The Demon Against the Heavens 114 I will fly away

A demoniac creature with huge bat wings was star-gazing. There was nothing but silence around him.

"Iblis?" a gentle voice resounded behind him. A slender hand touched one of his big shoulders.

"Yeah?" the Devil gazed intently at a young girl with two angel wings. He gave her the broadest smile, in striking clash with his terrifying look. The woman standing before him exuded a divine heavenly note which had nothing to do with this world. Her locks were a golden cascade whose shininess was only second to that of her eyes. Her irises seemed to emit a radiance of their own.

The Aura of the woman was imbued with Life Mana. Though, somehow it seemed to embrace him instead of rejecting him. It had never rejected him indeed, unlike every other Life being existing.

***

In the present

"Master?" a voice called out from a giant pile of debris.

The kid standing in front of Helial, his hand raised towards the ceiling., He was welding the pieces back together through his pitch-dark Mana. The Devil had just prevented the palace from dismantling by hand of Helial. Something though seemed to have upset him deeply.

"Master?" the voice said again, and again found no answer.

The room was filled with a strange Aura soaked with remains of Life and Destruction. The partly snow-white and partly demoniac Mana was so familiar… For how sharp the Devil's perception was, even his senses could be fooled by melancholy. And when that happened, he would get lost in a dreamlike world made of memories and regret.

"Iblis?" the voice asked at that point.

For one split second, the Devil sensed the presence Amaterasu standing before him. His blurred eyes couldn't tell dream from reality. The kid slowly stretched his hand out in a vain attempt to brush against his past.

"What are you doing, exactly?" suddenly, the voice made sound the alarm in the Devil's mind.

Iblis withdrew his hand immediately. His face turned unmoved. He went back to behaving as usual. He made sure the palace was standing stably and then dissolved the Mana he had pulled that off with.

"You're brave enough to say my name," the Devil smiled expressionlessly. Then, he disappeared in a dark beam. All around Helial, the room was filled with electricity. From time to time, a spark would flare up. The air was soaked into Life and Destruction, along with a strange force whose mysterious principles were yet to be untangled.

Helial stood there alone. It was a while now that he had come to the conclusion that his Master and Iblis, the ultimate Devil, were one and the same. Despite the looks of a kid, which was probably the result of his weakened soul stuck into Curse of the Demon, his power was unique. Helial didn't know Iblis' story in details. He only knew that he was madly in love in Amaterasu. Which, most likely, was also why the most powerful creature in the universe had to take the shape of a kid.

Helial had come to a number of conclusions really.

The Devil had indeed told him that in order to get his help, he must take one life for him. Helial now knew what this meant. He was depositary of Iblis' legacy. Given that Amaterasu was probably in the same shape as Iblis now, this meant that somewhere was another heir, a nemesis created by destiny, who embodied the other divine creature.

This conclusion shocked Helial, but he had slowly come to terms with it. Many people would be crashed by the burden of such responsibility, Helial didn't think this would weight his future down. Quite the contrary. He took it as a great chance to break free.

"One life to be forever free…" Helial whispered as he pondered.

Meanwhile, in Helial's Soul, Iblis was back to cooking. As his sautéed vegetables browned off, the Devil smiled. Helial ignored that the matter was much more complex than that. He wouldn't have to kill some person whatsoever. Helial had, maybe unconsciously, forgot Iblis' exact words. Helial was supposed to kill the person he would love the most in his entire life.

Iblis' and Amaterasu's legacies were so powerful they not only carried the extreme power of two primordial creatures, but they also sealed a destiny he couldn't run away from. Deep inside his heart, Helial knew this. He just wouldn't admit it. The story of Iblis and Amaterasu was meant to occur once again…

Helial looked about himself. He noticed that Iblis had prevented that wild energy from shattering the palace down. Damage was contained to the room only. Well, it seemed more like a typhoon had swept it over.

After all, despite his Soul lacking physical limbs, Iblis had once been the greatest Devil in the entire universe. His Mana Control still went unmatched.

Without Meridians, it would be impossible to master Mana. But everything is Mana in the world. Iblis might as well evoke the Skills and techniques he would need by absorbing the Mana naturally present around him. His power, however, was still far from the one he could boast when he still had a physical body.

Meanwhile, Helial was getting familiar with the changes his body had just gone through. The strange power was sneaking through his Meridians. It was an extremely mysterious sensation indeed. There was a lot for him left to discover before defining himself as a true master of that Skill.

Skill acquired:

Metamorphosis

Level: 1

Grade. White

???

Helial focused to the fullest as he activated all the Mana inside his body. The anomalous Mana wave raged through his Meridians It seemed to be seething to the boil.

Helial sensed the energy unleashed by the Skill flow inside of him. He still couldn't make the fullest use of it though. He would first need to train and ponder over the principles he developed. Currently, Metamorphosis had no precise attributes. It was very unstable and malleable. Despite Helial's revolutionary Epiphany, his Knowledge Grade of the Skill hadn't yet showed up in his Stat window. This could only mean it was much stronger than he could imagine. He would have a hard time shaping Metamorphosis according to his will. But that was a start, at least.

Helial had indeed taken a step forward to overcome the wall blocking everyone who had ventured on that same path so far.

***

Countless years before

"Are you sure you don't want to stay here and try to mediate with my Clan?" Amaterasu asked him, a grievous light in her eyes. This young Amaterasu had no idea on what future what bring. For now, she was just lost in Iblis' joyful smile.

Amaterasu had always felt a vibrant surprise in seeing a beaming smile on that face many had learnt to fear. Her entire Clan, first and foremost her father, had always warned her to watch out from the Leader of the Clan of the Night Eternal. That Clan members were humans who had learnt demoniac arts. They could transform body and spirit and let mankind reach new power. However, according to her father, the new power would come at a overly high cost. Therefore, those people had soon lost their rational thinking.

"I'm a monster to them. Because of these," he pointed at his wings and black horns, then slowly stroked the black veins framing his pitch-black eyes, "and these, and these. When my ancestors underwent all these changes, they gained power no other race could compare. They created the perfect build. No Ancestral Creature can hope to match it. Qilins, Dragons, Heavenly Star Tigers - they're nothing if compared to this body."

Iblis gazed down at his hand. His black skin was as polished as ebony. He turned it upside down repeatedly, gazing at the palm, at the back, at the palm again. Then, he clenched it and slowly shook his head. "And when they became omnipotent, they lost any fear. You know what that means?"

Amaterasu gazed at Iblis with a worried frown on her face. Apparently, Amaterasu wanted to save him. But Iblis had nothing to be saved from.

"This means," Iblis went on, "that they lost many men's prime mover, first and foremost hypocrisy. Your parents and your Clan believe that my ancestors lost their humanity. But that's wrong. They've just lost fears. And when you lack fear, your thinking gest clearer. For an Immortal, good and evil are much more blurred concepts than Life and Destruction."

While Destruction and Life could be catalogued according to the characteristics of their Mana, it wouldn't indeed be possible to catalogue them in terms of good and evil.

Life considered Destruction to be too fiery. And so it branded it as evil. Destruction considered Life to be a restricting, suffocating slavery.

"While everyone keeps fighting over these clashes, I will fly away, away like a seagull. No matter how down pitch will weigh me," said Iblis, his eyes fixed on those of Amaterasu.

Chapter end