Yue Fei “Abraham Fu”, The West Heavenly King

The shockwave traveled through the car, almost throwing them off road. Yue Fei could hardly believe his eyes. The Grinning Devil did not lie about the nuke dropping. Nevertheless, even if the mushroom cloud continued to reach higher in the sky, Yue Fei was still flabbergasted. He closed the window of his car and began to fiddle around with his personal pad.

“What do we do now, West Heavenly King?” One of Jiangshi, seated in the front passenger seat, asked.

Yue Fei did not look up from his pad.

“We get back to the mainland and we report it to the higher ups.” He replied after a few seconds of awkward silence.

“You may get into trouble for failing your mission, sir.” Warned the Jiangshi seated on his right.

“Do they fucking expect me to go there and deal with a nuclear threat with just an Iron Soldier and a few Jiangshi!?” He looked up at the iron mask of the cyborg, his face red and eyes wide open.

“Sorry for irritating you, West Heavenly King.” Apologized the cyborg monotonously. That never changing voice now striking at the Heavenly King’s nerves.

Yue Fei relaxed his body, his head leaning fully on the headrest. With one hand he pinched at the bridge of his nose and sighed.

“It is not your fault…I am just…” He could not find any words to describe what he was feeling right now.

“...”

“...”

“...”

“名!” The pad of the screen was cracking under the pressure of his grip.

“...”

“...”

The driver's eyes locked with Yue Fei through the rearview mirror. After a few second of him trying to stammer out a sentence, he finally asked:

“W-would you like some sweets in these trying times?” He extended his hand. In the palm of it, there was a little plastic bag with some Kartoshka, a local sweet cake pop.

Yue Fei frowned but nonetheless leaned forward and grabbed one of the sweets from the bag.

“Since when do you enjoy this food, Kai?”

The West Heavenly King played around with the little cake.

“Well, I was curious and somehow ended up being addicted to them!” He said with flushed cheeks.

“Is that so?” He took a bite of one, the refreshing taste of rum made him hesitate a second bite.

“There are some with different fillings sir.”

“No need Kai, though I appreciate it.” Said Yue Fei leaning fully on the headrest again.

“...”

“...”

There was a strange thought that floated. He was sure that Kai had always been someone who liked salty treats.

“How’s your daughter, Kai?” Suddenly questioned Yue Fei, his eyes staring at the roof of the car.

“W-what?”

The driver’s eyes jumped to look at the rearview window, but Yue Fei was staring upward. That somehow calmed Kai down.

“She…you know how she is…” He was unable to finish his sentence.

The man known as Abraham Fu looked out of the window, his expressionless face making the driver feel a rapid spike in his heartbeat.

“Sorry, it was insensitive of me.” Apologized the Heavenly King.

“Nonono, I know how much you care about us sir!” He said with a big smile, his face all red.

“Do you?”

“Yes, sir… I still remember when you volunteered to pay for my daughter's surgery.”

“Hmph.”

“...”

“...”

“Can you slow down Kai, I am beginning to feel nauseous.” As he said that, Yue Fei cracked his knuckles, twice for his left hand and once for his right.

“I shall do that sir.” The dutiful driver did as asked.

Then, Yue Fei turned to look at the Jianshi seated in the passenger seat and looked at him with his right eye closed. After his open eye blinked twice, the Jianshi decapitated the driver with a single sweep of his hand, his own head falling on his lap. It was painless at the very least and, most importantly, not so bloody.

The car automatically turned on its automatic drive and continued to move along the only road in front of them.

“Such a pathetic attempt…” Said Yue Fei while using his pad to open the driver’s door and watching the headless corpse being thrown from the car to the road. Letting it become food for the irradiated beasts wandering around Ural Polis.

Lost most of the Iron Dragon Unit, lost an Iron Soldier and was able to salvage only this armored car and two Jiangshi. So suffocating was the stress he was under that he almost didn't notice that someone had taken the place of Kai. Thankfully outsiders did not know how the Dragon Units operated. Everyone in a Dragon unit had fabricated backstories, they learned it by heart, but only the leader, Yue Fei in this case, knew the truth about their origin. It was quite useful to catch a spy pretending to be one of them.

