The Blood Cathedral shook as the two titans clashed, the air thick with the metallic scent of gore and the ozone of raw power. Bang!! Bang!! The sound was not merely steel hitting steel; it was the collision of two different monsters of existence. Solon's giant sword, a slab of black metal that should have been unliftable, moved with the grace of a conductor's baton, parrying the strikes of Lálú's Blood Mortar.
Each blow sent heavy sound waves through the cavern, rippling through the blood-slicked stone like a stone dropped in a pond of crimson. Lálú, the King of Deceit, gritted his teeth. He recognized this power. This was the power of the Prince of Old Hell, a lineage that shared the same dark, primordial origin as his own. For the first time, the demon was truly locked in, realizing that Solon was one of the few beings capable of delivering a wound that wouldn't just heal.
"His sword... it defies his stature," Lálú thought, his mind racing to keep pace with Solon's blurring movements. "He controls it with the precision of a master swordsman. No wonder the entire Liege fell before him. Even—" A sharp, violent glitch tore through Lálú's train of thought, a stutter in his very consciousness. The name of the being he feared was lost in a static of mental agony.
Solon didn't miss the twitch. He didn't care why the demon stumbled; he only cared that he did. Moving like a feather caught in a gale, Solon bypassed the laws of physics. He manipulated the natural forces of the room, intensifying the gravitational pull tenfold around Lálú's body.
With a heavy swing that rode the back of that crushing force, Solon's blade sang. Swish! Lálú's left arm was severed, spinning of like a tossed rock. A guttural scream erupted from the demon, a sound so jagged it felt like it was breaking the minds of the wounded Acolytes covering behind the refuge boulder.
Before Lálú could even begin to focus his regeneration, Solon struck again. A diagonal cut carved through his torso, followed by a final, blinding barrage. Thwip-thwip-thwip! Solon shredded the demon's vessel into a dozen pieces, leaving nothing but a pile of twitching, black-red meat on the cathedral floor.
Away from the immediate spray of blood, the Chronis Triplets; Max, Maxine, and Maxxie, stood in an eerie, triangular formation. They had remained on the periphery, their eyes glowing with a faint, synchronized light.
"He won," Max whispered, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together.
"He won?" Maxine questioned, her head tilting at an unnatural angle.
"Look... he is still preparing for another round," Maxxie pointed out, her finger trembling as she pointed at Solon's tensed shoulders.
"He needs more time," they began to chant, their voices overlapping in a low, spiritual drone.
"He is here."
"He could give him more time."
"Time is on our side!."
The air around them began to ripple. They weren't fighting the demon; they were anchoring the moment, waiting for the missing piece of the puzzle to arrive.
*****************
Huff... huff... huff...
Black scaled the mountain terrain with a familiarity that felt etched into his bones. Every jump was a Space Warp, a momentary tear in reality that placed him further up the slope. The path was a graveyard. He found bodies squashed and scattered, vongers and scavengers alike. His heart, heavy with a new kind of Rage, mourned them all. No one deserves this, he thought. Not even the crazed.
He crested a ridge and walked straight into the Syndicate Evangelist camp.
"Stop right where you are," a voice commanded, gentle as a dying breath. "If you move as much as breathe, I'll break every bone in your body."
Black didn't slow down. He unleashed an intense, suffocating pressure that made the tents of the camp snap and groan. "I'll remove your tongue before you finish your next word," he retorted, his voice vibrating with a cold, lethal authority.
He turned to the source of the threat. The man was Masaru Hano. The Syndicate commander looked broken. He had seen Arike's divine storm, witnessed the massacre of his Acolytes, and now stood amidst an army of the dying.
"I am Hano," the man said, his voice devoid of its usual arrogance. "I am too tired for another fight. So tell me... are you here to help, or should we finish this now?"
"Where are my friends?" Black demanded, the black smoke of his Rage coiling around his spear.
Hano gestured vaguely toward the summit. "I don't know who your friends are, but there is a Screaming Cave at the top. If they are in there, they are likely being slaughtered. I don't care anymore. Even O'Connell is gone."
In a flash of light, Black was gone. He used a massive Space Warp to jump straight to the mouth of the cave. It was silent, but the air inside was thick with a power that made his skin crawl. Without hesitation, he leaped into the invisible abyss.
Inside the cathedral, Solon watched as Lálú's remains began to knit back together. The demon's regenerative factor was insane. Solon's chest heaved; he needed a finishing move, but his energy was focused on the gravitational seal.
Suddenly, the air pressure intensified. The cave seemed to implode for a fraction of a second, followed by a loud thud that cracked the floor.
"YOU ARE SO DEAD!" Jog-Jog screamed, his voice cracking with a mix of excitement and pure relief.
"Black! That Lálú guy has been bullying us!" Maya cried out, her face a mask of exaggerated, cute distress despite her real wounds.
Black stood amidst the dust of his landing. He looked at his broken friends, his gaze lingering on the wounded Arike. An assuring nod told them everything: I'm here. It ends now.
Every step Black took toward the demon was heavier than the last. Lálú, now completely regenerated, looked at the newcomer with genuine confusion. "Where did you come from?"
Black stepped up beside Solon. "Thanks for protecting them," he said quietly.
"I need to let Kai out," Solon replied, his voice strained. "Only his light can finish a vessel like this. I need a moment."
"Go do what you need to do,"Black said, the black smoke around his spear igniting into a dark flame. "I'll torture this beast for you until you're ready."
"What are you supposed to be?" Lálú mocked, his Blood Mortar beginning to glow a sickly red.
"Your dream come true," Black said, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper. "The one who will make you feel an ecstasy of pain and regret. The collector of your debt. Your purge. Your end!"
With every word, the rage around Black expanded, coating the floor in a shadow that felt like solid ice.
"I am the propagation of your death!"
"I am... the reckoning!."