Chapter 624: The reason for delay

Mephisto’s army marched through the rich, fertile land of the demons, their knights and corrupted demons with vacant eyes. He could taste victory, to destroy his enemy and gain a power that would catapult him back into godhood. Able to surpass those fools who abandoned him despite being the ones to push him back to betray Serena and the lower gods.

How dare they!

I am not a pawn for those decrepit fossils’ amusement!

“Ngh.” A cramp spread through his forearm, causing immense stabbing pain before a holy aura sparked at his fingertips. “Not again, why wont you die!?”

The emerald green eyes of the demigod flashed, fluctuating between green and blue in a slow fading style.

Alan was fighting to take back his body once again.

Sat atop a huge wyvern in the air, his body leaned to the side, tilting the reins so it swooped down, and crashed into a nearby hill, destroying the surface, sending rocks shooting through the air into the army below.

Bang!

Alan and Mephisto fought for control the moment his consciousness awakened from the darkness.

I won’t let you harm his kingdom!

Don’t be Naïve! What can a human achieve against a god?! You foolish little worm!

Although Alan couldn’t take back the whole body, he wrestled control of his left arm, holding it towards the other wyverns as glinting spears of holy light formed at his fingertips. “Fall, beasts!”

“STOP!”

Woosh!

The sharp golden lights tore through the air before lancing through two Wyverns’ chests, the power of Alan equal to a demigod. What could a mere beast do to resist? Two loud pops sounded as their hearts exploded with the destructive spears.

“AAAAAHHH!”

Mephisto suddenly screamed. An aura of death exploded across his body, burning his left side with a necrotic blast. The flesh sizzled with bubbles, the blue glow of Alan’s eyes faded and twisted into green while the wyvern below perished instantly.

“Why!? These were the last wyverns… Damn you, I will gouge you from my soul and burn you in the eternal flames of hell!”

Ever since he fell from divinity, Mephisto’s atmosphere, actions and even his words became closer to a mortal, which frustrated him more and more.

The fallen beast crashed into the ground, dragging a deep crater in the beautiful green land, while the army below froze from the moment Mephisto screeched in a mixture of agony and anger. Ever since he took Alan’s body, the hero had bound them together using his regained powers, stopping Mephisto from leaving, and then caused issues whenever he got the chance.

“If not for that bastard, we would have arrived five nights ago.”

Mephisto’s lips frothed with saliva as he looked at the frozen army.

“Do I have to do everything by myself!? Set up camp, prepare to leave in the morning!”

He planned to reach the north many days before, leaving the army behind. Then, using Asmodeus’s absence, he would use the wyverns to launch an unexpected assault on the north. Capture his children and possess his remaining wife… to use as hostages.

However, Alan’s spirit could listen and hear Mephisto’s plans and thoughts, but because of the holy aura of a hero, he couldn’t hear Alan’s. That’s why he lost the first five by surprise when taking a moment to let the possessed humans rest.

“Damned, heroes!”

And now, he could already sense the overwhelming power of Asmodeus reverberating from the north. Despite knowing it would be more difficult with him there, Mephisto didn’t have a choice because his control over Alan’s body waned with each moment that passed.

The holy aura of a hero created to resist his unholy aura of death.

“Once again, those greater gods… do they want the humans to win? Never, how could they betray me after I did everything that they asked me to!”

His angry roar echoed off the mountains as he dropped to the floor, a throbbing pain spreading from his stomach.

He was mortal now, needing sustenance.

That might have been an even bigger blow to the former god. To live like humans, he referred to as cattle or beasts in the past.

***

Mephisto’s chest rose and fell like bellows as he staggered to his feet. His green eyes flickered, a faint glow of blue burning at the edges again.

“Persistent little worm,” he spat, slamming his palm against his stomach as if he could claw Alan out with sheer rage. “I own this flesh. Not you!”

And yet you choke on it, like a burned pig. Alan whispered, his voice low but steady inside their skulls. Every step you take, you borrow from me. Every spell you cast, it’s my veins you burn. Keep pretending you’re a god, Mephisto. But we both know… You’re nothing but a shackled man.

