Demonic Devourer ch. 113

The First Circle, moments earlier

“You’re sure about this?” Sapphire asks, raising an eyebrow.

A chill runs up Marie’s spine. The Overseer’s eyes seem to bore into hers, baring the truth of her soul. She refuses to let herself be cowed, though, and she stares back defiantly. “Of course. This is an ideal opportunity to witness the formation of a Titan and the collapse of reality alike.”

“Reality collapsing may not have the effects you wish it did, Jade,” Clearwater says, clasping her hands together behind her back and leaning forward. On anyone else, the gesture would look immature. On Clearwater, it makes her look dominant, as if she’s saying I don’t need this to kill you. “I would never dare to imagine I know all there is to know about your desires, but I believe I know glimpses.”

That genuinely scares her. Overseer Clearwater has been around far longer than Marie has, and the tone in her voice…

It doesn’t matter. Clearwater is a means to an end.

“I am certain,” Marie says. “The others have prepared weapons, and I have my own.”

“Oh?” Sapphire asks, raising an eyebrow. “And what, pray tell, have you brought to the table?”

Marie displays three trinkets, each of them no larger than a thumbnail. All three practically vibrate with the amount of raw power that has been packed into them.

She doesn’t need to explain. People like Sapphire understand true power.

Clearwater whistles. “Powerful artifacts, hmm?”

She doesn’t need to explain, but Marie wants to anyway. She wants Clearwater to understand just how prepared she is.

It’s petty, but Marie has never claimed to be above pettiness.

Mastery of Jade

Category: 5

Tier: Sapphire

Current Charges: ??/??

A weapon fueled by the force of a bloodline. This blade feeds on the lives and power of the surviving Jade family to fuel its lightning. Using this blade grants complete mastery over the skills and power of those you sacrifice for it.

Heart of the Third

Category: 5

Tier: Sapphire

Current Charges: 9/9

The heart of the former Angel 3, shaped into a launcher. Any being tainted with demonic corruption within nine miles of the heart when it is activated will die twice over immediately. Grants the user the Divine affinity at the 9th level.

Founding Shard

Category: 6

Tier: ?

A fragment of the original god, intact after the fall. The energy stored in this shard is enough to shatter the world and send it hurtling into the void.

“Two Category 5 artifacts,” she crows. “One Category 6.”

“I await your triumphant return,” Sapphire says.

“You choose to remain?” Marie asks.

“I prefer not to suffer the effects of traveling into a hell too deep,” Sapphire says. “It is more difficult than I would like to descend six more circles.”

Marie has never seen Sapphire admit that she can’t do anything before.

It’s enough to make a woman suspicious, but she has already committed to her course of action.

She has a Titan to study and coworkers to sacrifice.

As she gathers the remaining researchers together, though, she finds that seed of doubt growing.

Marie quashes it. She refuses to let Sapphire dictate her feelings. She is a Category 5, for the sake of the broken, not a whimpering child.

Besides, she tells herself, if it comes down to it, she can always escape. Over the long, long course of her life, she’s gathered enough items to make an army blush.

Also, she’s not staying here. Angel 13 is not happy that Evelyn and Sierra appear to still be alive, and though she has angels coming with her, Marie doubts that 13 will bother asking questions before taking her head when her true intentions are revealed.

Not that that will be an issue. Even though 13 is a Category higher than her, Marie could defeat it.

Victory against a lesser being is all but assured.

“The Seventh Circle’s integrity is beginning to collapse. During this period of vulnerability, the proto-Titans will be open to our attack.” That part is a lie, but Marie doesn’t care. She only has eyes for the Titans, not the sacrifices she’s bringing with her. “Any last questions?” she asks, looking around. Seeing none, she nods. “Then dive.”

#

The Seventh Circle, now

Sapphire isn’t here.

