- February 22, 2021
The House of Asmodeus: A Trial by Fire (Chapter 33)
“You are my war club, my weapon for battle— with you I shatter nations, with you I destroy kingdoms.” – Jeremiah 51:20
“I’m winning,” A’rock whispers to himself.
He watches the battle going on below as his army ravage the united forces of angels and daemons.
The warring Arch-beings are working together, but it is much too late. So many foot soldiers have been lost, so many torn apart by the undead horde. They will fight, they will lop off limbs, they will run, they will scream, but none of it will matter.
“No matter how many purebreds fight, the ending is the same. They all tire, they all break, they all give up and give in. Eventually, only the Arch-beings will be left, and I will love watching them all wither away to make room for me, and my destiny.” A’rock is a madman standing there talking to himself, when he catches sight of the Queen of Pride speeding towards Seraras and clashing blades. “It looks like Seraras is probably going to need my-”
BIPSHUUSSHH!
A large portal appears above A’rock.
“What in the hell is that?” A’rock yells his question out loud, but he has a good idea who it is.
A gigantic fireball erupts from the portal. Strangely, one would think that it would be more efficient for the fireball to head towards the undead army. Fire won’t kill any of the horde, but it will take much longer for them to regenerate.
“Why was it heading up?” A’rock questions. Instead, of waiting to find out, he launches himself up after it. He starts to create his own inferno of white fire to disperse it when he was speared from behind.
“Ack! Let go of me!” The arms tighten harder around A’rock’s waist as he and whoever has grabbed him flies at high speeds over the battle.
From the arms around his waist, A’rock can hear the incantations of a master sorcerer. “Befall the fire and flames, form the land of ash and dust, be my battleground, my homely cusp!” From the incantation, land from the battlefield begins to rise.
Angels and daemons alike feel the ground from under their feet begin to shake and turn. The undead twist and fall, and daemons leap screaming bloody murder. Angels fly away, afraid of the land that rises higher than a sea can part.
The land becomes floating isles above the sky, and they rise to the mountain peaks, empty of life and fodder, only the undead left to fall from the height.
And all of it, is heading for A’rock.
A’rock knew as soon as the incantations were being spoken who now holds him at his mercy. “Lust….” the Nephilim hisses.
A’rock tries to grab onto the hands holding him, but Asmodeus’s hands let go of A’rock’s waist. A’rock then he feels the hands quickly line up with two feet and push A’rock face first towards the dirt. The Nephilim flies straight through one floating isle, and with a burst of the wind element, A’rock skips like a rock across many more.
When he finally stops, A’rock is enraged with dirt in his long dark hair. He quickly gets up and turns to face his attacker without even trying to clean himself off. The thunder that comes, followed by a torrential downpour of rain, only brightens his foul mood.
Asmodeus looks at his opponent with a smile on his face. He pats down his suit which is quickly and disgustingly becoming drenched from the water. “Hey there oh brother-in-law of mine, how long do you think it’s been since it last rained in this place?” Asmodeus flashes a confident smile at A’rock, who is slowly becoming more and more unhinged by the King of Lust’s presence.
“You, of course it’s you… Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus, always here to try and fuck up my life, my plans…” A’rock is too angry to do anything but snarl out his words. “Why can’t it be someone else bothering me, why can’t it be someone else always getting in my way… Always Lust.”
“I’m getting the feeling you’ve had a run in with the OG, but that would make you way too old to be dating my sister.” Asmodeus begins to wiggle his finger, “No, no, no, now I wouldn’t be a good brother if I didn’t rough you up a little, now would I?”
“Cut the shit, Asmodeus!” A’rock really loses his cool this time, but he realizes that Asmodeus is goading him on, so the Nephilim takes the time to calm himself down. Deep breaths and strong pumps of the chest are going to help him regain control of his temper. “You brought about the rain didn’t you?”
“Now how would I have gone about doing that?” Asmodeus asks sarcastically.
