by Eric Vall
All three of these things happened simultaneously, and pandemonium broke out through the ranks of the Elders as they rushed to get out of the way of our impromptu attack. Rana, Annalise, Carmedy, Morrigan, and Haruhi fanned out around me, and I raised my eyes toward the monstrous mix of the Elders before me.
I glanced down at the God Slayer then back up at the beast right as I heard my father’s laughter ring in my ears. He was mocking me, just as he always did, and I stood up a little straighter as his voice boom all around us.
“You were always the one to pick mortals over your own family,” Chirus laughed in his oaky, deep voice that made my rage boil over in the pit of my stomach. “Look at you, wielding that little toothpick as if it will harm me. True gods don’t need weapons to aid them in battle, you should’ve learned that during your time in the heavens Kazama, but like always, you never listened or obeyed those higher than you.”
“You’re intimidated by my power, aren’t you, father?” I chuckled as I shook my head. “That’s why you want me to discard my holy weapon, isn’t it? You’re afraid of me, as you always were. I was more powerful than you in the heavens, and my abilities surpass yours even now. If it is a fair fight that you want, then I will oblige, but I will warn you, I will not hold back or show you any mercy.”
I scoffed in disgust as I slid the polearm back into my void pocket and lifted both free hands in front of me.
“Afraid? Of you?” My father chortled deep in the back of his throat, but from his tone, I knew what I said was true. “I merely didn’t want you to embarrass yourself while using that sad, little pig-sticker.”
“I don’t think Otia thought it was a little pig-sticker when I sliced through his flesh and ripped his godly powers from his weak body.” I snarled back, and silence enveloped the both of us for a moment.
“I care not what you did with Otia,” my father snapped back as yellow light surrounded the massive Elder standing in front of me. “He was a pawn standing in my way, he had to be taken out for the better of the heavens.”
“Enough talking,” I growled as I summoned up all the powers given to me from other gods. “If it is a fight you want, then so be it.”
I raised my hands high over my head as black and amethyst curled from my palms. I brought my right hand back, curled it into a fist, and slammed it into the swirling energy above. The multicolored power elongated into a sharp blade and shot through the air with a crackle of electricity. Yellow sparks snapped in the air as the power cut through the heated air and slammed directly into the Elder’s malformed chest. The force of my strike forced the monstrous beast back, and it cried out in pain as it staggered. Blood dripped from the open wound onto the marble floor, but lumpy flesh around the slice rippled and quickly healed itself.
I grunted in frustration, but then my eyes widened in horror as the creature lifted a hand, and a glowing orange orb of power formed in its palm. I retreated, but it was too late as the sphere blasted forward and hit me directly in the middle of my chest. Pain rippled through my body, and I flipped backward from the impact. I landed on my feet, bent my knees, and used one hand to steady myself as I raised my eyes to the Elders. I breathed heavily and felt liquid drip from the corner of my mouth.
I wiped it away and glanced down at my fingers. Blood dripped from my mouth, and my eyes widened even more. No other god could lay a hand on me, I’d never been injured or hurt in any other fight, and this was the very first time another god had put a mark on me. No other deity could hold their own against me, and I wiped at my split lip once more. I felt it for the first time in my life on earth, pleasure…adrenaline racing through my veins, endorphins flooding my brain.
My father, the only god who could fight against me and had actually landed a hit on me through this avatar. The monstrous creature lumbered forward as a strange sound roared up its malformed throat. The Elders were laughing all at once, and I lowered my head as my chest heaved with a strange, insane laughter that reminded me of Ruituri.
“Why are you laughing, you bastard?” my father screamed as the Elder’s solid foot boomed against the marble floor. “Are you admitting defeat so quickly? We haven’t even started yet, my boy.”
I raised my head as more chuckles spilled from my lips, and my eyes rolled in their sockets madly.
“This is going to be so much fun, father.” I grinned wickedly as I rose to my full height and lifted both gloved hands to my sides. “I haven’t felt challenged in thousands of years, finally, an opponent worthy of one hundred percent of my power!”
