Lucifer beheld her greatest work yet.
In front of her had moments ago stood a six winged angel.
All that she could see now was a trail of devastation as the delayed force of her punch had sent the angel through multiple tents and solid houses.
Though the execution of such a solid punch would normally be enough to cause her metaphorical heart to soar, right now she was expecting even better feelings in the coming minutes.
The four winged angel would not have survived the punch she had hit the commander with.
Lucifer was growing giddy, because even as the six winged angel was blown away, Lucifer could see the expression of utter outrage on her face.
Ignoring the gathered audience, Lucifer moved towards the person who had shown her the direction the commander had been.
Crouching down, Lucifer laid a palm on top of marble, before softly speaking to him.
“Oh Marble. She broke your girlfriend!”
The feeling of utter wrath that had spread throughout the intersection, rose to an even higher degree.
Cooing softly, Lucifer reassured her best friend. “Don't you worry your handsome little head. Were about to royally fuck her up. What do you think?”
Feeling the sphere of glass agree, Lucifer caused her right hand to burst into flames.
“How about we go full throttle hmm?”
Lucifer grinned as she stuck her burning hand into the sphere of glass. It widened when marble began melting and slowly oozing up her arm.
—--------------------------------------------------------
Over the millenia stuck in space, Lucifer and marble had grown to depend on each other. While Lucifer only recently found out that her best friend was in fact sentient, Marble had needed Lucifer to change his shape.
At the start he had been nothing but a tiny piece of asteroid, barely thinking anything beyond the usual rock thoughts. But with each time Lucifer heated him up, melted his form and reconstructed him, his mind had grown more malleable.
Now that his flawless glass body could begin to absorb mana, he technically no longer needed Lucifer, but she had been the only company he had known for thousands of years, possibly millions.
But what kind of golem would abandon their best friend just because they could. Lucifer had told him so many things, most of which he could not understand. But he wanted to be by her side when he experienced them for the first time.
Now with the feeling of utter wrath vibrating the deepest parts of marble's soul, he had no mind to protest as Lucifer melted his physical body and formed him into a sword.
—-------------------------------------------------------
The sphere of sentient glass slowly oozed up Lucifer's arm, until he covered the entirety of her right arm. The rest of marbles' body mass formed into a pitch black sword that grew fainter along the edge.
Once marble held the desired shape and crystal structure, he notified Lucifer, who immediately sucked the heat from his molten form, causing marble to solidify into a crystalline sword.
Usually he was entirely black, but with the perfect crystal structure only a golem could create, marble's edge grew sharp enough to become see through.
Lucifer grinned, a tiny cloud of black smoke escaping her nostrils.
Not caring about potential observers, Lucifer began to open as many eyes as she could, until the space her eyeballs usually occupied resembled the compound eyes of a fly. Thousands of tiny eyes shared the same space normally reserved for two.
Her normal range of vision grew slightly wider, but so did the details she could perceive. The flow of different shades of mana, the strings of karma, the river of time and even the very fabric of space. Any mortal being would be driven mad by the amount of information Lucifer was taking in. Usually this would strain Lucifer's control of her humanoid form, but right now she had better things to do than care about the perception of mortals.
A savage grin spread across her face, as Lucifer saw the angel finally come to a stop. She had crashed through building after building and skipped across the ground for more than two kilometers, finally coming to a rest in a tangle of tent tarp and debris.
With her vision as focused as it was, Lucifer saw the look of utter fury on the angel's face as she shredded the debris she was caught in, before locking eyes with Lucifer, even at such a distance.
Lucifer toned down the grin to a carefully constructed mocking grin, intended to rile the angel up.
By the growing intensity in the angel's eyes, and the fact that she was approaching at speeds that would put most jets to shame, Lucifer guessed it must have worked.
In an impressive display of skill, the angel arrived in front of Lucifer with a triple feint.
One moment she was a few hundred meters away, the next she stood in front of her with her sword raised high.
It looked like a simple overhead slash, but Lucifer's vision picked up the different muscle groups that began to tense.
Predictably, the angel feinted out of the overhead slash into another feint with the pommel of her sword, which in the end transitioned into a less than impressive shoulder bash.
