Nagase nursed the wound her father had inflicted, her hand softly hovering over her exposed jawbone as her tissues slowly regrew. She grazed her fingers across her still-raw injury as her eyes met her father's gaze. Her lips curled into a devilish grin.
"You could've hurt me!" she hissed, her words tinged with rare vulnerability.
Zeik’s face was hard, his eyes burning with frustration. "This isn’t the time for your games, Nagase." His voice trembled slightly, betraying the storm of emotions roiling beneath. "Don't you know your brother is missing?"
Nagase raised an eyebrow, momentarily caught off guard by the tremor in his voice. “Azazel's fine,” she shot back, her tone mocking his concern, though a sliver of unease crept in. "He’s always disappearing. He’ll show up. He always does."
Zeik’s fists clenched. "This time is different. I’ve been searching, *Nagase*. Days. Weeks. Every time I get close, something stops me—distracts me." His voice cracked. "And you...you’re always there."
Nagase's smile grew sharper, her eyes glinting. “That’s it...don’t venture from this feeling."
Zeik's brow furrowed, his frustration boiling over into anger. "Why would you say that?!" he shouted, stepping toward her. “*Why won't you help me find him?!*”
Nagase stepped back, her eyes narrowing in playful defiance. “See, that's the first time you ever asked me,” she said softly, her eyes still like daggers. “You...simply never asked.” She circled him, her voice like a blade, slicing through the rising tension.
Zeik’s breath hitched. He froze for a moment, his mind working through her words. “I asked you at the house. I asked you near Phioto, near Balia Sea. I *asked* you every time I saw you,” he said, his voice quiet but edged with warning.
Nagase’s grin widened. “Oh, Father. You never could see what was right in front of you...and you still haven’t figured it out?”
Zeik’s heart pounded in his chest. His gaze darkened. “What haven’t I figured out?”
Nagase’s voice softened, dripping with mock sympathy. “You haven’t seen me since you gave me the invitation to the crown jewel.” She let the words hang in the air, her eyes twinkling with malicious delight.
Zeik took a step back, the weight of her words crashing into him. His mind raced, memories unraveling like threads, each interaction with Nagase suddenly twisting in his mind’s eye—conversations that seemed real but weren’t. Each time he had asked about Azazel, each time he thought he had a lead...it had all been an illusion.
Nagase’s illusions.
“You…” Zeik’s voice trembled, his body rigid with fury. “You’ve been toying with me this whole time?” His flames flared, licking the air around him, turning from red to a deep, wrathful black. "Where is he?"
Nagase shrugged, her expression unbothered. “He’s gone. Not here...and I don’t know where he is.” Her eyes glowed as she watched the rage twist his features. “You still there, papa.”
The realization clawed at Zeik, tearing through him like a storm. His chest tightened, his flames growing darker and hotter. His wife, Kurai, sensed his breaking point and for a moment motioned to caution her husband, but she remained quiet. She didn't want to accept the implications of Nagase’s actions, but she couldn't raise her tongue to defend her either.
"You..." His voice was a low growl, barely human. "You’ve hurt him?!"
Nagase tilted her head, her expression a mockery of innocence. “Not...exactly.”
Zeik’s fury reached its peak, his mind collapsing under the weight of his daughter's betrayal. His eyes, once filled with confusion and desperation, now burned with a deep, unrelenting hatred. His hands shook as his flames exploded outward, scorching the ground beneath him. Kurai called out, but her voice was lost in the roar of his fury.
""Enough!" Zeik bellowed, his rage consuming him. The dark flames surged higher, turning the air thick with heat and smoke. But Nagase only smirked, her expression smug and unrepentant.
"There it is!" Antares and Nagase said in unison.
"I knew it. I knew it existed," she murmured, her voice thick with satisfaction, every word deliberate and calculated. Her eyes gleamed with malice as she savored the moment. "And I knew it was you," she added, her tone low and dangerous, laced with a hunger that hinted at deeper, sinister ambitions.
As the flames raged around him, Antares stood nearby, watching the chaos unfold with narrowed eyes, his left hand resting in his pocket. Despite Zeik’s fury and Nagase’s deceptions, he remained unfazed, his suit still pristine, his aura as crisp as the moment he had arrived. He stood in the center of it all, unaffected, while Aurileus and Inariel's banter faded into the background of his mind.
He watched with great interest as Zeik flames roiled, the black fire crackling with an intensity that most never witnessed. Hellfire itself doesn’t usually produce smoke—its destructive nature incinerates everything in its path too efficiently, leaving no trace and it never harms its weilder, Yet, this time, thick, acrid smoke billowed around Zeik. Antares knew why. It wasn't the cursed flame burning through simple matter—it was the very essence of Zeik’s skin and naten being obliterated, reduced to nothing but charred remnants. The flames were consuming his own body and spirit in the process, a dangerous transformation few ever lived to tell stories about
Antares inhaled deeply, savoring the familiar scent that filled the air. The odor of burning flesh alone was foul, a stench that would churn the stomachs of most. But the presence of naten, natural energy itself, softened the harshness of the smell. The scent of naten mingled with the burning tissue, creating something oddly soothing to him—an aroma he had grown accustomed to in his younger years. When Zeik would transition into this form as a child, Antares had often smelled that same combination of flesh and naten as his cursed flames ravaged his small body.
A wave of nostalgia washed over Antares, mixed with an unsettling sense of shellshock. He had fought this transformation countless times before, back when Zeik was just a boy, prone to fits of rage that ignited those flames. It was during those days that Antares had spent many hours with Zeik, helping him control the volatile power. They were simpler times, yet painful in their own way.
But along with the memories of those tender moments came darker recollections—of the many Hellgates who perished, unable to defend themselves against Zeik’s uncontrollable power. The cursed flame was not merciful; it destroyed all in its path, and Antares had witnessed its lethal potential firsthand.
“The Cursed Flame,” he said softly, his voice tinged with a mix of admiration and wariness. The sight of the black flames and the scent of burning naten stirred something deep within him. “duh duh duh.” He hummed a little tune, only to be quickly ensnared by the fangs of Amrit, the Myotis Crown’s Arbiter.
Despite the beast's grip, Antares continued his song, watching gingerly as Zeik and his daughter clashed like bitter rivals. “Little star. Young crown. That boy is known far and wide, regarded highly among people for his heroism, vision, and mercy.” But it was this cursed flame—this dark transformation—that reminded Antares of the true danger lurking beneath Zeik’s surface, the part of him that had never fully been tamed.
He carried on, his tone coated in nostalgia and an almost paternal tone as he spoke. His body was surrounded by inriel's portals, with lunar-infused fangs gnawing at his body, aiming to tear him limb from limb. He smirked as the beast savagely yanked at him. “But there are no fables about that "face," No legends about your cursed flame!” His fatherly tone grew angrier as he stared into Zeik's gleaming red eyes.
“Hellagurd,” he said with a calm smile, acknowledging Inariel directly for the first time in minutes. “Often overlooked next to the more destructive Hellgate anthems…”
Amrit had been gnawing at Antares's limbs as Inariel intended, but try as it may, the teeth couldn't puncture his skin. A thin, easily overlooked aura coated his skin. It was the presence of his anthem, Hellagurd, that prevented him from certain death; he didn't even flinch as the crown poised its attack. Yet as he began to taunt the Elv Crown and brag about his anthem, he noticed the hairline fracture surfacing. His head tilted with curiosity. “What's this? This cultivation of naten…how unusual. There’s something else?” He remained calm, the beast still lashing at him. “Hmm, there’s something other than naten here." He said while sucking his teeth and tasting the air as though he was searching for a hidden ingredient in savory dish "Mana? But mana used in place of naten is ineffective, yet…” He chewed on the idea for a moment before reacting. No Hellaguard was completely impenetrable, no living one for that matter. So the subtle cracks imposed on his anthem weren't enough for concern.
“Shatter,” he said with authority, cutting through the fog of his curiosity with his signiture ava-his clenched fist. Swiftly, blinding light was released from all around him; his Hellaguard shattered and beams of lethal naten scattered across the battlefield. The beams spread was wide and left nothing untouched in its brilliance. It was as if each photon of light had suddenly gained mass, their speed slowed, but each punched with the force of sun, akin to the buck of shotgun, with the spread being tighter the closer one was to his body. Amrit would be reduced to atoms within seconds as the beams, piecered through all defenses, cutting through steel and stone like a blade through flesh. Though it felt like a bomb had been set off in the room, a single explosion didn't occur. When Antares Hellaguard collapsed, the energy stored was released in thin beams, a single fractal for each ‘shard’ of the shattered barrier—countless. Much like the refracting light of a disco ball illuminating the dance floor, his Arbiter peppered the dim lit hall with light, punching perfect circles through what ever matter the photons collided with. Amidst the storm of fury and betrayal, Antares remained within the eye of the storm, his eyes shifting from Inariel to the now-cursed flame. “Is this what they're hiding in that forest? Aye little star? That…technique just now. That was no Arbiter.” His voice was filled with curiosity as if he lies just outside a grand discovery, he began weaving his ava, a complex motion that involved his entire body. His steps were aggressive, thumping against the marble floors and his arms striking with similar ferocity. “I'm glad you two have taken to speaking to one another, debating philosophy while fighting seems interesting at first.” He bounced around the floor, landing gently on his now exposed toes, revealing his surprising light footed nature which contrasted with his imposing figure. “Its just so disingenuous. You see, winning or losing doesn't matter who sees the picture correctly. There are no moral high grounds when dealing with power.” His eyes looked over at the cameras that once floated in the crown hall, who now lay as rumble, covered in blood and the cursed flames soot. “are you coming? Or do I need to bring you closer?” He said coldly, still bouncing on his toes, his arms free from his pockets, and his quizzacal gaze having faded into a death stare.
As Antares stared down the twin moons, daring them to make a move against him, the sounds of war raged behind him. Nagase clashed fiercely with her father, waging a battle of cunning and raw power. Using her Darkseid to buy precious moments, she crafted a set of warriors to stand between her and Zeik. She was a master of tricks, unfairly gifted with abilities that made it clear—God had favorites. With her psionic imagination, Nagase could create beasts of any form, prismatic in nature, imbued with the skills of creatures she had seen or conjured in her mind. But there was more. By combining her visions with the necromantic soil, hair, and bone from her mother's nocturnal servants, she could breathe life into clay. These weren’t mere illusions; they were warriors, born from her dark art.
Despite her father’s relentless assault, which nearly claimed her life, she had succeeded in creating her puppets. Standing amidst the carnage, her arms covered in burns that even her regenerative abilities couldn’t fully heal, she gasped for breath. Her hands rested on her knees, and her chest heaved as she tried to recover. “OK, that was a lot harder than I imagined,” she muttered, breath ragged, pain threading through her words. Yet, despite her condition, her efforts had borne fruit.
