Chapter 16:
The carnage in the valley was just the beginning.
For Lykaon, freedom was not a passive state; it was an act. And that act was hunting. The world, once a blurry map seen through the eyes of its jailers, was now a feast for his senses.
He raised his head and sniffed the air. The stench of war was a drug, a complex mixture of organized hatred, mass fear, and the crackling power of sacred and hellish magic. He could distinguish the battlefronts as a wolf distinguishes the trail of different prey.
He chose the biggest, the loudest, the stinky. And it flowed.
It dissolved into the shadow of a fallen demonic banner and spilled into the world's net of blackness. It moved with a silent purpose, a stream of pure annihilation seeking the greatest chaos.
He emerged in the midst of a siege. An angelic fortress, a bastion of white marble and crystal towers that towered against the torn sky, was being stormed by a legion of Fallen Angels. Siege engines hurled projectiles of corrupted fire against the sacred walls, while swarms of the Fallen crashed into angelic defenses.
Lykaon materialized from the shadow cast by a huge battering ram. His appearance was an implosion of silence in the midst of the din of battle.
For a second, the fighting around him faltered. Fallen and Angels alike stopped, their gazes turned to the colossal beast of the night that had appeared at the epicenter of their war.
'More insects infesting my territory,' was Lykaon's only thought.
He did not distinguish between them. They were a plague. And he was the purge.
The shadow under its legs expanded outward, not tentacled this time, but like a liquid night tide. The wave of darkness, one meter high, swept the base of the fortress in a perfect circle.
It did not have the force of a physical tsunami. He did not tear down walls or crush bodies. He did something worse.
Everything he touched, died.
The Fallen Angels who were hit by the tide did not scream. They simply dissolved, their bodies dissolved into wisps of black smoke, their spears of light flickered, and they were extinguished. Their souls were absorbed by his dominion.
The Angels who were on the ground, defending the gates, suffered the same fate. Their holy light was drowned out, their bodies turned to dust, their wings of white feathers withered and turned to ashes.
In an instant, the battlefield around him was clean. Hundreds of fighters from both sides, erased from existence.
The silence that followed was more terrifying than the din of battle. From the walls of the fortress and from the sky, the survivors looked at him with a horror that transcended the hatred of war.
A commander of the Fallen, a high-ranking Grigori with four pairs of crow's wings, recovered first. "Monster! What are you?!" he roared, a scythe of dark energy materializing in his hand.
From the top of the wall, an Archangel, wearing golden armor that shone with pure light, aimed his flaming sword at him. "Abomination! You have interfered in a sacred judgment!"
They both attacked him at the same time.
The Fallen One swooped down from the sky. The Archangel jumped from the wall.
Lykaon ignored them both. His attention was on the real threat: his leaders, whose presences he now felt converging at this point in space-time, drawn by the magnitude of his unleashed power.
'First, you have to take out the trash.'
Its shadow echo came off of him, a perfect aftershock that swooped down to intercept the Fallen. At the same time, he opened his jaws and released a concentrated torrent of pure darkness towards the Archangel.
The echo met Commander Fallen into the air. They did not fight. They simply collided, and the darkness of the echo enveloped the fallen angel, consuming him in a cocoon of silent night.
The torrent of darkness struck the Archangel. It did not explode. He just deleted it. His light, his armor, his sword, his body... everything dissolved in the stream of nothingness.
Two of their strongest commanders, annihilated in less than three seconds.
And then, they arrived.
The air split in three.
To his left, reality was torn apart, opening a crimson wound that bled hellfire. From it emerged four figures of such overwhelming power that the ground itself cracked under their presence. Lucifer, with his silver hair and arrogant beauty. Beelzebub, Asmodeus and Leviathan. The Four Great Satans.
To his right, a column of golden light descended from the torn sky, a light so pure and utter that it was painful to watch. In its center, a figure of incomprehensible power, surrounded by a chorus of heavenly voices, and at his side, the Archangel Michael. The Biblical God and his general.
And in front of him, a vortex of black feathers and purple lightning swirled, depositing Azazel and the leaders of Grigori. Azazel looked at him with a smile of maniacal fascination.
The battle around him had come to a complete halt. The remaining armies had withdrawn, leaving their leaders to deal with the anomaly.
'So the alphas of the packs finally show up,' Lykaon thought, his first emotion not one of fear, but of irritation. 'More noisy intruders.'
It was the presence of the light that spoke first, its voice was not a single voice, but a chorus. "THE MISTAKE. THE ANOMALY OF THE SYSTEM. YOU MUST BE CONTAINED."
"Contained, or perhaps, claimed," Lucifer replied, his red eyes fixed on Lykaon with possessive greed. "A creature of such dark power belongs to Hell. Serve me, beast, and I will give you a kingdom of flesh to devour."
"Fascinating!" exclaimed Azazel, ignoring the other two. "You did it! You cheated the system! It's brilliant!"
Lykaon stood there, at the center of his little drama, and let his boredom turn to cold rage.
"Silence."
His telepathic voice was not a roar. It was a blade of ice that cut through his speeches. They kept quiet.
I slowly turned my colossal head, my ember eyes resting on each group. First the angels. Then the demons. Finally, the fallen.
"This world. This plane. Every shadow that touches... it's my territory," I declared, my voice being calm before an earthquake. "Your war, your armies, your pathetic conflicts of light and darkness... they are nothing more than an infestation."
I lifted my paw and slammed it to the ground. A shockwave of pure blackness expanded from the point of impact, causing the three leaders to take a step back.
"Gone. Take your plagues to another place. Or you will be consumed. All of you."
For an instant, he saw a unified fury in his eyes. He saw Lucifer prepare to attack, Michael raise his sword, Azazel invoke his artificial light. They prepared for a battle that would have torn the universe apart.
And then, they stopped. They looked at each other. And then to him. And they understood. A war on three fronts was one thing. A war on three fronts with a conceptual force of nature in the middle was suicide.
Lykaon did not retire. He did not wait for his response. I was bored.
With one last look of utter contempt, he threw his head back and roared. It wasn't a sound. It was a shockwave of pure will that shook reality itself. The sky darkened, the light of God flickered, the fire of Hell dimmed.
And while they were still reeling from the impact of his power, it disbanded. His colossal form dissolved into the shadow he himself projected, disappearing without a trace, leaving the world's three greatest powers alone on a silent battlefield, with a terrifying new enemy in common.
- - - - - - - - -
Hello everyone!
I have been making progress and organizing the chapters I had; so far, I have about 50 ready.
I was planning to reach the start of canon between chapters 80 and 100, although I am not entirely sure, maybe sooner.
I wanted to ask if you want gender swaps for some characters.
For example, one change I will definitely make is that Kiba will be female; she will be Kiba Yumi, or something like that.
The question is: Do you want me to do the same with Issei and Vali? Or should I leave them as men?
I would like to know your opinion in the comments.
Mike.
Thanks for reading!
If you want to read advanced chapters and support me, I'd really appreciate it.
Mike.
@Patreon/iLikeeMikee