Get those stones going boys and tomboys, we need to get those numbers up!
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*****
{Chapter: 256: The Limits of Faith, The Price of Power}
His eyes then drifted toward the rubble-strewn battlefield below, where a man stood—if he could still be called that.
Gruul.
His shape resembled a humanoid, but his flesh was long gone. Now it was armored in jagged, volcanic scales, every muscle fiber vibrating with unnatural force. Horns jutted from his spine, and his eyes—when visible—were blood-red whirlpools of madness.
He wasn't a demon.
He was something far worse.
A Wild Evil God.
A monster that had clawed its way into the divine through ancient rituals and sacrifices, worshipped by lost cults, and given form through hatred, hunger, and despair.
Despite his demonic appearance, Dex could easily tell the difference.
"Demon..." he whispered to himself, grinning. "...is born in evil."
"But madness like yours? It's chosen."
That difference mattered.
And when Gruul felt the death of his fanatic—Sarah, whom he had personally blessed—his eyes shot toward Dex with pure, murderous rage.
Even while wrestling multiple Higher Demons, Gruul's gaze never wavered. His teeth bared in wrath. His soul screamed for vengeance.
Dex responded with a slow, graceful smile. A bow, even. Pure sarcasm. Disrespectful to the point of brilliance.
"Very polite!" he chimed.
Gruul's wrath reached boiling point, but before he could act on it, the demons surrounding him closed in like a pack of starving beasts, each strike pushing him back, biting into his energy reserves.
Dex could hardly contain his laughter.
"So this is your champion? Your great messiah?"
And yet, Dex knew better than to underestimate him. Gruul, even in his cloned state, carried nearly one-fifth of his original self's divine essence—a terrifying amount of power.
That clone alone was strong enough to duel several fully restored Higher Demons and hold them back, at least for now.
To put things in perspective:
A single Higher Demon, even while suppressed by the world's rules, was enough to overwhelm a demigod-level champion.
Fully restored?
They stood on the very edge of Divinity.
Gruul might be powerful. But clones had limitations.
The divine barrier around Augustus cut him off from his source. No divine support. No fresh power. Just what was stored in that shell.
The cracks were beginning to show. The precision in his strikes dulled. The aura around his body wavered between brilliance and flickering shadows. Sweat—dark, black, corrosive sweat—dripped from his brow.
"Even gods bleed... when you starve them." Dex mused.
And it wasn't just Dex who noticed.
From across the battlefield, many strong beings—on both sides—sensed the gradual weakening of the evil god's clone.
"He's running dry..."
Gruul himself knew it. His snarling expression shifted into one of barely concealed panic.
Desperate, he leaned toward the City Lord of Augustus, who stood bloodied but unbroken nearby—his left arm severed, his cloak shredded, but his will unbent.
"I need a sacrifice," Gruul whispered harshly, his voice layered with divine echoes. "Now."
The city lord hesitated. His eyes scanned the battlefield. No one seemed to hear.
From within his space ring, he quietly pulled a sealed, runed bag, etched in ancient blood contracts and divine chains.
He passed it to the evil god without a word.
And in that moment, Augustus' future teetered on the edge of a blade.
After accepting the bag, Gruul's expression changed immediately—a ripple of astonishment spreading across his usually cruel and indifferent face.
He stared at the City Lord of Augustus, eyes narrowing with a mix of suspicion and admiration.
What he had sensed from the bag… it wasn't just energy—it was powerful, soul-drenched essence.
[Soul Crystals].
Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
A resource so rare and precious that even ancient demons would wage wars over a single one. These were the crystallized remains of intelligent souls, compressed through extreme torment, harvested through slaughter and sacrificial rituals.
Gruul's pupils contracted. He could feel the essence of despair, of divine agony and screaming, embedded into the very surface of these crystals.
"So many…" he muttered. "Even I—an Evil God—feel envy."
He turned slowly toward the bloodied city lord. His face was smeared with ash and his left arm was gone, but his eyes remained defiant.
Gruul's gaze narrowed. His mind worked quickly.
How did a mortal collect so many of these? Soul crystals don't fall from the sky... they're born from butchery, from silent slaughter.
As the bag opened slightly, a symbol etched in abyssal scripture caught Gruul's eye—faint, burned into the velvet lining.
The sigil of another Evil God.
