Blessed Visor

Cael remained atop the flooded area, standing amidst the wreckage and the Xnihsp's skeletal remains. He was frozen in place, his posture unchanged, his gaze fixed on some unseen point in the distance. He barely registered the world around him, his breathing shallow and ragged. A thin sheet of ice had formed around him and the Xnihsp's skeleton, encasing them in a floating island amidst the flood. Corpses littered the water's surface, a grim testament to the battle's ferocity. The chaotic forces of the battle had carved out strange formations in the landscape—caves of dirt, ice, and splintered trees. Within one of these grotesque caverns lay the mangled remains of the Trojan horse, a horrific amalgamation of debris and corpses. Inside its hollowed-out belly, David lay still. He should have been dead. Icy water had filled his lungs, plunging his heart to a temperature far below zero. His body was bloated with excess water, putting immense pressure on his brain. His eyes were barely open, his lips and cheek brutally torn.

Then, Cael's gaze shifted. He scanned the carnage, finding no other living souls. His eyes finally settled on the Trojan horse's makeshift grave. He saw a figure kneeling within the corpse's stomach. It was David. As Cael watched, a change occurred that made his blood run cold. Both he and David noticed it simultaneously: David's tattoos noticed it simultaneously: David's tattoos were different. The familiar heart that had once adorned his skin was gone, replaced by a dense network of scribbled English calligraphy that covered his entire body, from his hands to his face. Cael didn't recognize the script; it was a language he had never seen before. Only David understood. The scribbles were a manifestation of his deepest regrets and fears, now etched onto his very being.

As Cael watched in horror, more calligraphy began to appear, scrawling itself across David's forehead. He saw the reflection in a nearby sheet of ice: the word "Death" being written in stark, black letters. David's eyes, previously a dull red, flickered and then turned to a pitch black, devoid of any light. The same transformation began to occur on all the corpses scattered across the battlefield, and even on Cael himself. Even the empty eye sockets of the Wendigo's skull were filled with a dark, viscous fluid, and then the same scribbles appeared on it. The same dark calligraphy began to manifest on the corpses, and then, horrifically, on Cael himself. Black blood began to leak from their eyes, ears, noses, and mouths. Cael, still locked in his frozen stance beside the Xnihsp's corpse, also began to leak black blood from his orifices.

David shuddered, his entire body trembling. The world itself seemed to be writing on him.New lines of calligraphy appeared on his cheek, then crawled into his eyes, the dark blue ink turning to a stark white as it filled his vision. The pain David felt was excruciating, as if someone was physically carving the words into his very eyeballs. The calligraphy was not just on his skin; it was in him, a part of him now.

David's face, contorted in agony just moments before, now settled into an unnervingly calm expression. The pain vanished, replaced by a cold, distant serenity. His gaze, now pitch black, was fixed on the flooded landscape, staring into the watery abyss as if he could see something beyond the surface, something beyond the veil of reality. It was the same chillingly focused glare Cael had witnessed during their first, ill-fated ambush, a look that spoke of a chilling, otherworldly resolve.

Cael, still trapped in his frozen stance beside the Xnihsp's skeleton, his body leaking black blood, noticed the change in David. The shift in his demeanor was stark, unsettling. The raw terror and pain had vanished, replaced by an unnerving stillness.

Meanwhile, far from the devastated battlefield, in the desolate, snow-covered wilderness, the mysterious man with the glowing orb in his empty eye socket – the scavenger leader, the one who had broken David's gun and ordered his death – was walking away from the carnage. He had put considerable distance between himself and the battle, confident that the Wendigo would have finished the job. He trudged through the deep snow, his breath puffing out in white clouds, the wind whipping at his tattered cloak.

Suddenly, a strange feeling washed over him. A sense of disorientation, as if the very landscape around him had shifted. He paused, his glowing eye narrowing, trying to get his bearings. He felt… lost. An uncomfortable prickling sensation ran down his spine, as if he was being watched. He turned abruptly, scanning the barren landscape, but saw nothing. Only the endless expanse of white snow and the grey, overcast sky.

He shrugged off the feeling, dismissing it as the lingering effects of the dark magic he had used to resurrect the Wendigo. He continued walking, his boots crunching on the frozen ground. But as he walked, a new sensation began to creep into his awareness. He could hear footsteps. Multiple footsteps. They were faint at first, barely audible over the howling wind, but they grew steadily louder, drawing closer with each passing second. He stopped again, his hand instinctively reaching for the hilt of the sword at his hip. He turned slowly, his glowing eye darting from side to side, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound. But there was still nothing to be seen. The footsteps continued to draw closer, now sounding like a small army marching towards him, yet the vast, snow-covered landscape remained empty. The scavenger leader's unease grew into a cold, gnawing fear. He knew, with a chilling certainty, that whatever was making those footsteps was not of this world.

