The floor no longer cracked.
It peeled.
Each ti Asmodeus stepped forward, the stone beneath his feet didn't shatter—it lted. Threads of black fla crawled from his soles, trailing in erratic, seething patterns. They weren't chaotic. They were deliberate like veins, branching from a single, burning heart.
phisto moved to intercept.
The god's scythe carved through the air in a sweeping arc, no wind behind it—just silence and finality. Like a curtain being drawn across a stage before the death scene.
But this ti—
It missed.
The axe struck first.
The edge didn't clash with the shaft. It crashed through it. The silver polearm scread as steel folded, twisted, and snapped. The blow forced phisto back mid-swing, one hand raised in a warding gesture—too late.
Asmodeus followed.
He didn't shout. Didn't growl. His body was too busy moving. Left shoulder rolled back. His Right knee drove upward. His elbow followed like a hamr cracking a tomb.
The force was unrefined violence. phisto reeled—robes tearing, ribs creaking under the blow.
But he didn't fall.
The God of Death caught himself with a spiral of magic so fast it sang through the room, a spiralling loop of silver rings manifesting mid-air. He twisted his wrist, and his ruined scythe reford—reshaped itself from mist and mory, surging with necrotic glyphs.
"You're adapting," he said coolly, though his mouth was wet with blood.
"You're slipping," Asmodeus replied.
Another clash.
A blow-for-blow sequence so tight it sounded like a drumline.
Scythe. Axe. Fist. Palm. The chamber quaked with each collision. phisto's spells blurred between defensive and offensive, casting sigils in the air as fast as thought, but Asmodeus didn't blink—he broke through them. One. Then another. Black fla swirled from his skin, eating enchantnts.
The god's cloak caught fire.
He spun free, ripping it from his shoulders—but the mont he landed, the temperature dropped again.
Asmodeus stood waiting.
One hand at his side, open.
The other was holding his axe loosely.
And behind him, sigils. Dozens, carved into the air like celestial script. They hovered without anchor, slow-turning and blood-red. His aura now spoke without sound.
Real magic.
Not from a chant.
From will.
phisto's eyes narrowed.
"…So you've stopped playing mortal."
"No," Asmodeus murmured.
"I've just rembered I'm not."
He stepped forward again.
The room lit up.
——
The space between them vanished.
Asmodeus pushed off the ground like a beast, trailing black fla, his axe flaring with molten runes—one hand at the haft, the other extended as dozens of sigils pulsed around him, forming a lattice of offensive patterns mid-strike.
phisto parried once.
Twice.
But the third strike cracked his guard.
A burst of pressure shot outward, bending the ruined walls of the throne chamber inward. Rubble hovered. Ti skipped—not from magic, but force. Reality took a half-second to catch up.
Asmodeus pressed harder.
Each swing of his axe ca with a spell layered underneath—heat, gravity, combustion. He didn't shout nas. He didn't chant incantations. He cast them like breathing.
A downstroke beca an eruption of force, lifting the tiles like a detonation.
A sidestep ca with a spatial fold—his body skipping ahead by two ters with a blink of shadow.
phisto was no longer calm.
His counterstrikes grew faster, aner. He switched from wide arcs to sudden jabs, using the scythe's curve to hook and pull, trying to unbalance his foe. But Asmodeus moved like he'd seen the dance before. He spun low, flared upward—his axe arcing around to slam down—
Clang.
The scythe blocked it.
But the floor cracked in half.
phisto skidded back, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. He flared with divine aura—but his hand trembled, just once.
"You shouldn't be able to push a god this far..." he muttered.
"I'm not pushing you," Asmodeus said flatly, stepping through the smoke, glowing eyes fixed like knives. "I'm ending you."
The air scread.
Both surged.
And then—a sound.
Soft. Barely audible. A tremble.
Cracks ford across the barrier protecting Riel.
Hairline fractures.
Asmodeus saw it.
Just for a mont, his focus flicked—
And phisto struck.
Not at him.
At the barrier.
A single bolt of divine energy, sharp and blue as frozen death, scread toward the wounded succubus sitting against the wall and watching him.
Asmodeus saw it.
The flicker of divine light—thin, precise, rciless—arcing past him toward the woman behind the cracked barrier.
Riel.
His world contracted.
He didn't think.
He moved.
The sigils around him erupted, dozens collapsing inward like a collapsing star, funnelling power toward his back. A burst of gravity folded space, yanking him through the smoke, his form bending ti for half a heartbeat.