“Another one joins the dead…the Party would not be happy with this.” Grimly thought the Heavenly King.

Then again, his situation was already so bleak that having another one to join the tally would not change anything.

“Should I just defect to another faction?” He mused while using a handkerchief to clean the blood droplets that splashed on him.

Going back to the Party would either mean that he would get maimed, then killed because he wouldn't be as useful anymore, or he would get tortured for days, gain some serious injuries that would make him useless on the battlefield and then finally executed for being a liability.

Yue Fei pinched the bridge of his nose again. So many thoughts, so many possibilities. His eyes turned to the Jianshi. They could talk and follow orders well, but by the Overlord,were they so dull.

“I would kill for someone to bounce some ideas to.”

He had been wise to modify the cybernetic implants in their brain, making them loyal to him and not to the Party. The Iron Soldier had been tampered too but the software was too advanced to crack, so all he could do was delete traces of his attempts. Not that it mattered in the end.

Bringing them with him did not only mean that he would be safer, but it would be added value to him. But the question remained where to go.

"Any of the Churches is out of the question, so is the UEP… same for the Black Hand…" He mused, scratching his chin.

"Only one place…"

Ankara Polis, the city of many names…to some a hedonistic paradise, to others… a place where to hide and gain millions by working as an Unknown.

They had enough supplies to last the whole journey across the Black Sea; the Jianshi required minimum food intake to be in optimal conditions. The car itself was solar powered so fuel would be a non-issue. The only troublesome thing would have been if there were more assassins after him; he would have left his two cyborg bodyguards up at night just in case.

Ankara Polis was under the supervision of the South Heavenly King, and that person was the epitome of loyalty to the party. Yue Fei had died in Ural Polis, he would continue living under a new name, as an Unknown.

"I would need a title though…"

Every Unknown of some caliber would have one, either chosen by them or by the people that had seen it in action. Like the Grinning Devil, for example.

"Red-Tongued, inspired by the diào sǐ guǐ of legends… a ghost of suicide, most fitting for the position I am in." He thought with an amused smile.

He still had a long road ahead before reaching Ankara Polis, so for the first time since becoming the leader of the Iron Dragon Unit he closed his eyes and worried about nothing, not the past, present or future. For the first time in his life, he did not have someone or something breathing down on his neck, awaiting his results and expecting them to be of the highest possible quality.

It was… exhilarating, to say the least.

Father Mathias, The Oracle

His eyelids twitched furiously as his eyeballs moved erratically under them. His face white as a sheet of paper, only the drops of sweat and tears came down on the empty canvas. That is, until he released his lower lip from his bite and blood came to join the other two.

“Theyarenotrealtheyarenotrealtheyarenotreal”

The Archangel held him close to its chest; from it, tiny little metallic coils grasped every limb of the priest, holding him immobilized. It was its main job to keep Father Mathias alive; even if he was trying to kill himself, Michael would not allow it. What a pathetic state.

Father Mathias feared to open his eyes and see what was around him. It all started after he saw those dancing figures in the blast. As if he had been cursed, they chased after him. At first it was almost imperceptible, then they began to appear at the edge of his vision, whispering to him. He ordered the Archangel to destroy these constructs of the EUP, clearly sent to mock him. But it refused.

He could not believe it. This… this thing had dared to not follow his order? He was one of the Seven Archbishops of the Church of Redemption! HE WAS A BIG SHOT! HE HAD SWEAT BLOOD TO REACH THIS POINT AND THIS FUCKING THING TRIED TO DISOBEY?!

That’s how he ended up in this state Held down by the thing that was supposed to protect him. At first it felt good, the shadows stopped whispering to his ear… but then they began to speak in his mind. His own inner voice was gone, it was theirs now. Father Mathias could only bite hard on his lower lip, hoping that the pain would keep him grounded in reality.

