The City of Plague was suffering the worst calamity since its founding. Earthquakes tore apart streets. Explosions leveled entire districts. Orange flames devoured everything, reducing homes, markets and men to ash and cinder.
In the midst of it all walked a white angel, dragging an unconscious man by the hair across the burning street.
"You lot are truly weak," Mercurion laughed, mercury serpents spinning in his eyes, "There is no future in which any of you can even scratch me!"
It wasn't just prophecy. It was fact. They were far too weak.
He stopped, glancing upward as four colossal shadows descended. The snakes in his eyes spun faster, his body glowing with silvery light. Space itself shuddered under his alien and otherworldly powers, yet even reality's resistance couldn't contain it.
Four titanic creatures crashed down, surrounding him in a storm of rubble and dust. The shockwave from their landing extinguished the flames — only for them to reignite seconds later, burning harder and brighter than before.
"Where is Azarax?" Mercurion asked, dropping the unconscious man and stomping his head to pulp.
The haze cleared, revealing his new opponents.
A bestial voice answered as a massive warrior stepped forward, his body shaped into the towering form of a humanoid rhino. "What's your goal?" he rumbled, each step cracking the earth beneath him.
Mercurion's gaze swept across the four transformed warriors. 'This isn't a Mythical Creature form,' he noted coldly with disgust.
His spirituality remained silent. No warnings, no premonitions — nothing. It was as if he faced ants.
"My goal?" Mercurion's ethereal voice reached into their very souls. "To return home. For that, I need Azarax."
That was all. He had no interest in further words. The only way to lure the king out was to raze everything until he had no choice but to appear.
'These worms should be honoured to die by my hands,' He growled as his body suddenly swelled, his flesh and clothes tearing.
A serpentine head burst from his chest, towering over them.
"Attack!" One of the warriors roared. But it was already too late. When the snake fully emerged out of the strangers body, they were as good as gone.
Their charge faltered immediately as their eyes registered what should never have been seen.
The serpent's titanic, scaleless body was inscribed with symbols and futures, every possibility etched into its skin. It towered over them like a god, mercury eyes staring down into their very souls.
The four warriors couldn't resist as their brains turned to mush from witnessing something so complex and unnatural. Their bodies exploded, rapidly changing into something morbid and unnatural. Their very souls were tinted with forbidden knowledge.
Mercurion — in his true form — lashed his tail, pulverizing two instantly. The other two he swallowed whole, not even bothering with ceremony.
But death was not the end for them.
The serpent's eyes flashed, runes igniting across its body. Time and space shuddered. Fire and wind tore into a vortex, and reality itself rolled backward.
Ten seconds rewound.
The four warriors returned, gasping and collapsing to their knees, their monstrous forms gone. They were human again — pale, drenched in sweat, shaking like children.
The stench of fear was strong.
"Let this be a warning to all you worms." Mercurion hissed, his angelic voice transforming into something terrifying and fear inducing. His massive maw did not move, yet his words echoed through the burning city.
"Now go and wreak havoc for me, my new believers!" Their minds were already corrupted beyond repair, their Fates bound tight around Mercurion's fangs. As his words sank into their mushy brains, they raised their heads with bloodshot, fearful eyes—glaring up at him with a grotesque mix of resentment and loyalty.
Flesh twisted, and even the air seemed to writhe, as the four Saints transformed into abominations torn straight out of a nightmare.
***
"What?! Some stranger is tearing apart the capital and turning our Saints into puppets?!" A fist slammed onto the round table, scattering wooden pieces across its surface.
Another voice rang out from the opposite side. "We have to deal with this before Lord Azarax returns!"
"Where are the three Supremes?!" boomed an older man, his wrinkled face twisting with fury. He turned toward a squire and barked, "Fetch those lazy bastards and get them moving! If they don't act now, there won't be a Gate District left, you fools!"
The war room erupted into chaos. Old and young, men and women alike shouted over one another, their voices filled with fear. Time was running out, and they all knew it. If they failed here, the King of Kings would not hesitate to replace them and mount their corpses on pikes as warnings to the rest.
***
"Are we really needed here…" Yunara, Duchess of the southern region, muttered under her breath.
"Senate's decision," her companion — a short man who looked more like a spoiled brat — replied haughtily. His small feet picked their way across stone rubble and shattered planks with deliberate care to his clean, navy shorts.
Yunara followed the young Duke. "I don't listen to the Senate, only to our King," she declared, her tone matter-of-fact. "So I don't care about their 'decisions.'"
Timir sneered. "And yet, you answered their call."
He was obviously trying to get under her skin.
And it was working.
Trying to distract herself from the annoying child, she shifted her focus forward, to the catastrophic scene stretching before her.
It had been barely twenty minutes since the stranger began his rampage, and already most of the Gate District was reduced to ruin — corpses and rubble scattered across the streets. Explosions and screams continued to paint the scene in front of her.
"You think it's a Defiled Creature or a Spirit?" Timir asked as he nimbly hopped over the collapsed frame of a house.
"I only received a short briefing on the situation, but whoever — or whatever — it is, they were strong enough to kill and capture our Saints in an instant," the Duchess answered. Her violet hair whipped in the air as she levitated, rising into the air and over the wreckage.
Timir gave an exaggerated sigh. "If it's a Spirit, we're as good as dead without His Majesty's help…"
Yunara ignored his whining, keeping her position high above the ground. Her senses were sharp — sharper than most Supremes — and yet she still couldn't discern the stranger's location. The oppressive pressure surrounding them, undoubtedly radiating from him, only clouded her more. It confused her senses, blinding her to where he truly was.
She was lost in thought until something flashed before her eyes.
Timir blinked into existence right in front of her, his short arm outstretched, the other bracing it. "Are you blind?!" he roared, his open palm stopping the razor tip of an enormous tail.
Yunara's violet eyes widened as she snapped out of her daze and scanned her surroundings.
Seven nightmare-inducing figures had encircled them, every pair of eyes glowing with a silvery light. The corrupted Saints!
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[For anyone confused, Mercurion used his Authority over the River of Fate to tie their Fates to his own. Can he do that? Idk tbh 🤷♂️]