Before her stood three warriors—figures she knew her father would recognize immediately. Their faces and forms were unmistakable, likenesses of those who had once fought beside him, warriors he had shared countless battlefields with. They were not mere creations of her imagination, but twisted echoes of the fallen, drawn from her mother’s necromantic domain.
Nagase raised her head, still catching her breath. “Just… hear me out,” she said nervously, her voice trembling as she tried to reason with him. She glanced at her father, who was now held in place by the figures she had summoned. One imposing warrior had its arm locked around his neck, while the other two held his arms in chains of lightning and fire.
“Azazel’s not hurt,” she blurted out, her tone lacking its usual slyness or mischief. “I don’t know where he is, but I really think he’s safe. I don’t know why… but it had to be done.” There was a rare sincerity in her voice, a vulnerability that Zeik had not heard from her in years. But her words were drowned out by his fury.
In an instant, Zeik exploded in a burst of energy, tearing through the warrior’s chains and breaking free from their grasp. With a furious shove, he sent himself flying through the chest of the largest servant, leaving the grotesque figure to claw at its gaping wound. It tried in vain to hold its entrails in place, but the injury healed itself in a sickening display of necromantic regeneration.
On the other side of the hall, Zeik landed on his feet, his body tense, his movements slow and deliberate as he began to approach Nagase. His silence was more terrifying than any words could have been, his seething rage palpable in the air. As he drew closer, his eyes flicked to the warriors she had summoned, their faces a cruel reminder of the comrades he had fought beside, now twisted into servants of his daughter’s will.
His daughter had chosen her puppets well.
The Right to Rule
Re: The Right to Rule
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Inariel Myotis
- Drifter
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Re: The Right to Rule
Inari’s eyes could not help but widen as he watched Amrit’s twin jaws latch onto the Holgurd crown’s body, yet their fangs could not pierce him. It seems that for all its prominence, naten when applied by a true master, can still outpace mana. Udiah fell so quickly that Inari had little time to test the limits of his newly found conjurative prowess. This reunion of broken promises and ill-be-gotten gain served him in more ways than he could have imagined. As the pungent scent of burning flesh and burning naten flared, Inari’s eyes shifted, becoming a piercing lime green; his innate vision allowed him to see the flow of naten in all things his gaze was set upon. That was when he could see it fully, just how ludicrously mighty Zeik was when roused and that magnitude of Antare’s ability. It was not just the depth of his well that impressed Inari, the crisply calculated composition of the network of his naten as it embellished his entire being down to his very bone. A meticulous network of well-laid abjuration. He knew of Hellagurd but nothing of this scale. The peons he faced within the Crown Jewel could not withstand the might of his bare claws, let alone his omen applied in one of his most powerful states. Had they met in another lifetime, had he been reborn with any humility, Inariel might have studied under him...but here in this lifetime...
Within the nearly limitless rivulets of naten before him, the once definite effigy of Antares, a practically flawless diamond fortification, abruptly shattered like a mirror; Inari, though proud in his growing strength, did not fool himself into believing Amrit was the cause of this shattering, that by the raise of his hand, what he now could infer was ava of sorts for the crown, initiated this. A harrowing panic shot Inari’s adrenaline through him. Still, it was time to put Udiah’s usefulness to the test.
"Aurelius, To me!"
He extended his hand, and without flaw, Aurelius placed his hand into Inari’s glowing palm Upon doing so, Inari yanked the gold fur toward him, pulling him into an embrace Aurelius’ heart thumped heavily as Inari’s eyes shone with a bright green flicker for but an instant, invoking his authority over Aurelius’ body. Aurelius’ eyes grew a bright green as the radiant sky-blue gleam of his pelt was replaced with an unlit midnight hue. Though enthralled, Inari only commandeered the nerves and muscles of his moon’s body, allowing his thoughts and other facilities to remain his. His face flushed with a slightly embarrassed red as he was embraced so suddenly this way by his crown. At the same time, Inari’s blood became endowed with Moonglow’s lunar majesty, shifting the nature of the Reach spell on his back—a tactic he used in his fight against another harrowing foe, the current Crown of the Tyre Reach was a command that by default conjured a pair of clawed tendrils with semi-sentience, their base objective to protect Inari by assaulting anything that came near him. Their reactive ability to respond to threats can reach speeds equal to a tenth of a second.
The moon guides, governs, pushes, and pulls. Inari has learned that meeting flame with flame is not always advantageous when faced with overwhelming might, that sometimes it is better to draw than to push, and that that is precisely what he would do. He and Aurelius could not hope to dodge this monstrous barrage of light shards. Still, they could most assuredly survive the onslaught—the conjured aspects of Amrit eviscerated in an instant—such volatile force to decimate it so.
"DIVIDE!"
He released a command right before he swiftly plunged his fangs deep into Aurelius's neck, gorging himself on the black blood just before the first beam touched them. Aurelius is overcome with a flood of ecstasy, compelling his second heart to magnify his crown’s strategy. The reach spell, reacting with lightning momentum, began deflecting and severing the shards where possible. There were far too many, however, for him to deal with absolutely; their bodies were cruelly tormented with the scalding agony as whole gobs of their flesh were obliterated. Yet within their harmonious rhythm, the twin moons combined speed and precise control unleashed a lunar lit waltz of unparalleled accordance, placing increasing distance between them and the eye of the storm lessening the burden of this tactic.
Their defenses prioritized their vital points; some organs were damaged even then. As a Blood Sorcerer, Inari’s regenerative capability was already uncanny. Nevertheless, Udiah’s black blood, a genuinely wondrous arbiter in and of itself, now under the Moonglow’s enchantment, increased the blood’s regenerative speed to seemingly instantaneous. For each wound dealt, another was healed, trivializing an arbiter that, once again, against any other foe, would have proved deadly many times. Had he been facing a mere mortal. Their eyes remained locked on each other despite the storm of pain they were engulfed in. The bewildered, glazed-over look in Aurelius’s eyes filled with blind devotion, how they drew him closer to his moon, how he epitomized Inari’s every thought, even daring to challenge him at times A confidant, a helpful tool, and a spare canvas, all wrapped in one.
The hazardous tempest wained near the end of their synchronized retaliation, and Inari released Aurelius from his physical and mental grasp. This included the boon from the Moonglow trance, Inari choosing to exhaust his connection rather than his own. This returned Aurelius’s pelt to its normal gilden state, Though still under the effects of the moon, naturally induced vampirism. The moment he did, Aurelius, still in a state of bliss, uttered a single phrase, his ava active coursing through him as he performed a single hand sign as he landed on the ground, catching his breath after Inari’s feeding.
"Fester...."
As this was spoken, the blood previously saturating the land beneath them began to resonate; having been consolidated by his dominion, Inari, in the same breath but with a guttural, nearly cacophonous bellow, dismissed the call of his current reach arbiter and replaced it with a new purpose, he still under the blessing of Kirin’s cobalt boon and newly invigorated by feeding from Aurelius ava suffused black blood.
"RRREEEEEAAAACCCCCCHHHH AAMMRIITT"
His blaring utterance called to the blood within the earth; after a couple of light bounces, Antares was suddenly accosted by fully manifested Amrit it’s form fiery that of a Lion figure with glowing skin and bright runic markings, eyes that blaze like silver embers, and a mane of wild, flickering cardinal energy. The power released from its emergence alone sent a shockwave of spiritual pressure rippling through the domain, decimating the stone floor as it ran head into Antares. The time for playing had ended, and Inari was ready to take this fray to the next level of escalation. Opening its jaws revealed a blazing orb of blistering magic, the likes of which sent waves reverberating through the unseen as the crackling fury of the orb was unleashed, firing a powerful beam of consolidated mana from the point-blank range more than capable of blowing the roof off the building, should the wards on it fail to stop it, possibly splitting the clouds in twain.
He had a deliberate hand in the scheme that led Inari down a ravenous path of sanguine vengeance and incomparable covetousness. This curse causes him to begrudge so profoundly, his abyssal hunger to fill the voids in both his mind and heart. And that to the Crimson Crown was unforgivable. While Antares marinated on the energy type of his omen, Aurelius’s blood still poured out onto the earth; Inari smirked as the fracture occurred, his hand dancing with Lunar energy. What happened next, though, he could not have predicted. Yet ever since Zeik warned about his hand, Inari had a single contingency in mind.Yet as he began to taunt the Elv Crown and brag about his anthem, he noticed the hairline fracture surfacing. His head tilted with curiosity. “What’s this? This cultivation of naten…how unusual. There’s something else?” He remained calm, the beast still lashing at him. “Hmm, there’s something other than naten here.” He said while sucking his teeth and tasting the air as though he was searching for a hidden ingredient in savory dish “Mana? But mana used in place of naten is ineffective, yet…” He chewed on the idea for a moment before reacting. No Hellaguard was completely impenetrable, no living one for that matter. So the subtle cracks imposed on his anthem weren’t enough for concern.
“Shatter,” he said with authority, cutting through the fog of his curiosity with his signiture ava-his clenched fist Swiftly, blinding light was released from all around him; his Hellaguard shattered and beams of lethal naten scattered across the battlefield The beams spread was wide and left nothing untouched in its brilliance It was as if each photon of light had suddenly gained mass, their speed slowed, but each punched with the force of sun, akin to the buck of shotgun, with the spread being tighter the closer one was to his body.
Within the nearly limitless rivulets of naten before him, the once definite effigy of Antares, a practically flawless diamond fortification, abruptly shattered like a mirror; Inari, though proud in his growing strength, did not fool himself into believing Amrit was the cause of this shattering, that by the raise of his hand, what he now could infer was ava of sorts for the crown, initiated this. A harrowing panic shot Inari’s adrenaline through him. Still, it was time to put Udiah’s usefulness to the test.
"Aurelius, To me!"
He extended his hand, and without flaw, Aurelius placed his hand into Inari’s glowing palm Upon doing so, Inari yanked the gold fur toward him, pulling him into an embrace Aurelius’ heart thumped heavily as Inari’s eyes shone with a bright green flicker for but an instant, invoking his authority over Aurelius’ body. Aurelius’ eyes grew a bright green as the radiant sky-blue gleam of his pelt was replaced with an unlit midnight hue. Though enthralled, Inari only commandeered the nerves and muscles of his moon’s body, allowing his thoughts and other facilities to remain his. His face flushed with a slightly embarrassed red as he was embraced so suddenly this way by his crown. At the same time, Inari’s blood became endowed with Moonglow’s lunar majesty, shifting the nature of the Reach spell on his back—a tactic he used in his fight against another harrowing foe, the current Crown of the Tyre Reach was a command that by default conjured a pair of clawed tendrils with semi-sentience, their base objective to protect Inari by assaulting anything that came near him. Their reactive ability to respond to threats can reach speeds equal to a tenth of a second.
