The Blessed Woodlands

[YOLF]

Lubei

The clearing filled with thundering and screeching, and the pain changed nothing. Lubei glared through it and squeezed the beast impatiently. Ice was already crawling over the metamorphic fur and only hastened, covering the spike before it could pierce deeper.

At the same time, that left the firebird to scorch him, but it had made a mistake approaching from the side where he could not easily draw his sword. With an icy ring, the dao jumped from the sheath to his free hand, and with one movement, Lubei hurled it at the flaming wings.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Lawrence

The spike pierced true,yet there was no blood, not even a wound, yet the spike had pierced his shoulder truly. The demon resisted brilliantly, hurling his blade at the bird and tightening his grip against the black beast to choke the heat and life from it. The bird squacked and lost its trajectory, plummeting downwards, while the lion's entire side was being encased in ice. And the frost was growing with such speed one would expect it to show panic.

But it didn't.

"THAT HURT DAMMIT!"

Lubei erred gravely thrice. The first error was a simple failure to prioritize the right target, focusing on the immediate danger rather than the shadow looming above him. The second was one of pride and confidence, believing his power to be enough to settle this here and then he doubled down on his frigid offense instead of retreating to a better position.

But it was the third one that could have sealed his fate. The third, and gravest of them all, was simply assuming he was dealing with ordinary foes. And that was a fatal sin.

Because instead of being encased in ice like a normal foe, the lion exploded into countless spikes and expanded in a moment, piercing his hand immediately and theatening worse! Lubei only had that moment where the frost shattered to avoid being completely skewered. However, there was solace in the fact these thorns were not aimed to kill. He could dodge, surely. But a fiery magic circle appeared behind him. If he moved behind carelessly, he'd be right in the middle of a pillar of fantastic flame. And as his pieces moved, Lawrence's body was being hurled upwards by the impact and the hot gusts of air and fire.

"What will you choose?" Lawrence genuinely held no hostility towards Lubei when he asked this question.


Vanguard

"Not bad!" He grit his teeth and cursed the fact he missed. But she was fast, and despite being clumsy, her movements surprised him. Her initiative.

And the fact her claws had sunk into his flesh and armor. Kuh! Blood splashed all over, time slowed down to the point the two could look at their reflections over the splashes and droplets of blood. That was the surprise he was being hit by.

Her surprise was the fact she didn't reach the ground.

His lightning. No, his techique, coursed through his entire body. Even his flesh. Flexing his muscles with lightning, they were elctrocuted and spasmed so hard, they tightened like a vice around her digits. Her hand was inside him, but pinned inside his armor and muscles. Blood flowed from his mouth, he was wounded and she was not. But it didn't look like she was closer to winning. His aura was so heavy it was almost crushing. Vanguard was serious.

And the lightning's eyes were staring down at her.

But what moved towards her face were countless blurs of his fist, moving down on her body like divine hammers. "ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!"

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

Elongated claws were lodged into the man's leg, fists came down from above, and Uria made an instinctive decision. Their hand reverted, darkness fleeing from it as the shadowy limb became human again. The sudden shift tore their nails straight from their fingers, but it gave them the time to scoot back and avoid the onslaught. Almost.

A thunderous fist crashed against their collarbone. There was a loud crack as it shattered and their chest cave in. The other had just barely missed crushing in their skull. Instead an ear had been sent flying through the air and a noticeable gap revealed their brain. The glancing blow had shorn off the flesh and smashed right through the bone. But even then the demigod was smiling-- no they were outright laughing. Laughing in joy, in excitement, even as their bones reset and a serene light already began closing the hole in their head. Even as the faintest pink outline along her regrowing ear showed it was not fully restored. "You're too much fun, Vanguard!"

But Uria did not leap at him again. They felt the crushing force, the change in the air, and flipped over. Their hands were claws again but the shape was different, not for rending but for digging. And like a mole, they turned all their speed and strength towards the ground they were pushed against and doved into the earth.

[YOLF]

Lubei

He pulled away fast enough for only his palm, fingers and arm to be shredded in the explosion of lances, but his back was trapped against his elemental enemy, and in an instant, his position of strength was overturned. Lubei fumed against the master of the familiars, against the neighboring clash he could only glance to from the corner of his eye for a microsecond, and against his mistake. He didn't have time for this.

The demon king roared a contemptuous cry, and the world was swallowed by white. Giant slabs of ice broke out from the ground towards every direction and scattered brilliant mist in the air, as the black lion's ball of death was slammed away, and the burning magic circle was consumed from below by cold mass along with the blaze. More spikes rose wildly out in the clearing, even towards the armored warrior.

