Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

The Noór rocks, on the hilly rise of the palace got a surprising blood sacrifice that stormy day.

Lilith's body dropped out of the heavens, in such force that to those watching it was only two blinks of the eye. The burned earth received her body like a catcher's fat glove. Stones shattered on her impact. Whatever sturdy walls of the Imperial Castle that remained upstanding through the fight in the storm quickly crumbled to dust. In her hidden tower, the Blood Mother shut her eyes and leaped clear before the last edifice could fall.

"May the Martyr have mercy." Racquel prayed, silently, but like many others she sorely doubted the soul of Lilith had a place in the Halls of Valor. Devils—and she-devils—died alright, but they died different. Racquel Serpent didn't want to bother her mind with the mysteries of the beyond; she'd already seen enough. A principality self-deleting was on some people's bucket list.

Before now, the point that an immortal and near-omnipotent goddess of the abyss could DIE was farfetched. But it just happened. Normally Lilith shouldn't die from a fall out of heaven. Shit! She had already fallen once before from Paradise and she had only gotten stronger for it. But this wasn't normal circumstances.

A [Demonagogue] had been involved.

Demononagogues were notorious god-killing weapons.

As ancient as Babel, they almost preceded the Fallen themselves. These arsenals of lore were mighty in land and fable. A single Demonagogue could kill an [S Rank] in a moment. They were perhaps the only mortal-fashioned weakness of divinity in written history. Many of these great weapons were detailed in the Druids Shivvánti Tome. Many lost in [Helpockets], Nether cities, underworlds, and realms with beings so discolored, morphed and variant they but seemed to exist in man's imagination alone. But only one was sure to have survived so many goth battles of Holocaust: the Iron Cross.

It was with this forged crucifix that Ravenna de Vries, the [Empyrean] and Her Majesty stabbed Lilith—right in the fucking heart.

Sheesh!

Racquel didn't know if even ...Lilith could survive that. "I guess now I do," she murmured.

The [Iron Cross], Demonagogue of Old, Devil Killer drained out so much of Lilith's Hel essence, her purple infernal mana that she was just short of paralysis. Racquel guessed her depression did the rest. Lilith had been steady climbing down dark thoughts ever since her own son put her in the deep pits of Eragonn, ever since she had confessed the truth to him, and ever since he'd declared the fracture between them. Racquel supposed those dark thoughts hit its peak when Israfel chose Ravenna instead of she.

At a time of his utter injury when he should call, "Mama," the thin whisper that escaped his torn lips was for the Redeemer. His Redeemer. And she just about died on the inside.

To see a goddess throw herself off the clouds was. . .something.

—but then trust Lilith to make even her suicide grand. People were jumping off towers and hills and bridges. She fell off the sky, decidedly.

The move was as if to say to the stunned spectators, "right in your face, bitch!"

The sound of flapping wings joined Racquel as she meandered her way across rubble, ash, and splashed blood to the ditch where Lilith lay. She picked up her long scarlet skirts as she hopped lying stones and crumbled Athenian pillars. Lilith's crash had created a berth, a crater in the hard ground. Racquel moved for it. Throughout she planted her eyes foward. Corpses—destroyed and otherwise—of Castle stewards and her own zealous acolytes littered the desolate plains of what had once being the mightiest pinnacle in the Empire. She struggled to free oxygen of the stale air thick with smell of burnt flesh and a whole lot of blood.

"As a butcher market!" She likened the ill stench, rolling her nose. But beholding the light of an Angel was a nice thing, she agreed.

Her racism didn't extend to the glorious ones, of whose realm the Empress was born.

Ravenna had scalded hands from where she had gripped the Iron Cross. It was the breeze of her wings Racquel had heard. But the young queen wasn't thinking of her burned hands as she flew down the sky. Her body was robed in sainty gold, so it was impossible to know whether she had on clothes or not.

The amazing light of her aura permeated the surrounding as she drew closer to ground. Her iris shimmered green. Her pale wings cast long shadows of the broken towers and raised wind. As she descended, Rafel was with her, holding hands. His own wings were pure red fire and kept from the mortal eye. So were his long, slick African gold horns. His and her feet touched earth together. Behind them, Ultra-girl [Blue Fire] carried Bloody Mary safely to steady ground. The other women whom had together fought the Umber Dragon landed next to them.

These unified heroes stood roundabout and stared at Lilith's broken form in the deep crater.

Her violet eyes were yet open, like she was alive. But anyone could tell from the slab of grey stone her back had slammed upon impact and the 'stone' protruding out a slurry of warm intestines that she was well and truly dead. She still was so beautiful in death. Her limbs were shattered in very many several places. But her face, her face was intact, pretty as fine wine.

"Forgive me." Rafel said too. "But all bets were off when you killed my harem."

He heard the telltale fizz of [Blue Fire] splitting back again into the two Romanov sisters. Ocean blue light flooded the space and when it dimmed, Yukima and Daschelle were separate wholes again.

The rains had cleared, Stormanos was gone, but the skies were still grayish. Releasing hold of Ravenna's hand he slid down the huge crater to her broken body. He'd never admit it but his gold eyes caught a sheen staring at Lilith. His features were reflected in the still, unmoving mirror of her own ghostly eyes. He took her cold wrist with his one hand and with the other, he pointed to his bloated face.

"See what you did to me? In truth I feared to fight you back because of exactly this. I let you beat me...took all your punches! I took 'em all because I feared you were mad—crazy enough I guess, to do this. And you were.

