The Dark World

Chapter 27: The battle of them all

Marisoll

It felt good being between the two of them, I felt safe. Cairn murmured, “good job we did not take too long, or mystic Zerena might have stumbled upon us.”

My eyes shot to his and I whispered, “what if that’s why she left? What if she knew what we would get up, what if she had a vision?”

Both Cairn and Ezekiel looked at me with ‘oh s.hit’ faces and then mystic Zerena returned and they both sort of lowered themselves and tried hiding their faces against me to avoid looking or speaking to her.

We did finally get some rest, not much, but enough to carry on into the underbelly of this wretched place.

The air felt cold and damp, but the air smelt like sulphur and almost something akin to burning wood.

We kept close against the wall as we walked along, careful not to fall into the abyss below us. I had thought we had reached the bottom when fighting those spiders, but it turned out I was wrong, this place seemed to be never ending.

Something cold pushed me and I almost went toppling over the edge into the abyss below, Ezekiel caught me and pulled me back against the wall. Cairn pulled his sword out, and I followed his eyes to see him looking at a spirit, a lost soul. I closed my eyes in both fear and frustration for where there was one there usually were more.

“Pray tell those things are not going to send us to our death,” I whispered.

“Not on my watch,” Cairn replied, his eyes scanning the place for more of them.

“Let’s not dawdle,” mystic Zerena said, so we carefully kept moving along.

Two more souls shot out from the darkness trying to knock us off the edge, Cairn slashed his sword through one dissipating it, for now at least, Ezekiel did the same to the other.

We moved faster until we saw another cave entrance and mystic Zerena guided us towards it.

We got there safely, but it was not safe for long, there were no more spirits, no more beasts or spiders, now the only thing standing in our way was the dark lord himself, or more accurately, herself.

We had always been told stories about the dark lord as a male, but this thing before us was very female. Her lower half was similar to that of a spider’s, eight legs included, her torso upwards was human with an almost ethereal glow to the skin, she was giant, maybe twelve feet tall and she had matching massive b.reasts that were on display, both Ezekiel and Cairn stared at them like love sick puppies, and I heard Cairn mumble, “the spider king would love her.”

I punched them both in the stomach glaring at them while they muttered apologies with mystic Zerena laughing in the background.

Her hair was a pale lilac that ran down her back, some falling over her delicate looking shoulders, her eyes were lilac too, she was both beautiful and monstrous.

Here was the final battle, where we would live or die, high chances we would die. The dark lord was not just any monster, she was a god, a goddess.

“Ah, so some of my children have finally come to see me,” she said, smiling a haunting smile. Butterflies flew around her hair, some sitting on it, looking pretty.

They were not so pretty when they came flying towards us like bullets, we all ducked, one bit my arm, and it felt like tiny sharp knives.

“Why have you destroyed this earth!” Ezekiel yelled as we ducked from the butterflies each time they shot towards us.

“I made you, I was punished for your actions when you decided to start worshipping the dragons more than you did your gods! So just as I made you, I shall destroy you.”

She lifted her hand up, her palm up and a beam of light as bright as the sun shot out towards us, we dodged it and watched as it seared a hole into the wall behind us, rocks falling loose.

When she shot another beam, I realised it did not just look like sunlight, it literally was sunlight, as hot as the sun itself if the damage was anything to go by.

It was going to be harder to get close to her, she was more intelligent than the beasts and creatures we had faced.

Cairn tried to get close as he was the best at that, but she blocked with him a giant sword, myself and Ezekiel tried to close in either side of her, but she tried to strike Ezekiel while the butterflies came hurtling towards me like sharp daggers, I quickly rolled out of the way and fired one of my arrows at her, it struck her shoulder but did little more than give her a paper cut.

Mystic Zerena had so far stayed on the sidelines using her spells where she could, but the dark lord would require all of us giving everything we had, so mystic Zerena withdrew her own sword, not as big as our swords were, but with close contact and in the right weak spot it would cause as much damage as any sword.