And Lubei sent his glare at Lawrence, causing hundreds of sharpened icicles to array themselves towards him, flying up with a singular shriek.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Lawrence

The demon's scream caused the cracks on Lawrence's face to deepen. Frozen spires erupted everywhere. These lances of pure frost shot up to the heavens like the lord's indignant scream, spreading accross the burning battlefield and freezing it solid, spreading icy mist everywhere.  COuntless frozen lances shot up to the skies straight towards Lawrence, who was wide open. Sweat formed over his ashed body, and somehow the fear made a smile crawl on his lips, despite the clear fear.

The lion sank into the shadow cast by its master. Their positioning was genius, this must have been intentional. However, no matter how good Lawrence's play was, he had moved his piece one step too late.

"Oh my."

The icicles impaced in the sky. It was so far up, it was impossible to tell, but there was no mistake that Lawrence's body had broken against it, and now shard of ice fell to the ground along with his tattered clothes. Only the mist hid his prideless corpse.

Vanguard

"..." He stared down at the ground, only to land on it himself. But the frozen spikes erupted all around him, and smashed straight into his flesh and armor. He hadn't seen them coming, and wasn't ready to deal with them.

Because they just shattered against his body. And as his soul trembled and gnawed on itself, lightning cracked, surged, and erupted from him- turning the ice into no more than broken shards and the shards into dust, until even that dust melted away into nothing.

"Don't anger me." He gripped his ax hard and only glanced at the demon lord, warning him that his ire was only due at what laid beneath. If he kept this up, he'd have to take him seriously too. But the charge that built up from that knight's soul was truly insane. If he unleashed a blow like that, he'd annihilate this whole area to smithereens.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

Within the earth, small hands cupped a miniature star. While it took longer the sheer energy at play allowed them to fashion a more flexible attack. Something to overcome his lightning and reach to gain an advantage.

The star became a sword. Then a spear. Then a mighty halberd. But even that was not enough. Mere weapons would not manage the force Uria wished for, they did not have the speed to outmatch someone who had tamed lightning. So they simply needed to make something better than that. The bolt of light that blasted through the depths with outrageous speed and strange fluidity. When it burst to meet him it shot through the air without a pattern. It did not slow down to swerve, did not reduce its speed to suddenly move backwards, and it did not remain as one.

It split into multitudes. Against ferocious defenses and destructive thunder it would split apart, maintaining its impossible movements only to come together for a single focused blow. A blast concentrated all at once to a single point, the bolt coming together to burn a hole through his eye and explode inside his skull.

[YOLF]

Lubei

The demon had no illusions that was enough. He didn't desire to produce a corpse, but until he saw him prone or entombed, the foe was still waiting, hidden in Lubei's own domain. But he had an instant to breathe, for his indiscernibly mutilated arm to start recovering. An instant was all he needed to see the attack from Uria spring from nowhere and assert that the divine child wasn't in the line of fire.

In a timeless instant, he reached within his soul for a memory, and the strength built around it. A yawning gate beyond the yoke of life to a pit where nothing would ever move again.

Not even the king of ice could repress a shiver from this cold, and he exhaled a fine mist as he swung his hand. Frozen spires more solid than stone emerged from the left and right, racing between him and Vanguard. They formed a corridor of white and blue which shut itself around them and at the top, the pillars interlocking like closed mandibles.

This foolishness had to stop.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vanguard

The spear of light erupted from the hole and bounced all around like a star. His eyes followed accross the battlefield, his stance resulute as the lightning cloaking him. Left, right, up, down, left, right, up, down, left-

The arrow launched forth, the knight shot into motion. It wasn't enough. Blood, metal and bone matter burst out of his head, clearly visible to everyone.

And then the  spikes surged like a torrent, surrounding his bloodied body like the maw of a beast. A prison for him... a cold dead land to bury him. Half of his body glared, his other half completely covered by blood. But as the ice dust took a shine like diamond, his head was visible. The nightmare was visible.

Uria's attack was an undodgeable bullet. It couldn't be deflected, it couldn't be avoided. Someone like him could never avoid this fate.

His eye was pierced. The wolf now mimicked the one eyed crow. It was only his natural sturdiness that saved him. Because he did not stop. And not even the ice that stopped the devil could halt his swing.

Every frozen struxcture was broken down and turned to dust by a lightning impact so terrible, it shook the earth and heavens whole. It was enough to obliterate the ground as well, like a tree of lightning uprooting the Earth. The damage was so deep, it was like an entire spyscraper had dug out the area. Every piece of ice, rubble and thunder shot forward like a torrent. It could very well hurt Lubei even at his distance, and the thunder would seek the child without respite until it reached the peak of the tree.