A wyvern corpse beside them smoked, flesh rotting under the necrotic aura that leaked from Mephisto’s fit of anger. The soldiers closest to the blast knelt, their faces dark, eyes flickering with green fire as the corruption held inside them.

One dropped to the ground. His scream rippled across the camp before his body convulsed and burst like an overripe fruit, spraying black bile across the frozen dirt. The rest of the army didn’t flinch. Well, they couldn’t because they were possessed.

“Hurry and prepare for tomorrows march.” Mephisto growled, running his palm across his chest. He hated speaking human words, despised eating the disgusting slop they called food. “I will not accept another delay, if you linger….”

The possessed men trembled in terror.

He looked towards the huge white walls glistening with ice. “Asmodeus, when I reached Zar’Kaleth, I will peel your body apart in front of your filthy sluts and those stinking brats!”

Inside his chest, Alan’s voice answered only with quiet steel: We’ll see.

Mephisto’s jaw clenched until his teeth cracked. We’ll see. The echo of Alan’s defiance gnawed at him like a parasite burrowing into the marrow of his bones. He wanted to rip his own chest open and drag the hero out with his bare hands, crush him underfoot until nothing but dust remained.

But he couldn’t.

Every time he pressed harder, the blue light flickered, pushing back his necrotic tide. Every time he tried to silence the human, his grip on the flesh weakened.

It was humiliating.

A fallen god shackled to a mortal.

“I cannot sleep… or he’ll take over again.”

He stumbled toward the campfires, where his army waited, the ground blackening beneath each step, the beautiful mana-enriched land waning. The corrupted humans lifted their heads at once, their eyes glowing green as they swayed in unison like stalks of rotted grain in the wind. Priests, knights, merchants, even children.

All of them hollowed out and stuffed with his will.

And yet… even now, because of Alan’s existence, his possession became weaker. Their movements lagged a little, a twitch here, a flicker there. One knight’s sword arm shook violently, refusing to obey the command to still.

Alan again.

To the knights of Grigor, Alan’s existence was enough to give them the willpower to resist.

Mephisto snarled, and the air around him shuddered.

With a snap of his fingers, necrotic energy surged through the ranks. The disobedient knight screamed once before his body collapsed into ash, the corruption eating him whole. The rest of the army dropped to their knees at once, not in prayer but in submission.

“See, little hero?” Mephisto mocked Alan aloud, even though only the wind and puppets could hear him. “This is what happens when inferior beings resist a god. Defy me, and I erase you. Obey, and I will let you live to carry me to godhood.”

Alan’s answer didn’t come, and his resistance faded.

“Fool.”

Mephisto’s stomach growled then, loud enough to echo against the hills. Rage burned through his throat as he clutched at it. Hunger, like a human. The humiliation of it nearly drove him mad.

“Bring me a priest,” he ordered.

Two enthralled soldiers dragged a man forward, robes still bearing the sigil of some holy order now cracked and blackened with corruption. The priest’s eyes were vacant, his lips mumbling a broken prayer to no one.

Mephisto seized him by the throat and inhaled.

“Oh? A priest of Serena, how amusing!”

Excited, Mephisto didn’t hesitate. The man’s body withered instantly, skin peeling back as the soul within was ripped free, condensed into a flickering ball of pale light. Mephisto devoured it in one bite, jaw spreading like a beast. Warmth filled his veins for the briefest moment before the gnawing hunger returned stronger than before.

“I see… that bitch has regained her powers.”

A bitter voice, he betrayed Serena because she chose another man to follow; originally, he would have offered her a hand into the great realm above.

The watching soldiers flinched.

Not out of fear, but because they synchronised with the feelings of Mephisto too greatly, and so his human desires, fears and emotions flowed into them when he felt intense emotions.

Mephisto wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, emerald eyes burning brighter than the fire behind him.

“Prepare the rams,” he growled. “I want them ready by dawn. We move at first light.”