Conqueror

Berserk Sea.

""She" is not the Desire!"

Lucien declared, aiming the bloody blade at Suah. His fiery wings were spread out magnificently behind his back, sparing outward as his figure was bathed in crimson-dark flames.

His aura had changed. It was no longer merely a conflicting blend of grimness and tranquility; there was now a sense of triumph beneath it. A boundless triumph at that, almost as if he wanted to claim everything in the world as his. And nothing could possibly stop him; after all, victory was in his veins.

Literally.

For he held the sword of the conquerer, forged with "Victory" and "Conquest". He bore the weight of its terrifying existence and its despotic will—all attempting to triumph over his own—but as it touched his nihilistic self, it became as submissive as a lamb, yielding to his desires.

Death was ultimate, after all.

With that, Lucien wielded not just "Soul" and "Decay," but also "Conquest" and "Victory."

Lucien exhaled; his gaze was filled with serenity and grimness, and his posture was tense and poised.

This essentially meant that he had forced himself to achieve equilibrium in order to bear all of the authorities he wielded within himself and even temporarily be able to unleash them all together completely. Though a single tip of the pendulum could push him over the edge in this state, he clung on with perseverance.

"My mother is not the Desire…?" Suah repeated with twisted smiles, his black eyes looming at the fiery form of the Reaper. "First resistance, now blasphemy in the face of nothing but kindness. You leave me no option but to put you down for your crimes and offer you to mother, but this form is somewhat unsuitable to do that.." he trailed off as his abomination figure began to compress and twist to become a more humanoid figure.

However, he wasn't even halfway through his transformation when a flash of fiery light materialised in front of his figure, imbued with the authorities of "Conquest" and "Decay". It was a sword slash unleashed by Lucien, bearing the sharp intent to disintegrate Suah down to his atoms.

But Suah was unfazed, parrying it with his "Mutation" authority. The crimson slash turned black with corruption, falling prey to Suah's whim, who returned it to Lucien. Taking advantage of this moment when Lucien negated his mutated slash, he swiftly completed his transformation.

In his stead, there was no longer a twisted creature but a humanoid being fashioned of wood, yet his shape was still bathed in black oil, embedded with all sorts of odd and twisted things. A large black scythe protruded from his hand, generating an unnerving echo.

Lucien descended before Suah, flapping his dark-crimson fire wings. And they regarded one another in a moment of reckoning silence.

There was a reason why both of them chose direct combat—their authorities restrained each other to some extent. "Mutation" constrained "Soul." "Decay" constrained "Curse". Even the partial "Chained" authority that Suah had due to being the spawn of the Mother Tree of Desire wouldn't be that effective against Lucien, who controlled the authorities of the conqueror.

And so they choose to directly confront each other, imbuing their weapons with their authorities to deal the greatest damage possible to one another.

The moment of reckoning passed, and the serenity of the Berserk Sea was all but shattered as Lucien and Suah accelerated towards each other at unthinkable speeds.

The crimson sword and the black scythe collided with disastrous fury. And the Berserk Sea roared in agony and pain as the destruction was immediately unleashed throughout it. With their first clash, nearly the entire surface of the sea had turned into a mixture of crimson inferno and black tides, with white roses blooming in brilliance in the midst of it all, along with mutated monsters rising here and there.

To put it simply, it was chaos. Their authorities were entirely liberated and battled with one another. In an attempt to extinguish each other, the crimson inferno and the black floods collided and raged. White roses and mutant creatures clashed, with some withering and others transforming, either into embraces of Death or Desire.

Nevertheless, most of their power was still in their clash, and all of that was merely the aftermath of their first strike.

And the worst part was that they had only just begun.

Lucien inhaled deeply, his thoughts flickering with pictures of all his sword training with Haiter until eventually settling on one, and his body reflexively acting in rhythm with himself in the image, striking towards Suah with his red blade that exploded with catastrophic fire.

Suah vertically raised his scythe above him, parrying off the blow of the Reaper, though he didn't escape completely unscathed. Streaks of crimson fire clung to his physique, but he simply snorted, manipulating the black oil on his skin to extinguish them as he raised his scythe to counter-attack Lucien.

And then their movements became so fast that they practically converted into streaks of crimson and dark lights that blazed through the surging water and roaring sea, colliding and repelling each other along the way.

