I am Him: Revered through Realms

Marcellus opened his eyes. He lay upon a bed of jagged rocks, cold and unwelcoming, yet he scarcely felt the discomfort.

His palm rested against his cheek, tracing the contours of a jaw no longer soft with infancy. The shape was more defined now, subtly angular. Still youthful, but developed beyond what he remembered.

His breath caught. He surged upright. No hesitation. No clumsy movements. His limbs responded with precision, steady and controlled. There was a lightness to his body, a streamlined strength.

He examined his hands, small and delicate, yet elongated. His arms and legs matched the proportions of a child no older than five, compact and balanced. His chest rose and fell in a calm rhythm, far removed from the ragged gasps of a newborn.

He was no longer an infant. Somehow, he had grown. Rapidly. Unnaturally. Again, his breath faltered. But this time, he noticed something else.

He could breathe.

Fully. Deeply. Without struggle or strain. The air filled his lungs with effortless ease. Had he adapted to this realm already? The thought hovered, uncertain.

And then, the silence.

He could hear everything.

The soft crunch beneath him as he shifted. The distant wail of the wind. Even the faint friction of his knuckles as his fingers curled and uncurled.

It was all vivid, refined, pristine.

A chill crept along his spine.

A presence.

Heavy. Ancient. Watching.

His eyes shifted cautiously to the side.

There it was.

Massive. Silent. Motionless.

A Fenrir? The thought flickered through his mind.

It rested only a few feet away, half-curled as if in sleep, yet brimming with latent force. Even in stillness, it radiated the kind of restrained power that could tear the world asunder. Its fur glimmered with an eerie sheen, like smoke spun from midnight, threaded through with shadow and muscle.

Their eyes met, two luminous spheres of gold, unwavering and unreadable.

It was watching him.

Grinning.

Not with warmth. Not with hatred. Something that lingered between the two.

Marcellus didn't move. He didn't even breathe, until he became aware of the tension holding his lungs captive. Slowly, he exhaled, soft and careful, as though the very sound might provoke it. Inside, chaos brewed. His thoughts raced. His pulse surged.

Terror clawed at the edges of his mind.

Still, he remained composed.

Silent.

Unmoving.

If this creature had meant to kill him, it would have already done so.

That was the truth.

Marcellus held its gaze, his expression unreadable, even as his heart pounded behind his ribs like a war drum.

He didn't understand what had happened to his body.

He couldn't explain why he was still alive. The last thing he remembered was being swallowed.

"Look ahead, human child," the Fenrir spoke. Its voice was sharp, its breath cold as it washed over Marcellus, forcing him to clutch his nose.

Marcellus turned. His gaze fixed on a colossal woman.

Despite her immense size, her body shimmered in a soft, alluring shade of blue. Six arms stretched outward, each one pinned to towering pillars by rods. Blood trickled slowly from the punctured flesh, yet her eyes remained closed, her face composed, almost serene.

Other colossal beings stood at a distance, engaged in hushed communion among themselves.

He hadn't noticed it before, but the atmosphere had grown oppressively heavy. The weight in the air was unmistakable. This was the scent of death. The elders' presence.

"She saved you. In doing so, she killed an elder. Now she is to be purged," the Fenrir said. A hint of sorrow lingered in its voice, though it concealed it well. "They will come for you soon. The energy you released was nearly on par with the elders."

Marcellus didn't fully grasp the implications, but he understood enough to know it mattered.

"Why would she save me?" he asked, staring at the bound colossus.

"You asked for help. That is all," the Fenrir replied. "Why she responded, I do not know." The Fenrir had an idea, but wasn't certain. It believed she was compelled, by something in Marcellus.

Marcellus fell silent. He owed her.

He signaled to the Fenrir, quietly sharing his plan to save the colossus. Its response was a low, amused rumble of laughter.

"I may be reckless," it growled, "but I'm not foolish enough to defy them. Her death opens two seats, and I intend to claim one."

