BLASPHEMIA 8

BLASPHEMIA CHAPTER EIGHT

A phantom wind blew through across the monochrome Prototory reflection of the Saint Bethany’s quad, stirring the hair and clothes of those who had them. Lily turned to and fro as she struggled to get a look at her derriere. “Seriously, is my ass big?”

“Several thousand years lying dormant and the first thing you care about is how your butt looks,” Satan drawled. “Seems so appropriate for you, Lilith.”

Lily turned her head towards him. Her eyes narrowed, and both Nico and FIlia caught a glimpse of something old and ancient slithering behind her gaze. “You… I remember you.” She raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you use to be taller?”

Satan gave her a flat look. “Times change.”

“And you two.” She looked to the two Infernals. Her lips curled up in a small, demure smile. “Guess we had more in common than we realized at first, hm?”

“Aye,” Nico nodded. “Good to have you back, Lily. Or is it Lilith?”

Lily raised an arm and looked over herself. “I’m not sure. I am Lilith, yes. There is no crisis of identity for me. Yet I also am just Lily. It’s like I’m perfectly capable of being both at the same time, like they’re one in the same.”

Filia’s wings gave a little flutter. “Then what name do I call you when I’m knuckle deep in your-”

“Ahem!” All of them turned towards Judith, who was picking herself up out of the dirt again. “Maybe instead of immediately segueing back into your innuendo filled banter we could deal with the big goddamned problem!” She pointed with her dagger.

Azagthoth was on his hands and knees. He crawled towards them slowly, the motions jerky and unnatural, like a marionette manipulated by a drunkard. With every motion, a bit of him sloughed off, the flesh putrefying in milliseconds and sizzling with an acrid smell as it touched the ground. “So long,” he gurgled, the sound emanating not from his mouth but somewhere in his center mass. “So long without remembering, so long with a cohesive form… it’s maddening…” His voice had a metallic ring to it, yet with a wet undertone, like water sloshing around in a tin can.

“What the fuck is that?” Filia said, taking a step back.

Satan’s voice was surprisingly free of snark as he stepped forward, his own form warping and twisting. “Do you lot want to know the secret to killing a deity?”

“Inflicting copious amounts of pain until it dies?” Judith ventured.

“Outlasting it in a test of wills?” Nico guessed.

“Fucking it silly?” Filia asked.

“No, no, and no.” Lily flapped her wings and took flight. She held out her hands. One became surrounded by a soft, almost angelic glow. Around the other coalesced a swirling, writhing darkness. “You make it forget. For if an immortal forgets what it is, it loses itself and with it, it’s power.”

“And I forget no longer!” With one final, violent spasm, Azagthoth came undone. His physical body was ripped to pieces in a heartbeat as his true form burst from within, an infinite vortex of thick, barbed tentacles that spread for miles in an instant. They coiled and writhed, whipping through the air faster than mortal eyes could track.

Lily raised her light hand and a dense bubble of light bloomed around them, the tentacles slapping against it with dull thuds and creating pulses of power where they struck. “How much longer?” she asked Satan.

“Not much,” he grunted.

In the center – or at least, what they perceived as the center – of the tentacle mass, a single, giant eye opened. It had no lid. The pupil was jagged and irregular – Nico thought it looked like the classic radioactive symbol on barrels of nuclear waste. It shifted constantly as it bored into them. “Pathetic creature. You cannot hold me at bay forever, not any more!”

“Seriously, what the fuck is this thing?” Filia shrieked.

“It’s name is Azathoth,” Satan said. “They say the biggest lie ever told is that I tricked everyone into believing there’s a God to give people hope that there’s a way to escape me.” His skin turned tomato red, hardening as his body expanded. Jagged horns burst from his forehead and curled regally up over the crown of his skull. “Not even close. The biggest lie ever told was that there was nothing before God came about. Oh there were things, alright. Things so great and terrible that He had to force them to forget what they were less they tear Creation a new one.”

“One letter!” Azathoth roared. “By one letter you stripped my name from me, my power, my purpose! I shall subject you to torments your pathetic mind cannot even fathom, Infernal!” Those tentacles battered against Lily’s shield again and she grunted.

Nico and Filia braced themselves. “And how did He do that exactly?” Nico asked.

Satan rolled his shoulders with a meaty pop. He was in full form now, twenty feet tall with his great bat-like wings spread wide. “Not sure,” he admitted. “He never told me. But figuring things out on the fly has always been my specialty.”