"But one cannot elude prophecies. Not even the Apollyon. YOU MADE ME CHOOSE. No one else. So this one time I guess I owe it to you, to say, forgive me, mama." She didn't suddenly rise and Rafel knew for sure she was dead. How morose? The only bitch capable of killing her was her.

Rafel put his hand over her eyes and closed the violet depths.

[Dinnng!]

His head whipped up. "Peitho? Is that you? Subservience? System? Are you there, in my head?"

Funnily he shook his head this way and that as if to jug the sound he heard. This was a ping he knew only his [S.I.N] was capable of making, the ding to signal incoming notification. But he waited for her sugar-sweet voice. To himself, over Lilith's body, he was calling, "Peitho! Peitho!"

From afar Ravenna's voice came down to him in the deep crater. "She's here, my love. She's here!"

Rafel gently dropped Lilith's hand and jogged up the ditch. At the mouth of the fissure he found Peitho. Ravenna was in her embrace, because the other woman was bigger and had centuries, both of life and wisdom above the petite Empress. Seeing Rafel, she pushed Ravenna up and dropped to the earth, on her knees.

"Lord host."

Fire rushed in Rafel's amber eyes. "Explain yourself, woman. How can my system be absent in a fight? Do you wish me gone so?"

"Far from it, Sire." Peitho pleaded. She lifted up her beautiful eyes to him and she took hold of his big hands in devotion. He allowed it. Mostly because of her gorgeous face and attractive hairdo—she did still have the orange Afro. So fashionable, his Subservience. Peitho kept to her knees as she explained. "Her Eminence, Lady Firstborn knew my [Service Codes], which she used to inprison me, in all realities. I couldn't be with you, in your head or at your side because she scattered me everywhere all at once. I am sorry, Lord host. I've necessary precaution for the future. My algorithms shall be made perfect. Sire, forgive me, pleeease?

I shall make it up to you."

At this juncture, all the women were looking at him. His exes. His own little angel. And Peitho.

But it wasn't Peitho's definitely bedroom voice nor apology that made him reconsider. It was her last sentence.

Nonetheless, he kept her on her knees. Ravenna drew closer to his right, saying, with her jade iris scanning the fringes of the Castle ruins where bright heads were popping, "the city awakens, my love. It shan't be long before news of Stormanos and . . .the fall of the Empyrean spreads into the country. We must be out of here. Take me away from this place, please." She hugged his arm.

Rafel told her sternly. "The Empyrean hasn't fallen. Just the castle. However expensive, it can be rebuilt. You are the Empyrean, a sure dynasty, and as long as you're alive, the Imperiality lives on. Long live House Raven. Long live the Jade Empress!" Nods and sounds of approval came from Yukima and Daschelle Romanov, who were regents too from the west. Rafel continued, "but you are right, Little Raven. We must away from this condemned place and its stripped clouds." His leopard eyes landed back on a certain kneeling Afrikaner. "Peitho? What hotel is closest to us, can suit our fine tastes, and can house all of us? Hmm?"

She responded fast. "I–I have the Hotel Londivon. But might I suggest, Lord host one better. I have a small estate off the wood at Fort Sandringham. The signory is yet unnamed but the farmhands do call it onijo omi, their native tongue for Water dancer. I can thread together a portal right away."

"You have a country home? You're rich?" Ravenna questioned, looking the flashy woman up and down. The part of Ravenna that grew up peasant admired the humility of Peitho. If this big girl who owned a country estate the size of a village—virtually a Dukedom, was on her knees before Rafel, she really wondered at the wealth of her boyfriend. Peitho had an excellent answer for her. "My Host is rich. So am I. I have acquired a few properties since Emberfall. Onijo omi is one."

"Wow!" Young Daschelle blew a raspberry.

Rafel stopped the conversation before it could go any further. The bold masses of the Capital were advancing to gape at the embers of the Royal home. "Take us to onij... Take us to this place.

Peitho created [Gray Door] with quick work of her enchanted fingers. The web pattern of [Etheria] pulsed before them all into a sullen, gothic portal, that looked like the door into a cowboy church.

And she did all these on her knees.

She gestured to it with a content smile. "The way home, Lord host."

The girls went through first. Then Ravenna. Just as Rafel would enter he grabbed hold of Raquel's wrist. "Where do you think you're going, witch? You're coming with us."

He just about dragged and carried her off through the [Gray Door] with him. The Blood Mother had a lot of explaining to do.

[🎶 Temptation – P square.]

Peitho stayed behind a while to address the matter of Lilith's corpse—which the arrived mob swiftly began to ogle. If they didn't all already have necrophiliac thoughts, the goddess's ripe and bountiful white flesh was sufficient to make the 'men' into fresh sinners. She did stand over the body till the Undertakers pulled in, in their black auras. When they stooped to move Lilith's body, there were no injuries to speak of. Her corpse had perfectly healed up. One would never know she had just fallen straight out of the sky.

Some time later in the quiet sovereignty of onijo omi, the door to an astonishingly large immaculate bathroom was kicked open. A great man stood at the opening. His shadow blocked out the streaming light. The distinct feature of his large rippling body was his golden skin—barechested, and his furious mess of red curly hair.

He stood in only a towel.

A white woman in a yellow tribal wrapper stood bending over a huge bathtub as it filled with warm water. The red-haired giant at the door saw clearly the jump of her enticing body beneath the flimsy wrappers. She couldn't hope to hide those curves. Her hips pushed out nicely. And by all the gods of the Continent, she had a good, fat ass.

He marched to her.