First Demonic Dragon

Karliah couldn't process exactly what had happened.

All she knew was that at one point in time she had her body cleanly bitten off and was now experiencing an inability to properly regenerate.

When she was inevitably pulled down by gravity, her detached head dropped into the water soundlessly.

Surprisingly, she could see down here.

She was stranded in dark, murky waters that were teaming with a very specific kind of creature.

Sea monsters.

Karliah didn't know where in the hell they had come from, only that there were so many of them that they literally filled up her vision.

With just her head remaining, Karliah sunk deeper and deeper into the water until she landed in the outstretched hands of Ayaana herself.

The Nyasir of battle smirked up at the woman who she saw as partially her daughter and gave her best nod of approval.

'I'll admit it, you seem to have quite the bag of tricks up your sleeve. But do you think that we have lived this long and been the death of so many worlds if we couldn't handle something like this? You'll need to try just a bit harder, dearie~"

If Ayaana was upset by this strange woman's provocation, she certainly didn't show it.

Her multicolored eyes glowed with a strange pink light as she surveiled the dark water around her that still contained their numerous enemies.

'No matter what my sisters and I have to do, and no matter how much time it takes, we will hold you off as long as we need to. We may not be able to kill your friends , but we can do our damndest to make them wish they were dead.'

Instead of being abhorred by such a threat, Karliah looked like she took great pride in it.

Her eyes shone with a special frenzied sparkle as her lips turned upwards in a smile.

'Oh? I hope you show me something that isn't just idle boasting, dear daughter. Your mother has high hopes for you..!'

-

For those who seek to climb the steps towards becoming the most powerful in the heavens above, there are no stairs or escalators.

Like animals, higher beings live in the world of predators and prey.

To grow their strength influence, and pool of believers, gods, demons, and monsters will scratch and claw using abominable means to further their pursuit of more power.

No matter how strong they become, they eventually take for granted all that they currently have and grotesquely strive for more.

In that sense, they are a lot like humans.

They struggle not to be seen as weak; and exert their force onto those that are in order to separate themselves from the rest of the rabble.

Yaldabaoth is the culmination of the gods' fears rolled into one.

Because ultimately, he consumes worlds and rebuilds from their ashes as a means to never be seen as inferior to the original creator.

He abhors those who consider themselves to be greater than he.

And after fighting Abaddon, one could say for certain that his hatred and dislike of him had reached that very familiar peak.

After the spire tower was destroyed from a blast of the two abominations, Jaldabaoth crawled out of the rubble with an annoyed look on his face.

This scowl of his only deepened when he saw Abaddon floating above him; his wings outstretched and his gaze as cold as the darkest recesses of space.

Neither one of them were the least bit hurt by the explosion, but Abaddon's perfect composure almost made it seem like he had come out of it better than his opponent had.

Which, as you can imagine, was more than a little aggravating.

"The nerve of you to look at me like that when I am the reason that you live and breathe… what an uncouth child you have become."

At this, Abaddon's lips turned upward in a smirk of true amusement.

"You liken me to your creation, and by an extent your child? Hilarious."

The eyes embedded in Abaddon's wings opened up all at once.

Each of them glowed with their own individual dark colors before beams of malevolent plasma burst out from their ominous pupils.

Jaldabaoth said some words in an ancient language and a mirror-like barrier appeared in front of him.

The barrier gluttonously consumed the entire attack and caused it to disappear.

At which point, a similar; equally beautiful barrier appeared directly behind Abaddon.

The beams came through the barrier at a fraction of the speed of light and borreled right into Abaddon's back.

The dragon's eyes went wide as several holes were punched through his own chest in an instant.

Touching the new orfices, he let out a low whistle.

"Is it egotistical of me to say that I should have expected this of myself…? I do have quite the talent for destruction, don't I..? My name doesn't seem to mean 'Destroyer' for no reason."

Jaldabaoth looked like he was on the verge of saying something when his brow suddenly shot upward and he let out an unfriendly growl.

There was something… missing.

