CHAPTER 443: CHAPTER 443 - THE GREATEST DESIGN

From above, a voice thundered, not spoken, but felt, searing into the marrow of every living being present:

"... Let’s make it more interesting, O Dafient"

The land trembled.

From the heart of the Hollow Citadel’s ruins, the ground split open, screaming like metal tearing. Rivers of molten greed, gold liquefied into venomous fire, burst upward in violent fountains. Out of the chasm rose a shadow that blotted out even the burning sky.

A colossal beast emerged, forged from the remains of Greed’s fallen dominion and Wrath’s boiling fury. Its body was a grotesque mountain of fused treasures and bones, as though every coin, jewel, and crown hoarded in the Hollow Citadel had been melted into flesh and hammered into scale. Its four arms dragged chains larger than castles, each ending in a spiked anchor that cracked the land wherever they struck.

Its head was a warped parody of kingship: a skull crowned with a jagged circlet of broken thrones, its hollow eye sockets burning with infernos that devoured reason itself. Every breath it exhaled turned the battlefield into storms of molten ash.

The Shadow Legion faltered, even their formless resolve shaking under the sheer pressure radiating from it. The Demon Army roared in triumph, chanting a name that slithered from their tongues like venom:

"Abhorion, the Glutton of Thrones!"

A beast not of the 72, nor of Sin itself, but a convergence of Greed’d Dominion and Wrath’s rage, given form by Lucifer’s will.

A monster born to entertain.

The battlefield howled as the titan’s chains lashed down, shattering legions by the thousands, shaking the entire Battlefield.

Yet Taufik did not flinch. His hand brushed the hilt of darkness at his side, his shadow stretching like a living tide toward the abomination.

"... Kids play," Taufik said, his voice cold, almost bored.

The shadow beneath his feet stirred, first a ripple, then a tide, then a vast ocean of black that defied the light of the burning skies. It stretched outward, swallowing stone, flame, and air alike, creeping toward the abomination with a hunger older than the world.

The Glutton of Thrones, Abhorion, roared, chains striking the ground with the force of mountains collapsing. The battlefield trembled as if the realm itself begged for mercy. Yet the shadow only surged faster, uncaring, inevitable.

And when it touched the abomination’s titanic legs... "... Devour it"

The shadow erupted.

Like jaws without end, the darkness rose, not merely wrapping but consuming, tearing reality into strips as it feasted. Scales forged from crowns cracked and dissolved like ash in a furnace. Chains of wrath screamed as they unraveled, pulled into an abyss where no god or demon could reach.

Abhorion bellowed, not in fury, but in fear. The sound warped the air, shook the bones of every army watching. The Demon Legion’s chants turned to silence. The Shadow Legion lowered their spears in awe. Even the Burning Seraph, merged and monstrous, faltered at the sight.

The crown of broken thrones upon its skull shattered, shards dragged screaming into the void. One of its four arms tore free, dissolving into nothingness. Its hundred mouths shrieked scripture in desperation, but each syllable was swallowed before it could exist.

Taufik’s gaze never softened. His hand extended, fingers curling like a puppeteer tightening his grip. "... A pitiful being"

The abyss yawned wider.

Abhorion, Glutton of Thrones, struggled, but the more it resisted, the more it was unmade.

The Glutton of Thrones writhed. Its seven wings of flame beat furiously, each gust a furnace that could incinerate armies. Its arms struck, wielding suns and scriptures like weapons. Chains lashed in every direction, desperate to anchor itself to the realm.

But none of it mattered.

The shadows did not clash. They did not block. They simply consumed.

The suns fizzled into embers. The scriptures crumbled into meaningless ash. Chains that can even bind worlds unraveled like threads pulled into a bonfire.

"NO-" the abomination screamed with its hundred mouths, voices overlapping in broken divinity.

But the sound was cut short as one by one, those mouths were swallowed by the void.

Its wings vanished next, each feather stripped away until nothing but hollow stumps remained. Then its limbs, devoured whole, each flailing gesture only dragging it deeper.

The final thing left was its crown. Once a symbol of dominion, forged from the stolen thrones of fallen kings, it glowed desperately, resisting the pull. For a moment, the battlefield held its breath.

Then Taufik’s shadow surged like a tidal wave, snapping shut.

The crown shattered, reduced to dust, devoured like all the rest.

Silence.

Where Abhorion once stood, there was no corpse, no ruin, not even an echo. Only emptiness remained, a scar of pure nothingness carved into existence.

A reminder that what the shadow consumed could never return.

The Burning Seraphs, what few fragments of them remained, fell to their knees, their flames sputtering like dying candles. The Demon Legion trembled. Even the land itself groaned under the weight of what it had witnessed.

"...LUCIFER!" Taufik’s roar shattered the air, his voice drowning all sound. "ENOUGH OF THIS CHILD’S PLAY!"

