Azazel prepared himself for every possible attack. He steeled his spirit against curses, braced his mind for spells that could rip through soul and mind alike. Whatever ca, he swore he would endure it and return it in kind. Any force that struck him would strike the Primarch of Conquest Leviathan as well. That much he was certain of.
But what ca was not an attack.
It was sothing far more horrifying.
"I am tired... so tired..."
The words were not spoken aloud. They resonated in Azazel's mind, and with them ca a wave of exhaustion so profound that even stringing a single coherent thought together felt impossible. His spirit weighed upon itself, as though chains of lead were coiled around his mind.
Then ca the panic. A gnawing apprehension that made his eyes dart in every direction, searching desperately for enemies, shadows, even phantoms. Fear surged until it beca an ocean, drowning reason, strangling breath.
And then loneliness.
Azazel had known isolation across his long existence, yet never had he felt such crushing solitude. The emptiness clawed through him with rciless precision, stripping away dignity and certainty. He felt abandoned, unmoored, cast adrift in a void where even his own essence rejected him.
The despair was absolute.
Sha followed, lashing him with mories of failure. He felt unworthy, unfit for the mission, his pride collapsing under the weight of inadequacy. Regret dug into him with venomous teeth. Self-doubt twisted his will, poisoning every thought with hesitation.
It did not stop.
Wave after wave of emotion assaulted him. Not the dark, primal hungers the Depravita were accustod to-rage, lust, pride, wrath. No, this was worse. These were the wounds mortals hid deep within: anxiety, worry, restlessness, fatigue, burnout, frustration. The quiet agonies born from harsh lives, the scars that never healed, the suffocating ache of despair that crept into the marrow of existence. These were the emotions the Ouroboros Cult had learned to purge through the Life and Death Coffin, birthing Legion from what was discarded.
And now the Scarlet King, using the fragnts of Legion he had imprisoned in the Scarlet Throne, built them into a weapon-a defensive system unlike any other.
Simple, and horrifying.
Anyone who dared step into his Soul Dinsion was forced into an ocean of despair so intense it could unravel even the strongest will, reducing spirit to ash until the very will to live was extinguished. Azazel's willpower was imnse, forged in eons of struggle. His determination was a fire that had burned longer than most worlds endured. But even he could not endure this ocean forever. His spirit was already battered by his struggle with Cain before he entered the Soul Dinsion. His strength had been whittled thin.
Now it was failing.
The dark mantle of flesh stretched across the Primarch of Conquest trembled, its strength fading, faltering.
It would have been easy for Cain to expel him, to cast Azazel's essence out into nothingness. But the light in Cain's eyes was cold, and the smile that stretched across his lips was rciless. He had no intention of letting Azazel slip away.
Leviathan's eyes glowed with scarlet brilliance. It seized the essence of the True Depravita of Sloth and refused to release it. Instead, Cain
poured his strength into binding it, fusing it, consuming it, making it a piece of himself.
"What is happening?! What are you doing!?" Azazel's voice shook, panic rising into horror. For the first ti, his composure broke. The weakness of his spirit showed in the tremor of his words.
Cain only smiled, his gaze unwavering. "It has been a long ti since I assimilated one of your kind into my Alter-Ego," he said softly, almost fondly. "This will be the first ti I do so with one still living. Do not disappoint ."
"No... you cannot-! I will not allow-! I will-"
But the words faltered. With a clear mind, Azazel could have resisted. He might have found a path to fight back, perhaps even find a way to self-destruction before assimilation. But despair and fear clamped down upon him, freezing his will. Anxiety gnawed at his strength, exhaustion dulled his spirit, and indecision chained him. By the ti he gathered resolve, it was already too late.
The Primarch of Conquest Leviathan consud him whole.
Every last fragnt of Azazel's essence was absorbed.
"BOOOOMMMM!"
Power exploded outward. Cain's Alter-Ego swelled, its form growing larger, sharper, more refined. Strength poured into it like a flood
unending.
The Scarlet King's smile widened, feral and triumphant. By devouring
the essence of the True Depravita of Sloth, he had ascended. His Ego Eternal Path of Power surged upward, finally breaking into the Middle
Mind and Soul as One.
Strength roared within him. mories not his own flooded his being -the lives, desires, and truths of Azazel himself. The temptation to explore them, to sift through the secrets and knowledge of his enemy and his abilities, was almost overwhelming. But the war was not finished. Indulgence could co later.
With a single thought, Cain pulled his mind and ego back into the real world. His eyes narrowed as they fixed upon the figure before him.
Azazel was gone.
There was no longer the imposing figure of the True Depravita standing against him. In his place remained only the husk, the hollow body of Divine Calamity-the ArchDeity had perished long ago. His body had been nothing more than a vessel for Azazel's essence, a puppet of flesh through which the True Depravita moved freely across the Nine Empyrean Suns Universe. Now that Azazel was dead, the puppet had no purpose.
Cain's gaze hardened. He had no love for Divine Calamity. The only regret he carried was that he had not been the one to kill the man himself. Without hesitation, without rcy, he pulled his left hand from the head of Divine Calamity's corpse. The body crumbled in an instant, breaking apart into motes of dust, scattering into nothing.
"My breakthrough will allow to endure Resurrección a little longer," Cain thought, his gaze sharpening with ruthless clarity. "But I must finish this quickly."
Just as those thoughts crossed Cain's mind, his eyes flicked back toward the world, and flesh of worry appeared in them.
User Comments
0 comments from readers