Chapter 1: The Demon

Alice King

Void. 

It was the only thing I could think of as I watched the blazing mass of black scales and colorless pale white feathers crash against every living being in the sky.

Every swing of his chipped and weathered sword, sucked every ounce of life force from even the most vigorous of us.

His every movement, from the flap of his triple set of wings to the beating of his heart, produce spells the legion of mages at his every corner couldn't stop.

The seven different colored eyes moved independently, glowing with power, somehow using them to turn every mage's spell against them. 

The jet black horns on his head flashing white, creating intricate, rune-scripted circular arrays above the aerial battlefield, limiting our attacking options and sealing our escape. 

Flames of every color and property seeping from under his scales, the bodies it touched each left in a different but equally fatal condition. 

"You fucker!!? Just stop already!!! Please! Can't we just talk this out?!?! What we've done here is enough destruction for a day!!" Yelled out a beautiful women with bronze skin and dark hair. The hypocrisy in those words seemingly lost to instinct.

She was panting, sweat lining every inch of her body. Her back was slouched and the dazzlingly large white flame-infused wings on her back drooped down in exhaustion. The dull brilliance of her once shining armor and her missing right arm told the world of her desperate situation.

"We can't stop here! He's slowing down and his every strike grows lighter! Victory is ours as long as we keep fighting!" 

At what cost? I thought to myself. 

The stocky women who was almost as tall as The Demon's towering frame, had a crazed looked on her face. She was riddled with bruises and deep and shallow cuts covered her body. Yet she was the only one of the combatants daring enough to fight the black scaled humanoid in close combat.

Burdened and by his lonesome, The Demon aggressively opened his maw, but the only sound he produced was the high pitched whistling of a concentrated beam of sickly white flames. The flames beamed across the sky, decaying and rotting every piece of flesh and every chunk of metal it came across. 

The two arguing women, along with two others and I stood as a beacon of light against the Void. Each of us launching spells of equal power at the opponent. Though even when outnumbered, the Demon could overpower us and somehow wrestle out the control of our own spells from under the very tips of our fingers.

Combined, nearly inexhaustible life force from each of us, fading against the power of a single life. Choosing to heal the unfortunate few who survived after his passing was difficult but quick. But it mattered little when the dead and injured multiplied by the second. 

It didn't make sense. At least not to the others. 

In theory, the six of us were created as equals, the pinnacles of power in the new world. Each of us responsible for a duty to help keep the world in balance. 

While we had all blamed the difference in fighting strength on the planet's bias, I was slowly realizing the blatant gap in our abilities was something harder to accept.

It was simple. He was just a bit more mature than us. 

Aside from his duty to the planet being to destroy and cleanse, he hadn't spent his time back on Earth flaunting his abilities.

While we paraded around the world, from global peace meetings to local talk shows, he spent that time discovering and accepting himself. Creating and exploring new branches of magic, making his own advancements. 

He's accepted his non-human state. Fully embracing the appearance and power of a Demon, holding nothing back. 

In comparison, even in the face of insurmountable pressure, I didn't have the courage to sprout my wings or use my mismatched limbs despite knowing how useful it would be in controlling my bloodline abilities. 

I wish I knew how he had done it. How could he have come back to the people waiting for him, without acting different? When we've been given these godly abilities, is it even possible to act as the same people we once were? We were explicitly tasked to stand above and be the leading lights in the new world, yet at the same time we had to be like everyone else?

How does that make sense? 

What could we possibly have in common with the average person?

When could I-

My thoughts are disrupted by a bright light coming from The Demon. He clenched his chest. To some his actions were from pain, but to the four Guardians and I, he was straining his body to control something. For an opponent who had been effortlessly weaving complex spells left to right, to suddenly lose control was terrifying.

The rune covered reflective silver like metal sparsely covering his body quickly condensed near his hand, mimicking the movement of water rushing downstream. When he pulled his hand away from his chest, he held a hockey puck shaped metal disc. The edges had multi colored crystals jutting out.

Before the surprise of such a well made armor artifact being ripped off his body could hit me, he threw the puck at the five of us. It was only as I watched the shapely metal burst into flames from the raw friction did I realize that we had been herded together into a single corner of the sky like common cattle. 

As if reading each others minds, we all simultaneously casted the best defensive spell we knew. 

"Omni Spirit!"

Naive. Presumptuous.

We yelled out as one, too stressed to perfectly cast the spell silently.

Yet we should have known. The Demon had created this spell. Although we had each given it our own touch, believing it to be enough to change it into different spells, it was fundamentally the same 'Spirit Shield' spell we had been taught.

We put up our emerald green barriers, each one tinged a different color that represented the variety of elemental affinities among us. 

As if mocking our efforts, the metal puck tore apart our spells with spine crawling efficacy, leaving the mana in its base elemental forms. Without wasting a beat, the puck absorbed the residual mana as it moved between our makeshift formation. 

My heart squeezed while every blood vessel in my body seem to pop. The core of unfathomable power nestled in my chest seemed to creak in fear of the inevitable. The piece of metal had yet to make its move, but as it slowed to a stop at the center of our positions I could only grit my teeth and wait for the inevitable. 

