God of Nothing

Like stars floating on an evening sky, the lamplights' pale shine stood out among the dark. And in its midst was Deceit, in the form that it wore when it had almost killed Rayse. Even through his terror, a corner of Rayse's mind appreciated the scene's terrible beauty. Real or not, this ephemeral scene was hard to ignore.

It did not prevent him from making his move, though, quickly summoning a spell in an attempt to pierce the darkness.

"Light Ray!"

White energy pierced through the darkness the herald created before hitting it head on. The darkness escaped, fleeing from the light he had created. He saw a brief glimpse of his friends and the townsfolk all facing Deceit as if transfixed. Rayse held up his hand in defiance, maintaining the spell long enough for them to get a move on.

"Gather up the townsfolk and retreat near the gates!" Luke commanded, looking and sounding far more composed than ever. The mages got a move on, quickly ushering the townsfolk back to a stronger light source. A wall of earth sprouted under Rayse's feet, raising him up a couple feet while erecting a barrier between the herald and her prey. 

"Keep going, Ray!" a voice called out to him. He struggled to keep his attack going as massive thunderbolts struck the spot that Deceit was in. The spell was so powerful that even the building beside it was demolished. 

He looked to the side to see Eric and Lacey, clothes billowing in the wind. Rayse smiled in relief at the welcome sight in this increasingly dark world.

"I was wondering where you guys were." He said as he finally released the spell. He felt a tingle in both his hands, but it was a small price to pay for getting a hit in on a herald.

"Yeah, sorry. We had to set up a massive attack. You told us about what Deceit looked like, and the moment you attacked, I knew we needed something big." She said, beaming like the sun. It wasn't long since they last saw each other, but Rayse could already feel his fatigue washing away. This girl, she's really–

"Uhh, guys? I don't think we're done." Eric interrupted, pulling them back into the nightmare. He pointed at the rubble, where a solitary shadow stood. The ground was now completely covered in darkness, the same menacing smoke that had covered Hios before. It billowed all around, momentarily clearing as if to allow men to see the folly of their actions. 

Rayse gulped as the darkness parted, revealing the shadow. It was the same emissary from before, a blackened corpse reaching out to its mother in eternal pain. The rubble then moved, as if answering its dying breath, parting to reveal a group of emissaries, coming for them all. But the herald was nowhere to be found.

Deceit was gone.

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Aleph lept back, narrowly avoiding a massive blade. He breathed heavily as he wiped the sweat from his brow. Four beady eyes followed him curiously, analyzing his every move. It was the Herald of Oblivion, assuming a different form.

Among his countless clashes with the beast, he had begun to understand its fearsome power.

Oblivion: the power of forgetfulness. Erosion was its curse, able to shave away at a person's very identity.

Aleph watched closely as this new creature saw its own limbs, seemingly for the first time. It raised its mantislike sickles, tilting its head in confusion, then looked back at him, chittering in anger.

"Click click click click!"

This was Oblivion's true terror: a body that forgets its own state, morphing to whatever whims its master believed. It was able to forget its own wounds, and would change into an endless array of animals or mythical beasts, often a combination of the two.

This current iteration was just as cursed as the first, with a head and torso of a mantis, and the legs of a goat. The only remaining constant was the centipede tail. The face in the end didn't even seem human now, just a vague shape half formed features.

Aleph wasn't even surprised at the transformations anymore. It took all of his experience in battle just to not be overwhelmed. He pushed forward once again, advancing with his gauntleted hands to strike the creature in the chest. It met him head on, sickles aimed forward as if to skewer him.

Tang!

Their weapons clashed, making a sound like metal hitting metal. Aleph maneuvered to the side, stabbing deep into the creature's side with a knife hand. He enveloped his hand in mana in an attempt to hopefully do decisive damage this time, when a dark shape came at him from above. Clicking his tongue, Aleph decided to just pull his hand back as he stepped back, narrowly dodging the centipede's sharp appendages, before moving in to attack it. As the only part of the creature that seemed unchanging, he believed it to be the herald's weakness. 

Next thing he knew, he was sent flying through the air once again, winded by something that struck his stomach. He managed to stop himself, once again panting on the ground.

"Ugh!" Aleph groaned, nursing the growing bruise in his midsection. It felt like a metal pole was slammed into him, which was pretty accurate as the enemy had simply swung its arms to the side to get rid of him. The creature was in terrible pain, squirming and thrashing with its innards hanging out. He struggled to get up, not wanting to let go of this chance. Before he could, though, a film of glowing green acid enveloped his enemy once again, preventing his advance. Out came Oblivion, once again taking a completely new form and personality. This iteration had a goat's head, a gorilla's body and a pair of massive hooves for feet.

It greeted the worn out Aleph with a deep bow.

"My lord! I– Who might you be?"

"Dammit. Shut up and just die already." Aleph complained. His disciples had taken care of its brood, but all he had to show for his fight with Oblivion was the growing number of wounds on his body. This 'new' Oblivion made him apprehensive, as it has shown to be much more intelligent than the previous one. These variants had better command of their magic, after all. 

But in the end, Aleph charged anyway, taking advantage of the creature's momentary confusion. He dropped one of his gauntlets, completely drained of mana, before striking with his bare fist. The creature blocked once again, this time with a pair of hairy arms.

"H-how rude! Is this any way for a tiny god to behave!?" The creature admonished. The centipede's head was that of an old man this time, and it reflected its speech.

"Tsk."

Aleph failed again this time, but with every bruise, every cut, he felt closer and closer to victory. He only hoped he would survive it.

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"Scale Burst!"

A green sheen intercepted his attack, letting dozens of blades clang ineffectively against it. It faded out once the attack was over, allowing the army of evil to advance unharmed. Rayse's scales were trampled at their feet.

