Novaris: Adventure in the Shattered Fang Continent

Earth. June. 2022. CE.

The warlock slammed into the octopien, momentarily engulfing them in crimson energy. After the energy dispersed, the octopien unleashed a blast of kinetic force that sent the crimson warlock crashing into a nearby building. Then, only a fraction of a second after slamming into the building, the warlock burst forth, sending debris flying everywhere.

Looking at the warlock, Tesilim saw that their spectral wings and horns were gone, which indicated the warlock had already used most of its power in the initial charge. Though powerful, the spectral transformations some warlocks had access to were only momentary and burned through much of the mana their patrons gave them.

These transformations gave warlocks enough power to pierce steel, yet the octopien looked unscathed, which displayed its magical prowess. However, Tesilim knew that even though the aberration had been able to rebuff the warlock's charge, it had done so at a significant cost to its mana. And if the other aberrations hadn’t occupied the other two warlocks, they would have easily killed it.

The good thing was that it was low on mana, allowing Tesilim to properly assist in the battle. Even better than that, the octopien had stayed floating in the open, giving Tesilim a great shot.

So, taking a deep breath, Tesilim aimed and unleashed the magical projectile, hearing the low hum as it flew forward. As Tesilim watched, he saw the aberration’s shield light up blue as the shot struck it.

At that point, Tesilim was already mid-way through an excited but quiet celebratory whoop when he noticed the shield did not flicker. In fact, as the seconds passed, nothing happened. He expected the octopien to fall from the sky, with its death marking the end of its levitating capabilities.

However, the monster did no such thing. Instead, it looked directly in Tesilim's direction, making eye contact through the rifle's scope. As they both stared at each other, Tesilim felt a connection spark up in his mind, which then grew to a feeling of oddity as the octopien linked to Tesilim's psyche.

Then, after the link was complete, Tesilim heard the thing’s voice in his mind.

“Ah! It seems another rat has come to play.” As it spoke, Tesilim could only stare, seemingly frozen in panic and fear, as the creature sifted through his memories.

“Oh, aren’t you quite the smart rat, waiting for the right moment to strike? Your plan could have worked, too, but my lord has decided no more of my kin will die on this filthy planet.”

It then paused as Tesilim felt the connection lessen in power as if its attention was no longer entirely directed towards him. This loss in strength allowed Tesilim to regain some control over his body, and he released another shot at the thing.

Sadly, this one was weaker, and much like the first one, it did nothing but get the octopien's full attention on him again.

“Honestly, you Earth humans are an odd bunch. It is odd to find warlocks that act more like paladins. Either way, it does not matter. In the end, all shall fall to-”

And just like that, the connection was abruptly cut off.

As Tesilim regained control of his body and mind, he hastily shook off his fear and looked for the aberration, quickly finding it and witnessing a shocking transformation begin to take place.

The warlock had regained its spectral form and was once again in the midst of clashing with the aberration, which explained why the mental connection with the thing had been cut off. Clearly, the damn thing had bigger problems to deal with.

Unlike the first clash, the battle this time around was different. The warlock was no longer just barely contending with the octopien. Instead, they were both equal in power and to Tesilim, it seemed the warlock was gaining the upper hand.

It was not just the warlock’s growing power that was shocking. As the fight continued, the warlock's body slowly became encased in the spectral form of a devil. It was an odd look because the spectral image of the devil out scaled the warlock’s own size, making it seem like the warlock had some sort of hologram around their entire body.

The image mostly encased the warlock when the fight began taking a turn.

Now, when both figures clashed, the octopien was slowly being overcome by the sheer magical prowess of the warlock. Unlike before, the warlock’s attacks now penetrated the aberration's shield. Meanwhile, the kinetic blasts of the octopien grew weaker. Actually, Tesilim corrected. It wasn’t that the octopien's blasts were getting weaker since they could still rip entire chunks of buildings apart. Instead, the warlock was just now being able to overcome them.

As the fight continued, the warlock became fully encased in the ghostly image of the devil. Then, once the image was complete, Tesilim watched in shock and horror as it began to manifest physically. Not only that, but the warlock's body began slowly growing, ripping off its clothes in the process.

It was as if the body was growing to fill a mold.

