As the two of them hit the grass, Evodil was sent flying towards a tree with the strength of Azraem finally shoving him away. The creature was still screaming at what was now nothing with the portal closed off for good. Neither of them looked at each other as they took in their surroundings, unfamiliar for the being that had never left the void that served as its only defense and the only world it knew, but for the god of chaos, it was almost instantly clear where they were.
As he stood up, the tree behind him finally fell, rolling over a few bushes until it fell off the cliff down to the depths of Menystria below without a single sound as it disappeared into the void. He looked back as he slowly caught his breath, feeling his skin begin to stitch itself back together in a slow, painful manner that made him grunt from the sensation. The black essence of his blood flowed back inside of the wound as the shadows of the city allowed him to steadily stand with a smirk on his face.
Everything is so loud. The wind, the leaves... it is better than the silence of that void.
He looked up at the creature that was moving around like a starved, injured animal without any idea of what to even do. It suddenly looked back at him as the god stood tall, even if his stature was much shorter than its own. He finally spoke to it, his voice low and rasping.
"Are you surprised to see so much life around you? Maybe you should touch some grass. After all, you might not get a second chance to do so."
The creature didn't take the words kindly as its eye, still slightly cracked, fixed on the god and turned its hair into spikes again. Its claws were ready to attack but Evodil didn't flinch, simply sighing as he looked back, seeing everything clearer now thanks to the lack of the blindfold and the simplicity of the moonlight above them.
They were right in the front yard of his manor, the area covered by trees, bushes, and flowers that Noah had planted over the years of them being inside of this lifeless, empty city that they called their own. However, even if it was lifeless, he wasn't about to let someone without an actual soul ruin it, not even if it meant he had to die with it. Right now, all that mattered to him was victory, to show to all of them that he indeed could do it, and that he would stand proud even if it would be the last thing he did.
I will not let this thing tear down what we built. Not after everything.
He looked back at the manor's door behind them, far away in the distance, thinking about what look they must have on their faces now that they couldn't see him. The camera was still in the void and he was right there trying to make sure they didn't get killed by accident.
They probably think I am dead. Let them wait a little longer.
He extended a hand forward after another sigh, a shadowy hilt forming in his hand before a massive blade appeared. The Crypt Blade was mainly black, the hilt made to look like the thorns of a rose with the flower itself at each end of it. The handle had been etched into star-like patterns growing bigger and bigger until the start of the blade, which by itself was fully black with cryptic runes by the edge that no one other than him could understand. They glowed white against the blackness of the steel.
He let the blade pierce the ground right next to him before he lifted it onto his shoulder, smirking even wider as the creature leaned toward him, ready to snap.
"Are you ready for the biggest gambit in the history of all time?"
Azraem didn't wait for Evodil to get an attack first on it this time; instead, the creature lunged, the ground at its feet tearing apart as it tried to tackle the god. Its hands were already clawing through the air, trying to strike at his throat, right where the cold iron of the spike had been before the god, somehow, had come back from the dead and decided to ruin its holy plan. That plan was the only thing that gave its existence meaning—the drive to keep this game going for as long as it could, to avenge the humans that Evodil killed that day in the laboratory. Their souls fueled a hatred towards all the gods, all of humanity, and all life it could see but couldn't feel or comprehend. All it could do was feel the weight of the endless hate that it was forced onto during that day.
However, Evodil wasn't going to let it get a first hit in either, already mid-swing as it was going straight at him, deciding to see which one of them was stronger without a second opinion. His eyes were wide as the creature's eye was straight in front of him, glowing in the darkness of the city's dim lights and the surrounding gloom. Even the purple grass and the blue leaves on the trees were not able to rival how truly horrifying it was to look at that eye or how bright it shone, but he didn't waver. It was not the time for that, so when the creature finally had its hands just less than a meter away from his throat—a distance it could close in a second—he finally swung the blade.
The effect was instant. The creature's lower half was separated from its upper half as the legs fell toward the grass and the torso with the head fell toward Evodil. However, it was not the end of the effect. The blade's power, which hasn't been used since Evodil's visit to the great white void in the courtyard where he split the fabric of reality, activated. The strike carved through everything in its path: the distant mountains that covered Menystria, the trees, the floating islands, and even the gate of the city itself were sliced clean through. As they began to fall around them, Evodil's white irises inside the darkness of his eye holes widened until they almost took up every inch of dark space there was.
