First Demonic Dragon - Chapter 1035: Eldritch Lullabies

Chapter 1035: Eldritch Lullabies

Unlike searching for other things inside the prison realm, finding Azathoth wasn’t dreadfully hard, because he can be reached at any time.

All that reaching the nuclear sultan required was a simple walk backward. This was intended to be more of a punishment on the descendants of Azathoth rather than the creature himself.

It’s so that they don’t settle. So they don’t build.

They’re but a few steps away from the sultan they loathe and fear so much. None can really stomach such an idea.

Zahara and Ayaana fused back into one. It lessened the chance that they would be separated.

“Should we tie ourselves together, too?” Ayaana giggled.

Zahara manifested chains of magic.

“…Honey, I was kidding.”

“We don’t care. We’re not taking any chances in this place.”

True to her word, Zahara wrapped chains of magic around the waists of Abaddon and Ayaana. It made them all look like preschoolers on a leash.

“Shall we all get going now?” She smiled innocently.

In the face of her cheerfulness, her partners were unable to properly refuse her.

Together and with a pink cube floating behind them, the trio started taking backwards steps.

After five, things began to get strange.

The world seemed like it was fading away. The ground underneath their feet dissipated, and the sky overhead lost its color.

Things became bleak and surreal. Abaddon quite imagined this to be what it was like on acid. A swirling mass of colors rushed past his vision in a fraction of a second.

When it was over, Abaddon almost thought he was inside of himself. The landscape was almost identical to outer space.

White stars dotted a boundless black void. Floating asteroids were as common as blades of grass on a hillside.

Abaddon waved his hand to disperse the rocks and focused his eyes on their target.

He had never seen Azathoth before. He had heard personal accounts from Yesh once, but that was incredulously long ago. Before Abaddon even left Tehom.

Audrina was the best shapeshifter he had ever seen. She could change forms in a fragment of the time that it took someone to blink, and she could do it so finely that she could alter her smell, mannerisms, and the shape of her soul perfectly.

If they weren’t married, she could hide from him forever, and he would remain forever duped and completely unable to find her. Even Mira wouldn’t fare any better.

His sister was considered to be the most dreadful. Kanami fought every fight without restraint and without an interest in taking prisoners. As a result, she had acquired an aura of greater bloodthirst than his own.

And yet, Abaddon could not help but feel as if he had to put someone above them in those categories.

Azathoth was everything that Yesh had said, and somehow Abaddon still felt he’d been undersold.

The creature was horrific. Genuinely disturbing to look at.

Committing his form to memory was absolutely useless. By the time one second would have passed, the creature was already wearing a brand new one.

Every form it wore was just as bad, and just as fleeting.

The only constant about the creature was the swirling multiverse spiraling just above it’s head.

Bile rose in Zahara’s throat as she resisted the urge to vomit.

“That is… absolutely horrible.”

Abaddon and Ayaana nodded in unison.

But Zahara knew that there was more to the creature than just a dreadful appearance.

It was saying something as it slumbered. She just didn’t know what.

Ayaana also noticed the language she couldn’t decipher.

“This tongue is unknown to us… what on earth is it sayi-”

“Be very careful here.” Abaddon tightened his grip on both of their hands. “Don’t try to listen to anything it’s saying, it’s only gibberish. Trying to understand him will only…”

Ayaana didn’t need her husband to finish. “We get it. We don’t have to listen.”

A bit of the tension left Abaddon’s shoulders.

“I guess it’s because there aren’t as many of us in here as you, but… we’re having a bit of a hard time blocking things out just on our own.”

Ayaana floated towards her wife with a solution in hand.

“We shouldn’t be here long enough for it to seriously affect you, but just in case…”

Ayaana placed a pair of headphones onto her wife’s head. “Just sing a little song to yourself while we’re here. Everything should be resolved quickly.”

“I want it to be relieved now!!!” Yeb yelled from the confines of her prison. “You all must be fools to come here and bring us with you! I feel absolutely terrified right now! I could shit myself!’

Nug pushed out a small, golden poop.

“See?!?”

Abaddon narrowed his eyes in unamusement. “We’re going to return soon, just be patient so we can get this done.”

