When he heard the voice and saw the blackish-violet light wash over him, Gabriel expected that he would end up back in that black ‘box’ filled with souls. But it seemed like that event was reserved only for the initial awakening of his Unique Magic, the light sinking into his body and rushing through his veins as if it was blood.

His insides boiled. Different from the fire that Alice lit, different from the lightning she gave him. It was as if every cell of his being was bubbling, hissing with screams made of steam. Each time a ‘bubble’ popped, he felt the boiling cell suck in a fresh breath of energy.

The energy didn’t come from him, so where did it come from? Simple, it came from the world around him. The lizard-men closest to him aged and died, the land grew dry, any smattering of ice melted, every puddle of water evaporated.

The world burned.

The fire was invisible, insidious, but there all the same. With his body as the centre, the world around him burned, a transparent blaze swallowing all. The fire didn’t care about the firewood, it burned all the same. And in this case, it burned for him.

From earth to him. From ice to him. From water to him. From lizard-man to him. The fire burned them and they became part of him, another mote of blackish-violet light that sank into his boiling insides.

The light, the boiling cells, the energy, it all rushed to the same place. The right hand that was buried in the brain of the lizard-man. It tingled, a soft sensation of pain lingering beneath the tingling. Like peeling the skin when you got a bad sunburn. The sensation crept up to just past his wrist, the energy kept trying to push further but seemed too weak to make any further headway. The body of the large lizard-man crumbled after a second, which felt like ages, so Gabriel could finally see his hand.

A claw. His skin had fallen off to make way for dark purple scales with black and silver veins running across them. His nails had cracked open and gotten pushed out by the sharp talons that now jutted out from his fingers. The scales stopped unnaturally just past his wrist, the skin around that area red and bruised yet unable to flake away to make way for new scales. The world burned for him, but the firewood he offered the flames wasn’t sufficient enough to become a true inferno.

A claw. The shape that his ‘sword’ took right now was a single claw. Fitting perhaps, seeing as they were facing but a single claw themselves. But how would it fare? He honestly couldn’t tell. Unlike when he used the ‘shield’ to burn souls he didn’t feel any different, even the tingling in his hand had vanished. He just felt… Normal, if a bit weary.

"Nergal, can you hold it down?"

The darkness twitched in response, a couple of eyes popping to the surface before curving delightfully. The eyes sank back down and the darkness moved, Nergal scuttling towards the large claw, which had now lost three of its original nine talons. The eyes bobbing around in the darkness, occasionally becoming maws before becoming eyes again, kept curving in delight. He never really got to let loose like this so he relished the situation while he could.

—-

He quickly reached the area beneath the claw, clinging to its shadow like a maggot as he allowed himself to grow. Larger, larger, larger, larger. To swallow prey like this he would need a larger maw, a bigger stomach. From one to ten, from ten to a hundred, he kept growing until there was no place where the claws’ talons weren’t sinking into his bubbling stomach.

His stomach had grown, now he just needed a maw that suited it. One tooth, ten teeth, a hundred teeth, a thousand teeth, ten thousand teeth. He kept growing more and more teeth, rows upon rows forming within his stomach. He abandoned the eyes in favour of more teeth, what need did he have to see his feast when it was already treading on his stomach?

A circular maw, perfect for shredding even the toughest of prey as it was dragged down. Father said to just hold it down, but he shouldn’t be scolded if he just went for a taste, right? After all, wasn’t his Father just going to eat it in the end as well? Yeah, he had to taste it in advance, it wouldn’t do if Father ended up eating something foul.

The claw was struggling, like a fly trapped by sticky paper. But Nergal knew flies, and he was sure he knew it better than this tasty morsel. The feast after a war, the plague they brought in the dark times, like the final nail in the coffin of life. He knew what it was like to be that fly, he knew how to tie it down.

Flies. Flies. Flies. Flies. Flies. Flies. Hundreds, thousands, several tens of thousands. His stomach twisted away part of itself to give form to the flies, clumping them into thick tendrils that stretched out. Coil them around the talons, block out the eyes. The world goes dark after war, life loses sight of where its supposed to go. So sink it into darkness.

It struggles, but the more life struggles after war the deeper it sinks itself into the mire. A rush to burn bodies just leads to more people being exposed to the flies. A rush to end the war just leads to more lives getting ended. A rush to get through the post-war period just opens more gaps for a new war. War just leads to more war, and pestilence always follows war, the fly was never far away from death.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The morsel sank deeper into the mire. A pressure from above, from the side, from below. Nergal had abandoned his own eyes for a taste of this thing, but he didn’t need them to tell. Fenrir. The hungry wolf, it was toying with gravity so that the claw had a harder time slipping out of the mire.

A bit of tingling as well, a slight pain that rippled across the flies and the stomach. He could smell it above. Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent was bringing down the weight of the storm, the best she could do with just a single pair of wings.