It was as if the knowledge and ability to cast the spell he had just used had been stripped away from him before he even knew it.

But such a thing was utterly impossible.

…Right?

"You… What did you do to my magic..?"

Abaddon waited for the holes in his chest to finish closing up before he used his thumb to gesture behind him.

Similar to before, a glass barrier appeared.

Only this one was much larger than before, and shinier as well.

If that weren't aggravating enough for Jaldabaoth, the fact that he had used it with absolutely no magical expenditure whatsoever was just adding insult to injury.

Every higher being is in possession of a body that naturally distorts the laws of physics, and sometimes nature, to allow them to do fantastical things as easily as burping.

But the limit to which they can achieve such phenomena varies from deity to deity.

To close the gap and reach new heights, magic is used.

What Abaddon had just did was effectively stealing that magic and adding it to his own little menagerie of natural, reality warping abilities.

And he had done it without even opening his mouth.

"So you have developed tricks of your own… amusing." Jaldabaoth fake clapped in applause. "But I have been alive for many, many, eons and the one thing I do not lack is magic. Do you think you can steal it all before I consume you and take it all back?"

"I'm not quite sure… I encourage you to test your luck and find out." Abaddon taunted.

It required a great deal of internal effort for Jaldabaoth to resist the urge to give in to Abaddon's provocations.

"Oh… how I am sure you would like that. But why make it harder to cement my superiority than I have to? I am mad, not foolish."

'Worth a shot…'

Abaddon was hoping that one day in the future he would get to fight a more stupid enemy with copious amounts of power to give out.

'But that's probably not in the cards for me, is it…?'

Jaldabaoth held out his hand and a glowing red sigil appeared over his palm.

He made a gesture like he was grabbing something, and an ominous black weapon came floating into his grasp.

It was a sickening creation; a large spear bearing a bone-like color with a blade that was dyed black.

A series of glowing runes ran down the staff of the spear that held a particularly nauseating familiarity.

For the first time in this fight, Abaddon felt his blood heat up with anger as he gnashed his teeth together.

The dragon god had a short number of 'soft spots', to bring out his anger, but this was undoubtedly one of them.

"I am sure that you know that dragon slayer weapons don't work very well on me… so are you simply trying to piss me off?"

A massively unnerving smile showed up on Jaldabaoth's face that made him even angrier.

"Touchy, touchy..! It's not like you knew the dragon I pulled this from, so why are you upset? She was wasn't even from your corner of reality, nor was she worth any of your useless sentiments… would you like me to tell you about her so that you can agree?"

Abaddon felt all of his muscles tense up as his vision started to become blurry.

From the moment he was cognizant enough to comprehend it, Yara had filled her son with an immense pride and love for all of dragon kind.

She made him realize that even though they were strong, they also needed to be protected.

He never forgot those sentiments no matter how old he became, or what he discovered about himself.

Every dragon from every corner of mythology or alternate reality were his people.

And Abaddon was the type of Sovereign who would avenge every single one of his people; whether he knew them or not.

"You needn't worry… I will lay her to rest after this, and have her tell me all about her life when this is over."

Holding out his hand, Abaddon fabricated a weapon.

An enormous black and red greatsword that coursed with the unending bloodthirst of the dragon sin of wrath.

"You fancy me your pet project..? Your creation…? Your child..? Your food..? That's fine…"

Abaddon flicked his wrist and the greatsword in his hand stretched itself and lost its rigidity.

Like the weapon of a famous grand marshal, his blade started to resemble a centipede that squirmed about as if it had a life of it's own.

"Now, I will show you just how great and terrible the monster you created has become!"

Using all of the strength in his body, Abaddon swung his weapon with so much speed and power that he could have destroyed the earth with one blow.

Feeling challenged, Jaldabaoth lifted his spear to protect himself, and got a surprise like he hadn't received in decades.

Not only did Abaddon's weapon cleanly break his own; but the attack kept going and cut through him cleanly down the middle without stopping for even a second.

Once Abaddon's blade struck the ground; an explosion of power erupted outward that could be felt even in the parallel universes above.