Lily reached out her hand to the Infernals. “Take my hand, you two. Let us fight this monstrosity together.”

As Nico and Filia did, Judith grunted and dropped into a fighting crouch. “Well, guess this is it for me then. One swipe of those things and I’m paste.”

The hand suffused with light was extended to the demon hunter. “I hold both powers,” Lily said. “You will survive this, hunter.”

Judith hesitated for a second, then shrugged. “Eh. What have I to lose?” she said, and grabbed hold.

The moment she did, both demon hunter and the Infernals felt as though a circuit had been completed between them. Judith and Filia’s hair stood on end, and Nico felt as though someone had jammed power lines into every inch of his exposed skin. The three of them jerked wildly, their hands practically welded to Lily’s. Memories flashed through their heads as power poured into their beings – a hedge maze, a serpent, a wide vastness of sand and heat that stretched from horizon to horizon. Flashes of beings great and terrible, formless voids and eyes floating free of faces.

When it was done, Lily yanked her hands away. The Infernals sucked deep breaths into their mouths as they collapsed against the side of the light bubble, their bodies shifting and changing. Nico’s wings sprouted anew, bursting from his back like newborn plants. There was no pain, only a euphoria as his body became that of an ascended demon again. Beside him, Lily was back to her fuller figure, her own wings sharpening up into bony points and her hair growing lustrous and long.

Slowly, the Infernals picked themselves up, feeling their power resurgent. Nico clenched his fist, and called upon two fiery swords that manifested in his hands. He stared down at them, testing their weight. “How is this possible?”

“You poured your power into me,” Lily said, running her hands down Nico’s back. “Among other things.”

Filia’s shadows came back to her like loyal hounds, draping over her shoulders like a scarf and winding along her arms to hang down, ready to be shaped as she willed them. “How is this happening, though?”

Lily stepped past the succubus to stand at Satan’s side. Somehow, the big demon had produced another pair of oversized sunglasses that sat on the end of his nose, obscuring his fiery eyes. “Think of me like… a battery, if you will. All I needed was a bit of charge from the two of you, and now that I have that, I’m perfectly capable of generating power on my own.” She flexed her fingers. “And trust me, I can generate a lot.”

A heavy tentacle smashed into the bubble, and a large crack appeared in the glowing surface. “Get ready!” Satan rumbled.

“What about Judith?” Filia asked, turning her head.

Another heavy tentacle smash shattered the bubble like glass, and their world became slick, oily flesh as heavy tentacles scattered them apart. Nico hung on grimly as he flew through the air at ludicrous speed. A heavy tentacle slammed down against his back, as if Azathoth was trying to pancake him.

As it lifted, he got his feet under him and balanced on the thick length of flesh. When the tentacle came down again, he caught it with both hands. It’s weight bore down on him, his legs screaming in pain at the mass pressing down on him. Nico roared and pushed up, managing to throw the tentacle off him. As it came down again, he held his two swords above him in an X shape and caught the tentacle on it. A quick motion scissored the tentacle off.

Almost immediately, another rushed at him. Nico jumped off the tentacle he stood on and flapped his wings, the motion making him shoot high up into the fleshy chaos. At the apex of his flap, he tucked his wings in, turned over, and fell. Tentacles rushed up to meet him. With a thought, the long swords in his hands grew longer and heavier, until they were more hunks of metal than swords.

Nico used the motion of his fall and twisted his shoulders until his arms hurt. The motion made him spin like a top, and the velocity of the massive swords turned him into a demonic buzz saw as he fell. All the tentacles that came at him were sliced apart like sushi. Gore streaked his crimson skin, and his whole body felt hot. He was a full-fledged demon again, full of power and-

A heavy tentacle drove into his chest and completely altered his momentum. The blow pulverized his rib cage into gravel, and Nico’s breathing hitched as he was borne deep within the morass of flesh around him. Deeper and deeper he went, the tentacles become barbed and slicing his flesh to ribbons. For a moment, he began to panic.

A blinding beam of light sheared through the tentacles and sliced through them like an industrial laser. Azathoth’s screech of pain was deafening. Nico planted his feet and flapped his wings powerfully, shooting up to hover next to Lily, who had been the source of the attack. “Thanks,” Nico panted, his wounds itching as they healed.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Lily said. “We’re nowhere near done yet.”

