Three-By-Nine Smile

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Killian 'Undying' Graves

My steps are slowed, each one punctuated by the dripping of some sort of my body. Flesh slides off the bone like a liquid while I continue to walk, heading straight for the collision of Gods. Each movement of Ether or Divinhood, what I oft like to call Divinities, warbles the cloth that now covers me as it shakes the entirety of the Underworld. All Divinities or Divinhoods are simply consolidated Concepts. That is all they are. But they are also so much more. I do not possess the strength to contest Death's Divinity.

A voice by my side encourages me, helping me walk with a hand on my shoulder. Glancing right, I nod to Lazarus as the Sealed man grins with a crazed passion.

"C'mon, 'Undying'. You really gonna let a hooded shawl do you in? Look. The others are already fighting. My grandson's doing pretty good, don't ya think? He took a complete hit from Nogami and stood up afterward! Without your Sirza, he'd be paste after that."

Lowly chuckling, I agree, feeling some brevity amongst the soul-shattering discomfort that wreaks havoc through my being. If I were anyone else... I'd already be unconscious from the pain. A... brutal comfort in being who I am, unable to feel pain. A mortal is not meant to bear the weight of a God's Divinity. I may not be fully mortal, but I'm not quite immortal yet.

"Indeed. But he was paste. I made him regenerate from the liquid."

The Third pats me on the back, the grand strength hidden within the hand of the ancient figure forcing me to take another half-step forward than I would have otherwise wanted. Still, I continue. Reaper's Seal is now working at its full potential without a God to hinder it.

"Haha! Indeed. Indeed. I quite like this. Back in my day... the Gods were terrifying, even to me. Despite my strength, I was careful not to disturb any of the resting places, horrified that they might have been turned or worse. To see them struggle... to see Death die... it is..."

"Delightful."

I finish his words as Nogami is struck by the Heraldic Wolf, some stone chipped off by his false teeth. The Hurricane Hunter follows through, blowing aside a falling mountain with her treacherous winds, while the Radiantal Palm takes the opportunity to deal some more damage. These Primes revel in the chance to fight a God, something each and every one had dreamed of during their lives.

Smiling, I watch as the fourth through tenth Primes, the seven Demigods in total, are now at their full strengths as opposed to before. This is the genuine Reaper's Seal, the one I drew up and perfected.

Death just had to constantly fuck with it, making it a thousand times more challenging to execute. But the power... it cannot be understated. Eight Demigods, counting Lazarus, is a grand number. It is enough to slay Gods. But...

That is dependent on the fact I can endure for that long.

"Do you think I could see her? Heather Graves. She... she was a Demigod, too. I... I just want to see her one more time, Killian. Then... I will give you my all in this battle."

Stopping, I face Lazarus Hern while I bear the weight of my Ether and the God on my shoulders. The Third's face is stoic yet marred by centuries of pain and loneliness. The Thunderbolt Titan. The man who slayed all the wild Demigods after the Collapse, hunting down legendary beasts one after another until he set after the Lords. What a legend.

Only put down by the combination of Behemoth and Leviathan. It was up to his grandson to continue his legacy.

His history and our history together, as he is the one I rely on the most with Reaper's Seal, makes it only that much more bitter to deny him his only request.

"I am sorry, my friend. But... Death does not harbor us Graves. She only takes us out of spite before tossing us into the great beyond, the void, whatever you want to call it, for nothingness to take us."

My fellow Dominion nods slowly, evidently hurt by the news. He has waited hundreds of years for this chance, the slim possibility that he would escape Death's clutches. It is another reason why he is so lucid compared to the others.

Besides his grandson and Arnold, the other Demigods are quiet, utterly different from their supposed personalities. Time in the gullet erases souls just as being an Undead does. That devotion must have kept him sane, and he probably taught the method to his grandson while Arnold died the most recently, hardly over a century ago.

No joy comes from the Cackling Lightning, only... grim understanding.

"Very well. That is... unfortunate. What are the chances she could be found in the void? Her soul, that is?"

