A god descended into Tlacualtzin.
His might dims the magic of the barriers surrounding the city.
His presence extinguishes all remaining light in its silent streets.
A hole is torn open in the fabric of reality, leading into an unfathomable abyss.
Ichor burns, unable to fully take on the strain of a godly descent.
100,000 convicts, men and women serving life sentences in the prisons of their world. The Treaty of Corvello binding them all under the Commission’s jurisdiction.
All 100,000 mortals burn to welcome Him.
The stench of burnt flesh, and cracked bones in their cells would linger in them for years to come.
Their souls are snatched in the ritual, directed towards the Devil King Oscarion.
Their death, alongside the pain they experience with their boiling blood, connects the King to this realm, and serves the King a flavourful reception.
Cooked flesh, charred bones, and reduced blood teleport themselves to the tear in reality, as if attracted to the deity’s very being.
Each component melts under the enormous pressure of mana that leaked from the weight of divinity, and assembles itself for Him.
Flesh molded into darkness, the colour of burning coal. It becomes intangible, unfathomable, and divine.
Bones turned into dust, carving His seraphic name into the air, combining itself with mana to cradle Him in its incomprehensible patterns.
Blood turned from red, to golden, defying all physical laws as it constructed itself into mana, and giving ichor to His vessel.
It was beautiful, terrifying and disgusting.
Mana shaped itself to fill out the parts of His body that should not be filled, transmuted into matter to constitute His vessel.
Mana concentrated upon itself, pulled from all of its surroundings, and stolen from the Spirit realm and converged into His body.
Mana would turn from an illusory mass of gas, with a mirage-like consistency to a transparent blue liquid of godly purity.
It would then pour itself into a solid golden form, sewing itself into His flesh between the human tissue that had given Him the first form.
The energy from the process alone was enormous enough to weaken the barrier between realms. The plane of reality, unable to even comprehend such power, let the energy produced in the process bypass it into the spirit realm, creating the gate for His descent.
It was True Creation.
A god had descended.
He was as massive as 10 city blocks, cloaked in darkness and robed in a perpetual flame the texture of ash. His colours smelled of hellfire, and his scent the complexion of flames, incomprehensible and primal.
A smokeless fire, or a fire of smog, His form was intangible, yet so comprehensible. He was destruction. He was evil incarnate.
2 glowing red eyes filled with piercing mana peered into the realm of mortals, rich with the madness of millennium, dignity of godhood, and… curiosity.
“Hello, █udacious o█e.” He spoke.
His voice didn’t touch the eardrums of mortals.
It would be unbecoming.
It instead rang through the hearts, the passions, the fire inside humanity, resonating against ambition, will and desire.
It didn’t boom, nor thunder. It was melodic, dancing against the desires of man, extinguishing the fires of purpose, and stoking the embers of resolution.
“A contra█t…”
“█hat does humanity offer m█?” He asked.
Archsage Livia stood tall, her long dress fluttering against the heated winds beating down on her.
His presence alone was enough to burn any oxygen in the vicinity. And the heat that didn’t penetrate the barrier between realms instead struck the brick and concrete walls of buildings all around them, creating spots of leaking lava to light up the surroundings in an eerie red glow.
In this display of unfathomable power, Archsage Livia did not even look concerned in the slightest, using magic effortlessly to bear His gaze.
“300 million human lives.” Archsage Livia replied coyly, smiling sweetly in the face of the god.
This ridiculous answer gave the god pause.
“██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██” He laughed.
“█hat an █ffer! You want me to take care of t█e █ueen’s disciples, all under the p█etence of a █ift!” He teased, creating an aura of mana to cloud the region in searing heat.
“Should we have contracted your brother instead?” Archsage Livia responded, her sweetness twisting to mock the god.
“Brother? Be █areful who you blasph█ █ █ █ audacious one.” He replied, sending an annoyed ripple through His massive body.
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“███ are far █lder and more powerful than even I.”
“A pity that we summoned you, rather than a less talkative god like Him.” Archsage Livia taunted, tapping her yawning mouth in a mocking manner.
“…You do understand I have the discretion to refuse your contracts.” He replied, dissolving His humongous mass into dozens of humanoid figures.
Each identical figure had a coal-like cloak of black fire that flowed endlessly into the shadows behind Him, a boyish humanoid face that couldn’t quite contain His divinity, and a crown floating above Their heads like a halo.
In the place of a mouth, They had a stretched piece of flesh, creating an indent in the place where there should have been a hole. And each of Their eyes held the dangerous glint of hell, shining red in the darkness like beacons of horror.
Their ‘hair’ flowed upwards reminiscent of a raging fire, its tips burning as it neared the crowns on Their heads. This meant that black smoke slowly curled all around Them, coating them in an acrid, and unbearable burning smell.
“You took our sacrifice, Oscarion.” Archsage Livia replied, smiling at the glaring figures in the rooftops around her in amusement, and leaking her own evil aura in the process.
“You can never refuse an offer as enticing as this.” She continued.
“Most of your kind don’t care to enter a contract like this. Too troublesome for them. They’d rather influence the churches, or create their own cults to sustain themselves.”
“What will they do with 300 million souls anyway?” She asked, stepping elegantly towards one of the King’s figures to gently tap His noise.
“But you are impulsive, destructive, and rather stupid. Just like all of your Daemon kind.”
“You hunger for those useless souls to satisfy your greed!” She mocked, leering at the god.
“Huhuhu, You’re like a little dog, being summoned to lick up the bone that we’re about to gift you!” She insulted, smiling more and more widely with each word.
“...You have too much faith in the Summoner’s Protection, Fragment of Rodric.” The god replied, clearly getting irritated as the indents of the clones curled downwards in displeasure.