This was his inescapable attack. And his last.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

Devastation. That was the only thing that could describe the effects of the warrior's strike. This was not a battle that could be played out on this small bit of scenery, and he had demonstrated it by annihilating the entire area. The earth had been gouged out by the fist of a wrathful god, trees had shattered into splinters, the very air heaved with an explosive force that levelled anything which remained. It would be a miracle if anything of the demigod was left... and yet they were a child of miracles.

So it was to no surprise that a pile of rubble trembled and a body fell out. Uria's body writhed with darkness and light. Their neck and chest began to sprout from their head like a growing plant. Writhing, insect-like things poured out of their mouthed and attached together into an arm. With disturbing quickness they arose again, but their imperfections were clear.

Their pale skin was cracked where it had grown out. Occasionally their arm twitched and shifted as if the creatures had not fully melded together. It was nothing fatal, but they were lessened.

"Woah, you really mean serious business! I don't think we can win like this..." They reached down and grabbed at something, fingers pushing apart the earth as they yanked up a root from the earth. Then tendrils of shadow and radiance plugged into it, as if completing a circuit. And Uria's awareness expanded. Suddenly they were not just here, standing within this crater, but scattered across the entirety of the woods. The light that permeated each of the beasts, the energy flowing to the sky above, the prideful light within the very land... And there was another. Distant, unconnected, but not unknown to them. Almost like a sister tree, grown in the mold of the one they were integrated with but not built from it. So Uria waved. They waved to the animals, and the thing in the sky, and the meanie in the trees, and the other tree!

Hello world.

But their thoughts turned towards that second to last one! To it and their enemy. So they poked it, prodded it, pinged it with countless notifications! Because it had been abandoned, it had no purpose, except there was a perfect body for it right here. Because if it didn't then He would.

[YOLF]

Lubei

There was no opportunity to close the distance at all. Lubei's makeshift prison shattered into a million pieces around them, with the very earth splitting apart with the pulverizing fury of lightning one inch behind. He grit his teeth during that interval between cacophonies and jumped. The footing was blown away the same instant, and the thick screen of black ice that appeared between him and the epicenter cracked.

The relentless force threw him high into the air, rattling his bones. It felt like his insides had been rocked as one, even if he didn't receive it directly, and up and down became indistinct. Lubei's eyes darted hastily, searching for either Uria or Vanguard through the haze of power ringing in his ears.

"THIS IS FOOLISHNESS, STOP!" The demon could only catch their outlines, but he yelled anyway, unaware of his own desperation.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vanguard?

Thunder and lightning swirled and crackled. As the earth was uprooted and melted to ash, clouds began to darken around the hole in the sky. The fallen hero couldn't save anyone. No, he never could have saved anyone. Is unmoving body was being surrounded by strands of light reaching out for him.

I... we're... eternity... it hurts... it really hurts... save us...

Why just us...? Why do we have to...

His bleeding eye poured endlessly. His head throbbed, his grip loosened. But it wasn't the arrow that caused him to fall. Static was filling his head, images of something old and terrible and unacceptable. A sin from long ago. Flashes of some incomprehensible chamber of light and metal, a great void, and children panicking and trying to escape a tower, and more images began to flash in his mind. They cried out, they fought. But as the structure fell, one truth was certain.

None of these children were saved. Some protested, others cried out. This was nothing like the citadel in the sky. So why was this sight so familiar. It's as if it was a glimpse of a dark future. These trembling children in robes. Why were they-

But even so...! All of this is wrong!

I see... this world is mistaken... a world this warped... it must be corrected. This illogical world that stole everything from us...

No matter what, we kept fighting because we believed we could overcome it!

THe lights... the grace... YHWH... no, Uria's own puppet. The giant angel emerged from the forest. No, it was the forest itself, now sinking unto itself and revealing a strange light. With a calming smile, this mass of divine energy opened its arms wide and opened up the earth, revealing a great pitfall. Dozens of arms reached out for the fallen hero. To soothe him. Comfort him. To become one with him.

Promise me... promise... that you won't forget us...

...

This is the world our friends tried to save!

Uria, Vanguard, that being of light... there was nothing that would stand beneath them. And so they all fell, deep into the chasm of the abyss. Only there would they meet once more, and only then would the dream end. So open wide, O earth. Reveal what lies at the bottom of this dream.


Lawrence

The ground was gone, there was no footing to rest onto. Even with all the magic in the world, a fall like this was certain death even for an immortal demon lord. No, it wasn't the fall that was most terrifying. It was whatever laid at the bottom of this.

