Gideon and Godfrey stepped down from their horses and unsheathed their weapons. "Draw your blade, monster!"
"Easy now, little men. I haven't gotten to face an army like this on my own in such a long time. Let me savor this experience."
Suddenly, Abaddon vanished right before their very eyes and reappeared directly in between them.
"What-"
"When did you-"
BANG!
Abaddon casually smacked both dwarves in the side of the neck, sending their small bodies flying in opposite directions.
Turning around, the dragon glanced at the million dwarven soldiers who he had yet to interact with.
A few braver men rushed at Abaddon in groups, lunging at him with swords, spears, and hammers.
Tink!
Clang!
Clunk!
Abaddon had around twelve weapons strike his body.
None of them managed to pierce the first layer of his skin, or even leave so much as a bruise.
"You...You didn't dodge.." One dwarf said.
Abaddon casually looked at the dwarf and realized that he was right.
With his speed, he could have avoided those blows on accident.
And yet he stayed still until the very end.
He initially did not understand why he had done such a thing, but then he recalled his battle with Satan a month ago.
At that time, he had noticed that the former king of wrath was not avoiding his attacks either.
And the answer he gave was as insane as it was iconic.
"If I was afraid of being hit, I wouldn't have stepped onto a battlefield."
After giving that bone chilling answer, the soldiers that had just tried to attack him a moment ago had lost all of their nerve.
"Tch."
Abaddon clicked his teeth in annoyance and swiped his bladed tail across the necks of all of the dwarves.
Before their bodies had even hit the ground, he was looking for the next opponents.
But after his two frightening demonstrations, he had no more who were willing to fight.
His mood became even worse.
"I abhor men like you... I give you the opportunity to hold onto your lives, and you wait until the battle is set in motion to lose your nerve. Regardless of whether you have changed your minds or not, I will not spare you."
Even though he was not currently doing anything threatening, the dwarves were trembling with every word spoken.
It was painfully clear that they had lost all of their fighting spirit.
But Abaddon had the remedy for such a thing.
"Rejoice, dwarves. Today I will help you travel to the deadlands with honor."
Holding up his hand, a pulse of pure red energy left his palm.
The wave washed over the bodies of every member of the dwarven army who did not surrender before the battle began.
"W-What is this...?"
"I feel..."
"I hate him... I hate him so fucking much!"
The eyes of the soldiers began to glow a hateful red, and they clenched their weapons with a new wave of vigor.
It was very clear that all of their hesitation and despair from before had disappeared in an instant, replaced with an overwhelming hatred.
"That's better." Abaddon said with a monstrous smile. "This is what you have chosen, correct? Come then."
Like a bomb had gone off, Abaddon was besieged by wave after wave of enraged dwarves.
They attacked him endlessly, looking for any sort of opening or weakness in his defenses to take advantage of.
But they quickly discovered he had no such thing to begin with, at least not when it came to enemies of their level.
And they usually only learned such a thing when it was already too late.
The dragon was merciless, for every ineffective attack he received he doled out one of his own that usually claimed tens of enemies in a single swoop.
Abaddon had killed about ten thousand soldiers when he suddenly sensed a prickly feeling run down the back of his neck.
BANG!
BOOM!
A shockwave rippled outward from the collision caused by Abaddon catching the blades of Gideon and Godfrey with his bare hands.
"This ends now, monster!"
"We will not allow you to massacre our men any longer!"
Abaddon casually looked at the two dwarven generals with no visible signs of emotion on his face.
"I had completely forgotten about the two of you." He said honestly. "Are you done napping?"
"Shut up!"
"Fuck you!"
"I suppose that means yes."
Abaddon glanced out of the corner of his eye at the army that was still rushing at him with wrath in their hearts.
"I guess I've had enough of a warm up. I don't need them anymore."
""What??"" Gideon and Godfrey asked in unison.
What occurred next was something that they would not forget in this life or the next.
Gathering destruction magic into his throat, Abaddon opened his mouth wide and revealed a mouthful of pointed teeth.
He took in a deep breath, and unleashed a horrifying roar that could be heard throughout all of Apeir.
"GUUUUUUUUUUOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"
A solidified sound wave ripped through, earth, rubble, and even the clouds above.
But the soldiers suffered the worst fate without question.
Their bodies simply... exploded as soon as the sound hit their bodies.
Even their armor was reduced to tiny shreds of metal as the dwarf inside exploded into a bloody mist.
Any shred of bone or organ that could have been left behind was ground up so finely that it merely assimilated with the blood in the air.
When it was over, the entire army was nowhere to be seen, but those who had laid down their weapons were now lying face down in a bloody trench 100 miles long.
Their armor had been destroyed so they were currently stark naked, but Abaddon considered that a small price to pay since their lives had been spared.
"H-How...?"
"What are you...?"
Abaddon looked down at the pale faced dwarves who could no longer even hold their weapons properly.
