Chapter 887: Devouring Leviathan
Asmodues continued to fall, unable to tell which direction he was travelling; everything unravelled in front of his eyes. Power, confidence and arrogance all became meaningless in the face of death.
’I want to live... to survive!’
His body slowly tried to fight against the damage, blood still leaking from his chest and torn flesh. With blurred vision, he could only hear the clash of familiar weapons, voices and auras that drove him mad.
’Don’t... don’t get hurt....!’
Pwoomf!
He landed on something soft... a comforting scene enshrouded him, soft and calming.
’Move...’
Yet his body betrayed him, refusing.
A pale hand caught his wrist.
Selene pulled him against her bosom, gently caressing his back as she hummed gentle words in his ears.
Her dark hair fluttered across her face as she stared past him toward the creature.
"You’ve done enough."
Asmodeus tried to speak to her, both physically and mentally, but only his lips shifted, spilling more blood as Selene cupped his cheek.
"My dear husband, leave the rest to us."
Before he could refute or resist her words, a devastating pressure enveloped the world.
The explosive shell detonated.
The ocean turned white.
The blast tore through Leviathan from the inside, bursting through its chest, back and wings in a violent sphere of purification and condensed mana. Black armour shattered across the sky while dark flesh burned beneath the holy energy trapped inside the shell.
Serena formed a barrier of darkness around the others.
Her massive tails expanded along with the petals of Asmodea’s flowers, covering Asmodeus desperately in a dome shape.
"Please, sleep."
The explosion struck both the petals and her tails, causing a massive quake that shook the very world to its core.
Her tails trembled as cracks spread across her fox mask.
But she endured, desperate to keep him safe.
Erika crossed both blades and cut through the fragments trying to regenerate.
Asmodea clenched her fists.
Every blood rose upon the sea bloomed at once.
Their vines invaded Leviathan’s ruptured body, wrapping around the pulsing organs exposed by the blast and crushing them before the flesh could recover.
Selene pointed her tails toward the centre of the explosion; after the initial shockwaves, all that remained was a painful heat that spread tingles across her flesh.
"We cannot miss this chance, Himari said it cannot regenerate infinitely; there is a set number of times before it will collapse!"
Countless of her tail beams shot through the small particles of flesh trying to regenerate as she panted, desperate to end things. Sweat poured down her cheeks as she watched both Valena and Velvet breathing flames onto the monster’s corpse.
Levia stood atop the coast, holding her shield up high, creating a massive barrier.
The shield shrunken and warped from the explosion, yet she still continued to protect the people her husband adored.
Selene’s eyes shifted across the chaotic battlefield.
More than ten women, all married to a single man... fighting an almost endlessly regenerating fiend that surpassed their strength several times over.
"If not for your efforts... to wear it down..." She caressed his tired cheek, as blood leaked from her nose and lips with each successive beam.
’Everyone is trying so hard... Darling, this is what you have built... these are the women that love you.’
...
How long passed...
The air stank of sulphur and smoke; women panted powerlessly on wilted petals above the ocean as they fought in alternating groups.
Ciela, Vinea, Asmodea, Serena, Velvet, Valena, Erika, Yumiko, Yuina and even Nerim joined the desperate assault.
All of them fought for a single purpose.
The family they built together.
"Haa... this is endless... are you sure it’s possible?" Velvet grunted as her scales faded, her tanned flesh covered in sweat and blood.
"I don’t know..."
Levia didn’t have the answer as she sat in just a pair of training shorts, panting, her armour and shield now completely destroyed.
"Don’t stop... we can still fight..."
Even though Ciela encouraged them... when she held her bowstring, blood oozed from her joints as each finger trembled. "We... can... fight..."
In the air, Lumina fought with countless golden webs, tearing and gathering the regenerating heart of Leviathan, crushing it with her fists. Alas, even her pristine white exoskeleton crumbled from the occasional counterattack from the heart-growing eyes that fired dark beams in all directions.
