He choked on the air, thick with ash and vaporised blood it made him retch. Not that it was an unfamiliar sensation; but rather in the ruin and pain of Lehron IV Durizael had taken leave of reality. The thick black bile slopped messily from his broken jaw: a cocktail of half-digested flesh, acrid stomach juices and his own life-blood mingled into a stream of undiluted self-loathing. He could barely even see the world around him as one of his eyelids flapped uselessly where his face had been half stripped from his skull, his right eye burning red raw from exposure to the cruel desert world beyond the safety of skin. The left eye remained mercifully clothed in flesh though no less bloody giving him a vision of only gory ruin.
Durizael had long since fallen to his knees, scrabbling amongst the dirt for his senses. He crawled spasmodically along the dust carpeted floor; kicking up clouds of fine grit that attacked his exposed muscle and sinew. Finding energy to drag his broken form further through the jagged grey rubble, Durizael lurched forward like a crippled beast in flight from a hunter. Sounds of battle raged on every side, echoes of death and woe as promethium flames held his kinsmen in tortured embrace.
This had been madness from the start, she had gambled everything and lost. Worst still she had dragged him into this; beloved sister and psychotic bitch, Lethis had done this to him. Ruined all he had worked for. Ruined the family. Ruined his face. His handsome, handsome face. This would not be the end he vowed. This was only the beginning. They had mocked him, defeated him in battle and had taken her away from him. The universe was such a cruel mistress; a mistress with a needle-knife of suffering. Cutting away everything.
Durizael's breathing was becoming more and more haggard as his internal organs began to fail him. This was almost it, he could feel the predations of the warp caressing the outermost parts of his soul as the darkness began to close in around him. Merciless unknowns and uncertainties played along the edges of his consciousness, sinister legends of damnation attempted to slither between the lobes of his brain to bring mental anguish to the dying vessel. But he would not allow this. His own madness would sustain him, a violent force of hate and malice wrapped in black fury consumed every fibre of his being. This was not death. This was rebirth. With red agony coursing through his veins Durizael raised his hands. This was not death. This was rebirth. Spidery fingers tensed as they gripped his once handsome features now half-hanging limply from a ruined face. This was not death. This was rebirth. Setting aside the insanity of an uncaring universe and all the pain of a hopeless future he tore the dangling flesh from cheek to cheek. This was not death. This was rebirth.
Fleeing from the defeat of his sister Lethis on Lehron IV, Durizael Depravum managed to gather what was left of the crumbling Depravum empire and fled the Dark City to the death world of Kharcis Prime which lies on the very borders of the southern galaxy. Having lost his face and much of his sanity Durizael vows he will take revenge on the cruel universe: all his life he had cowered in the shadow of his sister as a failure to his family but no more. The Fleshless Palace of Kharcis Prime will soon be adorned with a thousand bloody tokens of vengeance as the skin is torn from the living bags of meat who dared to wrong him and hung as tapestries for the Faceless Archon to enjoy.
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