by Ryan Johnson
“Valverno!” shouted Marina’s voice.
Valverno’s ears moved slightly when his name was called out from the sky. He turned to Flarefur flapping down near him, and he was still carrying Marina on him.
From the sky, the thousands of creatures that went with Marina back with and regrouped with the other many thousands of Dragons, Griffins, and Pegasi flying beneath the swirling black-red clouds.
“What is it, Marina?” he asked her.
“It worse than I thought. The capital city is completely gone. Wiped off the face of the map. Flat like a cookie. The people who lived there are trapped in cages and chained to the ground, inhaling toxic dust and ash from the ground. Lusìvar sits atop a large mountain with a large throne made of volcanic rock. And he has hundreds of thousands of creatures at his disposal.”
“So, he wants us to come to him,” said Monico. “We came this far, and we might as well end it.”
“I agree,” said Flavius.
“I’ve always had the right to rule this island, but there will be no ruling if he isn’t killed,” said Teutates.
“I hate to go ahead and see how we’re at a disadvantage, but we have come this far. This war ends today, and I guess it is about noon now. We fight to the death, or we surrender ourselves. I won’t have mortals chained and caged, and I’d rather see them set free and be free. Let’s free the Mortal Realm and kill the Demon Prince.”
Then Valverno flew into the sky and looked upon the tens of thousands of soldiers. “Now is the time, everyone! Mortals of the Mortal Realm. This fight will be the determination of our lives. And I assure it won’t go by in any life if you run away in fear, letting fear get the best of you. But I won’t give up, because I have come this close to see this day through!
“And I’m flying forward to meet our enemy head-on. There might be a day when the bravery of all mortals will fail, but it is won’t be tonight nor tomorrow. If we act tougher than them, then we shall rise!
“Every swing of a sword or a casting of a magic spell will be will mean disaster will not fall upon us, but on our enemy. We will break the will of the Demon Prince and win victory. And I say to you that every mortal knew for the longest of time: you must be headstrong. If we want to be free mortals in a free world, then we must fight to stay free! Let him know it is he who must fear us, and let no evil forget how threatening we can be when we mortals feel threatened!
“We go to battle, not to surrender but to victory or death; that’s way of our lives! Mortals, we will show let our enemy that he may take our lands, our lives, or our loved ones, but he’ll never take our faith of our humanity!”
Then Valverno lifted up the Crystal Sword and shot a beam toward the sky, which lit a bright light like the sun flickering within the black clouds. Much of the blue sky came into view, with only a larger portion stuck behind black clouds swarming from the east.
There were cries of cheers spreading far and wide as Valverno can see. Pounds of spears crushing the ground. Growls from the creatures flying overhead joined in unison the humans’ cheers. Monico, Flavius, Teutates, and Marina joined in the fray of endlessly cheering.
Valverno smiled big as all the human warriors cheered for the demigod. “Forward, march!” Then he turned to the east and flew toward in the direction. His army, both humans and the Unicorns and Centaurs, aligned in battle formations and proceeded to march behind Valverno.
The Dragons, Griffins, and Pegasi formed in triangular positions in the sky and flew ahead of the group; the Fairies separated into smaller group to shield the flyers. Marina joined them in the sky and the archers on each of the flying creatures gave a loud of cheers.
They all marched and flew toward the central part of Shimabellia, and they marched with heavy hearts.
Valverno and his army halted at the sight where the capital city used to stand. The capital city no longer sits atop the land it was built on, and it was no longer there. The square-shaped city was destroyed with no ruins to see.
In its place, a large black hill stood big and lean like a large pile of a hundred dead Dragons. There was a long spiked throne made of black obsidian. On the throne sat none other than the new Demon Prince Lusìvar. He sat upon his throne with a closed-eye look and laid out a scabbard on his lap. He held his head on his right hand, which leaned on an armrest on his dreadful throne.
