by Amanda Churi
“On the outside, you are a weapon,” Justus continued. “A vital instrument needed to win not only this war but your last. Because think: if you were as weak as you say you are…” His voice trailed off as he carefully retracted his arm from his apprentice, huffing contently as Griffin digested his new frame with eyes broad and jaw dropped. “You wouldn’t have given up your arm in the first place.”
In spite of the falling world around him, Griffin smiled, chuckling lightly under his breath as he twisted his wrist and held his arm up high, his blue eyes shining as they swallowed the sparks of electricity fluttering about his hand—or solid titanium sledgehammer.
“We can’t go to the forest above ground, no,” Justus elaborated, crossing his arms and snorting smugly. “But Griffin can take us there below.”
He snapped out of his trance in an instant. “Wait, what?! N-no! I mean, this is awesome, yeah, but break walls? How can I—?!”
Embry giggled gaily, grabbing Griffin by the shoulders and pushing him through the crowd, using her bright purple eyes to light the way. She positioned him at the face of a wall, sticking him there and keeping him in place so that he had no choice but to stare at his daunting opponent who was composed entirely out of ice-stricken rock.
The sight silenced Griffin’s frivolous protests that Embry would hear none of. Grunting, Griffin looked to his sledgehammer of a fist, biting his lip as he alternated his sight between his weapon and his prey. This is nuts… I can’t just knock a whole wall down.
“One would be surprised what focus brings to the mind,” Embry offered.
Griffin sharply looked over his shoulder. “H-how did you…?”
“Oh, how poorly at hiding your emotions you do!” Embry took a step forward, resting her flawless hand on the slab of stone before them. “If only you attempted such deep camouflage around Steel a bit more—it would put ample less strain on my circuitry system, haha!”
Griffin grinned shyly, caressing his hammer with fleshy fingers. “You know, I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, Embry.”
“Most likely not. Sifting through billions of lines of code is tedious work for any mortal.” She dipped her head, smiling and puckering her silver lips. “Now, focus, my dear friend… Take a deep inhale… Shut thy lids, and allow the vast energy of the universe to flow into thee palm…”
Listening, Griffin mirrored her movements, hearing the horde of survivors come shuffling up behind him, exchanging both excited and nervous chatter as they watched the two forgeries become one with their thoughts.
He blocked them out, muffled their worries and snickers as he delved as far into his brain as his consciousness would allow him. He ordered any strength he had in him to come flooding back… Any hidden courage or thinly-spread reason… Now was not the time to grieve or drown in regret. There would be a time for that, and when it hit, he knew it would be catastrophic, but right now, he had to think about what was important.
Laelia was gone, and she was not coming back—neither was his arm or, in many instances, his pride after so many mistakes.
But Eero and Mabel, his last true friends left, they were only missing—there was a chance they still held air to their lungs and blood to their veins, and no matter how slim, that chance was precisely what he would grasp for the rest of this battle. To prove his worth, show his hidden strength, and to continue redeeming himself—after all, he was the Resilient Scourge.
Pupils shooting vertical and irises falling black, Griffin threw his head up and eyes open as he swung, a sphere of electricity surrounding his fist as he propelled the hammer into the wall. The strength behind his scorned heart and the abilities backing the weaponry were too vast for even the toughest of opponents, the wall shrieking and crumbling to his anger and drive as strike by strike he relentlessly plowed forward, never pushed harder by anything else.
Because even though time was running out, Time itself was immortal—Griffin, Mabel, and Eero were not—
And that gave him everything to fight for.
Three
A Devil’s Pilgrimage
They insisted on cuffs, magical bindings, seals—anything of the sort to make sure that I would not try anything sly.
A few more broken bones and forms smashed into critical condition finally got the point across. If the vermin within me could not take control, what in Heaven made some petty demons think that their outcome would be any different? Not only had their strength taken a hit throughout the years, but their intelligence had been utterly slaughtered as well.
Korbu led the way to the gates with me directly behind, silent and observant as I swallowed my environment from every access port. Those unfortunate enough to find themselves in this realm most all suffered the same fate: tilling the fields filled with nothing but nutrient barren clay and nourishing them with the toxic water from the rivers that slowly and viciously destroyed the soul if the two made contact. Only three plants used to grow in such a hazardous environment: devil’s claw, cannabis, and belladonna—berries that usually brought on death, but if consumed here, offered nothing but never-ending, morbid hallucinations worse than one’s pathetic existence—but with eternally empty bellies, many chose to have nightmares rule their thoughts rather than hunger. Oh, and if they dared to take a puff of the luxurious leaves that were the sole rights of demons… Hehe, that’s a story for another time, but let’s just say they were subjected to what many commonly refer to as that “special place in Hell.”
But now, nothing grew. The crops that the damned used to harvest and transport to Earth were nothing more. There were frozen stalks scattered about the dry, crumbling red mounds, held up by the invasive ice that chained them down. No damned were seen as we crossed world after world of abandoned farmland; it was as though the land had been declared a total loss and given up by all.
