Chapter 17: The Pride of the Lonely King
The silence left by my departure was an illusion. The Great War did not stop because of my ultimatum. He simply held his breath.
For days, the supernatural world seemed to freeze. The battlefronts calmed down, not because of a peace treaty, but because of a shared uncertainty. Stories of my carnage spread like wildfire: a beast of shadows that consumed entire armies without choosing sides. I became an unknown variable, a savage god in a game of kings.
And kings do not tolerate other gods on their board.
From the safety of my Dimension of Darkness, I watched them. He could feel their gazes through the fabric of reality, the leaders of the Three Factions, now focused not on each other, but on the anomaly that had interrupted their war.
'They think they can understand me. They think they can categorize me. Insects trying to measure a storm.'
My arrogance, forged in a crucible of newfound freedom and absolute power, was limitless. I had spent eons in chains, dreaming of untying myself. Now that I was free, I saw everyone else as relics of an ancient order, cages of flesh and faith that I was destined to break. I believed that my power, my conceptual mastery over darkness, was absolute.
It was that arrogance that brought me back to the battlefield.
I chose the place of our previous meeting, the now-silent valley where I had challenged them. It was a statement. An invitation. And they responded.
They appeared again, tearing reality in three cardinal points. Lucifer and the Satans, God and Michael, Azazel and his Grigori. But this time, there were no armies. There were no positions. Just a deadly calm and unity of purpose that was more terrifying than any rallying cry.
"You are back, anomaly," resounded the chorus of God's voice. "Your existence is a disturbance of balance. You will be undone."
"I offered you a kingdom, beast," Lucifer said, his red eyes flashing with cold fury. "You rejected my generosity. Now you will only find annihilation."
Azazel, for once, was not smiling. His face was that of a surgeon about to perform a necessary dissection. "Your existence is the greatest paradox I have ever seen. And I must unravel it, even if it means dismantling you piece by piece."
A silent, cold laugh filled their minds. "Words. The noise of frightened insects. You have come to die together."
Attacked.
There was no warning. I unleashed the same tide of darkness that had annihilated their armies. A tsunami of liquid night erupted from me, designed to wipe out their existence.
And for the first time, my power was counteracted.
God raised a hand. A pure white light, not a flame, but the very essence of creation, sprang from him. It did not clash with my darkness; he denied it. Where the light touched the shadow, both annihilated each other in a hiss of conceptual nothingness.
At the same time, Lucifer unleashed his Power of Destruction, not the pale imitation of the Gremorys, but the true and primal demonic energy. It wasn't an explosion, but a wave of corrosion spreading, causing space-time itself to unravel. My darkness, when I touched it, was not destroyed, but frayed, its coherence undone.
And Azazel... He did something different. He released a series of spears of light of a sickly golden color. They weren't aiming at my body. They pointed to the connection between my projected form and my true essence in the Dark Dimension.
The tide of darkness he had launched dissolved meters away from them, neutralized by three opposing forces.
I froze for a split second. The surprise was a strange and forgotten feeling.
'They are... working together.'
Before I could process it, they attacked in unison.
Miguel's spear of light was the first to arrive. She was incredibly fast, a bolt of holy fury. It would have pierced me, but at the last moment, my body lost its solidity, turning into smoke. The spear passed through me harmlessly.
But it was a distraction.
While I was in my intangible form, Lucifer's wave of corrosion hit me. It could not harm my smoke form, but it attacked my very essence, the will that held the darkness together. I felt a sharp, burning pain, not in my body, but in my soul. It was like having acid poured into my consciousness.
I howled, a roar of pain and rage, and my form solidified again by pure instinct. It was a mistake.
The instant I became tangible again, God's attack caught up with me. It was not a spear, nor a lightning bolt. It was a simple word, spoken in a language that was the basis of creation.
"LIGHT."
The world turned white. It was not a light that illuminated. He was a light that he was. The essence of creation, the antithesis of my being, flooded me. The pain was absolute. My shadow body did not burn; it fell apart. I felt as if every particle of my being was being disintegrated, erased by an opposing fundamental truth. Bits of my form came off, evaporating into the white light with a hiss.
I screamed, an animal sound of pure agony. My colossal form shrank, flickering, struggling to maintain its coherence. He was wounded. Seriously injured.
'Impossible...'
And then, Azazel struck again. Their spears of golden light struck me. They didn't physically hurt me. But I felt the impact on a deeper level. The link with my echo, the trick that my freedom had given me, wavered. It was as if I had introduced a virus into my system, a dissonance that made me doubt my own existence.
I collapsed on one knee, my form flickering violently, bits of darkness peeling away from me like ashes. I was bleeding power.
The three leaders stopped, observing my condition.
"He's weakened," Miguel said, his voice cold and harsh. "Let's get this over with."
They prepared for the final blow. A sphere of sacred light, a maelstrom of demonic power, and a new salvo from Azazel's disruptive spears. I saw my end. My pride had blinded me. He was not a god. I was a creature of only one element, and I had faced the masters of everyone else.
In that instant of clarity born of pain, an instinct older than my arrogance took over: survival.
I did the one thing I had never done before.
Hui.
With the last ounce of my strength, with a will forged in desperation, I tore reality apart. Not with the precision of a journey in the shadows, but with the violence of a wounded animal ripping a door from its frame. A chaotic black hole opened up beside me, a portal to my only refuge.
I threw myself through it.
Just as my tail disappeared into the portal, the combined attack of the three leaders hit the spot where I had been. The explosion was completely silent. The space itself was erased. A sphere of absolute nothingness expanded and then collapsed, leaving a crater that was not of earth, but of absent reality.
I landed, or rather, crashed into the formless ground of my Dimension of Darkness. My projected form dissolved, my consciousness retreated to its core. The pain was an incessant fire. I was mutilated, my essence torn apart. The portal closed behind me, leaving me in the silence of my kingdom.
He was safe. He was defeated.
I huddled in the infinite blackness, my kingdom, my sanctuary. And for the first time in eons, I, Canis Lykaon, the King of Shadows, the Deceiver of Heaven... I felt afraid. And a hatred. A hatred so deep and pure that it became the only force that held me together.
I would recover. It would heal. And he would learn. Next time, there would be no arrogance.
There would only be annihilation.
- - - - - - - - -
Thanks for reading!
If you want to read advanced chapters and support me, I'd really appreciate it.
Mike.
@Patreon/iLikeeMikee