The Festivals² the summons

The chapter begins with Gabriel approaching the tomb little by little, filled with terror and tension.

The grave was open.

Empty.

As if it had been waiting for him since the beginning of time.

Without hesitation, Gabriel stepped forward—

And jumped.

Plunging into the abyss once more.

Falling.

Endlessly.

No hope. No mercy. No escape.

Then—

The fall stopped.

There was no impact. No sudden jolt. It was as if gravity had simply abandoned him. His body remained suspended, floating in the void, as though he belonged nowhere at all.

The air—if there was air—was utterly still. So still, in fact, that his breath no longer made a sound.

And then—

He saw it.

At the center of a swirling maelstrom of shifting colors, reality itself erupted into a surreal nightmare. Circles, eyes, phantoms—dancing in chaotic, incomprehensible patterns, like an ocean of liquid madness.

These were not mere colors.

They were watching him.

Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands of glimmering eyes embedded within the storm of hues fixated upon him. Studying him. Stripping him bare, not just in body, but in spirit—peeling away his existence, layer by layer.

And from within this visual chaos—

She emerged.

A mass of darkness.

Black as an infinite void.

Like a black hole sculpted into the form of a woman.

Her body was not a mere shadow. It was nothingness itself.

Absorbing light. Absorbing color. Absorbing him.

Gabriel felt himself unraveling—his very essence thinning, like fabric being pulled apart by unseen hands.

But she was not empty.

There was an eye.

One single eye, glowing with a dim, eerie radiance, peering at him from behind the curtain of darkness.

It was an eye devoid of warmth.

Devoid of humanity.

Devoid of life.

And yet—

It saw him.

Not just his body.

Not just his soul.

Everything.

It was tearing into him the way blades tore through flesh.

She extended her hand.

But it was not a hand.

It was an extension of that living void—writhing like smoke, yet solid.

And heavy.

Not merely in weight, but in presence—gripping reality itself, bending it, reshaping it as she pleased.

Gabriel did not move.

He could not move.

There was nowhere to go.

"Who… are you?"

He did not realize he had spoken.

He was not even sure the words had truly left his lips.

But the question existed.

It lingered in the air.

She did not answer.

She only smiled.

A brilliant, radiant smile—

Carved into the darkness.

White. Wide. Almost beautiful.

But not human.

A smile brimming with knowledge.

With amusement.

With danger.

And then, with a voice as grand as a celestial symphony, she spoke:

"Say I found the one

That's enough for me, that's enough for me

Run, the past, it's gone

Love me in this league

Heavy, every lie is a crown, preachers are tired too

Fall asleep on me

Reach inside my mind and tell me where you want to go?"

Then, as it had begun, the eyes began to melt away. The colors receded. The darkness thickened.

And the fall began anew.

This time, there was no impact. No collision.

The descent simply… stopped.

As if the very laws of the universe had been rewritten in an instant, leaving Gabriel suspended in nothingness.

For a moment, he thought he had returned to the void, to that black abyss where the woman with the haunting words had confronted him.

But this time—

There was no darkness.

There was light.

A light that was not natural, that was not warm, that was not comforting.

It burned with an unnatural radiance, piercing his eyes, invading his being, making him feel as though he was standing before something that should never be seen. Something that should never be understood.

The light came from an unknown dimension, pouring into a stone cavern—its walls rough, covered in ancient cracks, worn by the passage of time itself. The rocks were jagged and uneven as if they had violently emerged from the earth's core, yet they all converged at a single point.

The point where he stood.

At the heart of this sacred cavern, there was a platform.

Unlike the walls, it was not made of stone.

It was smooth, flawless, polished as if sculpted from a metal unknown to man.

And it glowed from within.

A pure, white radiance pulsed through it, casting unstable shadows across the chamber.

And upon this platform—

The being stood.

It was not human.

It was not demonic.

It was not divine.

It was beyond definition.

Its body was human-like—muscular, uncovered, yet not truly naked.

For its very skin was wrapped in something… something like scales, like burnt flesh, like the twisted fabric of reality itself.

Its hands were powerful, extended outward, and marked with symbols he could not comprehend.

One held a key and a chain.

The other gripped a sword—a blade so sharp it seemed to cut through existence itself, glowing red like a dying sun.

But it was what lay above the body that stole Gabriel's breath.

The being did not have a human face.

It had the head of a lion.

But not a lion of this world.

Its eyes were empty.

