Something inside Arridon broke at that moment. Thistle always said he had a short fuse, and she wasn’t wrong; Arridon was quick to throw hands when he felt slighted, or if he or his family was threatened, but this was something entirely different. This was rage. This was fury. This monster—this bastard—had lusted after his sister in life, and now, in whatever monstrous form he was in after his death, he still came for her.
And it was his job to protect his family.
And his friends.
He summoned the power inside him.
His jaw shook, his hands curled and clenched and he felt the hairs on his arms and neck stand on end as the heat within his body soared. His vision narrowed, always with the charging, tentacle-covered man-spider at its center. The buildings on the dark world disappeared, then the sky and ground, leaving only the reddened, maddened, apocalyptic hatred of Sebastian’s twisted eyes.
As Kalandar growled out a battle challenge and raised his sword, and as Timtar scattered to flank the approaching abomination with pistol made of flowers, Arridon tried desperately to hold on to the reality-splitting power he knew he was about to lose control over.
“A thousand curses from the depths of the Stygian Realms upon you! Your foul ichor consumes no one and nothing on this darkened day! Face me, your better, the Champion of Ardinia. I am Kalandar, breaker of dimensions, destroyer of worlds, soul-eater of ghouls, the right-hand demon to the possessor, first of my kind to go forth into the wilds and return. I am the bringer of chaos into order, the slaughterer of Bazzaros, and second kin to Denderia, (she of the famed raid on the heavens). Fabled defender of the Red Witch; my exploits so legendary as to span multiple tomes. I have borne witness to the descent and will be there for the ascent. My might so feared, my—“
Sebastian had crossed the impossibly far distance during Kalandar’s arrogant monologue, and the demon—for all his accolades—was hit with a tremendous smashing blow by the champion of the Bleed.
The crash of a thousand pounds of muscle, shell, tentacle and fang into the demon-enchanted steel Kalandar wore reverberated through the streets, ringing the ears of the mortals present. Spikes of bone and chitin dented the ancient armor as if it were pot-metal as Kalandar was thrown onto his back, Sebastian atop him. The messiah of all-world’s end reared up on his forest of bent legs and began slashing and smashing down with his crab-claws and arms.
The demon parried, blocked, and punched up with fervent power, somehow retaining his wherewithal during the furious, terrifying assault. His gauntlets turned away the majority of the bludgeoning, but he had but two arms; Sebastian had arms upon arms, and legs that worked of their own accord, slashing, stabbing, pinching, cutting, and murdering without any sense of restraint or sanity.
Ten yards distant, Timtar aimed his dainty pistol and let free its power. A burst of fine, glittering dust erupted from the flower at the weapon’s tip, a yard long. Like a laser beam made of some kind of pollen or metallic sand hit Sebastian just below one of his several armpits, splashing onto his shell and hide like spilled paint. The unassuming half demon fired several more blasts with remarkable calm, hitting the monster atop his father center mass, covering one whole side of it with a polychromatic skin of alien substance. Within moments, the colors ran together, shimmering and bright, illuminating the world in the dead city with a light it hadn’t seen in millennia. The juxtaposition of color and wonder in a situation of such violence and darkness jarred.
Sebastian slowed his assault as his claws and tentacles, one by one, peeled off to itch and scratch at the luminous substance that irritated him. His irritation became pain then turned into panicked fury. He leapt off of Kalandar like a fleeing tick, crossing the entire street, landing on the side of the building opposite, ten feet above the ground. He had landed above Timtar. The half demon scrambled, running away from the enormous creature of the Bleed that could drop down on him. He slipped, sputtered and sprinted, trying to get back to where his father was getting up, and where Arridon stood statue-still, shaking with fits of obvious growing power within.
Enormous cerulean beams of crashing light thundered down into the street a hundred yards away, exploding the synthetic road surface in a circular shape, and tossing rock, plastic and refuse into the sky. The shockwave of the blast hurled the idle dust and dirt into the air, weaponizing it. Timtar caught the gust straight into his eyes, and the grit blinded him. He cried out and put his empty hand to his face to try and clear the debris out. The sky shook.
“Rainbows and flowers?” Sebastian cursed as his tentacles wiped away the offending substance and flung it off. As he said, the colorful coating had begun to grow flowers. Where the paint landed, the flowers kept growing. Life takes root.
“Your tenacity is applaudable, as are your many sharp limbs,” Kalandar praised. “But you are neither strong enough nor skilled enough. Here is where you die, champion of entropy.” The demon lowered his enormous blade in a two-handed hold, aiming the point at Sebastian. “Incendicare!” he grunted, and a terrible gout of flame materialized at the terminus of his sword.
The stream of liquid fire arced over the entire avenue and crashed into Sebastian, flattening him against the side of the building he clung to. The force of the strike, coupled with the resulting flames on his body knocked the Bleed’s monster from the side of the alien structure. He fell to the ground, writhing, screaming, limbs askew and wild.