As the scavenger leader continued his trek through the desolate wilderness, the sound of footsteps intensified, multiplying from the sound of a single pursuer to the rhythmic tread of a thousand marching feet. He whirled around, his glowing eye frantically scanning the empty landscape, but there was still nothing to be seen. Only the wind-whipped snow and the oppressive grey sky met his gaze. He pressed on, his pace quickening, his heart pounding in his chest.

Suddenly, the footsteps ceased. The world fell into an unnerving silence, a silence so profound that it amplified the frantic beating of his own heart. He stopped dead in his tracks, his breath catching in his throat. He clapped his hands sharply, but heard no sound. He flipped a coin into the air, watching it spin and land in the snow, but there was no metallic clink. The silence was absolute, suffocating. He slowly turned back, his glowing eye widening in horror. There, in the snow behind him, were a single pair of footprints. They weren't ordinary footprints. They were imprinted in fresh, crimson blood, as if something had been walking alongside him for miles, leaving a trail of its own life force in the snow.

Then, he saw it. A figure was walking towards him, emerging from the swirling snow and fog. The figure was shrouded in a dark, swirling fog, obscuring everything but its feet. As the scavengers began to run when he saw those feet he saw at the ice walls both beside him as if pulling near and a scribble made of blood one the wall on the left it showed multiple scribble of the word running blood and boats on the second it showed stop in blood scribble the same as the other some big some small some italicize some even in sign form of stop. The sound of the footsteps grew louder, each step a heavy, deliberate thud that echoed in the unnatural silence. The scavenger leader broke into a run, his heart pounding in terror. As he fled, the world around him began to distort, the landscape stretching and warping like a painting melting in the sun. The effects of the warped gravity, previously concentrated near the Wendigo, now seemed to be spreading outwards, affecting a wider area. The world began to stretch and distort, undergoing a horrific spaghettification effect, as if he was being pulled into a black hole. The surrounding area where he was pulled into was nothing but pure blackness.

Through the distorted reality, he saw a being, a creature of pure nightmare. Its face was vaguely humanoid, but its eyes were large and round, like an owl's, dark and hollow black pits filled with swirling scribbles. The same scribbles covered its entire body, twisting and writhing across its pale skin. Its lips were an unnatural, bright pink, contrasting starkly with its deathly white skin. The creature whispered to him, its voice a chilling rasp that seemed to bypass his ears and enter directly into his mind: "Kill yourself." The scavenger leader heard it as "kys" but understood the full meaning: "kill yourself".

As the creature spoke, it reached out and touched the scavenger leader's arm. The scribbles on its hand transferred to his skin, crawling across his flesh like living ink, burning with an agonizing, internal fire. The pain was so intense, so utterly horrific, that the scavenger leader could no longer bear it. In a moment of crazed desperation, he drew his blade and, with a trembling hand, decapitated himself. His head fell into the bag he carried, the thud muffled by the contents within.

Then, a bizarre shift occurred. It was as if the entire scene was being viewed through one of David's eyes, his own eyes now filled with the same swirling scribbles that had adorned the creature. The view then expanded, the scribbled vision spreading to encompass the eyes of everyone surrounding him on the battlefield, even reaching Cael and the Wendigo's skull. The scribbles pulsed with dark energy, then, just as suddenly, vanished. Everyone returned to normal, the warped reality snapping back into place.

Except for David.

He was no longer covered in the scribbled calligraphy. His tattoos were gone, but a ghoulish blue aura now surrounded him, emanating from his body. His once white, albino hair was now only half-white, the other half turning a dark color. Then, before the transformation completed, the same ominous being with the owl eyes and scribbled body appeared behind David and touched half of his hair with his pale hand. The scribbles that had been on the being, as well as the ones that had been on David's body, flowed into his hair as the color went from a dark blue tint to a plain pitch black as it went darker.

Cael, still standing beside the Xnihsp's skeleton, also returned to normal, the black blood ceasing to flow from his wounds. He was still injured and exhausted, but the unnatural influence was gone. The gaping eye sockets of the Wendigo skull were now empty once more.

David stood, his expression now vacant, his eyes no longer black but returned to their normal color, although they now held a strange, distant quality. The pain he had felt as the calligraphy had entered his eyes was now just a fading memory. The world had returned to normal, but something fundamental had changed within him.