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The darkness contracted.
The sky lost color, sound, and time.
Azaroth fell to his knees.
Not from weakness.
But from invocation.
His hand pierced the ground, and from the earth, the seal opened—a thousand eyes emerged, each writhing in cosmic anguish. They were everywhere: on broken walls, shattered mirrors, even on the fallen bodies of the city's soldiers. They spun in sync with a primordial hunger.
The voice came from within everything:
— You bleed, Azaroth... Why do you call me?
The wind stopped. Sound died.
The clouds were torn like paper veils.
Aisha felt the world hesitate.
Zepharion.
The forbidden name.
Azaroth raised his gaze, a fissure in his chest spewing thick shadows.
— She is breaking me. Tearing my essence apart. She is not human.
— And for that, you call upon me?
— For purpose. She cannot be allowed to exist.
Laughter came from the abyss. It vibrated until the city's buildings collapsed like sandcastles.
And then… he came.
Zepharion.
Not in flesh, but in living essence, molding himself behind Azaroth like a column of writhing shadows, a spectral titan with multiple faces and a body in constant mutation. Arms sprouted, grew, and vanished. His eyes were not on his face—they floated around him like living moons, observing with ancestral judgment.
— Then, let us become one.
Azaroth screamed.
His skin cracked like dry clay, and Zepharion's energy penetrated every fissure.
The body reformed.
What emerged was no longer Azaroth.
It was a monstrous entity, skin made of living runes, ribs protruding like teeth, a head split into three—each with an expression of hatred.
The city below shuddered.
And Aisha, even in the face of it all, did not retreat.
She planted her feet.
Inhaled.
And her aura exploded.
White flames enveloped her body, cutting the air like frenzied blades.
Behind her, wings of spiritual energy unfurled, projecting symbols of hope amid the desolation.
— You, woman... should not exist.
— I've been told that before, Aisha replied, blade in hand.
The first impact split the world.
The ruined city exploded into fragments as Azaroth charged with a fist wreathed in black flames.
Aisha blocked with her sword, and the clash generated a sonic wave that tore off roofs, hurled vehicles into the air, and disintegrated the bodies of forgotten soldiers in the rubble.
Aisha spun, severing the arm coming from behind, but five more emerged.
She fell back, rolling through a destroyed building, which collapsed as if hit by a missile.
Azaroth moved in sequence—creating temporal copies of himself, each attacking with a millisecond delay.
Aisha was struck in the stomach, thrown against a already cracked tower. The structure fell with her, and dust swallowed entire city blocks.
She emerged from within the smoke, gasping.
— You are just a puppet...
— And you are a punishment — Zepharion roared through Azaroth's mouth.
— You are the cosmos's error. The reflection of celestial arrogance.
The fight continued.
Black flames descended from the sky in the form of serpents. Aisha leaped, spinning in the air, and invoked hexagonal spiritual shields, each vibrating with energy.
The serpents collided, exploding into abyssal craters, sucking in the surrounding matter.
She hurled her sword, which duplicated in mid-flight, embedding itself in Azaroth's shoulders. Each blade exploded from within, generating dimensional collapses.
But Zepharion responded.
The earth below split open.
Demonic roots made of eyes and teeth emerged, seizing Aisha by the ankles, pulling her into an abyss.
She roared, invoking a vortex of spinning energy, freeing herself at the last second.
Aisha possessed an energy that repelled any demonic technique or energy.
She was like a flame repelling insects around her.
She landed on her feet in the middle of the central square, now completely devastated.
Everything around her was dead, except her.
Except the monster before her.
Azaroth, now a 2-meter tall spiritual giant, moved like a possessed titan.
His deformed arms summoned flames, lightning, and ice, manipulating corrupted nature itself.
He launched a wall of frozen time.
Aisha pierced through it.
Her body seemed to melt within the distortion, but she screamed, tearing time apart with her spiritual blade.
Behind her, the distortion exploded, and time in that city block was erased.
She appeared at the monster's back and drove her sword into the center of his demonic energy.
His spine.
The navel and spine are responsible for most of the connections.
Zepharion's scream resonated in the bones of the world.
Azaroth fell to his knees, panting, spitting a dark mist.
Aisha bled. Lips cut, arms torn.
But she advanced again.
The spiritual sword in her hand trembled—not from weakness, but from cosmic vibration. The energy channeled there burned natural laws, bending the air into spirals.
She raised the blade for the final strike.
But stopped.
She looked at Azaroth—that broken colossus—and spoke, her voice serene, almost sad.
— You wanted to be more than a man. More than a spirit. You wanted to mold destiny with hands made of vanity.
— But all you built... is ruin.
— And I... — her aura began to shine — am just the memory of what you tried to erase.
— Every drop of my blood cries out for the forgotten.
— Every step I take drags the chains you left on this world.
— You call me an error... — she looked into Azaroth's eyes, which flickered with fragments of Zepharion — but I am the echo of justice.
— And today...
— even gods bleed.
Azaroth tried to rise, his arms trembling, but his form began to fail. Zepharion grunted, writhing deep within the entity.
Aisha screamed.
Leaped.
Spun in the air with her sword in an arc, charged with all the power of pain, of spirits, of forgotten history.
But then…
The voice came.
Low.
Eternal.
— Still so impulsive and full of rage...
The world stopped.
Aisha felt a chill cut through her spine like a knife dipped in black ice.
Her body reacted before her mind.
She spun in the air, twisting her wrist and hurling her sword toward the source of the voice—aiming for the speaker's neck.
But the blade never touched anything.
An explosion of overwhelming energy erupted behind her.
Time tore.
Aisha was thrown like a ragdoll, crashing through one concrete pillar, then another, until she fell to her knees among the debris.
The ground around her shattered like thin glass.
The presence had arrived.
Slow.
Devastating.
Aisha recognized it; of all things, she would never forget this.
Dante.
Standing amid the chaos, with the same aura that destroyed ancient empires.
His eyes held a corrupted red gleam, and his hair danced as if submerged in void.
He smiled.
But it was not a human smile.
Behind him, Vernasha appeared—her cloak torn, but her eyes sharp, calculating everything.
Beside her, Hazau, arms crossed, with the cold gaze of an executioner awaiting the final order.
Azaroth breathed deeply and, slowly, rose to his feet.
Zepharion still pulsed within him, though weakened.
But alive.
— She almost killed me, Azaroth whispered.
— She exposed you, Dante replied, walking toward him. — As the world exposes the weak, even those who pretend to be gods.
Dante then looked at Aisha.
— You've grown. I barely recognized you. I admire your ferocity to return even after... that.
Aisha stood up, her body wounded, her aura ignited.
But even the sky seemed to fear that name.
Dante was now on the battlefield.
The end was approaching.
And it had all just begun.
To be continued...
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