A’rock wonders for a second, and then comes to the conclusion. “The fireball,” A’rock realizes with a gasp, “the fireball heats up the atmosphere, causing the storm clouds to form, or was the fireball hiding a different spell?”
Asmodeus’s smile fades a little. He answers back, “Well, well, don’t you wear smart pants? Here I thought that you were just a dumb thug with a big mouth.”
“Did you think that rain, would dampen my white flame?” As A’rock finishes his sentence, he summons power from the Helm of Darkness on his head and leaps straight for Asmodeus. The Nephilim moves so fast that he is next to Asmodeus before Asmodeus even has the chance to finish moving his arms up.
“Too slow!” A’rock yells as he smacks Asmodeus done, sending the King of Lust flying from one floating isle to the next, letting him skip across several like A’rock did.
A’rock smiles after pimp-slapping a Demon King with his newfound power. He asks Asmodeus, “Are you scared yet, boy?”
Asmodeus stumbles back to his feet as A’rock glides to his rock. He snarkily responds, “Patronizing and demeaning, I feel like I’ve just been pulled over by a cop. Tell me, how do you want this to end, A’rock?”
“I want this to end with you battered and burned, my hand at your throat, you under my heel, you-”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Asmodeus interrupts. “I already know how you want me dead, and to die painfully subjugated ‘cause you are one sick, puppy. I was alluding to the idea that we could just end it here and now, no more time to waste, just all out guns blazing, or magic blazing, I don’t know the correct terminology.”
A’rock ponders the idea. “Have you ever wondered, Asmodeus, why when we have all this power, we just punch each other in the face?” Asmodeus shakes his head. “Because it feels good, damn good, so I’m going to do exactly that, I’m going to beat you to a bloody pulp.”
“I see, the time for talk has past, I prefer to keep this to be short, let us end this now…”
“Oh no,” A’rock agrees, “I want this to last.”
“That’s not what she said,” Asmodeus jokes, and A’rock’s face twists in confusion.
“Are you twelve-”
Snap.
With a snap of his fingers, Asmodeus takes advantage of the distracted A’rock, and causes two walls of stone to form from the ground, and slam A’rock between them.
“Distraction gets them everytime,” Asmodeus jokes to himself.
BOFF!
A’rock hulks out, smashing the rocks to pieces, screaming, “Is that all you-?!”
SHHHHEEEAAAARRRREEEEE!!!
The talking is going to be A’rock’s undoing.
Asmodeus surprises him with his black heat beams, or his Onyx Eyes. The blackfire that can consume the light of a star sends A’rock flying across their floating battlefield.
When the beams stop they leave a burning smoke in A’rock’s chest and his crashing against a rock. He digs his fingers in so he doesn’t go over the edge.
A’rock lifts his head up, with nothing but teeth to snarl with and eyes to release his hate.
Then he launches himself back at Asmodeus.
“Okay, this one is going to be a doozy,” Asmodeus mutters, as he summons the Incantorum. He sees A’rock traveling at light speed, maybe even faster which would be pushing it for a black daemon.
With speed to match, Asmodeus lets the Incantorum float before him, and he crosses his arms as he summons forth the ten elements, each one with its own finger. Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Lightning, Blood, Bone, Metal, Shadow, and Diamond. With all elements at his fingertips he lets loose the Hell Barrage.
Asmodeus moves his hands across his chest, and from his fingers move ten beams, each filled with their element, straight for A’rock.
A’rock gets a look of surprise, and turns directly to the right, dodging the diamond beam that turns the rock where he was standing into the hard mineral.
A’rock dashes to the left, Shadow passes him by, and hops to let water splash beneath his feet. Wind hits him while he’s in the air and sends him tumbling across the ground. He sinks his feet in and leaps to avoid the lightning that blows the rock half to Hell.
The Nephilim finds himself in dire straits moving through the air. He has no wings and cannot fly on his own, but the beams do.
