The path for Kain was clear now. He  would take the Serioli forward with him to the time where he had once ruled Nosgoth and with them build a new empire to stand against this monstrosity and his machinations,  reviving the Pillar’s so that they might be used to impale and hold him where they may forever more.
But first…
The lower chamber beneath the Pillar’s, had been built as far as Kain knew, to observe the Pillar’s which stabbed down for infinity as much into the earth itself as they did into the sky. Perhaps this complex had served another purpose at one time but it had been abandoned for quite a few centuries, perhaps from the time of the Pillar’s construction.
The Door to this place yielded to the Reaver and Kain made his way to that central place, where the pillars continues down through a stone platform and into an underground lake. The water around the stone circle was dark and foreboding, silent and still.
All around him were the murals of the Ancient Vampires, depicting their war with the Hylden, their cursing and fall from grace and hope that would be given to them by the bearer of the Reaver blade.
Upon the floor of this chamber were the elemental symbols, arranged just so that the Pillar’s these elements were aligned to were made obvious. Fire connected Nature and conflict, Water with States and Death, Earth with Time and Energy and Air with Mind and Dimension. In the centre of it all, perhaps even representing the Balance Pillar was the symbol for Spirit.
Kain’s head suddenly jerked up from his causal inspection of the artwork, his inner instinct for danger suddenly screaming at him. The Reaver was in his hands a fraction of a second later as he turned and swung down.
As the blade made contact with the tentacle lashing out towards him, Raziel screamed from within and the blade sliced down through the disgusting green flesh, the stolen energy of souls bursting forth.
“Do I sense desperation in you, old parasite?” Kain asked dryly as the tentacle withdrew sharply back into the water, without so much a ripple.
From the other side, another two tentacles sprung up from the water and shot towards him like a coiled snake. Kain met these attacks as well, dodging one lunge before up cutting the second. As that limb withdrew, Kain swung back at the first severing it completely.
The limb thrashed for a moment on the stone at his feet before it disintegrated, unable to hold itself together after being freed from the main body.
“Provoked by you, Kain?” A voice asked; that same voice of his enemy that Kain knew all too well. “Unlikely.”
Edging his way close to the water, Kain glanced down wearily into the depths. Coiled around the pillar’s was something, dark sinister; sitting there waiting for the opportunity to strike once more.
There were pin pricks of blue light down there, emitted from the False God’s eyes that moved out on numerous tentacles in the darkness.
“You have been a thorn in my side, but no more than that. In the end you are inconsequential.”
Kain smiled then, an amused grin at the cowardly taunts of his enemy from the safety of the shadows.
“And yet here you are, straining against the Pillar’s themselves to strike at me in this era.” He remarked, kneeling down almost to mock the parasite with his unconcern for any attack that might be made against him.
He glare down at that dark shape in the water, stabbed directly through its mass and down deeper into the earth, paling the entity and holding it in this one place.
“And now I see that the Pillar’s hold you back as much as they do the Hylden.” He said out load, realising the full extent of the meaning behind what the Keeper had told him about ‘true balance being disrupted’.
And if he carried on that thought to its logical conclusion, the implications left him speechless.
Slowly he stood up, eyes widening in utter amazement. A preconception he had held about himself had just been shattered for there could be no other explanation.
“And so the degradation of Nosgoth in eons to come was caused not by the corruption of the Pillars directly, but rather their lack of power to keep you from draining the life out of the land itself.” He eventually said; voicing now what he knew had to be the truth.
Everything Ba’al had told him fitted into place with the words of the Keeper and so the inevitable conclusion was that it had never been Kain’s fault for the state of the land after he made his decision to reject the sacrifice.
It had been the appetite of his enemy all along, sucking the land dry of its vibrant energies.
Centuries of guilt for his decision… and it had been this boneless parasite the entire time!
“Is that why you hate the vampires so much?” He asked in utter contempt and despite for this wretched thing. “Because my kind created these binding stones to lock you out from your banquet?”
The blue light beneath the water flickered on and off, a blinking motion.
“You have learned much, little vampire.” The voice of his enemy said, with an ominously venomous undertone.
For one flaring instant Kain was consumed by a righteous anger that burned through him like a hundred suns, a hatred magnified by the thousands of years he had spent in emotional turmoil for something he had believed had been his fault. All that time wasted while his enemy had been laughing at him, revelling in his pain and anguish.
“Perhaps you should have learned to share.” He ground out from beneath clenched teeth, his hand tightening so much on the hilt of the Reaver it was a wonder it did not snap.
“I am the nexus for life itself in this world.” The False god declared and Kain looked around sharply, watching as a multitude of tentacles began to rise out of the water all around him. Eyes opened in their skin, all different sized but all still pulsing with that luminous blue glow.
“Without me Nosgoth would collapse into stagnant anarchy.”
Then a tentacle, larger than all the others, rose up directly in front of him and curled around it, forming a circle. Within that circle, another eye formed; growing out of the flesh with a disgusting squelching noise. “I do not share my throne with anyone.”
The eye glazed over with a protective inner eyelid as its hourglass pupil widened and contracted with each word spoken.
“Not even your travelling companion?” Kain asked without flinching.
The pupils of all the eyes watching him widened to near ovals, then contracted sharply to narrow sinister slits.
There was a low, dissatisfied rumbling noise coming deep from below; almost like the low growl an animal might make when it was annoyed.
Kain found the sound gratifying.
“Ahh yes the Keeper.” There was an edge of that growl in the voice that replied. “So he is the one who has been enlightening you.”