The moon guides, governs, pushes, and pulls. Inari has learned that meeting flame with flame is not always advantageous when faced with overwhelming might, that sometimes it is better to draw than to push, and that that is precisely what he would do. He and Aurelius could not hope to dodge this monstrous barrage of light shards. Still, they could most assuredly survive the onslaught—the conjured aspects of Amrit eviscerated in an instant—such volatile force to decimate it so.
"DIVIDE!"
He released a command right before he swiftly plunged his fangs deep into Aurelius's neck, gorging himself on the black blood just before the first beam touched them. Aurelius is overcome with a flood of ecstasy, compelling his second heart to magnify his crown’s strategy. The reach spell, reacting with lightning momentum, began deflecting and severing the shards where possible. There were far too many, however, for him to deal with absolutely; their bodies were cruelly tormented with the scalding agony as whole gobs of their flesh were obliterated. Yet within their harmonious rhythm, the twin moons combined speed and precise control unleashed a lunar lit waltz of unparalleled accordance, placing increasing distance between them and the eye of the storm lessening the burden of this tactic.
Their defenses prioritized their vital points; some organs were damaged even then. As a Blood Sorcerer, Inari’s regenerative capability was already uncanny. Nevertheless, Udiah’s black blood, a genuinely wondrous arbiter in and of itself, now under the Moonglow’s enchantment, increased the blood’s regenerative speed to seemingly instantaneous. For each wound dealt, another was healed, trivializing an arbiter that, once again, against any other foe, would have proved deadly many times. Had he been facing a mere mortal. Their eyes remained locked on each other despite the storm of pain they were engulfed in. The bewildered, glazed-over look in Aurelius’s eyes filled with blind devotion, how they drew him closer to his moon, how he epitomized Inari’s every thought, even daring to challenge him at times A confidant, a helpful tool, and a spare canvas, all wrapped in one.
The hazardous tempest wained near the end of their synchronized retaliation, and Inari released Aurelius from his physical and mental grasp. This included the boon from the Moonglow trance, Inari choosing to exhaust his connection rather than his own. This returned Aurelius’s pelt to its normal gilden state, Though still under the effects of the moon, naturally induced vampirism. The moment he did, Aurelius, still in a state of bliss, uttered a single phrase, his ava active coursing through him as he performed a single hand sign as he landed on the ground, catching his breath after Inari’s feeding.
"Fester...."
As this was spoken, the blood previously saturating the land beneath them began to resonate; having been consolidated by his dominion, Inari, in the same breath but with a guttural, nearly cacophonous bellow, dismissed the call of his current reach arbiter and replaced it with a new purpose, he still under the blessing of Kirin’s cobalt boon and newly invigorated by feeding from Aurelius ava suffused black blood.
"RRREEEEEAAAACCCCCCHHHH AAMMRIITT"
His blaring utterance called to the blood within the earth; after a couple of light bounces, Antares was suddenly accosted by fully manifested Amrit it’s form fiery that of a Lion figure with glowing skin and bright runic markings, eyes that blaze like silver embers, and a mane of wild, flickering cardinal energy. The power released from its emergence alone sent a shockwave of spiritual pressure rippling through the domain, decimating the stone floor as it ran head into Antares. The time for playing had ended, and Inari was ready to take this fray to the next level of escalation. Opening its jaws revealed a blazing orb of blistering magic, the likes of which sent waves reverberating through the unseen as the crackling fury of the orb was unleashed, firing a powerful beam of consolidated mana from the point-blank range more than capable of blowing the roof off the building, should the wards on it fail to stop it, possibly splitting the clouds in twain.
Re: The Right to Rule
The battlefield was torn in two, with a father and daughter locked in a bitter dispute and two lovers forced against the elder who'd Condemned their tribe to ruin. There was an eerie silence between the players. Neither interfered with the others disputes the halls, adorned with jewels, past herolooms, chairs for debate, pictures of the old, all withered under the weight of the combating fury. Yet, like the wanning moon return to its fullness, the decor returned as many times as it decayeed.
Zeik, covered in black flames that seered his flesh into a unpleasant miasma, stood motionless, his gleaming red eyes locked unto the many faces, the forms of his presant and….old allies, standing before him like ghastly apparition of their former self. Yet..their faces, their likeness was uncannying- just as he remembered—determined, unyielding, and familiar in every way. But these aren’t the comrades he fought alongside; they are something else entirely, twisted into perfect likenesses by Nagase's sorcery. The puppet master who crafted their bodies and manipulated their likeness with unseen forces.
His face was void of emotion, even more so than usualy considering his flesh was mostly gone and a mere Skelton stood in its wake. His daughter stood triumphant, but winded. Her Arbiter had taken more from her than she expected and she still had ways to go in the fight. She dusted off her clothes and took a deep sigh. “You'll have to forgive me, father. I'm usally more prepared than this.”
In the stillness of the room, under the cover of her casual tone-he lunged at her. Bursting from a plume of smoke, with a strike ready to split the moon in twine. Yet despite his speed, precision and power…he was Halted. A puppet, fashioned in the same likeness as her father, matching his strike blow for blow.
“Shhhh. Dont interrupt me. You need to hear this.” She said as her eyes met her fathers. “I know you're in there, Papa. And despite the cold killer in your eyes. I'm certain you're cognitive. …i love it, i didnt know i would;but, It shows, no it proves you respect me. You see me, not as your little girl. Your star that needs guidance-no, you see me as the threat I am, Nagase.”
Her words where followed by an eerie stillness and desperate persistence from zeik Bursting around the hall with zero shift, striking at what he thought was an opening, only to be met with a well placed counter from nagase's Lunaedge and Hellgate Puppet.
“I'm usually more prepared for moments like these.” she came to a sudden halt. “But…this experience is very different. I couldnt find this day in the ‘time stream,’ which leads me to believe its never occurred in Chrono-history, which…shouldnt be possible.” She paced about as zeik continued to search for an opening, bursting around the room, avoiding stray attacks from the holgurd crown, while nagase puppets protected her from zeik and holgurd alike. “However, due to my lack of information, I'm forced to fall on honesty with you.” Her words carried a genuine and sincere tone. She even looked uneasy as she spoke. “I know you think i killed Azazel. *Zeik stroke at her left side, this time getting closer to her than before. Just a hairs inch from her face only to be countered by a clone of himself, with the lunedge and micho clones standing at her side and lunedge baring an eerie and forced grin. Zeik crashed into the wall of the Assembly Hall, his body pinned into the stone wall and his consciousness barely holding on. Nagase made her way towards the fading man, her eyes still soft and unsure. “Please see reason dad. I chose the lunedge and michio not to torment you psychologically. I even went through the trouble of acquiring materials that captured their essense on a spiritual level…you know, teeth, hair, blood. In short these arent mere puppets, they're Nocturnal Servants of the highest order, well…close to the highest. Binding their soul would be the highest.” She took a moment to adjust her hair after flaunting her prowess. “Im getting distracted. What im saying is…They know you and they know how you fight...You’re gonna hear me out.”
Zeik pulled himself from the wall and shook his head free of dirt and shame. The lunedge clone was still smiling and the hellgate clone remained side by side with the michio. A hideous sight for Zeik to gaze upon. The black smoke plume over his head and was beginning to fill the room, until nagase absorbed the smoke with a dark slit, sending into elsewhere. “You are revered across the landscape for your vision and trust me, this isnt going to be another ham-fisted punch line that ends in the all to commonly prased ‘but you couldnt see this.’ She said with a mocking tone that echoed the voices of hundreds of people in a single breath.
“People dont know how your prophetic vision work.” Nagase said calmly “You interpret data, mostly through dreams, sometimes walking vision and in times of dire need…you could divine information about the future or past from the planetary Cycle and the stars above. Which is impressive “ She clapped her hands as she slowly approached zeik “It is a gift and among those bearing said gift, you are nearly peerless. However, you are equally as uninformed about my powers as they are your vision. “Her tone turned angry and she began weaving her ava.”
Your seer abilities are incredible but their limits I do not favor. Let me put it this way…compared to me, you are like a child trying to decipher the author of a poem's intentions and meaning. While my vision allows me to sit beside the author as he wrote the poem, to walk alongside them and see the very moments that inspired their vision. I'll see the moments that shaped their poetry from a lense even they couldn't imagine, ill reveal in connections they long since forgotten but shape their essences. It may seem like I'm stroking my own horn, but I'm being honest when I say…there is no singke word to categorize my prowess, because i'm the first to possess it. Premonition, precognition, postcognition none of these alone or combined capture my potential. Hell i was well on my way to believing i was the first mortal to possess omniscience;but.... alass, I'm simply setting the tone.
I can view time very freely. Its why you've never taught me how to read, nor mentored me on family arbiters, when dinner was ready, who your great grandfather was and… so on. ...I've been able to view time this way for as long as I can remember, so much so…i thought everyone could.
Yet… I've recently found gaps. Moments of darkness…which is difficult to explain;but, its like the skipping of a movie because the tape was severed and reattached. I began to wonder why and then…I saw a faint image of that scary face of yours and without much evidence I became convinced it was your fault. I don't know why, I dont how and I dont know what you've done….but I know it was you.
You're the only person, besides myself, who I'd believe had the powers to hide something from time, to deceive heaven's eye. Yeaaaa, that's got your name written all over it. It's why I pushed you, it's why…I had to make Azazel disappear. I was certain that face I saw while screening time was you, just another hunch. And I was right. It was you and now….I want you to tell me why there are gaps in my memory that even TIME doesn't have answer for?!”
Zeik’s skeletal face betrayed no reaction, but Nagase pressed on. "I don’t know what you’ve done or why. But I know it’s you. You’re the only one who could hide something from time itself. That’s why I pushed you, why I had to make Azazel disappear. And I was right, wasn’t I? It was you. So tell me, Father—why are there gaps in my memory that even time cant see?
The hall fell silent, the echoes of their battle fading into an uneasy stillness. For the first time, Zeik hesitated, his crimson gaze fixed on the daughter who had forced him to the edge of his power—and the truth.