I can’t decide how I feel on that. In the end, I decide that it’s a good thing. I’m sure that she has a plan of some kind, because she’s always scheming, but she has the presence of a Titan. I strongly suspect that she is the Titan of the Forgotten Realm.

So I can’t beat her yet. Better to kill who I can now.

There are a bevy of corpses that don’t know they’re dead yet arrayed against me, each of them surviving the Burning Sky through magic, technology, or their mere existence as angels. The closest is a mile away; the furthest, five. They’re further away from us than the ones that came to the Ninth Circle were. I wonder if they realize I can still sense them.

I almost regret not powering Appraise up before realizing that my senses have expanded greatly. Though I don’t get the scant few lines of occasionally relevant text that the system provides me, nor do I get an exact idea of their levels, I can estimate how strong the force presumably meant to end us is.

They run the gamut from Category 1—a few of the researchers—all the way up to Category 5. I can feel the differences easily; the difference between Categories, I realize, is not linear but exponential. That explains the rush of authority the system poured into me upon my ascension.

Marie is Category 5. One of the angels, one that I identify as Angel 42, is Category 5. Three angels and four humans are Category 4.

Everybody else is irrelevant.

“Eviscerate,” I order.

Objective: Marie’s monster

Kill your creators.

Targets killed: [9/32] -> [25/32]

Reward: ???

Their blood burns as it explodes from their bodies. Most of them don’t even have time to scream.

Objective: Marie’s monster

Kill your creators.

Targets killed: [25/32] -> [26/32]

Reward: ???

I turn to Sierra, who’s just showered the both of us in blood.

“I figured we didn’t need his advice anymore,” she says mildly.

Right. I clean us up with Devour, using the skill to siphon every bit of Del’s body that plastered us, and then I turn my attention to those remaining.

“Sierra,” I say. “Will you be alright if I leave you alone for a moment?”

“I can survive the hell,” she says. “Come back for me if I die, will you?”

“I won’t be long,” I promise.

With our Mind (Speed) attributes equally high now, she’s actually able to wave goodbye as I enter Crimson Storm. I watch her just long enough to confirm that she’s able to carve out a space for herself in the midst of the Burning Sky.

There’s only one issue: my Mind (Speed) attribute isn’t uniquely high here. If it weren’t for the fact that I’m a fully-fledged Titan, these people would fully outclass me.

Though the world around me seems to slow down to a standstill, the people and angels do not.

That’s fine. I can still kill them all.

The surviving Category 4s begin activating skills and domains, filling the hell with power.

But they’re not together. They’re fast, just like me, but Crimson Storm is a Sapphire-tier skill.

As I soar towards my first target—Angel 237—I use Trueshift, shrinking my body down and down and down and down until I may as well not exist. I activate Antimemetic Cloak at the same time, for what little good that does.

“The demon has vanished!” 237 declares, the magic around its body still glowing intensely. “Who vanquished it?”

I may as well have vanished. My entire existence is confined to twenty-seven extremely powerful atoms.

“It’s not gone, dumbass,” a voice I don’t recognize shouts from a few hundred feet away. One of the researchers. A Category 4 with an active domain of shadows that’s closer to a nullspace than any domain I’ve seen. An ascendant domain, my amalgam tells me. “It’s using antimemetics! It’s right—“

He’s less than 999 feet away.

Heaven and Hell, my existence screeches.

The Category 4’s ascendant Nightmare domain dissipates in an instant. I Trueshift myself into a body with eyes just in time to see the light leave his.

His soul shatters like an overinflated balloon, and his limp body begins to fall. It makes it a short few feet before the hellfire consumes it.

Objective: Marie’s monster

Kill your creators.

Targets killed: [27/32]

Reward: ???

Ascendant domain, I think, barely even registering the death as I Devour his body.

I haven’t considered what happens beyond Category 2. It hasn’t been relevant to me.

Now, for a brief instant, it is. It only matters in the sense that I need to know how to counter it, but still.