A’rock tries to summon his whitefire into his hand, but the metal blast hits it, turning the fire to a white steel, breaking the Nephilim’s fingers. “Raahhh!” A’rock screams, and his face twists with rage until fire hits him point blank in the face.
Asmodeus feels the world turn quiet as this huge deafening explosion fills the air around A’rock with smoke, but the Demon King knows better than to be hopeful.
“Raaaaahhhhhh!!!!” comes a scream before the man with a flaming sword of white fire in his hand. Asmodeus remembers what Uriel told him while he told everyone his infamous plan.
“Light magic, the energy that fuels angel’s usually only burns more, but A’rock’s flame will poison you, he has the strength of a Seraphim at least, and with Pluto’s helm he’ll have even more.
“If he hits you with it with the power he has now… you’re done.”
At the time Asmodeus wanted to meet him hand-to-hand, let loose and enjoy himself one last time, but he can’t risk dying before its time, so long range magic it is.
He hears A’rock screaming his name, “Asmodeus!!!!!” prompting the king to use the remaining beams.
“I guess we know who’s a screamer,” Asmodeus mutters, and raises his pointer fingers above his head as the Incantorum floats with them.
From the smoke comes blood and bone behind A’rock, and as Asmodeus crosses his fingers the two elements combine into the elemental compound of flesh. A long hand, that’s only muscle around bone stretching to grab hold of A’rock’s leg.
“Ulk.”
The Nephilim’s stomach flips after the sudden stop.
As the disgusting appendage pulls A’rock down, he twists in the air and slices it with his whitefire sword, severing the wrist from the disgusting arm. Before the Nephilim can even right himself, Asmodeus twitches his pinky, and the remaining Shadow beam zips around and wraps around A’rock’s neck.
It never hit anything, on purpose.
Now it pulls down and slams A’rock thousands of feet to the ground.
There’s a dust cloud that forms, and without warning A’rock comes flying out of it, his powerful step propelling him at Asmodeus.
I’m betting this guy has a healing factor, lets make him use all of his magic regenerating.
The elements over Asmodeus’s pointer fingers turn to Water and Earth, and he points them forward. Water and rock flood from his fingertips, combining and mixing into mud, and then into the elemental compound of wood.
Asmodeus yells, “Silva Expansion!” and a forest starts rising to meet A’rock, wood rising and twisting, sharp roots coming to skewer him.
A’rock takes his sword into both hands, and slashes the first root that gets to him. He pulverizes the second, dodges and slices the third, letting none of it live. He moves head first through the forest, slashing his sword every second, cutting down the trees that get in his way by the dozens. Tree branches grow of their own accord to stop his advance.
They nearly succeed when he bangs his head on one, leaving a huge gash in his chin, but the power of his helm heals instantly.
A’rock swings his sword of whitefire against the giant truck, cutting it down to size.
As A’rock cuts down the wide and growing forest between them, Asmodeus moves his left pointer before his eyes.
First, he powers it with wind, then fire to create the Inferno. Next, with an ability he’s naturally come upon, he turns the flame to blackfire, and points forward.
PLLLUUUMMMMMMEEEEEE!!!!!
He uses the Black Inferno, and shoots forth a tornado of blackfire from his finger, bathing the forest in heat and destruction.
A’rock is cutting down and being stabbed by roots when he stops, and hears the sound of moving fire. He narrows his view when he can’t see the shine of any light. When he remembers the color of Asmodeus’s fire, it’s too late.
PLUUUUUSSSHHHHH!!!!!
The entire forest is burning, a waste of life, created to kill and destroyed in the same minute of its birth. From the ashes the Nephilim leaps up, with whitefire his calling card.
If Asmodeus didn’t know any better, he’d say that A’rock looks like an old painting of Michael, but up close, if he were to focus his eyes, Lust would see the rage he would never see on the Archangel.
A’rock’s whitefire surges, high into the heavens, farther out than Asmodeus is from A’rock, so the Nephilim swings the sword down.
