Bro, I'm not an Undead!

1428  Finish It (4)

Indeed, Asthon's Permanent Haven had some resistance to the powers of the Chronocle Fiend, but the reason wasn't what Grim had imagined. It wasn't because it was some special place with just that much of a uniqueness to it. Well, one could have worded it that way.

The reason was because… like a real world, the Permanent Haven was made of Asthon's own body. Any harm that was to befall the people inside the Haven had to interact with Asthon first and only when he was bested, would they be cast to harm.

When he had used the Permanent Haven the first time, the blows that banged on the Haven had reached him first, causing him pain none could have imagined. But it was of no consequence to the old bird as long as what he hoped to see was done.

His Permanent Haven could only be erected as many times as the Crown and Star were aglow. He had already expended a massive amount of energy with everything he tackled in his Haven the first time.

By the second… he wasn't able to bring forth the Haven's fullest output. He had been tired. Very tired.

But he soldiered on.

"You were right. In the end, I did the thing I feared I'd die before doing. I did the impossible, all because of that damned mouth of yours! Hahaha! Direction repaid me well. So now, finish it, Grim, and make my long, meaningless life a little more meaningful."

Grim realised only half of all these reasons as he flew down, as he watched the old bird get rewound – unmade.

'I see…' he thought, and he looked behind him, where Azila, Hauza and the rest of the guardian beasts were surrounding Paradon Parody protectively, on their faces hard, trembling and cracking expressions. They had known before Grim what had been about to happen. 'I see…'

The tangles and strings that made the Chronocle Fiend dwindled. It grew smaller. A sense of urgency rushed through it. In the next instance… it detonated.

Or perhaps, more aptly defined, it applied the reversal of time on itself, and recreated the cataclysmic event that occurred when it was formed. Tendrils of chaotic Exotic Parlous Natures rushed out as it unwound, with giant cords of Consternals colliding and spinning against massive blocks of a dead world; corpses that had been that world's cache of living organisms could be seen flying about.

The Parlous Natures that flared then brought about horrific calamity. They were thousands of times more dangerous than the meteor shower. Even the Impermanence Fiends had to steer clear from the explosions, the flying debris, the cold, electric effects of Divine phenomena…

Jiggorrhax rushed towards the guardian beasts and the Paradon Parody and shielded them with his great wings.

But Grim couldn't have brought himself to flee. He was bathed in the cruel amalgamation of violence.

As it all ripped, scorched, butchered, shocked and bore into him, Grim gave the Chronocle Fiend… and the event that was its chaotic birth a silent, cruel glare.

There was grief in that glare. @@novelbin@@

The Paradon Parody, a shadow of the Stolen Angel, shone right then, deep within Jiggorrhax's embrace.

And then it was done.

Tendrils of greenish-white formed all around Grim, devouring him and the Granted Star Armament. They formed a cocoon… which was then devoured in turn by a blaze of death. The cocoon wasn't resistant to the violent Exotic Parlous Natures. It was rippled, slashed, burned and whacked around. But it held.

And then…

"Chrona Aggrante."

It was a soft, calm voice which came from the cocoon, but the bold beam of blue light that blasted out of it was anything but soft and calm. Branches of whirling greenish-white like lightning followed after it, involving themselves with the collapsing chaos gushing everywhere.

…And that chaos was forced back, reversed in time back towards its source!

Everything that happened followed the pace of the beam of Aggrante. The reversal of time, represented by the snaking bands of green was connected to the fierce, vengeful blast of condensed Nitros and mana. It pulled everything scattered from the Chronocle Fiend and in a second, the Chronocle Fiend was re-formed.

It was stumped when it found itself whole again.

It would have automatically formed itself back in a matter of seconds – when it was sure the enemies would have been vanquished.

But all didn't go according to plan.

The Fiend searched for the cause.

Someone had rewound it. That was supposed to be impossible.

Time was supposed to be loyal to it!

But no. Time had no master. Quite like death, it had apprentices. Many apprentices.

The figure freshly shed from the cocoon of greenish-white, staring up at the Chronocle Fiend, was an apprentice of both death and time. Its upper body was wholly human, if only thrice as large. It had thick, hairy arms that protruded from a black cuirass with shining stars drawn on it. Its hair was a collection of animal shapes, pristine white, snapping and fighting against themselves. Its eyes were fierce, fatal and crimson. There was not a shred of mercy within them.

Its lower body was that of a shaggy black canine beast with thick, powerful legs ending in large, lethal claws. Death ran in those furs, thicker and stronger than before.

This was a new form of the Esurient Hoarder: the King of Unforgiving Impermanence. Time and death danced within Grim's body. Time offset the lethal effect of death in his body, allowing Grim to use it for longer, and death empowered the powers of time. Time and Death were not enemies after all. They were companions.

And thus, for the minute that (assured by Suzamete's boost from earlier) he could use this astounding power, Grim made sure to finish it, as Asthon wanted.

The Chronocle Fiend was shuddering. The Impermanence Fiends were paling.

The former made to turn tail, but Grim extended his hand.

He felt inspired. Rage and grief were motivators, he knew.

Tendrils of greenish-white whipped from his hands and danced around his fingers. But the effect was applied on the enemy far away ith haste.

The Chronocle Fiend was duplicated, then triplicated, then quadruplicated, then quintuplicated and so on and so forth. Funny enough, Grim using the Chronocle Fiend's own energy to accomplish this feat.

It still had its hands on the cords of time pulled from the great void. Versions of the Fiend from the past were siphoned and layered over each other in a stream that went up and up and away.

…And then Grim snapped his fingers.

The Fiend at the very end of the stream brandished one of its spears against the one before it. It slammed down hard with all its might!

The Fiend that had been hit did the same to the one in front of it. The blow was twice as strong.

The one struck retaliated against the next, and then the next, and the next… all the way up to the original Chronocle Fiend, which had been made to watch as the cascading spear strikes grew stronger and stronger and then…

The last blow came. The Chronocle Fiend's face warped in horror. It had grown smaller and smaller the more of its power Grim used. But its duplicates' size had remained the same.

The spear that was meant to strike it was over fifty times its size and as it came down… the Fiend was blasted to bits smaller than atoms.

That was its end.

…And then it was the Impermanence Fiends' turn.

They were braver than the Chronocle Fiend. They used the same technique which had vexed Grim before – unseen blows that he couldn't avoid.

But now Grim saw through it.

The Fiends conjured a dimension of death – a bland desert – so dense and complex that he hadn't been able to see it before. It was called the Restless Graveyard.

Grim had existed in this dimension. It even moved around to accommodate his movements, but it simply didn't interact with anything else in the wider reality. The things that attacked him were the carcasses of all the victims the Impermanence Fiends had ever killed. They were stored in this dimension. Monsters as strong as they were, and even a few who were a bit stronger.

The Restless Graveyard was in effect again. This time, Grim saw them all.

Large carcasses and small ones, roaring and wailing. They didn't stink of undeath. They were not animated with some cruel desire to kill the living. It was this dimension that was puppeteering their corpses, using them against the enemy.

But the corpses needed not be marionetted for much longer.

"The boss would find this sight sickening, I bet," said Grim passionlessly and then he pointed three fingers in front of him, and the charging husks. "Chrona Aggrante." The dimension was pierced through by the Aggrante while the bands of time reversal forced the corpses back into the desert sands.

When the Impermanence Fiends saw their dimension collapse, their fervour died immediately. But that was their end too.

Dark red claws protruded from the ends of his fingers and he swiped at the air… finishing it.