Chapter 21: In The Hands of The Demon King

"Who the hell is this?" Azazel barks right away, and regrets it not a full second later, because Sammael's mana comes bearing down on him, forcing him to his knees.

"Hell?" she asks, smirking coyly. "I already dislike you. I wouldn't do anything to piss me off further if I were you, you dirty old man."

"An angel?" gasps Sammael. "You would actually come down yourself? What brought this on? Is the boy really the one?"

I convey every insult possible with a single look, but he's not looking at me, instead focusing on the sheer presence Sammael has. "She'll explain at the palace. We should go." If she's been in my mind, she should know of the enemy we still have left. The people around us start whispering about her, while most of them just clap.

"I won," Marcus breathes out, and I notice the murderous look in Aisha's eyes. Her fists are clenches, and she's taking in deep breaths. Snow, on the other hand, has tears in his eyes while Yukiki pats his shoulder.

"All will be explained later," the angel tells them, briefly moving her eyes over me, then giving me a nod. "We have much to dis-"

Without warning, a splash of green hits her back, and she releases a scream. I jump back immediately, turning around to face the powerful mana suddenly standing behind us. The person is someone I don't visibly recognize, but their mana is definitely one I've felt before. She's tall and curvy, barely dressed in anything as the green snakes atop her head coil around her face. Her skin has scales in a few places, and her eyes are an unnatural golden color, but she looks human otherwise.

"J-Juno," Sammael grunts as I slowly step in front of Snow and Yukiji.

"Not possible," I remark. Juno is dead. I pierced her body all over. No one could have survived that. "She's dead."

The woman before me, most definitely a devil, grins. "You disposed of my previous body quite mercilessly, yes. However, instead of just letting myself get killed, I hitched a ride inside your own body." She gives a slight chuckle as she spreads her arms, and I start pushing the kids back. "I couldn't take hold of you, of course, since your willpower is rather impressive, but I could most definitely hide proficiently enough for Sammy not to notice me. Once you opened your soul with the ritual she told you of, I was free to step out in my true corporeal form. Thanks for this, Jonah." She brings her hands, which have metal claws instead of fingers, to her lips and licks them. "We've worked so hard on achieving this, and you practically handed it to me. Now, shall I show you what I'm capable of in this body?"

Before she can move, Raksha strikes her with a blade of wind. Juno jumps to the side swiftly enough to dodge, then retaliates by spitting out more of that disgusting green acid. A wall of ice erupts between us, but quickly starts being melted away.

"Run," Sammael says, pushing forward. "Get to the castle, and tell the others of this. Call for Ozymandias. He'll know what to do."

"He's the enemy," I reply, and the Apostle starts to protest. "I don't have time to explain the full situation right now, but that's the truth. If Ozymandias comes here, attack him. He's working with the devils." I turn toward Aisha, Raksha and the others. "Let's go. Those two can handle it." I doubt they can, however. Azazel and Sammael are strong, but not nearly as strong as Juno. At the very least, they'll be a distraction, and allow us to escape.

Raksha quickly summons a whirlwind all around us, and starts propelling us toward the palace, barely lifting us above ground. As we fly, I notice sick people everywhere. They look just like the ones from the palace. Did it never get resolved? Damn. Of course not. Spells wear off when the caster dies, but Juno never really did die.

"What the hell's going on!?" Marcus yells. "What do we do!?"

"We fight," I reply, "or we die. Whichever seems more convenient."

"She was in Rooke," Raksha tells me, maneuvering around the people as his speed increases. "She is the woman who rescued the cat devil. Why is she here, in the capital?"

"I don't know," I confess. "Looking for that pendant, I guess. They must still think it's here." Unless they already found it, allowing them to further their plans even more. That would be the worst case scenario.

"They have it," Sammael says, fighting through the pain. "Juno got it from your mother. It was hidden inside her body."

"What?"

She doesn't look at me as she continues speaking. "One of your human ancestors was a highly religious monk. We figured his family was best suited to keeping the pendant safe. It got passed down for several generations, being sealed into the wombs of the women born into the bloodline."

"But what if there was no woman?" I ask, and notice people are running away from the direction of the palace. "There'd be no one to seal it into."

