Chapter 114 (113) The Sky Is Mine

Nephthys closed her fist, and the chunk of mountain burst into what must have been tens of thousands of shards. With a wave of her hand, the hail of stone shrapnel rained down on the demons below, blacking out the sky.

Hannibal roared, belching a wave of blue flames toward her that singed the spikes, interrupting their flight. However, the majority made it through the inferno, skewering the demonic host below. Smoke filled the cavern floor, spewing from the demons’ bodies as they were impaled and unsummoned.

The few that survived the onslaught took to the skies with various screeches, cries, and roars. Their claws were sharp, their fangs dripped with flame and venom, and their eyes were maddened.

Hannibal blasted through the fire, his powerful leap sending the smoke that clung to the ground swirling. Great wings of blue flame flowed behind him, propelling him toward her in the blink of an eye.

He probably had not noticed the vacuum, as most demons were unaffected by it, but Nephthys’ domain had pushed the air around her away, her surroundings like the void of space. And as Hannibal neared, his hulking form dominating her field of view, she retracted her domain, collapsing the vacuum in an instant.

Air rushed to fill the space, and with a deafening crack, the approaching demons were torn to shreds. A tempest of swirling, rushing air filled with choking black smoke from the unsummoned demons filled the sky above the canyon-turned-crater, and Hannibal curled his body in, protecting his head from the equalizing pressure.

With a burst of speed, Nephthys ascended, climbing thousands of feet. The Peaks stretched before her, piercing the clouds like the jaw of a giant. Her domain was retracted but not gone. Her eyes glowed fiercely, and the moon gazed down from below, as if to spite the still-shining sun.

She spread her arms out to her sides, staring down at Hannibal far below as he shook himself and launched after her. The clouds around her began to swirl, gathering in a funnel and darkening. The daylight seemed to vanish, swallowed entirely by the gathering storm.

Lightning crackled within the clouds, lighting the darkness temporarily and revealing monstrous shapes. A dragon of dark clouds chomped at the air, as if eager to be set loose. A griffin of fluffy white flew around the swirling vortex. A colossal bird, whose clouded body whisped and fluttered like flame, turned its attention on Hannibal as he approached.

He was buffeted by unstable air, struck by stray lightning, and blasted by icy debris, his climb gradual but constantly interrupted. Ice began to cling to his fur, as if the moon’s cold gaze had physically lowered the air temperature.

The lower clouds clinging to the mountains below rose, soaring up to join the growing tempest, darkening with its fury. The thunder was deafening, streaks of lightning piercing the sky constantly now. The air boiled and moved, light and darkness fighting for dominance. It was as if the sky had come alive, gained a will.

Hannibal’s persistence finally brought him within only a few hundred feet of Nephthys, who still gazed down on him, her arms outstretched, as if connected to the firmament’s wrath.

“The sky,” she said, and for a moment, it seemed another voice was layered over her own, “is mine.”

She cast her arms forward, and the sky collapsed on Hannibal. The clouds plowed into him, pressing him down with thunderous fury as lightning crisped his skin, singeing his fur. Cloud-shapes assaulted him in his fall: a fluffy white griffin, a dragon’s maw, the turbid, burning wings of a phoenix.

It was new magic that she had just created, Skyfall, combining the effects of several spells together, yet she was not impressed with her creation. Instead, her mind was filled with another spell, one that practically vibrated her skull, as if begging to be used, fired straight into her mind from wherever the Celestial path originated, out beyond the stars.

“Empyrean Descent.”

For a moment, all thoughts fled her mind. She no longer considered where she was, what she was doing, or even why she was fighting, the true purpose of it. She thought only of the blissful alignment her sphere, her domain, had with the spell.

She began to plummet. Her eyes were closed. Her arms were crossed on her chest, and she spun, spiraling through the center of the Skyfall, and her domain flooded outward. The moon seemed to smile, a cold, cruel thing, as her inside flooded outside, the mana pumping out of her center, surrounding her.

It ignited with a light to outshine the sun, and she vanished within its embrace.

The titanic tornado slammed Hannibal into the ground, pressing him into the stone further and further as it unleashed its fury. Purple lightning rained on him, pulverizing the once-canyon into dust with a sound like the wrath of the gods.

Yet, above it all, there shone a star, a star that was falling. It pulsed with a bright indigo light, and as it descended, it blasted the tornado apart, as if commanding the wind to move out of its way. It started slowly, as a stone dropped in water, but it gained speed rapidly, falling so quickly that the point of light became a streak.

Hannibal roared, fighting the wind with all his strength. He lifted his back off the stone, constantly buffeted by debris, lightning, and pressure, but before he could even sit up straight, the star reached him.

There was a flash, and then the world fell silent, as if its very breath was stolen. A column of smoke and debris rushed upward, out of the valley and above the peaks. A shockwave ripped across the landscape, shattering nearby rock and shaking the ground.

Mudslides rolled across the peaks, cliffs broke apart and fell, and whatever creatures still foolishly lingered, having not fled when the battle began, were thrown aside like leaves in a storm even miles from the epicenter.

A toroidal cloud punched through the sky, dark and forboding, crackling with lightning and energy. It seemed an amalgam of all the clouds in the area, harnessed to a destructive purpose, and then unleashed. It billowed out into a lumpy mushroom, climbing higher and higher into the clear sky, ever billowing outward.

The valley at the center of the blast had been transformed entirely. No longer a crevice, a crack in the ground. It was now a colossal crater with a molten rim. Enormous chunks of the surrounding mountains had been obliterated, widening the crater far beyond the original valley’s dimensions.

