The air twisted, bleeding with the unnatural gravity of Alcor's presence, the very atoms in the room seeming to bend toward him, desperate for his acknowledgment. His every step left the ground beneath his polished dress shoes subtly cratered, as if reality itself strained to support his existence. Smoke swirled around him, crackling with the distant screams of starved souls, their echoes folding into the fabric of his tailored white suit. His crimson eyes cut through the haze, fixating on Hikari and Lila with a predatory intensity.
"Now," Alcor's voice slithered out, each word a gravitational pull, "tell me… how does it feel to be in the presence of a being so undeniably superior? Does it not inspire a primal urge to kneel? To bow your insignificant heads and whisper my name like a prayer? Ah, yes… I can see it in your eyes—the fear, the awe, the silent acceptance that you stand before a god. And isn't that what I am? A force of nature, a void made flesh, a harbinger of the end."
His lips curled into a thin, hungry smile, each perfectly straight tooth sharp enough to cut glass if one peered closely enough. "I am the Hollow Sovereign of Deprivation, the one who consumes and leaves only emptiness. I am Greed incarnate, the Horseman of Famine. I do not merely take; I devour. I unmake. I reduce entire civilizations to dust, their screams my symphony, their despair my nourishment. To resist me is to defy the fundamental law of this twisted, decaying cosmos."
He took another step, the air around him fracturing, threads of light bending and distorting like broken glass. His breath alone seemed to drain the warmth from the space, a chilling exhalation that left frost creeping up the walls. "Yes, you will worship me, not because you wish to, but because you must. Because in my presence, your free will is a fragile, laughable illusion. You will bow, not out of respect, but out of sheer, mind-shattering terror. You will serve, not because you desire to, but because your very existence demands it."
Hikari, her body trembling as the raw psychic energy within her struggled to resist the gravitational weight of his words, stepped in front of Lila. She clenched her fists, cyan energy crackling around her, the faint outlines of her psionic aura flickering like a dying heartbeat.
"So," she spat, her voice a defiant blade against the crushing pressure, "Sin Archbishops, you say." Her eyes locked onto Alcor's predatory gaze. "You must be the Sin Archbishop of Greed, the Horseman of Famine." She then glanced at the figure beside him, whose presence seemed to pulse with a different, equally twisted hunger. "And you… you're the Sin Archbishop of Lust."
Aphrona's twisted, porcelain-like face split into a grin too wide, her violet eyes flaring with manic delight. "That's riiiiiiiight~" she sang, her voice dripping with saccharine madness, each word a tendril snaking into their minds. She cocked her left arm back, the flesh of her forearm unraveling like a roll of wet, glistening parchment, veins and tendons snapping free as it twisted into a grotesque whip of flesh and exposed bone.
"PUTTING THINGS TOGETHER!" she screeched, her arm lashing forward with a force that shattered the air itself, the sheer velocity producing a shockwave that screamed past the sound barrier. The fleshy appendage shot toward them, its surface bubbling and spasming, eyes blinking from within the twisted muscle as if trying to escape their horrific prison.
Hikari's instincts took over. She grabbed Lila, their bodies becoming blurs of cyan light as she propelled them sideways, the air tearing around them. The whip struck the ground where they had just stood, the impact reducing the asphalt to a molten crater, the surrounding buildings groaning as the shockwave rippled through their foundations.
Aphrona's laugh echoed, a series of twisted, childish giggles that seemed to loop over themselves, her head tilting at unnatural angles as her eyes remained locked on Hikari. "Ooooo, you're a fast girl~ I like that~" She twisted her form, her legs distorting into the multi-jointed limbs of a Yokai, each muscle snapping and tightening as blackened tendrils coiled around her calves like serpents. She propelled herself forward, her joints creaking like rusted iron as she morphed her other arm into a blade of jagged bone and writhing muscle, its edges lined with twitching teeth.
Hikari shot vertically into the air, her psionic aura blazing with raw, unfocused power, her breath catching as she tried to speak. "Got aw—"
"From who?"
Alcor's voice whispered into her ear, his breath cold enough to leave frost blooming on her skin. He was beside her, not floating, not flying, but simply standing atop the very air itself, the invisible threads of his Absolute Dominion bending reality to his whim. His expression remained cool, almost bored, his crimson eyes studying her with the detached interest of a predator observing its prey's final, futile struggle.
"Because it's certainly not me," he whispered, his hand flicking out with a speed that left the air crackling with displaced energy.
The slap connected, a movement so deceptively casual it belied the devastation it caused. The force was beyond physical—it was a distortion of reality itself, a concentrated blast of vector-shattering power that hit like a meteor. Hikari's world exploded into white noise, her senses overwhelmed as she and Lila were hurled toward the earth, their bodies reduced to blurs of color and raw kinetic energy. The ground cracked and buckled beneath them, chunks of concrete and rebar ripping free as they plummeted into the earth, their descent a catastrophic shockwave that shattered windows for blocks.