"Exactly," Sammael confesses, bringing out her wings slowly. "It was never a permanent solution. We were losing the war to the devils, since their King was far too powerful to defeat. It didn't matter that we could match them in single combat; We simply lost all battles in which he participated. We worked out a solution with the fair folk, and managed to seal their entire race away. We knew the seal wouldn't hold forever. After a few thousand years, some of the devils managed to break out of the crystalized shells their former bodies had been turned into."

"The lumina crystals," Aisha notes. "That's what they are? The bodies of devils?"

"Yes."

"Then why did Juno have that other form?" I ask. "She looked nothing like that before."

"Artificial bodies," Sammael says, though it seems like she's just guessing. "Juno was capable of making her own soldiers back in the day, serving as their best enchanter, healer and scientist. It's likely she was the first to escape, and then managed to latch herself onto someone with a weak mind. She used that person's body to make a powerful body for Risk, and then his soul entered it upon his escape. That's the most probably course of events."

"And the pendant?" I ask. "How does it release the rest of them?" The only thing I know is that it has to be done here, in this city. Otherwise they would have just done it anywhere else, where there aren't Apostle-level opponents around every corner. No one else would have been a hindrance. "And why did they kidnap all those girls in Rooke?"

"Food," Sammael says flatly. "The girls were offered as sacrifices to the King."

"But why?" I utter another question, hating how much in the dark I am about this. "If he was free, and as powerful as you say, wouldn't he have shown himself by now? He could've stopped me when I took on Risk and Juno, and he could've killed us all in Rooke."

"He isn't free."

"Then how would he feed?"

The angel's face tells me she isn't fond of talking about this, but I'm not about to let up. "Well, he doesn't really eat in the traditional sense. He rips out people's souls and absorbs them. The more he eats, the stronger he gets."

"But how can he do so now? He's imprisoned, right?" inquires Marcus, seemingly having forgotten all about his victory. Aisha hasn't, if the glare she's giving him is anything to go by. "Crystals don't eat, man."

"Jonah, heal me," Sammael orders, and I bend down to touch her back, then repeat what I did with Raksha, infusing my mana with her flesh as softly as possible. "You guys continue on ahead. I'll hold him off."

I get chills all over my body when she says that, and turn toward the direction in which she's glaring. Aisha registers it a second after me, and immediately brings up a ball of fire.

"Hold who off?" Marcus asks, and suddenly a portal appears before us – a pool of darkness, from which a feline figure pounces. Risk's overwhelming malice fills the city as the swipe of his paw meets a blade of light, conjured by Sammael. "I regret asking."

"It's been a while, Risk," the angel says as the two clash a few more times before the devil has to land, allowing Raksha to keep flying ahead.

"Not long enough," I hear Risk say back, and I watch the two go at it with blinding speed. We could've had all the training we wanted, but it simply wasn't possible for us to reach that level in such a short amount of time.

"Shouldn't we help her!?" Snow yells, clinging to my arm. "That guy's strong!"

"We can't," I tell him. "We'll only be in her way. It's best to let her handle things. We've got bigger fish to fry."

Aisha suddenly blasts fire beside me, and I hear a pained shriek. My eyes follow the flame, leading them toward a half-human monstrosity. The thing she just burned is human – or was. Half of her body has dark brown, grey and purple flesh covering it, making her left arm disproportionately large, and very, very disgusting.

"Another one?" I ask. Is that how far things have gone? I look around, and see the people of Polaris screaming for help as they run around in a blind panic. More and more deformed ones like the one Aisha just killed start jumping all over the place, some of them having misshapen arms, while others have enlarged legs or even added appendages. "Are they devils?"

"No," Raksha replies. "They give me the same feeling as the sick you tended to."

"So they're human?" I nearly puke at the idea. Is it gonna spread? They seem to be all over the city now, killing more and more. I make the mistake of watching as one rips an old woman's head clean off, then swallows it with his enlarged mouth. The sight nearly makes me puke – the way his jaw unhinges is that disgusting.

A shadow falls over us, and I prepare to release an explosion above us. Thankfully, I hesitate just long enough to realize it isn't one of the infected at all, and Obi safely lands on top of the whirlwind. "Ya'll are gonna wanna switch directions."

"What?" I ask, taking note of the scar above his left eye. I did that, didn't I? "What do you mean?"

"No time to explain!" he yells back, summoning his bow and shooting one of the infected citizens. "Half of the guards became like that, too. Everyone from the sick rooms, too. Seraphina is about to cast a huge spell on the palace, and told me to keep everyone who could affect the outcome away from there. Turn around, Sha."

