Chương 97: The Inheriting Origin
Earth 000
The portal ripped open and Solus dropped through, Daemos right behind him. They landed on cold marble flooring, surrounded by great pillars that were holding up a massive dome shaped roof.
"Get to the others, make sure they are born currently," Solus ordered his son without turning around, walking ahead silently further down the hall.
"But why father? They have been reborn before," Daemos argued with a froan.
"Morlun came out crazed when he fought that…man. I suspect the others will be the same so be careful," Solus hissed.
Daemos snorted, "those weaklings got what they deserved, to be beaten so simply by a mere bug. If I was-ACK,' Solus' form blurred until suddenly his fist was surrounding Daemos' throat, squeezing and choking, cutting off the Inheritor's airflow.
"That bug was not a spider! He was not a totem! He was...disgusting," Solus spat out, the spit was stained with the after taste of the energy that he tried to absorb from the Peter Parker he faced, "revive your family, make them sane for when I return. Or I swear Daemos. I. Will. End. You."
He dropped him and turned, Daemos began to cough, rubbing his throat, looking up in sheer fear. The threat of death by his father's hands was not a light thing. It was...final. He got up on shaking legs and walked away, the threat hanging over his head.
He had never heard his father take that tone before...never, except for that time his mother had died.
Karn, he and his damn webbed warriors as they call themselves. The Inheritors had met them twice before this, once when the one that called himself the Superior bug was alone and another with more allies. Daemos and his family played with them, though they did manage to escape in the end.
But it didn't matter, Daemos knew his little brother was the reason all of this was happening, he knew whatever this new bug was doing was all thanks to Karn's help. So when he did finally find his little brother, Daemos swore he would wring his fucking neck.
Solus was not happy. He was not happy at all.
Whatever that thing he encountered was, it was powerful. It was no mere Totem, it wore the damn eight legged symbol, but it wasn't a Spider. It was...more.
Solus was sure that if any of his family, other than him, had tried to suck out his essence they would have gone mad with rage. A faint memory of when Solus was still mortal came up comparing the energy from totems to alcohol. If a totem was fine wine then that thing was distilled alcohol that was three hundred times more potent.
But it wasn't just power, no, it was alcohol mixed with bleach, spirit, oil and a dozen other entities that just didn't sit well with what a normal totem must be.
It was….something else, he was something else.
He walked to the end of the hallway and looked up. On the plain white wall hung a painting, a single painting that held the visage of his wife, Nollua, the Mother of the Inheritors. But this was before her transformation, this was before...everything.
She was young back then, young and oh so innocent. It was her kindness that he fell in love with, her naviety was what demanded he place his honor in protecting her. Her hair was let loose between her face, framing it. Her eyes glittering with a smile.
Nollua's father had commanded the painting, sent it out to any and all stars to come and challenge the hand of his daughter. What the man hadn't known at the time was that Nollua was already in love, and that Solus was now going to have to face an army of men to reclaim her hand.
He was not a noble man, he wasn't even born to a family of wealth. No, Solus' mother was a whore and his father was the family butler for Nollua's family. The man had one night of passion and was burdened with Solus, for life, but his father had honour, he had that in spades.
He raised Solus up to be a fine gentleman, he raised him as any good father did. And for that, Solus would always be grateful. But even now, when he closes his eyes, Solus can recall his father's face when he learnt Solus wished to marry Nollua.
Earth-0000 Year-1874
"YOU WHAT?!" he roared, the slap came next and the blinding white hot pain third.
Solus was unfazed, but his eyes teared up from the pain as his father's hand was printed onto his face, red from the force.
"F-father I-"
"-No! You are no son of mine! All this time I thought I had raised you better! I thought I had stamped out your mother's whorish nature out from you and polished you to be a servant before anything else and this is how you repay me?! You seduced our lord's daughter and now have the audacity to ask me to speak on your request?!"
"Father please, I-"
"-No! I am not your father! I denounce you! Leave! Leave this castle and never show yourself here again!"
"Father please, I beg of you! I love-"
SLAP!
He was removed from the mansion that very night. Nollua cried that night, when her father had heard of what happened he had beaten bloody and locked in her room.
Solus however did not know this at the time, instead he wandered around London, walking aimlessly, until he happened into the red light district, to the very same whore house his mother now headed.
She cried seeing his boy so broken and held him through the night as he confessed to her everything. He expected her to hate him, for leaving her, for thinking of her as a disgusting whore all his life. But she didn't say a word, she just smiled, "you had a better life than me. For that, I am happy."
If Solus could have gone back and changed one thing in his life, it would be to stay with his mother and renounce his father. But, if he did that, he would have never met Nollua.