Alcor slowly descended, his hands folding behind his back, his every movement a calculated display of dominance. He looked down at the twin craters their bodies had carved into the pavement, his lips parting into a slow, satisfied smile.
"Understand this," he said, his voice a whisper that carried with the weight of a collapsing star. "You exist for my amusement. Your struggles, your screams, your very lives—all of it belongs to me. You will worship me, not because I demand it, but because you have no other choice. I am Greed. I am Famine. I am the end of all things."
Consciousness clawed its way back into Lila's mind like a drowning victim breaking the water's surface. Her vision swam with fractured light as she surveyed the ruined landscape surrounding her. Blood-soaked concrete. Shattered glass. The skeletal remains of what had once been buildings, now reduced to twisted metal and crumbling stone. She didn't waste a precious second on questions or confusion.
Her body moved with practiced instinct, every muscle snapping to attention as she rose. The air around her began to shimmer and distort, psychic energy coalescing around her hands in violent swirls of bubblegum pink. This wasn't just power—it was fury made manifest, her aura pulsing with each thunderous beat of her heart.
Hikari struggled to her feet nearby, her body a catalog of suffering. Blood trickled from multiple lacerations across her arms and face. Her breathing came in ragged, wet gasps that suggested multiple broken ribs piercing her lungs. Yet beneath the physical agony, something was shifting—bones knitting together with unnatural speed, internal hemorrhaging slowing to a trickle. Her healing factor was working overtime, but even more noticeable was the change in her eyes—cyan irises burning brighter, almost incandescent with psychic energy.
"Sin Archbishops from the Sect of Her Shadows," she rasped, each word a knife dragged across her throat. "Recognize them?"
Lila narrowed her eyes, her pupils contracting into pinpoints as she studied their adversaries. Her once-playful features had hardened into something dangerous and calculating. "Only stories," she replied, voice dropping an octave. "Never in person."
Alcor stepped forward, his pristine white attire an obscene contrast to the devastation surrounding them. His crimson eyes gleamed with predatory amusement, his smile an exercise in elegant cruelty. His pristine white hair caught the apocalyptic light—not a single strand out of place despite the chaos.
"Well, now you get the pleasure to meet us in person," he purred, voice honeyed with false courtesy. "How very impressive for you~"
With casual indifference, he swept his arm horizontally through the air—a conductor leading an orchestra of destruction.
Instinct screamed through Hikari's mind like a klaxon. Her body moved before conscious thought could form, diving toward the ground even as Lila did the same. They dropped like stones as the invisible sideways slash tore through the atmosphere above them with a sound like reality itself being unzipped.
The attack continued unimpeded through the cityscape beyond. Steel, concrete, and glass offered no more resistance than tissue paper. Entire buildings separated cleanly along the slash's trajectory, the top halves sliding off their foundations with sickening, grinding shrieks before collapsing in thunderous avalanches of debris.
Hikari's eyes burned brighter, the cyan glow now spilling from her sclera like liquid light. She raised her hand toward Alcor, fingers splayed like claws. The air between them distorted, molecules vibrating at impossible frequencies as she unleashed a concentrated blast of strong nuclear force.
The attack struck with apocalyptic fury. Alcor's immaculate form was launched backward, his body carving a trench through solid concrete before crashing through the facade of a half-collapsed skyscraper.
In the same heartbeat, Aphrona materialized above them, descending from the smoke-choked sky like a fallen angel. Grotesque wings of twisted flesh and bone erupted from her shoulder blades, unfurling with wet, cracking sounds as cartilage and sinew rearranged themselves. Her left arm convulsed, fingers elongating and fusing as muscles bulged obscenely beneath her alabaster skin. Veins pulsed black beneath the surface as her entire limb transformed into a monstrous fist—twice the size of her body, knuckles ridged with bone spurs, tendons straining against the unnatural metamorphosis.
Her beautiful face contorted into an ecstatic grimace as she brought the abomination crashing down toward the two women.
"DIE FOR ME, DARLINGS~!"
Lila thrust both hands skyward, pink psychic energy erupting from her palms in a translucent dome. The shield materialized just as Aphrona's grotesque appendage made contact. The collision released a shockwave that pulverized the ground beneath them, creating a perfect circle of shattered earth radiating outward. The air itself seemed to compress and then explode outward, sending clouds of debris spiraling into the darkening sky.
Hikari seized her opportunity. With telekinetic force, she propelled herself across the ground, sliding from beneath the protection of Lila's shield. Still on her back, she raised her hand toward the battling figures above. Sixty shards of psychic energy—glittering like sharpened diamonds—materialized around her outstretched fingers.