"God damn it!"
He yelled out the curse and dodged the falling body of the creature, making sure it didn't land on him as rubble began to fall down toward the void. Most of it hit the abandoned buildings, but many floating islands were taken down into the darkness of the 80-kilometer drop down the crater. The blade disappeared into nothingness as he let it go.
He stared at the mountain tops sliding from the stumps that were left, crushing floating islands that were already falling below. Trees and buildings that took years to build and could host refugees of the curse were going down, some perhaps still filled with stray humans that didn't know what would happen here today. His body went stiff as he tried to think of what he could even do.
I cut too much. I didn't mean to take the mountains with him.
He continued to stare at the ruin of his own actions, already knowing what the effects of this would bring to the entire underground district of Menystria. Even if it did bring ruin to their city, it still meant that everything was over. The cost was great; everyone in the underground could die and humanity could truly be wiped out, but if it meant that it was gone, then everything he did wasn't for nothing after all. Even if he was a slave to someone who thought of his life as nothing but a story to be told to higher beings, he was still a winner in his own right, and that was all that mattered to him.
If this is how the story ends, let the pages burn. I'm done playing my part.
However, even this victory was short. Right behind him, the creature he thought was already dead started to stir. The darkness of the city did not choose who to heal, having no favorites but doing what it was told to do by the two beings that seemed to be able to command it at will. Azraem stood again as Evodil turned, his eyes back to tiny speckles of white inside the void of his sockets. He reached out to summon the Crypt Blade again, but before he could, the creature grabbed him by the scarf. It smashed his face into the dirt to daze him before lifting the god up toward its face. Its gigantic, single eye stared him down as it tilted its head with a sickening crack of bone.
It spoke to him, the words vibrating directly into his mind. "Do you think you are right? Do you think your will is absolute? Even if you think I am the most evil being you have ever met, it means nothing. I am doing my job. And what would come after me? Something worse. There will never be a moment of peace for a god of chaos. I was creating a safe bubble for your world. You should thank me instead of fighting me."
Evodil didn't listen to a single word coming from the creature's mind. He grabbed its claw with his own hand and smirked, not faltering at all despite the blood running down his face.
"I'm getting tired of listening to this flowery, poetry bullshit. Everyone thinks they're in some grand circumstance, but they are not. All of us had to do something to survive. Ethan had to get his parents killed. Noah had to lose his lover. James had to get rid of humanity. And me? I had to die. But it wasn't the only option there was. Humanity taught me one thing: evolution's a bitch."
From Evodil's back, two shadow tendrils sprung forth. He was still dazed from getting his skull smashed against the ground, but it was enough. Azraem flung him toward another tree, though he missed and almost sent Evodil over the cliff's edge. One of the tendrils lashed out, flinging him back to a steady stance on the ground while the other slashed through Azraem's torso. The creature's lower mouth, full of endless rows of teeth below its jaw, revealed itself as it screamed. The god of chaos seemed to enjoy the sound as if it were the best song on his favorite album.
He extended a hand forward. Seemingly out of nowhere, a mask with four eyeholes and jagged spikes at the ends appeared. He hesitated for a fraction of a second as he slowly began to bring it closer to his face. If what F said about the palace was true, this thing might be able to help me finally defeat this freak. Right before he put it on, he looked at Azraem one last time, no longer grinning or smirking.
"I've wondered how I'd look without wearing a human skinsuit. I've never interacted with the real world when I didn't have a physical form.. But now? I'm willing to see if that applies to you too."
As soon as the mask fits onto Evodil's face, his head becomes hairless, shifting into a dense mass of black. The four eyeholes of the mask begin to glow with a flat, white light. No pupils are visible, but Azraem feels the weight of the stare, becoming more unwary by the second as it stays there. The two gods remain motionless, waiting for the other to move, until the stillness breaks. The scared animal remains an animal, running straight at Evodil as his tendrils disappear. Evodil just stares at the lunging, seven-foot-tall monster, unbothered and steady, his body rooted to the spot as if stuck in a trance. Azraem doesn't seem to care or notice as it finally lunges forward, this time landing its grab. It slams the figure down, sending ash and dirt flying into the air until the entire area is choked with dust.
