Combat and Assassination

Cassius and Zariel confronted each other from afar. Two peerlessly powerful forces of law clashed in fierce deadlock, golden radiance and crimson light intertwining across the sky. Sulfurous smoke choked the heavens, while the scorched earth below was laced with spiderweb fissures through which magma surged like blood in veins. At the demigod tier of power, even ninth-tier spells—or forbidden spells—could rarely turn the tide. Often, combat reverted to its most primal form: visceral, physical struggle. Yet beneath the surface, every collision harbored lethal peril; mere mortals would easily be reduced to ash simply by approaching the battlefield. Zariel wore a bizarre expression. Her eyelids drooped, yet the corners of her mouth curved up in an exaggerated smirk. Across her still-exquisite face flitted conflicting shades of sorrow and ecstasy. She murmured, "Why... why are you all so selfish? Heaven was like this, those mortals were like this, and you are no different... "If we sacrificed the billions of souls across the entire Material Plane, wouldn't the eternal Blood War finally come to an end? Everyone would attain everlasting peace." "Madwoman." Cassius gritted his teeth, panting heavily as beams of golden light poured down upon him, continuously mending the wound on his shoulder. At the same time, he scrutinized Zariel in the distance. Be they angels, demons, or devils, extraplanar creatures could only wield their full might within their native planes. Yet under the light of the Fallen Sun, as Auguste steadily plunged into Hell, this place was already tantamount to half of Avernus. Standing within it, Zariel possessed authority akin to a deity. 'To take Zariel on head-on in this state is practically a lost cause. Fortunately... I still have that plan,' Cassius thought to himself, beating his dragon wings. With that in mind, he reached out through their pact to send a message to the archdevil far away in Avernus. "Bel, when will you assassinate Zariel's true body?" "The time has not yet come, Your Majesty Cassius..." Cassius could hear Bel's voice suppressing a tangled mix of excitement, urgency, and tension. "Not yet?" "Of course, Your Majesty. I only have this one chance. As you put it, we are grasshoppers tied to the same string. "Right now, Zariel is bolstered by the will of Avernus and immensely powerful. We must wait for an opening—when Auguste hangs between the Material Plane and Baator, and the will of Avernus is too occupied to look elsewhere. That will be her weakest moment." "What marks that moment?" "The sky will be torn asunder, and an eye will open upon that black sun. When that happens, we can seize the moment to... kill her." "Understood." Cassius nodded in acknowledgment and snapped his attention back to the tense battle. Before him, crimson infernal power descended. The sky-blotting, heaven-burning wings were regenerating at a visible rate; in just a few breaths, they were completely restored. "In that case..." Zariel's demeanor turned all the more unhinged, her face overtaken by a wild, unrestrained grin. "Let me finish it all for you!" Under the gaze of countless eyes, Zariel's aura surged ever higher. Crimson light drenched the sky as her heaven-burning wings expanded endlessly, eclipsing everything until they stretched thousands of meters across. Flames tore scarlet rifts through the horizon. Zariel hung suspended beneath the boiling clouds, chains surging from Hell wrapped around her fingers. Clang-clang— Countless infernal steel chains burst forth from fissures in the ground, shooting skyward to pierce heaven and earth as if to bind the entire world in iron. A haunting, melodic female voice echoed through the blood-red sky. Every fiend present beamed with mad delight. The will of Avernus descended slowly, weighing down upon Cassius's shoulders like a colossal mountain until he struggled to breathe. Screeech— A howling, foul-smelling wind swept across the sky, blasting into his face and making even the beat of his dragon wings feel sluggish. 'Her strength is still climbing—she is even exerting tier suppression against me!' Cassius's expression changed sharply. His muscles tensed as he fought to maintain balance. 