The Fenrir understood Marcellus. It would have done the same, had it the power, for she had once saved it too.

Marcellus looked on, pity softening his gaze. He thought to release his aura, the only force he truly understood. But alongside it, something unfamiliar stirred within him.

He stared down at his hands, sensing a strange resonance beneath the surface, something primal, yet not quite his own. Just then, a gentle nudge pressed against his back.

In that moment, a torrent surged through him, wild and unrelenting, like a river crashing through every nerve. Knowledge flooded his mind, knowledge of himself, of something deeper that had long slumbered.

The Fenrir had shown him his inner power, the abilities he could harness.

Marcellus smiled at the beast, then turned and strode toward the colossus, his steps composed and regal. As he moved, his aura burst from his body, saturating the space with raw presence, as if to declare, I am here.

The Fenrir watched, stunned, its jaws parting in a wicked grin of admiration.

The lady, eyes still closed, faced his direction, a look of awe carved into her features.

The elders stirred. At first surprised, they swiftly hardened, their expressions colder than death.

Stones rose from the ground, arranging themselves into footholds as Marcellus ascended. Midway through the climb, his body lifted free of the structure.

Arms clasped behind his back, he levitated, his aura surged violently, radiating such pressure that lesser creatures below collapsed into hallucinations, tormented by visions of their deepest fears.

From afar, the Fenrir gave a begrudging scoff, its expression tinged with envy. "Show-off," it muttered with a shrug.

The elders remained motionless, their expressions unreadable as they watched Marcellus glide toward the imprisoned woman. He halted before her, hovering inches above the ground.

"Your name?" he asked softly. "Mirah," she replied, her voice strained but steady.

Though a storm of questions swirled within him, her safety took precedence. With a subtle gesture of his hand, the metal rods restraining her shimmered out of existence.

A flick of his wrist, and the surrounding stone pillars rose, suspended in the air like silent sentinels.

His gaze shifted back to the elders, unwavering and piercing. They remained still, composed, watchful, as though analyzing a specimen rather than facing a threat.

From a distance, the Fenrir chuckled. "Telekinesis?"

not quite sure.

Marcellus, calm to the point of unsettling, snapped his fingers.

Instantly, the levitating pillars sharpened into deadly spears. A second snap sent them barreling toward the six elders with devastating speed, intent to kill.

But just as they neared, one elder casually flicked its tail. The spears disintegrated mid-air, reduced to harmless dust.

To the elders, it was no more than a child's tantrum, like crumpled paper tossed against a mountain.

Marcellus was taken aback. His plan, calculated and merciless, had been dismissed with laughable ease. Yet his face betrayed nothing.

He maintained his cold, detached composure, the mask of indifference unshaken.

Mirah, witnessing the ferocity with which he defended her, was struck speechless. Her limbs trembled as she struggled to rise, eyes locked on him with something between awe and disbelief.

Silence fell.

Both sides stood locked in a silent standoff, tension thick in the air. What now stirred around him had once been nothing more than a daydream in his former life, an impossible fantasy born from powerless longing.

With a subtle shift of his right hand, he wove intent into motion. Debris around the battlefield began to rise, slow and deliberate, circling every being present.

A faint smile curved his lips. Then, with a snap of his left fingers and a pointed gesture toward everyone, the floating rubble conformed into jagged spears, each one poised to strike down anything that dared threaten him or Mirah.

This was the image he had once seen in dreams, a moment where power answered will.

But in that very breath, space fractured.

A pulse of distortion rippled through the air directly before him.

He spun around instinctively, only to find Mirah now distant, impossibly far. Then realization dawned.

He had been forcefully teleported.

Before him loomed a behemoth, immense and unrelenting. Two massive horns jutted forward from its skull, framing a gaping maw already crackling with searing flame.

It had prepared the attack long before he arrived.

There was no time to move, no time to think. Only the cold, gut-wrenching certainty of what was to come.

His eyes widened. Dread froze his limbs.

"Shit," he breathed.

The blast detonating at point-blank range.