Asmodeus squats and shifts Earth to protect himself in a sharp dome. Lust can feel the heat of the dangerous fire, he hears the cracking of the stone. He knows the sound of flowing flames, and the second the sound is gone, he releases the power of wind, blasting the flames away.
He finds himself face to face with A’rock. In the nanoseconds that A’rock is swinging his whitefire sword to behead Asmodeus, the Demon King snaps his fingers. He uses the Diamond Knight, creating a diamond armor that encases him whole right before A’rock slams his sword into him.
Lust feels his neck nearly crumble under the force, and goes flying across the dirt, his armor having been cracked by the force behind A’rock’s power. The Diamond Knight spell crumbles as Asmodeus rolls across the ground, a short lasting spell.
Asmodeus stops and skids on his knee, ready for A’rock to come after him again, but the Nephilim instead raises his sword over his head, and turns it into a whitefire spear. The Demon King knows that the spear would hit him before he can dodge, and he doubts the Diamond Knight would hold, so he controls the Earth and swings his finger up.
A landslide of spikes rise from the rock below A’rock’s feet, and hit A’rock like a truck. The sharpest points stab A’rock’s throwing shoulder, his bicep and his han. Asmodeus squeezes his hand to holding him in place, trying to fight against what feels like a world of hate.
A’rock only rages, making Asmodeus’s heart skip a beat watching the whitefire spear remain in A’rock’s hand.
Asmodeus doubles his attack and slams into A’rock chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs. Now the spear does dissipate, and Asmodeus’s sighs.
But Asmodeus refuses to slow down, that could be the end far too soon.
While the blood still flies from A’rock’s mouth, Asmodeus runs Lightning from his fingertip, and draws a circle before him, creating the Sign of Raijin, and in his other hand forms the Bolt of Zeus. He combines the two lightning spells, and throws the Bolt of Jupiter through the Sign of Raijin, multiplying the power and potency of the strike.
The magic attack flies through A’rock’s chest, punching a huge and bloody hole into him, and leaving electricity to flow through his body. The Nephilim screams as he feels incalculable bolts, enough to power a whole planet for a year flow through him. The Helm of Darkness remains the only thing keeping him alive.
Uriel told him, “As long as A’rock wears that helmet, he’ll heal from everything you throw at him. There are few attacks that can sever his neck with it on, let alone destroy it. Your best chance is something that will destroy everything around the helm instantaneously, such as the attack that killed my predecessor.”
“That’s only one I know that has enough power,” Asmodeus told her.
“Somehow I doubt you’re going to land a direct hit on his head with a blast the size of a asteroid,” Uriel retorted.
Asmodeus wishes now that he had tried aiming for A’rock’s neck instead of his chest, but chucking lightning is Jupiter’s thing, and Uriel’s.
Now that he has the chance, Asmodeus goes for a less elemental spell, gathering more power from Incantorum. As he whispers the spell, “Behold, behold, the chains of Fenrir,” he checks the amount of energy he has stored, “the chains to hold the wolf,” and finds that he’s not ready yet, “the wolf that eats the world.”
He flings his hands out, drawing runes over the book of magic, and from the Incantorum springs chains, with the final word of their name, Asmodeus screams, “Gleipnir!” The chains look more like a silken ribbon, but are far from such; they did have to bind the gigantic and powerful son of Loki.
The ribbons fly from the book, aiming to bound A’rock with power that would hold even Odin or Jupiter himself. If this works, Asmodeus doesn’t have to go through with his extremely dangerous plan.
A’rock cries out in pain as he pulls his arms off the earthly spikes, and as they only hurt the more he moves, he stops. He closes his eyes to feel the bliss of Pluto’s healing touch, until he hears wind hitting silk. He opens his eyes to see a massive and long red ribbon about to hit him in the face.
He dashes backwards before he’s fully healed and stumbles, letting Gleipnir ensnare him. The red ribbon wraps around A’rock, crushing his arms and legs as it tries to get a hold on each and every limb of his body. It binds him at his shoulders, at his chest, and moves to his legs, squeezing him with enough force to crack open a planet, breaking A’rock’s bones.
