Chapter 1412: Hell Inside Marcus Heavenchild

Phei struck Marcus across the jaw and sent him through one rising current, then caught him before the Progenitor could recover. Another blow broke the armor across his chest. Phei seized an arm, he then twisted and tore until the limb separated in a burst of pale-gold Essence.

Marcus screamed.

Phei struck him again.

The scream broke beneath the impact; one wing came away next and another.

Marcus tried to retreat toward the deeper regions of his Soul Realm, but the sea that should have protected him answered Phei almost as readily now. Great currents rose where Phei willed them, closed pathways Marcus attempted to use and carried the Young Dragon toward him whenever distance opened between them.

That realization hurt Marcus almost as much as the blows.

This was his Soul Realm!

His World Essence!

Yet Phei moved through it like something that had already decided ownership was negotiable.

***

Minutes later, the once-magnificent Angel Progenitor lay scattered across the calm surface.

Marcus’s ruined torso floated half-submerged within the golden sea. Both arms had been torn away and rested hundreds of meters apart, remnants of shattered armor still clinging to them. His legs lay elsewhere, one partly beneath the surface while the other drifted farther away beneath the luminous mist.

All six wings had been ripped from his back.

They now floated separately across the sea.

White-gold Essence leaked slowly from their broken roots and dissolved into the water beneath them.

The Soul Realm looked beautiful again.

The golden sea moved with quiet majesty beneath a luminous heaven. Mist drifted across its surface. Pale light travelled through distant currents, and the horizon glowed with the serene splendor of a place that might have belonged to some sacred heaven.

That serenity made Marcus’s condition far uglier.

Phei stood several meters away and held one of the severed wings between both armored hands.

He turned it over.

Even separated from Marcus, the enormous wing still carried the pulse of World Essence through it. Thousands of pale-gold feathers trembled faintly while narrow currents of light travelled through the exposed spiritual bone at its root.

Phei ran one gauntleted finger beneath a feather and studied it.

"Too bad none of this can come back with me to the waking world." He examined the radiant wing for another few seconds and looked genuinely disappointed.

"What a waste."

A broken sound reached him from behind.

Phei glanced over one shoulder as though he had briefly forgotten Marcus remained there.

"Oh, right. You."

He dropped the wing; Phei clapped.

The golden sea surged.

World Essence gathered beneath Marcus and lifted him from the surface. Thick rivers of gold reached toward the scattered pieces of his manifestation and dragged them back across the water.

His right arm came first, the left before both legs followed.

The six wings moved last.

Marcus’s eyes widened.

Phei allowed him to understand what was coming before healing him even began.

Golden bone extended from the ruined shoulder.

Marcus screamed.

The new structure grew slowly.

Every length formed before the next began, and the nerves followed almost immediately afterward. Luminous threads stretched through the unfinished limb and reconnected to the Soul before flesh returned around them.

Marcus felt all of it.

His hand rebuilt itself one finger at a time.

The second arm followed. His legs returned with the same merciless patience.

There was no shortage of World Essence here, and Phei had no reason to hurry.

The wings began.

Marcus’s scream changed.

The first ruined socket opened as the severed wing moved toward his back. Its spiritual bone entered before the surrounding structure had fully restored itself. World Essence stitched the wing into him strand by strand, and every connection became another path through which pain could reach the Soul carrying it.

The first wing locked into place.

The second followed.

Then the third.

By the time all six wings had been restored, Marcus’s screams had travelled across the sea so many times that the distant golden horizons seemed to return them in fading echoes.

Phei watched quietly.

When it finally ended, the Angel Progenitor lay upon the surface of his own Soul Realm with every piece of his manifestation returned to its proper place. He looked more broken than when those pieces had been scattered across the ocean.

All six wings lay flattened behind him.

His hands trembled against the golden surface.

Even the arrogant face of the ancient Angel had lost the certainty it carried when Marcus first descended upon the back of that colossal bird.

Phei flexed his gauntlets.

"Now for the fun part." He clapped again.

This time the golden sea darkened beneath Marcus.

Three immense shapes moved below the surface.

The water bulged upward.

Marcus stared in horror as three horned golden heads broke through the gold before their shoulders followed by; three enormous bodies had rose from the sea. They were formed from Marcus’s own World Essence, but Phei had condensed so much of it into each body that the gold had deepened almost to black beneath the surrounding radiance.

The first executioner stood until the sea reached only its knees.

Its arms hung unnaturally long beside its body, each thick enough to crush fortresses beneath one hand. Chains hung from both fists and dragged across the surface. Hooks covered them from end to end, each barb curved inward and shaped for one purpose.

The second creature emerged with an enormous club resting across one shoulder.

There was nothing elegant about the weapon.

It possessed none of the sacred beauty of Marcus’s spear and none of the celestial craftsmanship surrounding the golden sea. It was simply enormous, heavy and brutally plain.

The third executioner carried nothing.

Its hands opened then closed.

World Essence dripped between its fingers.

Phei studied that one for several seconds.

"Fair enough."

Marcus stared upward; his face changed.

Whatever fragment of Progenitor arrogance had survived Phei’s beating finally disappeared when the three immense figures surrounded him.

Phei saw terror settle fully into Marcus’s eyes.

"There we go." He turned away. Marcus tried speaking behind him.

Phei did not care enough to listen: "You boys have fun."