[Antares]
The war room of the Hellgates stood as a testament to their might and history. Its walls, hewn from dark, polished basalt, shimmered faintly in the flickering firelight, the veins of crimson and gold running through the stone seeming almost alive. The surfaces were so perfectly smoothed that they reflected the room’s light, casting distorted images of those who entered—a reminder of the tribe’s duality of strength and Vanity
At the heart of the hall lay the bloodstone, an immense jewel embedded in the floor. Its deep red core seemed to pulse faintly, like a beating heart encased in a cradle of black iron filigree. The Hellgates revered it, claiming it held the very essence of their origin. Warriors would lower their gaze as they passed, silently offering their respect to the stone and the ancestors it represented.
The walls bore the weight of history. Massive banners woven with fire-scarred thread hung between iron sconces, each depicting moments of triumph and loss. Beneath the banners were stone carvings of the Hellgates’ fallen leaders, their faces forever frozen in expressions of pride and resolve. Candles flickered at their feet, their wax pooling onto the floor like bloodshed immortalized in stone.
Weapons from centuries of warfare adorned the hall: jagged swords, broken shields, and battle-worn helmets mounted on display. Each bore the scars of battles fought long ago, a silent declaration of the tribe’s endurance. Overhead, an intricate chandelier of blackened steel and polished bone cast a soft, eerie glow, its light dancing across the bloodstone below.
This was no mere assembly hall; it was a sanctum of power and remembrance. Every detail spoke of a tribe unyielding, one that carried the weight of its past even as it looked toward its next battle.
Yet thw halls of the Hellgates was no longer a sanctum of authority—it had become a battlefield. The polished basalt walls, once a canvas of light and shadow, now bore streaks of blood and scorch marks. The banners of old heroes hung in tatters, torn down in the chaos, and the flickering chandelier above swayed precariously, its light casting frantic shadows over the fray. Antares Continued to repair what the battle destroyed, a facet of his power that went unexplained.
At the heart of the room, Zeik clashed with his daughter, their conflict centered around the radiant bloodstone embedded in the floor. The jewel, a symbol of their tribe’s unity, now bore deep cracks as if reflecting the divide between father and daughter. Zeik wielded his weapon with unyielding precision, his strikes aimed not just at her, but at the swarm of Servants she commanded. These grotesque creations, lurched toward him, their limbs cracking and groaning with unnatural strength. His daughter stood behind them, a figure of defiance, her every gesture carrying her characteristic nonchalance. The servants bore the weapons of the warriors they impersonated, making for a near impossible task for Zeik to overcome.
“You’ve forgotten what the Hellgates stand for,” Anteres growled, his voice echoing off the walls, as he watched Zeik face his daughter.
“And you’ve chained us to the past,” Nagase retorted, her voice sharp with fury. “It’s time for a new legacy, one you’ll never control, Antares.”
Meanwhile, at the far end Antares, a man as unrelenting as the storm, faced the Twin Moons, two warriors who moved in terrifying unison. Their names were of no importance to Antares, but their fighting style was legendary. Their speed, ,precision and mastery of the arcane were commendable;but, paled im comparison to their elder, Antares. Their eyes flashed like the crescent moon, their strikes coordinated with a precision that seemed forced Antares onto the defensive;but, he rarely paid mind to them, instead his eyes were now glued onto nagase.
“You’ll pay for what you’ve done,” one of the twins snarled as he and his partner fought desperatly to survive Antares Arbiter, Shatter.
“You damned our father to die in shame,” Aurelius's added, silently questioning himself as to why he said 'our,' “And with him, our tribe.”
The Hedalstone at the center pulsed violently, its cracks deepening, as if the hall itself was breaking under the weight of betrayal and vengeance. The faces of the fallen leaders carved into the walls seemed to watch silently, their stoic expressions an eerie contrast to the chaos below. This was no longer a place of honor—it was a crucible of shattered loyalties, where bloodlines and grudges clashed, and the Hellgates’ future hung by a thread.
“Yes, I killed Khalid,” he declared, his tone filled with ruthless pride. “And I’d do it again a thousand times over. The weak deserve to fall so the strong can rise. He, like the rest of you, are fools, clinging to juvenile ideas, dragging your tribe into ruin. I simply gave him what he earned—a blade in the chest and a quick end.”
The twins faltered for half a breath, their fury turning cold and calculated as they renewed their assault. The chaos of the war room seemed to still as Antares stopped moving, lowering his fist as the Twin Moons gathered their power. The Lovers stood side by side, their cresent moon eyes glowing with ethereal light. A sphere of raw lunar energy coalesced between their palms, fed by streams of mana pouring from their bodies. The air crackled with power, the light of their attack reflecting off the fractured Hadalstone.
But Antares didn’t flinch. He stood calmly, his arms at his sides, watching them with a faint, almost condescending smile. His voice broke through the tension, sharp and deliberate, cutting through the crackling energy like a blade.
“Look at you,” he said, his tone laced with disdain. “Desperate children clinging to vengeance. Do you even know why your father had to die? Do you understand the weight of what I’m trying to achieve? No, you don’t. You can’t. Because you are just like the rest of this clan—content to wallow in ignorance, squandering what little potential we have left.”
The twins’ focus wavered for a moment, their eyes narrowing as the mana between them surged brighter. Antares didn’t move. He took a step closer, undeterred by the rising threat, and continued speaking, his voice steady and full of conviction.
“Once, the Hellgates stood for something greater. We were the architects of evolution, the harbingers of change. Our bloodline was forged to transcend the limits of flesh, to break free of mortality’s chains. Consciousness itself was our battlefield, and our DNA—our legacy—was the weapon we wielded to shape the future. That was the Hellgate way. That was our purpose.”
He gestured dismissively toward the cracked Hadalstone at the center of the hall. “But look at what we’ve become. A tribe of drunken revelers, drowning in their own mediocrity. They sing songs of their ancestors while their bodies wither, while their minds rot. They glorify the past yet cower from the work required to build a future. Party and leisure,” he spat, the words dripping with venom. “Is that what you think we were meant to be? Entertainers and storytellers, parasites feeding on the accomplishments of our forebears?”
The Twin Moons growled, their energy building into a blinding brilliance, but Antares stepped closer still, his voice rising, commanding their attention.
“Your father was the worst of them. He was a weak-willed fool, preaching unity and peace as though such things ever led to progress. He abandoned the Hellgate’s mission. He betrayed evolution itself. So, yes—I killed him. And I’d kill him again, if only to see the light of understanding burn in his eyes as I plunged the blade into his chest. He failed you, just as he failed this tribe. He deserved his death.”
The room seemed to tremble as the twins prepared to unleash their devastating attack. The sphere of energy hummed violently, illuminating the war room with a cold, lunar glow. But Antares merely chuckled, his voice growing softer, yet more venomous.
“I’ve watched the Hellgates decay for centuries. I've watched the other nine tribes cling to their petty comforts and shallow ambitions, each one a pale shadow of what they could have been. And I hate them for it. I hate their complacency, their cowardice, their blind worship of traditions that no longer serve them. They disgust me, every last one of them. Including you.”
He spread his arms wide, as though inviting the twins’ wrath. “But I don’t hate without purpose. My hatred is a fire—a fire that will burn away this pathetic, stagnant world and forge something greater from its ashes. My magnum opus will not just transcend the Hellgates; it will transcend everything. I will ascend beyond flesh, beyond the limits of this frail existence. I will ascend the throne of godhood
His eyes burned with fervor, his voice rising to a crescendo. “And if it means killing you two and anyone else who stands in my way, so be it. Sacrifice is the cost of progress. Your father was just the beginning. You’ll be my next offering to the future.”
The Twin Moons roared in fury, their combined power reaching its peak as they unleashed the lunar beam with blinding force, jetting from the mouth of Amrit. Leaving Antares fractions of milliseconds to respond. The attack surged toward Antares like a comet, tearing through the war room with devastating energy. But Antares didn’t waver. His bitter grin remained, his defiance shining brighter than the light itself. The room trembled as the Twin Moons unleashed their combined fury. The lunar beam tore through space with cataclysmic force, a blinding pillar of silver energy that moved with the swiftness of a falling star. The sound was deafening—a roar that split the air like the howl of a thousand storms, shaking the very foundations of the Hellgates’ sacred hall. Walls cracked and banners were incinerated in an instant, their ashes swept away by the sheer power of the attack.
Antares’s eyes narrowed, a cruel smile creeping onto his face as he stared into the gleaming maw of Amrit. His form blurred as he activated his ungodly speed, vanishing just as the beam surged past where he had stood. The beam struck the far wall, obliterating it and sending shards of stone cascading like rain.
Reappearing a few paces away, Antares began to gloat, his voice rich with mockery. “Timing is e—”
Before he could finish, the beam struck him from behind with devastating precision, funneled through a portal that crackled to life behind him. Nagase, standing across the room, smirked as she closed her hand, the remnants of the portal collapsing.
“is everything,” she mocked. Finishing his sentence with a sly smile, her voice drippin with defiance. “Thats for calling me a witch. Id choose my words wisely when speaking to the living flesh of a true candidate for godhood.”
Antares’s roar of pain drowned out even the chaos around him as the lunar beam consumed him. The silver energy enveloped his entire body, burning away flesh and sinew, reducing him to nothing but a charred, skeletal figure standing amid the maelstrom. The bone of their former adversary bore unusally marking all over, sigl and glyph lost to time. His screams were visceral, primal, echoing with both agony and fury as the beam seared into his very essence.
When the beam finally dissipated, silence fell over the room. Two massive holes endangered the structure of the building and Antares dropped to one knee, his skeletal form smoldering in the aftermath. For a brief moment, he was motionless, the severity of his wounds a stark contrast to his usual invincibility.
Then, a low, guttural chuckle escaped his bony jaw. It grew louder, escalating into a feral, unhinged laughter that filled the war room. Antares rose, his skeletal frame cracking as he stood upright, the glow of his remaining eye sockets igniting with a devilish glee.
“Magnificent!” he bellowed, his voice carrying a chilling excitement. “To think—such power exists within you?! It has been *so long* since I’ve felt my limits tested, since anyone has managed to break my Hellagurd.”
His body began to regenerate, flesh weaving itself over bone, muscles reforming, and his features returning in a matter of seconds. Yet, the war room bore the scars of the battle, its destruction stark and irreparable. The hadalstone was fractured beyond repair, walls shattered, and the chandelier reduced to a molten heap. Antares’s regeneration was absolute, but the room’s devastation was a reminder that his power was not without cost.
He flexed his newly restored hands, rolling his shoulders as his laughter subsided into a satisfied grin. His eyes gleamed with a devilish light, his excitement palpable as he addressed the Twin Moons and Nagase.