The Nephilim nearly chokes on his own breath before the red gem brightens on his forehead. The Helm of Darkness grows inflamed, and A’rock is consumed by ash and dust. The Helm floats off his head, and with it a flurry of smoke. It leaves behind an ashen corpse that is squeezed by Gleipnir until it crumbles.
The Helm floats behind the pile of ash and the smoke solidifies into A’rock, a Nephilim nearly out of breath.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Asmodeus curses under his breath. Asmodeus looks inside himself to see if it’s almost time, and he’s not ready. T
I guess it doesn’t really matter, I have to be, it’s one of those do or die moments.
He’ll have to speed up the process while A’rock is suffering from the pain of his wounds. The only way Asmodeus knows how to do that, is to ascend to his True Asmodeus form, but that leaves him wide open.
He calls for the strength to shakes worlds, the desire that severs Virtuous souls burns from his skin. Volcanic rock rises and forms into a breastplate made of magma rock, and fire lines the cracks like veins. From his shoulders grow spikes, and from his feet tall greaves to crush skulls to dust with a stomp. A demonic visage of Virtue and chastity forms over his head, in the form of a dark knight’s helm, fit with spikes sprouting from it. From his eyes, there is only the blackfire.
He is Lust, he is power, for nothing is greater than want itself.
SHINKT!
And power itself it run through.
“Ack!” Asmodeus chokes, as A’rock runs him through with his sword, narrowly missing his heart, hitting right below. The King of Lust can feel the flames singing his heart. He’s never felt a greater pain than to have his beating chest feel like it’s being pressed against a hot stove, one that burns hotter than the sun.
Asmodeus’s hulking gauntlet grabs hold of the whitefire that is A’rock’s blade, but the Nephilim grasps him by the head instead.
“Sh, don’t fight, it’s only going to hurt more,” A’rock taunts him, “stop wasting both of our time, and die.”
Asmodeus’s other hand grabs A’rock by the throat, surprising the Nephilim with the strength he has.
Then Asmodeus pulls the Nephilim’s face closer as he struggles against him.
“No,” Asmodeus growls, and the whitefire of the blade turns black with the King’s own rage.
The blackfire burns A’rock’s hand, and the Nephilim lets go with a yelp. Without a moment’s hesitation, Asmodeus slices A’rock across the chest, spraying his red blood across the floating isle, and slams his fist into A’rock’s chest, sending him back down like a crashing meteor.
As A’rock struggles to recover, the monotony of hoping that the Nephilim won’t get up dawns on Asmodeus. He doesn’t wait, he assumes his enemy survives. Sometimes assumptions allow people to do what they need to.
Asmodeus raises his black sword and slams it into the ground. As A’rock stops, he stumbles back to the ground as the floating isles move. They all begin moving closer together, to fit like puzzle pieces and to smash into each other when they don’t.
A’rock goes for his chance to jump Asmodeus again, but this time Asmodeus is not as immobilie. He’s already set the momentum of the battlefield and when A’rock leaps, an axe of whitefire raised, Asmodeus doesn’t stay still.
Right as A’rock descends downward, Asmodeus summons forth his blackfire sword and leaps to meet him. A’rock swings down and Asmodeus slashes up…
CLANG!
SINKT!
… and Asmodeus’s blade crumbles under the pressure.
A’rock’s axe sliced through Asmodeus’s sword, and the King of Lust barely saves his head, suffering a slash across his chest.
A’rock crashes down, grinning at the strike he’s landed, as if expecting to see Asmodeus falling behind him, but he looks up and stops laughing.
Asmodeus keeps flying, straight up, high past the mountain peaks, and nearly to the raining clouds. His hands run over the huge gash in his chest, where his armor has been burned away and only a bleeding gash remains. He can already feel the light magic infecting him, and his True Asmodeus form is the only thing keeping back.
