"I will kill you..." Armando growled, his voice a low snarl laced with deep, burning rage.
'We may have weakened him, but he still has plenty of fight left in him,' I thought grimly.
Suddenly, without warning, he shot toward us like a launched missile, his rods slicing through the air in a blind, furious frenzy.
Azrael and I slipped past his strikes with ease, answering with counters of our own. The decay from the dark cloud was clearly working—Armando's speed had diminished, his movements were now slower. The corruption was eating away at him, gnawing at the very essence of his soul.
'His durability is still a nuisance… but he's far more vulnerable now,' I observed as we unleashed a relentless storm of attacks.
With his reflexes dulled and his senses dazed, he could do little to retaliate. His blows still carried monstrous power, but power meant nothing if it couldn't land.
We kept pressing, driving him back, draining him with every passing moment. His limbs grew heavy, his swings sluggish. Then suddenly, he roared.
Desperate and overwhelmed, Armando called forth the purple lightning once more. It tore down from the heavens, wild and chaotic, forcing us to retreat. The energy danced across his battered frame, wrapping around him like a storm-forged armor. He screamed into the sky, the sound raw and primal.
Fractures now ran across his entire body—deep cracks spiderwebbing through his skeletal frame. He looked like a statue on the verge of collapse.
With a roar, from all directions, thousands of four-armed shadows surged toward him like a tide of nightmares.
And to our horror… he began to absorb them.
Like some twisted magic, his shattered body began to heal. The fractures smoothed. Even the two skeletal arms that were injured began to regenerate—bones reforming before our eyes.
"No!" I shouted, charging toward Armando with fury surging through me. I summoned my scythe from where I dropped it, and it immediately flew to my left hand, its blade pulsing with dark energy. At the same time, I opened a gate beneath Azrael.
Armando had seen this trick before. So he stopped absorbing his shadows. His instincts kicked in immediately—he spun around, fully expecting Azrael to ambush him from behind. But there was nothing there.
That moment of hesitation cost him.
Realizing he'd been deceived, Armando turned his focus back to me and unleashed a barrage of purple lightning bolts from his fists. I gritted my teeth and pressed forward, dodging as best I could. The bolts streaked through the air, some grazing me, others slamming into my body, leaving behind fractures and scorched flesh.
My body weakened with every blow. But I couldn't stop. Not now. I had to keep Armando in the same position. Now finally before him, I swung my scythe at his arm. However, a layer of lightning that covered his body had stopped the strike. I needed more power.
Unbeknownst to Armando, I had teleported Azrael to the very edge of the planet's atmosphere, where the tailed Lilith still waited in silent boredom. Now, Azrael was descending at a blinding speed.
Like a god from myth, Azrael came crashing down from the heavens as I kept Armando occupied. The attack succeeded as both of Azrael's feet landed squarely on the back of Armando's neck. Armando had sensed Azrael's descent and managed to nearly dodge. However, the attack still managed to land. The impact missed his head and cracked his neck with a sickening crunch that echoed across the battlefield.
Armando staggered forward, a twisted gurgle erupting from his throat—wet, broken, unnatural. Nonetheless, he did not fall. He tried to speak… but nothing came out. No words, no roar, just a rattling rasp, as if his voice had been torn from him entirely. His hyoid bone had been injured.
Seeing this opportunity, I didn't hesitate.
Secretly, I had channeled almost all of my dark cloud's power into my scythe, concentrating its energy until the blade glowed with a fierce turquoise light. Using the momentum of Azrael's strike, I swung the weapon upward in a devastating arc as Armando stumbled.
The blade cleaved through his neck.
His head flew clean off, landing several meters away with a dull thud. I stood frozen, eyes locked on the fading purple glow in his skull. His face—skeletal and cracked—still bore his final expression of shock and horror as his body finally dropped.
"He's… he's dead!" I whispered.
"It seems so, Master," Azrael replied, his voice calm but watchful.
I finally dropped the scythe. It vanished before it even touched the ground.
Armando's skeletal form cracked and collapsed, bone by bone, until nothing remained but the blackened husk of what he once was. Smoke—black and purple—rose slowly from the remains, radiating a presence that lingered like a curse.
"What is that?" I asked, looking at the smoke rising from Armando's corpse.
The more I looked into the smoke, the more I felt like I was being drawn into an abyss. The feeling felt familiar, thus, I allowed myself to be drawn in.
Next thing I knew, it was dark everywhere, and there was nothing but emptiness all around me. Only faint screaming could be heard in this abyss.
'This voice…' I thought to myself.
"Armando?" I called out, then as if he were waiting for his que, the screaming got louder. The sound was deafening, and I felt a familiar pressure coming from it.
I then released my own energy to counter the pressure and called out loud, "Armando!"
The pressure then decreased, and the screams began to quiet down. After a moment had passed, I opened my eyes and found myself back in my body.
'Judging from Azrael's position, it seems that no time has passed,' I thought to myself.
"Master, please allow me to collect the head of the defeated," Azrael humbly said to me whilst bowing my way.
"No," I simply answered.
'This one might have gotten stranger after his upgrade,' I thought to myself.
Suddenly, the black and purple smoke spiraled, forming a miniature tornado around Armando's shattered skeleton. Purple lightning sparked violently within it. The smoke twisted faster, then collapsed inward in an instant.