“I am impressed. *Thrilled*, even,” he said, his voice rich with a mix of menace and admiration. “Do you know how rare it is to meet opponents who can break my shield? Hellgurd has stood unyielding against legends, monsters, even the gods themselves. Yet here you stand, mere children, and you’ve done what only a handful of others have ever accomplished.”
He stepped forward, his tone shifting into one of fervent intensity, his gaze fixed on each of them. “Power like that deserves respect. It deserves recognition. But most of all, it deserves to be honed, sharpened to perfection. You’ve shown me what you’re capable of—what *we* could accomplish together.”
Antares’s grin widened, his voice dripping with malice. “But don’t misunderstand me. This is not over. You’ve lit a fire in me, awakened something that has been dormant for far too long. And now, I will show you the true depth of my power, the kind of strength that shaped the Hellgates and could *tear apart* the nine tribes that dare to stand in my way.”
His eyes flared with a devilish glow as he prepared to engage them again, his bloodlust tempered only by the fierce joy of facing adversaries who could finally challenge him. The temperature of the room seemed to plummet as Antares extended his arms wide, his fingers curling into claws. The air around him shimmered and distorted, as though reality itself were folding inward. A low hum reverberated through the room, growing louder with each second, its pitch sharp enough to make ears bleed.
"Time is a river," he declared, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. "And gravity? The bedrock of existence. Together, they shape creation and annihilation. And here, I will show you the storm that devours both."
Above Antares’s outstretched palm, a black sphere began to form, impossibly dense yet impossibly small. Light bent around it, spiraling into its center as if consumed by a voracious maw. The sound of rushing wind filled the room, yet nothing moved at first—it was the absence of movement that caused the sound, a paradox only Antares could command. The gravitational pull grew stronger until everything was frozen under the pressure, before being dragged towards him, along with the shattered stone and debris into its orbit, tearing at the assembly hall Antares had once protected. Nagase braced herself, her knuckles white as she fought to resist the overwhelming force. Her michio and lunedge servants, halted their fight with Zeik and diverted their attention to keeping nagase from being dragged into doom. The hellgate servant and Zeik both had the same idea, execution. Yet their beams were slowed to snails pace and drained of their naten and consumed by his Arbiter.
Antares’s eyes burned with manic delight. “Feel it!” he roared. “This is the weight of my conviction —the *Temporal Maelstrom!*”
Suddenly, time itself twisted. The Twin Moons, zeik, nagase, and her servants found themselves unable to move, frozen in a state of horrifying awareness. Their bodies were locked, yet their minds raced as they witnessed their surroundings spiral into chaos. Antares had bent time to his will, trapping them in an agonizing limbo as the black orb grew larger and larger, its gravitational field swallowing the very fabric of the war room.
The chandelier above shattered, its shards drawn into the orb in agonizing slow motion, their paths distorted by the immense gravitational pull. Stone and iron from the walls crumbled and spiraled into the singularity. Even the light seemed to vanish, leaving the room cloaked in darkness save for the edges of the vortex, which glowed faintly with distorted energy.
"Do you feel it now?" Antares hissed, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. "This is what the Hellgates should have been—a force of evolution, a storm that crushes the weak and reshapes the strong! But no, you squandered it all on drink, on revelry, on weakness!"
Nagase gritted her teeth in near frozen animation. gravity in the space had become so intense that time slowed to a crawl. "He’s insane," she growled under her breath. Her words now slowed to the same snail's pace as the rest of her body.
“This is why I despise you all. The Hellgates were supposed to conquer the boundaries of existence, to ascend beyond mortality. You abandoned that vision, and now you wallow in mediocrity! But I—”
Antares maintained his Arbiters activation, groaning through gritted teeth. blood pooling in his eyes, with lacerations appearing on his body as he endured the gravitic presence of his Arbiter. His eyes were piercing through the darkness with an expression of utter derangement.
His laughter returned, this time low and guttural, building into a hysterical
He spread his arms wide, his grin feral. “Do you see now? This is what power looks like! This is what it means to transcend weakness! The rest of you will kneel before me, or you will be crushed under the weight of conviction!”
The war room, now a smoldering ruin, seemed to shudder as Antares’s voice carried through the rubble. The cracks in the bloodstone beneath him deepened, a silent omen of his unstable and destructive power.
Zeik, covered in black flames that seered his flesh into a unpleasant miasma, stood motionless, his gleaming red eyes locked unto the many faces, the forms of his presant and….old allies, standing before him like ghastly apparition of their former self. Yet..their faces, their likeness was uncannying- just as he remembered—determined, unyielding, and familiar in every way. But these aren’t the comrades he fought alongside; they are something else entirely, twisted into perfect likenesses by Nagase's sorcery. The puppet master who crafted their bodies and manipulated their likeness with unseen forces.
His face was void of emotion, even more so than usualy considering his flesh was mostly gone and a mere Skelton stood in its wake. His daughter stood triumphant, but winded. Her Arbiter had taken more from her than she expected and she still had ways to go in the fight. She dusted off her clothes and took a deep sigh. “You'll have to forgive me, father. I'm usally more prepared than this.”
In the stillness of the room, under the cover of her casual tone-he lunged at her. Bursting from a plume of smoke, with a strike ready to split the moon in twine. Yet despite his speed, precision and power…he was Halted. A puppet, fashioned in the same likeness as her father, matching his strike blow for blow.
“Shhhh. Dont interrupt me. You need to hear this.” She said as her eyes met her fathers. “I know you're in there, Papa. And despite the cold killer in your eyes. I'm certain you're cognitive. …i love it, i didnt know i would;but, It shows, no it proves you respect me. You see me, not as your little girl. Your star that needs guidance-no, you see me as the threat I am, Nagase.”
Her words where followed by an eerie stillness and desperate persistence from zeik Bursting around the hall with zero shift, striking at what he thought was an opening, only to be met with a well placed counter from nagase's Lunaedge and Hellgate Puppet.
“I'm usually more prepared for moments like these.” she came to a sudden halt. “But…this experience is very different. I couldnt find this day in the ‘time stream,’ which leads me to believe its never occurred in Chrono-history, which…shouldnt be possible.” She paced about as zeik continued to search for an opening, bursting around the room, avoiding stray attacks from the holgurd crown, while nagase puppets protected her from zeik and holgurd alike. “However, due to my lack of information, I'm forced to fall on honesty with you.” Her words carried a genuine and sincere tone. She even looked uneasy as she spoke. “I know you think i killed Azazel. *Zeik stroke at her left side, this time getting closer to her than before. Just a hairs inch from her face only to be countered by a clone of himself, with the lunedge and micho clones standing at her side and lunedge baring an eerie and forced grin. Zeik crashed into the wall of the Assembly Hall, his body pinned into the stone wall and his consciousness barely holding on. Nagase made her way towards the fading man, her eyes still soft and unsure. “Please see reason dad. I chose the lunedge and michio not to torment you psychologically. I even went through the trouble of acquiring materials that captured their essense on a spiritual level…you know, teeth, hair, blood. In short these arent mere puppets, they're Nocturnal Servants of the highest order, well…close to the highest. Binding their soul would be the highest.” She took a moment to adjust her hair after flaunting her prowess. “Im getting distracted. What im saying is…They know you and they know how you fight...You’re gonna hear me out.”
Zeik pulled himself from the wall and shook his head free of dirt and shame. The lunedge clone was still smiling and the hellgate clone remained side by side with the michio. A hideous sight for Zeik to gaze upon. The black smoke plume over his head and was beginning to fill the room, until nagase absorbed the smoke with a dark slit, sending into elsewhere. “You are revered across the landscape for your vision and trust me, this isnt going to be another ham-fisted punch line that ends in the all to commonly prased ‘but you couldnt see this.’ She said with a mocking tone that echoed the voices of hundreds of people in a single breath.
“People dont know how your prophetic vision work.” Nagase said calmly “You interpret data, mostly through dreams, sometimes walking vision and in times of dire need…you could divine information about the future or past from the planetary Cycle and the stars above. Which is impressive “ She clapped her hands as she slowly approached zeik “It is a gift and among those bearing said gift, you are nearly peerless. However, you are equally as uninformed about my powers as they are your vision. “Her tone turned angry and she began weaving her ava.”
Your seer abilities are incredible but their limits I do not favor. Let me put it this way…compared to me, you are like a child trying to decipher the author of a poem's intentions and meaning. While my vision allows me to sit beside the author as he wrote the poem, to walk alongside them and see the very moments that inspired their vision. I'll see the moments that shaped their poetry from a lense even they couldn't imagine, ill reveal in connections they long since forgotten but shape their essences. It may seem like I'm stroking my own horn, but I'm being honest when I say…there is no singke word to categorize my prowess, because i'm the first to possess it. Premonition, precognition, postcognition none of these alone or combined capture my potential. Hell i was well on my way to believing i was the first mortal to possess omniscience;but.... alass, I'm simply setting the tone.
I can view time very freely. Its why you've never taught me how to read, nor mentored me on family arbiters, when dinner was ready, who your great grandfather was and… so on. ...I've been able to view time this way for as long as I can remember, so much so…i thought everyone could.
Yet… I've recently found gaps. Moments of darkness…which is difficult to explain;but, its like the skipping of a movie because the tape was severed and reattached. I began to wonder why and then…I saw a faint image of that scary face of yours and without much evidence I became convinced it was your fault. I don't know why, I dont how and I dont know what you've done….but I know it was you.
You're the only person, besides myself, who I'd believe had the powers to hide something from time, to deceive heaven's eye. Yeaaaa, that's got your name written all over it. It's why I pushed you, it's why…I had to make Azazel disappear. I was certain that face I saw while screening time was you, just another hunch. And I was right. It was you and now….I want you to tell me why there are gaps in my memory that even TIME doesn't have answer for?!”
Zeik’s skeletal face betrayed no reaction, but Nagase pressed on. "I don’t know what you’ve done or why. But I know it’s you. You’re the only one who could hide something from time itself. That’s why I pushed you, why I had to make Azazel disappear. And I was right, wasn’t I? It was you. So tell me, Father—why are there gaps in my memory that even time cant see?
The hall fell silent, the echoes of their battle fading into an uneasy stillness. For the first time, Zeik hesitated, his crimson gaze fixed on the daughter who had forced him to the edge of his power—and the truth.
[Antares]
The war room of the Hellgates stood as a testament to their might and history. Its walls, hewn from dark, polished basalt, shimmered faintly in the flickering firelight, the veins of crimson and gold running through the stone seeming almost alive. The surfaces were so perfectly smoothed that they reflected the room’s light, casting distorted images of those who entered—a reminder of the tribe’s duality of strength and Vanity
At the heart of the hall lay the bloodstone, an immense jewel embedded in the floor. Its deep red core seemed to pulse faintly, like a beating heart encased in a cradle of black iron filigree. The Hellgates revered it, claiming it held the very essence of their origin. Warriors would lower their gaze as they passed, silently offering their respect to the stone and the ancestors it represented.
