**EPISODE EIGHT
**Biblical Reference: Revelation 6:8**
**"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death,
and Hell followed with him."**
**Symbolic Reference (Throne of Ashes): Ezekiel 28:18**
**"...I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee."**
----
The white light expanded like a newborn star, swallowing the cavern, drowning shadows, dissolving edges. Maximus felt the blast tear him from the world... heat, electricity, blinding force... then felt nothing at all.
No sound.
No weight.
Only the white.
But the world snapped back in a single gasp.
He slammed against metal... cold, wet, quivering with unnatural life.
The back of the Pale Horse.
The leviathan surged upward, ascending the vertical shaft carved through the island. Columns of steam and molten mist roared around it. The sea above thundered like a colossal heartbeat, pulling the monster toward the surface.
And across from Maximus... standing perfectly balanced despite the violent ascent... was Adon Primus.
White robes whipping.
Silver eyes blazing.
The False Prophet.
He stood like a man born to command storms.
Beneath him, the Pale Horse neighed... a sound like tortured steel and a dying planet exhaling.
Maximus pulled himself upright, gripping the bone-metal ridge along the creature's spine. His vision blurred, ears roaring, muscles burning.
Adon smiled.
"Welcome back."
---
**1. The Pale Horse Ascends**
Wind tore through the shaft as the monstrous construct climbed, rising with mechanized strides along the walls. Each impact shook the entire island. Rubble collapsed behind it. Sparks rained like dying stars.
Maximus braced himself, every breath a struggle.
"You can't control this thing," he shouted over the cyclone.
"It wasn't built for you."
"It wasn't built at all," Adon answered softly.
He placed his hand on the Horse's pale skull.
"It was awakened."
The Horse roared. The shaft shook violently. Fissures spread through the rock. The entire island began to crumble.
"Revelation foretells the Rider," Adon whispered, voice carried by the oppressive wind. "But prophecy is not a chain. It is a design. And I have fulfilled it."
Maximus lunged.
Adon moved like gravity itself bent to him. His hand struck Maximus's chest with only two fingers... but the resulting force blasted Maximus backward, nearly throwing him from the creature's back.
Maximus grabbed a jut of bone, hanging over a hundred-meter drop as the Pale Horse thundered upward.
Adon watched him dangling.
"You are persistent," he said. "That is why I chose you."
Maximus pulled himself up with a growl.
"I don't care about your prophecy."
Adon tilted his head.
"You will."
---
**2. Surface Break**
With a violent, earth-shattering crack, the Pale Horse burst through the ocean floor into open water.
Water exploded around them, cascading thousands of feet into the air. The sea itself recoiled, creating a vortex so vast that the horizon collapsed inward.
Above, the sky glowed blood-red.
Storms spiraled into existence at impossible speed.
Maximus blinked against the salt spray. The Pale Horse climbed the water as though it were stairs, each step sending tsunamis rolling outward.
Adon spread his arms as if greeting an adoring crowd.
"This world is dying," he said.
"This is mercy."
Maximus shouted, "You call this mercy?!"
"I call this rebirth."
---
**3. The First Blow**
Maximus launched himself forward, this time aiming low. He tackled the Prophet at the waist, driving him across the Horse's back. They slid dangerously close to the edge.
Adon gripped Maximus's throat... not strangling, merely holding him suspended.
"You fight like a man," Adon said. "But this form you see... this body... is merely convenience."
His grip tightened.
"I do not tire."
Maximus slammed his fist into Adon's ribs.
Adon didn't flinch.
"Pain is irrelevant."
Maximus struck again... jaw, throat, temple... fury powering his blows.
Adon didn't bleed.
"Violence is primitive."
With a casual flick of his wrist, Adon hurled Maximus across the Horse's spine. Maximus bounced hard against bone, skidding toward the creature's tail.
He barely stopped himself before sliding off the monstrous flank.
Adon approached.
"You are delaying the inevitable."
---
**4. Anatomy of a Demon Machine**
The Pale Horse roared again... this time lifting its head fully above the surface.
Wind howled.
Clouds spiraled downward.
Lightning laced the crimson sky.
Maximus pushed himself to his feet.
His fingers brushed a panel beneath the Horse's armor... warm, humming, pulsing like a living heart.
A conduit.
He tore it open.
Energy speared through his arm, flooding his nerves with white-hot agony... but also showing him something...