Nico looked down. Filia flitted to and fro beneath them, her chains snapping and slicing any eldritch flesh that came close to her. Beyond the succubus, close to Azathoth’s massive eye, Satan himself battled, his fists pulverizing tentacles that came close to him, exploding them into plumes of foul-smelling ichor. He turned and waved a hand, and hellfire surged forth and reduced more to ash.

But still more flesh slithered forth to consume them, and Nico and Lily scattered. Nico reduced his swords to more manageable forms as he hacked away at Azathoth, twisting and turning in midair to avoid getting caught off-guard. Lily was a whirlwind of destruction, beams of light and shadow from her hands slicing tentacles off or causing them to wither and decay in moments.

The two of them came together, back to back in midair as more tentacles surged towards them. “There’s no end to them,” Nico panted, blinking tentacle ichor out of his eyes.

“That’s the whole point,” Lily said, summoning another shield bubble around the two of them so they could catch their breath. “Azathoth is one of the oldest and most terrible of the Before Gods. He is infinite. There is no end to his mortal form.”

Nico shot her a look. “Then how do we stop him?”

“Like I said, we have to make him forget who he is, only for a moment.” LIly shook out her shoulders, then gave Nico a wry look and tapped her forehead. “Can’t remember anything if you don’t have a brain.”

Nico looked down at the massive eye, the pupil locked on Satan as he fought the tentacle assault bare-handed. “I’m guessing that’s where we have to hit.”

“Bingo.”

Nico sighed. “This is going to suck, isn’t it?”

“Probably. But think about this.” Lily squeezed Nico’s bicep and pressed into his side. “We win, you and Filia get to fuck me for real this time.”

Well, if ever there was a motivation, that was it.

Lily dropped the shield, and the two of them angled their bodies down towards Satan and Azathoth’s eye. As they fell past Filia, Nico reached out and grabbed the succubus’s leg. She yelped as she was yanked downwards, moving to lash whatever was grabbing her with her chains before she recognized them. “What are we doing?” she asked.

Nico looked up at his succubus companion and grinned. “We’re gonna kill a god.”

Filia grinned. “Awesome!”

Down they plunged, the eye growing ever larger in their vision. The pupil was still locked on Satan as he fought. Nico held out his swords in front of him, Filia formed her shadows into a long lance, and Lily pressed her hands together, the light and shadows swirling together in a vortex of power.

The massive pupil of the eye swung over to the three of them. Nico went still, petrified mid-dive. His wings refused to flap, and a loud buzzing noise sounded in his head. The eye grew closer and closer, until it took up his entire field of vision. Then the pupil slid out of the way, and there was only white.

Nico crashed into something that felt like water. He righted himself and surfaced, feeling water up to his chest, yet when he looked around, he felt as though he was floating in a void of white. He twisted and turned. “Filia!” he yelled. “Lily! Lord Satan!”

No answer came to him. Nico reached out to try and start swimming, but all he did was turn head over heels in place, as if gravity moved with him. He turned again, and tried to summon some of his demonic power. It defied his grip, flowing away from him like water. “This is a trick,” he muttered to himself as he tried again. “An illusion.”

“Is it?” his own voice said.

Nico spun around, suddenly finding himself standing on what felt like solid ground, yet there was still no surface beneath him. Facing him was… himself. But a different him, the scrawnier, lower version of him he had been before he and Filia had ever set foot in Saint Bethany’s. “What is this?” he muttered.

“A reflection,” the other him said. He lifted his arm, and Nico did the same, both of them pressing their palms together. “You trifled with powers you cannot comprehend. Now, you will perish here.”

A chill prickled along Nico’s shoulders. “What?”

The other him held out his free hand, and Nico’s body followed the motion. A small sword, the small one that used to be all he was capable of, flashed into being in his reflection’s hand. The same sword appeared in his own. “You are weak, Nicodemus. An Infernal out of your depth against a power so ancient and terrible it forestalled the creation of existence itself. How can you hope to win against such a thing?” Slowly, the reflection turned the short sword over in his hand, Nico’s body following the motion no matter how much his mind resisted.

“We’ll… find… a way…” Nico grunted.

The reflection shook his head. “No. You will not.”

Then he, and Nico with him, rammed the short swords into their chests.

Filia wandered through an endless maze. She had no idea how long she had been lost within its confines. It could have been a day. It could have been a millennium. There was no telling how much time had passed. The white walls outlined in gray never stopped, no matter how much she wandered or how high she tried to fly.

