The Demon Lord Is An Angel
Chapter 92: Interlude: Leviathan

Chapter 92: Interlude: Leviathan

On the Fields of Perdition stood the Duke of Wrath, Mother of Furies, Mistress of Fifty Legions. The Wrath-Sin herself: Leviathan.

Towering above her army, her baleful wings cast a shadow great enough to block out the already ash-clouded sun as she raised her fist, looming like a mountain from the highest mound of the eternal battlefield. None here could match her sheer size as she rose to almost one hundred measures in a war form that could crush a dragon in its grip.

Above her circled an entire legion of dragon riders, but even they would hear her when she chose to speak.

She couldn’t help but notice how her legions shied away from the crater at the edge of the field, which had shattered the magma tunnels and filled with the now-stagnant water of a dozen rainfalls. That mysterious attack had helped her believe her most cherished enemy, Duke Maledict, when he said heaven had a new weapon... Not that she could do so publically.

For a moment she remembered the evacuation of Tzal. Was the city empty now? Was her daughter safe on Ayther or still waiting to pass through that gate?

If only Maledict had more ambition... They could have invaded Heaven months ago, with the magic of Goetia at her side, augmenting the pure brawn that had won her dominion of one-fifth of Hell. Instead, she had been made to wait. Until this moment...

The moment a perdition between Heaven and Hell became stable enough for their enemies to invade... Only this time, she intended to do more than simply beat them back. As soon as the angels deployed their gates, she intended to counterattack. To risk everything against the doom Maledict predicted.

She almost shook her head, needing to dispel such thoughts for the task at hand. There was no room for doubt, no matter how compelling the reasons for it. There could be only Wrath.

At her feet, massive, hulking demons were arrayed. Her generals and their captains, in sets that marshaled to one of her many children. Everything she had, every soldier worth their salt, was here, a token force guarding each of her cities.

She had even seized five legions from the Duke of Lies, thanks to Pride’s insistence that no wars be fought amongst demonkind during the Heavenswar; payment for the "abduction" of her daughter. She’d been sure to thank the other Dukes present for their compliance with Pride’s demands. The Duke of Lies’ legions would form the vanguard, aimed at whatever city was nearest to the Heaven side of the perdition. A disposable force, while her true legions sought victory against the Heavenly Host.

More importantly, she’d demanded enough demon mages to open the perditions wide enough for her entire army. A mana-intensive task for which her legions were understaffed.

There was little room in her army for the weak, and the raising of demon mages was not a luxury she afforded her nation, which needed the labor to grow most of Hell’s food supply. As such, most of her troops that could wield magic did so as mavens, honing the one expression they were gifted with, unless that expression betrayed the elevation of the body.

That was what it meant to serve Wrath. To live within one’s self. To hone one’s self. To make of the body both bastion and temple. To become invincible, unconquerable through might alone; without mere parlor tricks that bred a reliance on mana.

Maledict accused her always of having no subtlety, but she was able to surprise him in the end. She looked forward to the day he bowed to her, the future Demon Lord.

If she triumphed; if she beat back the Angels as had not happened in the generations since the last Demon Lord, then she would have more than enough prestige to bring the Nine into line. She wouldn’t simply be one Leviathon in a line of many. She would be Leviathan, Conqueror of Heaven.

And when she returned to find Hell and Ayther locked in perdition together, Conqueror of the Triune Worlds.

Her moment of glory was near, and when silence finally settled on her legions, she lowered her fist and spoke.

"My legions!" Her voice boomed across the fields. "Harken to my words! For they are the words of the strongest Leviathan of this age!"

They roared their affirmation, and she basked in it for a moment.

"You have been tested. You have fought and raged, and the strongest amongst you have risen! Even those who once sought to claim my name stand amongst you, for my mercy is to raise even my once-foes to strength, so that we may fight the angels together!"

When the next roar died down, she continued.

"Tonight we will show the angels that Hell will be harrowed no longer! Tonight it is they who shall feel our wrath!" Once more she raised her fist, but this time it was to point upward. At the green moon, the canopies of its massive trees and the clouds hiding the cities of the Angels.

The roars came again, but this time they chanted her name. "Leviathan! Leviathan! Leviathan!"

Leviathan could have said more, but she felt that she’d said enough. It was time for her wrath to speak louder than mere words.

"Open the portals," she rumbled downward, towards her waiting generals and spawn.

It took them a while to get coordinated, some of their troops pushing forward the more hesitant of the Duke of Lies’ mages. She had no doubt he’d given her the bottom rung of his gnosinians, but that barely mattered. The perditions were natural gates between the Triune Worlds. And where she stood was where the gate known to both sides as the Mouth of Death always opened.

As the tearing of reality started, the Duke of Wrath licked her lips.

Who would she face?

The Choir of Valor? The supposed armies levied from Ayther?

She would crush them all.

A single sweep of her tail was enough to kill entire formations. Her skin could shrug off even the most vicious of spells, and she knew angels didn’t have the stomach for the sort of magic used by the Duke of Heresy. If she could survive him in battle, no angelic mage would come close to wounding her.