The walls bore the weight of history. Massive banners woven with fire-scarred thread hung between iron sconces, each depicting moments of triumph and loss. Beneath the banners were stone carvings of the Hellgates’ fallen leaders, their faces forever frozen in expressions of pride and resolve. Candles flickered at their feet, their wax pooling onto the floor like bloodshed immortalized in stone.
Weapons from centuries of warfare adorned the hall: jagged swords, broken shields, and battle-worn helmets mounted on display. Each bore the scars of battles fought long ago, a silent declaration of the tribe’s endurance. Overhead, an intricate chandelier of blackened steel and polished bone cast a soft, eerie glow, its light dancing across the bloodstone below.
This was no mere assembly hall; it was a sanctum of power and remembrance. Every detail spoke of a tribe unyielding, one that carried the weight of its past even as it looked toward its next battle.
Yet thw halls of the Hellgates was no longer a sanctum of authority—it had become a battlefield. The polished basalt walls, once a canvas of light and shadow, now bore streaks of blood and scorch marks. The banners of old heroes hung in tatters, torn down in the chaos, and the flickering chandelier above swayed precariously, its light casting frantic shadows over the fray. Antares Continued to repair what the battle destroyed, a facet of his power that went unexplained.
At the heart of the room, Zeik clashed with his daughter, their conflict centered around the radiant bloodstone embedded in the floor. The jewel, a symbol of their tribe’s unity, now bore deep cracks as if reflecting the divide between father and daughter. Zeik wielded his weapon with unyielding precision, his strikes aimed not just at her, but at the swarm of Servants she commanded. These grotesque creations, lurched toward him, their limbs cracking and groaning with unnatural strength. His daughter stood behind them, a figure of defiance, her every gesture carrying her characteristic nonchalance. The servants bore the weapons of the warriors they impersonated, making for a near impossible task for Zeik to overcome.
“You’ve forgotten what the Hellgates stand for,” Anteres growled, his voice echoing off the walls, as he watched Zeik face his daughter.
“And you’ve chained us to the past,” Nagase retorted, her voice sharp with fury. “It’s time for a new legacy, one you’ll never control, Antares.”
Meanwhile, at the far end Antares, a man as unrelenting as the storm, faced the Twin Moons, two warriors who moved in terrifying unison. Their names were of no importance to Antares, but their fighting style was legendary. Their speed, ,precision and mastery of the arcane were commendable;but, paled im comparison to their elder, Antares. Their eyes flashed like the crescent moon, their strikes coordinated with a precision that seemed forced Antares onto the defensive;but, he rarely paid mind to them, instead his eyes were now glued onto nagase.
“You’ll pay for what you’ve done,” one of the twins snarled as he and his partner fought desperatly to survive Antares Arbiter, Shatter.
“You damned our father to die in shame,” Aurelius's added, silently questioning himself as to why he said 'our,' “And with him, our tribe.”
The Hedalstone at the center pulsed violently, its cracks deepening, as if the hall itself was breaking under the weight of betrayal and vengeance. The faces of the fallen leaders carved into the walls seemed to watch silently, their stoic expressions an eerie contrast to the chaos below. This was no longer a place of honor—it was a crucible of shattered loyalties, where bloodlines and grudges clashed, and the Hellgates’ future hung by a thread.
“Yes, I killed Khalid,” he declared, his tone filled with ruthless pride. “And I’d do it again a thousand times over. The weak deserve to fall so the strong can rise. He, like the rest of you, are fools, clinging to juvenile ideas, dragging your tribe into ruin. I simply gave him what he earned—a blade in the chest and a quick end.”
The twins faltered for half a breath, their fury turning cold and calculated as they renewed their assault. The chaos of the war room seemed to still as Antares stopped moving, lowering his fist as the Twin Moons gathered their power. The Lovers stood side by side, their cresent moon eyes glowing with ethereal light. A sphere of raw lunar energy coalesced between their palms, fed by streams of mana pouring from their bodies. The air crackled with power, the light of their attack reflecting off the fractured Hadalstone.
But Antares didn’t flinch. He stood calmly, his arms at his sides, watching them with a faint, almost condescending smile. His voice broke through the tension, sharp and deliberate, cutting through the crackling energy like a blade.
“Look at you,” he said, his tone laced with disdain. “Desperate children clinging to vengeance. Do you even know why your father had to die? Do you understand the weight of what I’m trying to achieve? No, you don’t. You can’t. Because you are just like the rest of this clan—content to wallow in ignorance, squandering what little potential we have left.”
The twins’ focus wavered for a moment, their eyes narrowing as the mana between them surged brighter. Antares didn’t move. He took a step closer, undeterred by the rising threat, and continued speaking, his voice steady and full of conviction.
“Once, the Hellgates stood for something greater. We were the architects of evolution, the harbingers of change. Our bloodline was forged to transcend the limits of flesh, to break free of mortality’s chains. Consciousness itself was our battlefield, and our DNA—our legacy—was the weapon we wielded to shape the future. That was the Hellgate way. That was our purpose.”
He gestured dismissively toward the cracked Hadalstone at the center of the hall. “But look at what we’ve become. A tribe of drunken revelers, drowning in their own mediocrity. They sing songs of their ancestors while their bodies wither, while their minds rot. They glorify the past yet cower from the work required to build a future. Party and leisure,” he spat, the words dripping with venom. “Is that what you think we were meant to be? Entertainers and storytellers, parasites feeding on the accomplishments of our forebears?”
The Twin Moons growled, their energy building into a blinding brilliance, but Antares stepped closer still, his voice rising, commanding their attention.
“Your father was the worst of them. He was a weak-willed fool, preaching unity and peace as though such things ever led to progress. He abandoned the Hellgate’s mission. He betrayed evolution itself. So, yes—I killed him. And I’d kill him again, if only to see the light of understanding burn in his eyes as I plunged the blade into his chest. He failed you, just as he failed this tribe. He deserved his death.”
The room seemed to tremble as the twins prepared to unleash their devastating attack. The sphere of energy hummed violently, illuminating the war room with a cold, lunar glow. But Antares merely chuckled, his voice growing softer, yet more venomous.
“I’ve watched the Hellgates decay for centuries. I've watched the other nine tribes cling to their petty comforts and shallow ambitions, each one a pale shadow of what they could have been. And I hate them for it. I hate their complacency, their cowardice, their blind worship of traditions that no longer serve them. They disgust me, every last one of them. Including you.”
He spread his arms wide, as though inviting the twins’ wrath. “But I don’t hate without purpose. My hatred is a fire—a fire that will burn away this pathetic, stagnant world and forge something greater from its ashes. My magnum opus will not just transcend the Hellgates; it will transcend everything. I will ascend beyond flesh, beyond the limits of this frail existence. I will ascend the throne of godhood
His eyes burned with fervor, his voice rising to a crescendo. “And if it means killing you two and anyone else who stands in my way, so be it. Sacrifice is the cost of progress. Your father was just the beginning. You’ll be my next offering to the future.”
The Twin Moons roared in fury, their combined power reaching its peak as they unleashed the lunar beam with blinding force, jetting from the mouth of Amrit. Leaving Antares fractions of milliseconds to respond. The attack surged toward Antares like a comet, tearing through the war room with devastating energy. But Antares didn’t waver. His bitter grin remained, his defiance shining brighter than the light itself. The room trembled as the Twin Moons unleashed their combined fury. The lunar beam tore through space with cataclysmic force, a blinding pillar of silver energy that moved with the swiftness of a falling star. The sound was deafening—a roar that split the air like the howl of a thousand storms, shaking the very foundations of the Hellgates’ sacred hall. Walls cracked and banners were incinerated in an instant, their ashes swept away by the sheer power of the attack.
Antares’s eyes narrowed, a cruel smile creeping onto his face as he stared into the gleaming maw of Amrit. His form blurred as he activated his ungodly speed, vanishing just as the beam surged past where he had stood. The beam struck the far wall, obliterating it and sending shards of stone cascading like rain.
Reappearing a few paces away, Antares began to gloat, his voice rich with mockery. “Timing is e—”
Before he could finish, the beam struck him from behind with devastating precision, funneled through a portal that crackled to life behind him. Nagase, standing across the room, smirked as she closed her hand, the remnants of the portal collapsing.
“is everything,” she mocked. Finishing his sentence with a sly smile, her voice drippin with defiance. “Thats for calling me a witch. Id choose my words wisely when speaking to the living flesh of a true candidate for godhood.”
Antares’s roar of pain drowned out even the chaos around him as the lunar beam consumed him. The silver energy enveloped his entire body, burning away flesh and sinew, reducing him to nothing but a charred, skeletal figure standing amid the maelstrom. The bone of their former adversary bore unusally marking all over, sigl and glyph lost to time. His screams were visceral, primal, echoing with both agony and fury as the beam seared into his very essence.
When the beam finally dissipated, silence fell over the room. Two massive holes endangered the structure of the building and Antares dropped to one knee, his skeletal form smoldering in the aftermath. For a brief moment, he was motionless, the severity of his wounds a stark contrast to his usual invincibility.
Then, a low, guttural chuckle escaped his bony jaw. It grew louder, escalating into a feral, unhinged laughter that filled the war room. Antares rose, his skeletal frame cracking as he stood upright, the glow of his remaining eye sockets igniting with a devilish glee.
“Magnificent!” he bellowed, his voice carrying a chilling excitement. “To think—such power exists within you?! It has been *so long* since I’ve felt my limits tested, since anyone has managed to break my Hellagurd.”
His body began to regenerate, flesh weaving itself over bone, muscles reforming, and his features returning in a matter of seconds. Yet, the war room bore the scars of the battle, its destruction stark and irreparable. The hadalstone was fractured beyond repair, walls shattered, and the chandelier reduced to a molten heap. Antares’s regeneration was absolute, but the room’s devastation was a reminder that his power was not without cost.
He flexed his newly restored hands, rolling his shoulders as his laughter subsided into a satisfied grin. His eyes gleamed with a devilish light, his excitement palpable as he addressed the Twin Moons and Nagase.
“I am impressed. *Thrilled*, even,” he said, his voice rich with a mix of menace and admiration. “Do you know how rare it is to meet opponents who can break my shield? Hellgurd has stood unyielding against legends, monsters, even the gods themselves. Yet here you stand, mere children, and you’ve done what only a handful of others have ever accomplished.”