Her body had grown old and decrepit, and she was disgusted with herself. Her supple skin had grown spotted and wrinkled, her breasts sagging with their age. Her hair had gone gray, the ends fraying. Like a human.

Every so often, she would catch a glimpse of herself in the corner of her vision. The real her, the one with perfect skin and perfect tits, hair that shone in the light and an ass that men would start wars over. That version of her would stand there, beckoning to her like a lover, but when Filia would run towards it, to try to catch the reflection, it would vanish. Each time, she felt a little more of herself slip away, devoured by a mouth unseen with an insatiable hunger.

Slowly, her steps faltered, then stopped completely as she fell to her knees. Her gnarled fingernails scratched the papery skin of her face as she clutched her head in her hands, wracking sobs closing her throat. Her mind felt close to the breaking point, like a skull underneath a boot. She knew that the next time she saw her old self, it would break her.

Footsteps echoed close to her. “Poor thing,” her own voice cooed. Soft, slender fingers touched the backs of her hands. “I’m here now. You can look.”

Filia resisted the overwhelming urge to look. “No,” she whispered.

The finger touch turned insistent, curling around the edges of her palms. They weren’t soft anymore, and felt cold and slimy, like tentacles. “Look. At. Me.”

The succubus curled in on herself. “No no no…”

“You will behold this!” Those hands grabbed hers and tried to wrench them away from her face. Filia resisted with what little strength she had left.

There was a loud squelching noise, and the grip on her hands relaxed. Something pattered on the void floor, echoing like rain on a roof. “Disgusting,” a haughty voice said.

Filia looked up. Before her, wreathed in golden light, was Judith. Her short dagger had become a resplendent golden sword, dripping with black ichor. Hewn in half at her feet was the phantom reflection of herself, decaying rapidly and turning to ash that flaked away.

“On your feet,” Judith said. Her eyes were suffused with golden light. “I need you to give me an opening, succubus. This thing won’t forget I’m here for much longer.”

Filia blinked, and suddenly the maze was on fire, and Judith was gone.

Then she blinked again, and she was back in the seething vortex of tentacled chaos. Her body was wrapped in layers of tentacles, one of them shoved down her throat like a fleshy IV tube. Beside her, similarly wrapped, were Nico and Lily, their eyes glassy as they endured their own internal torments. Before them, Satan was still battling valiantly, although he was a half-step slower than he had been before. Azathoth being able to focus on him exclusively was wearing the Dark Lord thin.

“Kneel, Infernal!” Azathoth thundered.

“Kiss my resplendent red ass!” Satan responded.

Filia gathered her might and directed her shadows outward. They burst from her body in a wide nova, the lengths shredding the tentacles around her and her companions. Filia flapped powerfully, streaking past Satan with her shadows trailing around her. “You forced me to look at an ugly version of myself!” she roared. “I’ll kill you for that!”

“Insolence!” Azathoth battered her with powerful blows from his tentacles, sending Filia reeling backwards. One wrapped around her waist and three others clubbed her upper body heavily. Filia her something crack with each blow, pain making her entire being reel.

Then Nico was there, freeing her with three swipes of his burning swords. Lily let out a loud battle cry as she put her hands together and fired off a beam of light and shadow right into Azathoth’s eye, and the Before God roared in pain. Satan gave a great leap and punched the eye, earning another roar of pain for his efforts. He landed, spun around, and added a thick beam of hellfire to Lily’s. The smell of burning meat filled the air.

“You okay?” Nico asked her.

Filia’s body repaired itself in moments and she spat out a mouth of blood. “Just fine! Let’s kill this asshole!”

“Go, go!” Lily yelled, pouring on the pressure with her beam of power.

Nico and FIlia took off as one, streaking towards Azathoth’s eye like crimson comets, aiming right for the distorted pupil. They felt one another’s might, and knew that if they struck true, it would be over.

Two of Azathoth’s tentacles plucked them out of the air as if they were nothing.

“Oh, come on, augh!” Filia screamed as the tentacle began to squeeze them together. Nico hacked and slashed at the flesh, but it was dense enough and his angle was wrong that he made no progress.

Azathoth’s great pupil looked directly at them, despite the Infernal power searing into it.

“I will unmake you!” the Before God roared. Bright purple power flared into existence in front of his pupil.

THE END OF CHAPTER EIGHT