Shadow of the Abyss

Enigmatic Step

Cold death stiffened the smoldering ashes of the air ravaged by the Flames of Hell in a cluster of black nodes of mana erupting into a pillar barreling through the ceiling. It tore toward the skies like a bolt of lightning, bearing the roar of thunder so loud it was sure to rupture the ears of anyone nearby.

The winds screamed as if to flee, following the great pillar trying to connect the Heavens to the earth, laying waste to the elements.

Altair roared like a great demon surrounded by a black Vale of Night as he bore down with all his might. The Bapett struck the earth with such a force a shockwave of nearly fifty meters ruptured into a blanketing whirlwind of destruction. The earth wailed, rumbling with the churning of stone being turned to dust.

When, at last, the dust and the trembling of the earth had settled, Altair had landed silently as a shadow with an ashen complexion. Reina took off, aiming her Godly Armament at the Bapett. She rocketed forth like a blur, with the aid of Broken Moon, arriving at the downed Baqett faster than a snap.

Her golden eyes seemed to almost burn with the Sacred Might of the Eternal Heavens. Reina released a single arrow that split apart the skies in a great blaze of golden light. So radiant it was, Forwin appeared to be beneath another star. The flames that had once been ravaging the castle died one after the other in fear of the Flame of Heaven.

She flashed back to Altair's side with Broken Moon, pale as he was. Falling to her knee with a heavy breath.

"Forty Percent,' She told him.

"Thirty," He said back, opening his circle to pull the mana from Heaven and Earth now that the Baelfire had died. Altair swallowed down another set of Hearthstones, and Reina did the same. Even so, their complexion did not get better.

Their bones felt heavy, and the lids of their eyes had begun to droop with deadly levels of exhaustion. But even so, the battle wasn't over.

The Bapett was getting up. Drenched in the blood that gushed from where one of its horns once laid, nearly half of the demons faced seemed no more than a mesh of gore with an eye dangling from out its socket, spewing blood over the ground. The shoulder that once gripped its ax now carried a gaping hole the size of a grown man's head from where Reina's arrow had penetrated.

Name: Bapett [Cripple]

Race: Demon(Half-Blood)

Str: 538.8 → 342

Dex: 210 → 192

Con: 275 →200

Wis: 452.4 → 341

Char: 40.2 → 31

"This thing is still a bloody monster." Altair cursed, feeling the numbing of his legs from his overuse of Sovereign Gale. He glanced at the pale face of Reina and knew she, too, had been heavily drained. Broken Moon had come with a great strain, and Sacred Flame was an even bigger drain.

They couldn't go on like this.

With a mourning wail towards the skies, ash seemed to billow from the gaping hold in its shoulders that rendered its right arm unusable. The Bapett cried, staggering from out the crator in which it lay. It awkwardly reached for its great axe.

Altair tsked and conjured the World of Shadows Grimoire and turned to the second page past Shadow Cage with a solemn complexion. He had barely mastered Shadow Cage to a level he deemed acceptable, though he had been training the second spell for a little over a year now, with little success without the aid of his sigil.

The grimoire hovered within the young lord's palm, shimming a cloak of black mana that whirled like flames.

As if sensing its might, the Mana of Heaven and Earth seemed to turn docile. The Bapett grunted, having regained its balance, and lept out of the crater with a gleam in one eye.

"Get her out of here!" Reina shouted to the Sisters that had protected Aria against the shockwave of Enigmatic Step powered by the Vale. "If the sanctuary isn't safe, return to us," she commanded, pulling herself up with the half-glimmer of a single white wing billowing from off her back.

The sisters felt their eyes widen, and their cold, dead hearts shook with life once more. They bowed deeply and dashed towards the sanctuary. But not before tossing Reina a Flask of Holy Water. They were gone.

The Bapett did not seem to mind as it glared at Altair and Reina, dragging its axe across the earth as it gritted against the stone, occasionally sparking. The noise it made seemed to embody the screams of the dead.

Beginning with a walk, then a trot, the Bapett entered a feral bull rush. Far slower than it was before, Altair still found it difficult to dodge the bull nearly twice his speed. If the beast had known how to use movement techniques, Altair knew he and Reina would have died long ago.

