First Demonic Dragon

Chapter 689: One & The Same

- Nexus of Creation, The Tree of Life.

"A-Am I doing it right?"

"Still no, Gulban." Asherah answered.

"I can't believe this. I've seen you craft realities from the ashes of dying stars and tear asunder old worlds to make anew. And yet you can't play a simple card game?" Azrael was honestly bewildered.

"It's not exactly easy when I'm playing against god himself!" He defended.

'You don't need to make it sound like I'm cheating in this contest…' Yesh almost seemed as if his feelings had been hurt.

"I can't exactly be sure you aren't though, can I?!"

'I'm not.'

"…Fine. Let's go through this again."

The group of supremely powerful immortal beings threw their cards into the center and reshuffled their deck once again.

Time truly does not flow within the nexus, making providing an accurate estimate of how long they'd been playing next to impossible.

But this was their 123rd game in a row… you do the math.

"Why are we doing this again..?" Azrael asked in exhaustion.

"You could always piss off and go see that lady friend of yours." Gulban grumbled.

"…She is currently upset with me."

"Did you tell her did not find her text messages interesting again? Dumbass…" Gulban shook his head.

"I would not make that mistake a second time…" Azrael grumbled.

"So what did you do this time?"

"…She told me to stick around at her home while she went to work."

"My word, you shit in her toilet!"

"I did no such thing!" Azrael snarled.

"Oh. Then what did you do?"

"…The time spent alone rendered me bored, so I finished watching the rest of the televised series we began observing together."

"…Jesus, kid. I think she would've been happier if you clogged her toilet."

"Please shut up and deal."

Gulban shrugged and did as he was told.

"For the record, I'm only learning how to do this because I want to impress my grandchildren. I'm tired of the little one beating me in spades." He confessed.

"Gabbrielle?"

"No, Courtney."

"…She's five."

"The rest of them are only one or two, so what's your point?!"

"Thea and Thrudd are 19 and 18 while little Mira is technically only eight." Asherah reminded.

"I-I knew that of course!"

He did not know that. Gulban just assumed all of his grandkids had funny ages because of their parents.

"Come on, let's start the game again!" He urged.

Just as the divine beings were about to start playing, Yesh suddenly dropped his cards out of nowhere.

"Father?"

"Husband?"

"Card-opponent?"

Yesh seemed to only barely hear the concerned calls from his three companions.

'She… She broke the lock..'

"Lock? She?" Azrael tilted his head.

Asherah paled beneath her veil. "W-Which one of them?"

'Young Bekka.'

"Oh no… it's too soon." Asherah's heart clenched.

"What's all this about? You're putting locks on the kids now?" Gulban raised a brow.

"They're not new. All of the Nevi'im are sealed outside of their home. Except Tathamet that is.." Asherah reminded.

"Ah, so you mean she broke her seal then." Gulban nodded. "I don't really see why that's an issue, she's not really the homicidal type… Come to think of it, I've never even seen her move from one spot unless it was to eat something."

"That is not the problem." Asherah shook her head. "Bekka is only 21 now, Gulban. She is a void goddess and Yesh and I did not personally make her."

It may have taken him a while, but Gulban was now beginning to see the significance of the issue.

"…Will she be alright? Can you re-design her lock?"

Yesh and Asherah both looked at each other before giving the obvious answer.

"Both of those things... depend fully on her."

-

Bekka being the strongest among the wives wasn't something that anyone ever really put much thought into.

It kinda just made sense given how alike she was to their husband.

She liked to eat, he was fat in his last life.

He liked to laugh and make unfunny jokes, she liked to pull pranks.

They liked sex, both with each other and when they worked in unison to ambush one or all of the other women who shared their bed.

They fought by calling each other childish names, and giving each other silent treatments that barely lasted two hours. Eye contact was all it ever took to break their anger.

They were best friends and practical partners in crime.

He was the vast cosmos. She was the boundless emptiness of space.

But Abaddon, nor the other wives had ever thought about just how powerful that really made her.

Until now that is.

Abaddon heard the sound of something 'breaking' at the same time as Gaia did.

The next thing he knew, he felt an immense amount of power rush back into his wife's body.

