Chapter 1087: I Don’t Need Anything Anymore...
At home, the scene that occurred was even more horrifying than the one that played out in heaven.
All of a sudden, Eris started glowing from within.
Her veins and blood vessels seemed to catch on fire as she let out a heartbreaking scream without warning.
She literally burned out of existence in front of their eyes. The horror that ripped through the room was immediate.
All Abaddon could hear within his ears was static.
For a moment, he became unaware of everything else around him. Not a single thought traveled through his brain.
There was only hurt and disbelief.
Abaddon kept grasping for something.
He thought for sure that he would feel Eris if he kept looking. It was as if he was nudging her repeatedly, trying to convince her to come out of hiding. To respond to him so that he could stop worrying.
There was a split second where he believed that she had entered Oblivion, but it had to have been wishful thinking, because when he checked again, she was gone. And his hope went with it.
He felt something within him break.
Blood trickled from his eyes and down his face.
In that moment, he let go of everything. All barriers, thoughts of right and wrong, or the possibility of consequences. He let them all go.
And that was probably the worst thing that could have happened to any living creature.
When Abaddon unmanifested his second body, it signaled crossing a point of no return.
-
In heaven, things were in a clear state of disarray.
Eris’ barrier had protected the other gods from falling into the way of harm. But it hadn’t protected the stadium itself.
The great structure had crumbled from the shockwave released by the dying Ophanim.
Major gods had protected their smaller brethren from the fall if they were inclined to. But those who didn’t get protection were sufficiently stunned by the blast and suffered small injuries.
A bomb had gone off in heaven. The first in eons.
The white city was covered by a cloud of ash and dust, painting the whole world grey.
A tear hung over the destroyed colosseum. It followed the exact same trajectory as Abaddon’s otherworldly spear.
It was an ominous, dreadful remnant of the most shocking act of violence to come around in the last several million years.
Asherah had been protecting the one human in this place, and Loki, who was close beside him.
When she looked up, the barriers were down and everyone was in a slight daze.
And then she heard a terrible sound.
"...eris..?"
Abaddon’s voice was the quietest that Asherah had ever heard him.
His voice was so small and fragile that she couldn’t believe it was him.
And then she noticed Eris was missing. And her world was filled with immediate panic.
Asherah couldn’t say what happened next; all she knew was that her whole world broke.
Not just her, of course. Everything in heaven appeared split and fragmented. Like a giant brick that had been carefully broken apart instead of smashed.
Asherah felt time and space distort around her. Even she, as the matriarch of the gods, felt like she was moving through syrup.
The world kept breaking, and stranger and stranger occurrences began takig place.
Asherah saw storm clouds forming overhead. They unleashed a deluge of red-colored water into the realm.
The temperature was somehow blistering hot and unbearably cold. Various items began to spontaneously disappear, from debris to buildings.
Monsters arose from the shadows. None were in their right mind, and all were drunk with bloodlust.
It finally dawned on Asherah that Abaddon wasn’t the only one broken. And she didn’t know if her realm could survive the fallout.
Asherah could hear the family crying. Screaming. They collectively let go of all of their sorrow and dismay, and the fabric of heaven absorbed the fallout.
Abaddon’s blood-leaking eyes were trained on Percival, whose own face was a bloody mess from his inability to control himself.
But at the sight of Abaddon crying, his face turned into a catastrophically contorted smile.
"...Worth it-"
Abaddon vanished from his position, and he was suddenly standing on top of Percival’s head.
He applied the bare minimum of force and crushed his skull with the bare minimum of strength.
As soon as he heard the ’splat’, Abaddon was under siege.
Three different swords were sticking out of his torso and chest. This marked a turning point for the humans as well as the demons.
"CHARGEEE!!"
No one knew who said it first, but things quickly evolved into a full-scale war.
Dragons filled the sky faster than the eye could blink.
Columns of fire plummeted from the air and rained down on the assembled demon dukes.
Asherah’s cries for restraint all fell on deaf ears. No one could hear her words, and if they were honest, they didn’t want to.
A loving wife and mother was gone. And the culprits responsible were standing around, smiling and making jokes.