With practiced caution, she lifted her tail as she turned to face the Mouth of Death.

As the air split, opening like the gape of a million-fanged maw at its edges, the mages feeding their mana into it began to strain and cry out. Some caught fire, a minor inconvenience to most demons, but many of the fragile casters shrieked in pain before the portal consumed their mana, turning their bodies into ashes. Others had the opposite problem. As the flow demanded by the portal increased, their bodies gorged on mana until they started to explode.

Of the three hundred mages she’d started with, half were dead by the end of the first minute. But the portal knew where it wanted to go. Soon it would be self-sustaining. Soon she would march-

The first hint that something was wrong was when the gate finally stabilized enough to let Leviathan see to the other side.

The Angelic Host was waiting for them. Not that she would let that stop her army-

"Mother! Something is blocking us!" one of her children reported, his voice growling with frustration.

Leviathan reached out, surprised when a wall of thick, tightly-latticed mana prevented her claws from digging very far.

She could feel that the wall would not stop her, but what of her army? Was encountering it a coincidence? Everyone knew that the Mouth of Death was constant on Hell but not on Heaven... so how had it opened to a massive courtyard upon which seven legions of the Angelic Host stood half a great measure away, wings out and waiting with spears and shields?

"What treachery is this?" she growled.

She was surprised when a high seraph landed, his warform a mere half her size and disgustingly uniform to the rest of the angelic army; with the same gold-plated armor and mithril weapons. Instead of a spear, he wielded a sword, and his shield was painted with the symbols of the Seven Choirs surrounding what looked like a bundle of sticks with a halberd at the center.

The only unique thing she could tell about him were his wings, all six of them, blue like the skies of Ayther, which she hadn’t seen since the last Heavenswar. It pissed her off that she couldn’t quite see any differences between her angelic foes, aside from size and how fancy their little toy weapons got. The ability to evolve granted only a few chances to become distinct - within some limits - and they chose to look like more of the same.

Even when he removed his helmet, all she saw was a disgustingly smooth and unblemished face smiling up to cold, violet eyes that looked at her as if he’d already won. As a strange contrast with his wings, his hair was utterly crimson.

"Hello, Wrath," he said. "Good to finally meet the legend. My father is simply dying to kill you. Then we can begin the war we’ve both been waiting for." He was eager. Wrath finally recognized the look in his eyes. Color aside, they were almost like Maledict’s.

His was the look of a man who defined himself by his enemies, just as she once had. It had taken the spawning of her first children to make her realize that her greatest enemy was herself; and from there to gain the will to claw her way up the ranks to lead her Dukedom...

But this angel. This boy - no - man-child looked ready to do anything. He had eyes that looked, even at her, like she didn’t matter; like nothing mattered but his own amusement. That was where her past similarity to him ended. The look in his eyes was infuriating because, unlike with Maledict, this angel’s eyes weren’t lying. Did he really think he was strong enough to be amused by her presence?

"And who are you? An eager sacrifice?" Leviathan sneered down at him. "Go fetch me a real warrior."

"He is the Son of Heaven, Vinam Victoriam, Angelus Apex of the Heavenly Host" an older voice answered. Appearing in a flash of light from behind the lad was an older angel. One with steel in his hair and a war form half-taller than the pint-sized brat between them, whom he stepped past, completely occluding. "Hello, Attika." He saluted with a fist to the heart, using his left, because his right arm bore a shield the size of a rampart.

"It’s Leviathan now. I told you if we fought again I would be at my peak..."

"... and I would be in decline," he finished. "You told me to send my best student... but here we are... Duke of Wrath."

"I judge you haven’t been replaced then, Armitage. Or should I call you Arritel?" she rumbled in her throat. She hadn’t wanted to face some broken has-been. There was little glory in it. "I won’t let you survive a third time."

He smiled and shook his head in answer. "I would claim I was here for Heaven... but really... I’m here for me." He placed his helmet on his head. "Stand aside, I wish to see our old stage one last time... and face you alone."

Now she understood. Armitage had arranged to intercept the Mouth of Death’s perdition just so he could die in glory.

She stepped aside, let him walk alone into Hell as her army formed a half-moon circle on their side. As soon as the wall came down, she began to pace a circle around him, her eyes glancing upward at the split-sky between Heaven and Hell as she stepped onto the dias of what had to be the marshaling ground of Heaven’s capital, Araqlun.

A place that Maledict once showed off to the Nine, claiming to have learned its location from the angel he captured. Its location had been a bargaining chip, but even that could not sway Hell to sue for peace.

Not that Leviathan was overly fond of peace.

"Is it strange that I’ve missed this dark beauty?" Armitage asked, staring up at the sky of smoke, lightning, and fire. The occluded sun and the break in the clouds where Heaven cast its green glow.

"Does having peace bore you?" Leviathan asked back.

""Yes,"" they answered each other at the same time.

There was nothing more to say.

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