He told his mother the challenge Nollua's father had announced, that for his daughter's hand in marriage a dowry of 40,000 pounds was asked. A hefty sum, one Solus knew a common whore house could not make. But as luck would have it, one of the home's more frequent guests was putting together an excavation in Egypt. Solus' mother arranged it for him to join them and so the boy set off, hoping that some undiscovered treasure laying waste in the sands of Egypt would win him his love.
It took months of travel and many more months of excavation. The man who hired Solus didn't care much for the boy, only did it as a favour to his mother as she promised free services for life if he did. But Solus quickly proved useful as his education and natural leadership skills made him a leader to the locally hired workers and an excellent aide to the british archeologists.
The progress they made was remarkable, Solus was a machine and expertly utilised the time and efforts of everyone there. One would often wonder what drove the boy, none would have guessed it was love.
A year after leaving England, they found it. A hidden tomb in the valley of the kings, one which was hidden underneath a pharaoh's sarcophagus. It was something never seen before, it's design incredible and almost...alien.
The room was barren and had only one thing, a door on the far corner. A door that reached up so high it disappeared into the blackness of the infinitely tall ceiling.
On it were inscriptions and wording none of them had ever seen before. None of the 'highly' educated and 'scholarly' Englishmen could make heads or tails of it and none of the locals knew of it either.
But Solus, Solus heard something. He heard it from the other side of the door. It didn't speak in words, no, it spoke in emotions. It spoke a promise, "she will be yours."
It promised him that. It was not said in words, it was not said in anything even remotely like words, so it wouldn't be twisted and made wrong or be a lie. It was a promise and it was true. Solus believed.
He walked forward. He walked forward and before anyone could stop him, he placed his hands on the door and a flash of light exploded out of the door.
"Solus!" the master of the party cried out in worry for the aide he grew close too over the year. The light quickly died down and Solus was on his knees, hunched over in pain.
Everyone was worried, beyond worried. They gathered around the young man that had earned their respect and tried to stir him awake. His eyes slowly opened, the blue orbs replaced with red glowing ones. He turned to the others and said one word, "hungry."
They didn't not escape. Not one of them. He drank their energy, turning them all into husks. He didn't care that he had just last night shared a meal with them, he did not care that he grew to respect them. He was just hungry and they would be his meal.
Solus gathered all the treasure they had found and set out. It took him a while, but he made his way back to London, now however wealthy as he had struck several deals with banks all across London to turn his treasure into pounds.
First, he bought the street on which his mother's whore house layed. He bought every single building on the street and then gifted it to his mother. She was beyond happy, kissing her son's cheeks until even the cold blooded killer he now turned into blushed red in embarrassment.
Then, finally, he returned for Nollua. Her father tried to object, Solus dropped the required dowry onto his feet and spat, "she is mine, whether you wish to stand in my way is up to you."
Let it be known that the man was no fool. He gave his daughter gladly, happy to just be rid of all this nonsense and the annoyance that Nollua was growing to be.
Sollus was taken to her room. She had not left it since the time last year Solus had left. When she saw him, it was as if all at once life came back to her. She jumped into his arms and held him tightly.
"My love! I knew you would come back!" she cried out, kissing the stubble that was growing on his chin.
But Solus did not reply, he didn't kiss her back no matter how much he wished too. No, instead he looked at her form, how she wore tattered clothes, how it hung off her body that had now grown rail thin.
And most importantly, he looked at the baby in her arms. A child that looked too weak to live on his own.
"N-Nollua, is that," he stammered, approaching the baby.
She smiled, tears in her eyes, "I told him, I sand to him every night that his father would come back to us. I told him you would return. They didn't want me to keep him Solus! They wanted me to throw our baby boy away! I told them I would die before that happened! I almost did," she showed her sleeves, cuts that had healed twice over were across both wrists, "they wouldn't even give me enough to feed him or cloth him!"
They had abused her while he was away. This would not stand. They had tried to kill his boy. This would not stand. They had tried to...starve a boy...a baby who was harmless, blameless.
THIS WOULD NOT STAND!
He killed his own father first. He thought despite the hate the man bore him, he would at least protect his own flesh and blood. He then killed everyone else in the mansion, breaking through rooms like butter, ripping the heads off their bodies, using the limbs of servants as clubs to bludgeon others to death.
At the end, he sat in a room of a corpse, his wife and son behind him. After his frenzy was over, he didn't wish to look at them, at the horror that would be sure to be in their eyes. At the disgust.