Category Four: the domain becomes accessible at all times. It becomes part of your power pool, and just as you can impose it upon the world, you can draw from it to power you.

Category Five: Ascendant concept. The concept you devote your existence becomes available at all times. You embody the concept, and your ultimate application of it can slip the bounds of the system itself.

Alright. I silently thank the stars that Sapphire didn’t annihilate that part of the amalgam.

Category Four’s power sounds like a worse nullspace. Category Five is different, but not outside my purview either.

Fantastic. That gives me a better idea of what I need to do here.

Interestingly enough, the power that surges into me from Devour is no longer experience. It’s raw authority, ready to be shaped into experience for myself, my traits, or my skills. Maybe it always has been, and now I’m just witnessing the power before my system converts it into experience.

I store it for now, Trueshifting back into a form so small that I can pass between the threads of the angel’s clothing.

I prepare to stab my way into it and eviscerate it with my bare hands when it burns with radiant power, throwing me off. As I fly away, I return to my humanoid form.

“Demon,” it snarls. “Anomaly. Chaos beast.”

I cock my head at that last one. Haven’t heard that one before.

237’s ascendant domain is Smite, which is interesting, and it burns through me almost as fast as I regenerate.

“Heaven and Hell,” I declare again, but nothing changes.

Also interesting. 237 either doesn’t have a soul, or it’s immune to both divine and demonic power.

That’s fine, though, because even as it tries to sear my existence from reality, it doesn’t realize it’s already lost. After all, within nine feet, I can make even a god bleed.

And powerful as 237 might be, it’s no god.

Eviscerate, I declare for the second time. 237 has time to widen its eyes before it explodes into a shower of gore.

I restore my body to full health by Devouring its body, and I set off for the next.

As I do, I realize that the excess authority I’ve gained is genuinely massive. My Devour stretches across miles, feeding me the power of the eighteen I’ve killed so far. I’ve rarely had the opportunity to eat those of Category 3 or higher, and though their blood is no sweeter than that of the most pathetic Category 0, their power is orders of magnitude greater.

I smile. There are four humans and three angels remaining. It’d be a shame if I had to do the same thing over and over.

As I turn my attention to the next Category 4, I amplify my next skill.

Soulblade (Gold) advanced to Soulblade (Sapphire)!

There is no range limit on your Soulblade. The only limit is the strength of your soul.

My next target is the three remaining Category 4s.

I extend my Soulblade out, making it a dozen miles long, and I swing.

#

Marie

Even by her most realistic expectations, this is going remarkably poorly. Marie expected the Category 3s to survive for a few minutes, at the very least, but it’s been less than fifteen seconds and there are only seven of them alive.

“Work together if you wish to survive,” she says, using her Mastery of Jade to steal Farspeak from a distant nephew and communicate to the other researchers. “There is security in numbers.”

You will not survive much longer, she thinks. There is, however, knowledge to be gained.

Marie sees the razor-thin blade made from the experiment’s soul coming towards her faster than the speed of sound. Fortunately, the remaining survivors are competent enough to teleport around it. One of them—Natalie, if she remembers right—has the ascendant domain Flicker, in which she has perfect control over minute fluctuations of time. She sends the three of them an instant forward, then back, barely dodging the experiment’s Soulblade. One angel dies, sliced in twain, while the others fly up fast enough to avoid it.

Marie, on the other hand, decides to attempt blocking it.

She uses the Mastery of Jade, meeting the experiment’s sword with one of her own.

The sheer amount of power the experiment has is shocking. Marie is quite near the peak of human ability. She possesses a Category 5 weapon, and her attributes are so high that she could walk straight through a less powerful being and turn it into bloody paste.

And still, her will nearly shatters against the force of the impact. The Mastery of Jade is the only reason she survives the blast, and even then, the blade barely holds.

Somewhere else in the world, nine members of the Jade family die.

