Demonic Devourer ch. 129 (Patreon)

Shit. I assumed that Sapphire would attack as soon as we finished assembling and fueling our half of the godkilling weapon, but this still feels too early.

We don’t even know how the weapon is activated, but I suppose that she knew that.

Sapphire, the one who announced the existence of this miniature moon to me in the first place, is definitely capable of using it.

I have to admit, we've been in better positions before.

Right now, with angels approaching from the hells and the Titans appearing around us… for most people, merely existing here would be an impossibility. Even for us, it's quite possible that we’ll meet our end here. The raw pressure that they exude is crushing in itself; when their power is brought to bear against us, we will die. Permanently, this time.

But I refuse. This is not where our story ends. No matter what it takes.

Sapphire tells me that this is the end of the road, so I reply.

Not for us.

It’s going to be a challenge to survive. Already, Adrian and the fae around him are struggling to even exist. The fae have some kind of item or magic that I’m unfamiliar with, stabilizing a pocket of existence just enough for them to avoid tumbling into the mix of nullspaces or the gaps that lead to the void.

Systemlesss magic that isn’t properly defined by my eyes is slightly disconcerting, but they’re not actively attacking us, which places them firmly at the bottom of my priorities.

And oh, are there so many enemies attacking us right now.

Some of them I’ve seen before. Most of them I’ve sensed before.

All of them rip our world apart in their efforts to kill us.

Sapphire is the closest one to us, but she hasn’t attacked us yet. Simple deduction tells me that she must know that we have the weapon, and if she hasn’t already attempted to Excise us, that means she fears it. And if she fears it, we can use it.

But I get the impression that as much as we filled up this miniature moon with the mana of an ocean of mana, it’s still only good for a single use.

The raw significance of this weapon is too great to be used and abused. When all is said and done, I anticipate that we’ll have one shot at using it, and I'm not going to waste it on a Titan, or a proto-Titan, or even the last angel, no matter how fierce they may seem.

Because I am here for one reason and one reason only, and that is to see Sapphire dead.

I need some target prioritization. Not all these Titans will be able to affect me the same way. Many of them have only barely awakened. Some of them are still weak, and some of them I already know I can overpower.

The proto-Titans don’t even stand a chance; they are here to wear me down, to distract us, and hope for a lucky shot. While there are almost sixty enemies here, each of them continent-destroying threats in their own right, there are some that are far greater than others.

Aside from Sapphire, I don’t think it’s the Titans I need to prioritize. Right now, with my senses as amplified and intertwined with Sierra’s as they are, I am pretty sure the final angel presents the most pressing threat.

The pressure I feel exuding off of its body is an order of magnitude stronger than the Aspect of the Founder. With this amount of power, it might even be able to match the Mortal Spirit. Its radiance outshines the sun, angelic light devouring every inch of the land.

Fortunately for me, I am not its only target, which I can tell because the slowly expanding hypernova centered on its position doesn’t discriminate its targets as it moves.

It stabilizes our reality by virtue of wiping it clean, because even an empty vacuum can still be real so long as the pathways to the primordial void behind it are sealed. The expanding wave of force scrubs matter away, erasing it and replacing it with the certain nothingness of empty reality, protecting the world from the void.

Angel 1 has advanced twelve positions. When I saw it briefly in the Second Circle, it was Category Six.

In the eternity of the minutes since then, both of us have changed. I am flush with the power of two dead Titans and the hells we ate. Sierra and I have awakened, and under ordinary conditions, we would be unstoppable.

These are not, by any meaning of the word, normal conditions.

The angel has grown too, and the lack of an army with it even as the hells separate from us and dissolve tells me everything I need to know. Its power burns with the residue of its species.

The angels are a created race. According to Sapphire’s little speech to me,each individual angel is inherently weaker than the hero of the fae that was the basis for their creation.

That’s how it’s always been, because the fae can’t be at risk of their creations destroying them. But in this moment, One is far more than just a shadow of a fae.

Appraise confirms my fears and my foremost theory at the same time. Through our link, Sierra sends me a note of alarms:

Name: 1

Category: 6+

Last used skill: Reconstruct

Angel 1 is not just the first angel. It is the last; it is every angel. It is the prime directive of the fae manifested. To the world, it is hope; to you, it is destruction.

1 appears, and less than a second later, a familiar being engages it.

In this accelerated perception of time, I’m able to see what’s left of the world by expanding my mind, using the Titan network as a jumping-off point to scan the entire plane.

To my surprise, even with the ongoing rampage of all the Titans and the hasty degradation of reality, there aren’t as many dead as I thought there would be. There still seem to be a solid few billion alive, though that number drops by millions with every passing second.

Parts of the world have gone nearly completely untouched. I wonder if they’ve even noticed what’s happening.

If I haven’t, they will. I recognize Sersui, Titan of the Shifting Sands, the monster that crushed me and the proto-Titan that forced me to advance.

