Samyaza made an unbecoming groaning noise as he picked himself up from the ground.
The rage he felt when he was struck by the father and son pair was greater than any he had ever experienced before, and he felt it seeping into his very soul.
Why was this happening to him?
His men had held the upper hand mere moments ago, but now it felt like it was all coming crashing down on top of him!
Not to mention the heartbreaking fact that his son had died almost right before his very eyes without him being able to do a thing about it.
Every time that he closed his eyes, he recalled the fearful look his child had on his face before he died and he became unable to think about anything else.
His sanity beginning to crack, all he could do was spiral further and further into a fit of blind rage.
"Kill... them... both...!"
"Who're you talking about?"
CRACK!
Faster than Samyaza's senses could process, a heel connected cleanly with his jaw and sent his head twisting awkwardly in the opposite direction.
"Must be us. I haven't necessarily done anything to him though."
BANG!
As soon as his head turned around, he found Abaddon waiting for him.
A powerful fist flew into his stomach, causing him to double over, at which point the knee of the dragon god sailed directly into his nose.
Due to the force behind the attack, the archangel's body was carried up into the sky against his will, still struggling to adjust to the constant rain of punishment he was suffering under.
Out of nowhere, Asmodeus suddenly appeared in the air above him.
"Maybe it's just because you're so annoyingly handsome? It tends to make men resentful you know?"
Asmodeus gathered an abnormally large amount of divine power into his fist and punched the angel in the sternum and practically obliterated every organ and bone sitting in his chest.
Samyaza coughed out a mouthful of bloods he went rocketing back towards the ground.
"I feel like you are speaking from a more personal standpoint. It's alright to admit you're jealous of me, you know?" Abaddon said somewhat smugly.
With a jumping knee strike, Abaddon met him in mid air and snapped Samyaza's spine in half cleanly before let his body tumble to the ground.
Asmodeus landed beside his son a moment later, his arms folded disapprovingly.
"You act so haughty sometimes. I can't wait to see your face when Apophis or Belloc become more handsome than you."
Abaddon shrugged, clearly unbothered. "If that is what they want, then I would not be bothered at all. I do not need to be the most attractive person in any room I enter, it is something that just happened."
Asmodeus' scowl only deepened as he looked at his son disapprovingly.
"...You only said that in an effort to make me look shallow."
"Notice that I did not have to try very hard?"
"You brat!"
In the midst of another useless argument between the father and son pair, Samyaza was writhing on the ground going through more changes.
The corrupted darkness spreading across his body was accelerating.
His legs slowly disappeared, being replaced only by wisps of dark black smoke.
He began to lose more and more weight, and his cheeks became sunken and hollow.
He slowly floated up from the ground with his face bloody and twisted in agony.
"Both of you... DIE AND RELIEVE ME OF MY HATRED!!"
Once again, Samyaza exploded in front of their eyes but this time it was significantly less powerful and threatening.
A wave of dark and malevolent energy rippled outward from the body of the strange creature.
From the energy came solidified sickles and chains of varying shapes and sizes, and Samyaza hurled them all at the pair of gods with reckless abandon.
"Remember that thing I told you about?" Abaddon asked.
"I still think it has such a stupid name..."
"That's besides the point, just be ready!"
Not waiting for his father's, Abaddon flew into the air with a small smile on his face.
He would never admit this to his father out loud, but he was having a really hard time remembering the last time he had this much fun in a battle.
Asmodeus had a way of making one enjoy his presence even if they found him annoying.
And though Abaddon often acted otherwise, he was no different from everyone else.
Avoiding the sickles and chains with only an inch between them, Abaddon continued to close the distance between himself and Samyaza while smiling horrifically.
To the corrupted archangel, the extremely handsome cosmic god looked like a monster from the deepest recesses of the underworld.
Out of equal parts fear and anger, the angel lunged out at Abaddon with claws sharper than razors.
And then as his opponent got closer... he was suddenly replaced.
Asmodeus suddenly appeared out of nowhere, wearing an equally large smile that was only half as sinister.
Because Abaddon's body was more muscular than his father's, Asmodeus avoided the attack of his enemy by a single hair, and barreled straight into him with a headbutt that almost knocked his skull clean off his body.
With Abaddon waiting behind, he grabbed the angel by the back of the head and smashed it into the ground at the speed of light, only satisfied when he heard a loud squelching sound.
