“Um, we got trouble, guys!” May squeaked.
Bianca was too concentrated to notice the swarm of bugs that Pestilence had breathed through his cracked black lips. The bugs, an unidentified species, carried some kind of disease that, when they made contact with the skin, made it blister and split. I knew this because each bug to ravage my own made these welts erupt over my hands, neck, and face. Bianca screamed out when she saw them collect on my body and lost her concentration, sending every ounce of poison right back into my lungs.
“Bianca, focus! We need him to beat these guys, and if he’s out of the game this early, this whole planet goes to shit!” Claude barked, which snapped her back into focus.
Once she finished pulling the toxins from me, Stark gave me a good heal to aid the blistering wounds before sending me back into the fight, though he was reluctant to do so. Jackson and Claude had their elements wrapped around each of Pestilence’s arms, which made him unable to summon more bugs at the very least. Bexley and I summoned black tar-like smoke and swallowed Pestilence’s hands in it, which made him howl with anger and thrash against the holds.
“How’s it going over here, guys?” Odysseus huffed as he and the other Life Gods joined us. He was horrified to see my blistered skin but thankfully kept his comments to himself.
“We're working on it!” I heaved as I used as much of that thick tar as possible to wrap Pestilence’s hands. Bexley moved onto his legs, flooding them, though he kept kicking out of the substance.
“Nick, leave him to us. Soren really needs some help with War!” Praxis called to me.
“I think I have bigger concerns at the moment!” I yelled back.
“Oh, really? Cause all of Gehenna was just released onto a catastrophic battlefield!”
“Fuck me...!” I snarled to myself before pulling back my attack. “Odysseus: you guys need to keep him tied down. Keep his mouth and hands covered no matter what. Bexley: stay here and keep trying to keep him stillwhile I handle War.”
“You summon me the second you need me, do you understand?” she scolded, coming over to grab my face and squeeze my cheeks to get her point across.
I kissed her trembling hand with a nod. “I will, I swear.”
“Same for us. Don't fight this fight alone, Nick. We can help,” Zephryine reminded me.
I gave them one solid nod. “Then, Mom, come with me. Odysseus: stay and keep healing Humans with Erasmus. Bianca: join Praxis and the Wind Gods to help heal save some Humans.Mom can try and help me with Dad and the Life Elementals battling the demons.”
“Let’s get to it,” Mom declared firmly, summoning her beautiful sword.
1. Exi et purga hunc mundum a peccatis suis: Go forth and cleanse this world from its sins
Chapter twenty-one
The End of the World
Nicodemus
In the middle of the United States, a battle unlike anything I’d ever seen was consuming the dry landscape of the Mojave Desert. Bodies upon bodies of fallen Life Elementals, Humans, and demons coated the ground, their blood oozing from wounds sustained from the attack. War, or Asher, watched from above, his red-stained cloak blowing in the wind.
His eyes were alive from the chaos he consumed, and his skin glistened under the sunlight breaking through the thick clouds overhead. His midnight hair clouded a chocolate face with razor-sharp white eyes that glowed with hunger at the destruction he caused. At his side, his blood-covered sword gleamed a vibrant Gehenna-red, pulsing with power unimaginable to normal beings.
Below him, Humans battled on the sand, while demons and Life Elementals battled in the sky. Gold turned crimson when demons tore through the flesh of Mom’s beloved Elementals,and each time one fell, her hunger to end this grew more intense. She pulled her own sword free and sliced it through the air, which sent a powerful wave of light energy through the battle zone. Each demon it sawed through screeched before burning to a crisp, purified by the light of Caelum.
“I’ll handle the battlefield while you go for War! Try and block the opening from Gehenna so demons stop coming out!” Mom commanded as she prepared herself for the battle.
“Are you sure you can handle it, feisty?” I teased with a wink.
She let out a dark laugh and whipped her sword three times. “Don’t underestimate your mother, Nicodemus. I’m a God for a reason.” She flashed as a ray of light into the fray, and once she reappeared, her sword powered through three demons at once.
I huddled up with my Shadows. “Ok guys, let’s think about this logically. Soren, Blaine, and Constantine are trying to tame Gehenna, so we need to start there. Alice can help them and me with getting demons back down there. May: you team up with Xenobia, Elizabeth, and Halcyon and put out as much of the fires erupting on the battlefield as you can. Stark: join Mom on the battlefield, as she needs all the help she can get from Elementals that can actually fight demons. Claude and Jackson: you guys need to distract War while I get Gehenna under control.”
“On it!” everyone declared before dispersing.
Alice and I weaved through the intense fighting to the large rift in the atmosphere, where hundreds of demons, led by Decimus, Elias, and Isadora, were flooding the opening. Soren and Constantine held both ends of the rift and were trying to sew it together, but the rift kept fighting them and tearing back open. Blaine was occupied with battling with the swarms. He breathed fire in huge waves to try and scare them back, but they only danced through his attacks and split to shed more blood.
Isadora saw me through the chaos and covered her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks rapidly. “I’m so sorry, Nicodemus, I’m so sorry!”
“What are you guys doing? Pull back, immediately!” I bellowed as I grabbed Isadora’s arm and wrenched her back towards Gehenna.
