First Demonic Dragon

Chapter 1048: Mommy?

On the relatively short list of potential excuses for why Asherah couldn’t get the Ophanim to listen to her, none had anticipated Asherah to give the one that she gave.

And everyone’s faces showed it.

Hera pointed a trembling finger at Asherah.

“Y-Y-Y-You are an eldritch horror too..?”

“What? No!” She recoiled. “Where would you get that from!?”

“You basically just said you were!”

“I absolutely did not!”

Everyone else in the room also felt like that was what she had said.

Asherah let out a huff and she started reaching for her robe.

As she undid the clasp keeping it closed, Satan immediately recoiled.

“Yuck. Keep the flapjakes in the pan, Granny.”

Crash!

Asherah flicked her finger, and the demon lord flew through the ceiling like an orange rocket.

No one batted an eye at this, nor did they think it was too harsh a treatment.

Asherah undid her robe just enough for her upper chest to be visible.

What happened next was completely unexpected.

Asherah dug her fingers into her flesh and pried her chest cavity open.

Instead of blood, light poured out from inside.

Sitting behind Asherah’s ribs was a small, cerulean and purple stone that would have been easy to miss. It was no bigger than a cut fingernail.

However, it was apparent to everyone that the item they were staring at now was nothing so mundane.

Energy poured out of the gem in waves, quickly filling the room with great and terrible pressure.

Glassware shattered, and the old house groaned.

Nyx and Bashenga stood up in alarm and pointed at Asherah slowly.

“You had it this whole time??”

“Oh my god… are you..”

“Slow down, slow down…” Imani weakly shielded her face from the outpour of light. “Is that supposed to mean something to us…?”

Zahara looked towards Ayaana who wore a similar expression as Bashenga and Nyx.

“It’s.. a piece of Chaos.”

“The genuine article.” Asherah sighed. “I believe Bash explained it once before. It’s used to make things like Ginnungagap and the first of the Progenetoi in every universe… but it also functions as my heart.”

Zahara was stunned like almost everyone else in the room. “For what purpose? And how would Yesh even get something like that??”

Asherah opened her mouth to answer, but Ayaana beat her to it.

“He was born with it.”

Everyone slowly looked towards her in wonder, as if they had just now realized that their house had a new expert on these matters.

Hakon and Kanami leaned forward. “Spill it.”

Ayaana sighed while rubbing her head.

“Well, when aeons are fully realized, the fabled sparks that they were previously in possession of harden into something called a polarity stone.

It’s the hardened, truest essence of both Order and Chaos. Aether and Nether on steroids.

It’s how aeons create things that are connected to the Egoless, yet are not necessarily bound to them.”

“Why’s that matter?” Helios didn’t understand.

Ayaana patted Nyx on the head like she was Odie’s size.

“For one, it’s the reason our adorable little Nyx gets to sit here without being a walking, talking microphone for her mother.”

Nyx only half-heard the compliment and was completely unable to take her eyes off of Asherah.

“S-So are you… my mother?”

Asherah blinked slowly as if she had only just now realized that she’d left out some critical information. She elected to ignore it for now and turned to Nyx with a pitying look.

“I did make you a few times, but no. I’m not your mother.”

“Whew.” Nyx wiped her brow.

Asherah started to become offended but told herself she was better than such things.

“I’m just a shell that Yesh made to house the other half of his polarity stone. And an experiment that went on for much longer than he thought.”

Similar to how Yesh wanted to know if Evil was rooted in one’s very cells, he also wanted to discover if Chaos could be made orderly.

For her entire life, that has been Asherah’s secret function.

She makes bad, but necessary things happen in a controlled manner designed not to overrun the delicate balance with order.

“That’s… probably why the Ophanim wouldn’t listen to me. They are created to be guards against corruption, and with my heart being what it is they no doubt assumed I was compromised.” Asherah sighed sadly.

Silence covered the room for too long, so she looked up to see why everyone had suddenly gone quiet.

Everyone was staring at her with a slightly baffled look.

Except for one person, that is.

“Does that mean Dad’s older than you? Damn.” Mira whistled.

Asherah’s brow twitched unconsciously. “…He is certainly not. Yesh started making your father’s egg before me, but I was around for a while before I watched him hatch.”

Ayaana felt someone nudge her.

“You know, my daughter really does take after me. I too enjoy my men well-aged.”