“Such power,” she mutters. Marie will avoid the next attacks, then. Her family has paid for her to learn this, but that’s a sacrifice she’s willing to make. That’s what she made them for, after all—she has no love for family beyond the value they represent to her. “You will be useful.”

Carnelian cancels the Soulblade and disappears. In her place, an ocean of blood floods forth in all directions, slicing through the burning hell like it’s not even there. It forms itself into blades as it explodes out towards Marie and her allies.

The angels try to defend themselves, but a beast nearly a quarter mile in length springs out of the blood, exploding with power, and a dozen of the Soublades that nearly tore Marie’s bloodline apart cleave out in every direction. With her daughter’s life, Marie Flashsteps out of the way, blinking impossibly from point to point, breaking causuality to slide her way through the tiny gaps in Evelyn’s attack pattern.

One of the angels does not have the mechanism to defend against it. 42 becomes semi-immaterial, allowing the Soulblade to pass straight through it, but 339 crumples, its soul rent apart. Moments later, it falls limp, another pulse of power tearing its broken soul from its body and sending it hurtling into the infinite sky around them.

The three Category 4s activate their ascendant domains together as the beast morphs back into the humanoid demon that escaped from Underground Site 17.

Flicker gives them the minute precision and evasion capabilities to prepare Infinite Prison and Dark Star, offensive domains that may actually allow them to capture or slay the nascent Titan.

No—not nascent. Not anymore.

Evelyn Carnelian’s nullspace does not force itself upon reality—that would imply that she has to break it again.

It simply is, and the world bends beneath it.

For the first time, a genuine chill of fear runs up Marie’s spine. Her senses are set aflame as she witnesses the Titan in front of her, and she realizes with cold certainty what her experiment has become.

Name: T-17 - Evelyn Carnelian, the Titan of the Broken Hell

Age: 19

Race: ?

Class: Divine Demon/Titan

Level: 201/Irrelevant

Category: ?

Kill Count: 3006

Witness what you have wrought, Marie Jade.

[APPRAISE FAILED]

Darkness passes over the battlefield, oppressive and all-consuming, and then there is light. Then, both exist, and the area around Carnelian is broken and bloody and whole and pristine and black and white and impossible.

The hell begins to crack apart at the seams, and it’s not just the aftereffect of the angel nuke Marie deployed.

She’s destroying it herself.

Marie’s last three human allies spend the last seconds of their lives realizing they have been bisected before the unforgiving fabric of the primordial void absorbs them whole.

It’s a twist of fate, Marie thinks, that the researchers who sent their knowledge about the system into a soul-construct may very well have been killed by the demon that received it.

That leaves two survivors. Her only remaining companion is Angel 42, also a Category 5. Its ascendant concept is survival; Marie’s is iteration.

She casts aside her fear—it’s a useless, pathetically human emotion. The weaklings have been weeded out. The true battle has only just begun.

At this stage in her development, Carnelian may prove to be useful even as a corpse. Examining a fresh enough body of a new Titan may prove to be as enlightening on the limitations of the system as subjugating it would be.

Of course, she would prefer to take it alive, but that’s no longer looking like a possibility.

Marie is one of the first people to have ever received the Scientist class, and she plans on being the first to use it to break free from the system.

Now, she decides to win.

Marie activates the Heart of the Third.

#

42

Angel 42 has been alive for a very, very long time.

When it was forged into existence a thousand years ago, it was Angel 10,381. Since then, it has slowly gathered power, advanced ahead of those who pstagnate or perish, and it has survived.

42 has spent the entirety of its life in the hells. This is the first time it has ever borne witness to a Titan’s power, and it wishes it did not have to.

This… creature… is immature. If 42 had to judge, it would say that the combined strength of the force that its human ally brought with her was greater than what this creature could bring to bear, but that is no longer the case.

42 fears that it is only a matter of time before the difference is not even close.