Armando reappeared, kneeling before me, but he was no longer the same. His dark cloud pulsed with life. Vein-like patterns moved within it, glowing with a soft, rhythmic purple light, as if the light within him was breathing.
Azrael conjured his longsword, ready to strike.
'Wait!' I said raising a hand.
Azrael held his ground.
Armando slowly reached into his chest, fingers slipping past his smoke like body. From within, he drew out a dark, steaming orb—his source. Purple lightning danced across its surface like living veins of energy, crackling in silence. He held it out with both hands, offering it to me.
Azrael drove his blade into the ground and sat without a word, his eyes locked on the exchange.
"What… is this?" I asked, staring at the strange, flickering object.
"My source," Armando replied.
I blinked. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It is my soul," he said simply, his voice solemn.
I studied him for a moment, uncertain if this was a gift or a trap. Then, slowly, I stepped forward and reached for it.
The moment my fingers touched the orb, a surge of power exploded through my body—raw, ancient, and overwhelming. It was like touching a star made of shadow and thought. Though the orb looked solid, it weighed and felt like nothing. If I hadn't seen my hand gripping it, I wouldn't have even believed I was holding anything at all.
It felt… impossible. And yet, it was real.
Slowly, an eerie purple mist flowed from the orb and into my body, weaving itself into my soul. Within seconds, it was gone. I had absorbed the orb entirely.
Instantly, a familiar power coursed through my body. My fractures mended. The pain vanished. My strength returned tenfold. I could feel myself changing—becoming something more.
Before I could even process the transformation, I suddenly began to feel every single life on the planet.
This was just like on Earth when I first became a reaper.
"Asími," I whispered. "That's the name of this planet." I didn't read it—I heard it, spoken through millions of voices scattered across the world. All of Armando's shadows…they were now mine.
'This power…' I thought, watching arcs of purple lightning dance between my fingers.
Through the eyes of my new shadows, I saw civilizations. They were vast, hidden, and ancient. Asími's surface was a nightmare. Unrelenting lightning storms above. Violent sandstorms below. It was a land that looked uninhabitable, cursed by nature itself.
Thus, tunnels, networks, and endless labyrinths carved beneath the planet's surface. Within those labyrinths were whole cities—entire civilizations buried deep beneath the chaos. Living, thriving, and surviving in silence, hidden from the storms above.
Perhaps the strangest thing about this civilization was its cities' architecture. The buildings were built on all surfaces of the taverns—on their ceilings, walls, and ground. They were made by a combination an unknown white, glowing material and wood.
This white material also served as light in this underworld; it looked sturdy. It pulsed gently, almost like it breathed. The inhabitants, similar in form to Armando but slightly smaller, moved through their sprawling vertical world with practiced ease.
Using their extra limbs, they clung to walls and ceilings, but more curiously, the white material responded to their touch. It shimmered brighter for a moment, subtly altering the direction of their gravity, allowing them to "fall" sideways onto new paths as if the city itself bent to their will.
Occasionally, sections of the buildings would ripple and bloom outward, forming petal-like platforms or spiraling walkways beneath their feet—living architecture, grown in response to their silent commands.
"I've… I've become the reaper of this planet," I muttered, stunned by the words leaving my mouth.
"My king," Armando said, bowing low. "Whatever was once mine now belongs to you—even my life."
I narrowed my eyes.
"Why are you so obedient now?" I asked, suspicion laced in my voice. I didn't trust this sudden shift.
"You pulled me from the abyss. For that, I will be forever grateful," he said, voice trembling with reverence. "For the first time in ages… I feel as though I have finally returned home. My life; my source is yours to command."
"You were only gone for a few seconds," I pressed, my tone cold. "Why devote your entire life to me over that?"
'Just moments ago, he was trying to kill me!' The thought echoed in my head, sharp and cynical.
"For you, it was seconds. For me…" His voice cracked, eyes distant. "I had been there so long that I had lost track of time and self.... It felt like an eternity!"
'Is that the fate of all reapers after death?' I wondered, a chill creeping down my spine.
But now, connected to him through the "source" I had taken, I could feel the truth in his words. He wasn't lying.
Suddenly, a surge of pain bloomed within my chest, growing hotter and heavier by the second. The power I had inherited from Armando was still rising, expanding like a storm with no end. My body strained to contain it. The pain was sharp, manageable, but intense enough to steal my breath.
Purple lightning erupted across my body. An extra pair of arms tore free from my sides—limbs like Armando's, strong and alien. And with them came a deep, primal connection to the planet itself.
Above, the storm churned, darker and wilder than before. The energy roaring through me wasn't just mine—it was bound to this world. I could feel it pulsing in the sky, in the ground, in the air I breathed.
In that moment, I knew: With a single blow, I could flatten the moon.
"So much power... My strength might have doubled or even tripled after receiving that orb," I thought to myself.
'He really gave me his actual soul!' I thought, stunned, as I glanced at myself.
'These extra arms feel almost like a burden. I'm not used to them. Am I stuck like this, or can I get rid of them?' I pondered.
I stopped circulating Armando's power within my body, halting its growth. Slowly, the extra arms disappeared.
The pain also subsided, bringing a sense of relief.
"Perfect. Now, I have a few more questions for you," I said to Armando.