"The great father needs help!"
"Get them away from him!!"
A loud rumbling like that of an earthquake could be heard as billions of giant nephilim started to charge forward.
With Samyaza clearly in need of aid and the dragons back in Sheol, they were done sitting on the sidelines and rushed to help him with their weapons held high.
Asmodeus and Abaddon looked at each other momentarily without saying anything.
""3... 2...1..."
"Not it."
"Not I- Damn it."
"Ha! Get to it you slow poke!"
Abaddon rolled his eyes as he cracked his knuckles and analyzed the incoming nephilim army.
Even for him, these numbers were a lot.
Normally it wouldn't have been that much trouble, but with forty percent of his power missing, he was going to be in for a real rough ride.
But luckily, he had a trick he'd been dying to try ever since he first learned how to do it a few days ago.
'It'll hurt since I'm missing so much power but I'll just deal with the headache.... What did Gabbrielle tell me to do again...?'
After jogging his memory, Abaddon focused the power of nether into his eyes and hands.
The world suddenly became significantly darker, and Abaddon was able to see an incalculable number of threads jutting out from the bodies of the nephilim into the sky.
These threads represented their lifespans and fates.
Apparently, if he concentrated hard enough he would be able to see every decision these beings would make for the rest of their lives until the day they died.
... But his daughter hadn't taught him how to do that quite yet.
However, there was one thing that she had taught him.
When Asmodeus saw Abaddon raise his hand, he temporarily lifted Samyaza's ruined face from the ground. "Hang on, you're going to wanna see this."
Abaddon's index finger suddenly gave off a black light, and he made a slashing gesture in the air.
"Return to dust."
The invisible threads were all cleanly cut at the top of their heads, and for a moment the nephilim were none the wiser.
And then it happened.
As they ran, their bodies started to feel heavier and heavier and they became more exhausted.
Before they even realized it, they were falling all over each other until their bodies were reduced to large mounds of pale dust.
'No...'
With the last remnants of his mind intact, Samyaza watched all of the children that he was so proud of return to nothingness once more.
Asmodeus looked down and saw what had become of his most hated enemy.
Six glowing blue eyes, a wiry torso with spider-like arms and black skin that was even darker than his used to be.
The creature behaved like an empty shell, with no real desire to move or fight or do anything for that matter.
Asmodeus taunted the angel a few times hoping that he would do something, but nothing was ever enough to elicit a reaction.
'Well this is a little disappointing.'
Abaddon came back to his father's side a moment later, nursing a headache and a nosebleed that came with cutting the lifespans of so many nephilim all at once.
"What's with him?"
"Beats me... It's really hampering my victory spirit though."
"Understandable."
A moment later, a woman in a blue dress and veil appeared floating above the two gods.
"Do not let your opponent's fall into Grigori dampen your spirits. You are victorious today, and because of that you should be proud."
"Grigori?"
"The state an angel falls into when they become consumed with negative emotion, on a larger scale than simple fallen angels. With their mind's fractured, they lose all purpose, ego, and memory. They are a blank canvases that do little but watch."
Asmodeus and Abaddon looked at each other again before shrugging. ""Okay then.""
Underneath her veil, Asherah was smiling humorously.
"Congratulations to you, Abaddon Tathamet. The transcendent Dragons have overcome this trial in splendid fashion, and are victorious in the game."
Abaddon did smile at this, but he was still focused on one thing in particular.
"And my three rewards for victory?"
Asherah held out her hand and a small satin pouch appeared within it.
The pouch opened on it's own and absorbed the souls of every deceased nephilim on the battlefield before tying itself closed once again.
"Here you are." She said as she passed it to Abaddon.
"Thank you. Now my information?"
This was the part of the wager he was most anticipating, as it was one of the main reasons he'd brought up this whole contest in the first place.
Asherah is nice to Abaddon, but she cannot just help him blindly and show him consistent favoritism.
Because he knew that, he came up with the idea to acquire any additional help or guidance through games or wagers.
And the main reason why he'd done all of this was so that he could know the answer tone very simple question.
"The weapon that killed me in my first life. Where is it?"
Asherah initially fell silent momentarily before tapping Abaddon on the forehead a single time.
Immediately, his eyes rolled back into his head and he was transported back to the past.
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