Despite the massive battle between my minions and the mages going on all around me, I felt an ethereal sense of calm settle over me as I let my power wash over me, and I took a step toward the combined Elders. Black energy surrounded my entire armor-clad form, and I breathed in deeply as the ground cracked underneath me with each step I took. Red flames licked up from the cracks, and sulfur-rich smoke flowed out as all the powers given to me in the Underworld rushed into my body. The cracks behind me widened, and unworldly forms crawled through. Demons and other fiends raced to the surface, tearing out of the portals I’d created for them.
In one swift movement, I threw my hands palm down in the air, and then ripped them back up. The ground underneath the monstrous creature broke, and effortlessly I lifted it into the air. Black energy surrounded its body as I smirked, closed my fist, and slammed it down through the air. The creature hit the floor with an earth-shattering crack, and more blood streaked its mauve flesh.
Before the creature could regenerate, I ripped my hand backward, brought the Elders closer in a blink of the eye, and smashed my fist forward into its flesh. My punch hit, and I felt the combined bones of each Elder snap under my force. The skin of the combined mages rippled and then tore as I gripped my fist tighter. I smashed the Elders back into the cracked ground and dove forward as black power encapsulated my hands.
I loomed over the Elders and felt a need rise from the pit of my belly. Something I hadn’t felt since I’d left the Underworld. My name was Kazama, destroyer of worlds, eater of souls and that’s exactly what I was about to do. I jerked my right hand forward over the beast’s chest and felt all five of its souls shiver and rise to the surface. Light glowed from the middle of its chest, and a single soul rose from the depths. I snatched it up and slammed it into the center of my chest as laughter bubbled up my throat.
“No!” Chirus screamed as the right arm of the Elders darkened and lost all movement.
The Elder’s left arm shot up and closed over my right shoulder. Fire blazed through my veins, and I roared in pain. Annalise froze and screamed in horror with her swords buried in the chest of a mage.
“Don’t! Stay where you are!” I shouted to her as I ripped away from my father’s power.
The high queen nodded once and disappeared back into the fray as I faced off with the Elders. The creature painfully stood to its feet, the wounds I’d inflicted warbling and shifting but unable to heal fully this time. I grinned up into its crude face as if it were my father and cracked my neck twice. I hadn’t even begun to play with him yet, and he was nearly breaking from my force.
I’d lost all sensation in my left arm, and I shook it until I was able to curl my fingers into my palm. I scoffed at the combined Elder’s might, they’d lost one of their own and could barely stand on their crude feet. The Elder’s discolored right arm swung limply from its shoulder socket, but it ignored it and lifted its right arm as it aimed another much larger orange sphere in my direction.
The orb shot out, swirled through the air, and I leaped out of the way. I snorted softly as the sphere changed direction, shooting sparks as it followed my movement. Right as it was about to hit, I brought both of my arms up in front of my torso and blasted out my own orb of black magic. The swirling globe of black swallowed up the orange and ricocheted back toward the mages. My power grew even larger, morphing, and expanding as it grew closer to the Elders.
The blackened orb slammed into the left side of t
he beast’s chest and ripped it backward into the destroyed wall. As the dust settled, I strode forward with my hands held out in front of me. I could barely make out the silhouette of the creature as I came closer and before I could move, it blasted out of the settling dust. It was about to hit me as I grinned hatefully and pushed all of my dark energy outward. I blasted upward into the air as a transparent circle of violet and midnight black surrounded me.
I brought my hands together and intertwined my fingers against each other as I closed my eyes. I sensed each beating heart around me and each soul releasing into the spirit realm as my minions slaughtered every mage in sight. Each of them was powerful in their own way, and I was glad they aided me during these times. They would do anything for me, and now, I needed to show that their trust in me was well placed.
