Chapter 44: Chapter 44

The remaining members of the expedition team let out a collective sigh of relief as the monsters crumbled to the ground.

The god had died. It'd been killed by another apostle, and in all honesty Michael was seconds away from sprinting off in the opposite direction.

Every apostle he'd come across so far had been a selfish asshole, and every single one had tried to kill him.

And the man who was currently standing amongst the ashes of the god wasn't somebody he wanted to fight. Fire was a big weakness of his, but even if he disregarded that the matchup didn't get much better.

After that short moment of weighing his options Michael quickly turned to run when suddenly something in his body changed, causing him to stumble. Almost no time passed before he regained his footing, but when he did the apostle was standing in front of him.

Michael immediately made space between himself and the apostle and readied his weapons. The world before him had suddenly felt clearer, and he honestly didn't know why.

The apostle chuckled, "Don't worry, I'm not going to fight you. Order would have my ass if I did. I just came over to say that I'm impressed."

"What about?"

"Well not many can claim to have stolen the soul of a god."

"What?"

"Oh, well I guess you wouldn't really know. You're not exactly using that crown to its fullest potential, but I suppose it was made for something significantly stronger than you so that's to be expected."

"Well would you care to explain?"

"Nah, all you need to know is that it's impressive. Hell, if it was possible, I'd steal that crown for myself, but that would be more trouble than it's worth. More importantly, I have one little piece of advice for you. I noticed the foundation insignia on your armor. Are you still working with them?"

"Yeah, why?"

The man's demeanor went cold for a moment, and trickles of flame drifted from his eyes.

"Don't trust them. They're scum, and we're something that they hold an incredible amount of fear towards. We're monsters that are almost impossible to contain, and we rapidly gain strength. We're their worst nightmare, and they don't exactly cope well with something they can't just toss into a cage."

"I already know I shouldn't trust them, and I don't, but they're an amazing source of resources. I can't exactly throw that away."

The apostle sighed, "Let me put it this way. They're an incredibly careful organization, no that's the wrong word, paranoid fits them better. All it takes is one crack in their trust for them to turn against you. This is the organization that has heavily considered genocide as a solution to their problems on multiple occasions, and in several worlds, it became more than just a consideration. Keep that in mind."

With that the man began to walk away.

"Wait, before you go can you tell me more about Order."

"Wish I could, but I really don't wanna. If I had to learn it the hard way, then so do you. You'll eventually learn it by yourself anyways, assuming you live long enough."

The apostle began to walk away but stopped himself. "Oh, but before I go, I got to say that I love the build you went with. The whole monster thing isn't something I think I've seen done before. At least not by somebody who managed to retain any sliver of sanity. Anyways, nice talking to ya but I gotta get back to work."

With that a portal opened up for the apostle, and in the next instant he was gone.

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"You're sure you'll be fine here by yourself?"

Blackwood chuckled, "Oh yeah, the god's gone, but we can't leave the materials for the rituals just lying around."

"Fair enough."

Michael moved to walk away, but Blackwood stopped him by putting his hand on his shoulder.

"Michael, thank you for your help. Good men can go home safe today because of you."

Michael smiled, "It's no big deal, I just did what I could. Also, I'm plan on living a long time and I couldn't just leave a wrathful deer god running around."

Blackwood laughed, "A fair answer my friend."

With that Michael left the explorer and made his way back to the portal. Without the god's presence this place wouldn't be making any more monsters. It was just a somewhat unstable plot of land now.

The portal was in the same place they'd left it, and was just as shitty as before. Michael couldn't help but mutter to himself about its terrible craftsmanship as he stepped through. Space immediately wrapping around him, but when he finally made it through, he wasn't greeted by the unsettling eyes that lurked within the mall. Instead, he stood in an incredibly well-lit steel lined box. Heat permeated the room, and Michael could feel his shoes melting onto the floor.

It was clearly a trap, and there was only one group that even knew he'd even been inside that portal.

"You sons of bitches!"

Michael hastily tried to teleport out, but the heat disrupted the ability.

Steel walls fell down behind him, blocking off the portal.

"You think this is enough to kill me? You bastards are fucking dead!"

Michael sprinted towards the wall in a mad dash and raised his mace as he noticed something small sitting in the corner.

It was a child, at least that's what he assumed it to be. It was made out of shadow and was curling itself into a ball, clearly shying away from the bright lights.

Then in the instant before his mace struck the wall the light went out.

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Michael's eyes could see in the dark just as well as it could in the light, and his body had improved leaps and bounds within the past few months, but even with all of his accumulated advantages he still could barely follow the kid's movements as it charged him in the darkness.

