A King's Wrath

Azazel's heart pounded as he heard these words. What would the Lord, God Triac do?

Triac snapped his fingers, and the chains binding the fallen stars seemed to evaporate into a fog as they seeped into the true bodies of the stars, and a transformation began to take place in them. The blue radiance of their stars shrank and blackened, until they were a tenth of their original size and completely devoid of radiance, merely flickering with lightless black flame.

As they transformed, Triac made a declaration. "By your word you are bound, until the end of Time. All you have confessed before me today is now compelled within you henceforth, and as all of you confessed, you loyally serve Azazel. As King of the Fallen, all Azazel declares you are compelled to obey. I think that's just about how you all put it, am I correct?"

The stars collectively screamed in pain, loss, and anger, excluding Azazel who stared in awe at Triac, even as he lost ninety percent of his power and turned into a black dwarf. Even as he fell, Triac sought to give him justice. This was a God who was truly just. Azazel felt nothing but appreciation towards the Most High whom he'd always served. This was an ending he could accept.

Triac wasn't finished. "I will seal away your true forms until such a time as your chains are undone. Every consciousness will henceforth be bound to the avatars you have prepared for yourselves on Vinetum, and your flames shall be sealed from use. I wish you fortune in the world you helped create."

Instantly, all two-hundred of the fallen stars seemed to slump over as they sank into a darkness beneath their feet. Triac had forcefully moved their consciousnesses and was now sealing away their true bodies in a dimension of darkness.

The Demon King, who had bore witness to the whole show, felt very agitated. He'd tried to snatch up the name of a star. Even a fallen star would've been okay, but a fallen star bound to serve and sealed in darkness? It was worse than his first fate. "Looks like everything went the way you wanted," Asmodeus grumbled.

"Is that what you think?" Triac aimed a mournful gaze in the direction of Vinetum. "Azazel would've been an unrivaled Archetype. I suppose it's why you implanted that seed of jealousy in his heart back then?" Triac glared at the Demon King.

Demon King Asmodeus cackled madly, "Been found out so soon, eh? It's always so hard hiding things from you." The Demon King teased playfully.

"You don't try to hide, Enemy." Triac growled, "You know full well what boundaries are yours to wander. Testing my beloved with temptation is within them."

"Well maybe when I win, you can be the one to tempt my beloved to your light." The Demon King arrogantly mocked. "Death cannot die, so life must first," Asmodeus smirked, revealing a flash of fangs.

Triac's eyes flared as points of brilliant light shot from his pupils. "You count too much on your backer, Lost One. The way I see it, the time on your contract is short."

The Demon King trembled before the light, fists clenching, "I won't lose!" He bellowed.

"Go home, Enemy." Triac waved a dismissive hand as Raguel winked at him, and the Demon King vanished from the spot, reappearing in a familiar dark void.

Looking at his surroundings, Asmodeus bristled. "TRIAC, YOU GODDAMN SON OF A BITCH!" The Demon King roared from within his old prison.

...

Two-hundred figures suddenly flashed into the council chamber of the Armazel Academy, falling from the ceiling to the floor and impacting with various painful crunches. Only Azazel gracefully landed on his feet, standing upon the table in the center.

"On your feet!" Azazel coldly commanded.

Instantly, all one-ninety-nine shot to their feet as if their lives depended on it. A light flashed in Azazel's eyes as he smirked. So this was the compulsory effect of their binding. He liked it very much.

The other fallen stars were shaking in their sandals. They had betrayed and framed Azazel, and now he held supreme authority over all their actions. If he said to die, they would have to do it.

"Armaros!" Azazel called on the one that he hated most.

"My liege," Armaros stepped forward involuntarily, even the words of respect coming unbidden from his lips. A look of horror spread through his features.

"Break yourself." Azazel commanded simply.

"Sire?" Armaros hesitated confusedly.

"I. Want. You. To. Break. Yourself. Into. Tiny. Little. Pieces." Azazel clarified, his voice dripping with acidic venom.

Armaros nodded as he began to tear off one of his fingers. "How many pieces, My King?" Armaros eyes were trembling and tears actually began to form in their corners. He couldn't stop himself. He couldn't curse Azazel or Triac for doing this to him. He could only comply, politely and respectfully. Though this was an avatar body, it was still made of flesh, bone, blood, and nerves; it still felt pain.