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With a deafening boom, my vision blanked out. Though I infused my body in darkness magic in an attempted to numb the pain, no magic in the world could stop the feeling of my body being torn apart. 

I had already been missing a foot, but it paled in comparison to the next minute of my life.

The magical explosion burned away at my very bone marrow. Every cell in my body shriveled up and died, popping in death. For creatures like us whose physical forms were imbued, infused and powered by mana having it burned away was agonizing. 

The explosion dug out my very soul, slamming against my mana core in a desire to destroy. 

Barely conscious, I tried to feel myself out realizing in drowsy thought that little of me was left. A brilliant white core the size of a marble and half a skull with leaking grey matter was what remained of the Guardian of Prosperity. 

With a thought, I called out to the mana in the atmosphere and immediately it responded. In a matter of minutes, my bald head had been reformed along with a complete skeleton and an assortment of vital organs.

In another minute, I had the energy to open my eyes, only to wish I had kept them closed forever. 

I was finally back on solid ground on what seemed to be a small island. If I guess correctly, I was mostly likely atop one of the Hawaiian Islands. Though if it weren't for the fact I knew the fight had started above the Pacific Ocean, I would have never realized it. 

The ocean was dyed red. The mangled, dismembered bodies of countless humans and beast alike laid for as far as my enhanced eyes could see. On the shoreline, in the blood dripping coconut tress or buried in the sand. Each one barely distinguishable from the next.

The water rushing to the epicenter of the explosion, creating waves that swallowed the corpses. The now cloudless sky shined it normal pale blue, as if to ignore my situation. 

I felt tears welling in my eyes only to realize the other four were next me as well. All of us bound by a golden chain of mystical origin plunged deep into each of our chests, tightly wrapped around our cores. 

We were all kneeling with our backs to the ocean, finally lifting my head to stare at the man in front of us. 

The Demon.

Demon was simply the name of the species the planet had granted him, yet if fit him so well. An unstoppable tide of perceived malice and destruction. 

So, until he has children, he is The Demon. 

Though standing here in front of me, scales dented and wings chipped, he didn't seem as otherworldly as before. But I would be a fool to abandon the thoroughly infused fear he had placed in me. 

"This isn't fucking fair!! You're technically not even a real Guardian!! So how?? How is it that you managed to subdue all five of us!!?!" Said the Guardian of War struggling against the weightless chains, grasping at them in reckless abandon. 

"Hey Demon! How about we make a deal ehh?" The massive build of the Guardian of Might squirmed around a bit in an attempt to properly display her assets. "Let me go and I'll bear your child!" She grinned, as if she had any real leverage to argue with. 

The Demon's seven eyes focused on her chest for a second, until the Guardian of Might began to cough and wheeze in pain. Her body gave out as she face planted into the sharp sand.

"You knocked her out? How'd you managed that? Strictly speaking, it should be nearly impossible!" The curious words from the Guardian of Wisdom did nothing to dampen the mood. He truly expected his question to be answered.

The Guardian of Mana and I remained silent. My fellow Guardian from soul wrenching fear and I from bottomless sadness. 

I couldn't understand how it had come to this. We were all friends stuck in a similar situation. Though love was scarce, mutual respect kept us bound. 

But looking up at the lonely eyes of the Guardian of Destruction, I couldn't help but feel I had made a grave mistake. A mistake I wouldn't have the chance to fix.

One side would die here today. The Guardians of Earth, or The Demon. 

In a brief flash of light, The Demon shifted from his original form down to resemble the image of the human he used to be. 

A tall, tanned man with medium length black hair. His once dark brown eyes now colored either red or black. A slight outline of dense muscle covered his body. Aside from the wings, horns, and seventh green eye in the middle of his forehead, he looked completely ordinary. As if someone had just picked a random man from a crowded street.

Well in a way, that's exactly what happened. 

"Your lives rest in the palm of my hand." He said in a delicate, controlled voice. For the first time since the fight started, he chose to speak.

In a forfeiting manner, I agreed with him. The Guardians of War, Might and Wisdom seemed to slowly realize the game they were playing was quickly running out of lives. 

Before they could speak, The Demon silenced them with a tug of the chains causing them soul crushing pain. 

"At the beginning of this farce, I asked you all to state your final words." The Demon said as he looked at each of us, lingering on me for a second longer. "Yet you all refused..."

He took a pause to think, "However, while none of you shall die here today, I shall enforce my punishment."

We were all shocked. What could he punish us with that surpasses death?

More than raise our hand against him, we raised and trained armies for the sole purpose of his death. Armies whose absence would forever weigh down on my conscious.

For a split second, I hoped that he'd kill me. 

"As the Guardians of Earth, my punishment shall fall upon the planet and every living being it houses." With swift motions from his sword, he hacks off our body's worth of flesh. From head to toe he takes every piece of us, one by one. In the end, he has enough to recreate each of us twice.

Before the severed flesh can revert into its' original appearance, he makes it disappear into nothingness.

"For your collective attempt to bring order and stagnation onto this world, your punishment shall be my death." 

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