I kept my eyes down, watching my prickly feet gracefully transition from a broken cobblestone pathway to a rickety bridge made up of frost-wedged planks that spanned a gap in the ground made by a nonexistent ravine. All that was left to show of its presence were the alternating horizons of soil and pollutant byproducts resting at the bottom dozens of feet below.
I took a quick, deep sniff. I couldn’t catch even the faintest trace of the souls that used to be terminated in these very regions—no blood, no tears, no nothing. “Has this method of soul disposal been abandoned?”
Korbu huffed, refusing to look back at me. “All methods have been abandoned. For thousands of years, the human race proved to be such a despicable thing that we never had to worry about getting rid of problems here and there—those lost would be replaced and then some. But now…” He sighed. “For the past eight hundred years, we have been unable to obtain new hands due to the merged worlds; we lose demon and damned at a horrific rate: the demons to the Proxez and the damned to freedom. They get past our thin forces and flee Hell, choosing to spend an eternity on Earth as pointless Eyla instead.”
My ears twitched, my sight instinctively narrowing on the back of his head where his long white locks swayed. “Merged worlds?”
Korbu closed his eyes, chortling under his breath. “Ah yes, you would have a gap in recollection…” Korbu stopped as we finished crossing the bridge, turning around with his purple irises shifting and blending. “Let’s just say that Reeve did this out of revenge.”
“Revenge for what?” I pressed, stiffening my neck as my head began to throb, a surge of messed up laughter rising within me.
I snarled quietly as the commotion strengthened, Korbu’s explanation drowned out by the distress within. What the Heaven are you all cackling about?
Irritated, I pulled my eyes slightly back into my skull, shifting my current view to that of my demon heart—or my exposed core.
Peering into the subconscious of my body, I leered at the fledglings surrounding my soul. They were snickering and dying with laughter as the golden, misty form of my body that was the very source of my existence slightly distorted. The fledglings were bolted to th
e neurons at their hands and feet by the powerful claws that I had slammed into each and every one to restrain them when they initially attacked me. In spite of their pain, they continued to laugh at me, relishing in my discomfort deep down.
Furious, I flexed my muscles, the black nails lodged within their bodies glowing. Inhaling deeply, my core parted its jaw; the power trapped within the bodies of my fledglings fled through their pinned wounds, channeling into the air as streams of mist before winding down my throat and allowing me to use their own energy against them. Still, they continued to thrash and hurl insults my way until I had drained so much of their power that they drooped like corpses, all while my core fluctuated, throbbing and beating as a strong, merciless heart.
My eyes returned to their normal state once I had reminded them of my dominance. My Satan, those fledglings would take any and every opportunity to try and break me. If even the smallest smidge of weakness shined through, they made me well aware of not only my flaws but how they could use those small gaps of confidence against me.
Keeping fledglings contained was no easy feat, and even if I could manage to retain control today, tomorrow, even next week, the fledglings would continue to awaken bit by bit, and then, one moment of weakness would be all that it would take to finish me.
Just get into the empire… I reminded myself. Have Him pardon you, and get rid of these things once and for all!
“Are you done looking in the mirror?” Korbu jested, crossing his lanky arms and flashing a set of rotten teeth my way.
The anger initially directed at my fledglings turned on him. I bared my slick fangs. “What do you mean by Reeve wanting revenge?”
“Eero, Reeve wasn’t only ill toward Satan for not allowing her to return… She was equally, if not more, disgusted with you. After all, had you not got in the way, we would have had Maeve a long, long time ago.” He turned his back on me, motioning me onward. “She turned her gifts against us—empowered herself during the longest night of a cycle while the moon hid. She played her cards flawlessly, even going as far as preserving herself and her Deceiver for further exploitation—anything to make us pay.”
“Deceiver…?” I grumbled. “What the heck is a—?”
“You should know. You met her.”
“You mean… My human host did.”
“And you. She looked you dead in the eye as she lost everything.”
I tried to speak, but I could not find the means to express my thoughts. I had killed so many people on my many expeditions to Earth—tortured many more. How was I supposed to remember one insignificant pawn?
I spat at my feet. Whatever, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was me regaining my glory, kneeling as He forgave me, and returning to my shop, ready to make some badass weaponry with all of the new inspiration I had found. I paid for my sins, and I had learned beyond reason from them. What was ahead of me was now my future and nothing else.
“I’m just ready to get back to forgery,” I stated casually, folding my buff arms behind my head and staring up at the unseen sky. “Thousands of years in dormancy brings out a slew of ideas for combat.”
“Even if by some chance you were spared, He would never entrust you as blacksmith again. You betrayed us once, and keeping you out of the workshop to spare ourselves of a literal ax to the back is the least we can do.”
I huffed. “Well, who’s been running it since my banishment?”
Korbu’s head dipped hardly a degree. “No one. You never had an apprentice, and no one knew how to make anything of your caliber.”
Content, I grabbed my tail, twirling it like a lasso as Coruscus beamed, creating luminescent rings. “In all those years, none of you could figure out how to forge items with Hell’s fires? How to use the power of our very soul? That’s a bit pathetic, no?”
Korbu snarled. “Not all of us are suicidal bastards. Unlike you, I admire my existence. I wouldn’t throw it all away over some girl—certainly not a goodie-two-shoes like Maeve.”
