Long have I waited for this day
A day I thought might never come
Yet here you are, uplifting my spirit once more.
Days turned to weeks as I searched
Months turned to years as I waited
Decades turned to centuries as I despaired
Yet here you are, after I had waited so long.
The stories I heard of you, are they true?
A face so handsome, it caught her attention
A voice so soothing, it caught her ear
A presence so warm, it made her feel safe
With such qualities, you won her love.
Yet here you are now, unlike what I’ve known
You share drinks with another woman
You speak so coldly it hurts to listen
Your character is rough and coarse
Like sandpaper, you are grinding down my hope.
How can you be the same man?
But perhaps you have changed in all this time…
No, you have only just arrived?
Explain yourself to her and I
Explain yourself to all that you left behind
Was everything about you all a lie?
All the stories I heard when I was young
All the stories she told me when night fell
She would sit beside me in my bed
Telling me the stories of her time with you.
As I sat in bed and listened, I felt like a princess
But perhaps now I am a mere bastard child.
Yet even as you try to deny me, I will still fight
I will fight to bring you home to her
And I will not stop until I see her smile again.
Moyako…
Her father stared back at her, wide eyed, with rage and blood lust pouring off of him with such palpable intensity that it almost felt tangible.
Even though she could tell that his soul was multitudes weaker than her own, and he wasn’t even using his red lightning yet, her instincts were screaming at her to run away from him as fast as she could.
“I’ll only say this to you once Moyako, so you had better listen to me, Right. Now,” he said slowly.
Her fingers nervously tapped against the handle of her sword as she listened to him.
“You asked me to fight seriously, and out of respect for you, I will do so. However, I don’t want to see any tears, I don’t want to hear you scream, I don’t want to hear you complain. I will use everything at my disposal to kill you and beat you into submission until you no longer have the will to fight. So it would be in your best interest to fight with as much seriousness as I am, or your resolve will shatter in the face of my Wrath,” he said, tilting his head as if to ask if she understood what he was saying.
She let out a shuttered breath as she tried to muster up a response to assure him that she was willing to fight with everything she had as well.
However, before she could open her mouth to speak, he scoffed, smiling as he said, “Oh hell...why did I even bother warning you…? Fight...don’t fight, it won’t matter. I will subjugate your will regardless of how you feel, regardless of how much you want to win.”
Then, faster than a blink of an eye, his left hand had wrapped around her throat, lifting her off the ground.
“Wha-!” she tried to say but her voice was cut off as he snapped her neck.
How did he…?! How can he move so fast?! I couldn’t even sense it!
Just as her magic brought her back to life, she saw him standing over her body, his sword raised above his head, ready to run her through.
To avoid being killed so quickly after just being revived, she set herself aflame as his sword stabbed through her body.
Being a mass of intangible fire, his sword should have passed through her body without harming her, but then something else happened.
The spiritual energy that converted her body into a mass of flames started getting absorbed into the blade and she could feel herself about to be trapped within it as well.
To avoid being sucked into the sword, she converted her body back into flesh and swung her sword at him once more.
He backed away only for a moment, but it was enough to allow her to burst into a large ash cloud before reforming once again.
Yet when she found herself standing up once again, thinking herself out of danger, Marcus appeared in front of her and swept his sword through the air. The cloud of ashes she used to conceal herself was blown away from the air pressure released from his blade before he reached out his left hand once again.
Not wanting to have her neck snapped a second time, she quickly backed away before his hands could reach her.
Yet rather than make a grabbing motion with his left hand, all five of his fingers were pointed towards her and sparks danced across the tips of them as bolts of lightning shot out at her.
She then focused a mass of focused heat to accelerate specific points of her body as she swung her sword through the air and deflected some of the bolts of lightning while others flew past her and struck the ground.
She then looked back at him and noticed that his sword had already passed through the air as if he had already finished with an attack.
What did he-? she thought to herself right as the top half of her head as it was split in half and she fell to her knees.