Uriel told him, “The light magic that fuels his whitefire will burn like nothing else you’ve felt before. Scraps, burns, nicks, none of that will compare to the sizzling sensation that you’ll feel bubbling around your wound, and the wound will feel like a piece of you has been ripped off… even after it’s already gone.”
As Asmodeus feels it in the hole above his heart and the gash across his chest, he thinks Uriel’s description truly doesn’t give the pain justice.
But it comes to an end.
Floating above the battleground, with a barrier between him and everyone else, and nothing between him and A’rock, it’s time to call upon the power that fell the Archangel of Chastity.
It’s time for the Onyx Star.
As the original Asmodeus told Clayton, he raises his dominant finger over his head. He summons forth all the power he’s stored in his body, letting his True Asmodeus form amplify every bit. Nothing lies in his finger tip has it stands straight over his head.
Asmodeus holds the power to eradicate worlds, he’s an Ogre daemon, but concentrating it all into his body, away from one point causes the very world to shake.
*****
Noella and Azale on the ground feel the world trying to hold together under the pressure, it’s like Envy died all over again.
Angels and daemons alike pause, even under the onslaught of the undead to grow in fear of the hellish power growing above them.
The Queen of Pride and the Archangel of Humility stop, and are agape by the very meaning of the power above them.
Seraras himself stares up at the wall above him, but it’s like he’s looking through it. He feels his life taken out of his own hands, and put into those of A’rock.
*****
A’rock feels the power, a power he’s never felt before by how it makes his body hum. He doesn’t know if he can face it.
“He’s going to kill us all,” the Nephilim whispers.
And just like that, the power suddenly disappears. For a moment everyone feels safe.
And out Asmodeus’s finger it flows.
PEEE-YOOOOWWW!
Light shines across the battlefield, down through the hearth.
SHEEEAAARRRREEEE!!!
The land feels the heat, and not even the stone can stand against being scorched.
SIIIIZZZZZ!!!!!
A mass, a red sphere of energy, it’s edges radiating a fearsome black as it reaches wider than the valley, and burns the mountain peaks, truly, a mass of utter destruction.
And it’s smaller than it should be.
Asmodeus holds the power of Lust over the point of his finger, and to A’rock he calls out his warning.
“Behold the Onyx Star, the power to destroy a thousand worlds.”
He remembers telling his sister, his lover, and his rival his plan, his plan wield power beyond anything he has before. How could he believe he could control it?
He told them, “The hope is that A’rock’s power will be enough to stop it, and that he’ll use up all of the power he has.”
“And if he can’t?” Uriel asked him, “Would you kill everyone?” He knew she was still searching for the evil and vile in him, the thing she was taught to see in daemons, but he didn’t hold it against her.
“Of course not, if he can’t stop it, I’ll just absorb it back into myself.”
Uriel, Lolara, Alice, they were all shocked by this, it was certain death. At least if A’rock drives it back and strikes Asmodeus, he has a chance but to re-absorb power that wasn’t meant to be held… it’s guaranteed suicide by self-implosion.
Asmodeus looks up at the Onyx Star, not as powerful or as large as the one that killed the original Uriel, and not the best it can be.
But this is my first time, no one expects me to be the best at it, right?
So he throws it.
The Onyx Star starts moving down, Asmodeus true form slipping and through the mass of energy, unharmed by the rays, ready to absorb it back if given the chance.
The winds are set a blaze as they swarm down the side of the energy blast, and A’rock sees that it’s coming for him, that Asmodeus is actually going to do it. “Asmodeus has lost his mind,” A’rock whispers.
If A’rock leaves, that’s leaving behind his army, everything he’s worked for, and his best friend. Asmodeus is forcing him to make the decision.
Risk it all and see if he can stop it, if he’s truly more powerful than his hated foe, and at the same time save the lives of the people he hates below him.