“Ah, so Oscarion the ‘Devil King’ wants to challenge… the 3 Archangels? Be glad that you’re being given this… opportunity, Daemon.” Livia mocked, smiling insanely in pleasure as she mocked the King.
Her monocle glinted in the lights of the lava all around her, giving her black eyes an extra shine in the darkness.
…She was… enjoying this.
With a snap of her fingers, a rolled contract made of goatskin parchment, with carefully calligraphed terms was summoned into thin air.
The Archsage took out the golden pen from her pocket, and tossed it with the roll of parchment, smiling insanely as if daring Him to sign it.
“...” He stayed silent, reading through the terms carefully with a glint of greed in His eyes.
“Ah… So that’s what Yohualli has been doing… How unusual…” He mused, his crown burning more intensely in excitement.
“They have spread a soul-based parasite, a strain of the Manavore parasites among the civilian population, almost undetectable to the Commission.” Archsage Andrew explained, glancing in terror at his colleague.
What kind of insane person provokes a deity? Just because she’s an archsage doesn’t mean that she’ll get away with it scot free!
“If the Queen commands it, these ‘creatures’ or more accurately, viruses are capable of consuming the infected soul and turning them undead. They may perhaps even mutate the infected into monsters of human flesh.” He continued calmly.
“From initial Commission divinations, one using one of these parasites as a relay, we were able to confirm the existence of nearly 300 million infected individuals.”
“We believe that Earth Magic could have the potential to remove these parasites, magics similar to those used on domesticated monsters. However, the logistics of magic of the sort are too difficult in the face of a looming Fae threat. And given its replicating nature, time is of the essence.”
“Earth elemental deities would be on the back foot against the Fae Queen’s intervention, given the shared elemental magics, and the comparably unstable vessels that would be created. She is a foe that cannot be underestimated, even after Her defeat in the war.”
“We believe eradication of all 300 million infected civilians is the only course of action that the Commission can take to avoid further casualties.”
“You, Devil King Oscarion, is capable of magic to target and burn this parasite.”
“You are free to wash the cities in your fire, under the watch of a Commission Archsage, together with the binding of our contract.”
“The burning of these parasites is bound to unfortunately ignite their souls. Therefore, it is impossible for us to save any of the 300 million individuals.”
“That means that you are welcome to feed on their flesh in your incarnation, as well as to claim remnants of their souls, as you see fit.” He concluded, looking pale by the end of it, as he took in the gravity of his words.
300 million civilians were going to die tonight.
“Interesting... Will the audacious one be joining me on this… purge?” The King asked, unconcerned with the morals of it all.
“Unless you would like to battle with the Queen, that would be a no.” Archsage Livia replied.
The Devil King’s indented mouths curled upwards in a wide ‘smile’.
“Just the two of you?” He asked.
“We need one to watch you, 3 to counter the liches we expect to show up, 2 to support evacuation efforts and wipe out any potential undead, and 2 must uncover the Fae Queen’s divine Kingdom. So, yes. It will be the two of us.” Andrew replied, looking slightly rueful as he said that.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. AND YOU CALL ME A DOG!” He laughed, creating a sonorous echo of passion in the hearts of the two archsages.
“How unfortunate is it that I am unable to have your souls, Fragments of Rodric?” He lamented, twirling the gilded pen in His hand as He signed His unholy name.
“How unfortunate is it that I have yet to seal you?” Archsage Livia shot back with a deadly smile of her own.
With a snap of her fingers, the pen returned to her hands.
In an eerie harmony, the two Archsages started to chant.
“Traitor,
Vow breaker,
Djinn of the Commission, Pultris,
Witness this contract.”
The wind picked up as they chanted, the pen glowing an eerie red, as an intangible figure pulled itself out of the sealing object’s confinement.
The Djinn’s glassy eyes glowed a deep, dark gold, uncomprehending, yet exercising its duty as a Bound Angel.
The Djinn notarised their contract, creating echoes through the night air of the city.
“In the name of the Great Hero Rodric,
I bind You to a divine pact,
King of Temptation, God of Daemons, Contractor,
Devil King Oscarion.”
From the curtains of evening’s darkness, translucent golden chains appeared, materialising out from the bodies of the Devil King.
Each wrapped itself around the shapes of the King, binding and constricting Him in its coils.
One by one, each link caught on fire, burning against His divine aura.
Yet, the magic did not break, nor did it dissipate in the struggle against His power.
The ends of the chains shot upwards fiercely when it was done, piercing the barriers between worlds, and binding Him in the spirit realm too.
With strange geometric shapes glowing in its depths, the chains constricted Him for the final time.
And the Djinn, along with the chains disappeared, fading into the smoky surface of the deity.
“Pultris… I see you’ve sealed him well… The Commission is indeed a ruthless institution…” The Devil King mused, all of His clones observing His hands in satisfaction.
Archsage Livia smiled sweetly at the god, venom literally leaking out of her glare. It carried with it the not-so-subtle subtext of “you’re next”.
The god-vessel nearest to the two Archsages took a step in the air, his cloak of darkness extending in a sea of endless black flames behind Him.
White flames burned mid-air, creating steps of heat for His exit.
As he turned around, he kindly reminded the two archsages about poor, poor Aurelius.
“Ah, that boy.” He started.
“Is He back?” He asked.
“The boy has His mark.” Archsage Livia said succinctly.
With a derisive ‘snort’, the god snapped his fingers, leading his vessels all across the world to claim the human souls he had won.
The fabric of reality split open to create a portal for His departure.
Then, the god left, leaving the two archsages with excellent advice.
“Kill the boy. Before the Fae Queen makes a lich out of him.”
