On The Deck of the Sea Vulture, Paradox

  Lux's P.O.V

  ...

  My enemy stood across from me he had discarded his longsword his eyes burned in hatred. Strewn across the deck were his black feathers, shards of oblivion stood in contrast against the unnaturally pale planks of the Sea Vulture. My ship the Night's Ferryman its grey coloring between the abyssal depths of the ocean below and the forlorn vault of the sky.

  My opponent chittered his beak slamming the bottom to the top part repeatedly similar in sound to nails on a chalkboard. The Scavenger reached into the scruff of his neck and plucked a feather that seemed hungry for light as it seemed more like a feather shaped hole in reality then an actual object.

  "Ten score of ten score souls of cloistered mortal men to make this single feather, to use it on you is a waste, but it is worth it, I'll have to abandon my domain and flee here but alas it is price of being weak hunted by the strong, behold SCAVENGED DIVINITY: SUFFER NOT MORTALITY!" the Scavenger decried and crushed the feather and I felt a fleeting but enormous amount of divinity blossomed before flowing into the monster before me. His wounds healed and his feathers regain some of their lost luster, but it didn't stop there, no power bubbled under his skin and he grew to further over shadow me.

  "Shit" is all I managed before the battle continued in its frenzied tempo. It mainly consisted of me dodging the large sweeping strikes of my opponent while desperately trying to hurt him. My weapon had an enchantment that made it so powerful that the system itself blocked its entrance to the mortal plain. However should I activate it the weapon would run out of juice and be shunted back to Noble. I would have to line it up perfectly.

  I waited until the Scavenger over extended his strike and using a push of will I summoned a boost of the Void Fire and flashed to his exposed flank.

  "Cutlass of the Void Sea: Absolution of Hatred" the phrase acted as activation phrase. The blade of the Cutlass wriggled as almost alive before rapidly growing into a metal version of the tentacles embossed on its blade. They struck forward into the Crows side and ripped through the feathers and into his flesh and through to the otherside. He must be a tough bastard because that single attack absorbed all the energy left in the Cutlass. Like break in the continuity of reality it was gone returning to its plane of origin.

  The Scavenger stood there for a moment before he slowly shrunk and so did the wound until we returned to the state we where at after his clone was destroyed.

  "Heh, looks like I'm not even going to be making it out of here" the crow spoke resigned to its fate.

  "But I'm still taking you with me!" The Scavenger yelled new found energy powering the monstrosity.

  That's when I remembered a single brief conversation that I had with the Honorable Tyrant.

  ...

  Flash Back

  ...

  "What do you think your paradox is?" The Tyrant asked me.

  "It's light born from darkness, that returns to darkness, or more accurately the fragile balance between those two states" I said struggling to find the right words to express it. Since my time in Paradox where I found the bounds of my native tongue holding me back from expressing the conflicting concepts and ideas that where so prevalent here.

  "So let me ask this question why do you limit your power to only using Void Fire?" He asked me I had long since learned that no one knew your paradox better then you did because you are your paradox but many times they could give you insight that you couldn't see.

  ...

  End of Flashback

  ...

  As the claws of my enemy neared closer I reached out and brought forth darkness. Complete and all encompassing, then I rebirthed the light into a flare upper cutting my opponent. The Scavenger looked surprised at my burst of speed before he recovered to his feet. I felt the growing ache in my forehead turn into thudding pain, a symptom of overusing your power. But my dad didn't raise no little bitch so I would just have to buckle the fuck up.

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  The Scavenger dashed forward and as he neared me I absorbed the light around me once again and resummoned it as I struck the Scavenger. He however was ready and had managed to dodge out of instinct and the energy was wasted but I still felt the backlash.

  "Feathers of the Fallen Flock Together!" My opponent yelled and the feathers strewn about became a swirling tornado and feathers where being added as the Scavenger slowly released his whole horde of trinkets for once last battle. Scanning the battlefield I waited for the final battle to occur.