I meet his crackling pupils, the eyes wholly formed now with the improved version of my Sirza, and I shake my head. Then, I limp forward, wanting to turn the one versus seven to one versus nine.

"One in a million million. That's if she hasn't deteriorated, either. Nine hundred years, right? That's a long time, Lazarus. A long, long time. Let's put that behind us. Just... help me kill this bastard."

The Thunderbolt Titan cloaks himself with azure colors as his whole body radiates the luminance of a star. Then, he vanishes in a bout of maddening chuckles that hint at his desperation. Perhaps... I should have lied and dangled the idea of Heather returning to keep him sane.

But that is not who I am. Eli would have done that. Vincent, too. Yet... I cannot. It would sour my spirit and wear down the little resilience I have remaining.

Raised boot by raised boot, I near the colossal construct of rock, earth, and mud that Nogami is. The God of mountains, hills, and all other landscape features that I can think of repeatedly gets struck by every manner of Ether. From Lazarus' forked lightning to Lychen's light. Hurricane Hunter's winds do minor damage but help protect others from harm.

Sandra Dewey's the only female Prime, an oddity that doesn't make much sense. After all, past the first Sigil, the differences between men and women don't matter much. By the fourth, they are entirely irrelevant.

However, it is a fact that fewer women are willing to become Sigileds than men. It must be something psychological. Perhaps simply societal. I don't know. I'm no specialist. I'm just a man who's seen... a whole lot of death.

Witnessing both her and Hank Callahan, the Firebrand Keeper, smushed by a brush of wind that shifts into a mound of mud, I can only sigh. They manage to escape through their Dominions, a literal typhoon, and a collapse of heat, but I still have to use more Ether to heal them.

Furthermore, without their original Sigils, the things lost upon their death, as only Gods cannot be separated from their Sigils, I have to use my own in place so that their Dominions may work. This is the most challenging aspect of Reaper's Seal, and as I stand beneath Nogami for the first time, in awe of his mountainous size, the task becomes more demanding than expected.

Nine. Nine Dominions leech off my soul while I already bear the weight of a Divinity. Falling to a knee, I realize that... with my Sirza, I will not fight. I can not. Simply existing is enough. I... I don't think I'll ever fight again in the way I used to.

So, I watch. I simply watch as the eight work together in tandem, with Lazarus at the forefront, cackling his way to becoming a Godslayer. His grandson, Lychen, takes the mantle of a leader, guiding the rest just as he did in his heyday, leading humanity into an age of prosperity.

They are... beautiful in how they work. Utterly... clean. One after another, they attack in synchronicity, overwhelming the God bit by bit. Nogami's Power, Virtue, Dominion, and even his Divinhood all revolve around stone, earth, and mud, but he cannot stop them.

My immortal soldiers blast through the meteors he drops, shave off the mountains he summons, and evade the sudden ravines he conjures throughout the Underworld. The battle's reign spreads to the thousands of miles in diameter just from the variety of abilities thrown at the God.

I wish I could join them. I really do. But as Kudo's Divinity digs deeper into my flesh, I know the end that is coming to me. It might not be this minute. Or this hour. Or even this day. But... A man cannot bear the weight of a God. That is... simply the truth. But I must.

Without enduring the Mortal Veil, I know that all the Undead in the world will cease to exist. Furthermore... it will bring untold havoc into the world, havoc that we cannot withstand as a people on top of what is coming. Additionally, Death's Divinity grants me some extra leeway with my Sirza, bestowing it some more power than I could otherwise provide.

Slowly, I am dying. Little joy comes to me as a second Deity falls before my hands. This time... without another God's aid. The Devil and Leviathan are still fighting, even as more Gods rush out from the depths of Hell. Soon... soon, She will be here. We must kill as many as possible before we retreat to the surface ourselves.

Nogami's crashing form throws dust and dirt into the atmosphere like that of a volcano as Death Bringer removes his head. Then, all together, they turn the mountain into minute fragments of sand, crushing it until nothing is left.

