Planet Elaris
Ashes floated through the skies of Elaris like the final snow of a dying world. The once-sacred temple grounds had become a graveyard of shattered statues, burning scripture, and crumbling faith. And the Bishops were losing.
Northern Courtyard
Tiran was slowing. What had begun as divine fury now looked like desperation. His mace cracked the ground with every swing, but it never found Odin. The Fullbringer moved with eerie calm, his glasses glinting with each step. Runes danced beneath his feet, his spatial awareness overwhelming. Any attack that would connect, was met with his shadow clone instead.
"Is this all the Church has?" Odin asked, stepping past a wide swing and striking Tiran in the ribs with a palm glowing with kinetic inscriptions.
Tiran coughed blood and staggered back. Odin didn't press. He simply adjusted his glasses again.
"The truth is, Bishop… You've been fighting shadows all your life. You never prepared for a man who could see through them."
Tiran roared, divine mana flaring in a final push, until three runes erupted beneath him and launched him into the nearest wall with a thundering crack.
He didn't get up.
Southern Basilica
Meredy spun her staff like a whirlwind, landing a devastating sonic burst that knocked Phoenix across the sanctuary steps. The Fullbringer's back struck a pillar, hard leaving cracks on the marble steps, but she grinned through the blood.
"Five lives down," Phoenix murmured. "What's one more?"
Meredy pressed her advantage, holy light building in her palms.
"I see now that I have no choice. I must use my forbidden ace. With this attack, I burn the very soul."
Phoenix said nothing. She simply raised a hand and the ring on her finger burned with a ghastly black flame.
A scream echoed as one of her stolen lives was sacrificed willingly, flooding her body with pure, volatile life-force. Her wounds vanished. Her body surged with speed.
She blurred forward.
Meredy raised her guard but too late.
The blade entered under her arm, piercing the armor's weak point.
The holy light died in her eyes as Phoenix leaned in, whispering:
"Now your life gets added to mine."
Meredy collapsed.
Central Gardens
The earth itself split as Archbishop Virell descended from the sky, haloed in radiant magic. Her voice echoed with divine command:
"Fall back, in the name of Luminous!"
Church constructs burst from the ground behind her, and a divine shield expanded outward, vaporizing the ten-foot bear Lenatti had summoned. The fear aura vanished. Control broke.
"Enough games," Virell snapped, raising her staff.
Achlys blocked a spell with a flick of her blade, but even she stumbled from the intensity.
Lenatti screamed as the light seared her arm. An Archbishop was too much for them. The child ran, disappearing into shadow.
Achlys remained. Bleeding and breathing hard. She would be wise to fall back like Lenatti had, but she wasn't done. Her pride wanted her to at least scratch the powerful opponent before her.
"You're not like the others," Virell said. "You're filth that's learned to speak."
Achlys smiled back at her.
"And you're light… that's forgotten how to burn. Meaningless before us Fullbringers."
Virell paused for a second. "Is that what you call yourselves. Not like it'll matter anyway." She raised a hand towards Achlys.
And then everything froze.
The sky split, both physically and spiritually.
The bugs came first.
Crawling from the temple cracks, from the shadows of corpses, from beneath the stones. A thousand black insects skittered outward and upward, forming a spiral in the sky. The Church's mana sensors shattered. The temperature dropped. Light magic frayed at the edges. Then came the voice.
"Enough."
And from the spiral descended Nidhogg. He didn't need to shout. His arrival was a gravity.
He touched the ground near the central temple stair. All bugs stopped. All light dimmed.
Gerald appeared behind him seconds later, covered in gore, nodding. "They brought an Archbishop."
"I saw," Nidhogg said calmly. "I came."
Archbishop Virell turned toward him, eyes wide for only a fraction of a second before they hardened. They had estimated that he was of the Demon Lord tier, but not this level. In her life, she had taken on plenty of Demon Lords, but the one before wasn't like the rest. Wasn't to be trifled with. "You… you're the demon."
He said nothing.
She continued, trying to summon courage. "You won't leave this planet."
Nidhogg's voice was soft.
"Neither will you."
Aurion
"Target acquired!" screamed a Church operator. "He's here—mid-temple. His mana signature... off the scale!"
The ArchBishop overseeing the trap leaned forward. "So the rumors were true."
"Orders, Your Eminence?"
He stared at the projection. Nidhogg stood calmly in the courtyard, not attacking, just existing. And the battlefield warped around him.
"Deploy everything. Archangels, Lightbinders, Rune Priests. Now."
Back on the Surface – Temple Courtyard
Virell unleashed a beam of divine light large enough to collapse a mountain. Nidhogg walked through it. His numerous bugs formed a shield that consumed the mana as it struck. The few that survived her radiant explosion returned to him, humming.
He looked up at her, his smile lost on his hollow mask.
"You mistook me for one of the weaker ones."
He extended a hand.
A wave of bugs erupted, sweeping across the battlefield like a plague, avoiding the Fullbringers, targeting only the faithful.
Now the real war begins.