Miles under me, I sense the offensive activation of a nullspace. Water ceases to exist, and a hundred miles of land turn to dried-out, cracked desert.

The shifting sand seeks to burn the angel, but what can a candle do to burn a star? The sands sap its power, but it’s like trying to bail out the ocean with a thimble.

I remember that the hell of the Shifting Sands stopped us from healing, from using aspects of our magic—as long as Sersui held domain over it, that is.

Here, here it’s a struggle for control, but… it’s not really a struggle.

The power of every angel pours into the Titan as I watch. The nullspace doesn’t even slow the progress of the creeping radiance.

Angel magic spreads like a virus, vaporizing, infecting, cleansing.

It makes contact.

The continent disappears.

In an instant, its surface is wiped clean. A single drop of the manifested angelic power touches it, taking with it the Shifting Sands, a handful of Titans, and a billion lives.

And the angel isn’t done yet. I realize quickly that it isn’t the Titans I have to fear; it’s this last bastion of the fae.

I can do battle over a nullspace—that’s something I have experience with. On the other hand, while I’ve been able to run from an angelic explosion before, that was when there was further reality to run into.

Sierra and I created ourselves and our paths in breaking hells and the void, and in the process, we granted ourselves the ability to see beyond the pale.

What I see is emptiness.

The heavens burn. The hells collapse. All of reality splits apart, ready to dissolve into the primordial chaos that waits beneath.

The last angel's attack wants to reduce everything to nothingness, because an empty world, I suppose, seems preferable to it over no world at all.

My focus changes from figuring out how to kill these other Titans to surviving the oncoming assault of the angel.

Sapphire Clearwater will survive this; she has a miniature sun in her hands, teeming with the power that matches our weapon, and she hasn’t used it yet. That is the key to killing her. I need her weapon. I need her dead by my hand. Then, and only then, can I consider what to do with this world.

For that, I need to survive this first. I need Sierra, I need Adrian, and… well, I don’t really need the fae, but if they happen to survive, I don’t need them dead, either. The power they can grant me is basically nothing when compared to what we have.

I remember Marie’s modification to the angel that sacrificed itself.

The two of us are so different from how I was when that went off that I’m sure if it happened again, we could contain it.

That might be arrogance speaking, but it really doesn’t matter, since the last angel’s scouring light is not something I can stop.

My perception so fast that Sierra and I are the only ones, save perhaps some of the other Titans, that can properly understand what is happening. Even in those moments, even before a single millsecond has passed, the magic spreads hundreds, thousands of miles.

Sersui, Titan of the Shifting Sands; Ardael, Titan of the Burning Sky; Anaris, Titan of the Ceaseless Storm, and Hayel, Titan of the Restless Dead die.

Their nullspaces are powerful and only grow more powerful with the total consumption of the land they have annihilated. And yet, the will of a millennium of angels combined shatters them like so much glass.

Sapphire barely even acknowledge the death of our brethren. I sense her activate her nullspace. It’s only my Titan power and authority directed towards not forgetting, towards not allowing herself to meddle with my mind anymore, that enables me to even tell what she’s doing as she Excises herself from this world.

I suppose the logic is sound. How can you take damage if you never existed at all?

That leaves me, Sierra, Adrian, and three surviving fae to weather the storm. I stop paying attention to the Titans after the first few moments, because even if they are surviving amidst the matter-annihilating storm, it destabilizes the Titan network. The angel's power breaks through the god-borne system itself, and I lose contact. I know not whether they’re dead or just unreachable.

I can’t assume anything right now other than what I already know for certain.

And what I know is that the angel is attacking us, and Sapphire has half of the weapon. We need to kill her.

There’s one flaw in Sapphire's power: she can’t hide herself from other Titans. Even if the angel's power is able to separate them from the network, she does not have it, and combined with my near-immunity to antimemetics, that means I can see her. We can both sense her location even if she’s half a reality away, no longer properly on this plane.

Even while she’s hiding from the light, I can find her, and Sierra can too.

Kill, I communicate to my partner, and the Titan of Balance, her mind exactly as fast as mine, replies, Agreement.

Underneath us, the angel's power continues to spread. It seems to be soaking into the planet itself first, scouring the surface to the core before spreading over the air.

The cleansing light dances over the world, annihilating everything and everyone. I sense it break through an entire world. When it directs itself at a Titan, even the former gods die. The rest of the mortals don’t stand a ghost of a chance.

In one percent of the time it takes a human eye to blink, the population of this world has been reduced from over ten billion to less than a hundred.

That doesn’t particularly concern me, but I think Sierra and Adrian will be less happy about it.

If my understanding of this weapon is right, though, activating it will reverse the death of the world.

Without the second half, though, we can’t even use it.

Sierra and I blink towards Adrian and take the weapon from his hands, our linked existences analyzing the concept he used to infuse it with power. He doesn’t need to be touching it, anymore—at least, I don’t think he does.