Or run away, show everyone his true cowardice, how he runs in the face of unstoppable odds. Run from everything he’s worked towards…
Asmodeus senses this familiar feeling from A’rock, as if there is no choice at all.
The red gem atop the Helm of Darkness begins to glow as A’rock creates the whitefire sword to end all other fire swords. He floods it with all the power the Helm can muster. The Helm stores all the power Pluto himself had, and contains most of the energy A’rock had from sacrificing so many human souls. He’s a Pagan God, or closest thing to one at the moment.
He raises his sword above his head, the shining light piercing through the dawn and letting loose a blaze, an inferno.
The flames hit the Onyx Star, and it doesn’t slow the incredible power for a moment. It keeps pushing down, slowly speeding up as the flames of the Inferno bounce off of it. A’rock can’t fathom the amount of power the King of Lust possesses. He screams about how it’s not fair, as his voice is drowned out by the powerful winds.
He screams about how Asmodeus has everything, he has not one love of his life, but several. Asmodeus has not one palace, but a whole kingdom to himself. Asmodeus has love, loyalty, people who want to be his friend, everything.
But A’rock had one thing that Asmodeus didn’t, he had one person who made every hard day worth it… and Asmodeus took her away too.
A’rock has been so focused on what he doesn’t have, that he has nothing, he has lost everything important.
Now he’s going to take the one thing he can from me.
He’s going to take my life.
A’rock rages against the darkness, the star of death raining down on him. As his inferno fails and falters, he knows that he can’t push back or overcome the Onyx Star, so at the very least he’s going to kill Asmodeus. He’s not going to let another Asmodeus get away with killing again, he’s not going to let another Asmodeus get away with taking another woman he loved from him again.
A’rock’s inferno stops trying to fight the Onyx Star as it comes so close to hitting the floating isles. As the skin on A’rock’s arms begin to burn, and the wind itself is set ablaze, A’rock stops trying to push, and starts to pierce.
The sword of whitefire acts like a sword should, and instead of releasing fire, it extends, beaming and moving like electricity. It pushes up into the Onyx Star, fighting to pierce the edge of the egg, and when it doesn’t, a hearty scream and the rest of A’rock’s power lets cut through.
He pierces it, and the fire seeks out it’s target at the Onyx Star’s opposite end. The whitefire cuts, zigs and zags its way through the Onyx Star, everything it can to get to the man at the core.
Asmodeus holds the Onyx Star together from the inside, ready to drain it, ready to absorb it, when he sees the whitefire coming.
“Huh,” Asmodeus mumbles, “he actually did it,” right before the whitefire pierces him through the rib, cracking his side and ripping apart his skin, blowing the armor off his hide. The whitefire exits out Asmodeus’s shoulder, and from that blow, the Onyx Star explodes.
The Onyx Star explodes in every direction, separating into a thousand little blasts, unable to hold itself together after being tethered to Asmodeus.
In a blinding flash of light, with only those underneath A’rock being safe, the Onyx Stars’ many blasts go off in different directions, all around the battlefield.
Each and every one makes the ground shake, each and every one causes an explosion to make nuclear warheads look like toys. Each other capable of killing nearly all the angels and daemons below.
The Demon King of Lust, the Devoted Lover, the Mortal Daemon, lets his armor crumble, and with the first of his final breaths he begins falling, falling to his death.
The King of Lust’s body falls with a smile, his eyes closing as the storm clouds form back over, and he knows his role is done.
A’rock sees Asmodeus fall, his blood trailing behind him, all the power in the world gone in a flash, and A’rock knows it’s over. A’rock celebrates.
“Yeeeesss… YES!” A’rock cheers, throwing his fists into the air. The Nephilim wobbles, likely exhausted, having trouble standing by himself, not noticing that the rain had stopped at some point as he celebrates his victory.
“I’ve done it! I’ve rid the worlds of the King of Lust!”
Crackle.