"It's pointless. Your words can no longer reach their hearts." A fiery surge shone behind him, and something grabbed him by the clothes hard, trying to keep him from falling. A litterally broken lawrence filled with cracks, holes, and half his head missing was using all his strength to keep Lubei from falling, until he was hoisted on the back of his fiery bird.

They were now flying, over what had once been a forest. Now, it was naught but a gaping hole surrounded by pallid white vegetation and beasts.

"I wanted to stop this. At least, once upon a time. But I've learned it the hard way. This world's will isn't to be saved. It just wants to change into something else."

It was a truth... a painful one from long ago. It's as if some incomprehensible memories were filling his head. "I must make a pitiful sight. Even so, I wish to challenge this world. I won't let that girl have her way."

[YOLF]

Lubei

"You...?" He glared uncertainly at the half-dead, crumbling man. The words filled him with confusion just as his balanced returned to him, and that balance turned into trepitation as he looked out to the madness below.

And there the earth wept, and Lubei was reminded of heavenly stairs torn asunder, and whirlpools of rotten yearning where only the soulless remained, trapped in the mistakes of their lives.

This wasn't right. None of this was right. It was all so stupid! He should abandon it, forget any hopeless, useless thoughts that this place might have helped him in the slightest, and look for actual clues to go back home elsewhere! All Uria had bought him was a potential rise in white hairs before even his fifth century, and this Vanguard, he was so concerned with his justice he didn't even question time and place. Why did Lubei have to be here? Why did he have to tolerate them?

'Do nothing today, and why do you want to be there tomorrow?' Lubei shocked himself, staring into the eyes of his personal judge.

If the chaos in front of him meant nothing, if his soul did not weep or move here, was he capable of acting when he had to choose war against other demons to not appear weak, to spill blood so his family and subjects would be safe, and to offer his life to preserve the world of demons against the righteous tyranny of the gods? Would Lubei be condemned to the eternal torment anyway out of neglect, having made no difference upon the world?

What kind of king... what kind of man would he be... if he walked away? What kind of decision was that? How many times did he have to beat his own head raw before anything got through? He was sick of it. His face snapped to the summoner, grim resolve frozen on its facets.

"Not for trying. Giving up on the future for the past is what's pitiful." And then Lubei jumped off.

The Demon King of Black Ice howled while flying into the expanding pit, and cold mountains groaned into existence alongside him. Countless layers of frost ringed the chasm, filling the holes where the earth continued to split, closing off the collapse, and stretched down in intersecting pillars and branches, following their master. He accelerated down, and the ice burst ahead in a spiked rail where his boots set themselves, skimming even faster into the abyss.

With a snap of his hand, the diamond blade Three Poisons, lost in the disorder, flew back to his grasp. The heavy knight coming into sight, he used it without hesitation to sever to bits the forest of arms that tried to take him.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Lawrence

"What are you... fool!" He stared down wide eyed at the demon. Khahahahahah! Looks like things aren't moving according to plan!

"I'm telling you, it's all pointless in the end. It's already started."

Or rather... you don't want it to stop.

Lawrence felt a deep sadness. The lives he lost and the precious souls he failed to save would never come back. Such tears had already dried aeons ago, all he had left were those of a crocodile. But even so, he never gave up. He wouldn't let these sacrifices be in vain.

So sacrificing one foolish demon for their sake was quite the small price.  Keheheh... see? Not so bad being honest for a change, eh?

"Shut up." Lawrence smiled.

[Umbra of Chaos]

Uria

The world was falling. Everything was collapsing. But they were still giggling, even as the forest rose up to swallow the warrior and Lubei dived down to save him. This was so. Much. Fun! They landed on one of the grasping hands with before launching themselves up, and up, and up! But they missed the warrior entirely, despite having the means to strike him down. No, instead the white haired demigod slammed into the angel.

Their greedy fingers dug into its light as Uria's own power rose up. Shadowy jaws and bright spears tore at and stabbed into its body as they sank their teeth into it. Ribbons of luminescence were ripped from it, but Uria was engaged on an even deeper battle. Their being, their Self slammed against the divine power's like an ocean tide.

[YOLF]

Lubei

An inch from the precipice, he grabbed the warrior by the arm, sinking his feet to a halt on a protruding pillar of ice. Lubei's blade arm yet swung, in twisted arcs to hold off the remains of the abyss's arms, and he pulled the massive weight of the prone Vanguard closer, as he looked up, towards Uria.

"What are you doing, Uria?!" He yelled, voice ringing with trepidation.