Not blind—empty in a terrifying way, as if they were gateways to the void itself.

Its fangs jutted out, gleaming like blades, and from its nostrils, a dense smoke poured forth, writhing in the air like the breath of something ancient.

It had wings—

Vast, angelic, blinding white, yet flickering like a sacred fire.

But wrapped around them was something else.

A serpent.

A monstrous snake, coiled around the being's ribs, slithering up its throat, its head resting upon its brow like a crown of the living.

Its scales were deep red—stained as if with the blood of countless eons.

And its eyes…

Glowed with a dim yellow light, heavy with wisdom—

And madness.

Then, Gabriel noticed something else.

There were people.

They were not standing.

They were not looking into the entity's eyes as he was.

They were kneeling.

Three figures, clad in white robes, their faces pressed against the ground, their arms stretched forward in submission.

As if offering their very souls.

One of them trembled as if his prayers were not leaving his lips but burning through his very spirit.

The second was silent, unmoving as if he were a mere extension of the earth itself.

And the third—

The third was whispering.

Words Gabriel could not hear.

Could not understand.

Yet he could feel them.

The air shifted with every syllable, the unseen currents of the world twisting, speaking to his very bones.

And still—

The entity did not move.

It did not look at him.

Yet he could feel it inside him.

Not a voice.

Not a thought.

Something deeper.

Like the world itself whispering to him its truths.

Then—

Without warning—

The being moved.

It lifted its head.

And looked at him.

Directly.

And then, with a voice that was not just sound, but an incantation, a cipher, a bridge between sanity and delirium, it spoke:

"I took some drugs that fucked up my mental

I drove so far and never gave back that rental

I've been so crazy, but baby be gentle

See our potential…"

The moment froze.

When the entity uttered those words, they were not mere vibrations in the air.

They were sigils.

Spells.

A key between perception and insanity.

Gabriel could no longer think.

Could no longer breathe.

Because suddenly—

Without warning—

He saw everything.

Everything.

All at once.

He saw the hallucinations flood back, like lost souls finding refuge within him.

He saw them multiply, spiraling around him in an endless vortex.

Shadows danced before his eyes, ripping through reality, tearing open tunnels of static noise.

And he heard them.

Voices.

Whispering.

Screaming.

Singing.

Begging.

Familiar voices.

Strange voices.

Voices that were never meant to exist.

The words cycled through his mind, over and over, dragging him deeper into the spiral.

"I took some drugs that did fucked up my mental..."

The letters became symbols.

The symbols became beings.

The beings became screams made flesh, writhing in front of him, slithering onto his skin, whispering in his ears, pulling him into the abyss.

He tried to shut them out.

But the voices were inside him.

They could not be silenced.

Because they were him now.

The hallucinations spun.

He saw her—

The woman with the black eyes was standing before him once more.

He saw Father Christopher, grinning as his flesh crumbled to ash.

He saw Rose, standing in the darkness, her hands gripping her head, sobbing silently—

Before she turned—

And revealed that she had no face.

He saw the moon split apart.

The sea consumes the city.

The sky collapses in burning fragments.

The hallucinations spun.

He was sitting in the void.

A place with no meaning.

No ground.

No sky.

Only—

Nothingness.

And the visions dancing around him, swallowing him whole.

Then—

The spinning stopped.

A new image appeared.

Not a memory.

Not a hallucination.

Something else.

Something new.

He was standing before it.

A black sky.

Clouds glowing red.

A blazing eclipse in the heavens, burning like the eye of an angry god.

The air was thick, heavy, and filled with sacred smoke.

A sea of clouds below.

As if the earth itself had ceased to exist.

And in that moment, Gabriel knew—

This was not just a vision.

It was a window.

A glimpse into something else.

A place that should not be.

And then—

As if the universe itself leaned in to whisper in his ear—

He heard a new voice.

A voice from nothingness.

A voice that echoed through the deepest corners of his mind:

"Oh, I'm so special."

"Oh, I'm so special."

"Oh, I'm so special."

Then, the voice shifted.

It was no longer a mere echo.

It was mocking.

It was pitying.

It was breaking him apart.

"No, I'm not special, kick back that pedestal.

Stay for the ride or just leave on a high note."

And then—

He remembered.

He remembered all the entities he had encountered.

The beings that should not exist.

The things that lurked beyond sanity.

He saw Zulish.

He saw the whispers in the darkness.

He saw Erkantha, Queen of Witches.

And finally—

He saw the Shadow Demon.

