Shadow of the Abyss

Chapter 231: Cataclysm II

Soaked by perspiration peering through the lining of his robes, Roxas felt his lungs aflamed. "Twenty more," he panted, falling to a knee. Pain curling through his torn muscles brought a sort of small smile to his lips. Had there ever been a time since he felt mortal? Felt the weariness echoed a dreadful sense of morality through his bones?

He was born a demigod, conceived through the fusion of a Celestial and High Human. Roxas didn't know much about his parents. Whether they were dead or not, Cain, his Master, never spoke on it, and he never asked. It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

"It's our final stretch!" shouted Jacar. A Versi, an Ancient race that bore the Elements into being themselves. With his arms raised, gripping a staff he'd found lying around, he roared at the top of his lungs. "Kill!"

The Soul Kings echoed his words, bellowing their war cry and charging towards the soulless faces of the Watchers. They could taste it now. Victory was upon their breath.

Over the metal bodies of the watchers, they stomped, bashing swords and spears over shields, conjuring spells that would damn those of the flesh to a horrid existence erupted. Wildfire swarmed the skies, conjured by the Pyromancer Freylor. Flames as luscious as the first God Tree, Yggdrasil, bloomed, swaying like the great waves of the North Sea, superheating stones to a bright golden ooze.

Lava spilled from the walls of the castle, setting it ablaze. Whirlwinds of inferno came from the earth, shattering windows and melting large towers that stood the test of time for thousands of years.

From the skies, violet arcs of pure lightning struck without regard, splitting various walls and towers like twigs, dismantling the castle in a matter of moments. Destruction covered the horizon, seeking to drag all of Vesim into the Nine Hells.

Altair watched it all, standing upon a string of Infernal Lighting lashed across empty Space. He stood there, taking it all in with a half smile. His arms poised behind his back.

"Altair!!!!!" Shouted Roxas, spotting the young boy and the appalling number above his head. His fist clenched as they all charged forward, seeking to push back the Watchers.

"I must thank Beelzebub for this high bounty," Altair thought. Without it, none of this might have been possible. Most of the Soul Kings wouldn't have been so greedy and might have given up trying to slay him. But the prospect of power, even if it's so small, had been so enticing in their eyes. They all abandon everything, seeking his life as if they need him to advance their cultivation to the peak.

"Altair Blackwood…" The Prince resounded, allowing his name to ring across the void. It echoed far and wide, tracing the ear of every Soul King present. "Remember it"

'Eh?' Caught by a horrifying sensation of premonition, the thirty Soul Kings glanced around, unsure where this horrible sense of knowing was echoing from. Instincts were howling within their minds, causing some with heightened senses to bleed from their nostrils as the sensation grew so strong the Intangible hand of the Angel of Death, Azazel, traced their necks.

"You wouldn't…" Roxas said in a feeble cry, noticing the shattered parts of the watchers that had fallen from the skies these past six months. Nearly two hundred surrounded the castle in a sort of graveyard.

"Such a shame… I'd really love to fight you guys." Altair mused half-heartedly. When from the ground, golden fragments of light shimmered a brilliance beyond the dawn. The light of the Watchers began to entwine, connecting Heaven to Earth, in a pillar so blinding it seemed brighter than any star within the Heavens.

The entire world of Yarwin trembled, its rotation coming to a swift halt. In that single instance, the ocean rose into tidal waves, and the winds became like the ruthless hands of Gods, uprooting continents and tearing them into the skies. Mortal women, children, men, and animals all died, their bodies bashing over the ground from the momentum of the planet's sudden deceleration.

A/N: Fun Fact: if the earth stops rotating, all of a sudden, we all die quite instantly.

Baptized by the blinding golden light, Vesem turned to vapor as the pillar of golden light bore through the world's crust, tearing through layers; it pierced the core, running out the other side of the world. Gravity destabilized, inverting on itself, tearing at the planet until it began to be pulled apart by the celestial bodies in space.