The tentacles lashed back and forth around him, until they settled against the walls and sprouted more eyes.
“Do you believe for one moment that he has your best interests at heart?” The gluttonous entity asked then, his pupils widening bit by bit.
“Do you honestly think that his agenda is any more benevolent than my own in this game?”
More tentacles began to slip out of the water over the side of the stone platform towards him. “He is simply old and bitter and undeserving. Much the same as you.”
Those tentacles lashed out, trying to grab Kain’s legs. A flip of his sword severed them before they came close.
Another larger limb whipped around at him from behind. Tilting his entire body around to get out of its lancing strike, Kain swung back again with the Reaver. The tentacle swerved away from the strike, sliding back into the safety of the water.
“Kain… Scion of Balance…the mere idea of you of all people being the messiah is laughable.” The large eye pushed out a little and trembled, its pupil widening. There was a whooshing noise and a bolt of force shot forward from the iris, homing down upon the vampire.
“You who damned Nosgoth to eternal darkness, who slaughtered hundreds by your own hands and thousands more with your armies, now believe your destiny is to come to its rescue?”
Kain darted to one side by the projectile of force followed after, surging at him with malicious intent. Whenever it neared Kain faded into mist to allow it to pass through him.
“To be the gallant knight riding to the aid of the oppressed on a white and noble steed? It’s nothing more than the uneducated illusion of an ignoramus.”
Becoming solid a ways off, Kain was able to counter this blast of force with a projectile of its own, an energy bolt timed just so to counteract and cancel out the opposing force.
The air rippled and a shockwave pulsed out. Kain slid back about a foot before he steadied himself.
Turning, he looked the False God right in the eye.
“There is a human saying; ‘Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.’” He said, raising the Reaver to point its tip directly at it. “Hypocrite. You have the gall to say I am unworthy of greatness?”
The eye began to shake as if preparing another blast of force. Kain pre-emptively struck, slashing the Reaver across its width into it. The eye swung back, leaking green blood, the others clinking rapidly as if in sympathetic pain.
“You who aspire to godhood, who have committed acts that even I would pale at?” Kain demanded. “The Vampires worshipped you devoutly and yet the moment they were taken off your menu, you abandoned them.”
The eye glared back at him, the pupil narrowing to a slit and trembling in suppressed rage.
“You instigated massacre after massacre upon them just to keep your insidious Wheel turning.”
There was a double surge from either side and Kain glanced around, seeing more large tentacles rise up and curve in around themselves. Within the space of a few moments, there were about four large eyes all glaring down at him, bright and blue and pulsing with energy ready to discharge at him.
More and more small tentacles were slipping up over the side of the platform, gripping it tight as if the False God intended to drag it down into the water.
The vampire readied himself, his blade held ready to strike at whatever would come to attack him first.
“Not just for that, Kain.” The False God started, his voice adopting a mocking tone as his pupils widened and contracted. “But to ensure that no threat could ever rise from their ranks to endanger that Wheel.”
Kain froze almost in place, his mouth agape.
“That’s right vampire, I had Moebius and the multitude of my other servants exterminate your race in an attempt to ensure you would never exist.”
The central eye leaned in closer.
 “If anyone is to blame for the fate that befalls your wretched kind, it is you.”
Kain stood there, his entire body wracked again with anger and hatred. He was breathing hard in an attempt to blind himself with rage but it wasn’t working, all he was beginning to see was red.
With a scream of animal savagery he leapt at the eye in front of him swinging his sword. Dozens of tentacles attempted to bare his way but he slashed at them all in a berserker style fashion, moving faster than the eye could see, fuelled by his anger.
One tentacle grabbed him around the leg and tried to drag him down. Screaming out a battle cry that began to grow high pitched; he ripped into it with the sword.
The eyes around him widened and then spat forth their discharges of energy projectiles, sending all of them towards the vampire all at once.
“Your interference has been momentary!” The parasite declared, watching as Kain dodged the projectiles in mist form before coming to the attack again.
Dozens more tentacles lashing out up from the water to slam down on the platform towards Kain.
“Your fate has almost played out!”
Snarling, Kain back flipped over the surging limbs and came at the eyes themselves. The Reaver swung back and forth and Raziel cried out from within each time the sword struck, slicing through the flesh of this disgusting creature to spill its green bile like blood.
Each eye retreated back into the tentacle it was formed from each time it was hit and once enough of those eyes had been damaged, the tentacle would then slide back under the water.
“Have you forgotten how easily I can make you bleed?” Kain demanded, dragging the Reaver like a saw across the largest eyes, cutting savagely through the tissues, ripping and tearing until he cleaved free across its width slicing the entire eyeball in half.
The Parasite gave a shriek and with a sharp jerk his entire being withdrew into the water, splashing wildly as it went and trailing green blood. The tentacles withdrew completely, leaving the chamber free of their loathsome presence.
Kain took a few deep breaths and stood up straight, the Reaver dripping the slowly disintegrating gore of the flesh it had cut through.
“You think you can defeat me Kain?” The voice of his enemy asked venomously from that distance. “It is not possible. I exist in places you can not find.”
The vampire flicked the sword to free it of the remains of the disgusting slime and sheathed it across his back.
“I’ve only begun to seek you out.” He replied, now believing that he had spent quite enough time in the presence of this loathsome entity. He pointed one talon down at the water. “Go hide and be afraid.”
With a sharp turn he began walking toward the exit to the chamber, turning his back on this creature.
“For I shall rip you up from this world before I am finished and your so called Wheel of Destiny will shatter upon my sword!”