“”Ew.”” Straga and Apophis recoiled.

Bekka took over Ayaana’s body and shoved her mother’s face out of the way. “Anyways… Are you in danger?”

Everyone had seemingly ignored the elephant in the room while she had dove right in.

If Asherah was carrying around a piece of Chaos inside of her, then would that not make her a target for the unstable Egoless?

It was a question that perplexed even Lailah’s mind, and no doubt put Asherah on edge.

Everyone wanted to know if they needed to start making plans to keep her safe.

“…I dunno.” She shrugged.

Several members of the family almost fell flat on their faces.

“What do you mean, you don’t know!?” Zahara stood up.

Asherah shrank back slightly.

“I-I simply haven’t seen or heard anything that would allude to her having an interest in me! I’m fairly certain if I were any part of her goal, then I would have witnessed something by now.”

Her logic made sense, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a flimsy thing to base one’s safety on.

Suddenly, Bayle lifted his head off Thrudd’s lap and turned his head.

“Why the hell is there a hole in the ceiling…?”

Shock ran through the room as they turned towards the archway. Five different pets left their posts and bolted towards a very weak and injury-riddled Abaddon.

He didn’t stand a chance when the large pets barreled into him and knocked him over.

An onslaught of foul-smelling licks assailed his face and he realized that it might have been too long since someone had brushed their teeth.

“I get it, I get it..!” He yelled hoarsely. “You can let me up now..!”

The pets only started to give Abaddon space when they saw him wincing from their roughhousing.

Something that was completely unlike him.

They allowed him to sit up on the floor and he was barely upright before more family members sent him toppling.

Mira was beside herself and shook her father like a child’s rattle. “DADDD!! You’re alive!”

“A-A little less now than before…”

“I was freaked out when you stopped moving and stuff! You can’t go doing that shit again!” Straga slapped his father on the back several times; resulting in him coughing up blood.

“I’ll be sure to make a note of that…”

Gabbrielle grabbed their father by the face, seemingly uncaring of the massive amount of beast slobber covering him.

“Y-You aren’t healing- why aren’t you healing?!”

Abaddon often didn’t realize just how many kids he had until right that moment.

He heard a surplus of knocking sounds and his children scattered away from him like roaches- Each of them holding their heads where a large knot was forming.

Ayaana put down her motherly fist and she kneeled in front of Abaddon with Zahara.

They didn’t speak with their mouths, but Abaddon knew everything they were thinking with just a look.

“…For the record, I am healing. Just… taking a little longer is all…” He replied hoarsely.

His wives didn’t say anything. They just kept looking at their mangled husband with heartbroken looks.

Abaddon looked worse than they’d seen in years.

One of his horns was missing, and there were burns all over his body. He had stab wounds in his neck and his left thigh in addition to a broken arm.

He had a few bruises and had visibly less muscle mass compared to just this morning.

The hair that hadn’t been scorched was starting to turn gray, and a scruffy beard had started to grow along his jaw.

His eyes, though tired, were light and positive. Almost as if to say ’See? I’m fine.’

Ayaana and Zahara were a bit harder for him to convince.

Zahara was scared to touch him. “I… can’t even believe you’re awake right now. Much less that you’re somehow holding yourself together.”

Abaddon smiled bashfully. “We have things to do, if you recall… I couldn’t just lie down and do nothing while-”

“You could have and you are going to.” Zahara said firmly. “It hasn’t even been an hour since you fainted, even if we’re home there’s no way you recovered that fast.”

Abaddon shook his head. “I need to draw the Black Goat out of hiding first, and then I can-”

“You’re joking.” Ayaana wanted to shout. “You just got done with one battle and you want to rush into another one??”

Abaddon didn’t shrink back underneath Ayaana’s ferocity. Instead, he grabbed her hand and stared into her eyes.

“I said I was going to get Isabelle back as quickly as possible. It’ll take more than a few scratches to stand in the way of that.”

Ayaana immediately softened. Her eyes became fully violet and Audrina’s voice came to the forefront.

“…I appreciate that. But I’ll thank you not to kill yourself trying to make me happy, okay?”

Abaddon sighed. “I still think that I can handle one little horror-”

Zahara touched one of Abaddon’s burns and the dragon sucked in his teeth.

The wives pointed down the hall.

“”Bed. Now.””

“Fuck.”