Devil in Shepherd's Robes

Epilogue: A Monster's Tenacity

Dismembered limbs and rotting corpses piled higher than the eye could see within the darkness of the Abyss. The mountain of flesh reached higher than anything the wanderers had seen as they shuffled their tired feet towards it. The dripping blood ran down the mountainside like rivers of rust as it reached the bottom, creating an ocean of red for the wanderers to wade through. The Abyss was beginning to fill up with a thick pool of blood thanks to the colossal mound of bodies directly beneath Yggdrasil.

As one wanderer amongst many reached weakly up for one of the protruding limbs within the mountain, it began heaving itself upwards towards the black sky. Other demons, angels, and humans had begun crawling up the mountain as they tried to make their way out of the red ocean and back towards the Yggdrasil tree. Their hundreds of tired groans echoed softly through the air, just barely reaching a whisper. Hope was not something they still meant to cling to, but a chance of life within Yggdrasil once more was enough to send every wanderer within the Abyss speeding towards the mountain. The only reason the mountain had grown to such heights, however, was precisely due to the small amount of hope they still held. The bodies making up the mountain were those of the other wanderers, piling up to reach unimaginable heights.

Standing atop the countless bodies at the very tip of the mountain was a tall and grotesque monstrosity with a look of rage and determination in its eyes, dressed in nothing but a long and torn blood-soaked brown cloak. With only its right arm still attached to its body, it gripped a long and bloodied curved bone as a weapon. Underneath its milky white eyes and mangled rat-like jaw rested a small stump of bone, as if a large bony protrusion had been snapped off entirely. Atop its head, however, laid a single curved white horn made of bone.

Using the bloodied edge of the bony club in its hand, the large rat creature began hacking through an attacking wanderer. Millions of crawling bodies inched their way to the top of the mountain, their goal all the same. If they could reach the top and escape the void below, perhaps by the time they reach the summit they could also reach the lowest hanging root of Hell.

"Ephram... Ephram... Ephram... Ephram... Ephram... Ephram..." The rat monster angrily muttered to itself over and over again as it ripped through the flesh of the wanderer, repeating the name as if afraid to forget it.

As it brought down the curved bony club once more into the torso of its prey, the club suddenly lodged itself within the open rib cage of the wanderer. The rat creature snarled angrily at this, ripping through the flesh and bone of the wanderer with its teeth to unlodge the club.

As it stumbled back to its feet with the club in hand, it noticed the soft groans below beginning to die out. The sounds echoing through the air had turned more into a gasp of shock and awe as the wanderers all looked to the sky.

The rat monster crumbled to its knees as it caught sight of its goal; a large brown root sticking out through the darkness of the void. It was closer than the rat monster had thought, and it began cackling with maddened joy as it pointed the tip of its club upward towards the root. It was still too dark to see anything above the single hanging root, but it knew the Yggdrasil tree was finally within its reach.

"Ephram! I will never forget you! I told you I'll burn it all to ash! You will remember the name Pestarrem!" He bellowed, his voice roaring with a monstrous fury.

Pestarrem looked up with wide angry eyes towards the root as he brought himself back to his feet. The root was quite high up in the sky, but with one last burst of energy he found himself preparing to jump. As he lowered his thin and lanky body to the ground and gripped his club with all his strength, his legs forced his body high into the air as he reached out for the edge of the brown root. The leap he had taken expended nearly all of his remaining energy, but nevertheless he was successful.

Hitting against the root with a thud, he felt the emptiness of the void leave his soul as he firmly wrapped his legs and arm around the thinnest section of root. The lowest hanging root in all of Hell had come to save him, giving Pestarrem a second chance for life as he began climbing up it towards his home. The world had abandoned beauty entirely, Pestarrem thought, beginning his long journey back into reality.

Thinking back to his brothers in the sewer, he began to wonder whether or not things would have turned out differently had he not picked up Ephram. Their torture victims had killed his two brothers and nearly himself, yet he still found himself fighting against the one who took everything from him. Ephram would pay for what he had done, all of existence would pay for its crimes. Pestarrem felt a scowl beginning to spread across his face, revealing his now rotting teeth which had been covered in blood and bits of hanging flesh.

He grew more enraged with every second that passed as he thought of those who had wronged him. He had been abandoned by the world entirely and would have his revenge. As he continued his ascent into Hell, Pestarrem thought he heard a faint and soft ticking coming from far above. The slow tick of an invisible watch echoed throughout his mind, reminding him after every passing second that he must destroy Yggdrasil itself. If he truly wanted revenge on Ephram, he must take all that is beautiful in the world and turn it to ash.

The strong have no place within the world yet neither do the weak. Existence itself was a disease brought upon the true form of reality: The Abyss. Pestarrem's mind had left him long ago, becoming the physical embodiment of the dark nothingness he had escaped. Like the devourer of worlds, the Abyss incarnate would bring ruin to all who take their first and final breath. The tidal waves of chaos had risen up once more, this time to swallow everything in its path.