He could smell the others too, the one lurking within the men Father called Arioch and Caine. They smelled delicious, just like Fenrir and Quetzalcoatl. But they hadn’t brought them out so he couldn’t ask to get a taste. Oh well, this morsel would have to suffice.

Fenrir and Quetzalcoatl were helping to bring it down so he could stretch out his maw, the ink-dark stomach around it stretching out along with it as he latched onto three of its talons. He would love to just swallow it whole, but he hadn’t eaten enough to grow that large yet, Father was too stingy for that. Would have to settle with this, maybe he’d get to pop and slurp up some of the eyes.

Grind. Grind. Grind. Grind. Grind. Just crunching down on the talons wasn’t enough, the scales were pointlessly tough so he couldn’t yet to the succulent meat if he just tried to chew. So he ground. And he ground. And he ground. His maw, his teeth, they span like a blender.

The scales may be tough, but pestilence was eternal, death kept going without end, it’d be ground down eventually. So just grind, and grind, and grind, and grind, and grind.

Crunch.

Mhm. A sweet taste, like the juice Father occasionally gave him. The scales were starting to crack, its blood was spilling. Ah, what a divine taste. That he had to surrender this to his Father was nothing short of a shame. But it couldn’t be helped, that was just how things were.

And judging by the situation, it was about time. He had no eyes, but he could ‘see’ it. Light, dark and terrible, mixed with the colour of his father’s eyes. It stung him as it grew, pulsated like a dying sun. Father was coming, the feast was bound to end.

——

Gabriel watched as Nergal got into position, coiling around the claw to tie it down. Fen and Quetz were also helping so the claw wasn’t able to escape straight away. Nergal was going a bit above and beyond, what with his maw stretching out from the tar-like darkness to snap up three of the claw’s legs.

Well, Caine and the others just looked gratified by it. They had been forced to launch spell after spell so they were inevitability extremely tired. That was especially the case for Arioch and Caine, one had kept using large spells while the other kept using both magic and his own Unique Magic. Everyone here probably wanted to just fall asleep where they stood.

"Hah… Gabri…Hah…"

Almanar was breathing heavily not far away. Casting spells, running to find demons and then running back while acting as bait, his lungs were killing him. For now, Gabriel ignored him, his focus on the claw. His own claw… It still felt so terribly normal. And yet… he was confident.

He clenched it tightly, a low groan echoing from it. He then bent his knees and crouched to get into position. Alice had imbued him with lightning so he was faster than ever before. But he wasn’t used to that speed so he had basically no control over it. That was why he needed Nergal to tie down the claw. A clean shot that couldn’t miss.

He gathered his strength. The fire inside, the lightning, the boiling in his hand. Put it in the legs, kick off, return it to the hand. He made the plan and then he executed it. He kicked off lightly, and then he vanished. A split second after, the earth where he had just stood was torn up and flung away, forcing Almanar to stumble back several steps.

Gabriel couldn’t see. He was moving too fast, his eyes couldn’t keep up. He simply blinked and then he was in front of the claw, already in the process of moving past it. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he focused. Ice was spreading out from the claw, spreading along Nergal’s tar-like body. Even the lightning and wind sent out by Quetz was freezing, tracing the ice back to her body. This ancient beast, even spirits could become blocks of ice if it unleashed enough power.

Well, no time to think about that. Had to act in this minuscule moment of clarity before he kept going further. The strength he used to kick off was already back in his hand, his scaled claw clenched tightly. There was that groaning sound again. But it wasn’t his bones, nor was it his scales. There was simply an all-encompassing groaning that kept leaking out, seemingly from all around him.

He ignored the sound and moved his arm, smashing the fist into the claw with all the might he could muster. His ‘shield’ had been able to take one of the claw’s talons so surely his ‘sword’ would do better, right? He held that belief, his strange confidence, close as he attacked.

And then there was an explosion.

Deeper than thunder, louder than a collapsing mountain. Cracking and crunching, a sharp whistling of something soaring through the air. Nergal was still chomping down on the three talons, grinding the scales down with his circular maw. But the claw they were supposed to be attached to… Wasn’t there.

Gabriel just barely saw it as his body kept moving forward, the momentum of his original kick off still strong in his body. The claw was soaring through the air. Three of its talons had been cut off earlier, and now there were jagged stumps where three of the remaining talons should have been. Cracks covered its entire body, a large section had just caved in entirely where Gabriel’s fist had landed.

The claw spun through the air uncontrollably until it crashed into a mountain with a thunderous rumbling. Gabriel’s momentum was still there so he was rushing after it, naturally slower now that he had expended some of the momentum by punching it.

As for the hand that had punched it, the scales were sinking into his flesh and the talons were retracting into his fingers, fresh skin and nails replacing them. Still, he maintained his confidence. He could tell, almost instinctively. The claw was on the verge of death, just one last push and it would be over.