The Primeval Era-Chapter 128: Land and Sky IV

The reality before Damian was a surreal one.

He watched the scene ahead through eyes that crackled with blue flame, winged pupils perceiving flows of Mana and corruption in ways his human form could never have achieved.

The landscape had been transformed by his attack, scorched earth and crystallized stone replacing what had once been forests and hills. Smoke rose from a thousand points across the terrain.

And at the center of that devastation lay the demon.

The Kishi that had been so terrifying, so overwhelming, so utterly beyond his ability to harm with his spear... had turned into a dark scorched piece of meat. The combined form he had taken, multiple Land and Sky Physiques woven together with the Primordial Tongue, had accomplished what seemed impossible moments ago.

The creature that had melted chunks from a Beast Lord and corrupted entire regions of the Lands of Stone was now a charred mass twitching weakly amid the ruins of its domain.

But even now, the aura of that demon still felt suffocating.

Damian’s leonine nostrils flared as he sensed something wrong.

The mass was moving. Not the weak twitches of something dying, but purposeful motion beneath that blackened surface. He watched with growing unease as the charred exterior cracked and split, crimson light bleeding through the gaps.

A limb shot out from the mass.

It was malformed and incomplete, more bone than flesh, but it was unmistakably regenerating. The demon was trying to reform itself from what should have been fatal damage. That corrupted vitality, that refusal to simply die...oh!

He couldn’t allow such a terrible fucker to come back with its full power.

The thought burned through his mind with urgent clarity. His attack had wounded it grievously, yes. But wounded wasn’t dead. Wounded meant it could recover. Wounded meant it could return stronger, angrier, hungrier for the flesh and souls of those who had dared to harm it.

How could he turn it into ash that scattered across the Lands of Stone with surety?

His mind flickered with ideas and possibilities.

This form he had taken was still largely unexplored. He had acted on instinct when he unleashed that beam of golden-blue flame, drawing on powers he didn’t fully understand. The rivers of Mana still poured into him from all directions. The forge in his chest still burned with intensity that begged for release.

What else could this body do?

He thought of the flames that composed his mane, sacred fire from the Primordial Tongue burning endlessly around his leonine features. He thought of the golden lightning he had called from clouds he had conjured with nothing but will. He thought of the Crown floating above his head.

And then his eyes lit up brightly.

A surefire way emerged in his mind. It was crude. It was brutal. It was exactly what something like this deserved.

He moved.

Damian flew out rapidly across the scorched sky.

His massive form crossed the distance like a behemoth descending upon prey, nine tails streaming behind him and wings cutting through air that still tasted of corruption and ash.

The Crown of Kingship blazed above his head as he dove toward the regenerating mass below. Golden winds gathered in his wake, currents of Mana responding to his passage without conscious thought.

He appeared before the wriggling and healing Kishi Demon in an instant!

The creature sensed his approach. That malformed limb flailed toward him, trying to strike, trying to defend, trying to do anything against the predator that had descended upon it. Crimson light pulsed from the gaps in its charred exterior, corruption gathering for another assault.

It was too slow.

Damian opened his wide jaws.

The mouth of his lion form gaped impossibly large, fangs the size of spears framing an opening that seemed to stretch beyond physical limitations. Heat poured from that opening, the furnace in his chest venting its fury into the Lands. And before the demon could react, before it could reform enough to resist, he lunged forward and...

He swallowed it.

Behind him, Serala’s gasp carried across the battlefield.

The Holy Daughter stared with wing-shaped pupils wide in shock, her spear hanging forgotten in nerveless fingers.

She had never seen someone eat a demon before! Would that be good for you? That couldn’t possibly be good for you!

Masamuk’s obsidian body pulsed with something between shock and admiration. His crimson eyes fixed on Damian’s massive leonine form.

"Did he just..."

The slime’s voice emerged strangled and disbelieving as he shook his head!

"He fucking did!"

Inside Damian’s jaws, the world was a furnace.