But not fast enough.
The divine bolt struck the barrier.
Crack.
A spiderweb of fractures exploded across the surface.
Asmodeus landed hard in front of her, shoulder first, eyes wild, catching the next blast of energy mid-flight—his arm flaring black as he poured a shield of his own blood forward, intercepting the bolt.
It detonated.
The shockwave sent dust and smoke billowing outward, tearing fresh gashes across the stone.
Inside the smoke, Asmodeus stood hunched in front of her, breathing ragged, his right shoulder scorched, steam rising from torn flesh where his armour lted.
Riel looked up.
Eyes wide.
Lips trembling.
She reached out—
But he didn't turn to her. He didn't have the choice because phisto could attack instantly.
He stood slowly. Straightening. Raising his axe again, blood dripping from one palm, runes igniting along the haft with a slow burn.
phisto had already descended the broken platform, robes torn, eyes narrowed—not calm now, but hunting. His scythe spun lazily, tip trailing sparks as it dragged along the ground.
"You blinked," the god said.
"You flinched," Asmodeus replied.
They clashed again.
No distance now.
Just violence.
Axe to scythe. Blow for blow. Asmodeus didn't backpedal. He advanced, each strike landing with spells woven so tightly they blurred into motion—gravity ripples, explosive bursts, pinpricks of dark fla erupting on contact like volcano sparks.
phisto countered with cruel precision. His movents cut through illusions and force—his scythe parrying, redirecting, scoring along Asmodeus's ribs with a hiss of divine steel.
Blood spilt—black, burning.
But Asmodeus didn't slow.
His magic surged now, rising through his limbs like breath through a lung, not borrowed power.
His.
Pure.
Elental.
Each swing carved the throne room further open, light and fla shattering against the fractured windows, their duel painting the walls with war.
And just behind them, the barrier over Riel cracked again.
Hairline.
Fragile.
Waning.
The next mont would break it.
Unless one of them fell first.
The black fla rose.
It spiralled around Asmodeus's legs like living smoke, climbed his back like a cloak, licking his horns, tracing veins that now glowed with molten crimson. The axe burned red along its edge, humming with runes older than the walls around them.
phisto lifted his scythe in a defensive posture, guarding low, centre-line perfect.
He expected an attack.
He got an incantation.
Not spoken.
Bled.
Asmodeus dragged the edge of his thumb across the blade of his axe. A thick line of black blood oozed out, smoking in the air. He flung it forward.
It didn't splatter.
It carved.
A spear of congealed crimson tore through the air, wrapped in sigils. It scread forward, an unholy blend of kinetic force and impact compression, driving toward phisto's heart.
The god raised a shield sigil, a sphere of silver—
It cracked on impact.
Not shattered. Cracked. A divine shield.
phisto's eyes widened just slightly—too late.
Asmodeus followed behind it.
One second behind the spear. Two seconds ahead of phisto's reaction.
The axe struck from above, roaring down in a flare of gravitational backlash. phisto t it—but barely. The ground beneath them fractured into a crater, molten dust rising as stone liquified.
Riel coughed.
The crack in the barrier widened.
Asmodeus didn't retreat.
He moved like a tide.
Relentless. Wide swings of his axe battered phisto's scythe to the side.
He threw a fist into the god's ribs, following with a knee, then another black spear born from his blood.
It stabbed through phisto's shoulder.
Real pain. Divine blood.
phisto hissed—but his counterstrike was faster this ti. He spun the scythe wide, kicking Asmodeus back. Runes flared around him, silver and bone-white, pulling in the light.
"You're a monster," the god said, straightening, shoulder already healing with divine regeneration.
"I am a man," Asmodeus growled. "Who was forced to beco one."
They clashed again—but sothing was shifting.
And just as phisto prepared the next spell, a wide cleave ant to rupture Asmodeus's side—
A burst of blood spears thrust from behind Asmodeus like a volley of black javelins.
It didn't strike anyone. But it pushed phisto back, just enough for phisto's scythe to miss by a breath.
Asmodeus stepped inside.
One final twist.
And drove his axe into phisto's abdon.
Not a killing blow.
But it pinned him.
And for the first ti—
The God of Death knelt.
Not in reverence.
But in rage.
And as he did, the flesh body he inherited filled with thin, bloody cracks... as his seal broke.
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