Azazel mused on it with his finger on his chin, then he smiled. "One million," he declared. He watched with sadistic glee as Armaros began to shred himself apart with his bare hands. The avatar body bled profusely as chunks of muscle, shattered bits of bone, and myriad other pieces of body parts were torn away and thrown aside.

Eventually, the tiny bits of Armaros on the floor could only twitch, bumping against each other in an attempt to fully comply and split into one-million pieces. Normally if an avatar were this badly damaged, the consciousness would return to the original body. However, these stars were bound to their avatars, and no matter what happened to these bodies, they would have to remain within. Armaros was currently in a very confusing state of having his consciousness split across tens of thousands of little pieces of himself.

"You may stop." Azazel commanded, still wearing a sadistic grin. "Do something useful with those pieces, will you?" He dismissively ordered, before turning his attention to a cluster of three. They were Tamiel and the two who were originally his subordinates, Baltzr and Salasr.

"You three..." Pain and hatred shone in Azazel's eyes. "Cut off your hands. You will never speak again." He gave two consecutive orders.

The three nodded with wide eyes, their hearts palpitating in panic. The only power they had on this planet with their fire sealed was magical knowledge. Without hands or speech they would basically be worthless. They could not disobey however, and they drew their enchanted weaponry, dismembering themselves. The three knelt on the ground clutching their bleeding wrists. As this concluded, Armoros' pieces clambered up onto the table in the form of a cluster of spiders.

"That will do nicely, Armaros. Well done." Azazel nodded, thinking this form was much better suited to the underhanded fiend.

"Thank you, my liege." a chorus of small voices rang out, like a host of sinister children.

Finally, Azazel addressed the whole of the attending fallen. "I am now King of the Fallen, and will be assuming full leadership of this academy. We are no longer the Magus' Council. We will be called the Magus Order, and I will serve as it's sole head."

The newly dubbed Magus' Order members knelt and bowed their heads, "We hail Azazel, King of the Fallen, Head of the Magus Order. May he reign in mystical might forever." These words of praise rose in chorus as if planned. They had merely followed a mysterious instinct that rose up in all of them simultaneously, but the result was spectacular.

A black mist rose up amongst the two-hundred gathered, and soared through the ceiling, blowing it wide open. The smoke billowed upwards like a signal fire and spelled out over the tower in divine script, 'The Magus Order is Born. All tremble at the dawn of the King of Fallen.'

The passing crowds below all watched this scene in awe. They couldn't read divine script, but the feeling it instilled in them was as if they were looking up at a mountain and couldn't even see where it tapered, let alone topped off. It was an overwhelming sense of being small and insignificant in the face of something unimaginable.

In a tower of the palace, Urmu looked through a telescope at the words in the sky. He quickly transcribed the shape of the letters, before using what he knew of Armaros' Enchantment Scripture to translate them. After realizing the message he ran down the staircase of the tower towards the throne room. King Gel-ad had to know. It was highly possible the Magus Council... no the Magus' Order would contend for power with this 'King of Fallen.'

Halfway down, Urmu halted in his steps. He considered his actions for a second. Should he side with the current king? It was the Magus Order who had the enchanting he so desperately wanted to master.

As Urmu was mulling over the difficult decision, he heard a joyous female voice suddenly ring out in his head. "Now who said you need those dusty fools to learn enchanting?"

"What? Who's there? Where are you?" Urmu spun around in a complete circle looking for the origin of this voice.

Clear, gorgeous laughter that would steal the heart of any man rang out. "I've been watching you Urmu. Of all the mages of this era, you show the most promise. I and my friends want to offer my support." A silver light flashed and a young woman in a silver dress appeared directly before him. She had long wavy, brown hair and her lips spread all the way across her face, making a wide slit. Her eyes were hazel, mixing between blue, brown, and green, and they spun like roulette wheels.

"Who are you?" Urmu blinked in confusion and apprehension. This woman was bizarre looking, but also beautiful and she came out of nowhere talking about helping him. "How can you help?"

"Why, I'm Lisma." The woman smiled brightly, "You might call me a goddess." Lisma winked her whirling left eye precociously at Urmu.