Michael's mace impacted the wall as the kid's body began to warp.  And then in the next instant the shadows that made up its form enveloped Michael at a speed he couldn't react to. And then he was gone, and alone stood the child in the metal box.

It approached the small hole Michael had made in the wall, but before it could move too far the lights came back on, causing it to shriek and curl back into a ball, shielding its body from the light as foundation staff rapidly began to repair the hole Michael had made in the cage.

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Immediately after being enveloped by the shadows, Michael found himself falling through an abyss. Air rushed past him as he looked deep into the inky darkness of the pit, and then he rolled over and looked up towards the sky, or a lack thereof in this case.

Concrete buildings hung from the ceiling as if they weren't affected by gravity, and far away amongst the buildings embedded in a rocky black material in the sidewalk, he could see a portal rapidly closing.

Michael stared at it for but a moment before his entire being began to see red. They'd just tried to kill him. To dispose of him for little more than a prophecy that could have meant a half dozen things. This wasn't something he could allow.

He didn't think as his flesh began to shift, and he didn't stop to consider when his form shifted to one made for speed, he simply moved by instinct as large crimson wings spread outwards from his back.

He shot like a bullet into the sky, and he only realized what he was doing once he'd actually reached the portal which had fizzled out several seconds before he'd reached the roof.

But he didn't stop. He simply swung his mace into the ceiling, over and over again, shaking the ground and sending small chunks of debri falling into the abyss.

But nothing he did made the portal come back, nor did it change his situation. He wasn't even able to make a scratch in the black material that had housed the portal.

He'd been stranded, and slowly he began to take deep breaths to calm himself down.

"Oh, is your tantrum finally over? Nice wings by the way."

"Where am I Keith?"

"You are inside of SCP-017. In what I must say is the riskiest SCP termination attempt I've seen in a while."

"And what makes you say that?"

"Well the thing that sent you here is Keter class, and the usual method of containment for creatures like that consists of leaving it in a box and never fucking with it again, but you've achieved something special. You made the chance of it escaping worth the risk so long as they managed to get rid of you. Congratulations!"

The mask began to laugh. "That's a talent right there Michael. Give yourself a nice big pat on the back, you deserve it."

"You know we're hanging above an abyss right? Not exactly the best time to be getting on my nerves."

...

"Alright, point made, but in all seriousness, this was incredibly risky on their part. For all they know your dimension warping ability could just spit you back out in their dimension. They're taking a huge gamble here."

"Do they take me for a fucking pushover? I let them off the first time with a very direct warning, and they tried to kill me with a goddamn gamble?"

"Well, they weren't exactly trying to kill you. They know that wouldn't pan out until the prophecy of you putting me on is fulfilled. It'd be more accurate to say they were trying to relocate you."

Michael grit his teeth and slammed his mace into the ceiling once more.

"Woah easy there Michael, your body's getting a little... monsterish."

Sure enough, when Michael looked downwards he could see that his body was several times bigger than it should be, and half a dozen hands with footlong claws were digging into the ceiling.

Immediately he panicked, shaping himself back into a more human form.

It felt freeing to have the extra limbs. Like it was something he was always meant to have, but he couldn't let himself stay like that. There were distinct problems with letting himself take those forms. One being the lack of flesh.

Without it the improvements would simply be a downward spiral, and he would need literal mountains of it for any major change to be for more than simple appearances. The form had felt far too natural, and if he was being honest with himself, he didn't know if he could stop himself once he went down that path. The lack of flesh was probably why the original 'flesh that hates' had taken over his world.

Besides, while it was possible to improve himself with the abilities of 'the flesh that hates', it wasn't where its talents truly lied.

With a sigh Michael turned back to Keith, "So, did they even know where the kid was going to send me?"

"Nope, nobody they've sent here has ever come back."

"Great."

"To be fair, you didn't really give them much choice here. They can't kill you because of the prophecy, and they can't contain you for obvious reasons, so you made them get creative. The fact that they knew you'd be coming out of that portal was the best opportunity they could have asked for. You can't blame them too much."

"I'll be sure to take that into consideration when I'm breaking their legs."

Michael glanced back towards the abyss, and to the buildings that surrounded him. The majority were just simple office buildings, but they had an eeriness about them. He couldn't sense any flesh in the immediate vicinity, but...there was definitely something lurking in the darkness. At least that's what his instincts told him.

Michael teleported to a nearby building and slid down the side of it until he hung to the tip of the building, dangling over the abyss.

He scanned his surroundings and immediately spotted a small speck of light off in the distance. It flickered in the darkness, the telltale characteristics of a fire.

And where there is fire there would be life. Usually.

With that Michael began to teleport from building to building, making his way to the only sign of life he could see above the abyss.

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