“You were always a pathetic thing,Mathias.”“Still the same kid…still the same failure.”“How low the mighty falls.”“You were not meant to travel this far.”“That greed has been your downfall.”“Piece of shit - Liar - Bastard - Son of a Bitch - Motherfucker - Scum.” They shouted in his ears. Their words cut deep into his very soul.

“You even sold your family and still failed! Hahaha!” Spoke to one of them, its voice somewhat familiar.

"Brother!?" The shock from hearing a dead man's voice was enough to make him open his eyes and look for him. What a grave mistake.

There was no road, no forest or greenery under him to speak of. Everything had been replaced by strange worm-like creatures that moved on the surface. It took only a few seconds to notice that the worms were made by conjoined humans; their every movement causing them injuries and eliciting cries of pain.

On top of the "head" of these grotesque beings stood the only human with a naked, fully formed upper body. From his bald head, two lamb-like horns stood proudly, one of them dripping black tar to the ground below. It looked at Father Mathias with its empty eye sockets and his voice reverberated like that of a dragon.

“Finally, he joins us… we have been waiting for you for a long, long time…” It spoke. Every word of his sentence making Mathias reel in pain as if his insides were being crushed. The priest did not notice the blood freely flowing from his every orifice, his red eyes wide open staring at the Beast of the Earth, not missing a single twitch of its decaying lips.

"You are not real you… you Demon!" Shouted Mathias in a feeble attempt to gain control over his fears. When the Beast smiled, the Oracle's heart sank.

"I am as real as you make me to be brother…" It smiled mockingly, its arms wide open, as if awaiting an embrace.

"You demon! Taking-"

"The only one taking here… is you…" - it interrupted, his thundering voice making Father Mathias feel metal in his mouth - "...you'd make our father proud."

"Shut Up Shut Up - SHUT UP!" Bile started to rise up from the stress he was feeling, his throat starting to feel its burning sting.

“Join us brother, please… I - we have missed you a lot.” Its voice had become softer, almost like a whisper. Yet the words themselves had become distorted, as if multiple people were speaking. And he could recognize them all.

Father Mathias vision from his only remaining eye started to become fuzzy as all the capillaries on it blew, turning his whole eye red and, after a few agonizing seconds, stealing away his sight. His last image had been the Beast’s giant grin, so wide that it started to rip apart its cheeks. The last spark of consciousness went out with that last smile.

Father Mathias awoke, for what seemed to him, days later. He was on a bed, with a single thin, white blanket on him. All around him was dark, except for the rays of light that got inside from one of the cracks on the stone wall. There was only him and the bed in this room, not even a nightstand or a table in it; it looked more like a prison each passing second.

But for Father Mathias this place had an important place in his heart; this was, after all, where he began his ascension to the title of Archbishop. Had the Archangel brought him back to the Blessed Land while he was out of it? It was impossible, it could not travel that fast with him on it.

Then his face turned pale and he frowned deeply remembering the Beast of the Earth. The priest started to look at every nook and cranny of his dark room; he even got up and checked for any traces of it, moving the bed frame to the room’s corner and peeking through the crack on the wall. There was nothing like that.

“Ha..haha..hahahah.”

He began to laugh, sitting on the bed’s side.

Then a sound of a faraway trumpet turned his attention back at the single wooden door in the room. It beckoned to him, and Father Mathias would always follow the calling of the Angels. As he opened the door, limping closer and closer to it. Glancing at the crack, he could see from it the outside world… or what remained of it, as hale and fire mingled with blood burned up everything green around this place.

He was able to reach the outside of his room and put his foot down the long hall that seemed to go into the horizon before him. The hall itself was made by the same stone of his room, although clearly more well taken care of. On the sides of the hall there were rampant open arches that allowed Mathias to look at the burning vegetation under him. The coldness of the stone he had been feeling under his feet slowly disappeared as the fire drew closer to the skyway hall. In all that chaos, there was a lake that stood undisturbed by all of this. The sight of it somehow calmed down the ramping anxiety of Mathias.

The second trumpet sounded. From the blue sky, he saw a falling star, but he felt all but lucky. Its slowly approaching shape was weirdly reminiscent of something he had already seen. His fears turned into reality when the third trumpet sounded and what could only be described as a great mountain impacted into the lake.

