I’ll be nice and post a midweek chapter. Things are narrowing down, second to last chapter!! What awaits at the end?!

Episode 117 Demise

The resulting blast from the collision of the two forces rocks the entire tower, causing Kunai to nearly slip and plummet all the way back down the stone stairs. Instead, he stumbles and holds onto the cold stone steps for support.

“What the hell was that?!” Kunai whispers, a ghostly, chilling wind filling his ears.

Rage completely consumes the Mother of Paradoxes at the sight of the place of its captivity for so many years. Lilith expands her wings in fury, and spits a stream of destructive energy at the tiny little ants attempting to assault her.

Many of the weaker ones are immediately obliterated from sight, others swept into the air and torn apart by her enormous claws. Tinier Paradoxes, children, rapidly detach themselves from their mother and sail into the air, flying wrathfully at those trying to murder their mother.

Ryuu lets loose an explosive blast of fire that erupts with a radius nearly ten times longer than his own height. The devastating current of fire burns the Paradoxes clawing their way towards him to ashes.

“Damn that Ryuu,” Yttrius observes from afar, “he doesn’t have to be so dangerous. He needs to be more considerate of those fighting near him!” He brushes a patch of burnt hair away from his eyes.

Azuma grunts in agreement next to Yttrius.

“God damn it!” Ryuu howls, as a new round of Paradoxes swarm around him. “I can’t even get close to the Mother if all these freaking tiny ones keep swarming me!”

“I’ll take care of them, Ryuu!” Yttrius shouts. “You concentrate on Lilith!” He blitzes one of the Paradoxes jumping at Ryuu with a skillfully shot Holy Arrow.

“Thanks, Yttrius!” Ryuu grins, leaping away from the fray and joining the others assaulting Lilith.

Meanwhile, Zack skips joyfully around in a circle, casting Heal and singeing the Paradox around him with his spell’s holy magic.

“Stop doing that!” Silver scolds, running backwards as she attempts to hold back a wave of Paradoxes coming at her. “The ghosts of the dead are vulnerable to Heal! You’re only hurting our allies!”

“Can’t help it,” Zack retorts, “I can’t exactly help who gets caught in my Heal.”

Silver merely glares at Zack.

“Guess you’re right,” Zack grins snidely, raising his staff. “A’ight, then, time for some stronger stuff!” Several flashes of light escape from Zack’s raised staff, and tear through the chests of the Paradoxes assailing Silver.

Silver’s Strafe hits empty air as the Paradoxes disappear. She turns towards Zack, standing back-to-back with him. “Don’t steal my kills either.”

“Aye, aye,” Zack answers.

Elsewhere, Sasha delivers a punishing blow to a Paradox, cracking its skull with a swing of her sword. Still more Paradoxes surround her, approaching from all directions. She scowls, narrowing her eyebrows at the sheer sight of so many enemies.

“Time to bring out the big guns,” she murmurs to herself. “Dragon Roar!” She plants her sword in the ground, and an earth-trembling force escapes from it. The shockwaves bleed forth from the ground, slashing apart a total of more than several dozen Paradoxes. The few survivors face the punishment of a crushing attack from Sasha’s blade.

“Argh!” George grunts, nailing a Paradox scuttling towards him with a blow to the eye. He raises his fists threateningly. “There are certainly quite a few of them!”

“Ah, I suppose,” Rill agrees coolly, defending his comrade with Tobis flying rapidly in all directions. He lowers his hands, pausing to catch his breath. A deep scowl runs across his face.

Ryuu rushes the enraged Paradox Lilith. He clambers to the peak of a stalagmite, and uses it to lift off into the air. He launches a powerful explosion of fire straight at Lilith, but the blast does nothing more than merely scrape the beast’s scaly armor.

Ryuu lands, as Lilith smashes the ground with her claw ferociously in anger. He leaps out of the way, just as the barren floor splinters into a giant smoking crater. “Damn!” he growls. “I gave it my best shot and that’s all the damage it did?!”

“Aha, so it seems you still require much training, young Ryuu!” a mocking voice jeers from faraway. Ryuu turns in amazement, his eyes beholding with amazement the spirit of Dances With Balrog, the former member of the Four of Victoria Island.

Ryuu’s jaw drops as his former instructor lands next to him. One of Lilith’s fingers lands behind him with a resounding crash. Dances With Balrog lowers his Gaea.

