Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

The Arsonist was incinerated on impact. As always, the explosion took the suicide bomber first.

The breaking blast of the grenade took him apart, harsh fire rushing across his skin. In milliseconds the poor sod was blackened with crawling atomos. The explosion finished off whatever life remained inside of him. Limbs, skewered and scalded like steak, cauterized of blood, was sent flying into the rising dust.

"My King!" Cora hugged Rafel just as the surge of nuclear flames hit them both.

Rafel embraced her too, rocking as the immediate blast burned their clothes into patches. With the last of his power before the ground caved in under him, he dispensed [Ghosthand Shield] over the circle of those cut from them and the suicide bomber. Dark wings inflamed from behind his back, enveloping Cora into his larger body.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Thracckkk!

The surge of nuclear winds fell loudly upon the entire base. It struck everything it touched like lightning to a Baobab. Implosion. And then ash.

The ricochet of the explosion sent plenty flying backward; but then they were safe from the vortex of atomos eroding the camp. The few camels munching in a graze nearby were turned to standing bones in a flash. And then the bones to ashes which the riptide swiftly blew off like chaff.

Ravenna was among those shielded by [Ghosthand] and she beheld the fiery inferno of explosion roar above the spooky, pale hand that protected them. [Ghosthand Shield] was a Legendary class ward that looked like the gigantic hand of a ghost. It was almost translucent as it rose above them. A bit eerie in its likeness to the cut limb of a zombie.

But it was thick enough to keep back the raging fires and hot winds—until the flesh-tearing Atomos winded down.

The initial blast knocked the wind out of all the people closeby when the traitor had flipped the pin on the grenade; even [Ghosthand Shield] could not keep back the kickback of blast from sending them all flat on their backs. The air was thick with rusty dust as the harsh flames finally quenched.

People were coughing and struggling to rise. On one end, Grone searched through the bomb fog for his daughters. On another end, Khalifa helped up her Junker queen; Dementa was bleeding through her ears. Natalya was pumping on Indira's chest, seriously considering CPR.

"Raven... Ravenna!" Through the chaos, Ravenna felt an arm clutch for her shoulder. It was Aya. She pulled the succubus in and hugged tightly. "Aya! Gods! I'm glad you're okay." Both girls appraised each other with gentle gazes. "My ribs hurt." Aya hooked her arm around Ravenna to help her up.

The zombie hand which had served as protection against blast was utterly flayed as the dust settled, making it even more grotesque and spooky.

"Lord Israfel!" Aya and Ravenna said together as the [Ghosthand] melted into a whitish sludge in the burnt sands. They ran across, stampeding in the sludge for the spot where Rafel had stood. The last place the new King of the South had last being seen alive.

The spot was a massive hole in the earth.

"Lord Master..." Aya fell to her knees. She choked and grabbed fistfuls of burned earth around the hole. She looked in and couldn't see the end of this hole. It was crater sized. Wide as a tunnel. Deeper than a Chaldean well. "Lord Master!" She called. Her scream echoed into the profound depth.

Ravenna dropped to her knees too. Her green eyes held tears. Aya had began to sob. "I can't believe it," Ravenna said, "the-they were right here. I saw Cora hug him before. . .before I was hurled back in the blast." Most of the camp was seeable now in the settled dust: the tents in the one-mile radius of the explosion had been flattened. Logs burned in small fires.

Except the pieces of bomber scattered about for mongrel dogs to munch on, no one else had lost their life. Everybody knew whom they had to thank. Grone had found his daughters; they flocked about him as he drew close to the massive hole in the earth where Aya and Ravenna kneeled and peered in. Dementa was helped up to it by Khalifa. And Indira stumbled her way close with a crutch under one arm. Natalya and the Kitsune were close by.

Soon, the survivors of the explosion were milling around the huge crater.

"You think they fell in?" Grone peeped deeper.

"I don't fucking know." Aya sniffed. "Lord Master, forgive me. I couldn't... I couldn't save you. Were I as bold as Corazón to run into flames for you! Oh, sire!" She cried openly.

Ravenna put a comforting arm around her. Though bleeding from her nose, Ravenna ignored her own injury to pat Aya. She had to be strong for the both of them. With her left hand, she beckoned to Lord Zaftig by the foot of a high sconce. "Pass the torch, please. We must discern how deep it goes."

Lord Zaf passed it to his daughter, Hosanna. And the princess of Caer Mullhen held it out to Ravenna. She grabbed a hold of the torch and dropped the flaming top into the hole.

Whoosh!

It fell. And kept falling.

Everyone pulled in for a look, but not too close.

The torch fell until it was a blight. And then a dot. And then darkness.

"It has no end! Tis' the devil's mouth!" Someone in the crowd wailed. And Aya Naamah sobbed harder.

As Ravenna pulled her in to hold her tighter, she sent her leafgreen eyes again to the dark abyss and whispered under her breath: "where are you, my love? Where are you, Israfel? Please be okay."

In the same moment Ravenna questioned if this wicked hole dropped right into the Blood River of Hel itself, the man whom everyone sought was falling through it. As he had been falling—for ten minutes now.

Rafel clutched to Corazón hard. With his hands and his ashen wings. Though the feathers were burned, and bled where the nuclear fires had hit him before the ground caved in, Rafel held on to her like a lifeline to a sailsman. "Hold on, darling. I'm not gonna lose you again." He whispered down to her, her soft head cradled in his neck. "What sort of witchery is this, then?" Rafel inquisitioned his system. "We have been falling now for minutes. Where the fuck are we?"

