Chapter 223: Pendulum Crash.
—Archangel Angelo PoV—
I lamented the deaths of my own kin. I glared at the demon who had dared to kill the holiest of angels. The eye that was my body pulsed in righteous anger now that this creature was finally in my sight. These ingrates had really run rampant to destroy the order we had painstakingly built, just because I couldn’t be present!
“FIRE!” I commanded, and Koraxis obeyed. The demon tried to dodge, but it was futile. Her sins had come back to judge her. The woman’s upper half was obliterated, and she collapsed, dead. Cracks and rot then spread across my archangel kin and I recognized them to be similar to what we had been forced to suffer all these centuries. Cursed magic, unjust ‘vengeance,’ the same curse possessed by those cursetaceans! Is this another one of your schemes, Cursifix!?
“FIRE!” I raged again, against the injustice of this world. Koraxis had already shot her next bolt, and it obliterated a large portion of the inhex’s body. His predecessors had already killed one angel, and now he’d done the same thing! They committed the gravest of sins and damned their souls into the abyss. But the damage was done, and oblivion was too kind for the likes of them.
I regretted my kindness now, in trying to give this rotten species one last chance to prove themselves worthy of life. I should’ve known better, these scum would only ever spit at any olive branch I could offer. Creatures of spite, they did not know the concept of gratitude.
They did not deserve the second chance I gave.
I turned around and flew back to Arrival. Koraxis followed after me, after a few more bolts shot into that gathering of heretics and blasphemers who fraternized with angelkillers. I hoped that the cursetaceans had not done too much damage in the short time we were gone.
This world itself was cursed, and I tired of it.
~~~
—Haell?? PoV—
The world went dark. I could see nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing. I felt unimaginable pain, inconceivable loss. I squirmed, I raged, I wallowed in that discomfort. My legs twitched… but nothing else. That’s when I finally began to understand the extent of the damage. I had no more hands with which to hold anything. My head had been completely obliterated. This could not have been an accident. It had to be a coordinated attack. And right in the middle of what was supposed to be the celebration of our greatest triumph too!
It was unforgivable. I could not allow this insult to go unpunished. Blood needed to flow, and I would sacrifice as much of my own to make it so!!!
One hoof before the other, I crawled with the legs I did have. I slid across the ground. My Resentment knew no bounds. I searched for whoever did this in the darkness of my remaining minds.
Remaining… minds…
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I screamed without a mouth! I cursed my broken body! It had to be rebuilt. I needed to be whole again to enact my revenge!
My body combusted. Fire burned across my skin. Curses spread to anyone nearby. Space bent to my will, my dominion!
My blood was consumed, a greater mass than what my body could possibly hold. I grew new skin with which to feel, whereupon the world only held discomfort. Hearts once lost began to beat anew. Fresh hands clenched into fists, looking for something to crush. The Devil Eyes opened, and saw this ugly world once more.
I wished to lash out and destroy it all, and that desire compounded; but with it also came an unflinching bulwark against the madness of my elements. My demon brain had returned, and my stable personality matrix swiftly connected it with all the others, to share in that mental fortress. I did not bask in my returned sanity amid the chaos for long, however, as I dragged myself up to see what the fuck had happened and what it was that killed me.
I found only despair, no matter where I looked.
The large park that had been all dolled up for today was now torn apart. Trees, chairs, tables, and people littered the ground in pieces. Blood and dirt melded into a powerful mix that coated the air in death. Guts and gore pooled under my hooves from a dozen corpses, mixing with my own. Golden pillars speared out of the earth in great craters, the holy and angelic power they held obvious to my senses. I’d survived the attempt… but the others might not have.
For that was when I saw it, Arx nearly bisected in twine! Granuel bled out under the rubble as people tried to dig him out. Moonwash… drowned in her own blood, everything below the waist just… gone.
No.
NO.
NO, NO, no, no, no, no, no, NO!!!
I screamed and cried and flashed across the distance, trampling over everything in my way. I lifted my girlfriend up and washed her with what was left of my blood and magic, desperate to heal her wounds. My blood eater consumed the remains around me as fast as it could in order to make more. My eyes widened and I clung on to that smallest hope as I felt a faint heartbeat. I listened to her fading breath with growing despair.