Lucifer stepped forward, checking the angel's shoulder with her own, while also absorbing a large amount of the kinetic energy.
The angel had seemingly expected her shoulder tackle to have more of an impact, causing her to bounce off Lucifer and unbalance her for a moment.
Lucifer, not one to waste an opening, positioned her leg between the angel's, before thrusting upwards with the hilt of her sword. Due to the almost intimate distance between the two, Lucifer could not slash with the blade, but even the parts of marble that were not his edge were sharp, as obsidian usually was.
The part that in normal swords was called the pommel, was on marble's sword form a sharpened spike, which caught the angel across the face, opening a gash from cheek to brow.
Though she managed to lean out of the way in time, the angel was immediately unbalanced which she tried to correct by bringing her feet into a proper stance.
Instead her back foot caught on Lucifer's outstretched leg, causing the angel to trip onto her back.
With barely a moment to spare, the angel rolled out of the way of a thrust that would have skewered her, before lashing out with a kick at Lucifer's lowered blade.
Though a significant amount of kinetic energy was stolen from the kick, the angel nonetheless managed to propel herself far enough away to roll once and reset her stance.
Lucifer watched as the angel got her breathing under control, before seemingly only now noticing the wound on her face, which dripped golden blood.
The look the angel gave Lucifer was enough to cause her to shiver in delight. The angel looked at Lucifer as if she could not comprehend how someone could dare to strike her face, wondering where she found the audacity to commit such an action.
The angel reengaged with the same opening move as before, this time following through with a well executed overhead slash, which Lucifer immediately parried, continuously absorbing kinetic energy.
Already her core was brimming with more kinetic energy than the engagement with the four winged angel had yielded over the entire fight.
The angel's experience shone through, as even after a parry designed to unbalance her, she did not overextend, instead aiming a lightning fast stab at Lucifer's right foot. Stepping out of the way, Lucifer was caught off guard when the angel rotated 180 degrees and used her shoulder as a lever point to accelerate her sword upwards at incredible speed.
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She barely managed to catch the edge of the golden claymore, just above the crossguard of her own sword.
Despite opening her channels as wide as she could, the incredible force the angel managed to exert was enough to raise Lucifer off her feet.
She watched as the angel's lithe muscles began to emit more golden light than before, causing her movements to accelerate.
Once she was done with her swing and the blade tip rested just above the ground, the angel turned the rest of the way, bringing her sword into an incredibly powerful sweep, aimed at Lucifer's midsection.
Lucifer's many eyes showed her disappointment, while her earlier grin grew into a despondent frown.
They had been feeling each other out, pitting just their pure skills against each other, but the angel had already decided that play time was over. The massive acceleration and the amount of sickly yellow mana she pumped through her muscles showed that the angel was trying to end it already.
Deciding to try something she had conceptualized, but not yet used in the real world, Lucifer felt for the force that was pulling her down. She was right at the top of her ascent after having been launched up, and right about now gravity should be starting to reassert itself.
The instant Lucifer felt gravity's gentle touch, she added a deluge of kinetic energy to the force that was pulling her down, through a mechanism she felt more than understood.
Instantly, Lucifer crashed to the ground, cracking the packed dirt upon impact, having arrived faster than gravity could have done without her assistance.
Once more with stable footing, Lucifer slashed upwards with all the force her physical body could muster, her sword and the golden claymore coming together in a thunderous clang, which ended with the angel's sweep going wide over Lucifer's head.
The next few moments were an incredibly fast exchange of blows, causing the absorbed kinetic energy inside Lucifer's core to reach critical levels.
After another quick exchange, Lucifer lowered her stance, before exploding forward with all of her stored energy, into an incredibly quick [First Light]
The angel, not having expected Lucifer to match her own top speed, was just a moment to slow while trying to guard against the attack. Instead of deflecting with the broad side of her claymore, she took the slash edge to edge, which unfortunately caused her sword to be cut in half. Now without proper protection, Lucifer's upwards slash carved through the Commanders chest plate like butter. The heat that radiated out of Lucifer's sword served to make the metal of the breastplate more malleable, while Marble's almost monomolecular edge did the rest.