Just then, that thought reminded Tesilim about something he had heard from a few soldiers he had met a while back. The soldiers spoke to him about the warlock battalions and how often, in battles, some of the warlocks would transform into odd entities, almost as if from fantasy stories. The transformations were also permanent, the warlocks giving up all of their humanity in return for gaining enough power to turn whole battles around. The worst part was that after eliminating the enemy, the transformed warlocks would often turn on and eliminate all nearby living creatures. Until, at some point, the warlocks would just vanish into thin air.

At the time, Tesilim hadn’t believed the soldiers, thinking they had gone crazy as they were probably exposed to some odd magic or were having side effects of the mental assaults caused by the aberrations. But now, one of these transformations was happening right before him.

Not only had the devilish illusion wholly solidified, but the old warlock's clothes were gone, replaced by what Tesilim could only describe as hoplite-like armor.

The armor seemed to be made of molten magma, and dark crimson flames flickered from its surface. The warlock was no longer human and had black curved horns extended backward from its forehead and a pair of leathery bat-like wings on its back that matched its deep crimson skin.

Though the Devil looked like a Spartan warrior from hell, it had no spear, shield, or helm and slammed the aberration around like a ragdoll with its bare fists. It seemed that with the transformation complete, the warlock-turned-devil not only gained the physique of an olympic athlete but also power akin to an Olympian demi-god.

The battle ended as the octopien's shield failed, and the devil pierced its chest and promptly ripped it in half. And as the octopien died, the devil unleashed a roar whose shockwave cleared the smoke and dust that had come due to the destruction of the town's center.

With the smoke cleared, Tesilim watched as the devil looked downward, and he hoped that the thing was just searching for more aberrations to kill.

Either way, it was time for Tesilim to go. He wanted to avoid being around for more exciting fights, even if he needed supplies.

So, shaking the remnant shock and fear out of his body, Tesilim stood up, grabbed his rifle and bag, and turned around to walk toward the stairs. His progress came to a halt when he walked into the rather hot - and not in a good way - pile of muscle and destruction that could, of course, only be the devil.

Tesilim backtracked so fast that he stumbled and fell to the ground. Sitting there, hoping it was a dream, he couldn’t help but notice how much he was sweating. He felt extremely hot, which was odd, seeing as the cloud-covered skies kept the sun's heat to a minimum. This heat made him finally acknowledge the terrifying creature in front of him.

The devil was definitely the cause of this heat and was also probably the reason for the strong smell of smoke clawing up his nostrils. As Tesilim stared at the floor, his mind whirled in an attempt to find words to speak, but all he did was notice that the area around him had become so hot he could now see the heat waves radiating from the concrete.

Finally, Tesilim gained enough courage, and his eyes began moving towards the feet of the devil and then further upward.

To Tesilim's bad luck, he came to learn that the devil was a guy. He gained this information by having front-row seats to the viewing of the devil’s dangling bits being exposed from its too-short spartan-like skirt. Not wanting to stare at the damn thing, Tesilim looked up, meeting the devils burning eyes, which turned out to be a bad idea as flashes of a fiery death appeared in his mind.

Quickly averting his gaze, Tesilim instead stared at the molten magma cuirass that almost seemed to meld with the devil's body. As he stared, Tesilim’s idiotic mind wandered about how the cuirass could show such a chiseled depiction of the devil’s muscles.

Realizing how stupid his thoughts were, Tesilim pulled himself together and closed his eyes in preparation for his death. While waiting for death, Tesilim couldn’t help but feel how dry his mouth had become. It was also now in this peace before death that he noticed he was really getting drenched in sweat and that there was also a good possibility he had peed himself.

As Tesilim admonished himself for his last thoughts being about peeing himself, a few seconds passed, then a few minutes, and he was still alive.

That was undoubtedly odd, as he could still feel the blistering heat from the creature before him.

After another minute passed and nothing else happened, Tesilim's curiosity got the better of him, and, with his eyes closed shut and a bit of terrified stuttering, he asked.

“Ss-so, a-are you-u g-going-g to-to k-k-kill me o-or w-wha-what?

“Ha! Of course, I am!” The Devil responded with laughter and mocking in his voice.

Not expecting a response with such a dismissive and mocking tone, a bit of Tesilim’s brain wires crossed, and some interesting thoughts came to light.

