"Oh? Seems he's here already."
Darius stretched his weary old body as he stood up from his throne after days of inactivity.
He had to admit... he was more anxious about this battle than he initially believed he'd be.
None of the reports he'd received had been good, and by that I mean he hadn't received any at all.
Meaning the armies he'd sent out to subdue Abaddon's advancing armies had already been crushed flat or captured.
And given the fact that dragons are not particularly well known to take prisoners, he was leaning more towards the former.
Sighing, the old dwarf began walking through his empty castle, trying to pinpoint where he had felt this strange and ominous energy from.
Pushing open the front doors to his home, he took in the sight of an empty city.
He had evacuated this place three days ago out of necessity, and he honestly wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do at the time.
But now that he was seeing the monstrous apparition marching up the mountain and into these lands... he knew that he had made the right choice.
He had never seen anything quite like it before.
It was a centaur-like monster with a body made from molten lava and billowing purple flames.
It's horns were long and curled up into the sky like stalagmites inside of a cavern.
Every step taken left fiery footprints in his wake that burned hot enough to melt molten steel, and even from this distance he could feel the heat that was burning the air.
Hovering around him were around fifty soldiers in horrifying black armor with demonic faces inscribed on the breastplate.
...and one fallen angel who was wearing no more than a sexy maid outfit with a skirt that was far too short.
Darius wasn't sure exactly why she was there but... he was grateful for the view nonetheless.
Abaddon and his forces came to a halt five hundred feet away from the castle, staring silently at Darius as if they were waiting for him to make the first move.
"Was there truly no other option, lad? Could all of this not have been avoided?" He asked in disappointment.
"I gave you the condition to avoid unnecessary casualties, Darius. You did not accept it." Abaddon reminded.
The dwarf rubbed his temples in exhaustion as he remembered Abaddon's absurd request to hand over the kingdom without a fight.
He may be old, but the fire had not run out of his blood just yet.
It would be a long time before he was ready to hand over his crown, and he certainly wouldn't do so today.
"I never took you for a man that acts solely with absolutes in mind. You disappoint me greatly."
"I will repent over my actions at a later date." Abaddon said uncaringly. " Are you going to surrender or not?"
Darius merely shook his head in disappointment before turning around and walking back inside.
"Is he quitting?" Malenia asked curiously. "Can we go home now?"
Kanami looked like she was going to offer a sharp tongued retort when suddenly the ground began to tremble violently.
The source of the supposed earthquake was the dwarven king's own castle, which seemed like it was going to come crumbling down at any second.
But against all expectations, the complete opposite happened.
The massive structure opened up right before their very eyes, blocked of ancient stone and metal shifting and converging to become a mechanized warrior over ninety meters tall.
It looked like a stone golem that should have been placed outside of some ancient tomb, but instead it was here and supersized.
Even though the king was not visible, his voice was transmitted through the helmet-like structure on the warrior's head.
"Remember lad, this was your choice. It is already far too late to regret it now."
In his monstrous form, Abaddon smiled while revealing rows of monstrous teeth. "Who will be the one to regret? I am not impressed by your toy Darius."
"Toy...? Ha! I'll show you a toy, lad!"
The castle golem raised it's arms up above it's head, and a column of light shot up into the sky.
When Abaddon saw the one of a kind aura pouring off of the machination in waves, he had no choice but to retract his previous statement.
'A true god grade item this size... Maybe I am a bit impressed."
Legends told of Darius' efforts to create this enormous castle with his own blood sweat and tears.
But none of them ever spoke of it being a mechanized monstrosity at the true god grade.
To craft such a thing... his talents were indeed praiseworthy.
Suddenly, the mech took it's first steps off the peak and closed the distance between he and Abaddon in an instant.
Surprisingly, the construct was rather nimble for it's size, and it kicked Abaddon full force into the air, sending him tumbling down the mountain.
"God!"
"Master!"
"Kill that thing, now!"
The Euphrates roared at the sight of their monarch flying so casually through the air, and it looked as if they were going to claim retribution themselves.
'Don't interfere.'
Abaddon's voice was calm and concise, showing an utter lack of concern he felt over receiving such a staggering blow.
It was because he sounded so perfectly rational that his soldiers did not even think to question his decision, and retreated into the sky without a second order.
Darius had prepared to swat them down as well, but because they did not engage he didn't either.
Instead, he displayed a great range of mobility with his construct as he leapt down from the mountain peak in a single bound.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!
The explosion caused by the 90 meter tall monster was deafening, and the crater of dirt that it created upon landing was around twenty miles long.
Abaddon was unbothered by the large explosion, and he lifted his molten body off of the ground while internally in better condition than he was before.
The sin of pride was truly unfair.
The amount of power he gained from an enemy's attack was directly proportional to the strength of the enemy themselves.
