Absolute Depravity: Reincarnated with a lustful System-Chapter 284 - For My Tears May Shed For The Worthy

"We meet again," snapping her wings, Asmodia took no chances and ceased the flow of time altogether. With a grin as wide as Moriyana's face could stretch, she took playful steps towards the bleeding god who'd easily overcome the restraints of her magic. "You thought you'd never see me again, didn't you?"

Wiping off the blood dripping down the side of his lips, Atlas prepped himself tall. Glaring at his past lover, he looked at her with deep scorn. Not all that clueless as to what she might've come here for, Atlas felt nothing but utter disgust for the demon in front of him.

"You hate me so much you're willing to kill a child along with its mother?" He asked.

Depending on her answer, his next action would vary, but it would only go from trying to kill her in an instant to letting her speak before that happens. No stronger to his temper either, Asmodia let out a chuckle to tease the dying god further.

"You're dying, aren't you? Did killing me affect you that much? Was that one day at that arena enough to dry your newfound strength?" Following her questions with a cackling laugh, she tried to irk him some more.

Silent, the emperor stood, not a peep left his lips for his mind ran through a feverish number of thoughts. In the compromised state he was in, taking down Asmodia would be a challenge, especially if he were to give into her emotional tactics of manipulation. Despite that, he still couldn't shake his mind from the haunting feeling of a shadow of the demon in front lingering over his shoulder.

'Are you really going to kill me again, Atlas?' The shadow whispered into his mind, trying to dissuade him from taking on the oncoming battle.

"Shut up!" Atlas growled and his eyes turned into the spiraling image of the cosmos.

"Sure enough, darling," Asmodia replied, presuming he was speaking to her and not a shadow in his mind. "Let's fight instead then!"

"Aris Magna…" Not wasting a speck of time, although suspended in it like a frozen pendulum, Atlas summoned his astral actor in the shape of a glistering eye behind him. Shimmering with light so bright it could blind any angel, the familiar of god attacked directly with its sight.

However, stuck between the present and the future, the rays from the familiar took just enough time for Asmodia to summon her own familiar.

"Aris Magna…" She called, and a shimmering eye of bright violet burst open behind her.

Shooting glistering rays of darkness at the light from Atlas's actor, Asmodia neutralized the attack without much effort. Once the strikes from the familiars were shot away, the two facing each other knew exactly what the other had in mind. With a flash, the both of them disappeared and reappeared inches from each other. Atlas had a sword of light drawn ready to strike Asmodia, while the queen of darkness had something far more deceptive.

The moment Atlas noticed what it was, his eyes widened and it forced him to cover his mouth in disgust.

"That's what I'll do to him, ahaha!" Asmodia told him, her hand holding the illusionary corpse of a child. Streaming with blood it had flooded the entirety of her arm, and to make things even more revolting its inwards were scraped out along with its glassy eyes.

"H-how could y-" Before Atlas could finish his words, Asmodia undid the illusion and stabbed Atlas with a blade of darkness that had been hidden beneath the bloody child. "Ugh! Get off!"

Although stabbed right through his belly, he managed to kick Asmodia back a few steps. However, as the blade of dark stuck inside him disappeared, he was forced onto his knees until his body could heal itself.

"I'm not done yet," saying that the mistress snapped her fingers and domed them both under a mist of illusions. "You thought I'd only kill the kid right? Well, you couldn't be further from the truth."

"Aghhhh!" Slamming his fist on the ground, Atlas pulled himself back to his feet.

Looking around through the mist oozing with a hint of blood, he decided to fire blindly into all places with his godly familiar. Directing a spell of holy magic by pointing with his finger, he tried to make the actor shot a blast of magic to clear up the air, however, after a few seconds passed and nothing happened, he looked behind to find that the familiar had already disappeared.

"How?" Having never felt so helpless, Atlas was at a loss for words.

"How? Because you're dying you moron!" Cackling through the mist, Asmodia let her voice be resounded all over to confuse Atlas even further.

"Do not…" Turning around to face the voice, Atlas gritted his teeth in rage and growled. "Don't you dare mock me!"

Through his dying breath, he reached for the blade once more. Lowering himself, he got in form to strike out his enemies, but all of a sudden a sudden scream caught him off guard. From the sound of it, he was certain it was Destinia. In utter desperation and rage, he struck through the mist and cut it right in half. The gust from his strike washed away the bloody mask, and what was revealed before him was yet another striking sight.