What if devils weren’t so bad after all? What if they were just misunderstood?

Luckily, the wires quickly fixed themselves, and Tesilim gave himself a mental slap. However, the thing was, he wasn’t dead. If the devil wanted him dead, he would already be dead. So, something was stopping the devil from killing him. At this realization, Tesilim quickly scanned his brain, looking for what he knew about warlocks.

First, they had patrons who gave them powers. They were given these powers in exchange for something. This exchange was enforced through a contract. The contract was unbreakable but could be amended.

That’s it! The contract! Tesilim screamed inwardly.

In the fear caused by the devil being so close, Tesilim had forgotten that the devil used to be a human warlock. This meant he had to have traded something for power, leading to the transformation. This also meant the warlock had amended his contract, which had somehow included not killing other humans. Tesilim wasn’t entirely sure about this, but he couldn’t think of another explanation.

As such, he gained a bit of confidence and went to test his theory by saying one of the dumbest things he could possibly ever say in such a situation.

“Do it then!” Tesilim blurted out. “Kill me! Put me out of my misery!”

Of course, this only managed to piss off the devil even more, causing it to release a very literal and hellish aura which did indeed cause Tesilim to pee his pants. The devil then followed this up by approaching Tesilim while yelling and roaring about puny mortals.

“You insolent pest! You think I can’t kill you?!? You are nothing but a bug in my eyes! As a matter of fact, you are less than a bug! You are nothing but trash used to fuel my burning anger!”

Tesilim then felt the air woosh past him as he felt the devil's intent, letting him know he was about to be a headless puppet of flesh and bones. His last thoughts as he felt the approaching arm were of him hoping to be reborn in another world.

Sadly, death never came. Instead, Tesilim felt the blazing heat of the devil's hand right next to his head. Feeling the warmth, Tesilim grinned and opened his eyes, only to find the devil's face before him. The devil was also grinning.

As Tesilim stared into the eyes of hell, his mind wandered about the events that had just occurred and his feelings about them.

It was odd. As scared as he had just been, there had been a small part of him that had felt elated just then. He had found something exhilarating about gambling with fate and coming out the victor. It was something that likely wouldn’t happen again, but he was glad to have experienced it right before Earth was gone and him with it.

A few seconds ticked by, and Tesilim was brought back to reality as the devil spoke.

“You are braver than most. Human. Taking a gamble like that.”

Having nothing to say, Tesilim stayed silent and watched the devil get up from his crouch, only to look off into the distance.

Then, after spending a minute or so looking into the horizon, the devil spoke again.

“Ugh! This is terrible. I was hoping to stay around and get a few souls before leaving. However, it seems the end is approaching for this miserable planet.”

With that sentence, the devil turned around and waved oddly at Tesilim before disappearing in a burst of flames. However, before extinguishing, the flames arranged themselves into a final message, which read.

See you in hell.

With that, Tesilim got up in confusion and stared in the direction the devil had been looking towards. From what he could barely tell, some light covered the horizon. This light also seemed to be moving forward, which was odd. It was like when rain began to fall, and it traveled forward as it conquered an area before entirely drenching it.

Tesilim wasn’t sure what the light was, but he did know one thing: it was time to leave this town. So he grabbed his backpack and rifle once again. Luckily, this time, when he turned around, there was no devil.

Unluckily, the light in the distance was much closer, almost a mile from his current location. It also spread across the whole horizon.

Tesilim stared into the horizon, watching as the light advanced. Then, when it was around half a mile from him, he realized what was causing the light. The clouds were being pushed back, letting the sun shine again. Eventually, even the clouds above him were pushed back, and he felt the sun on his skin for the first time in years. He had honestly forgotten how great the sun felt on his skin and just stood there enjoying the sunshine, warmth, and joy spreading through his body.

This joy lasted until his eyes landed on the horizon once again. There, he saw the cause for the clouds dispersing.

A giant, enormous, tsunami-sized dust cloud quickly approached his location. It wasn’t just dust either, but also trees, cars, and what had to be entire buildings being carried forth by what Tesilim had to guess was a very powerful shockwave.

And what, other than an atomic bomb, could cause such a massive and powerful shockwave?

Well, a God. More specifically, an Eldritch God could.