I rolled my eyes, scoffing. “I’ll be sure to remind you of that next time your mouth is watering over a succubus—”
Korbu whipped around. He growled and snapped at my face, narrowly missing my nose as his teeth shattered against one another, crumbling and falling out of his steaming mouth. “You never shut up; you always run your mouth and don’t comply with protocol because you think you are so worldly.” He bunched his hand into a fist, his skin crumbling away like sand to reveal stained bone. “I can’t wait until Satan rips your head from your body, and then this never-ending worry over your menacing presence can finally cease.”
“Korbu…” a shi demon lurking behind spoke up. “Control yourself. This is Father’s matter.”
“Indeed…” a lower-ranking demon added. “The last thing we need is Him lashing out on you as well. Just ignore the moron.”
Korbu took a deep breath, shooting me one last piercing glare before throwing his fist down and whirling around, marching off into the distance at a hasty pace. “Hard to ignore someone who acts greater than Satan Himself…”
I snickered contently, briefly closing my eyes and following Korbu with a slight skip in my step. Ah, it may have changed, but it still felt great to be back and resume my duty of being a pain in everyone’s ass.
I was a respected pain prior to being put to sleep, sure, but this new rebellious side that I had discovered just felt so glorious. Before, I was always cooped up in my cave, creating top-tier weapons for the uprising that Satan had been planning right from the moment He was cast from the skies. Not going to lie, I enjoyed my job as head forger with every evil fiber on my skull, but constantly working took me out of the action, so whenever I was given an assignment, I prided myself in doing a good job—while having a bit of fun and causing a ruckus along the way, of course. I wouldn’t be a real demon if I didn’t enjoy the misery of others.
“Here we are.”
I pulled myself away from my glorious memories. A spiraling staircase constructed from the rotten bones of humans twisted and turned around a pillar of skeletons and frozen flesh, reaching up into infinity for hundreds of feet until it vanished into the dark ceiling.
“Nortora is just above,” Korbu grumbled. “Come on.”
I paused at the first step, raising an eye as I watched him ascend to the city of Hell that lay just beyond. I wondered how it would look now compared to how I had last seen it. If the working lands had been decimated so badly…
I looked over my shoulder, back to the barren fields. Then what could possibly be the fate of Nortora?
An imp headbutted me in the calf. I looked down, honing in on its twisted, shriveled face. “Get moving!” it squawked.
My eyes burned, and reluctantly, I did as I was told, looking back ahead of me and grabbing the bone-constructed rail with crushing force. I smirked deviously, preparing to take my first step, and then I had a lovely change of heart, throwing my foot back and punting the imp as hard as I could, chuckling at the sound of its high-pitched, fading scream.
Before the other demons could attempt to reprimand me, I followed Korbu’s lead, remaining a fair distance back. Instead of fretting over whatever I was about to see, I thought of Satan and what on Hell I could say to Him—how to make my speech slick and my offering all the more appealing to guarantee my survival.
And if He prompted for my execution… Heh. No, I wasn’t the ruler of this dimension, but I was one of Satan’s closest followers when He was known as Lucifer, and, hence, I knew Him better than most all. I would be just fine.
Besides, I was the only forger to ever master using Hell’s flames to create the deadliest of weapons. Coruscus was the first made using such a risky method. I remembered gathering up the damned who had been unlucky enough to touch the acidic rivers of fertile death, taking their dissipating bodies into my workshop and smelting them, listening to their screams and laughing uncontrollably as the remains of their souls were crystallized under such robust heat and pressure. The blade… I soaked it i
n the lake of magma, and the power, its consciousness… It came from my very soul.
I remembered the agony—my burning and temporarily crippled body as I reached into my head and picked off a fragment of my life source, infusing it within Coruscus to create the ultimate weapon… One attached to my tail, my being, that could draw its strength from its master and fight alongside me—two warriors instead of one, inseparable. Satan would remember what value I was to the empire when I would soon kneel before Him… My potential and deadly wit would be recalled and be the trump cards in keeping me alive.
And if that didn’t do it, perhaps terminating the fire mage would satisfy His thirst instead.
Korbu reached the peak of the stairs, exiting the steps of marrow and sinking his feet into thick, goopy black ash, saturated by the remnants of melted ice. Head high and chest out, I followed the head shi, moving Coruscus so that it was held up beside me. The piece of my life force locked within its blade beamed as a warning, cloaking me in shadows and deceit as I stealthily stalked forward, releasing heavy, husk breaths with a gnarled smile on my sharp face.
The gate loomed high and mighty ahead, embedded within a wall of scorched marble. The silver rods were polished and in tip-top shape, the spires on the arched top sharp and pulsing with gentle, vibrant red flames. Two shis manned the entrance, one shielding each door with necks perched and hands behind their backs. They stood in a wide, daunting stance with golden plates of armor shielding their pitiful, deteriorated muscles; their violet eyes captured no light, slick and reflective as a gust tousled the small white buns atop their heads, a dual-ended dagger smelted from meteorite sticking directly through the center.