It has to execute the newborn Titan before its power escalates out of control and destabilizes the system even further than it already has. Even as 42 dodges attacks that it categorizes as Soulblade, Eviscerate, and Hemokinesis, amongst others, it develops a pattern of the creature’s movements.

This has to end here and now. After the initial barrage of attacks, there are only two survivors on 42’s side—itself, and the human who chose to engage in the battle.

The creature is a full Titan, 42 transmits to 13. It knows that the greater angel will not descend to the Seventh to help it, but if this goes awry, 42’s contingency will keep it alive. The human’s plan was insufficient.

It turns its attention to the battle just in time for Marie Jade to shatter a piece of an angel’s heart.

If it were not for their mutual enemy, 42 would strike her down where she stands for this transgression. Jade wields the heart of the original Angel 3, dead mere decades after 42’s creation thanks to follies committed in the early days of the system.

This is a holy relic, not a mere weapon, but Jade uses it as the latter. If the original Three was truly here, 42 knows, the hell would already have ceased to exist.

Even a fraction of its power, however, is enough to slay any demon. Angelic power that defies anything 42 can output bursts out from 3’s heart, stilling the hell around it. Angel 3 was one of the first to ever define the order of the new world, and it was the one whose sacrifice paved the way for the system to be what it is today.

It enforces that order now, telling the hell to stop existing where cleansing power washes over it.

But it does not return them to the void, either—no, 3 and 42 and all the angels exist because their forefathers needed a race to prevent the advent of the void. The hell stills where power washes over it, and so do the cracks in its reality.

42 gives a silent prayer, and it uses its ascendant domain.

Amplification. It’s a simple power, but 42 has gained so much prestige and power across the centuries for a reason. Its ability to survive and allow others to be more than what they are has been crucial to its ascension.

With its Amplification, the Heart of the Third’s power simply shreds through everything in its path. The Burning Sky freezes, its atoms ordered to end their movement by the authority invested in a long-dead angel. Demonic influence vanishes, the chaos beasts banished back into the primordial void from whence they came—and then the power of the Third collides with the Titan of the Paradox, and it too freezes.

Moments later, its nullspace begins to crack.

42’s resplendent network of limbs does not let up. It crafts complex magic that humans could never even dream to use, shaping authority into a new skill, and it Cleanses the last fragments of the Titan’s power, Banishing them into the void.

Help, the Titan manages to cry, and then it’s gone.

#

Marie

Marie does not relax when Evelyn Carnelian disappears. She has witnessed false deaths before, and she will never be sure that something is truly dead until she has vivisected it and observed how it ticks.

She activates the Heart of the Third seven more times after the first, and each time, Angel 42 amplifies it, multiplying its power by a factor of a hundred. She saves the final charge, hesitant to use the last of its power.

It provides her with a Divine affinity, so she pours Smite after Smite into the Titan until its nullspace cracks apart, but she avoids touching the dead being itself.

After all, she still wants the corpse, and if she and the angel eliminate even the traces of its body, this will have been for nothing.

Marie approaches Evelyn Carnelian’s body, wading her way through the stilled time and energy with 42’s protection applied to her skin.

Victory is hers.

And then she hears it. From miles away, an authoritative cry in Sierra Jade’s voice.

Assistance.

#

Sierra

She’s twenty-seven miles away when she feels her aunt begin to fight, and she does not care.

Evelyn can handle herself.

Sierra closes her eyes and meditates, seeking the parts of her authority that prevent her from advancing to the same ascended state that Evelyn has achieved.

It’s only when the power of an original angel tears through the hell of the Burning Sky that she even looks in the direction of the fight.

She’s made her allies aware of the scale of Marie’s power before. Her aunt is one of the five strongest humans alive, if she has to guess, and the artifacts she possesses mean that she has a strong case for being the first.

This is one of those.

Sierra wonders if she should be worried about Evelyn, but their souls are bonded. She would feel it if Evelyn—her thought cuts off.

Pain as intense as any backlash she’s ever experienced tears through her soul.