With a decisive gesture, she launched them toward her targets. Thirty rocketed toward Alcor as he emerged from the ruined building, his pristine white attire still unmarked despite the impact. The shards accelerated to supersonic speeds—only to shatter against an invisible barrier surrounding him, fragmenting into prismatic psychic dust that dissipated into the air.
The remaining thirty found their mark in Aphrona. The shards tore through her flesh with wet, meaty sounds, opening dozens of wounds across her torso and limbs. Blood—too dark, too thick to be human—spattered across the broken concrete.
For a moment, Aphrona's attack faltered. Her monstrous fist trembled against Lila's shield.
Then her lips parted in a smile that stretched too wide across her face.
"Ah... ah..." she began, her voice a breathy whisper that crescendoed into something inhuman. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHA!!!"
Her body convulsed, bones cracking and reshaping beneath her skin. Her form expanded, limbs elongating and twisting as her slender frame morphed into something ancient and terrible—a yokai-like creature of Japanese nightmare, all taloned hands and distorted proportions. Her face stretched, jaw unhinging to reveal row upon row of needle-like teeth as her eyes widened to impossible proportions, pupils dilating until they nearly swallowed the irises.
She launched herself toward the two women, her movements a blur of unnatural speed. Clawed hands extended, fingers elongating mid-leap, ready to rend flesh from bone.
"LET ME TASTE YOUR INSIDES~!" she shrieked, her voice layered with multiple octaves simultaneously.
But before she could reach them, the air between them distorted. A surge of pure, destructive energy—black as the void between stars, edged with eldritch symbols that burned the eye to look upon—tore through the space between them.
The blast engulfed Aphrona completely. For a split second, her form was visible within the maelstrom—limbs contorting, flesh sloughing away, her scream rising above the cacophony of destruction—before the energy detonated with catastrophic force.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
The explosion rocked the decimated city. Buildings already compromised by the previous battle crumbled under the onslaught of pressure. The ground cracked, new fissures racing outward like lightning strikes across the broken earth.
Hikari and Lila looked up, squinting through the dust and smoke.
A silhouette emerged against the apocalyptic sky—a tall, lean figure in a black trench coat that billowed around him like wings of shadow. He descended slowly, his landing barely disturbing the rubble beneath his feet. He wore black sweatpants and a crisp black dress shirt beneath the coat, his entire appearance a study in darkness and contained power.
Recognition dawned in Hikari's eyes. The man from the Amanda mission. The enigma who had appeared and disappeared like a ghost.
Elias Ravenscroft.
His icy blue eyes surveyed the scene with cold calculation, not a hint of emotion betraying his thoughts. When he spoke, his voice was measured, each word precise as a surgeon's scalpel.
"So we meet again, Archbishops," he said, his gaze fixed on Alcor who had now fully emerged from the ruined building. "I thought after that battle last time that you would stop. It seems you need more proof on why you're nothing to me."
Alcor's crimson eyes gleamed with malicious delight. His perfect white teeth flashed in a predatory smile as he dusted an invisible speck from his immaculate sleeve.
"Ah, if it isn't the infamous Occult Scholar," he replied, voice dripping with false cordiality. "High Warden of Eldritch Affairs in The Silent Veil. Is that correct~?" His smile widened, revealing too many teeth. "My, my, how the mighty have fallen—reduced to playing guardian for children."
Elias regarded him with the dispassionate interest one might show an insect beneath a microscope. "So you remember me."
A wet, gurgling sound drew their attention. The smoking crater where Aphrona had been engulfed was shifting, debris sliding away as a form rose from the destruction. What emerged barely resembled the beautiful woman from before—her flesh had melted away in great swathes, exposing muscle and bone beneath. Her face was half-gone, one eye hanging by tendrils of nerve from its socket, her jaw partially exposed in a permanent grin. Yet despite this catastrophic damage, she moved with the same fluid grace.
"Of course we doooooo~" she sang, her voice bubbling through the ruin of her throat. Flesh squelched and slithered as it attempted to regenerate, new tissue crawling over exposed bone like hungry worms. "We couldn't possibly forget the arrogant bastard that DARED to stand against her~"
As she spoke, her body continued its grotesque reconstruction. Bones snapped back into place with sickening cracks. Muscle fibers rewove themselves, glistening red and wet in the dying light. Skin flowed like wax across the repaired framework, knitting back together with unnatural speed.
Elias didn't even spare her a glance, his attention fixed on Alcor. His posture remained relaxed, almost bored—but the air around him thrummed with potential energy, like the moment before lightning strikes.
Hikari pushed herself to her feet, her healing factor having repaired the worst of her injuries. She moved to Lila's side, their shoulders nearly touching as they faced the three figures before them—the two Archbishops and the enigmatic High Warden.
The stage was set. Three forces of unfathomable power, converging on a battlefield of ruin.
And the worst was yet to come.
To be continued.