Chapter 947 - 946: A World To Take (Magic Castle Bonus - )

[A/N: This bonus Chapter is thanks to Kollum. Please help me thank her in the comment section for me. She’s the best!]

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(Simon’s POV)

"How pathetic for a God of War."

The spectral spear answered Simon’s insult.

He knocked it aside with the Chaos Blade.

But the chain was already beneath his feet, and the axe above his head was forcing him toward it.

Simon folded space.

An arrow met him as he emerged.

He twisted. The arrow tore through his shoulder instead of his throat, and the hammer struck his hastily raised sword.

BOOOOOOM!

He crashed through the slope behind him.

Eight arms. Eight separate decisions with none waiting for the others.

Eight-Armed Calamity had not merely made the god stronger.

Simon rose through the dust, spitting blood.

The world’s pressure was thickening around him.

That warmth upon his arrival had faded. Earth still recognised the soul it once loved, but the Daemon carrying it had become something too dangerous to welcome.

He could feel it trying to put affection aside.

Every step farther into the path of sin and evil took him farther from its former hero.

Now it wanted him suppressed.

However, Pride had answered before Simon fully understood the change.

The world’s rejection pressed against his power and failed to close around it. His demonic energy moved freely beneath the seed’s authority.

Earth had not forgiven him.

He simply no longer needed its permission.

Simon kept Pride active and Wrath quiet. More destructive power was tempting, but he needed control.

The greatsword swept through the dust.

Six wings opened behind him.

Their ivory spars unfolded through the spaces at his back without tearing his already torn shirt. Black membranes snapped taut, silver undersides flashing as one pair crossed before his chest.

Ice covered them.

The sword struck.

Frost and broken crystal exploded, but the wings angled the blow aside while the lower pair drove Simon upward.

The God of War’s eyes widened.

"Six...?"

Enigma stepped forward involuntarily.

Those wings had belonged to the distant giant. Now they extended from Blackmoon’s actual body, their vents turning independently beneath four pale horns.

What bloodlines could produce that combination?

He searched his memory and found nothing.

His curiosity sharpened into wariness.

Simon rolled above the axe.

Crimson jets fired from his wing vents. His middle pair swept forward, releasing blades of wind that carried the tribulation’s destructive nature.

They cut into the arm holding the bow.

The god twisted it clear before the blades reached its root, then drove the spear through Simon’s left lower wing.

Simon caught the shaft beneath the Chaos Blade.

His free hand opened.

The air between them hammered into the god’s chest.

He used Pride to force the surrounding wind to obey and emit more power.

The spear continued forward while its wielder was driven back.

Simon cut the shaft and drove a knee into the God’s breastplate.

BANG!

The armour caved farther inward.

But the god’s Aether hand seized Simon’s ankle.

He hurled him toward the hammer.

Simon folded one wing, dropped beneath the descending head, and released orange fire from the other five.

Flames swallowed the spectral arms.

The greatsword divided the blaze.

Simon was gone.

Shadow darkened a tumbling boulder beneath him. He moved behind it, stripped the Aether from his wing wound, and felt his reserves sink.

Converting the surrounding Aether was too slow.

Devour and Gluttony could consume it, but breaking down its Order-aspected nature and rebuilding usable demonic energy demanded time he did not have.

Then the Seed of Greed stirred.

The golden bead Lilith had created returned to his mind.

He had taken control of it without first consuming it.

Why was he treating every trace of Aether as something he had to dismantle before it could belong to him?

A thin golden light touched the unclaimed power around his hand.

’Mine.’

It yielded.

Simon drew that small portion inward and imposed the pattern of his demonic energy upon it.

Its nature began changing.

His eyes widened.

The conversion still required his Will and the Chaos Flame’s refinement. But the resistance that had made the process so slow was almost gone.

The power accepted his reshaping because it already belonged to him.

He expanded the claim.

Not toward the god’s weapons. Those still carried a Will he would have to overcome and would be difficult to overcome.

He expanded the claim toward the unclaimed Aether filling the valley.

Gluttony deepened Devour’s pull. Greed claimed what entered his reach, and the newly changed energy flooded his pathways through the cube.

His torn wing closed.

The ache of an emptying heart eased.

Above him, the god shattered the boulder.

Simon burst through the fragments with his shoulder already healed.

The spear thrust.

He bent around it and slashed across the god’s ribs.