It thrashes at the body it holds, smashing it into the ground. Its free hand claws for warm flesh to tear, searching for the black blood it expects to see spill, but it finds nothing. As the dust settles, Azraem finds only a pile of bones. The empty, lifeless skull falls apart into a small heap of calcified remains, some driven deep into the dirt by the force of the attack. Azraem feels a hollow surge of confusion as it stares at the debris, not understanding what has just happened. The creature stands up, its jaw-mouth tearing open once again.
"Show yourself!" it screams, the sound echoing through the ruined yard. "You are a coward! You abandon your own body just to avoid losing to me, just like you always do! You can never win against someone who knows your true nature!"
Behind the bravado is a fear so immense it nearly blinds the creature. It senses something deeply wrong with the space around it. Before it can resharpen its focus, it feels a wave of absolute cold. Even without skin or bone, even with only hatred and pain to guide it, for a single fraction of a second, Azraem feels the primal need to run away from whatever is standing behind it. It ignores its own instincts, opting for the pride it has always held in killing the man who was now, for the first time in aeons, fighting back. It doesn't care what he has hidden.
It comes to regret that stance instantly as it turns to face something twice its size.
The figure is tall, looking like a sketch in high-contrast ink that has been shattered. Its body is a messy, black-and-white collage of patterns and ink-blots, with a giant, unblinking eye staring out from the center of its chest. Instead of a face, it wears a sharp, matte-black mask with four glowing white eyes arranged in two rows, topped with a jagged crown of thorns and stars. Its wings are a violent contradiction; one side is made of pristine, feathered white, while the other is a tattered, shadowy black. Dark, thorny vines and floating obsidian shards swirl around it constantly. It looks like a living paradox—half-holy, half-void, and completely inhuman.
It doesn't speak. It doesn't say a single word. Azraem remains silent too, its eye widening for a moment before it freezes. For the first time in its existence, it doesn't know if it should run, fight, or start to beg for mercy.
The wind howled as they both stood in what was essentially the last safe place in the entire city, a small sanctuary within a radius of two hundred and fifty kilometers of ruin. Neither of them spoke as they stared each other down. The howling grew stronger, joined by the discordant symphony of grinding stone, snapping wood, and the thunderous roar of avalanches triggered by the earlier strike. Neither acknowledged the world ending around them. They remained locked in a silent gaze, the creature that had started this cycle finally reaching the limit of its seemingly infinite knowledge. For all the timelines it had stolen from the world, it had never seen this, and its stolen wisdom was eclipsed by a presence it couldn't comprehend. Beside it, the god stood like a pillar of dominance, silent and deadly, radiating a promise of final retribution for every atrocity committed in the name of hate.
The first attack was silent, moving with a speed that made reaction nearly impossible. As soon as the monster in front of Azraem shifted, the creature moved as well, trying to track the motion, but it failed to react in time. The giant gripped Azraem by the head and threw him clean off the cliff. The force of the toss was so immense it took the remaining bushes and trees of the front yard with it, though a few stubborn roots clung to the soil. Azraem didn't move as he flew through the air, momentarily paralyzed by the sheer strength of a being that had just handled him like a toothpick. Shock quickly curdled into rage, a heat that radiated from him with enough intensity to make his eye look as if it would pop from its skull. His hair lashed out like living cables, slamming into the floating islands that still drifted in the sky to hurl himself back upward.
"You are a fool, Evodil!" Azraem screamed, his voice tearing through the wind. "Do you think a fancy trick changes anything? I will not let you win. Not now. I promised you eternal suffering and nothing else! You deserve nothing else!" His voice wavered then, a crack of existential desperation showing through the anger. "So why? Why am I always empty every time I kill you? Why does the satisfaction only last as long as you're in front of me?"
The giant didn't answer. It remained as silent as the void, turning its masked head toward the mid-air suspension of Azraem. They stared at one another in a heavy, wordless vacuum. Azraem didn't wait for another strike; instead, the lengths of hair not being used to anchor him shot out in a barrage of sharp spikes. They were aimed directly at the silent monster's chest, but they never reached it. The creature grabbed massive chunks of rubble from the ground, using them as shields so the spikes impaled the stone instead of flesh. It crouched down for a single second, tensing its massive frame, and jumped.
