Blessed by Night

125  Grudge

Malachi chuckled like an amused old man as he held up his hand. A spark billowed to life, and suddenly a ball of pitch black flame appeared in his palm. "This is something else... Now I got the whole set!" He held up his other hand and produced a spark of black lightning, before summoning a dark tendril of shadow. "Ah... I guess I'm missing water though but black water would be a little gross, no?" He realized. "What... is he talking about?"

"Malachi...You're starting to worry me, lad."

"Black water actually has a fair bit of minerals inside of it and is quite refreshing."

Malachi flew down to the three men below and immediately wrapped his arms around Morgan and Enzo like they were the best of friends. "We're still going to eat after this, right? If I'm honest I think the girls and I got our hopes up a little bit." "Oh, can I come!?" Arias asked excitedly. Malachi smiled warmly like he was just waiting for the golden haired man to respond and he uttered the most chilling words imaginable. "How are you supposed to come with us if you're going to be dead in a few seconds?"

Rumble...BOOOOOOMMM!!! n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

As soon as Mal finished his threat, an enormous bolt of black lightning blew the entire ceiling apart, and fell down on the unsuspecting cult leader. Morgan and Enzo were both sent reeling from the explosive debris and the loud shockwave produced by the lightning strike. Malachi seemed to be the only one who was relatively fine as he looked down at the two men who were temporarily blinded and deafened on the obliterated floor. The men were groaning and holding their ears in synchronization with each other, all of which Mal found to be slightly amusing. "Sorry guys, probably should have warned you about...Wait why the fuck am I apologizing right now if you can't even hear me?"

"Urgh.."

"Hijo de puta... ¡me arden los ojos!" (Son of a bitch... my eyes are burning!)

"Lo lamento. Se curarán en un segundo, Enzo." (Sorry about that, they'll heal in a second, Enzo.)

"Well, that was really something!"

15:39

An egregiously annoying voice played from behind Malachi, and a small bit of irritation dampened his once pleasant mood. Glancing over his shoulder, he found Arias standing by the splintered ruins of the champagne table, protecting a miraculously still intact bottle of bubbly. "I must admit that everything I seem to learn about you becomes out of date rather quickly, Mr. Saint. That level of power wasn't something my goddess spoke of."

Malachi sent both Morgan and Enzo outside with the rest of the party guests before he reached inside of his shadows and pulled out his trusty daggers that Bianca had made. He casually plucked two of them out of the air and he allowed the rest to float around his body, each of them pointed at the golden haired man in white robes. "All of my power feels pretty insignificant if I can't use it to kill an insect like you. So let's keep trying new things, shall we?"

Arias barely had enough time to pull out his own weapon before a flurry of daggers came flying at his chest. He narrowly managed to deflect them with his rapier before another problem came flying towards him at full speed. Malachi's proficiency with his daggers wasn't typically something he got to show off a lot, but it was something his trainer Rose had painstakingly drilled into him. As a result, Arias was somewhat unprepared when he narrowly avoided a stab to his cornea, and another blade that was aimed at his windpipe. 'Fast, huh?'

Arias quickly discovered yet another problem with Malachi's approach, and that was the remaining knives that were floating around him. Every time Malachi attacked one side of his body, he would telekinetically send a few daggers towards the other side. It left Arias with practically no room to run, and he was forced to twist and turn at impossible angles in order to avoid being hit. But of course, his luck was always bound to run out at some point. Slice!

Finally, Mal caught Arias by surprise and lodged a silver dagger in his neck, and drew their struggle to a close. Malachi relished in the sight of Arias' eyes widening from shock, before he glanced at the point of insertion and smiled wryly in defeat. From the beginning, he had always noticed something strange about Arias in the back of his mind. Only now was he able to put all of those things together and grasp the full picture. Arias had no heartbeat. He didn't draw breath into his lungs, and his footsteps made no sound. He was able to bend and twist his body at impossible angles, and he was able to miraculously escape from certain death attacks without suffering a scratch. But what really gave it all away was the sight of a shining light being emitted from the wound he'd suffered. "Huh...Imagine that." Malachi muttered. Arias finally dropped the act and resumed his usual carefree smile as he held up his hands. "Well now, you don't seem to be terribly surprised, do you? That really takes the fun out of this whole avatar thing, doesn't it?"