A familiar yellow light began to shine from the commanders feet, before she teleported a few meters backwards.
Compared to the four winged angel, her activation of the technique was lightning fast.
"What kind of fucking freak are you?"
Lucifer observed as the angel pulled the breastplate from her body, using brute force to just snap the straps keeping it together instead of manually unfastening them.
Under her breastplate she wore a loose chainmail shirt, which she similarly removed by just ripping it from her body, leaving the angels torso clad only in a white gambeson, that showed the faintest of cuts where Lucifer had destroyed her armor.
Lucifer took a moment to appreciate the sight. Under normal circumstances the woman would be very attractive. Her short red hair and her shiny golden eyes. The cute nose. She would be a real cutie, except for the fact that her face constantly wore a disgusting expression.
Now Lucifer wouldn't be the type of person to tell a woman to "smile more, I'd bet you look pretty" but she had the strangest urge to rile the woman up before incinerating her, body and soul.
Instead she fell back on the old classic.
"I AM TALKING TO YOU, YOU FUCKING IMBECILE! DONT YOU SMILE AT ME, I'LL FUCKING MURDER YOU!"
The old "cocky smile while staying silent" tactic never failed.
"I'LL FUCKING WIPE THAT BLASTED SMIRK OF YOUR GODSFORSAKEN FACE!"
The angel took a deep breath before setting her stance. A pulse of intense yellow mana flowed through her body from top to bottom, leaving behind a spectral armor over her clothes.
"[Answered Prayer: Heavenly Armaments]"
The sword that had been cut in half formed anew, the top half blade growing from the hilt she still held in her hands. Where before it had been nothing but a claymore that glowed with golden light, this time the blade seemed to actually burn with a familiar flame.
"[Answered Prayer: A Blade to Smite the Sinner]"
Lucifer's mind momentarily went blank.
That flame.
How dare she?
From deep within the star burning in her core, a surge of familiar energy welled up. Something she had been trying not to think about. Something she had avoided thinking about since the moment she destroyed her father.
Deep within her core, a chorus of indignation rose. The flame burning inside Lucifer's mind suddenly flared up with incredible brilliance, the force of her anger so great that even the eternally still sea at the edge of her consciousness began to boil where it came into contact with the flame.
Over the bond Lucifer had with Aindaeth, she felt the dragon try to soothe her burning anger. Despite knowing that she would regret this action later, Lucifer decided to shut the connection down for the moment.
Unable and unwilling to restrain the burning wrath she felt, Lucifer decided to throw caution to the wind.
A quick look around, showed that no one was in their immediate vicinity. The teenagers had apparently removed the old smith from the spikes impaling him, visible only by the trail of blood where they had seemingly dragged him along the ground in the direction of the shamans tent.
Now without having to worry about accidentally smiting an unsuspecting mortal into a pillar of salt, Lucifer loosened her control by the tiniest margin, just enough so that she was no longer straining herself.
Flames flickered along her form as two massive black wings burst from her back. Instead of parting the skin, they emerged from two gigantic mouths that opened along her shoulder blades, the edges of the drooling mouths lined with sharp teeth.
Her presence immediately changed in intensity, causing the Commander to instantly put up a tight guard, while a look of utter confusion crossed her face.
All along the exposed skin of Lucifer's upper body, mouths opened which immediately began to howl in absolute outrage. A single larger mouth opened up on the largest scar on her upper body, while the mouth on Lucifer's face joined in on the unholy chorus.
"Do you have any idea?" It growled in a menacing tone, that was still undeniably Lucifer's voice.
"Do you know? What it takes to use those flames?"
In unison the mouths covering her body thundered out a single word.
"HERETIC!"
A single slitted eye opened up on Lucifer's forehead. Now with full soul sight, she could see that the angel had no idea what she was doing.
Her disgustingly yellow soul that spoke of fanatical devotion, covered in black streaks that spoke of incredible sadistic streaks, showed that the angel wasn't the one to utilize the flames.