The jump created a shockwave that shattered the remaining windows of the manor. Its wings unfurled, catching the thin air and propelling it higher and higher. Azraem tried to use his claws to cover his eye, but the defense was useless. The giant was already there, grabbing him by the face and plunging him straight into one of the floating islands. The dark, shadowy wing sliced through Azraem's hair like a knife through butter, swift and impossibly sharp. Azraem's skull slammed into the dirt of the island with a sickening thud, the weight of the impact making the landmass double over and tilt. Before the island could crumble, the giant jumped again, seizing Azraem by the legs and hoisting him into the open air. It slammed him down face-first onto another platform. Azraem's single eye fractured, multiplying into thousands of panicked pupils as he tried to scream, but the sound was choked off when his neck was impaled on a jagged, stray piece of a boulder.
As the rock was stuck inside of Azraem's throat, the creature didn't stop. Instead, it pulled him toward itself as the dark, shadowy skin on its throat began to tear apart from the marble of its torso, making its jaw-mouth appear again. It screamed in agony, an unintelligible sound that the monster currently trying to kill it ignored completely. It pulled further and further until Azraem's head finally gave way, falling down to the purple grass as the body went limp. It did not stay that way for long; the shadows began to stir again, choosing no master and instead listening to both of the absolute monsters fighting one another. They stitched Azraem's neck back to his main body, thin thread by thin thread, as his eye became one again. He watched the creature walking off the island, not looking back at the being it just tried to destroy, simply knowing it hadn't died.
Azraem yelled at it, his voice echoing with a desperate, jagged edge. He told the creature to stop, claiming they would never be able to survive whatever came for them after he died. He insisted he was a protector, helping Evodil from the shadows, that he was the good one all along and was never understood. He said he had to listen to something, even if it was bad, because it was useful and didn't truly damage anything. After all, one life wasn't worth the cost of many, was it?
For a minute, the creature stopped. It looked down at Azraem's head, which was almost fully healed at this point. The eyes on the mask slightly narrowed before it held up the wounded being, its left hand grabbing Azraem's head while the right held him up by the legs. Finally, it opened its mouth. It was a part of the mask covered in shadow, filled with two rows of many sharp, stainless white teeth. Azraem's single eye widened as his side was brought closer to the monster's jaw, and he let out a fearful, piercing screech.
The remaining lengths of Azraem's hair finally snapped again, turning into fourteen different spikes as the creature's jaw remained open. They pierced straight into the monster's throat, spraying black essence across Azraem's marble torso. He began to laugh at the monster, calling it a foolish creature with no mind now that its human body was gone. He mocked it for being unable to feel or think, acting on pure instinct, which was nothing compared to the genius and power of a true god who could kill anything with the power of his will alone. He claimed something like the monster would never understand how to control people like puppets.
But the monster didn't answer. Not a single hiss or scream of pain came from it as the spikes turned and twisted in its throat, moving around to cause as much damage as possible. It just let them. Even as the wind swept by, even as more insults came, it stayed silent, only the black blood spraying from its open jaw.
The silence didn't last nearly as long as Azraem wanted. Right as he was about to cast another barrage of insults at the seemingly mindless creature, it finally moved. It chomped down on his torso with a bite that felt like holy water against a demon. The laugh coming from Azraem turned into a scream of agony as the marble was bitten off with disturbing precision, leaving no teeth marks as if it had been cleanly removed by a machine. The creature threw Azraem to the ground. He tried to heal the wound, but the shadows seemed unable to stitch this one; the threads disappeared right after trying to connect, wiggling uselessly. Azraem grabbed a handful of dirt, trying to crawl away as he continued to scream at the creature.
"Do you think this change makes you any less of a murderer?" Azraem spat, blood-flecked spittle flying from his jaw. "Look at you. A mindless beast. Do you think Ethan would even recognize the thing that stands over me now? Or would he just see another monster to run from? You've spent centuries pretending you're able to save them, but you're the reason they're trapped in this rotting cage!"
He dragged himself further into the dirt, his single eye fixed on the ground.
"I was the only thing keeping the balance," he went on, his voice trembling with a mix of fury and terror. "The only one who remembered every time you looked into their eyes and let them die just to see if the next loop would be better. Did you tell them yet? Did you tell them about every time you killed them with your own hands? Or do you still pretend I'm the evil one when you needed no encouragement from me at all?"