“Hold on! HOLD ON! I’ll get you more help right away!”
My girlfriend’s wounds closed, but I was unable to regrow her limbs. At least she stopped losing any more blood, but my pleas still wouldn’t wake her up. Her life signs continued to grow fainter, and it was only through my healing that she could continue to survive.
I stood up with her in my arms, and looked frantically around.
Arx was still alive and crawling weakly towards me. Half the people capable of healing here had banded together, trying their hardest to save his life. The Blur–Exaber–tossed Granuel over to me, whom I caught.
“GO!” he shouted, and I gave him a firm nod.
My ishkawtan friend looked terrible, caked in blood and riddled with holes, but I could not think about that right now. I only gave him a share of my healing.
I made my way over to Arx, and took over stabilizing my other dying friend as well. I fed the Mark of The Beast all the space mana in my body, and our surroundings warped and distorted.
“W-what the…?”
“OW!”
“GET BACK!” I screamed at the healers, and made sure to get a good look at their faces for later.
“What!?”
“But…!”
“Arx! He’s the Hero Arx! We can’t let him die!”
Their voices wobbled and distorted as the very space did.
“I FUCKING KNOW THAT! I’M GOING TO SAVE THEM! SO GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!”
The Blur intervened, and finally pulled them away before they could get themselves more injured by standing at the very boundary of my teleportation, no matter how stable it had become. They cursed and were lost for a second, before they finally decided to help the many others who were on the brink of death.
The teleport took hold, and I found myself back home.
“PANDEMONIUM!!!” I immediately shouted, but my friend was already moving! The manor had felt my distress from half a continent away. The walls fell apart, and blood flooded the room. The manor used it to heal our injured, as did I. I drank of this abundant red flood, and converted it to what I needed. I sealed all the wounds in their bodies… except Granuel’s flesh remained gouged and broken. I poured my all into healing him, but the blood would not stop flowing, until he had no more left to give.
“No… No, no, no. Not again. NOT AGAIN! LIVE DAMN IT! FUCK! GRANUEL! GRANUEL!!!!”
But my pleas were unheard. My fears, confirmed.
“AAAAAARRRRRRGHHHHHHHHH!!!! WHY!? WHY WHY WHY!!????!?!”
Tears fell from my eyes. I cradled Granuel’s body as I screamed myself hoarse. I cried over my best friend’s corpse. The boy who dared to dream, the man who achieved it all, killed so callously just like that!
My curse begged to be let out, but I had to keep it contained. I could not even continue to heal him in an exercise of desperate futility, because I still had two other dying friends I needed to save. I could not waste what healing I could give. I was not allowed to blindly lash out. I needed to keep in control, even at the end of the world.
I felt arms wrap around me as I was stuck in that purgatory of healing the still deteriorating Moonwash and Arx. Their wounds had fully closed, but no further progress could be made. Their lost parts could not be regrown. They’d suffered such catastrophic damage, that neither had yet to wake up. Both of them had fallen into a deep coma.
“Haell…” Mom soothed me and rubbed my back.
“It’ll be okay… It’s going to be okay,” Dad promised.
Not this again.
“Granuel’s dead!” I snapped. “You think that’s okay!?”
They recoiled from my outburst, and I immediately regretted it.
“No… That’s… Sorry. I didn’t mean it… that way…”
“Don’t be.” Dad shook his head.
“You’re right. We were wrong to say that.”
“It’s not okay. At all”
“But… We’re here, Haell.”
“Even if it’s not okay.”
“Especially so.”
More tears fell from my eyes. Snot dripped into the fleshy floor. Pandemonium’s healing pods of blood dropped from the ceiling, and I quickly stuffed what’s left of both Moonwash and Arx into the appropriately-sized ones.
I stared at Granuel’s remains for a moment, and contemplated stuffing him into another pod… but it was over. He was… gone.
I handed him to the equally distraught Berry, and observed Moonwash and Arx from beyond the membrane that kept them sealed. The ground under me undulated, and I agreed. Pandemonium could maintain their bodies for a time, but Moonwash and Arx’s health were still deteriorating. It was only a matter of time before they well and truly died.
Something had to change.
I refused to lose anyone else.