An iron-grey shield caught the blade, but Simon’s wing struck its edge. Lightning exploded along the membrane, driving the shield sideways.

BANG!

Blood followed the sword.

The god stepped back.

Then again as Simon’s lower wings reversed their thrust, bringing him around for another cut before the first had finished passing.

"War God Art: Thousandfold Impact."

The hammer struck Simon’s crossed wings.

Once.

Then the impact repeated.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Ice burst away. An ivory spar cracked, and Simon coughed blood as the blows hammered him downward.

However, he folded space before the next repetition reached him.

The remaining impacts crushed the hillside where he had fallen.

He reappeared beside the god.

His wing still trembled.

The torn membrane was already joining.

The God of War stared.

"How are you replenishing yourself?"

Simon answered with the Chaos Blade.

The god blocked.

Steel screamed against manifested Aether.

Their attacks drove them across the valley, splitting ridges and throwing shattered rock above the clouds of dust.

But the longer they fought, the less sense the battle made.

Earth should have hindered the Daemon, but to the God’s disbelief and confusion, it did not.

Simon should have been consuming reserves he could barely replenish.

Yet his wounds kept closing and his attacks remained heavy.

Worse, the wind and stone that should have resisted him repeatedly moved against the god.

A ledge rose beneath his heel just as he tried to withdraw.

The stumble cost him another cut.

The God of War’s jaw tightened.

"Stay."

His authority descended upon Simon.

The air fixed around his wings. His raised arm began slowing down.

Simon looked directly into his eyes.

Pride throbbed.

The force holding him broke.

At the same instant, Simon imposed stillness upon the god’s spear arm.

The God’s divine authority struck back.

Neither arm stopped.

Between them, a boulder hung motionless, cracked through its centre, then burst as the opposing commands cancelled each other.

The god’s expression changed.

A mortal had matched the authority he was exerting.

His vessel limited the power he could bring here, but it should not have allowed a Greater Demon to answer his command as an equal.

Even if that Greater Demon was a Daemon.

"What are you?"

Simon’s sword moved.

The god barely caught it.

His thoughts had already supplied an answer he disliked.

A threat.

Not something he could exhaust by fighting on Earth.

Not something the world would suppress for him.

The god attacked harder.

Spear and greatsword drove Simon back while the chain curled behind his legs. Above, the bow fired through the gap beneath the raised axe.

Simon caught the arrow on an Earth-hardened forearm.

It pierced his skin and scored his bone.

He accepted the wound.

His lower wings braked while the others twisted his body. The chain missed his ankle and caught one wing instead.

The god pulled.

Simon went with it.

But he directed Pride toward the loose stone below and swiped his hand.

An entire slope leapt into the hammer’s path.

BANG!

The weapon smashed through it.

That fraction of delay was enough.

Simon slipped past the crossed weapons, his free hand closing around the chain.

Crimson lightning raced along the links.

The spectral fingers holding it opened.

His Chaos Blade swept upward and severed the arm at its root.

The god recoiled.

Another arm descended to protect him.

Simon cut that one too.

This time, black Chaos flames followed the blade.

The god’s breathing caught.

He felt the fire bite into the Aether connecting the severed arm to his descended presence.

Pain reached deeper than Darius’s flesh.

For an instant, something burned along the link to the portion of himself that remained elsewhere.

He severed his connection to the burning arm.

Too late to dismiss what he had felt.

Simon advanced through the falling weapon.

His third eye remained a closed black mark and Wrath had not joined the fight.

The god could see no desperate final transformation to wait out.

Only the same bloodied Daemon, still drawing power from a world that should have rejected him.

Simon raised the sword.

The god lifted two shields.

But the black blade entered a fold in space.

It emerged past the nearer shield, already moving toward Darius’s neck.

The God of War threw himself backward.

The edge missed his throat by a finger’s width.

Black fire skimmed his jaw.

He tore away the touched flesh before the flame could spread, abandoning another spectral arm to intercept the rest of the slash.

The arm vanished inside the fire.

Beyond it, Simon’s grin widened.

The god felt cold beneath the blood covering his face.

That cut would not merely have killed his Chosen.

The black flames could burn the presence within him and carry their harm back to his true body.

He could lose more here than a vessel.

Aether erupted beneath his feet.

The remaining spectral weapons struck together, forcing a moment of separation.

And before Simon cleared them, the God of War turned and fled.