As Azraem continued to drag himself away, digging into the dirt that seemed to lead him nowhere, the monster opened its jaws again. It did not take another bite out of the wiggling being under it; instead, it let out a low growl that made Azraem stop. He turned his head back to look at the creature above him, watching a small orb of light form inside the creature's gaping jaw. Azraem tried to stand and failed, tumbling back into the dirt as the orb shone brighter and brighter. He tried to run from the impending calamity that was about to claim the island, but he could not outpace the attack already underway.
Finally, the sphere inside the monster's mouth grew to fill its open jaw completely. It let out a monstrous growl that seemed to come from deep within its chest, sounding like a thousand souls screaming into Azraem's ears. The orb turned into a beam aimed straight at Azraem's head, blowing apart everything on the island. The center of the mass began to crack as the purple grass and dark blue rock trembled and then exploded in a flash of white. The remains fell at tremendous speeds, the air whistling with the heaviness of the stone.
Before a bird could cry out or a worm in the dirt could peek from the ground, the floating island fell from the eighty-kilometer drop. It smashed into pieces as the quiet and darkness reclaimed the land once again. Not a single sound came from the rubble for a long time as the debris from above joined with the stone, wood, and dirt of the shattered island, leaving the world silent.
The creature eventually climbed out of the rubble, holding a seemingly unconscious Azraem by the legs. Its jaw was closed and covered in darkness, the four white eyes glowing in the gloom to illuminate the crater. It slammed the smaller being into the dark rock again and again as if he were a ragdoll. There was no sound other than the sharp cracks of marble against cold stone. The monster seemed unsatisfied by its inability to hear pain from Azraem, but it continued nonetheless. It threw Azraem one last time into the ground before tossing him away like a broken toy.
However, deep inside of his mind, Evodil was in the void again. His white pupils were wide as he stared at the blank landscape, knowing he hadn't died yet and shouldn't be able to go back here on his own. But there he was again. F was standing there in his robe and crown-halo, smirking at the god of chaos with his heterochromatic eyes. He looked amused to see the god back so soon. The Fallen walked up to Evodil and touched his forehead with two fingers, nudging him.
"You took too long," F said.
Evodil took a small step away, looking at the figure with suspicion.
"What do you mean by that?"
Suddenly, as the creature of white and black stood tall, towering over the limp, powerless body of Azraem, the space of the crater began to reject its presence. The coldness it radiated intensified for one final, shivering moment before the horrifying form began to shrink. The mask disappeared into nothingness, leaving only two tiny white dots on a face that had become a featureless void of black, unable to reflect even the dim light of the moon high above. The wings vanished, leaving a bare, narrow back; the legs withered from powerful limbs to simple, spindly sticks without feet—stumps that resembled a crude charcoal drawing or the brittle wood holding up a dying sapling.
He was little now—a tiny shade, three times smaller than the giant he had been. He was nothing more than a silhouette that could be squashed by the smallest amount of power.
That tiny amount of power was exactly what Azraem had left. The being stood up, his single eye flickering through a dizzying cycle—from millions of white dots to thousands, then hundreds, then tens, until finally, a single, bloodshot eye stared down at the pathetic thing that had once been a god. Evodil was out of steam, out of control, and out of hosts. Without a physical body to anchor him, he could only watch as Azraem approached.
Azraem looked down at the weak creature, his jaw unhinging to reveal rows of jagged teeth. Using the last of his strength, he lunged forward and snatched Evodil by the throat, hoisting the tiny shade up to eye level.
"Was it worth it?" Azraem asked, his voice a distorted rasp. "This little play of power? You wasted time and ruined the world you had left—almost perfect, almost untouched—and you shattered it just for a useless, wasted chance at killing me."
Evodil couldn't answer. In this diminished form, his voice was gone. Azraem realized this, and his mouth twisted into a sharp, predatory smirk. He let out a hollow, mocking laugh that held no amusement. He leaned his head closer to Evodil's flickering face, his voice shifting into a tired, emotionless drone.
"You will never change."
Then, his voice snapped into a rigid, localized fury, vibrating with rage. "Give up on ever escaping! Give up on the loops!"
Finally, the tone shifted again, becoming slurred and overly emotional, almost like a drunk mourning a lost friend. "You could never save anyone, Evodil... other than your own pride."