Help, Evelyn says.

For an instant, Sierra worries. For an instant, she wonders if Evelyn has finally taken a fight she cannot win.

Except this isn’t a cry of despair. Their communication is impossibly nuanced, and the bond between their souls makes it even more so.

This is a cry for assistance.

Sierra closes her eyes once more, her mind speeding up to match Evelyn’s, and she analyzes the message.

The Titan of the Paradox has had more raw power than Sierra for quite some time now, but Sierra has always been the one with a better sense for magic. Evelyn breaks what should be possible, and Sierra learns from what she reveals.

This time, it’s an academic problem. A simple one, at that—simple for Sierra, at least.

Though Evelyn is proficient at progressing what she has and stealing from others, at her core, she’s someone who breaks.

Sierra is glad to put the pieces back together for her.

She sends instructions; bits and pieces of information coalesce to create a single message, one carrying what Evelyn will need to shape a new skill out of a dead woman’s disparate mana.

Assistance, Sierra sends back.

A moment passes. A moment Flickers.

And Evelyn is beside her again.

“Phew,” the demonic girl says, eyes blazing crimson, “that was close.”

“Welcome,” Sierra says, raising an eyebrow. “I presume Aunt Marie is still alive. She used a trump card.”

“So she did,” Evelyn replies. “That was closer than I would have liked it to be. Thank you.”

“You’ll always have me,” Sierra says.

Evelyn hovers down and kisses her.

Sierra doesn’t think that Evelyn finds pleasure in the act. Her body simply isn’t wired for it. But the demon girl knows that Sierra does, and so she does it anyway.

She’s more considerate than she realizes.

“I’ll be right back,” Evelyn says. “Let me know if you reach godhood.”

The Titan vanishes in a flash of blood.

#

42

Assistance, a being cries. A Titan.

No. It cannot be a Titan.

Except it is.

The facts click in slowly.

The Titan is gone.

It is not dead.

There is another.

42 is about to turn to its human ally when the demon Titan flashes into existence in front of him.

Fear has long been a useful emotion for 42. It is not one meant for angels, but 42 knows that fear means it is outlcassed. Fear means it can survive.

It stares death in the eyes, and it is petrified. If 42 were human, it knows it would be unable to move. But 42 is not, and so it realizes that it must survive. It must Adapt.

There is no Adapting to this Titan’s attacks, 42 realizes. Not with the current state of power it has.

13 can still defeat it. 13 is dozens, hundreds of times stronger than 42 is.

42 must flee.

So it creates yet another new skill, condensing its existence and stripping the power away from the unnecessary parts of its soul. To escape, it will Shatter the barrier between the hells itself. 13 may choose to execute it for its transgression against the sanctity of reality, but there is no other choice.

42 Shatters reality, then activates Ascend—but no, the hell is intact but for the cracks created by the death of 191 and the Titan within it, and it is still in the Seventh Circle.

The Titan of the Paradox smiles. “Fun fact for you: at Sapphire tier, Siphon works on everything. And you’re not strong enough.”

“What are you?” 42 asks, distracting the Titan as it isolates its core self from the rest of its existence. It will send a piece of itself through the layers, and it will notify its master. It sees no shame in retreating, not against this monster.

The monster snaps her fingers, and 42’s body splits apart.

The very action of snapping gives it time to send its core spiraling away, though, hidden under so many layers of antimemetics that it will be long gone by the time the Titan realizes that it has not killed every last trace of the angel.

“I am Evelyn Carnelian,” the Titan says, her eyes refocusing.

Impossible, 42 thinks. Unless she has been exposed to thought-erasing entities of infinite power, there is no world in which she can see it.

Angel 42 doesn’t know it yet, but it is the first Category 5 Evelyn Carnelian will kill. It will not be the last.

“Today, I am death.”

And then there is nothing.

#

Marie

Carnelian is still alive is all Marie has the time to think before Angel 42 dies in a flash of Soulblades and blood.