Hearing it out of Arias' own mouth didn't really alarm him, but it did raise an important question. "I'm rather curious now... who's blessed you, Goldilocks?"

Arias smiled and a glimmer of madness shone in his eyes as if he had been waiting for this question all along. "I am so glad you finally asked, since you and I are somewhat connected after all! You see, my mother happens to hate your mother very much. So, she has given me the power to revolutionize this entire world and all of the life within it, provided that I make your life as miserable as possible before you die."

Malachi smiled jokingly, like he was oblivious to this tense atmosphere. "Now who could hate my sweet mother? Can't be anyone who actually knows her."

Arias' smile grew wider and wider until it seemed like his lips were going to split apart. "Hemera, the Primordial Goddess of the Day."

Cracks began to form along Arias' skin. Bit by bit, his flimsy outer shell started to fall onto the floor like gentle snowflakes on the grass. Arias' appearance fell away until he was no more than a mass of light in the shape of a man. But where Mal typically had no identifiable features, Arias had bright green eyes that burned with the full intensity of the sun. "Do your best not to die yet, child of night. Lest I disappoint my mother with a poor showing of what she has given me."

BOOM!!

One moment, Malachi was staring face to face with a human lightbulb, and in the next, he was sent flying through the ceiling and his vision had become blurry. Mal couldn't exactly tell what he'd been hit with or how hard, but he was certain that his jaw was shattered from the impact. Flash!

Arias appeared above the airborne Malachi and grabbed him by his neck while holding him in the air. "Care to see a little trick?"

The avatar of day snapped his fingers, and suddenly the night's sky was chased away by sunlight.

Even though it was currently 11 p.m, the sky above was as bright as early in the morning. Malachi tried to use his own powers to counter and bring back the night but... it proved to be to no avail. No matter how hard he tried to return some sense of shade into the world it failed all the same. In the back of his mind, Malachi started to wrack his brain for alternatives to the current dilemma. Based on everything he knew from Nyx about Avatars of the gods, he was certain that he wasn't in possession of the abilities needed to defeat Arias, much less wound him. His weaponry would be ineffective, his physical attacks laughable, and his powers were far below the necessary standard. Arias casually tossed Malachi up above his head, while making a finger gun gesture with his hands. "Pew, pew, pew!"

With childlike glee, Arias fired bullets of burning light through nearly every corner of Malachi's body. Even though he couldn't see himself, he knew that he must have been riddled with holes all over. The pain was somehow as unbearable as it was sweet, as it was a reminder that he was still alive.

But if he didn't figure something out soon, he was going to head to the afterlife more quickly than he planned. And as if a light had gone off in his brain, he remembered one weapon that he had yet to use in this fight. 'Shear...!'

Responding to his call, the frightening nightmare appeared in the sky. As Malachi fell from the sky in a free fall, she rushed at the one responsible for putting him into his terrible state. "What a horrible monstrosity you are."

"ENEMYYY!!!"

"Yes, yes, I suppose I am."

Arias remained unbothered as he held out his hand and fired a beam of light as large as a fully grown sequoia tree. The bolt of light obliterated the strange creature to pieces, and Arias resumed his search for Mal.

It wasn't very difficult to find his opponent's broken body lying on top of a car that was parked on the street. He clenched his fist as he began gathering power within himself as he intended to close the curtains on this historic day. "My gentle mother... with this I will absolve you of your- AAAAGGGHHHH!!!"

Arias wasn't sure when or how it happened, but somehow that nightmarish creature from before had reappeared behind him, and pierced his chest with a scythe-like appendage. Normally he shouldn't have felt anything from an attack like that but for some reason he was in excruciating pain. To make matters worse, the place where his illuminous body had been stabbed was darkening, almost as if some kind of corrosive agent had been introduced into his system. 'Mother... you did not mention anything like this!' Arias screamed internally. "Enemy... kill enemy!!!"

I wanna pick my third novel back up but honestly I don’t really know what direction I wanna take it and I’m in desperate need of ideas. AnathaShesha

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