A barrage of golden arrows and stars rocket over Ryuu’s head. He looks up, and finds the spirits of Athena Pierce and the Dark Lord accompanying Dances With Balrog.

“What are you all doing here?” Ryuu gapes.

“Tch, as clueless as ever, Ryuu!” the Dark Lord sneers in a raspy voice. “We’ve come to join in on the fun. The Three of Victoria Island are still as capable as ever, even in death!”

“The Three?” Ryuu repeats.

“Yes,” Athena Pierce answers grimly, striding into earshot. “Grendel was eliminated.”

“Eliminated?” Ryuu cries, his eyes widening. “What do you mean?!”

“Our comrade Grendel’s memory has been defiled by the destruction of the remains of his soul!” Dances With Balrog retorts furiously. “So it seems the Mage family has some enemies; his grandson, Arai, has been eliminated in much the same way as well.”

Ryuu’s eyes widen at the comment, thrown about so callously by his former teacher. “A-Arai…has been killed? Again?!”

The pent-up rage, grief, and frustration deep inside Ryuu appears to explode at last. One of Lilith’s claws creeps closer and closer to Ryuu from behind. The latter draws his sword, and an angry flash of flame erupts from its blade.

“Die!” One hard swing completely severs Lilith’s arm from her side. The useless arm now collapses onto the ground with a deafening boom. Paradoxes, militiamen, and dead souls alike run for their lives, fleeing from the impact of the crash and the Paradoxes bursting forth from the dead arm.

“Splendid, Ryuu,” the Dark Lord comments, “now I hope you don’t mind doing something just as reckless again?”

“Huh?” Ryuu replies, perplexed.

Waves of Paradoxes now crash down upon those gathered upon the battlefield, as they scream and yell ferociously, spurred onward by their mother’s howls of rage and pain. Lilith herself thrashes uncontrollably about, infuriated at the loss of an arm. Many on the battlefield below are simply crushed from her unpredictable movements.

“Damn, there are too many of them!” Silver cries, firing multiple rounds of Strafe in every direction. The golden arrows explode from her bow like bullets, piercing the hordes of Paradoxes surrounding her and Zack. Yet still more and more come, endlessly, like a tidal wave with no beginning or end.

“Crap, we’re gonna be crushed!” Zack yelps, summoning a door and dragging Silver through it.

The two of them emerge in another area of the battlefield similar to the one they’d just left. However, here they find Sasha, entrenched in a deadly battle with what seems to be a limitless wave of Paradoxes.

“Dragon Roar!” she howls, using the self-sacrificing technique to ward off the approaching Paradoxes by herself. The few spirits around Sasha fall back, unable to do more than hold one or two Paradoxes at bay at once.

“Silver! Zack!” Sasha gasps, blood issuing forth from wounds on her battered body. “I was worried you guys were hurt or something!”

“Now ain’t the time t’be talking!” Zack shouts, caught up in the battle, his demeanor completely serious for once. “I’ll cover for ya with my Heal! Just keep doing that move!”

“Aye, aye!” Sasha cries, preparing to cast another Dragon Roar even as Zack bathes her in his calming green light. The wounds disappear momentarily from Sasha’s body, as she releases another earth-shattering blast of energy.

The rounds of Paradoxes are blown apart or retreat, fearful of this deadly, self-damaging attack. The wounds on Sasha’s body reappear, only to be replenished yet again by Zack’s Heal.

“You sure know how to waste mana,” Silver mutters into Zack’s ear, as she fires a persistent stream of bullets to ward off the Paradoxes, who have now apparently gathered the courage to approach again. The arrows pierce each Paradox like a bullet, sending it recoiling backwards into its brethren.

“You’re one t’talk, wasting arrows like that,” Zack grins, bathing Sasha in Heal once more as she unleashes another furious blast with Dragon Roar. “This is tiring!”

“And you’re complaining!” Sasha gasps, watching her wounds disappear yet again.

“Crap!” Zack yells, as he, Sasha, and Silver scatter, hurling themselves out of the way as a gigantic fist comes flying towards them from above.

Ryuu appears out of nowhere, blocking Lilith’s claw with his back and sword. He pushes the fist back, shedding a substantial amount of blood with his sharpened blade.