A hidden rival. One who had embedded themselves deep into Augustus, wearing the mask of loyalty, while feeding on the people's faith.
"Heh… hiding in plain sight. That bastard really planned to sacrifice the entire city. If I hadn't seen this, I wouldn't have believed it."
Gruul didn't have time to ponder it further. The battlefield was surging with chaos. He tilted back his head and devoured the crystals whole, swallowing them like a starving dragon eating stars.
The effect was immediate.
A blinding shockwave of crimson lightning erupted around him, turning the sky into a swirling dome of blood and flame. His divine presence flared, and with a terrifying scream of power, he smashed through the Higher Demons surrounding him.
Their bodies cracked and split, blood raining down like black oil from ruptured skies.
The momentum reversed instantly.
The demonic side faltered. The native defenders—on the brink of collapse—roared in new hope.
Dex, watching all this from a shadowed rooftop, blinked twice.
"What the hell just happened?"
The last time Gruul was being smacked around like a child in a storm. Now he was out here slamming giants like toys.
Dex scratched his head, puzzled. He had been preparing for a sneak attack, planning to ambush the evil god when he finally weakened.
But this change of pace made his instincts scream "abort mission."
He shifted his gaze, eyes locking onto another opportunity.
The City Lord of Augustus.
Wounded. Tired. One arm gone. His aura flickering like a candle in a hurricane.
"Demigod-tier, crippled, and cornered? Oh, baby…"
Dex's mouth curled into a smirk.
"You're today's special."
Like a true predator, he projected an avatar of himself into the open, a shimmering, taunting figure meant to draw eyes and spells.
Meanwhile, his real body slipped through a fold in space, swimming through dimensional cracks like a serpent through darkness, completely unseen.
He emerged directly behind the injured lord, his talons glowing a deep, venomous red.
Without hesitation, he rammed both arms forward, claws piercing through flesh, armor, and ribs. The sound of metal and skin rupturing filled the air.
Many powerful natives who witnessed this immediately roared in anger, wishing they could chop Dex in half!
"Time to carve out your soul core, old man," Dex whispered.
But as he dug around for vital organs—he felt nothing.
No heart.
No lungs.
No essence.
Nothing but empty flesh and echoing void.
"What the…?"
His confusion only lasted a second.
Because in the next breath, he heard it:
Crack… Crack... CRACK!
It wasn't bone. It was something deeper. A sound like shattering glass—but it came from inside the body he had just pierced.
Before Dex could pull back, a surge of void-black electricity erupted outward.
Blazing currents of anti-magic lightning engulfed his arms, reducing them to blackened stumps of carbon in an instant.
"AGHHHHHHHH—!"
His scream split the air, echoing louder than the clash of armies.
The false city lord's body crumbled like dry wax, revealing a dark orb wrapped in living lightning, swirling with demonic sigils and chaos magic.
The orb twisted, expanding—stretching limbs, forming bones, sprouting scaly black skin, and slowly transforming into a towering, monstrous humanoid.
When the transformation completed, Dex's severed arms were already held tightly in the creature's clawed fists—its grip unbreakable.
The being smiled—a wide, razor-fanged grin—its voice dripping with amusement and threat.
"You're bold, demon."
Dex froze, twitching.
"…Would now be a good time to apologize?" he asked, grinning nervously, still maintaining his false bravado.
"Too late," came the growled reply.
In one lightning-fast lunge, the monster opened its massive maw—lined with rows of serrated teeth—and lunged to bite Dex's head clean off.
But Dex's instincts kicked in. With a sickening tear, he ripped his body away, sacrificing his own arms and replacing himself with the decoy avatar nearby.
The beast's fangs snapped through the illusion, shattering it in a pulse of light.
Enraged, the creature let out a guttural roar, a sound so vile that demons flinched and buildings cracked from its resonance.
Left with nothing but Dex's arms, it stared at them with distaste before shrugging—and shoved them into its mouth like chewing bones.
Using as a snack.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
The sky above Augustus turned darker still.
The lines between god, demon, monster, and man had officially shattered.
And in the middle of it all, Dex—smiling despite the blood, despite the pain—was already reforming his arms from abyssal tissue.
"Note to self," he muttered, chuckling.
"Some snacks bite back."
*****
Get those stones going boys and tomboys, we need to get those numbers up!
If you want to discuss the story or just meme about join my discord server:
*****