He stepped forward, his tone shifting into one of fervent intensity, his gaze fixed on each of them. “Power like that deserves respect. It deserves recognition. But most of all, it deserves to be honed, sharpened to perfection. You’ve shown me what you’re capable of—what *we* could accomplish together.”
Antares’s grin widened, his voice dripping with malice. “But don’t misunderstand me. This is not over. You’ve lit a fire in me, awakened something that has been dormant for far too long. And now, I will show you the true depth of my power, the kind of strength that shaped the Hellgates and could *tear apart* the nine tribes that dare to stand in my way.”
His eyes flared with a devilish glow as he prepared to engage them again, his bloodlust tempered only by the fierce joy of facing adversaries who could finally challenge him. The temperature of the room seemed to plummet as Antares extended his arms wide, his fingers curling into claws. The air around him shimmered and distorted, as though reality itself were folding inward. A low hum reverberated through the room, growing louder with each second, its pitch sharp enough to make ears bleed.
"Time is a river," he declared, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. "And gravity? The bedrock of existence. Together, they shape creation and annihilation. And here, I will show you the storm that devours both."
Above Antares’s outstretched palm, a black sphere began to form, impossibly dense yet impossibly small. Light bent around it, spiraling into its center as if consumed by a voracious maw. The sound of rushing wind filled the room, yet nothing moved at first—it was the absence of movement that caused the sound, a paradox only Antares could command. The gravitational pull grew stronger until everything was frozen under the pressure, before being dragged towards him, along with the shattered stone and debris into its orbit, tearing at the assembly hall Antares had once protected. Nagase braced herself, her knuckles white as she fought to resist the overwhelming force. Her michio and lunedge servants, halted their fight with Zeik and diverted their attention to keeping nagase from being dragged into doom. The hellgate servant and Zeik both had the same idea, execution. Yet their beams were slowed to snails pace and drained of their naten and consumed by his Arbiter.
Antares’s eyes burned with manic delight. “Feel it!” he roared. “This is the weight of my conviction —the *Temporal Maelstrom!*”
Suddenly, time itself twisted. The Twin Moons, zeik, nagase, and her servants found themselves unable to move, frozen in a state of horrifying awareness. Their bodies were locked, yet their minds raced as they witnessed their surroundings spiral into chaos. Antares had bent time to his will, trapping them in an agonizing limbo as the black orb grew larger and larger, its gravitational field swallowing the very fabric of the war room.
The chandelier above shattered, its shards drawn into the orb in agonizing slow motion, their paths distorted by the immense gravitational pull. Stone and iron from the walls crumbled and spiraled into the singularity. Even the light seemed to vanish, leaving the room cloaked in darkness save for the edges of the vortex, which glowed faintly with distorted energy.
"Do you feel it now?" Antares hissed, his voice cutting through the chaos like a blade. "This is what the Hellgates should have been—a force of evolution, a storm that crushes the weak and reshapes the strong! But no, you squandered it all on drink, on revelry, on weakness!"
Nagase gritted her teeth in near frozen animation. gravity in the space had become so intense that time slowed to a crawl. "He’s insane," she growled under her breath. Her words now slowed to the same snail's pace as the rest of her body.
“This is why I despise you all. The Hellgates were supposed to conquer the boundaries of existence, to ascend beyond mortality. You abandoned that vision, and now you wallow in mediocrity! But I—”
Antares maintained his Arbiters activation, groaning through gritted teeth. blood pooling in his eyes, with lacerations appearing on his body as he endured the gravitic presence of his Arbiter. His eyes were piercing through the darkness with an expression of utter derangement.
His laughter returned, this time low and guttural, building into a hysterical
He spread his arms wide, his grin feral. “Do you see now? This is what power looks like! This is what it means to transcend weakness! The rest of you will kneel before me, or you will be crushed under the weight of conviction!”
The war room, now a smoldering ruin, seemed to shudder as Antares’s voice carried through the rubble. The cracks in the bloodstone beneath him deepened, a silent omen of his unstable and destructive power.
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Inariel Myotis
- Drifter
- Posts: 164
- Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2019 7:57 pm
Re: The Right to Rule
Inari's heart became filled with a fury that would show itself as a flaring torrent of blaze if he had the power to conjure flames. One who's seething, scalding embers would burn nothing away but Antares, leaving not even ashes of his soul to remain. The scarlet indignation roaring from his core could wake the dead and have them gnaw at the Holgurd crown, slowly feasting on his decrypt flesh. His mind became a clubhouse of some of the evil, most vile ways one could experience a slow, insidious death. Aurelius shared this burden, his own blood writhing with scalding dismay as he begrudgingly digested Antare's monologue like a rancid soup made with soiled ingredients.
His ideals were a pompously scried letter of tyrannical views stuck in a swamp of past triumphs. He wished to relive his glory days, racing backward to when he must have seemed so much more significant than those around him. But for all his proclivity and faith in the righteousness of his path, all Inari could ascertain with clarity is the desire to destroy. From his perspective, he held little more in common with Antares than an ordinary beast. A trait he once shared, but true to his very nature, he allowed himself to...expand, be bettered, and evolve.
Though riddled with concepts that spanned several millennia, Antares's one-tract mind lacked dimension. In all this self-absorbed dribble, there was not even a drop of accountability for the part he played in it all. What weight did he truly carry besides those of his own ego? This observation continued to fill Inari with curiosity about what it truly meant to bear a Hellgate Crown when all it seemed to do was absolve them of responsibility. All of it so far had proved to be utter madness. The Holgurd crown found himself trapped in a cube of his creation and now raged against the outside world for liberation, yet only used the methods he was comfortable and familiar with. It would serve only further to reinforce the boundaries of limitation he stifled himself with. His hubris would be the root of his downfall, not the pillar of his ascension.
The anger Inariel felt was in witness to these things. To think that someone as...base as this could ever fix their face to look down upon him was beyond perplexing. It was an insult of the highest order. One that Amrit would see paid in blood and light as the beam fired only for it to miss?! The Twin Moons watched in disbelief as their carefully woven arbitor was foiled, and then in but a second breath of time, a portal, nagase's Dark Slit, opened, redirecting the beam and submersing Antares in a blistering cascade of lunar majesty. This furious, wailing, roaring bellow of moon born might wiped Antares's slate clean, reducing him to nothing but sizzling cartilage and bone.
"Finally, an end to that horrid monologue. The light from my father's eyes, the price paid to see you immortalized in your current state. A sculpture of bone. A fossil of failure.."
Inariel said, stepping forth as the blue light of his trance faded. Wielding such might was paid with more than half of his naten supply. The naten from Ava is exceptionally endowed with mystic power, but it takes great effort and strain on the body to wield it as seamlessly as he does. Aurelius was winded; Inari was accustomed to wielding his mana at this point, even though his vassal proved a competent makeshift container for his arbiters. He still lacked the conditioning to wield such high concertation of mana.
"How your screams shall become the song our young sing! Your wail of anguish we shall replay in the halls of our domain born anew. While you remain a part of oblivion, a fixture of damnation."
The twin turned from him, witnessing the fray between Zeik and Nagase. He heard glimpses of her dialogue through the storm of battle. She was even more dangerous than he imagined before. This only provoked Inari to question what she truly was. And then...he felt a meaningful chill overcome him and Aurelius, nearly making their blood freeze.
Their heads snapped back to Antares's corpse, witnessing him yet again defy their logic as his flesh began to weave itself around his bone once more. The seared tendon refreshed, and before they could even muster a response, he stood before them as if nothing had even happened.
Aurelius stepped before Inari, holding his arm. He was about to fly off the handle and possibly get himself killed. The gold fur could scarley velive his eyes, this was beyond any regeneration he had witnessed, to be fully reformed in a matter of second...it was almost as if.
"I am...sorry, my crown."
"Aurelius...why have you brought us here? Now of all the time, we need to...we have to do something."
"I...pledged a vow to you. Yet ever since I have done so, I have done little more than lean on your power and your ambitions to be a preserver. Your light, so resplendently red, was like staring into a dying sun freshly reborn. Like witnessing the birth of a galaxy."
"You can save the talking for when we make it out of this."
"That's just it, Inariel...In the grand scheme of what awaits the Myotis, I am but a cog, an insignificant screw in the machination of fate that will see our people stand atop the pinnacle of our existence. For I have seen it from the very moment I first tasted your blood. You could have made the same choice as Antares. You found us nothing more than broken relics. Instead, you fed us and gave us a choice, agency one more."
"Save for you. Do not forget. You have given ME your agency, Aurelius. It is no longer up to you to decide how you are used. And when you will die."
"Heh...is that an attempt to comfort me? Your heart is growing softer by the moment..."
"What are you planning to do."
He looked toward the great etchings, how they hummed with the past hymns of his people. Their voice is singing in their prime. How he yearned...so desperately to hear them create such music again. If Iari died here...he feared they would never enjoy such joy again.
"The only thing I can..."
"Aurelius."
"Live, my crown. Live and become all that you desire and then some. Lead our people to the sanguine waters that have restored purpose to my once meaningless life. Make them drink."
"Don't!"
"I did not but cower in the tunnels. Ashamed was too afraid to act, scared of how the world saw us and how we had changed. So many are dead because of my incompetence. If my death would serve no purpose, then let my life burn, let it burst and sear away any shadow that would dare impede your path..."
Inari tried to grab Aurelius, take control of the realm from him, and shut him down. But right now, in this moment, Aurelius was the greater will, and his resolve was so tremendous and so firm there wasn't a single crack for Inari to exploit. His mind had been made up. His form fur began to rustle like a golden bush in the wind before it came to take the form of a flame-burning gold, like a copper-coated star.
"You worry that darkness awaits where you tread; that pain is your only keepsake. That your is a path leading only to death and destruction...But..Inari...to me..."
The psychic realm crumbled, the terrible power of the arbiter proving too great to hold focus any longer. As their consciousness returned to the material realm, Aurelius's fur still burned with the same luminance as in the soul space. As Inari stared in horror, he finally realized what Aurelius was doing, watching the flesh of his Physical form be seared from the pieces of his very bones, becoming dust. He could reach him no longer, the hold of the storm defying all notion of physics, an arbitor beyond magic, a technique...a sacrifice he had never seen before...for...him?
"You are more than pain, than torment. Those are things you've suffered, not what makes up all of what you are."
With the physical body nearly gone, his arbiter was almost complete.
"Do you know the secret of the moon? On its own, the Moon has no light. It only shines...because the sun is so brilliant. Together, they sing a song of cosmic accordance. When the sun needed to rest, the moon continued its work. It is a primordial performance that will continue to dance and sing long after you and I are but after thoughts of fables lost in the winds. Though your body might have been cursed by darkness... your soul...that seed. Is the life-giving rays of the sun itself."
