“Where have you been, Vi?” Beelzebub asked as the white haired woman returned to the room. She wore her witch’s robes and hat, and her hair was pinned back with a bright, red rose. She never wore the clothing of her time as a pawn during their game, so the sight was quite unusual.

“Around.” she answered, not sitting at her place at the game table. She stood by the door, her eyes fixated on her opponent. Beelzebub had noticed her acting strangely the last few times they sat down to play, and her demeanor was only getting more and more strange.

It was likely that she would surrender soon, and he would be declared the winner of the game. But he didn’t want that, he was still enjoying this game with her, savoring it.

“Have a seat then, I’ve taken my turn and brought Azoth to the board, so it is now your move.” he motioned for her to sit down, but the white witch remained motionless at the door.

Vi thrust out her left hand, a black fireball sailing past beelzebub’s head and splashing against the back wall. The game room wall was shattered by the fireball’s explosive force, exposing the void of the abyss beyond.

“Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed, didn’t she?” Beelzebub remained seated, brushing off a few flames from his suit shoulder.

“Shut up, after 300 years I’m sick of your voice.” Vi scowled, pointing her hand more directly at the seated man. Vi’s impressive magical energy surged in her body, a purple glow surrounding her.

“Fine, if you’d rather brawl like we’re a couple of drunks in a bar… then so be it.” Beelzebub sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, before beginning to stand from his chair.

Another black fireball struck him before he could rise fully, blowing him clean out of the building. Despite the power behind the spell, his body was completely unharmed as he hovered in the void.

“Have you forgotten the last time you attempted this strategy, Vi? Or the times before that one?” he asked her, resting one hand on his chin and feigning a puzzled expression. “If you expect a different result this time, perhaps the madness has truly set in?”

Vi waved her arms, conjuring more of her fireballs. A ring of them spun around her, and with a single flick of her wrist, they all fired towards their target like a gatling gun. Beelzebub didn’t even attempt to dodge the attacks, letting all of them strike him in the chest.

Beelzebub crashed into a floating rock, a lost piece of land within the void. He slowly stood up, just as a rain of even more of Vi’s flames fell upon him. With a single motion, he swept away all of the attacks, clearing the space between the two of them.

“Fight back, you trash god.” Vi scowled, over one hundred fireballs appearing behind her in an instant, and only more appeared with time. By the end, over a thousand spells were readied behind her.

“Now now, if I were to do something like that, I’d break my precious piece.” he held up his hands in a slight shrug, his attitude clearly an act to try and antagonize her. He wanted her to return to the game, so he intended to just wait out her tantrum.

“I’m not your piece, not anymore!” her voice raised, she unleashed her rain of fireballs. She was the witch of Endless 9, she destroyed the previous Demon Lord in a single strike. Something like defeating a god, no matter how powerful he was… was surely possible!

The storm of black fire completely annihilated the floating island, shattering it to dust. Her spells damage numbers popped out of the debris, again and again.

-999999999

-99999999

-9999999

Each time her spell did less and less damage. But she continued to bombard the area. Beelzebub weaved through the raging firestorm, not once showing any sign of being harmed, nor retaliating. He came to a stop, standing right in front of the ruined wall of his game room.

“Just die already, Beelzebub!” Vi screamed, rocketing forward with a burst of magical energy.

Her flames coalesced in her hands, taking the shape of a massive greatsword. All of her energy focused on one point, even he wouldn’t be able to tank that damage and survive!

He would have to fight her, her speed was too much to dodge, it couldn’t be blocked. The only way to stop her attack was to counter!

Beelzebub knew that as soon as the attack had begun, and his counterattack was already activated. A swarm of tiny insect-like creatures burst from his body, crashing over Vi like the wave of a tsunami.

Vi’s black flame sword cut into his left shoulder, slicing clean through his magical defenses, but missing the killing blow. But Vi’s charge didn’t stop, the insects tore her clothing to ribbons, her skin peeled off, her flesh sliced and severed from her bones… but she didn’t stop moving forward.

“Beelzebub!” Ignoring the pain in her body, her fingers closed tightly into a fist. Her feet hit the ground first, sliding across the barren rocky landscape. Throwing all of her weight behind a single punch, she swung at him. Her pale, small hand struck out, connecting with Beelzebub’s chin and throwing him back against the wall with a hard thud.

-9

The lowest damage number she could cause fell out of Beelzebub’s body, an utterly insignificant wound to the divine being that he was. The swarm of insects retreated from their assault on Vi, disappearing within the god’s body.

“I don’t remember you being so weak…” Beelzebub remarked, rubbing his chin. “Are you satisfied now, Vi?”

“Yeah...” Vi, her body nearly completely broken, sat down at the game board. There was no part of her body that wasn’t wounded, her red life fluid quickly draining from her already pale body. She stared at the game board, but her eyes were unfocused, they couldn’t focus. “I should have… done that years ago...”

With the last of her magic, Vi summoned to her fingers a blue playing card, almost as if mocking Beelzebub’s previous actions. She held it above the board, ready to play one more, final piece into the game.

Beelzebub seated himself on his throne, the walls of the room repairing themselves automatically, and then he waited for her to play the card. He waited, his white eyes fixed on the still form of the white witch who had challenged him for over three hundred years.

“I thought you said that you would never concede…” Beelzebub, in a rare showing of genuine emotion, gritted his teeth in annoyance, his fist closing so tightly that a drop of blood spilled from his palm. “I don’t like liars, Vi…”

The witch’s body remained deathly still. Her blood had already ceased spilling onto the wooden floor. In that closed room with no wind, nothing to disturb her hair or tattered clothing she appeared almost as if she were a statue. Her unfocused, lifeless eyes faced Beelzebub, the corners of her lips curled into a barely noticeable, almost non existent smile.

Her card fell from her fingers, landing face down on the board.

-

The burst of lightning knocked back the adventurers, protecting me for a moment. I knew it, Beelzebub would interfere with this game if I was in trouble, so if I could somehow use this to my advantage I thought.

But the world itself shuddered moments later. The sky exploded, falling like shards of glass around me. The earth rose and fell like a great earthquake, and everything began to disappear quickly into the abyss.

It was exactly like the vision Vi had given me, the memories of the end of the game. The fragmented world of the gameboard was systematically destroyed, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

“Were all of my actions hopeless after all?! Did I have no path that led to survival?!” In despair, I fell to my hands and knees, sobbing uncontrollably. “Why?! Why toy with me like this… is it so fun for you, Beelzebub?!”

I felt as though I hadn’t made any impact on the game, I was nothing but a single pawn in a complex scenario, my influence was less than nothing. Everything I did amounted to nothing in the end, and the fate of the world was entirely in the hands of the gods above.

I fell into the black abyss of the void, unable to resist the pull of the collapsing world.

The gameboard was shut, and nothing remained.