Undead Lord of Gluttonous Pride

"Ughh..." Damien groaned as he felt like his entire body was put through an oven and more. 'And yet... The pain has already disappeared.' The searing pain that the flames inflicted on his body had miraculously disappeared.

As he was trying to figure out what happened, he felt the hard brick floor of the cathedral was softer than before. It felt like he was lying on a beach.

He opened his eyes and stared upwards, "When did I get outside?" What he was was an ominously grey sky; the clouds in the sky were so darkly grey that he would've mistaken them for smog.

Behind them was an oddly white sun, unlike the bright yellow and orange one he knew.

Damien then slowly sat up and surveyed his surroundings. He found himself in a desert consisting of grey sand and dry and thin trees with exposed roots.

"Where am I now...?" He thought while scratching his head and sighing loudly. He had been all over the place today; he had been revived, encountered a giant eel, hopped along the roofs of houses, abducted by a giant bird, fought against wolves and several other creatures, discovered a giant cathedral and survived being swarmed.

"And now I'm in some desert. How annoying." He was getting quite fed up with his constant relocation. 'At least I'm not naked.' Damien thought as he clutched the edge of his brown ragged cloak before pulling himself up to his feet.

The feeling of the sand between his feet was a bit annoying, especially since they were making their way between the gaps of his joints.

"I wonder how I get out of here..." Damien outwardly thought before holding his hand horizontally above his eyes. Everywhere he looked was just sand and dead trees.

That was until he was an abnormally tall tree off in the distance. Although the trees of the barren wasteland were all shrivelled up, this one seemed to keep itself alive somehow.

"...I'll just walk that way..."

And with that, he began to journey towards the grand tree of the desert. However, since the gap between him and the tree was several miles, it might take him a while.

He continued to look around, even walking up to a few trees and inspecting their appearances. All of the trees he had looked at looked like something sucked the nutrients out of it.

"This is such a weird place..." He commented as he leaned against one of the trees. But what was even weirder about this place he found himself in was... "The clouds aren't moving..."

Since the start of his walk, and thirty or so minutes later, he had discovered that everything in the world stayed in place, well... 'Unless I interacted with them.' He took a brief glance at his footprints in the sand.

He then shot a look at one of the branches in the trees. Damien pushed his hand towards the branch and snapped it off the tree.

The branch that was as thin as a common stick had a rough, dry, and bumpy texture as he ran his fingers down its surface. Damien then keenly stared at the spot he snapped the branch off and saw the splinters from it hanging in the air. Almost as if they were suspended in motion.

"..." He stared at the stick before chucking it into the air. As soon as the stick left his hand, it instantly stopped in mid-air, just like the wooden splinters.

"The concept of gravity exists but not time?" Damien concluded with uncertainty, "This place is even more weirder now..."

Damien then broke off another branch and used it as a cane to walk through the hilly desert. After an hour of walking, he had finally reached the grand tree.

Its body had the diameter of a school bus, and its size was comparable to a 20-story house. From its branches, it grew leaves as grey as the sand but several times healthier than the small dried-up trees he saw along the way.

At the base of the tree were its roots, exposed for all to see its health as it hungrily drank from the barren world. Damien walked around it and couldn't help but think how miraculous it was to survive in such a harsh environment.

"How do you live...?"

"Perhaps it's because it stole from its own." A scratchy voice appeared beside him suddenly and made itself known. Damien snapped his head to the side and saw that Howrah was right beside him, inspecting the tree with a curious glint in his eyes.

"Stole from its own...? Are you saying that it was the reason for the others around its—"

"Yes, yes, I am." Howrah interrupted before tapping against the side of the tree. 

"Could you perhaps explain to me the reason why this happens here?" Damien pointed at the branch in his hand, which caused Howrah to raise a brow, "What happened?"

It was only when Damien let go of it in the air that Howrah's eyes widened in shock, but also... Excitement? He pranced around the floating branch that was seemingly stuck in time with energetic movements.

"How envious!" He shouted as he grabbed the branch and moved it around. Damien couldn't help but raise a brow. Envious? What could the old man possibly mean by that? Thoughts like those arose before he finally opened his mouth about it.

"What do you mean by that? Is there something to be envious about?"

"Of course! That's because your soul place has..."