[Ding!] Peitho came in with her sweet omnipresent voice. [Lord host, it will appear that you and Lady Mortimer are falling through the earth. The bomb that traitorous cunt had unleashed was of an Epic arsenal collection. It imploded, as well as exploded. The surge of Atomos from it bore this hole through the earth.]

[By my calculations, you are at 7 000 feet into the earth. Three hundred leagues under the sea level.]

[Shall I equip bioluminescence?]

"Of course, Peitho. We can't see shit. We might as well know what we're falling through and into. I didn't escape Hel to be plunged right into it by a bomb blast." Rafel told his system, thinking on how Peitho had actually used the c-word for the arsonist.

More evidence that his sexy S.I.N had developed feelings for him.

[Ding! Bioluminescence equi—]

Rafel couldn't hear the rest of it as his back hit hard on something solid.

Thrakkk!

His spine brake. He felt several vertebrae shift out of position. His wings were cut off cleanly.

"Fucckkk!" He groaned.

He'd met again with hard ground so fast he could not stop or break his fall. He opened his arms as the [bioluminescence] Peitho equipped filled this abrupt place they had landed with fresh bluish and greenish light. Rocks glowed like crystals. And moss like giant glow worms. They appeared to be inside a mountain. A cavern so wide and vast it could hold a city.

Cora lifted up on Rafel's body. "Oh gods! Are you okay?" She caressed him. "You landed on plutonic rock."

"Shit." Rafel allowed for her a smile to hide the pain. She helped him to a sitting position. "No wonder my back split. But I'm alright." He quickly added; worry was already creasing her silver brows. Rafel allowed his hands to roam Cora's beautiful face while his vampiric healing factors kicked in to make his vertebrae brand new.

He touched her cheek and palmed her head; her was short again, cut close to the scalp the way he liked. It was white as moonlight. It brought out the blue in her eyes more.

He couldn't stop him and kissed her. She pulled at his burned clothes, not minding they were both in tatters of dressing. It was electricity when she held him. After some seconds, Rafel pulled back. With her straddling him, he stood.

"I can walk, thank you." She grinned.

And he dropped her, smiling back. "Well, forgive me for attempting chivalry." Cora brushed him with her hand. "I fell in love with a demon for a reason."

Rafel chuckled at this and turned his eyes to this new place they were. The entire disposition was black rock. Everything here was colossal: the bags eyeing them, the moss creeping the cave tops, the stalactites. Everything. Rafel and Cora felt like mites standing on what seemed to be a huge stone bridge—which the Old gods surely must've used.

Rafel felt it was built for Titan feet. It was hundred feet across.

"Okay, where are we?" Cora mumbled.

[Middle Earth, Lady Mortimer.]

This time, Peitho used [Gladorium] to make her voice heard by Cora. The tomboy Revenant did a doubletake: "Wait! Is that Peitho?"

"Yep." Rafel nodded. "Though this is NOT how I wanted you two to meet—"

"Why does she sound so slutty?" Cora cut in.

[This is my real voice, Lady Mortimer.]

"Yep." Rafel alluded.

"Damn." Cora admitted, "I'm thinking about sex just hearing it. And I'm a girl."

Rafel cleared his throat. "Ahem! Back to business, ladies. So, Peitho, Middle Earth, huh?"

[Yes, Lord host. You have fallen from the surface to the realm between.]

Rafel eyed the large bridge worriedly. "And might I ask, Peitho, just what kind of creatures live in the Middle Earth."

[Anima Dios.]

"Animal gods?!" Rafel and Cora said as one.

He looked at the mammoth wolf-bats hibernating above them. Bigger than him. Now, the grandness of the cave made sense. If gods lived here, and they were all animals, then. . .

A sudden earthquake shook the whole place. The giant bats roused and rushed off in a spree of noise that hurt Rafel's ears. It was then that he figured out it wasn't an earthquake at all. It was a voice.

A voice so deep it shook stones loose.

Himself and Cora stood straighter, trying to tighten their eardrums to pick on the echoes that sounded like thunder striking waves of the Cold Sea:

"WHO DARES TO ENTER THE LAIR OF DAGDA MØR!"

"Uh..." Rafel felt cold swear rise up his back. [Anima Dios] were banished from skyling pantheon for a reason. He sent out his [bioluminescence], forth from the bridge to expand outward. More rocks were lit in the dreamy light. They glowed like blue diamonds and got closer to the hollow place where the deep thunderous bellow had come from.

The crystals lit up a throne.

As mighty as a cloud in the sky, it was. Made of plates of obsidian bigger than his head.

A King sat on the throne. An animal King.

King Kong.

The creature on the throne was the stature of a Titan. It was morbid and hairy. A fright: looked like a cross between Gorilla and Scorpion.

This beast was even larger than Sakuharu, the Sandwhale. It sat on the throne with the ease you might find on a mortal king. The pride too. Two monstrous fists cradled the armrests of a hundred human skulls. The Scorpion Gorilla King—this was what Rafel was calling it—was a Kaiju.

One eye of it was [Blue Ore] metal. The entire left arm, bulky as it was, was [Transformer] machine.

The belching voice of thunder came again:

"TRESPASSERS! HEED CAREFULLY. YOU STAND IN THE PRESENCE OF DAGDA MØR. KING OF THE ANIMA DIOS. WHO ARE YOU?"