::The Forgotten Purgatory:: [Floor 999]

[Great Ryoman!]

~::The Tower of Babel - The Forgotten Purgatory [Floor 999]::~

Throughout the Tower of Babel rest floors which reflect the darkness inside of humanity...when humans venture within, their shadows come out to play, changing the very face of certain levels within into the dungeon of their nightmares, putting on display that which they don't want others to see. But for those whose shadows have already taken control, whose darkness rules and acts according to its own design, there are unique floors entirely under their command, bending to their will as they seek to ascend to the top of the Tower. And sometimes, the walls of the heart open up and the will of humanity reaches even into reality, connecting the two worlds...

Floor 999 is known as The Forgotten Purgatory, a floor that is rarely accessible to anyone; even denizens of Babel. The Forgotten Purgatory lies behind a door that lies between dimensions, the former TV World, the Dark World, and the Akasha Corridor being but a few. When the world moves, the location of the door changes...and so it has at last appeared in Babel, a gateway forgotten by all until now. The inside is carved and inlaid with many talismans reminiscent of spells of old, and the decorum is similar to that of the Confinement Chamber of the Yatagarasu. Perhaps, in fact, because it use to be one room of those Chambers, before the door was lost once again. Darkness grows heavier the further inside the Shrine one looks, and the torches near the entrance are lit by a strange energy that runs along the floor in lines. They stretch further in, so perhaps light could reach inside once more, but what lay within may be better off never seeing daylight again. Loose bindings lay sprawled across the floor, the magic faded from their cloth some time ago.

...

Here is the Forgotten Purgatory, where a Great Criminal has been sealed to Damnation. Do not enter if you are not ready to face the truth about humanity's true nature...

 

[Great Ryoman!]

Vamp

"This is it, the door our master is so interested in." The creature born of Nyx motioned for the two Champions flanking him to move to either side as they approached a large, pitch black door with gold engravings on it. Pictures of monsters like Shadows consuming humans covered it's front, a story that even their master didn't know the truth of; but such a terrible beast could be something of value to the Shadow Messiahs now. Teros and Kazuma both summoned their power, turning into their dreaded and terrible Shadow forms, beasts that hardly resembled human anymore after they'd given in to their fears and desires. What humans repressed was a truly terrible power, but it was also one if immense value...and it was only with their increased strength that they might open the door. Each stepped to either side of the door, taking hold of the golden handles, and began pulling as a hazy blue aura emanated from the crack in the center. It was power, sealing the door against all intruders, and as they tore the seal asunder it turned into mist and rolled about their feet, obscuring even more of the dark corridor from view. At last their strength seemed to overwhelm the Gate, although he could feel their strength giving out as it did, and the doors swung open just in time as Vamp stepped forward.

Only to reel backwards from the immense aura that poured from the doors, a feeling of darkness that rivaled that which resided in the hearts of all those within the Messiahs. The thought of such a pitifully hateful soul caused Vamp to lick his lips in excited anticipation..."Fan out. There must be some clue as to what...or whom, lay within." Vamp walked inside, but instantly took notice of the dark and smothering atmosphere. It was as if the lack of light had an actual presence, and pushed back against them...and so he quickly motioned for Teros and Kazuma to split up, one to either of the torches near the gateway to search for a means to repel the dread aura that surrounded them. As he took a few steps forward Vamp felt an immense pressure pushing back on him, like the barriers that sealed their own floors from uninvited guests. Whatever was in here, it was only just now time for them to awaken...and even then, it was no easy feet to move forward. He glanced towards Teros, awaiting some sign that he had found the intrinsic mechanism that created the unusual light, and that they might spread it. And that's when...

"A-aaaaaagggh!" Vamp's head circled around to Kazuma as a soul as black as his own made itself known, and the lieutenant of the Shadow Messiahs found himself stunned at what he saw; a head, a neck, a shoulder all familiar to him, but beyond that shoulder Kazuma was missing a five fingered piece of himself that Vamp had long considered quite durable, since he'd trained it himself...and blood spewed upwards from the open wound as Kazuma's mind began to accept that he was one limb short of what he'd been before. A shadow moved to Vamp's left, a darkness inside the already opaque room, and Vamp turned to try to keep up with it to little avail as it passed the door they'd entered from to the other side of the Shadow given a humanish form.