'I can't let this continue. I have to strike immediately, or it will be too late once this place plunges into Avernus!' Beating his wings with all his might, he kicked up a gale of searing wind. His colossal form blurred into a crimson afterimage, cutting through the sky. "Come, red dragon! I will sever your head and mount your skull upon my Iron Throne!" Zariel's voice trembled, not from fear, but from raw euphoria. Clatter, clatter, clatter— Clear metallic ringing filled the air as the infernal chains writhed like maddened serpents, thrashing across midair to bind the red dragon. Yet time and again, the red dragon flapped his wings, executing complex aerial maneuvers—abrupt halts, steep climbs, dives—nimbly evading the fiendish chains until he closed within five hundred meters of Zariel. Roaaar— The red dragon's roar shattered the crags and cliffs beneath him, causing magma to erupt like gushing blood. "Zariel! Die—!" Cassius spread his vast wings, dark-crimson dragonfire brewing deep in his gullet as the blistering heat warped the surrounding air. Incandescent light blazed from the red dragon's molten-gold pupils. The Chaos Fire in his mouth poured out like a torrential waterfall, surging toward Zariel a short distance away. Under the searing burn of this flame, even the magma flowing across the earth boiled, letting out dull, popping thuds. "Chaos Fire?" Zariel's expression shifted slightly. As a commander of the Blood War, she recognized it at a glance—this was the power of her bitter enemies, the Abyss. "Your fire is nothing more than an echo of Hell's embers!" Zariel's voice drowned out the churning magma. Riiip— The blazing greatsword slashed through the air. Fueled by infernal power, it lengthened to a hundred meters, threatening to cleave the entire world in two. The moment the blade sliced through the sky and split the flames, the red dragon's pale-gold slit pupils contracted into thin lines. Sweeping his wings and tucking his limbs, he twisted in midair to evade the deadly blow. Dragon scales scraped against the sword's edge, showering the air in blinding sparks. Cassius dived forward, closing the distance like a specter as he lunged at Zariel. Just then, an archaic warhammer materialized in Zariel's grasp. The moment it appeared, a bone-chilling cold struck Cassius, threatening to freeze his body and soul solid. 'Such a familiar feeling...' Looking at the ice-blue runes glowing upon the warhammer, Cassius was jolted with shock—those were Thrym's runes! This was Matalok, the "Frost Father"—an ancient hammer forged by the god of frost giants, and the favored weapon of Kostchtchie, the frost giant demon lord. Decades ago in the Blood War, Zariel had defeated Kostchtchie and claimed the hammer for herself. Boom! Grinning savagely, Zariel swung the warhammer. A torrential surge of extreme cold poured forth and hurtled toward Cassius, nearly freezing the surrounding air solid. Under the artifact's might, even a great wyrm red dragon harboring a volcano within its body would likely be frozen into an ice block in an instant. As the chill permeated, Cassius's movements grew increasingly sluggish, as if he were struggling in a thick mire, on the verge of sinking entirely. Even his scales were coated in a heavy layer of frost. "Heh heh... The methods of a Lord of the Nine are not something a mere mortal creature like you can comprehend." Infernal greatsword in hand, Zariel advanced step by step, her eyes glistening with madness and greed, as though all those millions of souls were already hers. Just then, a sudden change occurred. Crack, crack... Runes across the red dragon flared, radiating beams of cold light. The ice coating his body abruptly shattered, and his massive draconic frame lunged at Zariel with horrifying speed! It had all been an act! He had absorbed the power of the Everfrost rune and plundered Thrym's divine power, granting him immunity to the artifact's harm. "Vile reptile!" Zariel snarled, infuriated. Her heaven-burning wings flapped violently, whipping up a hurricane laden with molten rock that swirled around her. She swung the greatsword down through the air, cleaving straight toward the red dragon's head. Boom— Cassius unleashed the ninth-tier spell Dragon Absorption. A potent arcane vortex manifested before his head, siphoning the storm's energy. Immediately after, he flared his wing to the side to evade the downward slash, sweeping rapidly across the sky as his chest practically grazed the menacing blade. At this moment, the red dragon was like a sharp spike, piercing through every defense without hesitation as he drove straight at Zariel. Clang-clang— Over a hundred red-hot infernal chains manifested behind Zariel, ringing sharply as they darted out toward the red dragon like vipers. Cassius beat his wings forcefully, pulling up into the air and leaving the chains to strike empty space. Sweeping past above Zariel, he put his full strength into whipping his mountain-thick draconic tail. Its battering-ram tip swept in—a strike he had charged for this exact moment. Space itself cracked with spiderweb fissures, radiating shockwaves. Boom! Amid a sonic boom and under colossal force beyond mortal imagination, Zariel was batted over a thousand meters away. She slammed deep into the cliffside, sending crushed rock raining down. Cassius would never waste an opportunity to press his advantage. Flapping his wings, the red dragon transformed into a crimson meteor, plummeting toward Zariel. Dazzling light bloomed across his chest, and an ominous blue-white pillar of flame erupted from his throat. Primordial