As he gazed upon the horrifying crimson red entity, it returned his stare in full.
.....
It was as if, no matter the veneer, you used to shroud yourself from the world. Whatever darkness lay within that crimson would always look right back at you.
There was a saying that fit this situation to a T. It goes like this:
When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes right back at you.
It is a very terrifying thought to imagine the actual implications of. A thought that one would never expect to be something you would actually experience within a singular lifetime.
And, yet... Azmond felt that very feeling when he peered into that crimson darkness.
It felt like his soul could be sucked up on a whim if that crimson aura so felt like it...
He had never felt anything even remotely close to the terror that he felt when he gazed into that monstrosity. A terror so horror-inducing that he felt like throwing up as soon as he saw it.
So, why...?
Why did he start to feel something else begin to bud up inside him?
He began to feel something that he hadn't experienced in what felt like ages...
Azmond wanted to fight it!
He didn't know why; he didn't know how he would do it; he couldn't even begin to understand his own thinking process.
He knew it was an extremely reckless thing to do, but... he didn't care!
He just wanted to fight it!
He wanted to fight the beings that lay at the very apex of existence! He wanted to fight! He would lose without a doubt, and it wouldn't even be considered a fight, but...
He didn't care!
He would lose. But that didn't seem to bother him one bit. He would lose once, he would lose twice, he would lose a thousand times, and he would lose one million times. He would lose so many times that he would have lost count as soon as the fight began...
Azmond, despite the insurmountable difference in strength, was not the least bit deterred by that fact. In fact, he couldn't care less about losing a battle.
As long as he came out stronger than he went in, then he wouldn't mind losing a trillion times before eventually winning.
That's right, he did not have an inkling of doubt that he would eventually win.
He didn't know how many years or eons it would take, but he knew that he would win in the end.
That was without question in Azmond's mind. He would lose repeatedly... But he would be the last one laughing in the end!
One might call Azmond's baseless confidence arrogance, but that wasn't the entire truth of the matter.
He was just someone who didn't know how to give up.
That may make one think that he is just a foolish and stupid man. And they are probably right about that.
But there was something more to it than that...
There was an innate pride that lay at the very essence of Azmond's soul that wouldn't allow him to give up...
He hasn't yet figured out this unique quality of his, and maybe he never will. But it is still there as a part of him. A piece of him that is engraved into the extreme essence of his existence.
His innate pride and himself were one and the same.
You would never be able to separate them, no matter how much you tried. That was just who Azmond was. He comes off as arrogant, cocky, and confident.
But above the surface level of that facade, it was just an innate pride. And innate pride that wouldn't allow him to lose until he has become the strongest to ever and will ever walk the many planes of existence.
.......
Loki noticed the unusually fierce glare in Azmond's eyes after his attention was drawn away from the crimson aura.
'Is that fighting intent...?' He understood what that look was right away. After all, he had seen many such warriors wear the same look across his many years of life. However, none of those warriors ever had a good ending...
Something appeared to be fundamentally different about the expression on Azmond's face, though.
It was almost like he had the ludicrous confidence that he could actually win in a fight against the source of the crimson aura...
It didn't make sense...
How could someone so weak have so much arrogance?
'Is it just blind foolishness? Or something else entirely...?' Loki was becoming more and more intrigued by this mortal the more he interacted with him.
He wanted more than anythingto be able to unravel everything there was to understand about this mortal.
His unnerving frown from the previous release of the crimson aura turned into his usual sly smile as he looked at Azmond with reinvigorated enthusiasm. A cunning light constantly flickered in and out of his eyes.
Azmond was suddenly taken out of his battle crazed reverie when he felt a pair of green eyes digging into his back.
He turned around only to see Loki looking at him like a tiger gazing at a lost rabbit.
Azmond suddenly got a really bad feeling about that look.
He truly wasn't looking forward to the days to come
Nevertheless, despite his extreme reluctance to form any sort of comradeship with what he considered a pervert of the highest degree, He knew that he needed to put on an amiable facade.
Azmond had no choice in the matter. He would choose to be all buddy buddy with his enemies over being defiled by them any day of the year.
So, in response to Loki's intense stare, he put on the kindest smile he could manage as he looked him dead in the eye and asked, "So what is this 'Order Of The Eternal Flame?
And why did you get all jumpy when it was mentioned?" The corners of his lips were intermittently twitching, his face grimacing.
But his curiosity for the origin of that crimson aura far outweighed the apprehension he had for the sly blonde figure.