Demonic Devourer's Development

I could read it in their thoughts. The scoundrel god's glee. The monk god's anger. Enforcers' determination and excitement for a fight of the level they never even dreamed about before. But shocked and betrayed or not, God of Monks stayed a dangerous opponent. The discipline was in his flesh and bones, and even now, he didn't hesitate for even a moment in face of my attack.

He moved like a flowing water, deflecting each and every blade with seemingly soft touches of his fingers. What was more wondrous is how his skin didn't suffer at all from them, didn't even got covered in rime—it was like he was smacking around flies, not deadly magic projectiles.

As usual, I would need a more decisive attack to pierce that defence.

At least Enforcers didn't falter. Their weeks of training got the results I needed—they moved smoothly and without pause, just like was their usual tactics. Tremble threw her chain at God of Monks, aiming to bind him, and the rest followed with their strikes in perfect unison: the scythe, the sword and the spear.

They were fast, but not fast enough. God of Monks would spin around, swatting them away just like my blades, and run over the air—oh, he could do even that, it turns out?—to me, his great enemy. He had so much respect and glory to get from killing me and bring traitorous God of Rogues to the rest.

I intercepted him before he could, moving at the maximum speed my abilities and Pest's magic could give me. Enforcers only took a grain of his attention, yes, but in a battle of life and death, every tiny grain was important.

While God of Monks dispatched my demons with kicks that had a power and mass of mountain, sending them flying away with caved-in chests, broken sculls and lost lives, I dropped on him, burning with lava's heat.

Dropped almost literally. Unlike Goddess of Wizards, God of Monks had no magical barriers I needed to pierce, and no matter how hardened his skin was, one bite—

Before I could get this close, God of Monks made a manoeuvre too fast for my eye, striking my throat with his elbow. The blow was so powerful that it sent vibrations through my entire body. The best I could do to avoid letting him blow my head away entirely was to let the power spin me in the air and let my liquid flesh reform itself—but then I used the same energy to retaliate with a spinning kick on the top of God of Monks' bald, thick head.

It barely hurt him, but even that little hurt brought more anger to the man.

Meanwhile, God of Rogues hovered aside, intent on not interfering unless I really needed help. I'd give him the dirty look he deserved if I wasn't too busy.

To give them credit, even after being killed once, Enforcers didn't stop. Weakened by their deaths, they were even less of a distraction, but with me continuously attacking him in close quarters, God of Monks had to move around more to avoid my jaws.

He knew how dangerous they were. Goddess of Wizards told him. That bitch… well, of course she would tell.

But she didn't tell him about the webs I could make. And he, busy as he was with throwing around kicks, didn't notice until his leg caught in one of them. Even if he was too balanced on them to trip and fall, he lost a part of that balance for another moment.

The rest was like an avalanche that grows in power and weight the longer it flies. Tremble threw her chain at him again, and while God of Monks deflected that, too, Kuut and Mandril came with the sword and the spear, poking at him less to wound and more to entangle.

Then I grabbed him, and he stood no chance. My mouth—and the mouths I morphed everywhere I could—bit into him, tearing out flesh. God of Monks didn't scream in pain. To his last breath, he resisted, summoning his inner energies and even regenerating his injuries as I inflicted them.

But even he couldn't live without a neck.

Everybody stared in marvel when the god's breathless body fell to the ground—and as his soul, opaque for a fraction of a moment before the laws of Hell turned it into a material thing, separated from it.

I didn't let God of Monks to make a new breath—he suffered the same fate as the last time.

Again, and again, and again.

It burned in my soul, that desire—to see him gone, for goon. He would never return to his place in Heaven; everything there was of God of Monks—power, personality, memories—would be gone. If it was possible, there would be nothing left to even reincarnate, because otherwise, a sliver of doubt would live in me forever—what if he was like me, and never forgot?

"Isn't that enough? He looks like he's going to the Wheel of Reincarnation at any moment…" God of Rogues muttered, but the words seemed far away. I bit and tore and bit again. My eyes saw red, but my mind still saw that flicker—the flicker of mind.

The mind and the body. So fundamentally different, yet connected things. In that moment, I suddenly understood that body was not just a shell for the mind, and mind was not just the thing to control the body.

My mental projection wasn't just a product of my thoughts—it was a product of my soul, too. It was a product of my everything, and even if it had no body, it could still devour, just like I did.

We both could see this undying mind before us. Full of pain, fury and fear, it was so akin to mine that even part of my vengeful anger changed with satisfaction.

Then, I bit—but not with my body, with my mind—and consumed it, too.

And only silence was left. Lifeless, empty shells of a god, my followers, stunned by awe, and my co-conspirator, stunned by violence.