She used her spells in between fighting, one of her fire spells struck the butterflies, and they went up in flames, glitters of ash falling to the ground. I wish I had been taught my spells, even shape changing forms was tricky, I had gotten lucky when I had changed into the bird, I had never mastered the fast and effortless shape change my people could do so it was always an incredibly dangerous doing it during battle.

We did a lot of ducking and rolling out of the way, her blade was so huge it took up the entire room when she swung it. We did manage to get closer little by little though, Cairn was able to cut off one of the spider legs, and she screeched in fury, Ezekiel cut another one, and she roared making the place shake.

Something changed, somehow she was changing, like something was pulling itself from her body, I watched in horror as it was not a something but a someone, if the rumours were true, then this must be another God, Prometheus, making the dark lord herself Aphrodite and not Esmariah, the name she had hidden behind for many years. The rumours told that the two of them had been banished here on earth as punishment for creating us, then for creating dragons, beings that were so wise and intelligent that the people stopped worshipping the gods themselves and chose the dragons instead, not only were they banished for that, but for falling in love with one another.

The story always had me feeling sorry for them, but looking at them before me now all I saw was madness in their eyes, if they had ever been good and wise, it was long gone.

I did not know how to explain what I saw before me, she still had her spider body and her upper torso, but now there was a second torso attached, like two people having been sown and stitched at the sides, Prometheus was all black, jet black with an almost shine to his skin, his body had strange white markings and symbols on it, his hands had claws, razor sharp, his teeth were razor sharp too, like a shark in the ocean, his head was bold, and his eyes were a metallic gold.

In his hand, he held a giant gold pitchfork covered in flames of fire. How on earth would we survive the two of them combined?

There was no time to dwell on our fate, Prometheus banged the end of his pitchfork on the ground sending a tremble followed by cracks along the ground towards us, what looked like lava spread along the c.racks, and we all jumped aside before it reached us.

Cairn fought with his sword as much as he could against Aphrodite while Ezekiel and I tried fighting Prometheus, he was making it more and more difficult to walk on the ground without risk of burning ourselves. The edge of my boot had made contact with the lava between the c.racks, and it burned right through .

Mystic Zerena had stopped fighting and watched Prometheus, then she cast a spell, it began to rain heavily, drenching the pitchfork and putting out the flames, the lava turned watery too.

We kept fighting until we grew tired, but the gods did not seem to ever tire, they kept going strong, Prometheus was using his fork to strike at Ezekiel, he blocked what he could, but sometimes he was not fast enough and the fork cut at his leg or slashed his shoulder.

I used the distraction to get in close, I could not make it all the way onto their backs, but I did manage to launch myself at Prometheus, climbing as fast as I could up to his torso, and then I drove my sword through his chest piercing his heart.

When I pulled my sword back out I saw his blood was black, I did not think, I plunged the sword in again, dragging it up inside, he roared in pain, began gasping as he threw his body backwards, almost sending Aphrodite falling to the ground. I would take no chances, so I shoved my hand inside his chest and pulled his heart out and crushed it in my hand.

He fell limp, dead, and hanging on Aphrodite’s side making it difficult for her to move so agile, but she did, she moved around with his body swinging from her disturbingly.

Fury was in her eyes as she glared at me, her own clawed hand raised up ready to s***h me to pieces, I heard Cairn yell, “Marisoll!”

I knew it was too late, though, I could not survive this.

I heard Cairn’s sword drop to the floor, saw a golden blur rush before my eyes, I was knocked out of the way and hit the floor hard enough it left me winded, Ezekiel rushed to my side and helped me to my feet as we watched Cairn in his lycan form fighting Aphrodite.

Her sword was no good with him so up close so she dropped it, they both slashed at one another and fought wildly, mystic Zerena had to stop using her spells in case she accidentally hit Cairn with one.

He was almost as big as Aphrodite, she threw him off her, but he rushed back and they both gripped one another’s shoulders, both fighting to push the other into a more vulnerable position, Cairn’s claws dug into her shoulders, making her bleed heavily, but she did not slow down nor give in.

One of her spider legs stabbed Cairn in the shoulder, piercing it, but he did not let go either. Ezekiel circled around and got close enough to cut another of the legs off, but she did not react, she was too busy focused on killing Cairn right now.