Demonic Devourer ch. 95

Alexander Callen knows what he’s getting into. His mimicry of Sapphire’s Sight Beyond Sight is growing dim, but its power remains sufficient for him to observe what’s happening.

Someone is puppeting an operator, telling his targets what’s coming for them. Giving them time to prepare.

Callen has one guess as to who that is. He appreciates that she is at least considering giving him a challenge. He wants to see what their full capabilities are. Anything less would be doing himself a disservice.

His magic has been building up for days now. Weeks, even. A dozen items have reached their maximum fruition, enabling him to amplify his domain to levels unheard of. Contrary to the most popular beliefs of modern-day Titan scholars, Callen understands that a domain is not a nullspace; the opposite holds true as well. With the proper adjustments to his power, he can withstand a Titan’s pressure.

Callen has survived sixteen separate Titan encounters across the last half-century alone. He will not be threatened by a pair of incipient proto-Titans.

His domain is powerful, and it flows freely. In tandem with the amplification matrices he’s established across a dozen separate magical focuses, he should be able to temporarily overpower even a true Titan’s domain.

One of the twin proto-Titans—his original target—is a demon, and Callen knows demons. He double-checks to ensure that the soul spike he carries is still functional. Once he kills her, he needs to prevent her soul from escaping into the hells, which is trivial with the items he’s prepared.

The plan is simple. Once he steps from the fragment, his domain will nullify the unfinished nullspaces for long enough to unleash power tuned specifically to annihilate demons. He held back on it last time, but now he finally has the authorization to execute the experiment.

As for the Jade girl, if all else fails, he simply needs to activate one of the many, many contingencies Marie established in her. He is intimately familiar with what he needs to do if it comes to that.

This, of course, is assuming that the city-annihilating firepower he brings to bear will not be enough.

The Sight Beyond Sight is ticking to an end. If he makes a move, it has to be now.

Callen takes a measured breath in, half-exhales, and as the mimicry of a skill begins to fade away, he casts a bevy of his own.

Special skill: Demonic Seal. This abuses the level of distance that demons have from the system, disengaging them from their most powerful magic almost entirely.

Domain: Silence.

He Planeshifts into chaos.

Callen registers faint surprise in Carnelian and Jade’s namesake eyes, though that lasts for less time than he expects it to.

It matters not.

Twin nullspaces are already active, which he has planned for. He is instantly barraged with half a dozen twisting, morphing threads of magic, but he Silences them all.

It’s much harder to eliminate their nullspaces than it is to prevent them from using skills, so he focuses primarily on removing the nullspace. Callen can handle magic.

Even with the Silence, the parts of the nullspace further than a few feet away from him devastate the… apartment complex, he thinks. It’s difficult to tell, given the fact that the entire building is either on fire or melting.

The three of them stand on the thin air—Callen utilizes boots enchanted with the Flight skill, while the others remain under the power of their nullspace.

He was correct. Neither of their nullspaces have fully manifested. If they did, he would have to nullify the conceptual rule present within before silencing the rest of it. Though they possess powers far beyond their station, they do not yet know how to wield it.

Callen, on the other hand, knows.

Demonic Seal finishes activating, and the deep black energy of the primordial void surges forth, wrapping itself around Carnelian. She struggles for a brief moment, but it saps her magic faster than she can attempt to escape. Even if she manages her blood form, the seal will prevent her from moving.

At this moment, he knows, a lesser version of an angel’s wrath is flowing through Carnelian’s veins, lighting every nerve she has on fire. Her soul is disintegrating as he watches, and every single usage of magic will send her into torturous agony unlike anything any other living being experiences.

Her nullspace, Callen notes, is still active despite the fact that her skills are no longer present. Silence suppresses it within range of him, but she still has it active, forcing him to keep his domain’s effect directed at nullspaces.

The Jade girl’s nullspace fades after a single second passes, which coheres with his understanding of the cost a nullspace extolls on its user. Even a domain is difficult for most to handle—a nullspace is something else entirely.

And yet the Carnelian demon’s is still active. Even if it can’t affect him, his Silence tuned to drown it out, he admits to being somewhat impressed. He recognizes the pure, undying intent to kill in those eyes. There is no possibility her mana pool is this deep; in order to continue this path, she must be sacrificing her soul at rates that will leave her dead within the hour.

Ultimately futile, of course, but even if ill-advised, this is the kind of murderous rage he wanted.

“Too late,” he says, his words reverberating through the stillness of his Silence. “If you had displayed this initiative earlier, perhaps you would not have been marked for death.”

Demonic Seal pulses brightly, searing the experiment’s body.

Its expression has not changed. Not a hint of the pain she must be experiencing flashes over her face.

For the first time since he was assigned to this project, Callen feels the slightest seed of doubt form.

He does his best to shake it off—and the Jade girl draws a staff out of a pocket dimension and fires a thin blue Obliteration Ray at him.

Irritating at worst. Even if Callen’s domain is focused entirely on canceling out the single remaining nullspace, his mana pool runs deep.