The sound of rushing water indicated the crater had breached one or more nearby rivers, perhaps changing the destiny of this once-barren valley forever.

Choking smoke filled the crater, and at its center was Hannibal, or what was left of him. His head, covered by both arms, was all that remained. His torso, his waist, and his legs were gone, though no organs or gore were present.

As he lay there, his hands fell from his head, thudding to the molten ground. His neck, attached to nothing, leaked blue flames like blood, as did his arms, absent the shoulders they should be connected to. His eyes were closed, and he breathed heavily, despite having no lungs.

Nephthys floated before him, the tips of her feet where his chest would likely have been, as if standing on his sternum. She stared at him, her eyes aglow, waiting.

Hannibal’s eyes snapped open, and with a labored growl, his severed arms slammed together, Nephthys caught between the clap of his two colossal hands.

He opened his hands and grumbled in confusion, finding nothing between them. His confusion grew as he saw his body, his arms, his chest, and his legs beneath him.

He knelt on both knees, staring at a carved stone floor. He gazed upward, taken aback by the cathedral before him, its architecture intricately carved, its roof missing, seemingly floating in pieces within a field of stars whose light was only diminished by the cold, cruel light of the moon that dominated the sky.

His eyes fell upon Nephthys, who sat on her throne atop a dais at the center of the hall. Her hands were clasped together atop her knee, that leg crossed over the other. She stared down with a neutral expression, and Hannibal realized they were now the same size, as if she had somehow grown a hundred times her size, or perhaps he had shrunk a hundred times.

“My…lady,” he croaked, his voice hoarse and strained, as if speaking took great effort.

“You defeated the Amalgam. You did well. However, this has gone on long enough, Hannibal. Reclaim yourself,” she bid.

“Yes…my lady,” he growled.

In a flash, Nephthys was back, gazing around the crater she had made, her brow furrowed. This was…not what she had intended. This destruction had not come from her conscious will.

A hiss brought her attention to the remnant of Hannibal’s gigantic body, which was boiling into black smoke. It gathered and compressed into the form of a shadowy man lying on the ground. His body was made of pitch-black smoke, which stood out sharply against the gray debris cloud that still filled the crater from the blast.

Two slitted blue eyes opened in the dark smoke.

“My lady, there is no forgiveness I can ask. For attacking you—” Hannibal started.

Nephthys stopped him by thrusting a hand at him, holding it before him, waiting for him to grab it.

“You did well, Hannibal, and I am unharmed. You need thanks, not forgiveness,” she said, holding her hand before him. “Now, rise.”

He stared at her proffered hand for several silent seconds, but eventually, he took it. She pulled him to his feet, and where her hand touched his, his form solidified into the familiar one, his dark plate armor with intricate blue enchantments crawling across his skin.

He slumped to one side, and before he could complain, Nephthys threw his arm over her shoulders and pulled him up.

“Apologies, my lady. I am…quite hurt,” he said simply.

“No, it is I who is sorry, Hannibal. I went overboard,” Nephthys assured. “We will return to Nemesis. Let us just make a quick stop first.”

Just as water began to creep over Hannibal’s feet, the crater filling with mountain runoff, she pulled them through a gate, appearing next to the council building in Chicolua.

Before she could fully process the scene, she was overwhelmed by a collective gasp and muttering. It seemed the entire town had gathered, and they were all circling the two of them. Or perhaps Nephthys had created her gate in the center of the crowd? She was off-center after that battle, clearly.

“My lady,” Ramose greeted.

Nephthys was alarmed to see tears on his face, though he beamed the widest smile she had seen him wear thus far.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“What? Oh, no,” Ramose answered, wiping the tears from his cheeks. “Forgive me. I was merely overwhelmed by your might.”

Oh, shit.

“You saw our battle?” she asked.

“My lady, I wonder if any in the Peaks could have missed it,” Ramose said, his eyes lighting up.

Damn it.

“Well, it is over now. Let us return,” she said, trying not to look at the faces of the Chicolua citizens around them, afraid of what she might see: fear, or even worse, admiration.

“Hey,” Daena called, emerging from the crowd.

Nephthys turned, Hannibal still slung over her shoulder, and Ramose beside her.

“You beat it? You did all that, risked yourselves to fight that thing? For us?” she asked.

It wasn’t the fight with the Amalgam that you witnessed…

“Of course,” she answered.

A silence passed between them, Daena staring at the ground, seemingly deep in thought. After a few moments, she looked up, glancing around the crowd, seemingly communicating something with only her gaze.

“Bring us something more formal, in writing, and we’ll…consider it,” she said.

“As you wish,” Nephthys quickly agreed.

Apparently, things were going to work out well, despite the obvious setbacks—

“My lady, I must inform you of a…situation,” Moirenea said, the tone of her telepathy uncharacteristically hesitant.

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Far across the world, high in the sky, higher than any mountains, higher than any clouds, a colossal cumulonimbus spun. It was the center of a truly titanic storm that stretched for miles and miles in all directions. The clouds were fluffy and white on the bottom, changing into a gradient of deep, dark blue and gray as they neared the cumulus center.

These clouds hovered far higher than clouds should, and they seemed alone in the world, nothing else threatening their height, their might, or their domain.

“The sky belongs to me.”

The cumulonimbus shuddered, lightning crackling across its surface. A roar shook the very air itself, despite its thinness at this altitude.

Like a glacier, the clouds began to move, crawling toward the west.

Toward the one who would challenge the sky itself.