"Kazuma. A failure as always." As Vamp finished turning, he saw that Teros had already taken a fighting position, turned towards the darkness with his Unheard Agony. Vamp began to smile at Teros' usual cool decorum, one that had recovered even when his compatriot had just been so severely wounded, and would have allowed the Champions to handle this little bit of misconduct by the Chamber's resident...if his eyes didn't catch something that changed his tune immediately. For a moment Teros seemed fine, but a dripping sound drew Vamp's eyes to his side, and there he noticed the same defect that now plagued Kazuma; his arm gone, despite the incredible power it had once held. "Tsk...I don't usually slip up like this. What a sour note to-" Teros was cut off as an arm shot out from the darkness, gripping his wrist before he could react with the blade in his hand. Vamp's eyes widened as Teros was drug into the darkness, realizing just how unnatural it was. He should have at least seen a form, or some movement...the fact that he didn't meant that there was a spell or enchantment on the room, and he simply couldn't see beyond that point. Significant since he could now hear Teros facing truly frightful odds in the darkness. In fact, the battle only seemed to last a moment...and then Teros was gone to whatever fate, and Vamp merely sighed, pulling two knives from his waist. It seemed that he'd truly walked into trouble...and he'd already lost the two pawns who followed him from whence he came.

"I suppose you'll think it's cliche, but we can do this the easy way, or..."

 

[Arena Emperor]

Tiir Rumibul, Anti-Spirit of the Ino Dwoe
"...Human beings are so exquisitely fragile..."

...Vamp's words were lost amidst the sound of shattering bone and tearing flesh...his own neck snapped to the side suddenly at an unnatural angle as a humanoid shadow landed almost like a monster upon his back...white teeth glinting in the faintest of slivers of light before biting down into the prone flesh of the Vamp's broken neck. A crimson geyser erupted as flesh tore away and the fierce devouring of meat and blood in an instant filled the room with its noisy cacophony. Power drained from the body of the Messiah that had stood by Soji's Shadow longer than any, and his knees gave out beneath him...the shadow perched perfectly on his shoulders taking one more bite out of the neck, the head of the shadow lolling from a single thread of shaded meat and skin...the last bit tearing, the cranium falling with a resounding thud to the floor of the once-sealed room. In an instant the figure flashed away from the vamp's body, landing with the most silent of clatters of feet against floor a few yards away; in the same breath, the remnants of a body thudded against the floor behind him, still and covered in his own black crimson and black lifeblood. A low sound not unlike a chuckle emanated from the shadow...a thin, lithe figure lit faintly only by the light pouring in through the doorway and from the first and second torches on either side. And from the far side of the torches on both left and right, a crimson pool as thick as Vamp's spilled into the torchlight and beyond...whatever was left of the Shadow Champion and Shadow Arbiter leaking out into the cold floor of this terrible chamber. A chamber that should have never been opened...but what now could never be closed again.

"My, you're a choice morsel...aren't you? It feels as though it's been centuries since I last devoured one of your kind," a low, youthful voice mused from the shadow, a sudden crimson light shining from two eyeslots...the figure of a glowing cross eerily lit at the center, the only truly-visible portion of him in the dark. But there were none to see it...until the shadow of his last victim began to twitch and bubble, an arm emerging from an empty socket...a neck forming where powerful teeth had only moments earlier torn and devoured...and in a few moments the immortal was beginning to look a bit like himself again...drawing up to his knees and leaning forward, head lolling from side-to-side as the sinew and muscle reattached itself to the head above. The shining crimson eyes seemed to flicker with amusement as he looked upon what he had left behind, his body turning back to face him, tongue peeking out to brush away the splattered blood from his face. "You're not like the others, are you? Why, with the power that I just took from you, I could kill every other person in this tower...in fact, I just might." There was a careless air of amusement in his voice, a confidence born of a terrible power...one that Vamp had experienced only a moment earlier. And judging from the low growl emanating from the voice of the immortal, it was clear that he was not only annoyed at having been bested...but increasingly aware of the danger of the Pandora's Box they had just opened.

"Even you cannot call yourself his match..." the immortal droned, neck cracking as he began to stand, fingers slipping into the holsters on his pants to produce a pair of knives, "...Do you really believe you could be the one to finally fini-NGH!"