Demonic Seal is only one part of a greater whole. Callen has risked demonic corruption time and time again to harness their power. Even now, he hasn’t found the breakthrough to access true demonic magic, but with every demon he’s sealed, he grows stronger.

First Circle. Alten. Attribute: space. Unbind.

A seal inscribed into his skin opens, allowing one of his most powerful demons free for but an instant. Reality bends in front of him, and the ray shoots into the open portal, reappearing somewhere in the hells.

Seal, he orders, preventing his demon from escaping.

“My turn,” Callen says with the confidence he should feel. That seed refuses to disappear.

Fifth Circle. Fulipsis. Attribute: lightning. Unbind.

Dark, demonic electricity bursts forth from his hands. He knows this will be effective against the Jade girl; when he last encountered them inside his fragment, this was enough to put her entirely out of commission.

Just as predicted, she screams in pain as his magic courses through her, the temporarily-unleashed demon wreaking havoc upon her system—and then, abruptly, she stops.

The Jade child grins even as Fulipsis’ attack continues pouring into her.

“I’ve grown since we last met,” she says, pointing her staff at him again. “Learned how to Adapt.”

Another Obliteration Ray pulses forth before he can react, and Callen immediately Unbinds Alten again, drawing on its magic for a brief second.

But he’s not the target of the attack.

The thin blue laser bends in midair, the parameters modified, and it slams into the Demonic Seal.

Callen’s special skill would usually handle that without an issue, but he has too many facets of this battle to handle right now. The domain requires a fine handle on his concentration when he’s not within his own fragment, as does the seal, and controlling the demonic outbursts from his seals is a formidable task on its own.

But the opposition must be no different. His pair of opponents are surely sacrificing what little life they have left in a desperation play to stop him. Callen simply needs to outlast them, and he will.

And yet the seal shakes, exposing a sliver of a gap, and the demon woman manages to move, ever so slightly.

He laughs.

“You’re finished,” he says. “Even as we speak, your soul is disintegrating from the inside out. Had you simply chosen to abandon your pathetic allies—“

The Jade child dashes on thin air, and Callen prepares to swap his attack pattern, resealing Fulipsis, but once again, it’s not him that she targets.

Sierra Jade lays her hands on her companion, and the markings on the demon disappear. Less than a blink of an eye later, the Demonic Seal remanifests on her, marking her entire body with the arcane patterns that eliminate her ability to move and cast.

Seventh circle. Pelothia. Attribute: force. Unbind.

“Look what this gets you,” he snarls, blasting the Jade child downwards.

Her unmoving body is struck by the full force of a demon, but then she stops.

Caught in a nullspace.

The seed, ever persistent, begins to take root.

“I’m looking,” Evelyn Carnelian says. Wraithfire flickers to life at the tips of her fingers, and demonic energy blasts through Callen’s mind. That, at least, is easy to deal with—he’s used to fighting against corruption.

Callen turns Pelothia’s wrath on Carnelian, but as he directs the blast of force at her, it withers, dissolving like smoke on the wind.

She closes her fist, cocking her head. “That’s all?”

How is her nullspace still running? She shouldn’t have nearly the mana capacity for that. As long as she has it active, Callen can’t nullify the rest of her skills. If he does, he’ll die instantly.

A wave of calm washes over him, overpowering the seed of doubt and fear. The experiment has come into its own, but he has always been stronger. He always will be.

Using a Category 3 ability in this kingdom will hurt him, but he will survive. Neither of the two in front of him can say the same.

“You know,” Carnelian says, her voice dangerously low, “I think you’ve made your point.”

“That is good to hear,” Callen says, meaning it. “Alas, you have disappointed me too much already. This is the end of the road for you.”

“You always wanted me,” Carnelian continues, cutting past his words, “to be the Last One Standing.”

Those words carry power, Callen realizes. Power that he can’t Seal.

He has to use his reserves, and he has to use them now.

Second Circle. Orris. Unbind.

Third Circle. Lucille. Unbind.

Third Circle. Rasulfur. Unbind.

Multiple domains activate at the same time. A barrage of light pours forth from Carnelian’s aura, accompanying wraithfire and spores that spawn demon-children of her own. It’s all Callen can do to stave off the sudden attack, expending the entirety of three demons’ life force to prevent himself from being crushed by the sudden pressure.

The seed, having taken root, begins to grow, and it almost cracks through the ocean of calm.

Almost.

“You are strong,” he allows. “But not strong enough.”

Callen reaches within himself, drawing deep into his core. Memories run through him as his mind accelerates, his monumental Mind (Speed) attribute assisting him in the formulation.

He has carved a truth into that universe, and until it is gone, he will remain.

This, his Category 3 skill, is but an enforcement of that truth.

Alexander Callen is a Demon Specialist, but beyond that, he is the one who contains. He is the one who culls.

The concept actualizes itself as a seal, spinning in midair.

Control.

