes burning with furry “Just… Just how many demon-possessed have been unjustly killed… because of those cultist…”
She slams her hand against the ground and her head snaps towards Cid “They are unforgivable!”
“They always stay in the dark, they never show themselves in public.”
Cid stands up, slightly startling Nero, “My mission is to make them regret and to stop their ambitions, from the very darkness they have grown accustomed to.”
Slime started slowly swirling around him, starting from his feet.
”Who are you…?” The elf asks
”My name is St- No…” The black slime starts swirling around his body, the hood of his coat falling over his head “My name is Shadow, he who lurks in the shadows to hunt the shadows.” His eyes gleam crimson, beautiful as wine, and deadly as a demon.
“Shadow…” The elf stares in awe at him.
He reaches out his hand. “Daughter of hero’s, will you walk this thorny path along with me.”
She stares for a second but then speaks up “The day I was cursed, I lost everything…” She clenches her fist “If walking the same path as the one who saved me from my doomed fate can save others…”
She takes his reached out hand, her eyes now burning with ambition “Then I’ll walk this thorny path with you, and make those cultist reap what they have sowed!”
A smile grows on Cid’s face ‘Nice! First official subordinate for my eminence in shadows act! Or second counting Nero.’
Slime starts wrapping around her arm, and travels across her, forming a suit similar to Shadow’s “Very well, from this day on you will be Alpha.”
Alpha looks at her new suit, and then bows “I will honor the name you have given me.”
A violet-blue rose of magic forms in his palm “And our organization will be known as ‘Shadow Garden.’”