CHAPTER 464: LEVIATHAN

Once more, Amarena found herself inside a place of the mind.

Beneath her stretched a field of pebbles, and above her a stormy Hell-sky, which filled horizon to horizon with the tempest of its fury. But directly above her, amidst the eye of the storm, was Ayther.

The blue and green orb that had called to demons for ages with its bounty, only for its people to reject them time and again.

"Finally, we are united," a voice spoke, and Amarena looked to find Attika, her mother, stepping out of the storm.

"What happens now?" Amarena asked. "Is this some ploy for resurrection?"

Leviathan Attika laughed as she stepped past her daughter. "A Leviathan lives once and dies once. That is our rule. It is the rule that has allowed Leviathan to be for all these ages." She gestured, and Amarena looked, eyes widening.

From the storm stepped figures in their dozens, and then their hundreds. They formed a spiral around the pair, all demons in their war forms, each of the demonic branches represented, and more.

Some figures she recognized. Other Leviathans. Ancient generals and mighty warriors who had been immortalized in stone all over the Wrathlands. Others, interspersed at random throughout the spiral, she found strange. Half-human, almost, their features varied yet underformed compared to the nearest.

The last figure, however, did not step from the shadows of the storm. It loomed, dark and unseen, from within the curtain of rain. A giant amongst giants, but one whose silhouette looked oddly familiar to Rena.

"The first Leviathan was a demon of sloth," Attika said, matching Amarena’s gaze into the storm. "She found her wrath in the first Heavenswars, when Angels fought to banish us from Ayther. They slaughtered her children in front of her, and because she was too slow to stop it, she grew in wrath until her wrath became swiftness, strength, and power. But from this, she could only destroy and consume, for she would not let go of her wrath to mourn... and she never has. Even in death. She is the core of who every Leviathan was, and all others have built on her legacy."

Amarena was speechless. The implications of there being a first, and of that being’s presence within Leviathan’s soulstone, pointed to a truth she’d never suspected.

Leviathan was the name given to the pinnacle of demonic strength. The individual who rose above the rest to claim the name. The name was a beacon to become stronger, for anyone could claim it, or so she, her siblings, and every demon of the Wrathlands and beyond had thought. But here before her was a truth she’d never suspected...

"Are you saying... becoming Leviathan is a lie?"

Attika shook her head. "You know it’s more complicated than that. Leviathan is a legacy, but it is also a proving. A hunter eats its prey - does that make the hunter weaker? A daughter kills her mother and takes her name - does that make the daughter stronger? The heart of Leviathan isn’t built on the strength of one demon because it cannot be. And it has ever been the duty of each Leviathan to pass it down to the strongest. To fight without its strength when seeking death."

"Is that what you intended for me?" Amarena asked, her anger flaring as she felt the insult in that final truth. "To tie your hands behind your back so that I could kill you at your weakest?"

"Had I conquered Araqlun as planned, I would have had you kill me at my strongest. To inherit the very strength that won Hell its freedom. But as you know, it did not come to pass, not by my hand. So it falls to you to take this power and wield it as you see fit." Attika pointed. "The proving is simple. Confront the First. If she sees fit, you shall become the next Leviathan.

There was so much Amarena wanted to say. So many contradictions were evident by her mother’s words and the presence of all these figures from the past. Leviathan wasn’t just a name, it was a tangible thing. Power accumulated and secreted... how much more successful would the wrathlands have been had this technique been shared? If there was not one Leviathan but a hundred? A thousand? A nation of Leviathans.

Yet throughout history, there had only ever been one Leviathan at a time.

"I know your thoughts, Amarena, for they were once my own," Attika said. "The truth is none of us discovered how the Leviathan heartstone came to be. And I doubt even the First knew herself. So I sought out Maledict, to solve this mystery, shortly after you were born. He could not devise it either, but he suspected that from my heartstone, touched by Leviathan’s, a new seed could form. That in a thousand years or ten thousand, two Leviathans would exist if you stoked your wrath into a flame." Attika held Amarena’s gaze. "You were always meant to become your own Leviathan without the heart. But nothing turned out the way I wanted."

"And now I am the only one who can take it, is that it?" Amarena felt cheated, deceived, but also strangely calm as she weighed the need to protect Hell and Ayther against her own pride. "So be it, Leviathan Attika."

Amarena marched into the spiral and towards the shadow in the rain, only to stop one step away as her mother called out.

"Leviathan Amarena... Good hunting."

Turning, Amarena saw the spiral of Leviathans was gone, and she met the eyes of her mother one last time as she too disappeared.

For just a moment, the sparkle of tears became the last thing Amarena saw of her.