The interior of his mouth burned with golden flames that roared inward from all directions, concentrated heat that would have vaporized ordinary matter instantly. The walls of his throat pulsed with the same fire, muscles contracting around the demon while power poured in from every surface.

The healing mass of the Kishi Demon found itself trapped in an inferno.

Golden flames surged toward it from above and below and every side, giving it nowhere to flee and no space to regenerate. The creature writhed within that prison of fire, its attempts at reformation being burned away faster than they could complete. Screams emerged from the mass, dual voices blending into something pitiful and enraged.

Damian sent his voice through waves of Mana, speaking directly into the mind of the thing he had consumed.

"I will stop if you tell me anything decent."

His mental voice carried cold authority.

"How many of you are there? Are all Imperators of the Dominion of Crimson Stone carrying Seeds of Demons? What are you planning?"

...!

The wriggling mass of the Kishi Demon roared in response.

Even trapped within his furnace, even being burned away by flames it couldn’t resist, the creature’s defiance remained absolute. Its dual voice screamed with hatred.

"You all will die!"

The handsome voice and the hyena voice merged into a single declaration of doom.

"Your souls will be consumed in fiendish brilliance! The Light of The Emperor shall paint the Lands of Stone!"

...!

The Light of The Emperor.

The words held weight that made Damian’s transformed body tense. This demon, even in its death throes, spoke of an Emperor. Not the Murderous Saint. Something else. Something that commanded the loyalty of beings from beyond the River of The World.

What had the Dominion of Crimson Stone truly allied themselves with?

But the demon offered nothing more. Its defiance was absolute. Its hatred was eternal. And a corrupted crimson light was beginning to spill from its mass, fighting against the golden flames that contained it.

Damian’s gaze became heavy.

His chest churned with power that demanded release.

He could feel the forge within his ribcage responding to the threat, heat accumulating beyond anything he had unleashed before. The demon thought it could resist him. The demon thought its corruption could overcome his flames. The demon was utterly wrong!

He unleashed concentrated lava-like golden flames into his jaws.

The fire intensified a hundredfold, pouring from his throat and filling every space the demon might have used to survive. The heat was beyond measurement now, beyond anything natural, beyond anything that belonged in the Lands of Stone.

And at the same time...

"Persevere."

HUUUM!

Blue flames rose up alongside the gold.

The sacred fire of the Primordial Tongue merged with the sovereign flames of his current body, two powers that should never have coexisted within the same being combining into something unprecedented.

The blue flames elevated it, and they purified it. They transformed already devastating destruction into something that could burn away existence itself.

These blue flames were even more terrifying in their potency and intensity!

They burned not just flesh but essence. They consumed not just matter but meaning. They reached into the core of what the demon was and declared that it would simply cease to be.

The mass of the Kishi Demon shriveled.

Its screams reached a crescendo of agony that would have shattered lesser minds. The corruption that had seemed so overwhelming moments ago withered before flames that predated corruption itself. Crimson light flickered and died. Malformed limbs dissolved into ash. The dual voices that had promised death and consumption and fiendish brilliance grew weaker and weaker.

And then they ceased entirely.

Seconds later, silence filled the furnace of Damian’s jaws.

He searched through the remains with senses that could perceive Mana in its most fundamental forms.

The demon was gone. Truly gone. Not regenerating. Not hiding. Not preparing for another assault. The Kishi that had erupted from Imperator Vienna’s corpse, that had corrupted an entire region, that had spoken of an Emperor and painted Lands of Stone... was nothing but ash now.

Nothing but ash and one other thing.

Inside the furnace of his jaws, he found the only object that hadn’t melted and scorched.

A dazzling crimson crystalline medallion.

It rested amid the ashes of the demon, its surface untouched by flames that had destroyed everything else. Runes covered its face. Power radiated from its core, corruption contained within crystal that refused to burn.

Damian stared at the medallion with his inner senses.

What was this thing?

And what did it mean that even his flames couldn’t destroy it?