The bastard child becomes the empires royal consort Chapter 52

"Where am I...?" Alan’s voice was swallowed by the void.

He was adrift in a realm of nothingness, surrounded by a pitch-black expanse, where the concept of distance and space didn’t exist.

Despite the sheer bizarreness of his surroundings, a heavy calm settled over him, it was a calm born from a growing sense of familiarity...

Familiarity...

Familiarity...?

The moment he realised, it was as if a dam shattered within his mind, memories surged forward, flooding his brain.

Right, this wasn’t his first time here.

"Shit." Alan cursed, he couldn’t even move his body, his limbs and torso were frozen in place, leaving only his neck free to turn.

He was in a dream, a constant, recurring dream he had fallen into countless times, it was a cycle that kept on repeating, he would descend into this subconscious void, regain the memories of his past visits, and then upon waking up, he would lose it all again.

But that was the thing, nothing ever happened, he was simply forced to stare into the void until he woke up.

Every. Single. Time.

Leaving behind the process to just be repeated all over again.

With a weary sigh, Alan closed his eyes, he was already used to it, so he just closed his eyes within the dream and began relaxing, waiting for the time to pass as usual.

...Only this time, it didn’t proceed as it normally did.

"—!!!" Alan’s eyes snapped open, his face twisted in a silent, raw agony, but no sound escaped his lips, it was like a vacuum sucked all the air out of his lungs.

His vision flickered, blurring and sharpening, until his eyelids forcefully shut against his own will.

Finally.

"GAH!" Alan gasped, his lungs burning as he frantically ran his hands over his body, but the pain disappeared like it was never there.

...Wait, ran his hand over his body?

Alan looked down, and indeed he could move his arms once more, then he took a moment to really look at himself.

He was dressed in a heavy black robe, a style of clothing he had never touched before.

Then he noticed the light he could percieve, instantly he whipped his head behind, only for his jaws to fall to the ground.

He was standing on the edge of a jagged cliff, below him stretched an ocean, but it wasn’t water, it was a thick, vicious sea of crimson blood, so deep it almost looked black.

The sky above was painted in an aurora of beautiful shades of red, gold, blue and purple, a colour combination so alien he couldn’t even process what he was seeing.

That wasn’t even what made the blood in his body freeze.

It was the enormous skeleton that lay stretched across the horizon, a gargantuan ruin of bones so vast he couldn’t see where it ended.

The skull itself reached high into the clouds, from the empty, hollow eye sockets, twin waterfalls of blood cascaded down its pale cheeks to feed the ocean below.

Every dark liquid gathered in the ocean in front of him originated from the giant skull, a chill ran up his spine the moment he realised.

"Where is this..." Alan knew he wouldn’t get a response, yet he still couldn’t help the question slip from his mouth.

Alan was suddenly presented with a scene he would have never even thought of formulating in his mind, a truly grotesque yet beautiful scenery.

As he was blankly staring ahead, suspended in disbelief, unsure of whether to be horrified or amazed, a voice drifted from behind him.

"Quite the sight, isn’t it?" The voice was calm, almost gentle.

Alan’s instincts screamed, he immediately spun on his heel, launching a fast straight punch to the source of the voice.

Only to realise a split second later, his arm simply vanished without a trace, there was an empty space where his right arm was.

"Are you always this jumpy?" The figure chuckled. "Relax, I’m not here to harm you."

Alan kept his guard up, his heart hammering in his chest, he looked up to inspect the newcomer but was quickly baffled by the sight.

Standing before him was a vague, shifting outline of a man, condensed with dense, swirling dark fog, like a living shadow of smoke.

Yet, where the eyes should have been, a pair of golden orbs burnt with the intensity of the sun, in the centre of those glowing circles was a thin, vertical pupil that locked onto Alan with a predatory glare.

"Where am I?" Alan demanded in a low growl, he raised his remaining hand to strike if needed.

"Geez, I’m pretty sure I said to relax." The figure scoffed and waved his hand.

Alan’s left arm vanished.

Alan blinked, staring at his now armless torso, then finally let out a defeated sigh. "Who are you?"

"Hmm." The figure tapped where a chin might be. "You can just call me... Gold."

"That’s not your real name, is it...?"

"Obviously not." Gold laughed, waving his hands again, in an instant, Alan’s arms were back, as if they were never erased. "It just matches my eyes."

"Is that so..." Alan replied in a flat tone.

"Don’t look so disappointed, knowing my name wouldn’t do you any favours." Gold said, shrugging his shadowy shoulders as he turned away. "Anyway, let’s go."

"Huh, where are we going?" Alan found himself trailing behind the moving shadow as they descended the cliff and into a forest.

"To greet the others, of course." Gold replied as if it was natural.

"There are others?" Alan raised a brow.

"Did you assume I live my life here like a loner?"

"That was not what I tried saying."

"Oh, so you did think that."

"How did you even come to that conclusion..."

"If you hate me, just say so."

"Literally what on earth are you talking about?"

Leaving behind nonsense conversations, the two traversed deeper into the dark forest.

...

"Well, well, then we’re here." Gold announced, spreading his shadowy arms like presenting a masterpiece.

Alan slowed to a halt, looking at the structure ahead of him, it was a temple, although the term temple felt too generous to describe it, it was worn-out dilapidated ruin of pitch black stones.

