Divine Intervention [Conquest AT]

Oh. Here it was again. The big speeches and the blaming and the grandstanding. This was the part of heroism that Erebos didn’t understand. Sure, he liked talking a lot, but this? It made his ears ring in a funny way.

”Man. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Isn’t Ward a protector, too? Funny how only one of the two of them is being chastised for their subpar protecting.” He winked at Ward, giving Phakk a once-over. The only thing keeping her off the ground was sheer willpower.

It seemed that Erebos just wasn’t charming enough. Try as he might to calm the situation (even though he didn’t want to), a fight was bound to break out yet again. Scratching his back, he felt a vein bulge on his forehead.

”I’m really, really trying to be nice here guys.” His warm smile, cocky as it had been, was now replaced by a disgusted sneer. ”You clearly lost. Whatever this is? It failed. I offered you guys what— four escape attempts? Like, super easy to just run away! But nooo. You have to be all determined and crap!”

Erebos pulled his sword from his back, as if it were always sheathed there, and leveled it at Ward. Whatever tirade Tiamat was on, he didn’t really care.

”I don’t care. At all. Good versus evil, light and dark, balance— it’s all hogwash. All four of us are just people. Stupid, annoying, brainless people. And you know what this person wants now?”

Rushing at Ward, he aimed to boot the man in the chest, kicking him away from Phakk and separating the four into two.

”I want to kick your ass so you’ll all SHUT THE HELL UP!”

In his rage, he didn’t even notice Crotona being whisked away. Some friend he was.

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Momentum halted all too soon as Erebos’ leg was caught in Phakk’s grip. Delicate as she pretended to be, her strength had certainly remained despite returning to her “normal” form. He struggled against the grip, a grunt of annoyance escaping him.

”Oh, please. Get off your high horse and just clobber me like a normal person!”

His fist came up, clenched tight, and waved unceremoniously. Soon after, Erebos’ leg disappeared! From the knee down, it was gone, allowing him to fall forwards. It was a tad ungraceful, but the spell had probably saved his bones just now.

Landing on his knee, the rest of his leg returned from its shadowy home, attaching as if it had never been gone. With this, he used the momentum of his fall to transition into a sweeping kick, aimed to knock Phakk off of her feet.

”I wish— no I PRAY that there’s a Mazoku hiding nearby. That way when I knock your head off they can point and laugh at you!”

From one of the boulders that remained uncorrupted, a shadowy figure emerged. He had a ridge atop his head, like a sharks fin, and two floppy antennae. It jeered at Phakk, throwing a random bit of debris at her.

Regardless of how well his sweep had worked earlier, he’d pounce again; leaping into the sky, his sword would plunge straight down, looking to pierce the Kai’s skull.

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Erebos clicked his tongue as steel met rock. Though he’d carved free some cloth, she was still nimble enough to evade him. How irritating! Wrenching the blade free, he swished it playfully to clear the rubble from its pristine form. It danced in his hand, watching Phakk as its owner did the same.

”Oh. I forgot how annoying you are like this. Honestly I liked it better when there was a language barrier.”

Phakk prepared her body, energy surging as she did. It was strange to see her fight in this form. So simple-minded, yet in an entirely different way from her true self. This was the stance of an unexperienced fighter and yet somehow it still exuded a deadly aura. She pushed forward, unleashing a torrent of deadly force. Erebos barely had time to prepare himself, and still he didn’t do so properly! In mere moments, he was whisked away, smashing into a plateau not far from the battle.

The rocks crumbled atop him, smoke and shattered stone splashing like a dry ocean. It was clear as day that the Shadowmancer wasn’t done for just yet, but he was certainly much worse for wear than he’d been moments before.

His armor was in tatters. Bloody wounds and browning bruises dotted his body, and his previously messy hair had become a jungle of knots and frays. Standing up, he grabbed a tuft of his mane that’d fallen free of his scalp, and twirled it on his finger.

”Okay… Fine. You win. I’ll get serious now.”

Turning, he stabbed his blade into the crater he’d left, swirling it around like a stick in a cotton candy machine. It collected shadows at its tip, growing larger and larger by the moment.

Tiamat began speeching in the corner, and it was no doubt that Ward would surely come to Phakk’s aid as he always did. Maybe they could use that to their advantage here. If he was preoccupied by the big, bombastic, showy move…

Erebos pulled the sword from the stone, holding it aloft over his head. Globs of icky black ooze drip-dropped onto his head. They drizzled down his body, coating him in the pure blackness. From beneath the waterfalls of shadow, his eyes shined; bright red, and hungry for flesh.

”This is it: my perfect spell!”

Cackling like a madman, his eyes grew wide with delight as he sprinted across the expanse. He made a show of running toward Phakk, before suddenly… He fell straight through the floor.

There was no trace of him. His Kili, sharp and violent as it had been, now bounced around the arena. He jumped from shadow to shadow, his laughter echoing in the mid-morning haze.

”You two have far too much blood left in your systems. Let me fix that for you.”

He appeared from the ground, pulling himself up and out of Ward’s shadow with supreme force. The momentum gained from his motion shot him skyward, where he glared down at the Kai. Their rivalry, however small it had been before, was solidified as eternal in this very moment.

Erebos’ excitement from before was gone. In its stead was a terrifyingly stoic expression. One Erebos hadn’t carried in decades.

He landed, swinging his blade down on Ward. His goal was to leave a cut as long as his body, and as deep as his conviction. Should the blade strike true, he’d find that this was no ordinary cut. No, for the blade, Stickler, had been laced with a unfiltered shadow. The kind hidden deep underground, or stored inside mountains. The shadows, seemingly with a mind of their own, would pull at the gash, keeping it wide open and ensuring every last drop of blood was wrung out of the body.

Soon after, Erebos stumbled back, falling to a knee. That spell always took a lot out of him, but to use it so soon after being attacked? Well, there was only one way to know how long it’d take to recover.

And that damn throbbing in his shoulder! What was that? The pain grew larger now, like whatever had been stuck in him was growing…

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