Chapter 1542 (1/2)

DiOrtho Vant ignored the soft rain falling on his exposed feet. He had never gotten around to making a shelter large enough to cover all of him, and at this point he didn’t see the point of making any extra effort. Apathy lay heavy across him. His horns itched, but he didn’t even bother to reach up and scratch.

He laid on his back with his left arm behind his head, letting his eyes unfocus as he stared at the roughly hewn wood of the ceiling. Meanwhile, he made the Darkstar Coin dance across his fingers.

The noise of the rain generally hushed all of the surrounding sounds. In addition, the slowly rising mist pushed away other physical presences. Therefore, DiOrtho felt like he was floating alone in those noises. He was adrift.

A part of him was furious at his current indecision, urging him to stand up and lash out. The well-trod path of breaking, rending, and destroying called out to him, singing its familiar tune. And yet… there was a deep, unfamiliar hum rising from his chest. DiOrtho pressed his eyes tightly closed.

A larger part of him was blank and numb, as it had been since he had woken up from his brief coma after being exposed to the Ghosthound’s transforming image. He didn’t like it, but it was necessary.

His eyes flashed open. DiOrtho flicked the coin up into the air and caught it with a sharp swipe a few seconds later. Why haven’t I used this coin…? If I had it a few days ago…

He would have immediately challenged the Ghosthound. He would have gleefully fought and likely been crushed, similar to how decisively that dog Vizzerrett had been smashed into the ground. He would have embraced those possibilities, confident that the experience would spur him to greater growth.

Yet now…

“I feel nothing,” DiOrtho announced casually to the room. The whirring inside of him gradually slowed. Even though it was small, this place was his. Somehow, he found comfort in that. So much comfort that he had no desire to leave this place ever again.

Of course, as soon as he said that, DiOrtho felt a ripple in the nearby mist that filled him with annoyance. Because someone was walking along the meandering path toward his shelter. This time when he flipped the coin end over and watched it catch the light, he simply allowed it to fall down into his waiting palm. His finger squeezed the coin, feeling the sharp edges of the metal. If he had squeezed tightly enough, he might be able to slice open his palm.

DiOrtho placed the coin into a pocket and pushed himself up into a sitting position. His sharp eyes recognized the figure of his Squad Leader Raymund Ballast approaching him.

That aggressive part of DiOrtho wanted to sneer at the thought of this weakling being his squad leader, but he frowned instead. The air around Raymund was just as heavy as DiOrtho’s heart felt.

That finally ignited some fire in his chest. Am I really as mopey and useless as this fool…? What the hell is wrong with me?

The machine god image began to roar. His image stirred without DiOrtho even spurring it onward. I could just kill everyone and everything. I’ll end it all-

DiOrtho hissed. He clamped down on his emotions and immediately suppressed the faint buzzing that rose from the machine horror in his chest. There was an intermittent clicking as the infinite clockwork of DiOrtho’s image seemed to come alive, but all of that was quickly smothered by DiOrtho’s Willpower.

Damnit, you are my image. Don’t you dare rebel against me? Horror and hot fury seethed through DiOrtho’s veins. But those powerful emotions just seemed to fuel the machine horror he now housed. The clicks once again rose in intensity as the sinister engines at his image’s core began to fire on all cylinders. Once more, DiOrtho was forced to suppress his emotions. His hands were trembling.

When DiOrtho was younger, his father was the tribal leader of the ram demons. He often stayed with his uncle while his father was away warring against rival demon tribes, leading their tribe’s crusade. Even though they had passed the Calamity and had a powerful ancestor sending Aether to their world, DiOrtho’s people did not settle down peacefully. They fought and bled for their dignity and status. Such was their way of life.

DiOrtho’s uncle was different. He was weak, a historian who studied ancient religions and cultures of the demon tribes. And before DiOrtho could participate in training, he would sit and listen to his uncle talk about some of the more interesting cultures. Even to this day, one of those cultures stuck with DiOrtho: the worshippers of the Machine God.

For most of his life, DiOrtho had considered learning about this ancient religion to be the great blessing of his life. But now...

During a particularly long campaign for DiOrtho’s father, his uncle had taken him to an ancient temple. Or more accurately, it was the site of an ancient crash landing on the demon’s homeworld, upon which those ancient people had built a temple. The walls were lined with strange gears and mysterious constructs. The shape of the chairs was bulbous and exotic.

DiOrtho had walked around the temple with wide eyes. The demon’s world was a primitive one, relying primarily on the strength of their superior bodies. The strange workings of metal were a revelation to him. In his quiet voice, his uncle explained the theorized purpose of many of the machines. Then he took the young boy down to the core and showed him the engine of the ancient construct that had crashed and devastated an entire island.

DiOrtho had never forgotten the glittering gears and angular sheets of metal he had seen that day. Those shapes were the seeds of his ancient machine horror that he used to rise to power.