...The spray of crimson and black blood from the empty hole where his left arm used to be was more than enough to stop the Messiah's train of thought. Turning sharply towards the shadows where the figure had streaked, he saw what had once been his arm explode into a cascade of crimson and black, most of which was drawn into the same black space at the center of the darkness. Lifting his blade with his other arm, he draw his fingers back to flick his weapon forward...only to feel the telltale sensation of blade and bone and all that connected one to the other tearing away from his body...the squelching sound of flesh and blood crushed beneath teeth and splattering on face and floor behind him revealing that his other arm had suffered a similar fate. In an instant he was on his knees...teeth gnashing into the suspenders holding up his pants, the knife tucked within gripped between his pearly whites as he looked up for the shadow that haunted this cursed room. His neck turned, and in a flash the blade had been cast into the dark seemingly randomly...but the sound of connection against something less than stone gave reason to believe he hadn't been entirely unsuccessful. His lips curled into a smirk as he forced himself to his feet, another knife bitten from his vest pocket...confidence starting to grow...when the sound of laughter emanated from within the darkness once more.

"My, you are impressive...more so than the other two, at least. But impressive won't be enough to save you, or any of the rest of your kind," the voice laughed...Vamp's foot began to press, his body leaning forward...before the weight suddenly let out from under him...crimson spilling from the bloody stumps where his legs had only just been. And looming over him as he crashed face-first to the round, sputtering...angry...was the shadow, crimson eyes shining as the dagger Vamp had struck him was pulled from the spot it had lodged itself in his chest, cast aside like little more than a vague annoyance...if that much. The vamp's eyes cast upward, a mixture of anger and frustration filling them; the shadow knelt down just before them, a terrifying hunger filling the cross-marked eyes that stared into his own. "Before I take my leave, I should thank you..." the figure smiled hungrily, eyes mere inches away from the crippled Messiah, "without your interference, it might have taken me centuries to finish devouring that seal. Now, I'm free to bring to this world what it so sorely needs..." Before the immortal could wonder what he meant, however, the feasting jaws cracked open...and the world went dark around him. Pain ripped through his body...and the floor and the face of his attacker stained with sickly lifeblood...

...A moment later, the figure had stood, feet carrying him towards the door of the Forgotten Purgatory; he paused only at the sound of bubbling from the body behind him, and only for a moment. The temptation to remain and play a little longer seemed to remain, but his feet were already walking out of the room before the body would have time to regenerate. He had already spent far too much time sealed within this place.

"...If only I had saved room for dessert," he smirked, seeing the limbs and skull of his victim reforming even as he made his way out...from the sealing shrine, from the fight...from the Tower itself, "Oh well...I'll show myself out..."

 

[Necromonium]

Orvaeus Velvatair, Messiah of Mutilation
Orvaeus had been following along the two Messiahs in front of him, with his usual, out there smirk. They had done well in climbing the arduous tower of Babel, making it up hundreds of floors, though some of them had decided to cause mischief and chaos in the normal world.
No matter.. he thought, watching as Teros and Kazuma moved towards the door, with their defacto Leader, Vamp. The guy was a wizard with knives, wheras Orvaeus could only consider himself a mere...hobbyist. However, as they moved to open the door, something seemed....wrong.
It didn't take long for the Shadow Arbiter to be plunged into some form of darkness, and his arm, rended asunder from his body.
"I've heard of 'No pain, no Gain'..." he snarked quietly, before the air around them somehow got even more...menacing. He braced himself, sliding out a pair of scissors as Teros's snappy commentary rang out. He clenched his weapon at this, before his eyes started to widen.
E...Even the shadow Champion? he thought, watching as he was handled with such ease...Such power...such ferocity....
He shuddered, even as he heard Vamp's voice sounding out.
The easy way, or the hard way? he finished in his head.....Before something even worse started to happen.
He's....losing?! Orvaeus exclaimed in his head, his eyes desperately trying to follow the terrifying monster they had unleashed, as he made a plaything out of what he considered the second most powerful man in the world....
Second only to their leader....And the way with which he was being tossed like a ragdoll, the way his flesh was torn asunder...And the way that he was hungrily devoured at parts....It was the most monstrous thing he'd ever seen.
The Ferocity...the pure, unadulterated gore....
He could feel his blood run cold, almost as if he had died purely from watching the monster that the group had unleashed....He clenched his fist at this, trying to keep himself together as he felt his body tensing up.
"What....what The Hell Are You?" Orv choked, watching as Vamp's body slowly worked to regenerate. The sheer amount of damage that he had inflicted...and in less time than it would take for him to put on his armor...
Just...what had they done?