  However I knew something this plucked pigeon didn't, even I fell here it wouldn't be the end. Far from it, and well he may have resigned himself to his death I wasn't afraid of death.

  The feather tornado shifted as he geared up for one last salvo. Digging deep inside of myself I realized something crucial and I smiled. With all the mental energy I could muster I empressed my will upon this foreign reality.

  "Hordes of The Scavenger's Hoard: Lay Waste!" The Wasteful Scavenger yelled as all of the feathers fell from his body to join their brethren and crow monstrosity fell like puppet with its strings cut upon the pale deck.

  "Singularity of Void Enteral and Light Transient" I spoke up on the world shifting and pushing all Paradoxes aside besides my own and in the short space around me it was absolute and even as the figures of tortured souls came for me they fell like the mindless beasts they where. Some burst into pure energy and others withered to ash but each kill was like a blow against my skull and before I knew it my head slammed into the deck and I held the void like lost friend because what is death when you know life and light come again?

  ...

  Aboard the Merciful Domination

  The Despotissa's P.O.V

  ...

  Night descended upon the ship made of pale oak. If I remembered correctly it was called something along the lines of Sea then some sort of mortal bird. Either way or didn't matter as we pulled closer to the two intertwines vessels I saw the pocket of night big way to a series of bright lights as a whole host of undead warriors appeared from a dwindling spiral of feathers. Each warrior entered the darkness and with a flash of searing light they fell.

  The mummified corpse of the Wasteful Scavenger sat slumbed against the ships center mast. The crew of the fallen entity's ship were dead and in varing states of disembowelment. Whereas the crew of the Night's Ferryman were craning their necks or similar appendages over the deck trying to see into the pocket of the darkness. The First Mate of the ship yelled out to me as we came to the distance.

  "The Captain' needs help we're u'nder orders to stay here!" The First Mate pleaded from what I could recall he was a respectable Entity and certainly no coward. However before I could confirm our intervention the light show stopped and the feathers were all gone. The domain of night fell and the epicenter of it was laid out on the deck with blood pouring from his ears.

  As I was moving to go check on him a blur at my side and the Jester was already checking on the newborn entity turned captain. Trusting my subordinate to care for the tenth lieutenant I started to inspect the battle scene. The two primary paradoxes where obviously the aforementioned lieutenants and the corvid pirate captain whose seemed to be linked to Undeath and greed. Their however were two distinct divine signatures one significantly weaker but more cohesive something to do with caves and protection, and the larger more powerful was a bastard of a thousand origins no doubt something from the Scavenger. Afterall these pirates raids of different dimensions where what made my father select this area as the start of my conquests.

  I left the pale ship and walked one of the lines to the other ship of a darker coloration.

  "First mate of the Night's Ferryman, I'll have your report since your captain is otherwise disposed." I stated the the hulking figure of half wood and and ash.

  "O' course Milady—' he went onto explain some of what I could piece together and apparently he was either loyal enough to his captain not to mention the divine weapon of hadn't noticed it. Otherwise the report was pretty unsubstantial, the Corvid Captain had used a Divination Dummy to pull away my diviners eyes away from his actual body. From what I could piece together the Scavenger had planned on pulling away and then swooping in and taking over the remains of the pirate fleet.

  "Milady, I have completed the diagnostic of the tenth lieutenant and have turned him over to the head healer aboard your ship" the Jester stated as he suddenly appeared behind me.

  "What's his condition?" I asked as I already lost to many Lieutenants and to lose such a promising one before I could the most out of him would be irritating.

  "He lost his right eye has suffered from overextension of his will upon Paradox, and several bone fractures and other miscellaneous injuries, and the region of his right is under a curse preventing its healing the head healer is trying to remove it now" the Jester reported to me. He could all heal from that though the overextension would take a week or two to heal. The curse was worrying if it couldn't be removed but otherwise he would live which was beneficial.

  "Alright First Mate you are now in charge of this vessel until your captain is healed report to the rear flank" I stated to the first mate before I made my way back to the Merciful Domination.