"Why did I even follow you here?" Alan asked, his voice echoing thinly. "I don’t know you and certainly don’t know where ’here’ is."

"Did you have anything else to do?" Gold giggled. "No, right? So just follow me."

Gold drifted up the obsedian staircase of the entrance, leaving Alan behind in a state of silent panic, unsure whether to follow behind or not, after a small moment of hesitation, he walked up the stairs.

Step Step

Their boots struck the stone floorings of the temple corridors, or rather, just Alan’s boots, as Gold was just a shadowy fog gliding over the ground.

The interior was in surprisingly good condition compared to the outside of the temple, the dark halls were lined up with crimson torches that hissed in their wall-mounts, brightening the corridors in a rather interesting colour.

"Where are you taking me?" Alan asked, his eyes darting between the red light.

"Stop asking dumb questions, I told you, it’s to meet the others."

"Yeah, you did say that." Alan nodded. "But where exactly are the ’others’ I’ve quite literally have not ran into a single other person."

"Well, there are only four of us, so it makes sense you haven’t seen a crowd." Gold shrugged, his shadowy form rippling. "Either way we’re almost there."

They took a sharp turn in the hallway, and Alan stopped dead in his track, standing before a set of double doors so massive it seemed suited for a titan.

"Oh, Blue!" Gold suddenly called out, waving his shadowy arm.

’Blue?’ Alan raised a brow and looked ahead, standing just infront of the double doors was another figure

It was a silhouette of dark fog, identical in form to Gold, but his eyes were a piercing, crystal-clear cerulean, and just like Alan’s and Gold’s eyes, his held a vertical pupil in the centre.

"I see why you called him Blue..." Alan replied. "But why’s he looking at me like that?"

The newcomer wasn’t just observing, he was glaring at Alan, with a intense gaze filled with an emotion Alan couldn’t quite decipher, a mixture of pity and profound irritation?

"Why did you bring him here?" Blue asked, his voice... sounded really familiar, like Alan had heard it somewhere before, but where?

"Why?" Gold chuckled again. "He should be ready by now."

"He is nowhere near ready." Blue denied Gold with a shake of his shadowy head.

"You wouldn’t know unless he tried." Gold shrugged his shoulders and turned to Alan. "C’mon, time to meet the last guy."

"The last guy?" Alan asked.

"Yeah." Gold nodded. "You can just call him, uh, Red?"

"Let me guess, red eyes?"

"Bingo!"

"Your naming sense is horrible..."

"Haha." Gold laughed it off, unbothered. "Like I said, knowing our names wouldn’t do you any favours right now."

Gold turned back to Blue, who was blocking the way. "Mind letting us through now?"

Blue stood still for a moment too long before finally clicking his tongue. "Fine, go find out the hard way."

Blue stepped aside, behind him the black double doors slowly grinded open.

Even though the door was open now, Alan didn’t move, instead looking ahead with hesitation.

"What, are you scared?" Gold looked at Alan. "Relax, think of it as just a leap of faith."

"Are you sure I’m not going to die in there?" Alan asked, his intuition was deathly quiet, which could be a positive signal to the situation.

But Blue’s heavy gaze said otherwise.

"Eh, even if you did ’die’, you wouldn’t actually be dead." Gold stepped to the side. "Because this is all in your head."

"Is it? Then mind telling me how the hell I got here?"

"You fell asleep? I don’t know."

"Really helpful." Alan scoffed and turned away, only to frown. "Why did you move over there?"

"Oh, for you to walk first." Gold gestured with his hands to the open doors ahead.

Alan hummed, he hesitated for a moment longer before finally sighing, rubbing his forehead, and then walking forward.

Behind Alan, Gold and Blue followed along, maintaing a distance of exactly two steps, still Blue didn’t divert his meaningful gaze from the back of Alan’s head.

They stepped through the doors, and were immediately plunged into total, suffocating darkness, once again Aaln completely lost his sense of distance.

He looked back, to see the two fog figures still behind him, their glowing eyes were the only source of light.

Alan sighed and turned around.

Tremble

Then the ground shook, or rather the very space itself began trembling.

"Huh?" Alan let out a small, confused gasp looking at the dark floor, then lifted his gaze.

In front of him was a staircase he didn’t notice before, dark steps he could percieve despite the darkness surrounding it.

Following the stairs, his eyes landed on a throne, a dark throne with long jagged spikes that protruded out of the backrest.

Seated upon that throne was the final figure, its body was composed of the same dark fog, but where the eyes should have been were two spheres of raw, pulsating blood.

Two horrifyingly bloodthirsty eyes, in the centre, was a vertical pupil...

POP

Alan’s eyeballs exploded.

"AAA—!" A blood-curdling scream tore out from his throat, as his vision was violently ripped from his body.

He clutched his head, his own blood, hot and slick against his palm, pouring through his fingers to pool on the dark floor he could no longer see.

Admist this agony, the figure seated on the throne spoke.

[ # # # # # # # # # # # # #]

POP

Alan’s eardrums burst, the pressure continued, turning his brain into a liquid slurry of melted thoughts and static.

Then.

Thump

Alan collapsed, a lifeless heap on the floor, bleeding from all seven orifices, the dark space fell into a heavy, absolute silence.

"Tch...So he wasn’t ready." Broken by Gold’s whisper, his voice tinged with casual dissapointment.