At the base of the hill, more than a hundred thousand people were chained. A foot-long set of chains buckled each person’s neck and legs within less than foot. The crowd of chained humans was almost naked dressed with small black, torn clothes. Many of the people who once lived in the capital city as the wealthiest nobles now laid bare sitting on the ground with nothing but chains and a single piece of cloth.
This sight angered Valverno greatly, and he jumped and landed at the base of the hill. His landing sent a massive tremor throughout the crowd of chained humans. Their chains broke and their dead-looking faces gazed upon the demigod’s scales that shined like a ray of sunlight. Valverno looked at the Titan sitting upon his throne with his eyes still closed.
“I don’t get it,” said Lusìvar, with his eyes still closed. “I shot your heart. I killed your precious Siren and your three kids. I watched you as you fell into the dark abyss beneath the raging waves of the raging water where the Titans were held prisoners. You should be dead. How did you come back?”
“You killed the Demon Prince Vaeludar, the Destroyer of the First Generation and the Titans. You didn’t to kill the Demigod. He was still sleeping. All this time, from being raised in Geraldus village to bathing in the Pool of Shadows and toward a three-year reign, I was known as the Demon Prince Vaeludar, never a demigod. Now, I am. You killed the Demon for the Demigod to awaken.”
“I guess I should have cut off your head instead.”
“You should have killed me the first time around instead of having your fun time of tormenting me. All this time, even as a ghost, you still had the power to kill me. Instead, you decided to play with me. You had all the chances in the world, just like how I had all the chances in the world when I ruled Shimabellia for three years to get the last armor artifact. You and I both failed to take those chances we had, and here we are.”
Lusìvar opened his eyes and blared out a dark dementing yellow like the dimming red color of a red fire turning to a sun-colored flame. He remained in his seat and looked down from his throne to see the hybrid standing at the hill’s base. “And here you are, with an army behind you. All armed with weapons and armor forged by Dark Pangaeans the Spirit of the Devil King twisted and corrupted. Still, it is not enough to face against my armor of five hundred thousand of creatures.”
From the surroundings of distant hills, loud growls, grunts, groans, and roars shouted and plundered in the air. Thousands of monsters appeared surrounding the hill, the throne, and the army behind Valverno.
“And how many do you have? Close to a hundred thousand human soldiers? Close to ninety thousand from what I sense. And I sense you have about twenty or thirty thousand creatures at your command. Ten thousand in the air and the rest on the ground, which I can sense their presences. And you also have three White Knights, and the forth remains elusive from my mind.
“But no matter. You’re hopelessly outnumbered. The weapons and armor your armor has may last against at least against two hundred thousand of my forces, but they will swarmed up like a swarm of bees surrounding their queen but only to slay the queen.”
Then Valverno spat in many spots away the field and made holes filled with water rising up. Then heads of Sea Serpents pouted out from the hole that turned out to be waterholes. About fifty popped from the waterholes and japed on an evil creature.
“Is that the best of better you got? Some seafood?” laughed Lusìvar.
“And that is not all, Demon Prince,” said Valverno, smirking. The demigod raised his hands, and the ground started to shake so suddenly miles around the field and
the creatures surrounding Valverno’s army, the throne, and the Demigod and Demon Prince.
Then Valverno jumped back to his army and snapped his fingers. A large barrier warped around him and his army. It was large navy bubble, something he remembered his mother placed him and his sister in when Pangaea face its doom. The barrier lifted the entire army from the ground as they watched something rise from the ground.
And the humans that freed were also had a giant barrier created for them, but not made from Valverno. Someone else created the barrier and that barrier rose into the air, carrying all one hundred thousand humans.
A rumple of a tower stretched from the ground as with a thousand more. Stone marble buildings grew from the ground like people rising from their graves. About a hundred miles in length, many buildings and large stone houses emerged from the ground. The hill that sat Lusìvar’s throne also moved into the air, with Lusìvar still seating on the throne.
Valverno casted up his home city from the ground, and it grew higher and higher by the second. The city took up hundreds of miles of open terrain.