Azraem began to squeeze, his claws sinking into the shadow-matter of Evodil's throat. The injury he couldn't heal before began to fill with the ambient shadows of the crater floor, fueling his final act. He opened his mouth wide, leaning Evodil's head toward the dark gullet, ready to swallow the shade whole as the tiny form thrashed uselessly in his grip.
At the top of the cliff, in the Manor's front yard, a single figure stood watching.
He clutched a bundle of bones in his hand—remains welted together by the pure, artificial heat of a sun that no longer shone. In his left hand, he held a single cigarette. He took a long, slow puff, watching as a flake of ash drifted down onto his navy suit. He groaned, flicking the cigarette away with a look of pure irritation.
Even with his shades on, his orange eyes pierced through the eighty kilometers of darkness and debris. He stepped closer to the jagged edge of the ground, looking down at the two "gods" at the bottom of the pit.
"You always ruin my plans whenever you come by," James mumbled under his breath, his voice dry and weary. "So, this time... I think I'll ruin his plan to fight that thing solo."
James grabbed the skeleton he welded by the skull, sighing as he looked down at the darkness below. He calculated silently how much time it would take him to reach the two gods under him before he finally leaned forward and began to fall into the darkness as well. He extended his other hand forward as his Warhammer materialized, the hot magma settling heavily into his grip. He picked up more and more speed as he faced the ground, rotating his body slowly. He controlled his own mass to allow himself to speed up, falling faster and faster until he became a deadly yellow beam traveling through the utter darkness of the Menystrian crater. The air hissed with the extreme temperature he was radiating onto the ground and the space around him. He could hear, or rather not hear, Evodil's annoying voice that usually drove him insane. Instead, he heard a distorted mix of what sounded like his own voice, Jasper's, and Noah's. It made his eyes narrow behind his shades. What type of creature would even dare to mimic the God of Law? The sheer thought of being placed below someone made his golden blood boil hotter than any volcano in the world could.
He finally caught sight of his own younger brother being hoisted up by a creature that looked absolutely disgusting to him. The visual alone made every instinct in his mind want to erase it from the world completely. He felt an overwhelming urge to write a new law specifically about not being allowed to have a torso made of white marble, limbs covered in black flames, or an eye that radiated such pure evil and lawlessness.
He landed about thirty meters away from them, looking at the scene just as Azraem was about to bite down on Evodil's shade form and crush his skull to kill him. James was not about to let it happen again. Even if he hadn't seen the other one hundred and sixty-six times it had happened, he remembered the one time his brother died in front of him. Even if they didn't understand each other, and even if they were always against each other in the most trivial of things, he wasn't about to let it happen again. He wasn't going to let anyone else lose their life today. That was his word, and his word was always law.
"Evodil, watch out!" James yelled as the flat side of his Warhammer slammed into the ground.
The impact heated the stone and lit up the entire area. The sudden flash made Azraem drop the little shade, which seemed to become even smaller under the intense light coming from James. Evodil looked in his direction, shocked that this was the person who had come to his side at a time like this, even if his featureless form couldn't physically show it. He couldn't really refuse the help either, especially with so little time left.
Azraem finally opened its giant eye again, no longer dazed by the sudden light. It screamed directly at James. "A judge can never take back its verdict! Leave the final say to the executioner!"
James didn't listen to the creature. Instead, he took a firm stance and let go of his Warhammer, letting the heavy weapon fall to the stone. He put everything he could into his legs and grabbed the skeleton extra tightly before finally pushing off. A shockwave erupted from the sheer energy his body produced as he sprinted forward. No one was able to catch up to him, even as Azraem tried to grab onto Evodil. The monster no longer wanted to mock the god. It was ready to kill him right there and then. Its claws extended as it reached for Evodil's tiny head, wanting to squash it flat and reset the cycle once again to finally be the winner. It was too late. The bones had already reached Evodil.
The God of Chaos reconnected with the body, welcoming it back as the ambient shadows fused violently with the calcium. He rapidly took physical shape. The long black hair, the white blindfold, the black cloak, the heavy military boots, and the segmented armor under the cloak all materialized perfectly. Everything that belonged to him, and only him, came back in a sudden burst of dark essence. He rolled away from Azraem's clawed arm just in time, hearing the creature shriek out in absolute anger.
"I am going to kill you!" Azraem yelled, its voice fracturing. "I will kill your family, and I will gain a new voice from that brat you raised from the dead!"