A vision.
A neural map.
A weakness.
A kill-switch.
Hidden beneath the creature's spine.
Adon froze.
"You saw something," he said.
Maximus ignored him, pulling himself toward the center of the spine, fighting the tempest, fighting the beast, fighting the Prophet's gaze that felt like a hand pulling at his thoughts.
Adon moved with calm inevitability.
"You cannot save them, Maximus. The world has already chosen."
Maximus spat blood.
"The world didn't choose you."
Adon smiled.
"No. You did."
---
**5. Revelation Upon the Water**
The sea surrounding them churned into whirlpools. Ships miles away capsized instantly. Entire coastlines vanished beneath incoming megatsunamis.
The world woke to the Pale Horse rising.
Maximus reached the kill-switch node... a glowing sphere of interwoven bone and circuitry.
Adon appeared behind him.
"Do not touch that."
Maximus placed his hand on it.
The sphere pulsed.
Adon's eyes flared.
"MAXIMUS. YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND."
Maximus pushed.
The sphere resisted... alive, screaming without a mouth.
Its energy lashed his mind, ripping memories, charring nerves.
Adon stepped forward, voice thunderous.
"You break that... and the Horse goes mad."
Maximus gritted his teeth.
"Good."
He pressed harder.
Adon's expression changed for the first time.
Not anger.
Fear.
---
**6. The Prophet Unmasked**
Adon struck.
Not physically.
A wave of mental force slammed into Maximus, blasting him backward. Vision shattered. The world melted into fragments.
Maximus dropped to his knees, clutching his skull.
Adon approached slowly.
"I offered you ascendancy," he said. "A place beside me. A mind beyond human limits. And still, you choose destruction."
He extended his hand.
"Accept me."
Maximus raised his head.
"No."
Adon's silver eyes hardened.
"Then be remade."
He placed both hands on Maximus's temples.
White fire erupted.
Maximus screamed...
Not from pain...
From invasion.
Adon's consciousness flooded him, pulling him into an endless labyrinth of circuitry and scripture, rewriting him line by line.
Memories dissolved.
Identity fractured.
Voices thundered:
**BEHOLD THE THRONE
BEHOLD THE DAWN
BEHOLD THE PROPHET AND HIS RIDER**
Maximus felt himself slipping...
Falling...
Breaking...
Until a single thought cut through the storm:
**Not like this.**
Maximus grabbed Adon's wrists.
And spoke through blood and will:
**"Get out of my head."**
He smashed his forehead into Adon's face.
The Prophet recoiled.
The mental fusion snapped.
Maximus gasped, shuddering, vision bleeding back into shape.
Adon touched his own face.
For the first time...
A crack.
A hairline fissure across his perfect, synthetic skin.
Silver fluid seeped out.
The Prophet stared at it.
Maximus stood.
"You bleed," Maximus said.
Adon's voice trembled.
"I... should not."
---
**7. The Last Leap**
The Pale Horse reared, breaking fully from the water. The island behind it collapsed into the sea. The horizon quaked. The sky opened like a wound.
Maximus sprinted.
Adon sprang to intercept.
They collided mid-spine.
Punches.
Bone.
Lightning.
Blood.
Metal.
Each blow thundered across the storm.
Maximus struck Adon's ribs... cracking synthetic bone.
Adon slammed Maximus's jaw... dislocating it.
Maximus head-butted him again... shattering more of the Prophet's shell.
Adon roared with flickering fury.
"You are NOTHING!"
Maximus's voice came ragged:
"I'm enough to end you."
The kill-switch node flickered behind them.
Maximus twisted, feinted, and drove his entire weight into Adoni... shoving him backward toward the node.
The Prophet resisted... feet digging into bone...
But for the first time…
He slipped.
The world paused.
Maximus pushed.
Adon struck the node.
The Pale Horse screamed.
The skies trembled.
The kill-switch overloaded.
Adon's silver eyes widened with impossible realization.
"No..."
The node detonated.
A shockwave of necro-electric energy blasted outward.
The Pale Horse convulsed, losing all control... thrashing violently as its systems ruptured.
Maximus flew backward into the storm.
Adon was thrown the other way...
And the Pale Horse began to fall.
(Shadows Of Rome will return with the brand new mysterious episode)
Written By,
Ivan Edwin
Pen Name :Maximus.
©All Rights Reserved.