"Don’t give up hope! It’s taking longer to regenerate..." Selene shouted as she stood at the edge of the flower and aimed her tails at the heart.
"But we’ve destroyed that thing almost thousands of times..."
"Trust me!"
"....ok."
A silver beam pierced the smoke.
It struck the final mass beating inside Leviathan’s chest, and unlike before, the flesh of the heart spread apart and revealed a small dark purple gemstone. Its core! For a single breath, every dark purple eye across Leviathan’s heart opened wide.
Then they burst together.
Black mist rolled across the ocean as the creature’s elongated body collapsed inward, stripped apart by the shell, Serena’s darkness, Erika’s blades, Asmodea’s roses and Selene’s final attack.
Asmodeus watched through half-closed eyes as his body screamed, desperate for energy as if he were dehydrated.
With a single hand, he aimed towards the sky and gave a final order.
’Axiom.... devour it.’
The black and white halberd shook violently, trembling at his words, and for a moment nothing happened as if it might betray his order. However, soon the weapon screamed with joy, like a cat mewing with delight at a fishy treat.
A sharp metallic howl tore across the ocean as Axiom ripped itself free from the blood-red petals beneath Asmodeus and shot towards Leviathan’s exposed core. The dark purple gemstone tried to retreat into the collapsing flesh, but Selene’s silver beams pinned the surrounding remains open.
"Don’t let it hide!" she shouted.
Lumina’s golden webs tightened around the regenerating heart.
The thin strands sliced through the twitching flesh, drawing it apart like a flower forced to bloom backwards. Each eye growing along the surface burst beneath her grip, spraying black fluid over the ruined remains of her exoskeleton.
Axiom struck the core.
CLANG!
A ring of dark light spread across the sea.
Every woman felt the pressure.
Asmodea’s remaining roses flattened against the ocean. Levia raised one arm instinctively despite having no shield left, while Velvet stepped in front of Valena and spread her damaged wings.
The gemstone resisted.
Dark purple veins wrapped around Axiom’s blade, trying to force the weapon away. The core pulsed with enough power to distort the air, and for a heartbeat, the ruined flesh surrounding it began to regenerate again.
A mouth opened across the heart.
[KILL.]
The weak command sounded broken and almost desperate, and yet Asmodeus glared back and clenched his fists.
"Eat!"
Axiom’s white edge darkened as the weapon bit deeper into the gemstone, splitting its surface with a narrow crack. An energy similar to Abyssal energy poured out in thick waves, but instead of spreading across the ocean, it funnelled towards Axiom.
The weapon drank everything.
The remaining flesh around Leviathan collapsed.
The eyes across its heart dimmed one after another as their energy was ripped free. Dark purple light flowed into Axiom’s shaft, twisting around the weapon like smoke caught inside glass.
The gemstone cracked again before shattering into countless pieces. Axiom absorbed the fragments before they could fall, and the enemy was vanquished.
"Fuck... that was one annoying battle."
Nobody moved. There wasn’t even a voice for several moments. Even the Ocean became still as everything came to an end; a singular sigh left everyone’s lips.
Then Velvet dropped to her knees atop one of Asmodea’s wilted petals.
"It’s dead...?"
Selene stared at the empty space where the core had been.
"I think so."
"You said that before," Erika muttered, both swords hanging loosely from her hands.
"Then someone stab the ocean," Levia replied breathlessly.
Vinea gave a tired laugh.
"Go ahead."
Levia looked at the black water below.
"No way, I’m going home to my lovely child..."
The women slowly relaxed and began to argue amongst themselves, while Asmodeus watched them with pride. Several of them simply collapsed where they stood, too exhausted to remain upright now that the battle had finally ended.
Axiom remained suspended above the sea.
The weapon changed.
Black veins spread through its pale surface, forming delicate patterns along the shaft and blade. Small dark purple eyes appeared between the markings, opening and closing for only a moment before sinking into the metal.