The rain pours down on A’rock’s face again. One could imagine that It’s the best feeling in the world after being almost cooked alive. He takes in its soft and smooth touch, there’s nothing like. It doesn’t rain in the realm of Pluto, so he’s felt it so few times. He’s glad Asmodeus has left him something… Asmodeus left him…
Crackle.
Lightning cracks around the clouds as A’rock opens his eyes, and there’s this moment of realization, where the laughter and happiness has evaporated, where A’rock mutters, “Asmodeus is dead, there should be no clouds.”
Crackle.
“There should be no crackle of lightning, or thunder.”
Thun. Dun. Dun.
“Unless it wasn’t Asmodeus to begin with.”
CRACK!
And the White Lightning comes crashing down.
In a split second, a bolt of lightning cuts across the sky, a cut to end the world, or just A’rock’s.
A’rock doesn’t see it, doesn’t feel it. There’s just a flash of light, and now there’s a sword in his chest, piercing his heart, with white lightning flowing through.
A’rock looks down at the blonde Archangel, and she lifts up her head. “Unlike you, I know where the heart is.”
And then comes the second flash.
ZZZAAAAAAAPPPPPPP!!!!!!!
The lightning flows out of Uriel’s sword and electrocutes him and all of the ground around them. It flows from the Nephilim like a lightning round as he screams, the electricity flowing through the ground, vaporizing the floating isles that they stand upon.
The electricity starts to fry his insides before it all culminates in the red gem on his forehead, the gem that fuels the Helm of Darkness. The power inside of it was forged by Vulcan as a container of all souls that live in Pluto’s Underworld. The lightning stops flowing and focuses, until it pops.
The gem pops out of the Helm, and Uriel’s lightning ceases as dust falls to the ground below them.
A’rock’s limp body hangs on her short gladius sword as he starts to fall off backwards, electricity still running through him.
“Fuck me,” are the only two words he utters as he begins to fall towards the earth.
Uriel grabs the Nephilim by his tail and carries him by it as she goes to catch the gem. Having that, she looks for Asmodeus’s falling body, and sees the blood trail.
*****
She’s only ever experienced the sensation of her heart plummeting into her stomach once before, and it’s happening again.
She flies after his body, the flight being short, but every second being too long. She never thought she would catch him, even as her hand wraps around his waist and there are still thousands of feet left for them to fall.
She doesn’t notice time go by as she flies them all over the battlefield. She sees the many on the ground blinded by her dust, and she wonders to herself, Do any of them know what he did, what Asmodeus sacrificed for them all?
“Huh,” she hears, her first reaction is to turn towards A’rock, who hangs limp by his tail. When she hears him breath again, she turns to the Demon King on her arm, and she realizes that there’s something left.
She wastes little time descending outside the battlefield, landing outside the valley, in the dirt and grass where she tosses A’rock like a rag doll.
Not Asmodeus, Asmodeus she cradles in her arms as she descends, laying him gently on the grey grass that barely survived his onslaught. She looks down and sees the final flutters of his eyes.
Uriel caresses Asmodeus’s face, “We did it Asmodeus, yo-you did,” stuttering in a away she never thought possible, not over a daemon. “A’rock is dead,” she tells him, “and the army will sto-stop attacking, and-and-”
The Archangel is stumbling through as many words as she can as the King of Lust begins to fade away.
“Uriel…” he mutters weakly.
Every movement of her face feels like a twitch, and she suffers through her words, “Yes-yes… what is it?”
“What’s… Rose… Rose is your real name… right?”
“You, you want to know my name? You mean before I was named the new Uriel?”
“Yes. I want to know…”
Uriel is confused. She doesn’t understand why he is still giving a shit about knowing her when he is on death’s door. “Yes, Rose, it is, Rose,” she says softly.
“What?”
She is losing him.
“Rose, Asmodeus!” she yells. “My name was Rose. Rose.”
“Rose… You have a nice name. Mine’s Clay.” And then his breathing lapses.
Tears are forming in Uriel’s eyes for the daemon who proved her wrong. “Thank you, Clay, thank you.”