The battlefield held its silence, as if the world itself dared not breathe.

Then, from above, laughter.

Not the raucous howl of Wrath, nor the slithering chuckle of Greed. No, this laughter was velvet, smooth, and endless, like honey poured over broken glass.

Lucifer.

"Magnificent... truly magnificent," his voice slithered into the marrow of every soul, not spoken but etched directly into their beings. "To erase Abhorion as if it were a child’s toy... You do not disappoint me, O Dafient"

The colossal presences shifted.

Envy licked her lips, hungry for the abyss that devoured even scripture.

Lust, smiling faintly, yet her eyes dripped with unspoken promise, a gaze that ensnared and consumed.

Gluttony shuddered, trembling in desire, as though itself wanted to be devoured.

Wrath, still bound by Lucifer’s decree, growled like a caged beast.

Greed, silent, yet his gaze burned more fiercely than the rest, a stare overflowing with insatiable desire

And Sloth, though slain, left a lingering echo in the air, screaming silently in denial.

The Demon Legion faltered, but Lucifer’s will snapped them back like marionettes. With hollow cries, they lifted their weapons, compelled forward even as terror clawed at their souls.

The Shadow Legion, in contrast, fell to one knee, their formless visages bowing not out of fear, but devotion. To them, Taufik was no longer commander. He was inevitability itself.

The System chimed coldly in his mind:

[Master, your body]

Taufik clenched his jaw. The shadows beneath his feet still writhed, hungering, begging to feast again.

He exhaled slowly. "Lucifer... I said, Stop this child’s play"

Silence. Then, Lucifer’s tone sharpened, silk turning to blades:

"Child’s play?" The burning sky flared crimson, and the six presences leaned closer, pressing down with suffocating weight. "Then let us raise the stakes"

The sky split like glass struck by hammers of infinity.

From its wound, shadows spilled, each bearing names once whispered in terror by mortals long dead.

First came the Demon Lords:

Malphas, the Crimson Tyrant, his war-banner dripping with blood that never dried, his sword a continent-sized cleaver of rust and ruin.

Orobas, the All-Seeing Deceiver, cloaked in endless parchment that wrapped and unwrapped around him like serpents, his thousand eyes never blinking, never missing. Still, no one knows if it’s his true form or not.

Raum, the Mad Jester, tumbling in laughter, juggling severed crowns and shrieking skulls, his form bending in ways the world itself tried to reject.

Their very footsteps fractured the burning sky. Only Bifrons was not there.

Behind them, the Twelve Dukes descended, each carrying the weight of legend...

Valefor, the Iron Butcher, is dragging a greatsword forged from the marrow of titans.

Vassago, the Unseen Puppeteer, threads of fate clinging to his fingers like chains.

Murmur, the Warden of Silence, whose legion of dead followed without breath or sound.

And so they came, all twelve, each a calamity in their own right.

But the wound in the sky did not close.

Out of it poured the Fifty-Six Lesser Demons, each one a terror that had once commanded kingdoms to fall, plagues to rise, and oceans to bleed.

They filled the heavens like a second storm, a swarm of ancient sins incarnate.

And behind them... the legions. Endless. A tide of black fire and twisted banners, blotting out the stars, roaring in one united cry.

The Demon Legion below raised their voices in ecstasy, trembling with triumph.

"Victory! Victory is ours!" they screamed. Their weapons shook in their hands, not from fear, but from the intoxication of overwhelming numbers.

For once, they believed. Truly believed.

Had not the 72 Demons once matched the Angels in the Great War, when Heaven’s armies walked the Earth? Had they not feasted on seraphs and drowned nations in despair?

And now they stood, united again, not against gods, nor angels, nor titans... But against one man.

One man, and his Legion of Shadows.

Surely, victory was already theirs.

Even Taufik, who had witnessed gods fall and beg for mercy, could not deny the sight before him.

The sky was a wound, bleeding shadows and flame, and within that wound stood every nightmare ever named in scripture and myth.

The 72 Demons, their Dukes, their Lords, and their endless legions. A storm of ancient calamities gathered against one man. Against him.

For the first time in ages, his lips curved, not into a grimace, not into fury but into something dangerously close to a smile.

"...So this is what you’ve been preparing, Lucifer," Taufik murmured. His voice was low, but it carried, swallowed by silence, then echoed across the battlefield. "You’ve emptied Hell’s vault, just for me"

Above, Lucifer’s voice thundered, laughter woven with prophecy.

"Now, Dafient, what will you do? Will you rewrite reality again? Will you once more defy the fate even gods fear to touch? Or will you drown... drown in that abyss you call power, and become my kay..."

The word cracked, distorted, as if reality itself refused to contain it.

"...the last piece I need, to complete the greatest design. Now... show me, O Dafient. What will you do?"

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