He casually snapped their swords with his bare hands, and kicked the two of them in the stomach, sending them flying backwards.
Suddenly, molten cracks began to form in Abaddon's skin as his body stretched and grew.
A second pair of legs with clawed scaly feet formed beneath his torso.
Behind his back, wings alight in purple flame sprang up from his shoulder blades and illuminated the night around him.
The horns atop his head became larger and pointed up towards the sky above.
His once one of a kind and handsome appearance vanished, replaced with the muzzle of some kind of monstrous creature.
As the twins picked themselves up from the ground, the fear they felt inside was only multiplied by the sight of Abaddon in this monstrous new appearance.
"Do not lose your nerves. This is the fate you have chosen, walk proudly into the afterlife."
He held up is hand and ripped out two of his fingers.
Those two appendages became swords that were roughly around the same shape and size as the ones Abaddon had broken.
He casually tossed them to the frightened dwarves, and gestured for their challenge to continue.
"Brother... I do not believe we are fated to see tomorrow." Gideon said solemnly.
"It would seem not..." Godfrey agreed." But even then, we should give this all we have, no?"
"You've read my mind, old boy."
The two of them clawed to their feet, and took the weapons thrown before them with solemn looks on their faces.
It was very clear that these two were prepared for the inevitable death that was to come.
"Gideon... it was an honor to fight beside you."
"You're getting sentimental in your old age, brother.... but the honor was all mine."
The two of them clasped hands for a final time, before releasing each other and running directly towards Abaddon.
"He's sure to be slower in this form, take out his legs!"
"Right!"
""Gaia's retribution!""
The eyes of the two dwarves glowed amber, and jagged spears of rock ripped up from the ground and pierced his legs.
If Abaddon felt any pain from their action, he did not show it.
Instead he watched the two brothers carefully.
Dark blood flowed from the wounds on his legs coated the ground underneath him.
The blood started to squirm on the ground, and changed into a legion of bright red spears that launched themselves at the enemy.
Gideon and Godfrey remained unfazed, and cut down all of the weapons aimed at them without missing a single one.
"Altitude!"Gideon reminded.
"Got it! Rock wall!"
At Godfrey's command, a staircase made of stone rose up in front of them, and they quickly reached the top before leaping into the sky.
The sword's they had been given started to glow with an orange light, and they raised their weapons high above their heads.
""TWIN SWORD ART: HALVES OF THE WORLD!""
The brothers swung their swords from two different angles, with the point of attack being both sides of Abaddon's neck.
BANG!!
The sound of the collision was monumental, and Abaddon's skin was unbelievable tough.
However, by using all of the strength in their bodies, the dwarves were able to meet each other in the middle, and cleanly cut off Abaddon's head.
None were more surprised by this outcome than the dwarven brothers themselves.
"We..."
"Did it...?"
Before they could celebrate their victory, the two of them were plucked from the sky by the headless corpse.
The two men watched in horror as Abaddon regrew his monstrous head right before their very eyes.
Inwardly they began to curse themselves for thinking that they had won for even a second.
Abaddon leisurely cracked his neck as he got used to the strange feeling of regrowing your head.
While it was a cool thing to be able to do, it definitely takes some getting used to.
"Right then..."
"Be quick about it, yea?"
Abaddon's flaming eyes peered down at the twin dwarves trapped within his fists.
Their heads were down and their eyes were closed, a symbol of acceptance that they had reached the end of their lives.
"I think not." Abaddon said in a monstrous voice.
To Gideon and Godfrey, this could only mean that they were going to be tortured before they died.
Their final objective was to not give Abaddon the satisfaction of breaking them.
"I don't quite hate Darius enough to kill his sons. Even if we are at war."
Both Gideon and Godfrey stared at the creature holding them with eyes filled with disbelief.
"How did you...?"
The demon shrugged and did not give further explanation for his decision.
"When you see your father again, you should thank him. The fact that he is a good man is the only thing keeping you alive."
Abaddon would never forget how easily Darius had offered to help him when he brought promises of war.
It was a strange thing to do for someone whom you barely knew, and an even stranger thing to do for someone who'd promised you violence.
But as strange as it was, Darius had left an impression on Abaddon that would not be so easily forgotten.
As a father himself, this was the greatest way he knew of to repay his offer.
Before the two of them could ask anymore questions, Abaddon used his telepathic abilities to overload their five senses, temporarily knocking them out.
He heard the soft flutter of wings, and Malenia landed on his shoulder a second later.
"Master seems to be feeling better. Were you just bored before?"
"Something like that." Abaddon admitted. "The twins and there army were not terribly strong, but it was nice to move around a bit after so long."
Abaddon placed the sleeping twins onto the ground, and turned around to face the 5,000 naked dwarves who had already started to go insane from the mere sight of him.
He took a clawed hand and dug into his own forearm, allowing his own precious blood to fall freely onto the ground.
"This is the prize for your surrender. A new life where you will never have to do such a thing again, begins now."
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