What did he just do? How could he have killed me if I never felt any spiritual energy pass through the air from his sword?
She couldn’t understand how he was able to move so quickly or attack her from such a distance without leaving a trace of energy in between the two of them.
But then, a thought came to mind as she remembered her battle with Nashandra and how she had been able to merge with the environment around her through the power of Death Magic.
Perhaps that was how Marcus was able to move around instantaneously!
She figured it out!
The instant she revived, she attempted to accumulate Arcanence into herself to merge with the omnipresent power of Death.
Yet as soon as she opened her eyes, Marcus seemed to realize what she was doing and his own eyes appeared to change.
The skin around his eyes darkened in pigmentation as Deathroot started breaking through to the surface from underneath and the whites of his eyes turned black from Deathroot sap excreting through them. A sickly yellow color of lightning sparked from his irises as he reached out his left hand once more, but clenched it into a fist.
“Nuh uh, I don’t think so,” he said as she felt the Arcanence coursing through her being drained.
“Wha-?! How are you-?!” she stammered as she struggled to make sense of what he did to her.
“There is no way in Hell I’m letting you bring my enemies back to life for me to kill them again. I won’t allow it,” he said as he glared at her.
“But I wasn’t…,” she tried to say but then she noticed something.
She was only now sensing the power of Death Magic being used by him to dominate the Arcanence all around them, if only to keep herself from using it.
But then, if he hadn’t been using it before to move the way that he was, then how…?
A look of realization flashed across his face as he said, “Oh I see…you were trying to figure out how I have omnipresence. You thought that because its what Nashandra did during her fight against you, that I was doing the same right?”
She nodded.
“Well, that’s a good guess, and she did teach me how to do that too on top of how to accumulate Arcanence, but no. My omnipresence doesn’t come from Death Magic. It comes from this blade you see here,” he said as he held out Light Taker for her to see.
“You’re sword gives you omnipresence…?” she asked, horrified that such a weapon could do something like that.
But then she remembered how Ares took it from Marcus and tried to use it against him.
“Then again, I guess its not really that different to say I’m using Death Magic when I use Light Taker in that manner when its functionally the same, although with a different method,” he explained.
“What are you talking about?” she asked, hoping to learn what she could to get any kind of advantage against him.
Marcus looked around him, as if he was concerned about the audience hearing about it, and then turned back to face her as he answered her in Japanese, “This sword you see here is Death itself. I may not be using Death Magic to achieve omnipresence, but nonetheless, with Death, I am everywhere.”
Then, as if to further prove his point, the Arcanence in his body vanished and a mass of energy began accumulating within him as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.
Then, in one violent movement, he spread both his arms outwards and tens of thousands of lightning bolts appeared all around them simultaneously, striking the ground at once.
He the locked eyes with her again, smiling as he said, “I may be able to use Death Magic, but I don’t need it to achieve omnipresence. I only need it to keep you from doing the same.”
THAT’S IT!
She now knew what she needed to do to take back the advantage!
As if reading her thoughts, he blinked but them laughed as he said, “It won’t matter what you do. You won’t be able to use Death Magic so long as I have my sword to dominate the Arcanence, and I won’t let you get close enough to take my sword.”
“Don’t be so sure about that…,” she said as she smiled, trying to match his charisma and tear down his confidence.
Noticing what she was doing as she mimicked his behavior, he looked amused and said, “Alright then. Lets see you try.”
Moyako raised her sword into the air and a flash of light emanated from the edge, so blindingly bright that even Marcus started to squint his eyes and even outright closing them, yet she figured he could still see her somehow.
As the voice of the Sun Goddess resonated with her own, she swung her sword down through the air as she said, “Amaterasu!”
Then, without warning, she unleashed a supernova right on top of him.
A wave of fire incinerated everything around them and broke through thousands, if not tens of thousands of layers within the spatial battlefield as it managed to contain the might of a star exploding within it.