Bearly weaving the horn aimed at his chest, his clothing wrenched, shedding apart from the sheer winds of the beast. The Bapett slid, trying to stop its charge, and swept his axe towards Altair's neck, threatening to decapitate him before he had time to dodge and would have had his eyes not glowed with the power of [Schizophrenia].

Altair manipulated the beast's senses into believing he was a head taller than he actually was. The axe glazed past the top of his head, missing him completely. He took off after the demon, charging as it slid to a stop.

Altair's image seemed to split into seven different clones converging on the Bapett. The demon roared, slashing and cleaving at the clones that seemed to easily dodge its barrage. They began attacking and taunting, cutting into the beast as it screamed, flaring its mana.

Reina watched as the demon began to attack in the air, seemingly fighting some unseen ghost, and figured it had been beneath Altair's spell. She turned to her Prince, shaken as he stood with a twin circle crowning his head like a crown.

Forging an intricate magical circle that bore his sigil at its center, dozens of runes of the Fallen shone with the Demonic Might of the Nine Hells. The air turned to night, and the night to nodes of black so dark it seemed like liquid balls of Darkness, converging into a single point upon the tip of the Prince's finger.

The magical circle gave a finishing flash and vanished, leaving behind a pale Master and the orb on his finger. He exchanged glances and vanished with the aid of Soverign's Gale. Through the domain of the king, he arrived beneath the Bapett in a single breath.

When the eyes of the two monsters met, the Bapetts axe that had been arched high cleaved down with the bellowing hiss of a demon sensing the touch of the Angel of Death, Azazel approach.

Altair pointed his finger up and spoke the incantation: "Enma."

A/N: Cero

With Darkness so profound, it was sure to wither the minds, bodies, and souls of those who glimpsed it. A beam of raw Darkness came from out of the Prince of the Vale's fingertip, erupting in a Baptism of Darkness that ate away at everything and everyone.

The Darkness did not destroy, nor did it burn. It devoured.

From the approaching axe, inches from his head, to the black fur of the Bapett, all of it turned to vaper faster than one could blink their eye. It was all disintegrated, leaving behind a gaping hole that barreled through the cathedral.

Through the walls it went, whipping past the bailey into the City of Forwin, through houses and farms, forges and keeps, it flew up past the Great Wall, tearing towards the horizon, howling with the cries of the demons of Hell.

[Herald of Astaroth Felled. Exp Gained]

[Herald of Astaroth Felled. Exp Gained]

[Herald of Astaroth Felled. Exp Gained]

[Sister of Sepith Felled. Exp Gained]

[Sister of Sepith Felled. Exp Gained]

[Sister of Sepith Felled. Exp Gained]

[...]

╰(*°▽°*)╯ (づ￣ 3￣)づ

What remained of the Bepett was a giant beast of bleeding muscles that held no eyes, much less skin. It dropped to its knees before the Prince, pale as a ghost.

Reina emerged, flashing onto its downed head, and plunged her sword, which blazed the golden radiance of her sacred flame. An arc flew from out of her sword as she performed the first stance of the Nine Celestial Moon Blade Technique her master gifted her, adjoined with Infernal Rage.

"Howling Moon"

As if the Bapett's neck had been made of liquid butter, a searing sword passed through it, stealing away its life.

[Bapett Felled. Exp Gained]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

…

Chiming nearly ten times, Altair and Reina collapsed into the pool of lifeblood pulsing from out of the Bapett before it became no more than a steady stream before it stopped.

Sucking away the blood with a hint of fever, Altair groaned, feeling the backlash erupting from out of every pore of his body. Blood had begun to trickle out.

Enma had been a Second Circle Spell. One at the very peak of its stage that called not only the power of the Infernal Hells but the Darkness. Its power was enough to rival most Third Circle Spells and sometimes fourth.

And had required nearly ten years of his lifespan to cast. It was a drop in the bucket compared to his actual lifespan, but Altair's current body still found it hard to bear.

Reina sighed, gasping for air, feeling her heart painfully hammering against her chest. She rolled over, pale and weak.

"3%," She said, short of breath, unable to feel most of her steaming body.

"1%," Altair replied, suckling at the Bapett's blood.

[Ding]