I compressed all of my power around me and snapped my eyes open as I glared down at the gooey beast below me. His wounds bled profusely, and in the back of my mind, I could hear my father growling angrily. He was losing, and we both knew it. There was no stopping this, I was too powerful for him to take on anymore, and he lent too much of his power to the Elders thinking that they’d win effortlessly.
I brought my clasped hands over my head as the Elders stood directly beneath me, and I grinned at their stupidity. I called up each power to me, and they combined in the small space between my palms. The black orb surrounding my body warbled as I flew downward through the air. My long hair whipped out behind me as I felt more laughter rip up my throat.
I slammed my hands down in the middle of the Elder’s crudely formed crown, and I felt it crack with my force. My body continued down as the black sphere surrounded the Elders, and I ripped my hands free as the orb consumed their entire form. The beast screamed in pain as scarlet blood poured from its head and stumbled forward with obscured eyes. I placed my hands palm to palm parallel to my body, rooted my feet, and slammed my overlaid hands forward like a spear. The tips of my fingers entered into the orb at the same time, and the powers surrounding the Elders crackled with life.
Electricity was heavy in the air as each of my abilities attacked the combined Elders, and the beast roared in agony as it stumbled backward. The orb shifted but didn’t dissipate from around the creature, and I strode after them as I lifted both palms on either side of me and bright blue flames appeared in their centers. My eyes narrowed on the struggling form of the Elders as they shot out a sphere or orange power, but this was much weaker than before. The orb fizzled out weakly right as it reached me, and I walked right through it with a trail of smoke and yellow sparks.
I stalked toward the Elders, and it fell backward onto a pile of rubble from the destroyed wall. The creature brought up its malformed hands in front of its body feebly, its strength was waning, and my father’s power was quickly weakening from the heavens. I grinned down at its broken body as spare limbs sprouted from various points of its misshapen chest. The Elders couldn’t hold their form anymore without my father’s aid, and he was pulling back now. He knew that the fight was over, and I’d won.
I loomed over the fallen Elders and stared into the distorted face as eight human eyes rose to the surface of the gooey-looking flesh. They all stared up at me and pleaded for mercy, but I only scoffed in disgust. The left-arm lifted slowly and tensed for a moment as a tiny orb of sickly yellow power formed, but it quickly fizzled out of existence as the hand flopped back to the floor. The creature’s chest rose and fell heavily as my father retracted his power, and slowly, the bodies of the Elders began to separate from each other.
I glared down into the glowing orange eyes of the mages as my father looked through them, and I smiled down at him as I raised my hand above their struggling bodies.
“Face it, father,” I purred at him through a wide grin. “You are weak, and those weaker than me must be culled. You may be my blood and bone, but you are no exception. Yield to me, or you and all other gods will be destroyed.”
“You are not my son, you were born an abomination, and I scorned you from the moment you entered this world,” Chirus whispered through labored breath. “The heavens will never fall to you, I can guarantee that.”
“You say these things while your avatar struggles to breathe, father, are you so sure?” I inquired as I leaned close to the mage’s eyes. “Haven’t you already learned that anything that stands in my way will be destroyed? All the gods that died at my hands, each nation under my control and finally, the Holy Order falling to my power. Do you really think the heavens will not be next? I can promise you they will, and I will be victorious over all.”
“You’ve always been a cocky little shit with the confidence of a much more powerful god, Kazama; it was the only quality I ever admired about you.” Chirus coughed, and I smiled even wider.
“Thank you,” I snarked, and the Elder’s expression soured beneath me.
“It wasn’t a compliment, you bastard.” my father growled, but I could sense that he barely had the strength to keep hold over the mages.
I rose to my full height, breathed in deeply and clenched my hand into a fist as I called out all four of the remaining souls from within. They rushed to the surface and right as they were about to break the surface, I glared down into their glossy eyes.
“Goodbye for now, father,” I growled as I sucked the souls free of the twisted body. “I’ll see you very soon, and then I’ll destroy you.”