After an earth-shattering of the massive Pangaean city rising from its underground grave and back to the surface, the majority of the city’s buildings emerged away from the crumpling field northward, destroying the northern line of evil creatures.
The barrier holding the free humans was brought to the furthest northern part of the risen city. The second barrier holding Valverno’s ground forces moved back into the positon of the large city’s southern outskirts of where no buildings stood. Valverno flew back to the base of moving Lusìvar’s hill and looked straight up at him.
“Now, you’ll get to taste some sweet bitterness from some Pangaeans,” Valverno warned his enemy.
“The Pangaeans? The Pangaeans are all dead! They died when their homeland was destroyed, the land of which I destroyed.”
Valverno smiled big. “You only destroyed the land, but you failed to destroy the people.” Then Valverno whipped his tail land and an army of war screams screeched from the city’s buildings that stood to the north of Valverno and his army, and they didn’t sound like human voices.
From the city, a thousand golden lights swarmed into the air, soared through the air like an army of shooting stars, and landed down toward the south where other evil creatures stood; loud screeches echoed from afar.
Then the flying lights that swarmed to the south rose again and started to fly in different directions. A thousand war cries screeched the air again, and shadowy figures started to charge from the shadows of the buildings of the Pangaean city. First, there a few hundred silhouettes running from the city’s southern buildings and grew to a bigger crowd to reveal themselves as demihumans.
Ganymede and Sora led ahead of the surprising army of demihumans running alongside more than two hundred Elves and five hundred Amazons. The flying lights that soared through the sky went down to the charging Elves that appeared as flying, magical, golden arrows, and the Elves jumped to grab back their arrows and ready to shoot another round of their magic arrows.
Surprisingly, there were more than seven hundred Pangaeans running from the Pangaean city Valverno brought back to the surface. Ganymede joined up with Valverno and the army of thousands of Pangaeans joining forces with Valverno’s forces on the ground.
“How many are there?” asked Valverno. “I thought there were only seven hundred.”
“More survived than you can count, stepson. Ten thousand Pangaeans still live, and we are aching for payback for what Lusìvar has done to our families and my wife. One thousand Amazons, one thousand Elves, one thousand Dwarves, five hundred Tokagehebi, and six thousand five hundred demihumans are here, and they will join the other mortals fighting for freedom. They will hold off the evil creatures while we deal with Lusìvar and his Shadow Men.”
“I thought there were only a thousand in the settlement.”
“On the surface, stepson. The others lived underground for the longest, and we kept our presence hidden, in case of the Shadow King try to find our whereabouts. So, a few of us remained of the surface and keep others safe. The settlement was a safeguard to another settlement deep below the surface settled in another underground city. Now, let’s end this new Demon Prince!”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said Sora, holding up her bright knives.
“What?” Lusìvar muttered. “This is impossible? You’re all supposed to be dead!”
“And me!” shouted Marina’s voice. The Siren jumped down and landed beside Lusìvar, with a silver-made bow and a magic arrow pulled on an energy-beaming string.
“The Siren? You’re also supposed to be dead!”
“All thanks to my husband who gave half his heart to bring me back from the dead,” said Marina.
Valverno slightly scratched his white uniform and a fainted glow from within: a half heart still beating. “Things I do for love, of which you can never kill. You may kill the body, but you can’t kill the feeling.”
From behind the group, Monico, Flavius, and Teutates and joined up with Sora, Valverno, Marina and Ganymede. The four White Knights, a Wizard, a Siren, and a Demigod were up against a Demon Prince. Then four black figures come behind their leader.
The four Shadow Men were dressed in black hollow armor. Each carried a different weapon-shaped spear and wore different horned helmets. Each lightly clocked and dressed in black drapes. No faces were shown as too they once were.
“This ends today, which means your reign is over, Lusìvar,” shouted Ganymede. “And about you tell my stepson and my daughter of what you did to their mother, Fallen Titan? Tell them what you did while killing her slowly? The look you gave her when you violated her, even after she was dead.”