They couldn’t stand for that. They wouldn’t.
Asherah was trying her damnedest to get back control of the realm and keep the two forces separated, but she couldn’t stop what was happening.
She needed help.
"Progotenoi! Lend me your aid! Separate the two armies and keep them away from each other!"
The primordial deities in attendance looked at each other in disbelief.
All except for certain ’special’ individuals.
"To hell with niceties! Let the blood flow and the chips fall where they may!"
Gaia suddenly stood up in full golden armor, with a cape made from trees and vines.
A strange green sword appeared in her hand, and she held it to the sky.
"FOR ERIS!"
Nyx stood up beside her, dressed in similar clothes.
"FOR ERIS!"
Gaia vanished from her position and reappeared in the sky.
She found a place atop Bashenga’s back like it was a practiced maneuver.
Together in tandem, the two waged war against the lower-ranked dukes of hell.
Nyx started to leap into the fray after her when Erebus suddenly blocked her path.
"That’s quite enough! I’m sorry you lost your friend, but there’s no need for you to go out here and make a bad situation worse!"
Nyx was already crying, but she felt something within her harden.
Those who didn’t live in the Tathamet home would never get it. Eris wasn’t just a friend.
Nyx loved the woman like she was her own sister. They had many memories together that were some of the happiest of Nyx’s life.
That woman, who was more selfless than anyone she had ever known, who allowed her to treat her kids like they were her own, and who forgave her every time she took a joke too far, was far more than just a friend. She was family.
And Nyx would not let her family go into nothingness alone.
Which was why it was so easy for her to lop off Erebus’ head and kick him aside.
-
Abaddon could feel blood pooling in his stomach.
He coughed, and a dark liquid spilled past his lips.
The Ophanim continued to push their blades into him, hoping it would make him lie down and die.
They didn’t realize they were incapable of hurting him now. He already felt like he had lost everything.
There was a flash of light, followed by a loud roar and a series of hissing.
When the light faded away, an enormous dragon serpent with ten heads filled almost every empty space in heaven.
He was so enormous that he made even Jormungandr look small in comparison.
Everywhere that one looked, they could see black and red scales running along lengthy, glistening coils.
The pressure he exhuded was so immense that it was almost unbearable. You could nearly choke on the sinister energy in the air.
Once again, the Ophanim came face to face with the great eight-headed creature.
He opened his ten mouths wide and made a hateful noise into the sky.
In response, the Ophanim began charging their swords and prepared themselves for another battle.
"Wait!"
Out of nowhere, Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu appeared as one and acted as a wall between the two terrible forces.
"None of you are helping this situation, you’re only making it worse!" Shiva insisted.
The Ophanim barely heard him.
Instead, they lengthened their angelic wings, and they began to glow with a heavenly power.
In unison, six distinct beams of energy flew from the wings of the Ophanim and shot towards Abaddon.
In response, the dragon opened his mouths and unleashed a tidal wave of fire and thunder.
The heads of the Hindu pantheon could not and would not allow these blasts to connect. If they did, heaven as they knew it may not have survived the fallout.
Despite how slow their bodies felt, they were able to meet between the two attacks and held up their hands towards each side.
The space around the attacks became distorted.
When the beams came within close enough proximity, the attacks were swallowed and sent to an uninhabited pocket realm created by the Hindu gods.
It was an ingenious move. A perfect save that perhaps only they could have pulled off.
But it was a strenuous maneuver.
Their pocket realm was like a trash bag. It had a limit on how much it could hold.
A limit that it was quickly reaching.
If the bag popped before the two sides stopped attacking, then the spillout would likely decimate everything in heaven.
The gods were continually supplying the space with power, hoping to expand and stretch it without tearing it open.
It took an amount of strength that was incomprehensible to the mortal mind. And even these gods were becoming weary after only a short time.
"H-How long will this go on!?"
"It doesn’t matter, just hold the line!"
"Kugh!"
Brahama and Vishnu turned their heads suddenly.
Their eyes widened in horror as they saw Shiva with the sharp point of a tail sticking out of his chest, and a headless body holding him from behind...