"Do not call me that," the djinn replies, then looks at me, as if needing confirmation. I give him a quick nod, and the whirlwind quickly twists around and starts taking us above the houses. As if on cue, a massive tree bursts out through the centre of the palace roof, and its branches start spreading all over the building. It happens as quickly as a natural disaster, and the branches start curling toward the ground around the palace. Once the branches pierce the earth, more trees start coming out, forming another layer of protection.

"Seraphina did that?" I ask. Not possible. I've sensed her mana, and though she's certainly capable of backing up her Apostle title, she definitely wouldn't be able to do something like that so quickly.

"She had a bunch of seeds enchanted beforehand," Obi explains. "The top of that tree is gonna start erupting sleeping powder in a minute, and everyone around the palace will be knocked out. Other than that, things are swell. How's stuff on your end?"

I give him the quick rundown of the situation, moving out of the way every now and then to let Aisha burn away an infected attempting to come at us.

"Wonderful," Obi replies once I'm done. "Glad to hear you're doing as awesome as I am. Now, just one question; What the fuck do we do now?"

"Now you get on these and get the hell away from here," I hear either Patrick or Dexter yell as two large flying carpets appear on either side of the whirlwind.

"Why aren't you fighting!?" I scream back, taking note of Patrick's missing arm.

"It's lost," he replies. "Nanami is taking the King to safety. The city is going down.

"But Seraphina-" Obi starts, but Dexter interrupts.

"We didn't have time to stop by and tell her. The city is about to collapse! Xerxes is gonna try and kill all the demons at once!"

"But there are still people living here!" I yell at him, and he just looks at me, then slowly shakes his head. "N-No way."

"The disease has spread," Patrick reasons. "We've been played. We underestimated the threat, even after everything that's happened, and now it's too late. Polaris is falling, and we can't stop that."

"We can't just let everyone die!" Snow screams, then sends a giant shard of ice toward one of the infected, managing to pierce its skull right away. Obi picks him up, then jumps onto Patrick's carpet, Aisha following after him.

"Sorry, iceman. You're about to witness something you never should."

Yukiji tugs on my arm, speaking in a lowered voice. "Can you jump?"

I shake my head immediately. I'd miss the carpet for sure. My wings need to be healed before I'm able to do anything right. "Raksha, bring us closer."

"Are you sure?" he asks hesitantly, and Aisha jumps behind Dexter. "There might still be another way."

Before I can answer him, we all hear a loud screech, then turn toward the source of the horrid sound. Tobi is there, flying toward us with a pair of disgusting grey wings, face twisting in rage. Patrick tries to smack him out of air with a direction spell of his own, but the devil is too strong, and redirects it right back, nearly knocking everyone off the carpet. Raksha suddenly grabs me, then throws me toward Aisha, who herself nearly falls off the edge in her attempt to catch me.

"You're way heavier than you look," she tells me, then throws some fireballs at Tobi. "This is getting worse and worse."

"Something's wrong," Dexter says as Yukiji lands behind me. "Xerx should'a activated it by now." I turn toward the palace instinctively, and see a large pink flowering blooming at the top of Seraphgina's tree, clouds of powder gushing out of it as its blossoms open.

"He's fighting Ozymandias," I conclude, and the twins both turn to glare at me.

"You've mentioned he was evil," Marcus says from the other carpet. "The fuck did that mean?"

Tobi tries to fly into us, but Dexter expertly maneuvers around the attack, and the devil slams into a house.

"Can't redirect what's not moving," I barely catch Aisha whisper, and then something else comes flying toward us. It's one of the infected – a man whose upper half has been misshapen, a pair of wings as disgusting as Tobi's sprouting from his shoulders. Obi shoots him down quickly enough, but then another one flies up. Then another one, and then another one. The third one is very small, and I have to swallow the bile that forms inside my mouth after it. I take a deep breath, then look around. Fires are ranging everywhere, and screams are the only thing that can be heard. Off into the distance, I can see ice and lighting destroying entire city blocks as Azazel and Sammael – the human Sammael – fight Juno. At a part of town closer to us, large flashes of light decimate the infected flying overhead, and I even manage to catch a few glimpses of Risk as he jumps from house to house, trying to bring his opponent down. Looking at all this, then at the avalanche of powder falling around the building, I can come to only one conclusion.