“And stay quiet while we’re doing it if you don’t mind.” Ayaana sighed.

Finally, the trio moved into action. Each of them already knew their agreed-upon roles beforehand, and with the chains lengthening to allow them to move freely, they were unimpeded.

Abaddon and Zahara went to work around the fringes of the prison.

Using his powers, he pushed apart the prison realm from the nightmare realm and strengthened the barrier that already sat between them.

Zahara did the same thing as him from an opposite direction, and they didn’t stop until they had completed a full rotation.

As she worked, Zahara tried her best to keep Izanami’s words in mind and sang to themselves to keep their mind off the whispers they could hear behind them.

“Baby, I’m preying on you tonight~ Hunt you down, eat you alive, just like animals~ Animals~ Like animals…”

Abaddon considered it a shame that he couldn’t oggle Zahara while she was working. Especially with a situation like this.

Meanwhile, Ayaana had the most serious job of everyone.

Her role was to keep Azathoth asleep and prevent him from going boom. The jeopardy of this was that she had to get close to him. Too close for Abaddon’s comfort.

Things could go perfectly fine. Abaddon knew for a fact that Nyarlathotep had managed to sit on top of Azathoth while he was sleeping, and even struck him once. It didn’t wake the dark god.

Azazthoth is usually a heavy sleeper. But he had already shown signs of stirring once recently.

Ayaana’s presence might cause another stir. Not to mention the fact that…

“%$#@*..!”

Azathoth murmured again in his sleep.

Some of the creature’s many eyes fluttered for an infinitesimal second, but that was all that it took.

A shockwave of power left Azathoth’s power all at once.

Ayaana saw a wave of light coming towards her at full speed.

She summoned a shield to protect herself and braced for the inevitable impact.

However, she never felt a thing.

Or rather, what she felt instead of a hard blow was a firm embrace.

When Ayaana put her shield down, she found her husband shielding her with his body and staring down at her.

A large distance away, a second body of Abaddon was holding Zahara in much the same position.

Abaddon obsessively cupped Ayaana’s face in his hands and checked her for any injuries. “Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere?”

“N-No, I’m not, but… you’re hurt..!” Ayaana said in a heartbroken voice.

“Barely a scratch and certainly not something to worry about. Just go and finish what you need to do, I’ll be fine.”

Ayaana couldn’t let herself slip by, questioning if her husband was crying.

For now, she had to make sure she upheld her burden just like everyone else.

Ayaana started moving towards Azathoth once again. Only a few hundred yards away from being able to touch him.

Once close enough, she steadied her heartbeat and calmed her mind.

The girls’ eyes turned solid orange as Eris was pulled to the forefront of their mind.

She parted her lips and released the most soothing lullaby that could possibly be put into words.

When Abaddon and Zahara heard it, even they were almost knocked unconscious. Without a level of immunity to Ayaana’s powers, they would have already traveled to the realm of dreams.

Not long after Ayaana began her lullaby, she saw Azathoth’s form lose much of it’s rigidity.

It let out a satisfying noise amidst it’s slumber. This time, it was not accompanied by an attack powerful enough to obliterate gods and monsters alike.

Ayaana sang an encore of her song for good measure.

Once she finished, she flew towards her wife and husband as quickly as they could.

“My loves, I think it’s….”

Ayaana’s eyes settled on Abaddon’s back. Her pupils trembled with heart as she clenched her chest.

“Honey, you…”

Abaddon didn’t let her finish. “I’m fine, but we have to go. Please wait to yell at me until after I’m in my own bed again.”

Ayaana bit her lip anxiously. She would definitely hold him to that.

Abaddon made sure Zahara and Ayaana were secured under each arm.

As soon as they were all together, he closed his eyes and concentrated.

The ominous gates came when they were called. Even to this godforsaken place.

Abaddon was almost relieved that the gates showed up when he called them.

After everything, he had almost expected to receive another obstacle in his path. Another shoe to drop on his head and make him curse the fact that he wasn’t reincarnated as a mundane muslim man with a lakehouse and season tickets with the Crimson Tide.

But against his expectations, nothing bad happened. He was getting out with his wives and the hostages they had come for.

They were going home.