With a breath, Amarena faced the storm. She stepped into it and found herself amidst an unfamiliar plain. A place of disjointed plantlife and Hell stone. Of bodies and entrails and trees festooned with corpses, bones, and angel wings.

And before her, her body built like a mountain, the First.

Her maw was locked in a wrathful grimace, each tooth larger than Amarena. Her eyes, eight of them, were half blinded by weapons and dripped with blood. The spikes on her back rose high, with many beings impaled on them, angels, demons, and myraidfolk alike.

And around her neck, bound by ropes of thick sinew, were three corpses.

Had she not met a nothrotian before, Amarena would not have recognized the bodies of the sloth demons at her neck.

Her children...

A feeling rose in Amarena, wordlessly rising to her eyes until the First spoke.

"Pity? You dare come to me with pity?" Her voice was wrath itself. The crackle of flames, the clanging of steel, the rending of claws, and the rageful scream all distilled into meaning.

"I come to you as myself," Amarena snarled back. "To claim your strength and save our worlds."

"Our worlds? My world is DEAD! There is nothing left but to destroy. You will destroy, or you will be nothing."

The words tore into Amarena, with images of battle and death and destruction. But amidst them all, a single scene flashed again and again. The corpses of the First’s children, her hands touching them. Her mind not comprehending why they wouldn’t move. Why they wouldn’t breathe. All she saw was their blood...

And then came the offer.

Power.

"Offer me wrath. Destroy for me, and you will live."

It would be so easy to reach out and take it. A younger Amarena would not have hesitated, but who she was now told her there had to be another way. A way to answer the plea hidden in the First’s wrath.

She realized then that it was not a plea for destruction.

The First’s plea was a cry for justice.

"No," Amarena said, filling her mind with a single thought as the First responded.

"Then die." Leviathan raised her titanic arms above her head, joining her hands to form a fist the size of a hill.

At the apex of the First’s rise, Amarena shouted, "Heaven is no more!"

The First paused.

"Lies..."

"I do not lie, Leviathan!" This was Amarena’s mind, she would not lose here. She willed the knowledge to cross between them, opening herself and letting the wrath of the First flood into her as it sought the truth.

The sight of Heaven, breaking in the sky. Its absence. The strange things that followed. The mission from Kiryu, to place the beacons and call to Hell that which Heaven had stolen ages ago.

"I offer you no wrath, Leviathan. I offer vengeance for your loss. A future to be built on a new prosperity for demonkind. I offer you the knowledge that our children will never suffer as those who came before us." Amarena inhaled as she felt the wrath of the First begin to wane. To cool and condense into a sadness long held at bay. "In exchange for your power, I offer you justice."

The tears came as the storm above fell in a single flood, bearing Amarena upward in their waters, but holding her steady as she was brought before the face of Leviathan.

And the First spoke,

"Thank you..."

*

As the pounding thumps neared, Ann was, caught between bracing and walking as she helped guide people out the door. Lugh held onto the ash-wolf by one of its protuberances, while gently petting it as he sought to calm it. Keiya, outside, was using her magic to try to make a new shelter, one that would be less vulnerable to collapse on the surface.

Or she should have been.

Instead, as the quakes suddenly stopped, Keiya appeared.

"Everyone, you have to see this!" she shouted below. "Hurry!"

Ann raced up the stairs, Lugh behind her with the ash-wolf, and she emerged into the dull light of Hell to find a gargantuan creature looming above even the tallest remaining towers of the city. It was undeniably humanoid, slightly hunched with a tail that stretched for at least half a great measure. Its claws were the size of ancient oaks, and the sheer presence of the mana within it gave it a dark aura around its grey-skinned, armored form.

Its face was feminine, but with sharp, armored features, a crown of horns upon its head with a large, purple spike of mana stone at the center. The beast saw them and began to lower its hand. And at the center of its palm was a familiar orb.

"Is that..."

"It’s Amarena!" Keiya hugged Ann, "Nimfi recognized her. We’re... I think we’re going to be okay!"

The hand finished lowering with a grindsome impact, smashing a bit into the smaller structures that preceded the courtyard.

"Get on," Amarena’s voice rumbled, barely recognizable above the deep, gravelly bass that came with her new form. The order came with a tone of command so overwhelming it made Ann shiver.

Even the ash wolf knew to obey. As soon as the survivors had gathered on her massive palm, she turned and began to walk toward the part of the sky which glowed. They tried to talk to her, but it seemed she could not hear them as she walked.

Her every step shook the earth, and she walked in silence until they reached a lake of fire. One that forever looked upon the world Ann came from. And then Amarena made an announcement.

"We are going home."