No longer in the land of fairies, he was surrounded by eternal darkness, and the only thing that lay in front of him was the gutted corpses of Destinia piled up over each other into a giant mountain. Mixed with the bodies were numerous infants of both genders, and unfortunately it seemed they weren't any better off than their mother.

"This is your child's mother, is it not?" Still holding a moving body of Destinia at the top of the pile, Asmodia glared down at Atlas with her eyes glowing a mix of violet and red. Her grin as wide as a joyous reaper, she was taking obvious joy in torturing her lover. "Well too bad, you're dying and there would be no one to protect her!"

As she drew the blade of darkness back, Atlas looked away before she stabbed through the belly of the pregnant mother. A scream echoed in the dark as the blade tore through the illusionary body, but then loomed silence. That too didn't last long as it was broken with the sound of a falling body.

"Now that I'm a bit more satisfied with what you did to me, why don't you just go ahead and die?" Asmodia said, undoing the illusion and bringing the two back to the land of fairies.

Suspending in time still, Atlas turned to look at Asmodia with both his body and mind failing to keep up. The wound from the blade had barely recovered, and the mental exhaustion at this point was getting far more unbearable. Even then, the lord of this world wasn't simply going to give up, not when he had something far more potent as his last resort. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝙫𝙚𝒍.𝒐𝙧𝒈

"My father, he…" The sudden mention of the creator left Asmodia puzzled. "He told me I'd find betrayal sooner or later on my path, and that I must overcome it all to bring peace to a shambled world."

"What the hell are you getting at now?" Asmodia asked with an agitated frown.

"What I'm getting at is," relaxing his shoulders, he stood without any strain visible on his body. "He should've killed Etherios before she killed him, just like I should've killed you before it ever came to this."

"She?" Hearing Atlas refer to the god of destruction as she, Asmodia was utterly baffled. "The god of destruction, Etherios, he was a man, why would you-"

"And you wrote the book of heroes, but don't remember anything, do you?" Atlas replied before closing his eyes shut. "My father lied plenty to hide his own mistakes, your false memories along with everyone else's, is but the product of the same, but…Alas, none of it matters anymore."

With a deep breath, he pressed his hand together and uttered but a title to Haruki. On her own, her knees gave in to his command, and her arms reluctantly reached for the knife.

few words.

"Gospel:" Throwing his blade of light towards Asmodia, Atlas continued on. "Die and never recover."

For a moment, Asmodia had no clue why he would use an ability that didn't work on demon lords, but then it hit her, the loss of her title to Haruki. On her own, her knees gave in to his command, and her arms reluctantly reached for the knife.

"You can't kill me, I have made sure I can't die this time!" Fuming in rage, she looked up at Atlas with blood shooting out of her gums. "I won't die so easily you! Not this time!"

Shattering her grasp on time, Asmodia let time flow once again while Moriyana's body clutched the blade of light in its hand. By the time she drew it closer, Haruki and the rest noticed countless changes in their surroundings as if a battle had already transpired.

"Moriyana?" Getting control of his body back, Haruki's eyes were instantly drawn towards Moriyana who had a sword of light raised over her kneeling body. "Fuck! Tomentous dun-"

With a glare alone from Atlas, his attempts to stop her were shattered. The other demon lords tried to get closer as well, but then all of a sudden a spear of gold slashed right through their bodies.

"First you rowdy siblings and now it's your turn, Asmodia!" High above in the sky, the spears that struck down the demon lords temporarily were cast by none other than the Valkyrie queen's army. "Wait, seems like I missed one."

Expecting himself to be struck as well by this unfamiliar army of foes, Haruki braced against the strike from Helga. However, instead of stabbing him like the other demon lords, all he felt was a gust of wind passing over his shoulder.

Lost as to what had happened, Haruki opened his eyes to look around, and to his horror, not only had Moriyana stabbed herself with the sword of light, but behind him, Destinia had been stabbed right through her stomach by a glowing word similar to Atlas's.

"Helga!" Atlas exclaimed, looking up high at the queen of Valkyries.

"I only sent her to her father, you child, don't you dare raise your voice at me!" She commanded the god as if he were a servant.

While the two fought each other, Haruki noticed Moriyana's body twitching slightly from the edge of his eye. Scramming towards her while keeping his head low, he got to her as fast as possible. Flipping her on her back, he instantly tried to heal her wound, but the light in her eyes was already fleeting.

"No! No! No! Not again!" Reminded of his false mother's grave, he didn't want to let go of another person he loved dearly.