Breath! Yet, bolstered by the mounting will of Avernus, Zariel's figure swelled frantically, reaching a height of a hundred meters in just seconds. With one hand, Zariel gripped the infernal greatsword, using its broad blade to block the blasting Primordial Breath. In an instant, dazzling light flared at apocalyptic temperatures, melting the surrounding rock and sand into glass. Yet fortified by the will of Avernus, Zariel showed no fear. She surged to her feet, beating the heaven-burning wings behind her to stir a tempest across the land and unleash a ring of fiery shockwaves. Beneath the shadow of her vast wings, mountains collapsed, rivers boiled away, and magma ran wild, turning the world into a living purgatory. "Hahahaha! I hope you can entertain me—don't die too boringly!" Zariel laughed maniacally, her mouth stretching almost from ear to ear. She swung a massive flail in several circles before hurling it whistling into the sky. Cassius took shock, hastily beating his wings to dodge. He could sense the terrifying infernal power harbored within the flail—or more accurately, the power of law. If struck by that spiked ball forged of infernal iron, his soul would be knocked clean out of his body, and the trailing chains would bind it instantly. A single strike from that infernal flail was all it took to reduce a dragon to a slave of Avernus, bound to serve Zariel for eternity—just like those hellfire ancient dragons. Clang! The flail grazed past his tail, still mangling the tip and sending shattered dragon scales and scalding dragon blood spraying into midair. Immediately after, the flail slammed violently into the ground. Boom! The earth trembled once more as a crater a hundred meters across was blasted into the ground, scalding magma bubbling out from within. Even Auguste, thousands of meters away, shuddered violently from the shock. Boom! Boom! Boom! Again and again the flail crashed down, toppling mountains and shattering cliff faces. Zariel beat her wings, relentlessly pursuing Cassius with near madness. She attacked recklessly, pounding the surrounding landscape into rubble. Boom! The flail tore through the air, piercing clean through a section of the red dragon's wing membrane. Cassius had no breath to spare even for a roar as he continually dodged, thinking to himself, 'Her power is still growing. If this goes on... I'll have no choice but to flee.' He could feel the power he could draw upon dwindling. The entire world seemed to reject and turn against him, while infernal flames clung to his vicinity like maggots on rotten bone. Cassius was intimately familiar with this sensation—it was akin to Imperial Domain: Severance, an authority belonging solely to a domain lord! Auguste was indeed still plummeting toward Avernus! He looked up. The black sun still hung high in the sky, showing not the slightest sign of change. 'Could Bel have betrayed me?' That was virtually impossible. Bel and Zariel had been bitter enemies for thousands of years; Bel had once imprisoned Zariel in a fortress, carving her flesh piece by piece. More importantly, they had an irreconcilable conflict of interest. Just as there could not be two suns in the sky, Avernus could have only one master. 'The moment Bel spoke of... cannot be far off.' Cassius steadied his mind, once more relying on his formidable precognition to evade a full-powered strike from Zariel. The ground split open, debris flying everywhere. Suddenly, through a Root Spellcaster's perception of the world, Cassius felt the entire Material Plane trembling, roaring, and howling. Clouds surged, winds whipped up, and the black sun in the sky blurred. —Now! The red dragon gritted his teeth, folded his wings, wheeled around, and plunged headlong toward Zariel with a ferocious roar, buffed by a barrage of spells and powers. For this counterattack, he had gathered his strength for a long time! Roaaar— Countless chains wrapped around Cassius's body, but he ignored them completely, launching into a berserk counteroffensive. Struggling forward, he locked his jaws around Zariel's left arm, his fangs puncturing armor, but Zariel used his momentum to drag him down toward the earth. Boom! The two crashed into the river of magma, sending up molten waves a hundred meters high. "Red dragon, you are courting death! You can never defeat a Lord of the Nine in Hell!" Zariel's wings grew cumbersome in the viscous magma. Cassius bit savagely into her shoulder, dark red blood spraying in all directions as her pitch-black infernal armor shattered completely. Yet Cassius fared little better. In the brutal struggle, Zariel's greatsword impaled his abdomen, gouging out a massive swath of flesh—runes of an infernal smite detonated along the blade, spilling dragon blood like molten gold. Beneath the clash of these two colossal beings, magma rained down like deluge, sizzling into the battered, scorched earth and corroding deep, hissing craters.