“I did no such thing, Pangaean!” Lusìvar argued, drawing out his red sword. His eyes flared with anger and hatred. “You are such a lair. I gave her a painless death.”
“Then how would you explain that you laughed as you whipped my mother’s body into pieces while being alive, Demon Prince, as she cried out in agony and you?” Valverno shouted at Lusìvar.
“You did not… torture my mother to death?” said Sora.
“Yes, he did and I’ll show it to everyone of what kind of lying Demon you are!” Valverno swung the Crystal Sword in the air and a thin line stretched in the air. A cloud was formed and showed a giant landmass sinking into a giant maelstrom and one black cloud stabbing and piercing through a woman’s body in many different angles: the tormented death of Celestreá la Mùne.
Then the dead body was thrown into the maelstrom and Celestreá la Mùne’s angelic, mortal body was still poked and stabbed by Lusìvar’s ghostly form, laughing evilly as he taunted the dead Angel Warrior she saved her children, but not herself.
Then the memory faded when Valverno swung his sword again and shouted, “Murderer. You gave my wife and my three kids painless deaths, but my mother tormented before and after death!”
Sora’s face flash in anger. “Demon Monster!” she yelled.
Lusìvar growled loudly. “This has grown irritating! Kill them all!” he shouted at his minions.
Then his four Shadow Men in the black armor and all the evil creatures surrounding Valverno’s forces and the ten thousand Pangaeans charged.
“Slay the Demons and send them back to hell!” shouted Valverno, his voice echoing to his soldiers and Pangaeans; his army took to heart the command Valverno gave and charged back at the evil creatures.
The four White Knights to meet the four Shadow Men on the hill and flashed and banged their weapons. Marina jumped away and fired arrows from her bow at the four Shadow Men fighting against the four White Knights. Ganymede turned away and blew his magic staff at a thousand Hobgoblins running to him.
“Brother, we’ll deal with these things; deal with that Demon Prince who deserves to die for what he has done,” said Sora.
Valverno nodded
in response and flew above his allies and the Shadow Men, and he charged toward Lusìvar atop his throne. He swung the Crystal Sword against Lusìvar’s sword.
Lusìvar clanged his bright, red-fury sword against Valverno’s brighter, blue-clouding sword; the competition of a Demon Prince and a Demigod was on!
DEMON VS DEMIGOD:
ROUND I
Valverno’s and Lusìvar’s blades pushed against the other metal blade and caused a great flashing ray of sparks flying from the clashing blades of Light and Shadow. Valverno vomited out a liquid substance of fire from his mouth directly at Lusìvar’s face; it failed to splatter onto him and shot past Lusìvar’s face.
One of his Shadow Men mysteriously jumped from the group and next to his master. Then the Shadow Man thrusted his spear on Lusìvar’s sword and added more weight to it. This made Valverno to be pushed downhill his feet stood on.
However, Sora jumped forward. She landed next to the one Shadow Man and drew his attention away from the demigod and more toward her. “Focus on me, Fallen Mortal of Shadow! Keep my brother alone with his enemy. I’ll distract him, Demigod Valverno; take care of the Demon Prince!” Sora pushed against the Shadow Man, and she shoved the minion downhill with a mighty push away from his master.
Valverno bent his legs downward and pushed Lusìvar back, thanks to his half-sister drawing away the one Shadow Man leaning a combined strength against the demigod.
With one slur of his sword, Valverno removed it and swiped back at Lusìvar’s black again and again in the greatest speed he mustered. He remembered Lusìvar’s speed when they met for the first time, with Lusìvar having his body that was after Valverno’s battle with the Snake Clan on Isla Maeli.
Valverno’s force of speed and a mighty forceful impact of clashing metal made Lusìvar walk backward and near the edge of his throne. The demigod was giving the Demon Prince a taste of his own medicine when Lusìvar did the same to him while on Isla Maeli, and the demigod wasn’t as weak as he was before.