"Damn. Those barriers again..." He grumbled. He was getting antsy. A quick count showed at least thirty assorted emissaries down below, each at least as strong as the average squad member. Forget Deceit, this force alone could destroy all of them twice over. He took one last longing look at his shield before deciding.

"Screw it! Storm of Steel!"

He roused all the remaining mana in the shield, draining it so fast that the central crystal exploded in his hand. The result was amazing, though, as he took control of the field of broken blades. It whipped up in a squall, dealing grievous wounds on all that it touched. The demons scrambled, desperately trying to defend themselves from the attack. Small pockets of the barrier was erected, but the blades were already among them, tearing flesh and gouging limbs. To anyone who saw it, a storm of steel was an apt description. It was a terrible thing to witness if it were not happening to the enemy.

Shaking off the dust, Rayse let the shield fall from his hand. He brought up his spear as he jumped into the fray. He may have done some damage, but he knew he needed to deal a more decisive blow before the enemy recovered.

The spell subsided just as he struck the nearest one, a landlocked flier whose wings were severely damaged in the storm. Rayse stabbed downward, instantly killing the unfortunate being as it nursed its wounds.

"Don't let them recover!" he called out, eyes darting all over in search of more targets such as this one. A chill down his spine led him to a less aggressive maneuver, though, getting out of the way of a multitude of spells. A dark rainbow of powers arrived where he just stood, destroying the being he just killed to an unrecognizable state.

He was missing his broken shield already.

An enormous shadow loomed overhead, keeping him unbalanced. He dodged again, just in time for the massive emissary to trample the ground before him. Rayse ignored the beast, focused on picking off as many emissaries as possible. He vaulted from the butt of his spear, putting himself in the midst of the enemy. He attacked indiscriminately, attacking everyone in sight before he got overwhelmed. It went well for a time, allowing him to get the killing blow on a couple of them before he was struck by a blanket of dark flames.

"Argh!" Rayse flew backwards into the wall, almost making him pass out with the pain. He focused, redirecting the flames all over his body to scatter all around him instead, but it still left him a gasping, vomiting mess on the ground. The flame had gotten into his throat somehow, making every breath he took torture.

He had to spend the next moment pooling whatever healing he could muster, while downing the last of his potions. He blinked through the tears as he recovered, watching the battle for their survival.

He couldn't tell if it was going well or not. Like him, he found every single squad member fighting multiple enemies at a time. The defensive emissaries seemed to have recovered, creating a defensive barrier on their side of the battlefield. That forced the ones on the wall to come down to meet them head on. The line held for a time, but Rayse forced himself up. He felt that the longer the fight goes on, the worse it will get.

He was about to jump back into the fray when he noticed something he should have been keeping an eye on since the beginning. The darkness that scattered with Lacey's spell had returned, slowly swallowing the entire town.

"Everyone! Deceit's making its move!" He shouted, throat still raw. He helplessly felt around his pockets, looking for a way to recover his mana, but to no avail. He'd long used up all his mana crystals through the fighting. He had nothing close to the mana needed for Light Ray, let alone anything stronger.

As if to answer his desperation, a miniature sun bloomed from above. He looked up to see Lacey, holding up the sun like a primordial goddess.

"Finish them off! Hurry!" She shouted, but Rayse was already on the move. Ignoring his burning lungs, he attacked the nearest demon that he could.

"Burning Thrust!" His spear whistled through the air, whizzing past Sonia's ear to pierce the much larger emissary she was in a deadlock in. That pushed the tide, allowing the soldier to finish it off. His spear sailed right back into his hand, but he had already picked his next targets. He picked his spots well, each spear thrown was fatal, but the enemy got wise to it, covering the demon army with a massive barrier. Seeing a chance, Rayse dove through before it covered the entire area.

Once inside, he made a beeline towards a couple of the magicians who were casting the barriers, and finished them off while they were preoccupied. The green sheen of the barrier faded into nothingness, signalling to everyone to continue their attack. The heat grew more intense in an instant, prompting him to look up at the sky once again.

Lacey was pointing downwards, making tongues of flames erupt from her sun, greater and more terrible than the black ones he had been hit with. Rayse wanted to keep fighting until it hit, but he felt a force pull at him from afar.

"Hey. You've done enough. Let's go back for now." Brandon said, holding him by the metal plates of his armor. The pair watched vigilantly as the group of emissaries were immolated by the flames. The screams were terrible, but it may as well have been music to their ears. Without the barriers, He had a hard time seeing anyone survive this. They stood still until embers smoldered into nothing, looking at what little traces of the enemy was left.

As his tension dropped, Rayse felt the energy go out of his body in an instant, hours of fatigue slamming into him all at once. Still, he felt good about pushing himself here.

"We're finally done." He breathed, his vision starting to dim. He looked at his friend, who was staying uncharacteristically silent throughout all this.

"Hey, we should–" He turned back to his friend, but stopped himself immediately. Something was wrong.

He turned back to see… nothing. No mage squad, no villagers, no camp, no walls, no anything. He started to realize that vision hadn't dimmed, he had simply been devoured by the dark. The truly terrifying thing was that even now, he could still feel Brandon's arm on his shoulders. In his fear, he mustered up enough mana to create a singular ball of flame, but he regretted it immediately.

"Relax. It's only me." The red dress. The seductive smile. Deceit had its slender arm draped around him, its soft features not going away even with the light source. It held Rayse tenderly, giving him a sweet, loving caress. Two dainty fingers reached out to his hand, and with a playful pinch, put out the pathetic little fireball he just made. Even without, the sight of Deceit remained, smiling at him like an old friend.

"Welcome back to my darkness."