A flash of azure ends with Lazarus standing above me, gazing down at my decrepit form. The worst of which is hidden under the Mortal Veil, particularly the rotting portions. Despite my lack of eyeballs in my sockets, I can see the worry on his face with Immortal acting in place for them.

Yet there isn't much I can do as my breath hitches and my Ether snags in the grand tapestry that I've made for Reaper's Seal. It's supposed to work without any input or concentration, only requiring Ether and my soul's inclusion, but...

Gray dust reveals itself as all but Lazarus turn to ash, their souls returning to the Mortal Veil. The ancient human drops to a knee beside me so that our eyes are level. Shivering, I watch as he lifts a hand, placing it on my right shoulder. He squeezes slightly, the mush of the flesh giving in.

A grimace punctuates his words as he retrieves his arm, and I struggle to retain him here.

"Damn, Killian. It ain't your day, huh?"

Shaking my head as more of a reflexive tremor, I use that as my only answer. Lazarus sighs as he sits backward, the God behind him slain. While he does so, I find that the God's remains shift while the Underworld rumbles. The nearby mountains begin to crumble before the Thunderbolt Titan vanishes into azure light.

Then, he returns with a polished piece of dark, spherical marble. Holding it up so that I can see, he groans about something before speaking to me.

"Someone's gotta take this, huh? Or else it'll have some crazy disasters, right? Avalanches, rock slides, volcanic eruptions, all the sort?"

My eyes shift up and down as a response, and Lazarus picks up on it. The long-dead man does something I wasn't expecting as he holds up the rock and tightens his fist around it, Ether flowing from him into the Divinity.

"Then we're in it together, you and I. Haha! How exhilarating! Say, Killian Graves, if we are men, born only to die, then why live at all?"

Still, I do not have a verbal answer, no matter how he desires one. My body refuses to act in such a way. Often, I can bypass such restrictions with Immortal, but what's happening to me is soul-deep, ignoring my Dominion.

Nonetheless, Lazarus is not upset or put off. He turns and faces the Weirs as another shambling figure pushes past them, roiling with Darklight like never before seen. This is a God so severely corrupted that I cannot even tell who it once was.

Nogami's Divinity burrows into Lazarus' hand, the palm now sporting a polished sphere of marble like that of an eye. It spins and rotates dangerously, and I can feel Lazarus' soul spasm from our connection. The strain doesn't pass to me, however, as the Third bears it all himself. He refuses to let me take the burden.

"It is simple, my friend."

Clenching the rock in his hand, he offers a hand for me to take, knowing I cannot. Still, he demands it of me.

"We live to laugh. To enjoy the parts that make it worth all the suffering. Now... it's been a long time since I had any of that. But... there is always hope. One to a million million. About the same chance that we both survive imbuing Divinities, huh?"

Once more, I can't answer him as my vision wobbles. I can't last much longer... but I cannot simply die. There are two more I must kill. I will not die.

My foot finds purchase as I rise up just enough for what remains of my arm to take Lazarus' hand under my veil. With a smile, my friend pulls me to my feet. Then, with a joyous bout of cackling lightning, he pats me on the shoulder, pointing to the disgusting God in the distance.

"Not yet. Another one. Just one more, my friend. Just one more. You can do that, right?"

I compel my eyesight to clear as I get a clean look at the God for the first time. It is dribbling acid, or maybe muck, something awful, in the shape of a deer. I can do another one. I'll kill another one until there are no more to kill. Just... one at a time. When Lazarus leaves me, however... I worry I might lose my drive. It would... be like back in those laboratories... All alone in the dark with only needles and the experimental concoctions for company. Not again. Never again. I'd... I'd rather never have lived at all than return to that darkness. My fist tightens as my childhood scars its way through my mind and into my flesh.

Nevertheless, I possess the strength to continue here and now. As such, I will. I will take a step forward until there are no more steps to take. I have finished the promise to my mother. The one to the world and to myself still remain.

"Aye. One more."