Evodil didn't even flinch at his words as the hilt of the Crypt Blade appeared in his hands again. He sighed as he stood up and stared at the creature before him. He was absolutely bored and done with playing, especially now that he had almost failed three times to kill it. He was not about to give it another chance to kill him, or worse, let it escape and gain even more knowledge with that cursed brain it had. When the massive blade finally fully summoned itself, Evodil gripped the hilt with both hands and sprinted at Azraem.
"I am not listening to what a puppet has to say," Evodil said. "It is time to end it." The words seemed to enrage Azraem even more. The creature lunged back at the God of Chaos, reaching out to grab the blade. It couldn't. The encryptions on the edge of the metal seemed to burn the darkness of its claws away in an instant. The creature shrieked from its jaw-mouth again, the sound raw and desperate.
"You are nothing without me!" Azraem yelled out.
The blade hit true, slicing cleanly through Azraem's body. His upper half fell backward onto its back, while the legs fell forward and already started to stitch themselves together. However, from high above where James had already escaped to, a harsh sun began to beam down at them. It was a small imitation of the real thing, but it was enough to make the entire crater bright. The heat melted the remaining snow and illuminated the absolute ruin of Evodil's first attack with the Crypt Blade. Seeing the destroyed landscape reminded him of what could happen if he didn't control his powers again, making him even more focused on finally killing the creature before him.
He nodded his head once as the shadows that almost stitched Azraem together again disappeared entirely. The creature screamed as Evodil swung at it again. He felt the heavy resistance of the marble torso in his hands before it snapped loudly from the sharp blade, letting him cut through both arms in two smooth swings. Dark tendrils shot out from Evodil's back, pulling the severed arms away from Azraem before he could even try to attach them back. The tendrils pinned the limbs onto the ground. The creature's legs were thrown away into the rubble of the floating island they had fallen down from earlier. He was not giving Azraem a single chance to recover as the creature screamed up at him.
Azraem screamed that Evodil would never know peace even after it was gone. He was the God of Chaos, and he would know no peace for the eternity that he was alive. Azraem hissed that he wasn't the only one trapped in a time loop, and that it had made sure people would always look for a new villain and a new monster to blame everything for. Even if it died right here, Evodil would become its successor, inheriting the absolute weight of its hatred.
Evodil looked down at Azraem below him. He watched the creature's eye glitch from multiple back down to a single one, unable to stay in place as the pupil trembled. It looked at him with pure disgust, but Evodil didn't mind. Instead, he finally sighed, his shoulders dropping slightly as he talked.
"I know I never changed," Evodil admitted, his voice carrying over the ruined stone. "And I never planned to change. But it is not because of you. It is because I have people that never cared about how annoying or rude I was. They knew that deep down I could do good. And if that is the price of never being able to find peace? I can live with it. Even if I am just a slave to my own worldviews."
Without another word between the two gods, a third tendril was summoned. It pierced Azraem straight through the chest. The creature let out one final, deafening shriek as it was flung far away across the crater floor. Evodil threw the Crypt Blade right after it. The heavy sword flew through the air and pierced directly into Azraem's eye. Evodil watched it glitching wildly for a while more. One eye, ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million. It shifted rapidly until it finally collapsed into a blank, featureless white slate topped with black hair and massive antlers. The body fell down onto the rocky ground with the blade stuck deep inside of it, slowly starting to bleed from the blinding light shining above the crater. Evodil finally allowed himself to stand.
He stood there silently for a while, feeling the cold wind blow through his black hair. The ponytail was completely gone now, leaving just a dark curtain falling around his face. The white blindfold caught the cold sweat his body was producing from the massive over-exhaustion of his actions. He could feel the shadows of his own body begin to weaken from the sheer toll of what he had done today. He raised his hand, a small, familiar smirk forming on his face as always. He raised his fist slightly as he stood tall before the scattered limbs that were now lifeless. His own dark tendrils became thinner and smaller until they fully disappeared back into his spine. Then he spoke once again. "Bit of a.. fixer upper," he said, sighing heavily. He looked down at his heavy military boots, the adrenaline finally leaving his system. Will Ethan keep that teddy bear I made for him, even if he grows up? He didn't have the strength to answer his own question. His legs finally gave out, and he collapsed forward onto his face with a quiet, heavy thud that echoed into the silence of the crater.