Instead they were funneled along a sickly yellow chain that encircled her soul, which was wrapped tightly in a tapestry of negative karma.
Most likely that was the connection to her god, the one the four winged angel had titled as "father".
Earlier this had amused Lucifer, but now it only evoked a feeling of utter revulsion.
The massive mouth on Lucifer's chest spoke again "It seems you have truly no idea."
The mouths once again thundered in unison.
"DESPOILER!"
This time, the exclamation caused a wave of fire mana to explode outwards, which caused the Commander to take actual steps back.
The flames along Lucifer's body intensified again, turning white as their temperature rose. The clothes along her body finally started to disintegrate, as Lucifer loosened her control another tiny amount.
The loosely packed dirt ground began to struggle under the heat she was emitting, as puddles of molten sediment formed beneath Lucifer's feet.
The eye in Lucifer's forehead narrowed until its pupil was as thin as a human hair while she observed her opponent. The moment Lucifer had loosened her control, the angel had become fearful. Lucifer could clearly see her trying to pull more of that tainted power from the connection to her god. And looking at the colorless flame that began to cover the angel from head to toe, it was working. She could only really see the flame due to a singular eye on her head, yet even without the ability to see the flame, she would still have been able to perceive the flames produced when one used a mortal soul as fuel.
As the stolen power flowed through the angel's body and she stopped shaking in terror, Lucifer came to a decision.
The concentration of fire mana in the surroundings was growing to an extreme level. Marble could no longer keep his form stable, so Lucifer removed him from her arm, tossing the glob of molten rock far enough away to escape the consequences of her actions.
The mouth on Lucifer's chest spoke one last time.
"TO JUDGE A SINNER! TO SEND A MESSAGE! TO END! TO CUT! TO BURN! TO DESTROY!"
She began her call.
The angel had only moments ago gotten her courage back, as her god's power flowed into her. She had intended to attack, taking her enemy off guard. Instead she was once again frozen.
Not like earlier where she had been scared out of her mind, but she physically could not move. With every shred of willpower she had, the angel tried to move just one finger. To take just one step and decapitate that horrid abomination that stood in front of her.
It was as if the attention of uncountable minds was on their confrontation. As if the world itself was listening to the words the abomination spoke. It had said something about the origin of her god's power, but that wasn't something she cared about. All that mattered was rising through the ranks and carrying out her father's will.
"A WARNING TO THOSE WHO DARE! ON MY NAME AS S̴̢̧̙̬̼̱̣͔͙͈̰̩̗͒̅͋̔̋̅͐͑̄͐̀͜͜ͅA̷̢͇̹̩̩͖̖̖̣͂̕M̷̡̥͎͓̮͍̥̜͚̍̒͛̈́̋̎͛͌̕A̴͎̜̠͛̀̒̀͛͆̔̇͆̕̚͠͠͝Ȩ̸̻̥͕̣͇̳̟̹̟̄͂̈́́́̄͘L̵̨̥̲̦̪͇̻̰̤̙͎̟͔̩͕̯͊͂͑̌͌̎̒̀͋̑̃̇̅̿̎̈́̍̄̈́̏͑̈́͜ͅ I CALL YOU IN MY TIME OF NEED! DAWNBRINGER!"
The mouth on Lucifer's chest opened into a cavernous darkness, only lit by a single tiny candle flame. Her right arm reached into the open maw and with a grasping motion, she held the hilt of a sword made from the very essence of fire.
With a slight tug she removed the sword from her torso, and the blade ignited for real. The very fabric of reality was straining under the metaphorical weight of the sword.
With the sword now in the real world, the mouths along Lucifer's upper body screamed one last word before joining in an incoherent wall of maddening noise.
"THIEF!"
With that final scream, the six winged angel was free to move again. Likely in a bid to seize the initiative, she dashed forward, the glow of her magic suffusing her entire body as she once again opened with a mighty overhead slash.
Lucifer waited until the last second, observing the approaching blade, before swiftly stepping to the side and past the angel, her arm lashing out in a seemingly casual slash.
