Chapter 6

"Phew! I am not gonna read a book ever again!" Ignoring Ishmallah's rolling dice and his subsequent movement, I sat down cross-legged to meditate.

The world suddenly closed around me, darkness invades my mind. I find myself floating in darkness, my body glowing brightly. A mind space, only for me. Here, time outside is irrelevant. With the blessings placed on my soul, I can think for countless years and only a few minutes would have passed outside.

'154. That's the number I must roll to win. 154 squares away from winning. If I overcome the number, I must count backward from the end. To reach the ending square, I must have the perfect number. And if I fall short, it will be impossible to end.'

Considering my options slowly. I came to a realization. As I open my eyes I find myself back on the Doom Dimension.

Standing up, with resolute eyes, I know it's my turn now. With a turn of my hand, the vial of Golden Void appears. 'Three minutes'.

My shadow bubbles and extends, what was once my bike changed to something more. Alive. From my shadow, a dark silhouette shrouded in darkness, even under the sun. It neighs.

Riding my shadow mount is a new feeling. It feels like nightmares protecting you like my heart is afire but cold. I can feel it, it's needs, wants, and desires. Just as it can feel mine. It is made of my shadow after all. So it's part of me, yet not. A symbiosis, made of my shadow, a super-bike, and a dark ritual with a bit of leprechaun.

Closing my eyes, I waver for a second before opening them with determination. Here we go. "I have to drink only half of it..." I mutter as I bring the potion to my lips.

I notice the gaze of the Seraphim and I can feel his doubts the moment he sees me drinking the "bomb" heh, fool. The charade is up, but you're bound to my whims now. I smirk.

As the golden liquid caresses my throat I suddenly feel a burn deep in my soul. I can't think, I can't move, I can only feel pain. It's probably the worst pain I have ever felt.

As I cough and fall to the top of the shadow mount I make sure to not let a single drop of the Golden Void fall. "Argh." It hurts. It's burning my insides. Either I drank a little bit of void or it was badly mixed. I do not want to think about the possibility of being betrayed.

'Must. Throw. The. Dice...' I clench my teeth, as the dice drop from my sweaty, trembling hands. As I breathe out from the pain, golden smoke comes from my exhalations.

Every dice rolls and bounces from the floor, scattering around. However, every single dice show the same number. 22. With a pained smile, I signal my mount to rush as fast as possible to the end.

With the pain of my soul lessening but not entirely gone, I am hardly able to grab the reins of my mount so I don't fall. Because my shadow horse tenses for less than a second and then 'woosh' the air was cut. The surrounding disappears as I suddenly am on the 1000 square. "Heh, thanks Bikey".

The shadow horse just neighs as he disappears once again as my shadow.

The moment I stepped on the square, the world shone bright red and the Doom Dimension's realm reduces itself to a mere ten meters cubic world. As Ishmallah appeared in front of me with an unreadable face.

"You cheated." He stated, his pressure and energy flowing wildly out of him. Perhaps I have riled him way too much?

"I never said you couldn't cheat. I told you the rules though." I answer as nonchalantly as I could, don't ever show weakness in front of an enemy.

"Ishmallah, it's time to fulfill your oath," I say with a wide grin as I bring the vial with the remaining potion to my hand "drink this. Drink it all. Absorb every single bit of what's left of the potion to your very being! That is my wish!"

As I throw him the vial, I can see him hesitating as he brings it near his mouth. "Don't hesitate Dusted One, you pledged your essence to your oath. Drink it. Now. Hahahaha!" Am I angering him even more? Yep, I am. Why? Well, he is probably gonna attack me right now when the Doom Dimension disappears, the more I can read his attacks the better. And a being like him? I can only read him if he stops caring about tactics and only acts in anger.

His eyes darkened and for the first time, Ishmalla truly looked at me as an equal. My hair prickled and I could feel the danger. As he started drinking I started backing away and dropping the charade called out to Mr.Hat. "Maxirum, leave. Now. Go towards the Green Sculptor, tell them to activate the potion. I don't think I can hold him more than six minutes!"

"Good luck, Lady Exterminator." His whispered words as he disappeared in a vortex of purple runic words. "Thank you for your work."

The instant Mr. Hat disappears is the instant the inside of the seal reappears around us. The Doom Dimension has gone back into my storage ring.