She should have slaughtered it the first time when she had the chance.

The others that have died so far have been weaker than her, but Angel 42? 42 has—no, had—an ascendant concept, empowering everything it did to survive, and now, it’s gone.

Marie discards any thoughts of impropriety. The balance of this fight has been slowly tilting, and she’s been too busy thinking of her next steps to see it.

She’s going to put everything she has into killing this Titan. Marie has never managed a feat on that scale before—nobody has, not in living memory—but Carnelian is new, and she’s not aware of Marie’s diminished presence half a mile from her.

Marie sacrifices another twenty-four members of the Jade clan with her bloodline, charging her skills until her Tourmaline-tier Jade Lightning temporarily holds enough power to break past even the Sapphire tier. An emerald storm devours the air and the fire and most importantly, the shell of blood and flesh and Titan power that Evelyn Carnelian is now.

She is aware that she may be destroying her target beyond the point of no return. She does not care. As a Scientist, she has her ways to bring back part of that which no longer is. Marie is done playing around—even killing the experiment will provide useful data.

At the peak of Sapphire tier, this is the strongest skill Marie has ever wielded, even if it will only remain this way for a matter of moments.

For long seconds, the hell’s dominant force is not the Burning Sky—it is Jade Lightning. It outburns the fire, shattering pieces of the hell into the void beneath where it touches.

Her power outstrips the sun, and it is all focused on a single being.

Nothing can survive this, she thinks. Not even Carnelian.

But time and time again, she’s been proven wrong, and when the storm of jade finally dissipates, the first thing she hears is laughter.

Marie’s heart drops.

In the distance, completely untouched, Evelyn Carnelian stands atop a swirling mass of Marie’s lightning.

No, not Marie’s. Not anymore.

She’s stolen it. Marie doesn’t even need her Farsight to tell that the demon’s eyes burn with a fresh shade of green.

“Did you think that was enough to stop me?” Evelyn Carnelian cries. “That was barely an appetizer!”

Marie snarls, and she draws on her Mastery of Jade once more.

This time, she looks for a target to sacrifice. She knows that Carnelian has formed an attachment to her niece. She knows better than most how much it hurts to lose what you love.

I am no longer yours, auntie.

The sword cracks, and the connection is lost.

“You should think more carefully about who you hurt,” Evelyn says, and then she closes the distance in a matter of moments.

Marie doesn’t even react as sharpened fingers tear straight through her flesh, drilling through her heart. She doesn’t need it, and it’ll recover.

There is one final option. One item she can use.

But as she is now—as Carnelian is now—Marie doesn’t think she can kill the Titan with the Founding Shard unless she breaks it and annihilates not just this hell, but all of them.

She wants to live to see that, at least, and Evelyn has ensured that she can’t do that now.

Marie has the single most powerful item in the world, and the only thing she can do with it is flee.

“This isn’t over,” she hisses, and she draws deep on the living shard of the original god.

She reappears in the First Circle, bloody and battered and thoroughly defeated.

“Pathetic,” Sapphire Clearwater says.

#

Evelyn

“This isn’t over,” Marie hisses.

I force a fragment my nullspace into her chest, and then she vanishes in a flash of power.

Unlike me, I don’t think she’s coming back.

I use Crimson Storm to bring myself back to Sierra.

“We won,” I tell her. “Marie escaped.”

“Her other trump card,” Sierra says. “She won’t be able to use it again, not anytime soon.”

“Then let’s kill her before she can,” I say. “Let’s kill all of them.”

I offer my hand, and she takes it.

Once more, I witness the truth, and we step into the Sixth Circle.

The clock is ticking. Marie, Sapphire, and the Titans—I’m coming for you.

I am going to end you all.

___
Author's note: another long one! Hope you enjoyed. Always open to feedback as per usual. See you in the next one! (ive written 33000 words this month help me)