CHAPTER 217: CHAPTER 218: FUN TIME’S OVER

Aurora screamed—rage, not fear, though fear twisted somewhere deep in her marrow. It was the sound of glass trying to contain a star. Her vision blurred. Her skin boiled. And still she fought.

Loki roared—a word that made time stutter. The roar wasn’t noise. It was an idea, a command. It broke the rhythm of sound itself. It told reality to pause, and reality obeyed.

They poured everything into that strike.

Everything.

BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!

The world shattered.

No metaphor.

Mountains buckled.

Clouds vanished.

Reality blinked.

The wind turned to shards. Mana bled from the air like ruptured veins, a thousand silent screams leaking from the ruptured seams of the world’s skin. Gravity lost meaning. Space refused form. Everything trembled—like the bones of a dying god.

And in the epicenter of it all—

Ouserous caught the sun.

With both hands.

Like a father catching a thrown spear meant for his child. Like it was a game. Like he’d been waiting centuries for this exact moment.

And he grinned.

...Yes... YES! This is how we sons of the heavens should fight!

He pushed back.

Not because he had to.

But because he wanted to. Because it pleased him. Because destruction, in his hands, was not war. It was remembrance.

A memory of divinity unbound.

And still—

He pushed.

Like it was foreplay.

He laughed like a child at a festival, drunk on sugar and immortality.

...YES! I REMEMBER THIS! Ouserous Beloud as His lightning essence fluttered out from excitement.

It touched her, Aurora’s skin began to melt—first her fingertips, then her lips, her shoulders, her calves. Lightning flickered through her veins. She tried to scream again but tasted only blood and ozone. Her bones screamed instead. Her left eye blurred red.

Loki’s divine fire flickered. His stance trembled. He gritted his teeth, but the glow dimmed at the edges of his being.

The sun began to fold inward, collapsing in Ouserous’ hands like a paper lantern crushed between calloused palms.

He pressed it. Pressed it. Pressed it—until it became a dot.

And then—

BOOMMMM.

A screamless explosion. Pure white. A death of sound and light at once. A fist through existence.

The sun was snuffed out.

A god’s laughter echoed through the silence.

Ash rained like snow.

Aurora tumbled backward. Her muscles spasmed uncontrollably, her nerves shorted from divine voltage. Her skin smoked. Her heartbeat staggered.

She realized something too late.

This wasn’t lightning. Not elemental. Not magical. It was divine law. A decree, older than stars. One that ignored mana, shields, or mortality. It didn’t strike. It judged, and it judged her weak, unworthy.

She only survived because Loki took more than half of it.

He had taken the lightning meant for her.

His demigod blood retorted violently, but even that was not enough.

His great body knelt.

Then fell.

Like a mountain giving way.

Onto a shattered hill that disintegrated beneath him. Earth trembled. Ruins shattered again.

"...Loki..." she whispered, her voice raw. The air tasted like iron and grief.

He did not answer.

"LOKKIIIIII!" she belted, voice hoarse, throat torn. The sound cracked through the thunderclouds.

Clap!

Clap!

Clap!

Ouserous smiled. Not mockingly. Not cruelly. Appreciatively.

His hands struck together, thunder clapping louder than applause. It was celebration. Admiration. Arrogance and joy in one.

...Marvelous mortal. You bear brilliant talent... I can see it... I can feel it... So, anything else you can hit me with? I’m right here...

Thunder!!!!!!

The sound did not just shake the sky—it commanded it.

Ouserous looked up.

Something tugged at him. Not from the earth. Not from the mortals below.

But up.

Something from high above. Something familial.

A resonance deep in his marrow, like a memory he never asked to keep.

....I’m gonna finish, just calm down a bit... jeez...

Another CRACK! split the heavens.

THUNDER!!!!

Not just noise. A voice. A reminder.

Okay, okay—I’m coming... jeez... parents... right...

His words were a sigh. But not of boredom.

A sigh through galaxies—of responsibility, of weight too long held.

Ouserous, for all his mirth and madness, suddenly looked very tired.

As though the thunder was not just thunder.

But summons.

Still, he turned his attention back.

The old man.

The body slumped. Eyes closed. A breath away from release.

And Aurora—burnt, blistered, barely alive—carrying herself . Gently. As if even in the apocalypse, dignity mattered.

....I’m gonna make it nice... and easy. No pain, old man. In respect of your disciple’s fight...

He surged forward. A movement too fast to follow.

No wasted flourish. No need to roar or grin.

Just intent—pure, sharp, and final.

He didn’t speak again. Didn’t mock.

Because what Aurora and Loki did... it meant something.

And mercy, while rare to his kind, was not impossible.

But—

Then he paused.

Mid-air.

As if struck.

His golden pupils contracted. The lightning froze mid-arc.

Sulphur.

The scent hit him like a blade across the throat.

Not rot. Not fire. Not even death.

But betrayal.

A deeper thing. Older.

It wasn’t the physical stench that stopped him. It was what it meant.

Sulphur was the stink of the lower planes.

Of them.

Ouserous turned.

And what he saw—

Made the corners of his mouth drop.

Like a god realizing he’d been lied to by a mortal.

Aurora was standing—barely.

Her flesh peeled in strips. Skin flaking like scorched parchment.

Blood running down her arms in rivers.

Her spine was twisted, her ribs broken—but she stood.

And with trembling, blood-soaked fingers, she dragged a jagged line across the sky.

Not a wound.

A summoning.

Symbols, not of this world, not of any known tongue, bloomed mid-air like scars being re-opened.

Seven-fold. Seven-layered. Geometric horror spun from ancient logic.

Each circle pulsed, deeper and darker than the last.

Hell sigils.

They rotated against the wind, refusing the rules of nature.

Magic turned to ash around them.

Her voice rasped.

It was no longer a human voice.

It was a refusal.

Of death. Of silence. Of surrender.

"Sankh’Ruum... Tah’Vaell... Emer’Kadus... Maelgor, Ur Zha, Zilom the Third, Lord of Silence..."

Each name took something from her.

Her tongue cracked. Her teeth shattered against the syllables.

Her lips tore apart. But she spoke.

Each name was a knife.

Each one deeper. Each one older.

"I call the pact. I invoke the blood-treaty. I summon the Seven Demon Kings."

Ouserous took one step back.

...Child....what have you fucking done....?