I heard a grunt and a thud. The fallen angel fell to the floor, he's on his knees, his wings giving him support enough to not completely fall.

Cracks started to appear all around his body, he starts wailing. His soul should start corroding.

Without wasting time, I aim towards the cracks with my revolver and shoot all my six bullets in less than a second, jumping backward at the same time. Even if he's weakened right now I can't face him head-on.

I throw eight voodoo dolls as I start chanting in Haitian.

"O Loa, ban mwen èd ou. Pote avatar ou jan yo te pwomèt la, atake lènmi m 'yo. Pwoteje mwen."

Everything happened in an instant. The moment Mr. Hat disappeared and the suns came close towards Dust-face he opened one of his eyes and a wave of energy surged from him, diverging the suns and destroying everything around him.

Even extremely weakened, with his soul burning and his energy fluctuating he is still way too strong. Shit.

As he diverted my attack, he came at top speed towards me. As he got closer, the straw dolls became twelve meters blue titans made of divine energy fast enough to attack him.

"Beni poumon mwen, anile bondye. Detwi divinite."

As I keep chanting to the African Loa so the Voodoo dolls don't break I was still retreating, going in circles around the seal, I can't allow him to trap me against a wall after all. No kabe-dons from dirty angels.

As I light one of my wizardry cigs I blow black sparkly smoke to my sword. He's fast. He destroyed all the avatars of the Loa, and now he's closing the distance quite fast.

My usually shiny justice-seeking sword is now blackened with the tar of imperfect humanities, this is not purely because of the smoke. But more so because of the voodooist chant. A wish to nullify divinity, a plead to kill gods. After all, African Voodooism is all about killing gods. Poor Loa, brought to their knees by mere mortals. Now just slaves of our chants and wishes.

Swinging my sword towards where I believe Ishmallah will appear in the next instant makes me grin. Ah, I do have more battle experience than foolish magical-wave-and-all-is-destroyed-angel.

"Hyah!"

As a giant white cracked hand appears. Like a marble statue about to be broken, my swing meets the hand, cutting it in half as I spun at the same time cutting him from the extensor tendons. Better known as his fucking wrist.

As his hand was cut, Ishmallah, who initially ignored the sword, as he didn't feel anything particular about it got angry. his rage, which I have been building up for the last three days finally exploded. And the proud angel snapped.

"Ridiculous! Savages, wild and sinners! You humans always destroying creation. I am gonna destroy this world and make you watch!" From his fresh and bloody stump, a gray beam shots towards me, forcing his own body back from the recoil.

As the beam came closer, all I could think was how Spiderman comics really helped me taunt people. His rage is palpable, it burns the atmosphere and even the oxygen near him turns to dust.

I keep shooting suns towards the beam, activating my boots to slide backward using the strength of my revolver to back away. I slide, twisting my body like playing limbo with the beam, as it manages to burn a few strands of hair.

Shiny smoke travels from my cigar to his stump. As it burrowed in his injury, invading his blood vessels, his arteries, his bones, his muscles, and under his skin.

"How!? How does a mere mortal manage to hurt me so much!?" As he screams and huffs a grey light surrounds his arm, encasing it as it expels my smoke from his arm.

As he grunts in pain while purging his arm, I used that chance to release sixty-two shikigamis placing them around the area making a giant seal as I write Chinese runes in the air. Making an Arabic seal.

Six elemental walls surround the seraphim, while a giant lotus floats above him as the ground turns to purple mud poison.

The instant the triple formation forms, a giant heavenly thunder comes from the Lotus, the walls alight with Demonic Omnyoji fire, and the poison boils as it surrounds the Fallen Angel.

As the attack was about the hit the angel, his head rose and with a roar his wings unfurled behind him, breaking the formation and dissipating everything once again.

With a snarl, he rushed towards me, countless balls of light appearing one after another in the sky. Shooting lasers of grey energy towards me.

"You're more annoying than I thought," I say as I brought the shield of Sparta, activating all his enchantments and divine blessings. "Spartans, Eat Well, for Tonight We Dine in Hades"

The round shield, became giant, golden energy around it as it bend, surrounding me. Safeguarding me from every single direction. -boom- A collision resonated from the shield. And the sound of heavy rain as countless lasers attacked the shield.