But this…

This was not just an entity.

It was not a god.

It was not a ruler of reality.

It was something beyond all that.

It was the final truth.

It was… his end.

Gabriel felt the weight of this realization pressing against his soul, like a cosmic tide pulling him under. He was no longer merely seeing; he was becoming.

He could feel the boundaries of his existence melting away, dissolving into the infinite vastness of this thing—this being that had no name, no form, only an overwhelming presence.

And then, as if the universe itself were laughing at him, the voice spoke again.

Not in words.

Not in thoughts.

But in pure, raw understanding.

It whispered to him the truth.

And Gabriel screamed.

Then, Zulish entered the hallucinations.

Flames—red, all-consuming flames—devoured everything in sight.

And then, with a mere gesture, Zuelish tore Gabriel back to reality.

Everything had vanished.

As if they had feared Zwelsh.

Even the Witch's House—the place that had once pulsed with eldritch energy—was now nothing more than an ordinary home.

Zulish turned to Gabriel, and for the first time in his existence, he looked uneasy.

Zuelish (hurriedly): "Quickly, boy. We have no time for foolishness."

Without another word, Zwelsh grabbed Gabriel and dragged him away.

Beyond the mountains of the leather-skinned island, a sight of unimaginable magnitude awaited them.

Gabriel: "What… is this?"

Zulish: "It's… The Festival."

Gabriel: "The what?"

What stood before them was beyond comprehension.

---

Beyond the mountains, a sight not meant for human eyes was revealed.

The ground was smooth, its texture resembling the flesh of a living being. It breathed—a slow, rhythmic pulse beneath their feet, as if the island itself was alive, witnessing the ritual.

At the heart of this massive clearing, a green firestorm spiraled toward the heavens, twisting, writhing, feeding upon itself. It crackled, releasing strange sparks that dissipated before touching the ground.

It was not fire.

It did not burn.

It did not emit heat.

Instead, the closer they stepped, the colder the air became—an unnatural, biting cold that seemed to drain warmth from existence itself.

Around the fire stood a crowd of creatures that barely resembled humans.

Draped in long, black robes, their faces were shrouded in darkness. But their heads—they were not normal.

Some bore twisted, gnarled horns.

Some had eyes that burned with an unnatural purple glow.

Some had no faces at all—only a void of endless blackness.

They stood in a perfect circle, their hands raised, chanting in a language that should not exist. Their voices did not belong to this world, a mixture of distant oceanic echoes and whispers from realms yet to be born.

At the edges of the clearing, massive stone pillars loomed, their surfaces covered in cryptic engravings—symbols that seemed to slither and shift as if trying to escape the stone.

Among the pillars stood statues of faceless women, each bearing a black stone crescent moon upon her head. These dark moons pulsed softly with green light, feeding upon the ritual's power.

Everything was alive.

Everything was watching.

Everything was waiting.

Gabriel could only stare, his mind unable to process the sheer vastness of the scene.

This was not a human ceremony.

This was not something that should ever be witnessed.

But Zuelish, for the first time, looked tense.

His eyes glowed with quiet urgency.

Zwelsh (his voice low but firm): "They're summoning Erkantha… and so far, they're succeeding."

Then—

Everything vanished.

The figures.

The fire.

The pillars.

The entire ritual was swallowed by the void, erased from reality in the blink of an eye.

Gabriel and Zwelsh descended the mountain, moving quickly, trying to understand what had just happened.

But then—

They saw it.

A black war tank.

Its turret was missing.

And upon it, a figure sat—waiting.

---

A woman.

Beautiful.

Terrifying.

She sat with unshaken confidence, one hand resting against her cheek, her posture regal and demonic at once.

She was a half-elf.

A creature from a forgotten age.

Her long, silver hair shimmered in the eerie twilight.

Her eyes—deep crimson, burning like ancient embers— stared straight into Gabriel's soul.

Upon her head, she wore a classic witch's hat—purple, majestic, timeless.

She was dressed in a flowing black gown, its fabric darker than the abyss itself.

But what surrounded her was even more unnerving.

A thousand shadowy hands.

They floated around her, shifting, writhing, adorned with twinkling stars trapped within their darkness.

And on her pure, pale thighs rested a human skull And on her shoulder stood a raven with red eyes.

Then, she spoke.

And at the sound of her voice—ethereal, melodic, yet drenched in terror—

The entire planet trembled.

Erkantha: "I missed you… little brother."

---

End of Chapter.