The halberd grew slightly longer.
Its edge curved more sharply, as if becoming some kind of halberd scythe...
A second blade formed beneath the first, narrow and hooked, giving Axiom the appearance of a weapon built to tear apart flesh.
Then the halberd turned towards Asmodeus.
It shot across the ocean.
"Oh shit...!" He cried out.
Selene caught his wrist and guided his hand upward before Axiom reached him. The weapon entered his palm gently, yet the instant his fingers closed around it, the remaining energy inside Leviathan surged into his body.
Asmodeus arched against her.
"H-Haa...!"
His heart slammed once.
Ba-Dum! Ba-Dum! Ba-Dum!
Blood-red light erupted from his chest.
The women nearby raised their arms as the pulse swept across the sea. It carried neither hostility nor destruction, but the sheer pressure still drove the surrounding water away from the petals beneath them.
His wounds began to close.
Burned flesh peeled away from his shoulder and abdomen. New muscle formed beneath it, followed by dark skin and faint red markings that vanished a moment later.
Though still in his demon form, with two large horns and tanned skin, there were strange eye tattoos mixed in with the markings that linked to his lovers and the crystal that appeared in the centre of his chest, which became a strange eye with a gemstone for a pupil.
Asmodeus felt the changes before he understood anything, as his blood wings manifested without command. One pair, then another, all the way until the women gasped at his fourth pair.
Eight sharp wings spread across the storm-dark sky, each one formed from dense crimson blood. They were larger than before, their edges thinner and sharper, almost like giant blades.
Then the eyes opened.
Small dark purple eyes appeared along the inner surface of every wing.
"Woah... that’s so damn cool," Velvet grumbled as she stared at her husband with awe.
He didn’t have millions of eyes, but a few dozen were enough for Asmodeus. After all, becoming a cosmic horror wasn’t on his bingo list.
They blinked independently, scanning the sea, the sky, the coast and every direction around him at once.
’Eh? I can see... and feel what they feel...’
"So this is what that thing felt...?" Asmodeus closed his eyes; while his wings darted around, he just enjoyed the bizarre senses the eyes gave him, while Selene hugged him tightly, as if worried he might vanish.
"Asmodeus?"
"I can see everything."
His voice sounded distant, making the women around him glance at each other, a nervous expression on their faces, until his lips curved into that familiar perverted smirk.
"I can see the colour of your underwear!"
"Perverted bastard, to think we were worried!" Velvet grumbled along with the other women, who all rushed at him.
Asmodeus could only chuckle; the pain and exhaustion remained, but he no longer felt a sense of loss. To defeat Leviathan brought him to the next level...
’Now I no longer fear the Arbiters... so what about the god emperor?’
....
Meanwhile, far from the distant port of Grigor.
Far beyond the ruined coastline, a half-destroyed fleet drifted through the fog.
Its remaining ships carried unfamiliar banners.
Men in long coats stood upon a fractured observation deck, staring through reinforced spyglasses towards the distant storm. Several vessels leaned heavily to one side, their hulls damaged by waves and debris from the battle.
One officer lowered his spyglass.
His face had lost all colour.
"Did you see it?"
The man beside him swallowed before the woman covered in wounds shook her head. "Albrecht, stop fooling around. What did you see?"
"Hmph! Be quiet, Caelith... I just so happen to have confirmed two things... one, the military might of our enemy and two...." Albrecht didn’t complete his words and instead turned around and pointed to the priest who stood near a strange gemstone.
"Connect me."
"Y-Yes, sire!"
Behind the officers, a communication mage adjusted the metal rings surrounding a glowing crystal. Static hissed through the device as the signal crossed the ruined sea.
A stern voice answered from the other side.
"Report."
The officer straightened despite the fear clinging to his expression.
He looked once more towards the distant figures above Grigor’s coast.
Then he spoke into the device.
"We have confirmed the existence of Dragons, Your Majesty."