Chapter Ten
I loomed over the dead Elders as their bodies slowly separated. I breathed in heavily through my open mouth and felt all of my energy fade at once. I turned on my heel as my minions took out the last few remaining men. Haruhi rested on a single knee, her left eye squeezed shut as she held her arms crossed over each other. The sage pulled the trigger on her golden pistols, and the explosions that came after were deafening and echoed against the walls of the expansive room.
Annalise ripped Bloodscale free from a corpse splayed out on the marble floor and lifted her eyes in my direction. The high queen used her forearm to wipe away sweat from her brow and gave me a weary smile.
Carmedy raced around the room, small bundles flying through the air as she landed smoking bombs around the feet of the last few huddled mages. Each packet detonated with such force that it threw the defenseless men into the air as their limbs were torn free from their bodies. The alchemist slowed to a stop and surveyed the carnage she’d left in her path as she sighed softly.
Rana’s red and black-tipped tail whipped through the air as she whirled around and noticed there were no more enemies surrounding her. The fox grinned widely and used a spare strip of cloth hanging from her waist to wipe the blade of the Eye of Alipsis clean. The redhead rested the sword against her right shoulder and sauntered over.
A soft crackling reached our ears, and we all turned to watch as Heijing slowly returned to her human form. The Qianlong stumbled, blood dripping from a small cut on her soft, round cheek. I strode toward her, mustering all of my strength to keep going and grabbed onto her before she fell.
“Heijing!” Morrigan cried as she lowered herself to the ground, and the emerald light surrounding her thin form dissipated.
All of my minions dropped their weapons at once, and they clattered loudly against the blood smattered floor. They raced over toward us and looked into the Qianlong’s pale face. Heijing managed a weak smile and batted at the air with a tiny hand to tell them she was alright. Her icy blue eyes met mine, and they softened as she clung to me for strength.
“Please, don’t worry,” Heijing assured them as she took Morrigan’s cool, slender hand into hers. “I’m fine, just a little winded.”
“You’re hurt,” Carmedy shook her head as she dropped her overstuffed pack to the ground and rummaged through it with determination. “Hold on; I’ll fix you right up. Just give me a sec.”
“No, it’s okay, I’ll be fine.” The Qianlong nodded, but I hooked a gloved finger under her cheek and examined the still bleeding cut there.
“No, we should heal
it right away,” I told her as I used the pad of my thumb to wipe away the scarlet liquid. “It’ll scar and ruin your beautiful face.”
Heijing closed her mouth with a snap, turned away from me, and blushed profusely. I chuckled deep in the back of my throat as I breathed in deeply through my nose. I stayed strong at this moment, I didn’t want my women who only saw me at my best, see me weak and exhausted from my battle against my father. I had to wait until we finished here in the inner sanctum and I was allowed to rest in my private tent, only then would I rest and recuperate from the battle.
“But…what if we didn’t heal it and Heijing had a really badass scar?” Rana offered through a smirk as she looked between me and the tired dragon. “Come on, you have to admit, it’d be pretty awesome. She’s already pretty intimidating on her own but with a scar? No one would dare say a word to her.”
“No,” Carmedy said in a firm voice as she pulled out a small wooden bowl and a few glass jars filled with yellow and blue liquids. “Like Master said, Heijing is too pretty to let her scar over like that, and I’m going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The feline’s paws moved in a flurry as she grabbed more dried ingredients from her pack and hastily began pouring them into the bowl. Carmedy was in her element here as she mixed together a complicated potion and slowly as she mixed the liquids and powders, it turned green and gave off a sweet, floral fragrance. Carmedy leaned her face close to the bowl, dipped a paw in for the teeniest amount and brought it to her mouth. The alchemist licked it off, scrunched up her nose and thought for a minute before she dabbled in a pearly looking concentrate. She repeated the action as she dipped her paw in, but this time she nodded, satisfied with the result.
Carmedy quickly stood to her feet and hustled over to the Qianlong. The alchemist lifted the small wooden spoon she used to mix it all. The back of the utensil was coated in the green mixture, and she slathered it against the clean cut on Heijing’s face.