Hmpf. I grunt as I take out three caskets of Atlantean blood, as I danced around the open baskets, submerging my hands on the blood, splashing around, creating intricate forms on the ground.

As my old and dear shield cracks, and light starts to shine on me, with one last hit from Ishmallah, my sweet old partner is broken.

I can't even see the sky anymore, everything be it from the sky to ground level is filled with millions of gray energy spheres. Blanking the world in its dust-like color. How bleak.

Without pausing or saying anything, the Fallen Seraphim brings forward his energy sword and all his gray orbs shoot at the same time. However, the instant he get's near the blood circle time stops as a blood tattoo appears on my face. Got ten seconds.

With the time stopped, I started dancing once again while this time touching every single beam, including the sword beam of Ishmallah. Dragging my bloody hand down Ishmallah's face allowing a red Atlantean symbol to appear on him.

Before time's up. I slid between Ishmallah's legs since it was the only place where light orbs did not appear. As time resumed, his eyes instantly zoomed to me, however, before he could swing down at me, all his attacks were redirected at himself. Even his own sword, as it attacked the inside of his arm.

His eyes widened as his sword impaled his arm, with a twirl wind rose from my feet, ejecting me towards an adjacent building, like a shout, filled with madness reverberated inside the seal. The mere energy from the shout pushed me away and broke every single building and tree that was still standing. Now it truly looks like a wasteland.

"Human! Enough!" Dark shiny dust surrounds the Seraphim as everything around him turns to dust. Ten extra wings appear on his back, his once white marble skin turns black as obsidian, his veins shining silver as his once injured form completely heals in a matter of seconds, as he grows in size. From seven meters to twenty-five.

However, even if his physical injuries are healed, it doesn't mean he actually is. The cracks on his body extend, even more, he now looks like an actually broken pot. He's about to lose his soul. And with it, everything.

Despite his extensive soul damage, he still has the energy to spare. And because of his madness, he has become berserk and is ignoring his own pain, now he just moves on instinct.

I dodge a swipe of his arm, that turns everything to dust, no plans, no skills, just kill. That's probably the only thing on his mind. This is both good and bad.

Jumping towards my right side, spinning in the air dodging a few lasers, I use the air as a platform to shoot towards his right leg.

As I slash his achilles tendon, from the injury I just made a flash blinds me for a second. -crash- As I come to my senses I feel myself being lifted from a hole in the ground made with my shape. I feel my earrings vibrating, protecting me from the corrosive energy of Ishmallah. It seems he caught me.

My legs are broken, and as are most of my ribs. Coughing blood I look towards Ishmallah as he brings me towards his face.

"I got you now, Chaos Bringer. Now I can see your true nature. I was going to kill you, but I got a better plan. You will certainly enjoy it. Hahahaha"

"I didn't know you had a sense of humor, Chicken." -cough- "I wonder what have you prepared for me. Hey, easy!" I shout in pain as he squishes me a little bit more, breaking my arms. Great. Now I can't do anything. However, I can count. And it's been five minutes since hat disappeared.

"That potion was foul, human. But I won't die because of a little bit of void. I am gonna purge the void and become even stronger. And you... You're going to suffer for eons. I am gonna take your head and make a medallion out of your head. You will be able to see everything as I torture your soul and your world for millions of years."

"Hehehe" I laugh, and I cough, and blood seeps out of my lips. "Fool. You will die here. Despite all your power and age, you're still just an ignorant fool. You underestimated humanity, and you are going to pay the price very soon. At the end of the day... You just managed to destroy three cities. In the grand scheme of things, that's nothing. Hahahaha" -cough-.

As he was about to answer, void energy starts bubbling from the cracks. Inside his body, a black hole made of void and golden strands start devouring his soul and his essence. Horrified, the Seraphim instead of dropping me grabs me tighter and his hands surround me like a cat who caught a fly. "If I die... YOU WILL DIE WITH ME!" He shouts. What a madman.

Trying everything to escape. But nothing works. I can't even muster enough strength to move. I guess this is it.

As I see the black hole devour everything, and surrounds me about to eat me as well. I close my eyes.

"O Fateless One, I fulfill my vows to you, as the Keeper of Secrets I offer my sacrifice. For you have given me purpose in life; you have brought joy and eternal shadow to the world. Now I can walk with you on your realm. O Fateless One."

And that's how I the Blighted One was eaten by the void.