Chapter 510: Melee combat
Konstantin did not wait for their answer. He pivoted on his heels, tracing in the air of the pocket dimension a seal of rupture with the tips of his bloodied fingers. The silver lines blazed one last time before cracking, and the space around them tore like worn canvas, as the pocket dimension collapsed.
The blinding light of the real world struck them full force, but it was no longer the world they had left. The sky above was black. Not the black of night, no. A living black, swarming with silhouettes falling in spirals, their membranous wings tearing the air. There were dozens, hundreds, thousands of them. When Konstantin looked closer, he noticed that the gates of the Abyss had opened.
They stood there, three immense arches of black stone and grey flames. From their yawning maws, demons continued to pour in an unending flow: horned warriors with bodies armored in natural plates, hollow-eyed sorcerers whose clawed fingers were already weaving curses, massive multi-legged beasts crushing the pillars of light beneath their weight and, facing them, were the angels.
The alarm trumpets resounded, their deep metallic sound cutting through the air like a blade. The front lines had already engaged.
The battle raged on the esplanade, a sea of golden and black bodies colliding in a cacophony of metal, torn flesh, and cries. Spells flew from all sides: celestial lightning, orbs of darkness, walls of fire, lances of ice. The marble pavers buckled under the impacts, craters opening where a colossal demon crashed down, angels falling in spirals, their scorched wings disintegrating into particles of light before even reaching the ground.
Konstantin observed the scene from where he had landed, still smoking from the aftereffects of the pocket dimension. His wounds were already healing, but the pain still lingered.
The three Seraphs reappeared behind him, disoriented, their bodies marked by the confrontation. Michael held his stump against his chest, teeth clenched, the golden light of his blood flowing between his fingers. Gabriel supported Raphael, whose face was still smeared with what should have been blood. But neither of them was looking at Konstantin; they were looking at the gates of the Abyss.
"No..." Gabriel breathed, his voice broken. "No, not this, not now..."
Michael and Raphael said nothing. They stared at the horizon, where the demons continued to surge forth, and their jaws tightened. While they were absorbed by what was happening, Konstantin spoke:
"So this is what you take pleasure in..." he said, his voice hoarse, letting out a bitter laugh.
Suddenly, a massive demon with scaly skin, armed with long claws, charged at them, its red eyes blazing with hunger. It closed the distance in three bounds, its maw open on rows of serrated teeth.
Konstantin struck it down with a backhand, a simple pulse of flame that reduced its skull to ashes before it could even land its blow. The body continued its trajectory, inert, and crashed heavily against a nearby column.
He turned his back on the Seraphs. "Do what you want... but if you ever get in my way, I will kill you." Then he took a step toward the melee.
---
The first wave of demons saw him coming too late. Konstantin tore through the front ranks like a projectile, brushing them aside with a simple push of mana that sent bodies arcing through the air. He landed in the heart of the melee, in the middle of a circle of angel and demon combatants locked in a dance of death.
He struck the angel to his left, wings spread, sword raised, with a punch square in the sternum. The golden light died in its eyes before it even hit the ground. The sorcerer pivoted, grabbed by the nape a demon trying to sink its claws into his back, and hurled it into a group of charging angels. The bodies collided in a crash of armor and flesh.
He ducked under a lance of light, rolled on his shoulder the pain of his wound bit into him, he ignored it and came up sweeping the legs from a demon-sorcerer whose runes were already lighting up. The spell died with a hiss, and Konstantin drove his elbow into its throat before sending it flying.
The fire slowed, disoriented by the fall of their prey. He took advantage to charge, cutting through the enemy lines. His left hand came down on an energy shield, burning it, reducing it to shards, while his right fist pierced through the angelic soldier’s guard to send him to the ground.
A claw tore his flank. He did not turn around. He grabbed the demon’s arm, twisted it at an impossible angle, and broke the attacker’s neck with a backward headbutt. The demon’s skull gave way with a dull thud.
He leaped onto a pile of debris that had been reduced to rubble and observed the melee for a few seconds. Around him, chaos reigned. The angels fought with discipline, but the demons fought with rage.
He jumped and landed in the middle of a group of demons already feasting on an angel’s body. His flame consumed them before they could understand what was hitting them, reducing their flesh to ash. He continued his run, not slowing, crossing an entire front with violence.
An angel charged. Konstantin sidestepped, one hand on its nape, and guided it into the trajectory of a demon charging at them. The two bodies collided with a wet thud, and Konstantin brushed them aside with a backhand before moving on.
"I don’t remember the last time," he thought, sending a skull flying with a reverse kick. "The last time I fought like this..."
He took a sword strike made of light, stopping it with his hand, and tore it from his own body before driving it into the throat of the angel who had struck him.
When he finished, he charged again. The combatants parted on his path now angels and demons, all, regardless of their side as if they had understood, deep in their instincts, that this one was neither ally nor enemy: this guy was only there to sow chaos.
They all wondered why this man was attacking them with such violence. None of them could grasp the logic of his actions, for they would have understood if he had belonged to an opposing side or if he had obeyed a specific ideology. But that was not the case. There was no cause, no oath to defend. What they observed was a man fighting for his own personal pleasure; every movement had no other purpose than to satisfy a visceral need for domination. He paid little attention to their pleas, nor to their hateful stares; for him, they were merely fleeting instruments of ephemeral gratification.
Understanding this, a group of demons tried to surround him, but he broke them, one by one: the first, a flame reduced it to ash; the second, a knee to the abdomen that folded it in half before a descending elbow broke its neck; the third, a throw over the shoulder that sent it crashing against a marble wall; the fourth, a blast of mana that pulverized it against the ground.
The angels watching this carnage had no time to react. Konstantin was on them in the next second, scattering them, a hand closed around the hilt of a celestial sword which he turned against its owner.
He wrenched the sword free with a sharp motion, drove it into the chest of the demon rising behind him, then left it there, embedded in the black flesh.
Before he realized it, a circle had formed around him. Angels and demons, for once in this battle, had stopped killing each other to stare at him. Twenty or so combatants, maybe more, fixed him with eyes where fear vied with incomprehension.
He wiped the blood flowing from his forehead, a blackish trickle running down his nose.
"What?" he asked, his voice rasping. "So you’ve decided to unite?" he said with a mocking smile.
There was a silence, then an angel and a demon, in a single movement, turned their heads toward him. Together, they charged.
"Finally... Finally some seriousness," he murmured as his smile widened.
He clasped his hands together.
< Mudra of Spatial Rupture >
The circle opened before him, devouring the front ranks of the assault angels, demons, weapons, spells, everything vanished into a yawn of black energy. The survivors hesitated for a fraction of a second, just long enough to understand that their charge had just been erased from existence.
Konstantin did not give them time to reorganize. He descended on them, bare-handed, the flame dancing around his fists like an aura. He struck, chaining movements in a dance of destruction that made no distinction. Bodies fell around him like wheat stalks, mowed down by the same scythe.
A colossal demon three meters tall, its body armored in bony plates, tried to crush him with a massive fist. Konstantin sidestepped, climbed up the arm, and drove his fingers into the giant’s eye. The grey flame poured in through the orbit, consuming the brain from within. The colossus collapsed with an avalanche-like crash.
Around him, the battle continued to rage: the angels, desperate; the demons, ravenous; each against the other in a symphony of cries and metal.