With this sigil in his grasp, he will have utter control of every living being in this area. All he has to do is command them.

Callen opens his mouth and tells Evelyn Carnelian to kill herself.

And nothing comes out.

The seed blossoms.

“Domain: Silence,” she says. “I think I like this one.”

No. No. NO! How can this be possible? She’s a fucking Category 1! Even if domains are more powerful than that…

“Looks like a flower has taken root,” she says, peering deep within him. “Interseting. In that case: the gatekeeper’s second law. A flower blooms.”

Callen loses sight in his left eye.

“Hm. Interesting. You’re durable, too.” She waves a hand, and the Jade woman rises to her side. With Callen no longer able to sustain his control over his own magic, the seal breaks easily.

“You could’ve done this from the start,” Jade grumbles.

“I wanted him to think he had a chance to win,” Carnelian replies, looking Callen dead in the eye. She moves closer, and Callen realizes that even though his domain has gone silent, it’s still active.

He should already be dead, but he isn’t. The nullspace still doesn’t work this close to him.

For the first time, fear truly pulses through his body, paralyzing him.

Carnelian hovers closer, that same promise of death glinting through her eyes. Her expression has still yet to budge.

Callen can’t speak. He’s almost completely out of mana.

But he still has one final countermeasure.

His conceptual alignment with Control requires him to verbally command other living beings, but on himself, he needs nothing more than will.

He undoes a seal that has waited in storage for seven decades.

Animated fragment of Titan Sersui. Inhabited by First Circle demon, Null. Attribute: Titan.

Unbind.

The earth beneath them rises with a vengeance, and the air dries out completely. Callen’s domain breaks, but so does Carnelian’s. In instants, she will be dead, all the blood in her water evaporated. The same is true for the entire city around them, but he has no concern for casualties; victory is the only truth.

With her domain broken, her nullspace temporarily overpowered, Callen’s voice is finally free.

“Stop moving,” he commands, and everything slows down.

For a moment, he thinks he’s won. For a moment, relief floods his body.

But only a moment.

Because time keeps slowing down, and his mind does not speed up to meet it.

The last thing he sees is Evelyn Carnelian in the form of an amorphous bloody blob surging towards him.

“Did you really think,” she says, “that an attack that hasn’t killed me before would do better now?”

The last emotion he is allowed to feel before time stops is pure, abject terror.

____

My opponent has really, truly fucked this up for me. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it looks like we were both operating off of old information.

I knew about the lightning. I knew about the domain. But that moment when he surged with so much power that it felt like the city was about to burst apart? I didn’t know about that.

And I didn’t know about the nullspace-in-a-bag that currently stretches across the entire city. I don’t know if it’ll disappear when he dies. I hope it does. Even if it doesn’t, I may have a serious problem.

More importantly, the effect of Inome’s Time Stop isn’t going to last forever. I need to finish this, fast.

Below me, Sierra is halfway through a controlled fall. The sudden appearance of the opposing nullspace must have thrown her off.

I remanifest long enough to point at her and use the teleporation skill Rin and Sy abused to keep chasing me, placing her back by my side. I don’t know if it’s safe here, but it’s definitely safer than the ground, at least as long as the remnants of Sersui’s magic are here.

Bloodpath takes me to where Callen is frozen in the instant, just as the rest of the world is. I reappear in my human form atop him, then press my forehead to his. One of his eyes is already replaced, fae magic annihilating it.

“A flower withers,” I whisper, and it begins to crumble even in the stopped time.

Another skill bubbles to the surface, begging to be used, and I oblige it.

Last One Standing allows me to use everything that failed to kill me. This one is Scintilla’s.

I speak, and I know that when I do, he can hear me. This is how the Titan spoke to me that fateful first week out of the Crowned Islands.

Right now, his mind is elsewhere, in a space that isn’t. When I speak to him, I know he understands me. Maybe he can’t hear my actual words, but he knows my intent.

And I can hear him scream.

“You might’ve been right,” I say, preparing my final skill. “Maybe I should’ve just used these allies like I planned, left without comment so I could level faster. After all, that’s the first truth I knew. I was born to it. I advance.

“The truth I was born with isn’t the only one you gave me. I discovered a new one, facing one of your kind. He forced me to discover my second truth. I kill.”

The pained screaming takes on a tinge of panic. I relish it. EV3, the perfect killing machine, wouldn’t. She would’ve ended it by now.

But that’s not who I am anymore.

“Somewhere along the line, I broke the programming. Something happened. You’ve made that clear to me. I didn’t understand why, that first time, but I think I do now.

“I carved out a truth of my own.”

In the last, fleeting moment, my enemy falls silent.

“I protect.”

With no defenses against me, with his mind entirely opened and too overwhelmed by everything I’ve done, it’s simplicity itself to eliminate him.

Descent unto the Void sends Alexander Callen and everything he brought into this reality screaming into the abyss.

Objective: Marie’s monster

Kill your creators.

Targets killed: [2/32]

Reward: ???