Within moments, the berserk sea and sky above it were filled with streaks of black and scarlet lights, as if someone had sketched the most complicated zig-zag formation in reality.

Clangs of weapons echoed like thunderclaps, along with authorities, all coming to form a grand and chaotic symphony that left nothing but Death and Destruction in its wake.

The entire Berserk Sea was gone, literally. It evaporated into nothingness in the face of the battle between the strongest archangels on the planet. And the destruction they wrought would have spread and affected everything if not for the Angel of Imagination preventing them from doing so. Nevertheless, even if it were contained, a fight happening at this level couldn't be hidden for long.

In the whirlwind of chaos and violence, Suah and Lucien keenly felt the gazes being directed here from all around the world, and so they temporarily stopped their clashes, opening up a distance between them.

Lucien breathed, his form completely bathed in crimson-dark flames, floating in the midst of the seething infernos and fiery lotus that seemed to fill everything. He almost looked like a fire elemental controlling a world of flames. Truly, he looked powerful, but all of this blazing display was merely a protection, burning away the mutation attacks that Suah was constantly sending at him into black embers.

Suah, on the other hand, wasn't much better. He was surrounded by waves of black liquid, which brimmed with his authorities. It protected him from the discrete soul attacks of Lucien. Even when not clashing with their weapons, they were attacking each other, looking for an opening to deal a fatal strike.

Fatal, indeed, for both of them knew that prolonging this fight wouldn't do any good for either of their interests. Considering the attention of the world slowly shifting to them, it wouldn't be long before someone or something interfered with their fight, and they couldn't afford that.

Lucien was the first to make the move, breaking the temporary deadlock between them. He raised his sword high up in the sky, letting it break into a pillar of fire that soared up to the astral world like a pillar of heaven. "I, Lucien Eggers, the Demon of the End, impose my will on you. Submit to me and purge yourself, the abomination of the world!" He declared to Suah as his voice resonated throughout the world but was only perceived and grasped by angels and those above.

And each of the syllables in his declaration was imbued with the authorities of "Conquest" and "Decay", which together imposed themselves on Suah.

Suah hadn't let down his guard and prepared to counter it with his partial chained authority, so in face of the declaration, he wasn't caught by surprise, but still, when he faced the will of Lucien, he trembled in astonishment, for it was like the sun, ever-burning and unquenchable, unlike anything he had ever seen.

And he wavered, only for a moment, but it was all that Lucien needed. His intention from the start was never to make Suah submit to him. It was all a ruse from the beginning to prepare for his actual attack.

The Demon of the End brought down his burning sword in one fluid motion at Suah. "Burn in the flames of hell." He proclaimed as the pillar of the dark-crimson flames descended, tearing through the black ocean of mutation and melting them completely. Then it submerged Suah in its ruinous embers with a roar that seemed to fill everything.

For a moment, all that remained in the Berserk Sea were the flames. It looked as though Suah had fallen, but Lucien knew better. He knew the spawn of an outer god wouldn't fall so easily and silently.

There had to be a catch.

There always was.

Nevertheless, Lucien was slowly starting to feel the weight of the conqueror sword. Even after achieving equilibrium, it seemed that there was a limit to how long he could bear the authorities of the Conqueror.

'I need to really end this fight as soon as possible..' Lucien thought, his sharps sharp and clear to his surroundings, searching for Suah—he had evaporated from his senses since his attack. 'But I fear that's not going to be easy…'

His fear was proven right, for an aura erupted from throughout the sea of flames that covered the berserk sea, extinguishing them utterly.

It was so powerful, so terrifying, so transcendent; if Lucien wanted to put an appropriate word on it, then it would be…

Cosmic.

In the face of it, his deepest desires were invoked. He saw himself defeating the Evernight Goddess. He saw himself ascending to become the pillar of the cosmos. He saw himself standing on the altar of his wedding, looking forward to the bride-to-be. He saw himself sitting with his father, playing chess, and drinking coffee in the twilight. He saw himself travelling the cosmos after Earth couldn't contain his wanderlust. He saw himself attaining peace in his life at last…

Everything was already there—achieved and accomplished—waiting for him to claim it all for himself.

All Lucien needed to do was grasp it, and everything would be his.