The Unbreakable Mortal Spirit is full, but won’t initiate its ability until it's complete. To complete it, we need to take the weapon back from Sapphire; completion means the eradication of every last living being on this planet.

I begin to activate Crimson Storm, but at the speeds we are operating at, that’s not fast enough.

Sierra, bless her soul, makes the breakthrough.

Within us, we have the powers of our brethren, just like the angel. Whereas 1 took its power from willing participants, ours was taken violently.

And even after pouring our mana into the god-killing weapon, we still have the weight of Titans within us. I can use it to kill, but Sierra knows exactly how to shape it.

ERROR: UNDEFINED BEHAVIOR DETECTED

ERROR: UNDEFINED: ERROR: BEHAVIOR: ERROR: ERROR: ERROR

We are pushing the system beyond its limits, and I think part of that stems from the fact that said system is not long for this world. Without a world to impose itself on, there is no system; without any existence left in reality, there is nobody for the skeleton of divinity to attach onto. Without subjects, a god is dead.

At the end of everything, the system is flexible. Authority is flexible.

Trust me, Sierra tells me.

Forever and always, I reply.

I trust her, even when tearing pain rips through my existence, even as she reshapes our souls. All my instincts scream at me, telling me she’s killing me. They have never failed me, but Sierra is the one being throughout the dissonant layers of reality that I will trust over them.

Through fire and flame, she redefines what we are, and she says, nullspace.

Unsure of what she means, I draw upon my own.

Paradox, in which nothing can survive for long because nothing is and everything is not. My nullspace is a lack of reason. It’s impossibilities. Every last one of them.

Which is exactly what we need right now. There is no possible future where I can tank the power of the angel’s wrath with just my body, no matter how much I strengthened it, but within my nullspace, there is no future.

When it activates, it’s not limited to only a few hundred feet; when it activates, it doesn’t immediately kill everyone within it, because I find I have control. Just because my nullspace is by definition nonsensical, doesn’t mean that it’s undirectable. I’ve been able to paint broad strokes, and now, with our authority refolded and refined, I can do more than that.

I tell my power to avoid Adrian, Sierra, and begrudgingly, the fae, since I still don’t know if we have all the information we need from them.

Within the space, effect can come before cause, and now, I can dictate how that occurs. I separate myself from basic concepts like causality, reason, consistency, and reality, for I know what we need to do.

I reappear in front of Sapphire, Sierra by my side, and then my Crimson Storm activates. Effect, then cause.

Sierra acts.

Nullspace: Balance.

Sapphire’s eyes widen with surprise. With the confounding factor of our sudden evolution, we catch her off surprise. Within the bounds of Paradox, I am functionally a god, and Sierra unveils her new power—but Sapphire’s expression narrows, and suddenly, she is holding an item that she was not before.

Effect before cause.

It’s my turn to be surprised when I see what the half-elf is holding.

The Unbreakable Mortal Spirit — Angelic Sun

Category: 6+

Tier: Irrelevant

Charges: 1/0

Description: One half of a whole. It has been mutilated, engineered, experimented upon. Infused with the corpses of the 12 greatest angels, this is more than the sum of its parts. Though it may not be whole, it is, for a time, functional.

Goodbye, Sapphire communicates.

I realize too late that she, too, is knowledgeable of the impossibilities within my still-expanding nullspace.

She, too, is able to access the depths of our brethren as a power source.

Her choice to gather them here wasn’t just to send them to attack us. It wasn’t just to force us together. I thought her plan would be to forcibly fuse herself with Sierra or I, but no. The presence of the Titans was so she would have a fuel source.

Her half of the fae weapon is bound by angelic power. Fae creation meets fae creation, and together, alongside the bundled power of the fallen Titans, it activates.

Sapphire vanishes.

#

This is not good.

As soon as she disappears, things start getting unstable much, much faster. The cracks start to widen faster, the void encroaches, and even in this sped-up, hyper-accelerated pocket of time, I can see the yawning abyss beyond.

This world is not long for existence.

I realize why quickly enough, the pieces falling into place. The weapon allows the user to travel through time.

Sapphire, the original goddess is changing what is and what was, because what better way to ensure that the gods return than to make them never fall in the first place?

In her final moments, though, I catch an insight. If I see it, then Sierra does too.

It’s the angels. The angelic power that infused her weapon is the same as the power that ravages the planet below, and with her Titan magic, it was enough to activate the Unbreakable Spirit.

An idea forms itself in my mind, and I communicate it to Sierra.

It’s a stupid one. It relies on our ability to essentially take an explosion and turn it into fuel

No choice, Sierra says. She’s not wrong.

Our intent flows between us. Words are unnecessary, but we choose a few anyway.

I love you, she says.

Agreement, I reply.

She holds my hand, mana coursing through me as we exit our shared nullspaces.

And we begin to Devour what is left of the world.