There were creatures at the threshold of the underworld that were never spoken of, some because they remained unknown, and others because it was better that they remained so. After all, it was unwise to know those who no longer found warmth among the living. These were the abominations, cast out from the living world. Their days consisted of wandering, and howling, and dreaming in darkness. Nobody dared to even look upon such things.
"This is your last chance," said Raizo. "Turn away now."
The red-haired creature bounced lightly on its toes and laughed.
"At least tell me your name," Raizo continued, "before I cut you down."
"My name?" the creature laughed. "What is my name? What is your name? What was your mother's name when she died in disappointment? What was your son's name when you left him behind, when he waited for you? Do you still remember their names?"
It was a provocation so that Raizo would enter into range. But Raizo did not move, and his expression did not change.
"What are you?" Bethryl asked. "Where did you come from?"
"Bethryl!" Raizo snapped. "I told you to stay behind me. Don't look at him. Don't speak to him."
"But what is he?"
In that brief moment when Raizo turned toward her, the creature lunged forward, jaws snapping toward his throat.
It missed.
"There are some who live, and some who die, and some who travel in between." said the creature. "I will enjoy consuming both of you. Now give me your energy! I want to drink it!"
It slashed wildly, head lowered in a defensive posture, and from its hand a surge of blue flames erupted toward Raizo.
Again, they missed.
The creature pressed forward relentlessly.
I can't teleport here, Raizo thought. All I can do is evade.
More flames poured through the air. As Raizo reacted to one strike, the creature closed the distance instantly, lunging again for his neck.
Raizo shifted angles, dodged, and circled away, again and again maintaining a narrow margin of safety. He had already activated Drunken Rhythm, yet it felt as though the creature had long since mastered the same state. Its movements were erratic, instinctive, impossible to predict, far beyond him in wildness and instinct.
And so Raizo had not yet attacked.
The creature showed no restraint, no concern for conserving energy. It was fighting to end the battle immediately.
Again, flames tore through the air.
Raizo searched for an opening. But he found that there were none.
This creature's control over its rhythm was too complete, as if it were embedded in its very being.
"Axiom Blade!"
Forced onto the defensive, Raizo released a series of light strikes. None were aimed to kill. Each swing carved space, forcing the creature to react, to divide its attention.
None of them landed, but they were never meant to.
Because once the pattern was set—
"Hand of God!"
The blade cut cleanly through the creature's body.
It stepped back, then it looked down, then it continued forward.
Bethryl froze.
"How…?" she said to herself. "Why isn't it reacting?"
Raizo tried to retreat, but he was too slow.
The creature feinted high, then dropped low, slicing across his leg. The wound was shallow, but flames immediately seeped into it.
Raizo did not react, and his heavy, exhausted eyes remained the same.
Again, the creature targeted his legs, aiming to cripple his movement. On the third attempt, it nearly succeeded, but by then, Raizo had begun to read the pattern.
"Axiom Flame!"
The next strike met a wall of flame.
The creature leapt back, and in that time Raizo sent out a ranged attack which the creature dodged.
The creature tried again, only to meet the same result.
Raizo used its hesitation to his advantage and had shifted and moved back into a defensive position.
This would be his strategy until he had found a way to attack. Now, he used Axiom Flame not to attack, but to control space, forcing the creature to move within limits, breaking the fluidity of its assault.
The momentum of the initial exchanges began to falter, but this was only the beginning. Until now, both had been testing one another, probing for weaknesses, measuring reactions.
Soon, that would end.
They circled each other in silence.
Raizo noticed the change: he noticed that despite the creature's previous rantings, it now stared at him with the dispassionate, indifferent eyes of a predator
They stepped into range.
"Hand of God!"
The blade struck forward.
"Saturn's Will!"
For a moment, Bethryl's vision disappeared. She went into another world and she saw the sharpened image of an entity holding a human head and feasting on it. Around him there were chants, and dances, and an energy extending all throughout reality. Then her vision came back, and she could not understand what she was seeing.
Then at last, it became clear.
Just before Raizo's strike landed, a strange cloud burst from the creature's body, something within it reaching outward. A form began to take shape: long white hair, something inhuman, something that tore at Raizo's presence as if trying to consume him. Could it possibly be?
At that moment, the creature pretended to strike at Raizo's legs and released a Second Tier entity from its body, the same one that Bethryl saw in her visions, and it reached out to tear at the head of Raizo.
She was certain of it now; this creature… was a Second Tier being.
Blood sprayed into the air.
Raizo staggered.
His left eye was now gone, and yet he showed no emotion. He continued to stare the creature down blankly, and he held his position, making sure that Bethryl was behind him and that the creature could not get through him. His breath remained in a steady rhythm, and his body was relaxed, careless to the circumstances that he found himself in.
"I will devour you," the creature said calmly. "I am a servant of Saturn."
And then it attacked again.