Creatures of the Ice

Fourteenth Ice

Fourteenth IceCreatures of the Mist

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##### Fourteenth Ice #####

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No matter how far you go

Innocent bleeds

No matter how much you've through

The good rots

The sky is starting to howl with thunderstorm after the last few hours between me and Abel — or at least what used to be his kind self — fighting.

For the past hours, I have been trying to figure out how to stop this. Shall I seal him away? Or shall I kill him in exchange of a better future?

I cannot let him just going roam around freely, killing anything he will meet. And I certainly cannot let The Devil have the advantage of creating too much chaos on Earth.

This is one of the missions I have to solve in one go.

But does a warm-hearted demon has to pay for the price?

I do not see the justice in it—!

Another heavy swing from Abel's fist crushes the earth behind my head, inches away from breaking my skull. The force that he puts causes his fist to be buried deep enough into the dirt.

Being productive, I use that last second to finish my time elongation.

By now, Cerebro must be far away from here. So it is fine for us to fight for real this time, instead of just me dodging Abel’s attacks.

"Alright. It looks like we have to finish this off now," I exclaim.

With a move, I use my black solidified tentacles to grab Abel's arms and legs, with several other body parts, and smash him to the ground.

My tentacles are even strong enough to keep him still, even though the force he uses to try and free himself is rather gigantic.

He feels like the concrete sources of energy that can never run out. But I am positive that I can keep him still for a few more minutes.

Then I turn my head to some point around the forest, eyes sweeping further to focus. "How about we end this play chase game, Devil? I know that you have been watching the entire time. Must be fun to have everything done for you," I say knowingly casual.

His eyes can see from anywhere.

I can hear soft chuckles echoing from every direction, each dipped with evil.

"Well done, Arsene. As expected from the Queen of Darkness," his voice reverberates. "But can you really find the solution to this problem?"

He says it as if I could do everything perfectly.

I do not answer right away, but instead let him wonder while I launch my plan, until it is too late for him to stop my actions.

I call upon all of my shadows, all sorts of darkness that the surface of Earth can provide me. But I do not use them right away. I have to save them somewhere, inside the depth of my own creation. Because for those outside my mind, they can only sees me as I stand still.

"What are you doing? You don't actually think you can beat me, do you? You know how the lives of those who defied me ended," The Devil whispers in his deadly sinister tone.

Even after so many darkness that I have contained within me, I still keep channeling more. I can feel the dark movement from each tree behind the blazing sun. I can tell when each old relic shows their ancient blackness. I can sense the faint yet frequent sweeps of magnitude from the creatures around me, hidden from the eyes.

"I can just send another murderer to kill you, just like how I made you killed for me."

With those words, I snap and let the shadows I have been gathering from every inch of the Earth to launch and focus this intense blast at one target.

Not to where The Devil's voices echo.

Not to where he seems to most likely be using the air to send his voices.

Not anywhere else....

....But Abel.

My sights are getting dimmer from light as the edges of them are being consumed by black frames. The shadows move from each corner of my eyes.

But they do not just stop there.

Darkness is possessing my eyes.

They move fast.

They are unstoppable.

Burning with a purpose.

One purpose.

Without touching his skull, I enter Abel's head, accessing his millions of years' worth of memories. This allows his eyes to become as black and murk as mine.

This case will be harder though, because I do not have a direct contact with his physical body. But at least I can still access the inside his memories until my last blast of shadows.

Inside, his memories are tainted by blue ink, freezing any of them to move according to nature or hell. This was mostly caused by The Devil when he turned Abel into this unstable fighting monster, all bound by their contract. Because everywhere I see, all I can see is the old self that was left behind.

I need to break the ice. But to do that, I have to find the source that is keeping Abel's real memories frozen. Without his memories, he is nothing but a newly made demon with hunger and all that need for malignancy. And to prevent the bad, I have to eliminate that seed The Devil had planted inside Abel.

The seed of chaos, like its name, functions to make a demon act in its early stages, which pretty much wanting destruction and having no care of other things. The demon that gets this seed of chaos will no longer be who they were once it freezes the demon's memory.

I have to feel around for quite some time, since living for so long makes Abel have so many experience and memory slides. It is for a while until I can get a grab of where the seed of chaos is hiding. It is nesting at one of the random slides, having no particular choice. That is why I had to look for it thoroughly.

Once I do find it though, I grab it and yank it roughly. I pull it out of the memory slide, revoking the roots along the way until nothing is left of it. And then, I use my final blast to destroy the seed.

Everything goes dark as if someone just turn off the electricity inside Abel's head, except there is no electricity here. Then I am pulled out from his head. The force feels as strong as a black hole sucking me into its swirl of no return.

I am expecting myself to be back outside, but no single brink of light welcomes me when I got back. Everything goes dark around me that I cannot move even a muscle. I am trapped, once again away from any light. And from the heavy numbness that blankets me, I think so does my body.

Something hard is holding me to stay, though I can tell that I am still in a standing position. It is not much different when I left my consciousness from my body.

I cannot really tell time, but after my count up to ten, something moves. Not me, or any part of my body. But another creature.

Despite the dark, my senses are very much alive. I can feel him, grazing touches on my skin with ice. And then suddenly I already find his unnecessary breathing is on my bare chest, inches away from killing me.

"I can just kiss your tattoo," The Devil hisses. "This is why married wizards are weaklings. Once you kiss their tattoos, their hearts will stop beating. I doubt your black blood can save you this time. Or should I just send a female to kiss your beloved husband's tattoo? I'm sure that will be much fun, seeing your love die right in front of your eyes while not being able to do anything as he dies in another girl's arms."

His last words just set me on. Using all my will, I push him away and hit him with punches. But in reality, my body is still unmoving, frozen by lightless.

He must have shoved me inside a place — perhaps a cave. He did not use dirt to bury me alive, yet took me someplace where I can still breathe. But only to torment me with his threats.

Before, I might be much fearless. But the thought of leaving Valline forever — to die — is something I cannot sustain within myself.

I do not want to leave him.

I can't.

"What do you want?" I ask the question he has been expecting me to ask through my mind, since I cannot move my lips to speak loudly.

If making another deal with The Devil is the only way to survival, then I must.

For Valline.

The Devil smirks in his satisfaction. "I am pleased with your question. Finally,. Are you ready?" To hear my sentence. He sounds as if I just offered him the key back to Heaven — or at least the real version of so-called Heaven ─ the place where it was once our world. "What I want is...."

I cannot see anything but an endless darkness, which does not allow me to read his lips, and it is frustrating me. But when he says those next words, I believe that my ears are not working at the moment. His voice sounds just like a buzz, not even fully heard.

I blink a couple of times, wondering whether this is really happening or not. This can be a dream, but it can be not as well. I remember rarely seeing colors in my dream, and once or twice seeing them in colored scenes. But what good knowledge can it bring when I cannot see a thing to help me learn if there is a possibility that what is happening to me right now is just a nightmare?

As if having The Devil physically really here is not bad enough.

After a few minutes, I finally ask him.

"Pardon me?" My mind is echoing with uncertainty.

He must have read my expression through the darkness as well when he replies me. "You heard me right, Arsene. I want you to...."

I am stupid to let him utters those cursed, despicable words again.

"I would have already slapped you if I weren't disabled!" Anger rises within me brutally, wanting to burst out no matter what.

"Oh come on, Arsene. If you die, won't the ending be the same?" He says with a sinister tone. And if I could see his eyes and move, I probably would have already stabbed my own fingers into his eyeholes, not caring whether in fact that he is who he is, or that he would just heal as quickly as I pulled my fingers away.