The black blood splatters on the ground like rain. An enormous nail crashes into the ground like a meteor. Blood fountains out of Lilith’s splintered arm.

“Ryuu!” Sasha gasps, even as Ryuu flashes the three of them a dark look and disappears again. The three of them watch as Ryuu soars through the air, heading directly into a face-to-face confrontation with Lilith.

“What’s he doing?” Silver asks, repelling yet another wave of Paradoxes with her bow.

“Dunno,” Zack shrugs, “but he was carryin’ some sorta seal.”

“Seal?” Sasha asks.

“I’d like you to place this seal on Lilith,” the Dark Lord says to Ryuu, handing him a yellow parchment. “It’s a reverse undead seal, it’ll force Lilith’s death process to dangerously accelerate and thus decay her body.”

“And then, we shall use that opportunity to destroy her slowed body,” Dances With Balrog explains.

Ryuu takes the seal from the Dark Lord’s outstretched hands, turning it over in his own.

“Remember, as with all undead seals, it’ll work only if you place it on the forehead,” the Dark Lord continues, “so if you don’t want any more of the dead having their memories and existences defiled like your friend, I suggest you aide us in placing this seal on Lilith now.”

“And what will the three of you do?” Ryuu asks.

“We’ve prepared a separate seal spell to be cast,” Athena Pierce answers Ryuu, “but it shall only work if Lilith stops moving. An ordinary spell like Slow won’t affect her. The reverse undead seal will aide in slowing down Lilith’s movements.”

“Our seal is a destruction spell, designed by none other than Grendel himself,” Dances With Balrog says. “It shall be a fitting method of honoring his departed memory.”

Ryuu soars through the air headed straight for Lilith, going faster than he’d ever gone before. The seal flaps violently in the wind in his hands, as he holds his sword outward to deflect any attacks headed his way.

The memory of his discussion with the Three still rings in his head. ‘Grendel gone…Arai gone…when will this suffering end?!’

Unobstructed, Ryuu meets with Lilith at last, confronting her eye-to-eye. He lands upon the highest peak in the cliffs overlooking the dead valley below. He holds out his sword, beckoning Lilith towards him.

The monstrous mother of Paradoxes approaches Ryuu, a hungry look in her eyes. Lilith opens her mouth wide, perhaps to consume Ryuu whole, or perhaps to fire some sort of devastating blast in his direction.

Silence suddenly grasps the battlefield below, as all participants, Paradoxes, humans, and ghosts, watch with bated breath at the meeting between the Paradox Mother and Ryuu the human.

Ryuu leaves his feet, sailing straight at Lilith. He stretches out his hand, and plants the seal directly on Lilith’s forehead. He secures it in place by planting his sword through the seal, into the monster Paradox’s fleshy forehead.

Ryuu withdraws his sword, and falls gracefully from the sky, his body floating through the air back down towards the ground uncontrollably. Lilith fires a powerful blast that explodes in the sky, absorbing Ryuu in its devastating power.

“RYUUUU!” Sasha screams far away down below, fighting to run forward but held back by both Zack and Silver.

But even as Lilith fires her last attack, her body rapidly begins disintegrating. Her shiny scales age dramatically within seconds, devolving into nothing more than coarse, rusted metal plating.

Dances With Balrog, Athena Pierce, and the Dark Lord form a triangle around Lilith. The massive arc drawn by the triangle is lit aglow, infused with a bright blue energy.

And suddenly, an even more mammoth pillar of light descends from the heavens, crashing down upon Lilith like the inevitable tide. It crushes Lilith the beast, stamping out the life and existence of the mother of Paradoxes.

The final steps approach the line of vision. The steps below dissolve into nothing more than darkness and the faint echo of footsteps. The door into the top floor appears, the door behind which lie the Three Phonemes, the answers to all the mysteries of the conflict with the Myougun.

Panting, but supported by all the adrenaline in the world, Kunai throws open the door into the uppermost floor of Aodh Tower at last, to protect the Three Phonemes. In front of him, a seemingly unending column of stairs leading up into the heavens, leading up to…

“What the hell…?” Kunai gasps. “It…it can’t be…!”

An ending column of stairs leading up to the victor of all the battles thus far, the future, leading up to the Fatalist Ice, standing over the dead body of the past, of Lord Kimura.