Against someone like Darius, that first blow had enhanced hs body's condition by an entire ten percent.
He wasn't upset about being kicked, he was ecstatic.
So long as Darius continued trying to beat him down instead of kill him with one blow, he could milk this for all it was worth.
"Those soldiers were good men, Abaddon! They shouldn't have had to die in your needless war!"
BOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!
Just as Abaddon had begun picking himself back up, an unnecessarily large fist rained down on his back, pummeling him right into the ground.
Darius believed that because Abaddon was taking his sweet time to get up that he was really feeling some pain from his blows.
He didn't know that Abaddon was using all of his acting skills from twenty first century media to play wounded.
But there was already a problem with his plan.
'What is this... What's happening?' Abaddon wondered.
After taking a second hit from Darius, he realized that the percentage of stats he gained this time around was closer to 9.9998.
"Those were sons, brothers, husbands, fathers! You had no right to take them away from their families!!"
BOOOOM!!!!
9%.
BOOOOM!
8.8846%.
BOOOM!
7.7219%.
BOOOM!
6.6133%.
BOOOM!!
5.2178%.
As Darius continued to pummel Abaddon into the earth, the amount of benefits that he was gaining were being further reduced to nothing.
And eventually, he was able to figure out the reason.
As the distance between them closed, so too did the amount of power he received.
If he allowed Darius to keep this up, his gains would be reduced to mere chump change.
Interestingly enough, the only reason why the dwarven king had not yet noticed anything amiss was because he was using a construct without the sensation of touch.
Had he been using his own hands, he would have long felt that Abaddon's body was getting harder every time he struck him.
But because he was a man aggrieved over his considerable losses, he had thrown himself into a blind rage and merely wailed away at Abaddon without stopping to think.
Suddenly, Darius paused as he sensed a large force incoming from the west.
Flying on top of a massive bat with a nightmarish appearance were six of Abaddon's wives, and behind them was an army of well over three million demons.
"Fuck, we're late!"
"God damnit!"
"It looks like we were just a few moments behind too..."
"I knew we shouldn't have stopped to let Lisa pee!"
"I-I'm sorry, I couldn't hold it!"
"It's alright sister, we'll get the next one."
Darius could hear the arguing of the wives from all the way on the battlefield, and he would have been more amused had he not been in the process of killing their husband.
"It seems I no longer have time to waste.... I've missed them too much to keep them waiting any longer than necessary."
"What're you- Gahhh!"
In the brief second that Darius had looked away, his surroundings changed entirely.
Suddenly he was looking at the world from upside down, and he was gaining altitude at a surprising rate.
"F-Fuck, I'm going to be sick! What the hell is-"
Through shared vision with the mech, Darius could see what the cause of his change in surroundings was.
An enormous black dragon with four heads and eyes embedded in it's wings and chest had it's tail wrapped around his leg, pulling him into the sky like some sort of super scary blimp.
They were already at 20,000 feet and climbing, and Darius didn't want to find out what would happen when he reached Abaddon's desired altitude.
Using one of his mechanized hands, he created an energy blade that jutted out of his forearm and was the length of a train.
He cleanly cut the end of Abaddon's tail, allowing him to fall freely and regain control of his body.
The dragon was not bothered by his sliced tail in the slightest, as it was soon to regrow.
Instead he was pleased that he received a 6.2211% boost in stats from that attack.
Glancing below, he could see that Darius had generated wings of some kind of plasma energy from his back, allowing him to glide down to the ground at a controlled pace.
But there was no way that Abaddon was going to let him do such a thing without suffering so much as a scratch.
'Haven't tried that since back then... let's see how well this works.'
Abaddon focused his mind on all of the affinities coursing throughout his body.
Fire.
Water.
Death.
Destruction.
Darkness.
Blood.
Blacklight.
Lightning.
Gathering all of them into his chest, he focused on converging them into a single attack that would have devastating effects.
And due to his own deep understanding of his powers, he was able to do so rather easily.
Suddenly, the sky around him seemed to become devoid of color as the pressure leaking from his body turned insufferable.
Instead of using his mouths as he had against Hades, Abaddon opted for a much more unsettling method of attack.
The huge eye within his chest that was normally always closed flashed open, revealing a yellow reptilian eye that even his children could not look at so casually.
The sense of dread was utterly unlike anything he had ever showcased so far.
It was terrible, awful, and abysmal, and it further cemented his identity as a monster that should not exist.
"Eight Paths To Annihilation : Omega."
An unholy beam of pure concentrated power shot out of Abaddon's center eye like a rocket, and even he was pushed back by the force of his own attack.
Finally, Darius sensed something so ominous that it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and caused him to clench his butt cheeks in fear.
In the brief second that the mech glanced over his shoulder, he saw an attack unlike anything he had ever seen heading towards him on an imminent collision course.
"Son of a - !"
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