The angel was momentarily disoriented as her intended target had seemingly vanished from right beneath her blade, before a searing pain flared up on her back. Her mind told her to get up and turn around, but her body convulsed as the searing pain spread from her back to the depths of her soul.
A wet thump brought her mind back to the present as she saw a pair of severed wings laying directly next to her, the stump already a charred mess. A thick choked up wail escaped her throat as the realization set in. She had just lost a pair of wings.
Fighting through the pain, she got to her feet, only for the heel of a foot to smash sideways into her face. Once again she was thrown dozens of meters away. On instinct she tried to flare out her wings, to control her airborne movements, only for the sharp pain to shoot through her mind again, as she tried to move limbs that were no longer there.
Despite the quick bout of pain, she managed to right herself midair, landing on her feet. Looking up she expected an almost instantaneous follow up, but all that greeted her was barren ground.
Hurriedly she looked around, until she spotted her enemy right where she had stood earlier. Ideas of retreat came from her subconscious, but we're instantly dashed as the battlefield changed.
Lucifer had pumped all of the excess heat and fire mana that she couldn't use into her surroundings. Now after a few minutes of combat, it had finally reached the proper density. With a small flex of [Pureflame Manipulation] the surrounding heat instantly caused a reaction. The very air began to shimmer as the unbearable heat caused fluctuating density. Another technique forced itself into the world as a mouth on her neck spoke its name.
[Sunrise Sword Arts: Heat Haze]
Now with the angel's vision impaired by the very air, Lucifer began her punishment.
One after the other she began to sever the angel's wings. The shimmering air did nothing to impede Lucifer's vision, but the angel could only blindly react whenever she was struck. It made for a pathetic display, considering the woman's earlier pride.
Lucifer could just walk up to the woman's unguarded backside and take an uncontested slash. Without the angel being able to see her, it was even easier to dodge or parry her retaliatory strikes.
Once the angel was rid of all her wings, she slowed down significantly. The magic that had earlier washed through her muscles like a churning river, was now just a trickle. The only thing that still kept her going was the infusion of burning soul energy which was pumped into her through her soul. But even that was slowly but surely drying up.
Barely managing to stay on her feet, the angel panted. Her eyes were unfocused and the passive radiance she had exuded earlier was nowhere to be seen.
"Fine. You won." The angel wheezed.
Lucifer approached, taking a low stance in front of the unseeing angel.
"Don't think this is the end!" The beginnings of her tirade were cut short as a pained cough forced itself from her lungs.
Lucifer held the dawnbringer to her left, as if it was inside a sheath, while her right hand hovered over its grip.
"When I return-"
"You won't." Lucifer interrupted.
"Wha-" the angel's last words died in her throat asher vision suddenly went black. Suddenly she could see Lucifer in front of her, but nothing else. Just infinite blackness.
Having pushed the surrounding ambient mana away, with her flood of fire mana, Lucifer abruptly applied her will. She had done something similar once before, but now with her core helping the conversion along, it became magnitudes more effective and powerful.
With one quick pull, Lucifer absorbed every last shred of kinetic energy and heat from her surroundings. Except for her and the angel, nothing in her immediate surroundings reflected light, causing the surroundings to become utterly black.
The flames that had been burning along Lucifer's form, winked out of existence, and even the dawnbringer grew the tiniest bit more dim.
For both Lucifer and the Commander, it seemed as if the very world had disappeared.
Inside Lucifer's core, the veritable tidal wave of kinetic energy and heat, impacted the star and was instantly converted.
Usually Lucifer was a fan of fire, but now she had something else in mind. Instead of the caustic crimson mana her core produced, at her command it produced pure kinetic energy. No mana, no heat, just pure force, which she evenly distributed between the muscles of her chest, right arm and the sword at her side.
As a mouth once again began to speak, Lucifer felt her right arm move.
The world seemed to freeze as the dawnbringer slashed twice. One time perfectly horizontal, severing the angel's torso from her hips, and another time perfectly vertical, dividing the angel into four equal parts.
For a moment the only light in the darkness around Lucifer was the cross-shaped trail the Dawnbringer had left behind, before the blade winked out of existence.
[Dying Light Sword Arts: Crucifixion]