Aurelius' body became a scathing light that, for a brief moment, persisted against the void that devoured the light earlier. He could see all the adornments of the Hellgate hall, the weapons, and feature battlements that reflected the many ages of their history. In his mind's eyes, he envisioned these halls in their prime, a legacy fresh in the making filled with the nine families sharing meals and trading stories.
"Antares, It was not because of DNA nor the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of power that founded our households....we were curious about this world that we shared. Not as gods, not as rulers...but as family. Nine families who once used to celebrate our discovery hand in hand. One family united in the pursuit of connection. Khalid, My crown's father, knew of this, believed in this, and tried to beseech the better nature of his family...but your hatred, arrogance, much like this arbiter you would use, only cared about power, no matter who it would destroy."
His essence bloomed in full as it clashed against the void, pushing against it, struggling immensely.
"That is why you shall never reach the heights you seek. That is why my crown will surpass you. You are but a moon void of light, a rock of cold, desolate earth with no core. But my crown..."
The void was tearing him to shreds, his resilient form of light fighting with everything he had to stand against the awe-inspiring might of his power.
"IS THE SEED OF CREATION!"
His soul erupted in a blaring plume of golden fire that roared with the rightness vehemence of a golden dragon emboldened by his brave self-sacrifice. The blood in his veins stained by his technique became an aura of naten that embellished his power.
His ideals were a pompously scried letter of tyrannical views stuck in a swamp of past triumphs. He wished to relive his glory days, racing backward to when he must have seemed so much more significant than those around him. But for all his proclivity and faith in the righteousness of his path, all Inari could ascertain with clarity is the desire to destroy. From his perspective, he held little more in common with Antares than an ordinary beast. A trait he once shared, but true to his very nature, he allowed himself to...expand, be bettered, and evolve.
Though riddled with concepts that spanned several millennia, Antares's one-tract mind lacked dimension. In all this self-absorbed dribble, there was not even a drop of accountability for the part he played in it all. What weight did he truly carry besides those of his own ego? This observation continued to fill Inari with curiosity about what it truly meant to bear a Hellgate Crown when all it seemed to do was absolve them of responsibility. All of it so far had proved to be utter madness. The Holgurd crown found himself trapped in a cube of his creation and now raged against the outside world for liberation, yet only used the methods he was comfortable and familiar with. It would serve only further to reinforce the boundaries of limitation he stifled himself with. His hubris would be the root of his downfall, not the pillar of his ascension.
The anger Inariel felt was in witness to these things. To think that someone as...base as this could ever fix their face to look down upon him was beyond perplexing. It was an insult of the highest order. One that Amrit would see paid in blood and light as the beam fired only for it to miss?! The Twin Moons watched in disbelief as their carefully woven arbitor was foiled, and then in but a second breath of time, a portal, nagase's Dark Slit, opened, redirecting the beam and submersing Antares in a blistering cascade of lunar majesty. This furious, wailing, roaring bellow of moon born might wiped Antares's slate clean, reducing him to nothing but sizzling cartilage and bone.
"Finally, an end to that horrid monologue. The light from my father's eyes, the price paid to see you immortalized in your current state. A sculpture of bone. A fossil of failure.."
Inariel said, stepping forth as the blue light of his trance faded. Wielding such might was paid with more than half of his naten supply. The naten from Ava is exceptionally endowed with mystic power, but it takes great effort and strain on the body to wield it as seamlessly as he does. Aurelius was winded; Inari was accustomed to wielding his mana at this point, even though his vassal proved a competent makeshift container for his arbiters. He still lacked the conditioning to wield such high concertation of mana.
"How your screams shall become the song our young sing! Your wail of anguish we shall replay in the halls of our domain born anew. While you remain a part of oblivion, a fixture of damnation."
The twin turned from him, witnessing the fray between Zeik and Nagase. He heard glimpses of her dialogue through the storm of battle. She was even more dangerous than he imagined before. This only provoked Inari to question what she truly was. And then...he felt a meaningful chill overcome him and Aurelius, nearly making their blood freeze.
"!!!"Then, a low, guttural chuckle escaped his bony jaw. It grew louder, escalating into a feral, unhinged laughter that filled the war room. Antares rose, his skeletal frame cracking as he stood upright, the glow of his remaining eye sockets igniting with a devilish glee.
Their heads snapped back to Antares's corpse, witnessing him yet again defy their logic as his flesh began to weave itself around his bone once more. The seared tendon refreshed, and before they could even muster a response, he stood before them as if nothing had even happened.
"Snake! Do you think for a second I would even consider cavorting with scum like you?"He stepped forward, his tone shifting into one of fervent intensity, his gaze fixed on each of them. “Power like that deserves respect. It deserves recognition. But most of all, it deserves to be honed, sharpened to perfection. You’ve shown me what you’re capable of—what *we* could accomplish together.”
Aurelius stepped before Inari, holding his arm. He was about to fly off the handle and possibly get himself killed. The gold fur could scarley velive his eyes, this was beyond any regeneration he had witnessed, to be fully reformed in a matter of second...it was almost as if.
The fur of his golden pelt seemed to quiver in anticipation as if he was being altered to something fatal. With an expression of speed and precognitive awareness, his instinct reacted like lightning, releasing a pulse of naten from his hand that shot caved into Inari's chest, sending him flying towards the back of the room closer to Nagase and Zeik. Just before they were frozen in time. The tonnage of his temporal majesty was unlike anything the twins had encountered. It was a staggering force that dwarfed even the arbitor of gravity used earlier; it felt like the moment that orb touched them, they would...cease to be. They couldn't move, and panic set in. Inari could only think of how he might've avoided this outcome. Witnessing the terror and suffering beginning to sully his crown countenance, Aurelius resolved something in his heart that brought a font of sorrow. With it, the realm around them dissolved, and they were within Akai-Kizu, standing before the gilden tapestry of their ancestor's mastery.Antares’s grin widened, his voice dripping with malice. “But don’t misunderstand me. This is not over. You’ve lit a fire in me, awakened something that has been dormant for far too long. And now, I will show you the true depth of my power, the kind of strength that shaped the Hellgates and could *tear apart* the nine tribes that dare to stand in my way.”
"I am...sorry, my crown."
"Aurelius...why have you brought us here? Now of all the time, we need to...we have to do something."
"I...pledged a vow to you. Yet ever since I have done so, I have done little more than lean on your power and your ambitions to be a preserver. Your light, so resplendently red, was like staring into a dying sun freshly reborn. Like witnessing the birth of a galaxy."
"You can save the talking for when we make it out of this."
"That's just it, Inariel...In the grand scheme of what awaits the Myotis, I am but a cog, an insignificant screw in the machination of fate that will see our people stand atop the pinnacle of our existence. For I have seen it from the very moment I first tasted your blood. You could have made the same choice as Antares. You found us nothing more than broken relics. Instead, you fed us and gave us a choice, agency one more."
"Save for you. Do not forget. You have given ME your agency, Aurelius. It is no longer up to you to decide how you are used. And when you will die."
"Heh...is that an attempt to comfort me? Your heart is growing softer by the moment..."
"What are you planning to do."
He looked toward the great etchings, how they hummed with the past hymns of his people. Their voice is singing in their prime. How he yearned...so desperately to hear them create such music again. If Iari died here...he feared they would never enjoy such joy again.
"The only thing I can..."
"Aurelius."
"Live, my crown. Live and become all that you desire and then some. Lead our people to the sanguine waters that have restored purpose to my once meaningless life. Make them drink."
"Don't!"
"I did not but cower in the tunnels. Ashamed was too afraid to act, scared of how the world saw us and how we had changed. So many are dead because of my incompetence. If my death would serve no purpose, then let my life burn, let it burst and sear away any shadow that would dare impede your path..."
Inari tried to grab Aurelius, take control of the realm from him, and shut him down. But right now, in this moment, Aurelius was the greater will, and his resolve was so tremendous and so firm there wasn't a single crack for Inari to exploit. His mind had been made up. His form fur began to rustle like a golden bush in the wind before it came to take the form of a flame-burning gold, like a copper-coated star.
"You worry that darkness awaits where you tread; that pain is your only keepsake. That your is a path leading only to death and destruction...But..Inari...to me..."
The psychic realm crumbled, the terrible power of the arbiter proving too great to hold focus any longer. As their consciousness returned to the material realm, Aurelius's fur still burned with the same luminance as in the soul space. As Inari stared in horror, he finally realized what Aurelius was doing, watching the flesh of his Physical form be seared from the pieces of his very bones, becoming dust. He could reach him no longer, the hold of the storm defying all notion of physics, an arbitor beyond magic, a technique...a sacrifice he had never seen before...for...him?
"You are more than pain, than torment. Those are things you've suffered, not what makes up all of what you are."
With the physical body nearly gone, his arbiter was almost complete.
"Do you know the secret of the moon? On its own, the Moon has no light. It only shines...because the sun is so brilliant. Together, they sing a song of cosmic accordance. When the sun needed to rest, the moon continued its work. It is a primordial performance that will continue to dance and sing long after you and I are but after thoughts of fables lost in the winds. Though your body might have been cursed by darkness... your soul...that seed. Is the life-giving rays of the sun itself."
Aurelius' body became a scathing light that, for a brief moment, persisted against the void that devoured the light earlier. He could see all the adornments of the Hellgate hall, the weapons, and feature battlements that reflected the many ages of their history. In his mind's eyes, he envisioned these halls in their prime, a legacy fresh in the making filled with the nine families sharing meals and trading stories.
"Antares, It was not because of DNA nor the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of power that founded our households....we were curious about this world that we shared. Not as gods, not as rulers...but as family. Nine families who once used to celebrate our discovery hand in hand. One family united in the pursuit of connection. Khalid, My crown's father, knew of this, believed in this, and tried to beseech the better nature of his family...but your hatred, arrogance, much like this arbiter you would use, only cared about power, no matter who it would destroy."
His essence bloomed in full as it clashed against the void, pushing against it, struggling immensely.
"That is why you shall never reach the heights you seek. That is why my crown will surpass you. You are but a moon void of light, a rock of cold, desolate earth with no core. But my crown..."
The void was tearing him to shreds, his resilient form of light fighting with everything he had to stand against the awe-inspiring might of his power.
"IS THE SEED OF CREATION!"
His soul erupted in a blaring plume of golden fire that roared with the rightness vehemence of a golden dragon emboldened by his brave self-sacrifice. The blood in his veins stained by his technique became an aura of naten that embellished his power.
Re: The Right to Rule
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