The Gods orbiting the planet all paused, frozen in place by the events taking place. One by one, their jaws dropped, unsure if this was really a battle between those still within the mortal realm.

Many of them had not even traced the realm of Transcendent, yet a world was dying. Magma was pooling form out of the planet's core like blood.

A shudder rippled through the darkness of space illuminated by Yarwin's yellow sun. They heard it… The sounds of crazed laughter.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA~" Roaring with laughter, Altair stood in a black fog on top of the Southern Tower, taking in the wreckage. "Beautiful!" Unsure when reality matched the hellscape of his mind, he laughed and laughed and laughed until his gut burned and his eyes teared up.

On top of the balcony, Tasha, Varquees Zagreus, and Thanatos stood, aiding the other to create a barrier that might withstand the test of the two hundred Golden Watchers imploding. Tasha herself had sunk nearly half her Nine Circles into the formation. At the same time, Varuqees has to do the same, shaken by what he is seeing.

Tears all but gathered in his eyes as he turned to Tasha. 'You promised me… You promised I'd be king… promised I'd rule. You said I'd… you said all this world would be mine…"

"But it is yours, my dear Knight of Dawn. We merely redecorated it for you,' said Tasha cruelly. "As for being a king… we gave it to you as well. Everything you wanted became yours. Not our fault, someone… "she grinned, "... ruined it."

Thanatos did not pay the knight of dawn much attention, leaping up the moment all the chaos embodied the world faded. He glanced at his crazed boy, patting his shoulder. "Save oxygen. You'll need it later. You are not at the level where you can create oxygen into your lungs via Mana."

"Who knew burning worlds could be so much fun… Thaan… do you hear it?" Altair excitingly asked.

Thaan closed an eye, nodding. "I am a god of death… yes… I can hear them all. All the souls that died. Be they devil or human. I can hear it all."

Conjuring a canvas and brush, Altair began to draw, weaving paintings that embodied the madness bleeding from out of the Black Lake that was his soul.

To mortal eyes, the souls of the dead might seem invisible, but to the Prince wielding the Eye of Sacrilege. He could see them; he could see their pained expressions, their weeping faces, as their bodies began to fade in and out of reality.

Familiar and unfamiliar with those seen within the military base echoed through his eyes as he marked them down upon his canvas of blood.

"Art is cute!" Ren giggled, hugging herself writhing like a love-sick child.

"You two got issues," Syris muttered agast.

The other lords watching all stood still, their faces blank of all emotions, so much so that Ren couldn't even begin to gauge what they were feeling but felt it her duty to throw salt into their wounds.

"I wonder how many people died? How many people died just for us to get an S-Rank skill? Damn. We don't even know if it'll be useful, but we burned an entire world to the ground. I must say… I feel kinda proud. Dead people aside.

We just blew up an entire world. Hi-five? Anyone? Just me? Syris? No?

Cool. cool."

"I got you!" Talia shouted, smacking Ren's hand. "This shit is awesome! Look down; the crater we are in is becoming a pool of magma. It's even starting to float due to the disorder of gravity. This shit is wild!"

Nia didn't quite share the same reaction, but neither did she show much concern for those felled in her Master's madness. Her eyes were poised upon the surviving Soul Kings… if there were any survivors. Ignoring space, her Dual Pupils darted about, piercing through the debris of shattered tectonic plates rising and falling, slowly becoming consumed by magma.

Her eyes narrowed upon a set of five soul kings huddled together. The bodies were scorched beyond recognition as they stood before an ancient sigil of the Crimson Spear.

"I see them," Nia said, opening her palm; she began condensing light into plasma, creating a bolt of infernal lightning into her hand.

Zagreus padded her shoulder, "Let your Master regain control. Seems he's going through something."

Nia peered up, listening to the mad laughter seeping out of her Master's lips, and shuddered.

"My first disaster!" He roared ecstatically, glaring at his painting. "I think I'll call you Cataclysm."