"Polaris has fallen."

"Yes," Dexter says in turn, and I realize they're taking the carpets us out of the city. "Anyone got a place where we can stay?"

None of us say anything at first, but then Raksha finally speaks up. "I know of one."

"No," I tell him, knowing what he's about to suggest.

"It's our only choice," he says, turning to look at me. His eyes are tired and worried, and I hate seeing them like that. "The djinn and the devils have no quarrel."

"But Isthar isn't too fond of people going into the Wyrwood," I reply. "She flat out tried to kill me last time, and damn nearly succeeded."

"She'll listen to me."

"How sure are you?"

Somehow, even in this situation, with death and destruction all around us, he manages a cheesy grin. "Thirty percent?"

I groan, running a hand through my hair. "How's that compared to our usual odds?"

"More or less the same," Aisha tells me. "Kind of leaning on the side of it being better."

"Then it's settled," Patrick declares. "Lead the way."

Raksha points toward the forest far off into the distance, and the carpets head toward it.

I feel like I'm forgetting something. What am I not remembering? My head suddenly hurts, and I can hear someone talk to me. Who are you?

"Throw me the ball, Jo! I'll show how fast I can run!" I don't recognize that. Is it a child? I don't remember having a kid.

"Ma said dinner's ready! Come while it's hot!" Who the hell are you? Why are you talking to me? Do I know you?

"Hey, Jo. I love you more than mom and dad. But don't tell them that!"

"Go away," I mutter under my breath, prompting Yukiji to take my hand.

"Are you okay?" Those eyes of hers, as scared and worried as Raksha's, give me all the reason I need to stay focused.

"I'm fine," I assure her. "We should leave now."

"Oh, fuck," Marcus suddenly curses, and I'm just about ready to jump off the carpet.

"What is it this time!?" Aisha screams, and then I notice it. The bodies on the ground beneath us are turning to ashes, and then the ashes are flying upward, heading to the centre of the city, where a black sphere is now floating. Juno and Sammael are fighting each other now, flying around the sphere as they exchange blows.

"Sacrifices," Yukiji whispers. "The Demon King."

"That doesn't sound good," Dexter says, more to himself than anything. "By all means, fill me in."

"The boss of the bad guys," I explain in simple terms. "I think they're about to release him. We need to move, fast!"

"Jonah," I hear that familiar voice say one more time, but I ignore it and keep moving forward. The two carpets fly at full speed as the black sphere grows larger and larger, shaping into an egg. The infected citizens have killed off most of the others by now, and are reaching for the sky, roaring and howling toward the egg. Cracks start appearing in the egg just as we cross the city border, and then the dark ashes start being blown away by the wind. A flash of light heads toward the sky. Did Sammael just leave? Is she back in Heaven..? Is it all lost?

Suddenly, the worst feeling I've ever experienced comes to me, and people on both carpets start hurling down onto the treetops. The sunlight itself starts to fade as the most powerful being – and there is absolutely no doubt about that statement – enters this world. The Demon King isn't large or demonic or scary in the least, instead seeming like a regular human from here, but the power he possesses is absolutely divine.

And horrible.

It isn't as malicious as Risk's or Juno's, instead carrying with it a wave of emptiness and sorrow, and somehow love. The monsters in the city start screeching even louder. It isn't long before they start chanting his name, revealing it to all of us.

"Nyarlathotep!"

"Nyarlathotep!"

"Nyarlathotep!"

"H-How..?" Aisha asks, staring into the sun, as if hoping for Heaven itself to come help us.

"Not possible," Raksha adds, barely able to keep standing as he bends forward, hand across his mouth.

"Nobody is that powerful," Obi says from the other carpet. "We're really fucked."

"We're supposed to fight... that?" asks Marcus, then empties his stomach once more.

Snow starts crying, snot and tears staining Raksha's arm as he latches onto it. Yukiji tries to keep her cool, but is shivering next to me, staring into the carpet in disbelief.

Then, the Demon King raises his arm, and the entire city is covered in black. It happens instantly – simply – and the darkness then disappears, leaving nothing behind. Where the city of Polaris just stood, now there's nothing.

We are supposed to defeat that. We're meant to defeat a god-like being like him. We don't know how, or how long it will take, or if we even have a chance. We're just a small group, no match for even the other demonic royalty, let alone their King. The only thing we do know is his name.

Nyarlathotep.