A transformative amount at that.

Bekka's body was virtually destroyed by the sudden return of her energy, and then rebuilt itself in just a second's time.

She was monstrous, but Abaddon had rarely found her to be more beautiful than now.

She was taller than even the titans at an exact nine feet.

Speaking of feet, she now had four of them.

From the waist down, her body was that of a beast. Patches of dark fur covered even darker scales lined with muscles.

From the waist up, she was a swirling mass of energy just like her husband. The only difference between them was that she was black in color; with currents of bright orange energy running through her.

Her eyes were as beautiful as they were unfriendly. They contained no anger, humor, light, or warmth. Just nothingness.

And hunger.

Bekka had no mouth or nose, but it did not prevent her beautiful voice from being heard.

When her maddened laughter died down, she stared at Gaia coldly.

"You must be feeling confident to make advances at my husband while I stand here in front of you. Is it this the cause for your ignorance?" Bekka gestured to the world around her.

"I admit it's beautiful. But do you know what I see..? A whole lot of empty space. A whole lot nothing."

The strangest thing occurred on Bekka's chest.

A grotesque mouth appeared in place of her breasts.

It opened to reveal hideously sharp teeth and an esophagus that was purely white. Like a black canvas.

The mouth inhaled deeply; creating a powerful vacuum in the air in front of her.

So powerful that it sucked in everything in it's vicinity.

Everything.

The water that Abaddon was turning into tar, the rocks on the bank, the trees around the forest, and even the color.

Color and life itself was being drained out of Gaia's divine realm endlessly.

When a spot had no more of anything for her to take, it was simply ripped.

As in the fabric of Gaia's very divine realm was ripped apart like a wet sheet of paper.

What it left behind was only an eerie white void; of the same kind that rested within Bekka's mouth.

It horrified the ancient goddess to no end.

"Y-You, whore!! What do you think you are doing here?!"

"I think it's called redecorating, but I'm not sure. The home improvement channel bores me terribly so I don't know all the terminology."

"AAHHHHH!!!"

Gaia's former tranquil beauty became a distant memory as she wailed like a vengeful banshee.

She began trying to patch up her realm as quickly as she could while simultaneously striking back.

The mountain overseeing the lake trembled as if it were about to fall on top of the outsiders.

It shaped it's cliffs and jagged peaks into great fists and the face of Gaia.

At over 200 meters and with a face made from bedrock, she no longer seemed like the gentle, all welcoming earth mother. Instead she was a vengeful goddess of anger and resentment.

"I WILL BURY YOU BOTH HERE!!!"

Bekka started to act on her own, but before she got the chance her husband acted first.

"It's been ages since I became a primordial… You have no idea how anxious I was to really see what I could do..!"

The newly rechristened wheel of supernatural fortune reappeared behind Abaddon like a sideways halo.

Leathery dark red wings jutted out from his back; each larger than even nine foot tall Bekka.

He launched himself at Gaia in a fraction of a second.

As soon as he reached her, he raised his hand high in the sky above his head; wielding it like the grandest blade of all.

"A split to cleanse this broken world."

Bringing his hand down right between Gaia's eyes, he cut her perfectly in half.

As well as everything… and I do mean everything that was in the path of his attack.

Gaia's divine realm now had a massive dark trench in it that was as wide as a lake and went on for forever.

Gaia's two halves fell apart and crumbled into the ground in the wake of Abaddon's attack.

But this was still her divine realm. Here, she was her own cause and effect.

The forest air rumbled with immense power.

Gaia's divine realm underwent a massive earthquake completely unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

The next thing the couple knew, the entire divine realm was coming to life and filling itself to the brim with 600 meter tall mountains of Gaia as far as the eye could see.

"FOOLS! it doesn't matter what you do, I am invincible here! You can kill me 1,000 times if you want, but it will change nothing in the end! This space is mine! I am the only god here!!"

Bekka flew to Abaddon's side as she continued to observe Gaia's every copy with the same empty gaze as before.

"Then I look forward to seeing you watch us tear it all down. If only to show you that we are the only ones who have a claim to voicing those kinds of absolutes."