But instead, he felt his wife's hand on his shoulder. He flinched in fear, but turned. He saw her smiling, he saw them both smiling. "They deserved it," was all she replied. The innocence she held died, she was more than a child now, she was the Mother.
They named the boy Morlum, she had waited on naming the boy until he came back. Then, they were married the next day.
A year later Daemos was born, and Solus had never been happier in his entire body. He had two sons, more wealth than what he knew what to do with and his wife, the love of his life.
But then, tragedy struck.
Morlun always looked like a sickly child, always got sick but his wife always managed to bring him back to normal. But one night, one cold and ark night it became too much for him, the body's frail body gave away and collapsed.
It was a night that Solus never wanted to relive, ever. He drank for the first time in his life that night. Even his wife couldn't stop him from killing the doctor that had failed to save their son. Solus was distraught, he never felt so powerless in his life, until he remembered the time he was kicked out of his home. Until he remembered...Egypt.
He spent his vast fortune and made his way to Egypt, his family coming along with him. Daemos didn't stop crying through the whole trip, though that was a good thing as it reminded Solus what his son should have sounded like.
When they finally arrived back in the tomb where Solus was reborn, the man took out his son's body, carefully wrapped and preserved and laid it out before the door.
He knelt, he begged. "Please….save him."
And the door just replied, "why?"
This time, everyone heard it. Norulla came forward, "my husband told me you gave him the power he now holds, surely this was for a reason! Please, he's not whole without our boy!"
"Whatever you wish me to do, I will," Solus said, agreeing with his wife's statement.
"Then...kill," the door flashed a bright venomous yellow forming a portal before them. Solus stood protectively in front of his family as a figure stepped through it. He was dressed strangely, in red and blue with black webs on the red. His eyes were white and shaped like commas and on his chest was the symbol of a spider.
"Ah...did someone see where I left my bag?" he asked.
Solus stepped forward. He knew what he had to do. He had to protect his family. The battle was the hardest he had ever fought. Not because the totem was strong, no, it was average at best, but this was the first time Solus ever fought someone who could keep up with him, someone who wasn't human.
It lasted hours but in the end, he won. His wife threw a set of bollas at the wall crawler and pinned him down. Solus jumped on the creature and began to feast. And when his lips touched the essence of a totem for the first time, it was...ecstasy.
He had never felt anything like it. Power, raw, unfiltered. And with it, knowledge, on how to save his son. But he needed to test it first, he would not risk the one chance he had with Morlun. He turned to his wife.
The process was slow, painful, but the results spoke for themselves He then turned Daemos and then finally turned to Morlun.
It was almost a miracle when he heard his son start to breath again. Breath and live. He opened his eyes and asked, "father?"
They held each other and cried, thanking whatever was behind the door for the miracle it had given them. And when they were done, Solus asked the question he should have done the moment he came to his new found powers.
"Who are you?"
The door simply replied, "I am...the Originator."
Earth 0000 Present day
Solus had not set foot in here in years. Decades even. The door had given him orders before but Solus found he could ignore them and ignore them he did. But now…
He pressed a hidden button on the painting's frame and a door opened up before him. The man walked through and it closed behind him. He walked down a flight of stairs that would have taken ordinary men hours to cover, but him only seconds.
He arrived at the chamber, the same one from hundreds of years ago. The only on top of which Solus and Nollua had agreed to build their new home on top of. It cost a fortune and took forever. But time and money was something they had in spades.
Solus stopped before the door and kneeled, "Originator, I seek your guidance."
"You have ignored me for years and now you come to me for guidance?" a voice began.
"I….I didn't-"
"Enough. I have no need for your lies….speak, what is it that you wish for today?" the door flashed brightly with each syllable.
"My family encountered something in our last hunt...something that is, but isn't, a totem," Solus confessed, "it was something I-"
"I am aware of whom you speak off," the door replied, "he is a part of my plan as well. Like you are."
Solus raised his head, "what is he?"
The door was silent for a while before it finally replied, "the Spider."
"What possible role does that...thing have to play?"
"He will be the key that set me free."
Solus raised a single eyebrow, "I have never cared much for the reason behind your commands before. But now our paths seem to be entwined with this thing. My family-"
"Will die, but you will do as I say," Solus opened his mouth to object only for the voice to cut him off, "because if you succeed, I will bring back your wife. You can have new children. I know you are tired of these ones ..."
Solus snapped his jaw shut. He looked to the door and began to think. It was a heavy cost, true, but the reward….his children, he raised them with Nollua, but….they were worthless. Even Morlun.
If he and his wife were together again, they could make more of them and this time, raise them right, properly. Perfect in every way.
Solus nodded, "I agree."
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