Lucifer: Godless Reawakening

"HUHUHU!" The devil laughed, its body bloodied and bruised but healing.

William spat blood onto the ground and wiped his nose.

The battle had dragged on far longer than he intended, and for one reason alone.

"Come at me, shrimp." He taunted, raising his right hand while his left stayed cocked behind his back.

The devil grinned and suddenly slammed its massive hand into the ground.

A wave of vertigo surged outward, crashing into William like a tidal force.

He didn't panic. Instead, he shut his eyes.

He had already figured it out. Watching the monster or even his surroundings only made the sensation worse. So he chose darkness.

Then he heard it.

William had done exactly what the devil wanted, and seizing the chance, the creature lunged forward.

A hulking figure loomed before him, arm raised, jaws stretched wide in savage anticipation, ready to crush his skull.

But just before the strike could fall—

BOOM

Something slammed into the monster's gut like a projectile, punching straight through and tearing a gaping hole in its stomach.

William grinned as he slowly opened his eyes.

The devil staggered back, its eyes wide, locked onto the human. The wound began to close, flesh knitting together—

But not this time.

"GHAUUU!" it screamed.

Something was stopping it.

Its muscles refused to reconnect. Something had been lodged deep inside, something it couldn't see.

William chuckled and twisted his hand.

The devil screamed.

The hole in its stomach tore wider, flesh stretching as more vile blood poured out in thick streams. Whatever was lodged inside it kept moving, tearing, digging deeper. The creature clawed at its own body, trying to grasp the unseen force ripping it apart, but it found nothing.

Panic crept into its feral eyes.

Then, in desperation, it raised its arm.

A pulse erupted from its body.

"Huh?!"

William's instincts screamed. He threw up his telekinetic arm just in time.

The shockwave slammed into him.

The world exploded.

Trees bent in an instant, then snapped like brittle twigs. Trunks tore apart with a deafening screech as splinters and chunks of wood were ripped into the air. The ground cracked beneath the force, dust and debris blasting outward in a violent ring.

Another wave followed. Then another.

Each one hammered against William's defense, forcing him back, boots grinding into the soil as he struggled to hold his ground.

The devil roared, its voice thick with rage and pain, sending pulse after pulse into the surroundings.

The forest collapsed around them.

What once stood tall was now nothing but shattered trunks and uprooted corpses of trees scattered across the torn earth. Leaves and dust choked the air, turning the battlefield into a swirling haze.

And within that chaos, the devil's wound began to close.

The torn flesh writhed, forcing itself back together. Whatever had been lodged inside was pushed out, lost somewhere in the destruction.

William clicked his tongue. This time, he couldn't stop it.

When the waves finally ceased, silence followed.

A dead, suffocating silence.

Everything around them had been reduced to ruin.

William felt frustration as he watched the red monster still standing. Its body looked intact, but the way its chest heaved gave it away. It was close to its limit.

William narrowed his eyes. He raised his hand and pointed a finger toward the sky.

Aether and Nyx gathered, weaving together into a perfect balance. A small, translucent droplet formed at his fingertip, faintly pulsing with contained power.

Four seconds of chanting passed.

Then he released it.

The droplet shot upward and came to a halt high above, hovering in eerie stillness.

The monster tracked it with its eyes. It had seen that technique before. It knew better than to ignore it.

But nothing happened.

No explosion. No collapse. Just silence.

"…!!"

The devil's eyes widened.

Something else was coming.

It snapped its gaze downward and threw a punch forward on instinct.

William was already there.

He burst upward at the last instant, the punch grazing past him as he slipped through the opening. His body twisted midair, both fists cloaked in dense Nyx as he brought them crashing down onto the devil's skull.

"GRUAH!"

The creature howled, its massive frame staggering under the impact.

It retaliated instantly.

A violent pulse of vertigo waves erupted outward as it spun, its leg sweeping in a brutal roundhouse kick aimed to tear William out of the air.

William raised his telekinetic barrier and kept his eyes open this time.

"Wanna play mind games?" he growled.

Nyx surged through him, flooding his mind as he sharpened his telepathy. The pressure spiked so violently that even the devil felt it, instinctively stepping back.

William took a slow breath, then struck back.

{Bitch!}

The word didn't travel through air. It slammed straight into the devil's mind.

The creature groaned, clutching its head, its massive hands pressing against its ears.

Useless.

{DIE. DIE. DIE.}

Each word hit harder than the last, laced with Nyx, drilling into its thoughts, tearing at its senses. The devil staggered, its vertigo waves faltering, collapsing under the relentless mental assault.

William kept going, flooding its mind with curses, with noise, with pure, suffocating pressure until the waves finally died out.

A crooked grin spread across his face.

He raised his hand.

High above, the droplet responded.

It trembled once, then began to descend.

William's eyes locked onto the devil, now reduced to a shaking mess, its head jerking as it tried and failed to escape the assault.

"Good job pissing me off," he muttered. "Now vanish."

The droplet struck.

For a fraction of a second, everything froze.

Then space folded.

The point of impact collapsed inward, as if the world itself had been punched from the inside. Light bent toward it, dragged into a single trembling point. The air shrieked, pressure compressing so violently that the ground sank before the explosion even began.

And then it ruptured.

A blinding sphere of force erupted outward, not just expanding but tearing through everything in its path. The shockwave didn't simply push, it shredded. Soil was ripped from the earth in thick slabs, hurled skyward before being pulverized midair. The remains of shattered trees were erased, reduced to splinters and dust in a blink.

The ground buckled. Cracks spiderwebbed outward, then widened into jagged trenches as the blast carved through the clearing.

At the center, where the devil stood, there was nothing. No body, no blood, not even ash. Just a hollow void where existence had been violently erased.

The air continued to howl as the shockwave rolled outward, flattening everything that still stood beyond the initial destruction. Dust and debris spiraled into the sky, forming a choking storm that swallowed the battlefield.

Then, slowly, the force died.

The winds weakened. The dust began to settle.

What remained was a massive crater, its edges jagged and broken, the earth scorched and stripped bare.

And at its heart, there was only silence.

William, who protected himself just in time, sighed as he looked at the havoc before him. Shaking his head, he muttered, "Emma surely would have called this overkill."

The smile that appeared when he thought about his lover instantly vanished when suddenly several figures emerged from the crack.

One, two, three…six.

William's head tilted as their presence weighed over him like a boulder.

Six ranked-devil stood there.

All battle hungry and the only target in the vicinity was one.

William's figure began to rise as he spoke, "Come at me. I'll relieve this world of your existence."