Not bothering to wait until the wave of explosive solar fire had passed, she dove after Marcus. He had coated his body with extremely compressed Dragon Glass armor to withstand the impact, with it being further reinforced by the power of the twin blade releasing tremendous lightning magic that felt even stronger than his own.
Despite all of that, his armor had still fractured from the impact and she could see his face straining to push back against the blast wave.
For some reason, despite his sword giving him the power of omnipresence, he wasn’t trying to teleport out of danger.
Maybe he can’t…maybe he has a limited range of omnipresence. Is the range of his omnipresence tied to the scale of his soul’s output…? If that’s the case, then the supernova must be exceeding his range and he can’t escape!
With that in mind, she manifested Ame-no-Nuboko and the spirit of Izanagi-no-Mikoto as she sheathed her katana and held the god-spear with both hands before plunging it into his chest.
She roared as she brought down a torrent of Izanagi’s heavenly light upon him, purifying the Arcanence in his body and putting a seal on him to prevent him from gathering anymore.
However, she knew it wouldn’t last as his power would eventually break the seal, but that wasn’t her goal.
She needed to take away his sword to keep him from dominating the Arcanence all around them.
Once she took Light Taker from him, she could make use of Death Magic again and turn it against him.
They soon fell out of the blast radius of the supernova, crashing through multiple layers of the battlefield until finally they crashing to the ground and she had him pinned.
He transformed Light Taker into its katana form and tried to stab her in the gut but she quickly kicked at his sword hand and dug her heel into his wrist to break his grip on the blade.
As soon as she heard it clatter to the ground, she forced the spear deeper into his chest and anchored him to the ground as she rolled to the right of him, picking Light Taker up in the process.
Then, while making use of Light Taker, she teleported several hundred miles away as she started accumulating Arcanence within her.
She had no way of knowing just how long it would take before he shattered the spear and caught up with him, but she just needed a little bit of time to summon Akio and a few others.
She knelt on the ground as she raised both Light Taker and Kakure Sakura in front of her, with the points facing the ground.
With a grunt of effort, she drove them into the ground and called upon the spirit of Izanami-no-Mikoto.
A wave of darkness and death unfolded all around her and over a hundred warriors with meager souls appeared.
Using Light Taker, she sent those warriors after Marcus to slow him down as she knew it would take significantly more energy to bring Akio back, but these would help to buy more time.
Marcus…
As he struggled to pull Moyako’s spear from his chest, he was trying not to over-rely on his wrath just yet until he knew she was fighting at her utmost.
He wouldn’t unleash all that wrath until he knew it was absolutely necessary.
With a roar, he ripped it free and stood up to go after her.
He saw her take Light Taker from him and disappear, which could only mean that she was going to bring some warriors back to life to fight him.
He then tried to gather some Arcanence to chase after her since she could use his sword’s omnipresence now, but as much as he tried, he couldn’t seem to.
He then looked down at his chest and noticed a seal that she had placed on him.
Well shit…
Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, hundreds of warriors appeared out of thin air around him, with Arcanence coursing through their bodies.
None of these people are anyone I know… She must be trying to slow me down with these fodder, but for what reason?
“Hey Malthael? Do you want a piece?” he asked aloud.
Are you offering me a chance to fight the greatest warrior that this world has to offer? He asked with a hint of amusement in his voice.
“Yes...and I want you to use everything you have. Destroy her completely if you can. Show me the might of an Archdragon that stood up against the great power of a Seraphim,” Marcus said, egging him on.
He then felt a strange sensation coursing through him, as if Malthael’s very being was shuddering with excitement at the thought as he said, With pleasure.
Yet rather than his typical dragon form that dwarfed mountains, he chose a more humanoid form, crafted from Marcus's Dragon Glass, that looked almost identical to Raime, albeit slightly shorter. His hair was longer and he had clawed fingers and toes unlike his son.
Malthael then crouched on the ground before jumping into the air as he chased after Moyako, leaving Marcus to tear her warriors apart with his bare hands.