The strength of the impact sent all the water out of its basin, some even reaching Mathias himself, who found himself sitting on his butt as the tsunami crashed onto the skyway. Looking down at himself, he saw the water on his clothes turn into a dark red color. He felt a particularly intolerable bitterness in his mouth that forced him to spit out the water that he had inadvertently drunk. But to no avail, that horrid taste remained with him until he got up and decided to continue walking.

Looking outside, the lake was no more. At the center stood a massive celestial body that seemed to ooze this dark red substance. The fire around it had been put out from the huge waves of water that had been thrown on it, allowing the priest to see the pathetic state of the earth and vegetation it had devoured. The ground had become cracked and was slowly turning to dust; no plant life was in sight.

He nevertheless continued his walk, the end of this hall nowhere on the horizon. After a few hours, he looked out of the arches and caught a glimpse of the sun. As soon as he did so, he heard the fourth trumpet. Immediately, night - no, it could not be called that - a curtain of darkness befall the world. Father Mathias panicked as his sight was yet again stolen from him, he crawled into a shivering ball, the cold stone only adding to his twitching. On his lips, the sacred chants of the Church of Redemption.

After eight hours, light started to filter through the arches. Father Mathias pupils widened at the sight of the sun rays illuminating the inside of the hall. Tears mark had started to deeply carve on his cheeks. He cleaned himself using his sleeve and proceeded forward. It was not courage pushing him to go, but the fear of that darkness coming back again and leaving nothing of him once the lights came back.

An Angel, a real one, not one of those mechanical abominations that his Church had created, came inside into the hall through one of the arches. Its radiant eyes blinded Father Mathias when he looked at them. When it opened its mouth to speak, the priest felt his legs go weak and his vision growing dim.

“Woe, woe, woe, to those who dwell on the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!”

Once it warned the barely conscious human in front of it, it took flight again, leaving the priest distraught and confused.

The fifth trumpet sounded. Father Mathias had no time to react when another falling star crashed into the hallway, sending him tumbling down the skyway. Once he opened his eyes again, he saw a bottomless pit that stretched down into the Earth’s core. Somewhere in there one could find Father Mathias’ heart. From the Abyss, a column of smoke rose up and darkened the air and blocked the sunlight. But that was not the end.

As the priest was putting his hands on his head and pulling on his hair, grotesque beings started to march out of the Abyss. They were humanoid in shape, but they lacked skin; every movement caused their muscles to twitch and spill some ground around them. Father Mathias could not resist his urge to vomit.

He fell down on his knees, dirtying his pants in the process as his own vomit spread all over his legs. One creature stood out among all that filth. It was carried on a bloody triclinium; its body looked the same as its brethren all thought this one was smaller, its limbs atrophied and it did not twitch its muscles and spill out blood like any of them.

The sixth trumpet sounded. From behind him, he saw six shadowy creatures climbing on the skyway and entering it through the arches. All of them humanoid in their shape, though they bore no other distinguishing features as they were made from Nyx herself. Father Mathias hugged himself and started praying once he noticed the horns on the shadowy creature's head . Once their “eyes'' locked, a bloody smile appeared on their faces.

He wanted to run, but his legs would not respond to his commands. He punched them, kicked them, bit them… he tried everything, but to no avail. Then a voice boomed in the air.

“ThE kINGdOm Of the woRlD HAs bEcoME tHE kingDoM of oUr LoRD ANd OF hIs MESsIaH, and hE WiLl REign fOreVeR aND Ever.”So intense was the pressure of it, that Father Mathias passed out. In his last moments of consciousness, he heard the battle between the Shadow Being and the Beasts.

“I hope that they all rot on this Earth, GR and that Head Bitch …” That was Father Mathias' last thought before the last spark of life in his brain died with him.

???

“What happened to you, poor child?” Said an elderly man to the corpse in front of him

The man, wearing purple garments similar to that of the deceased Oracle, gently laid his omophorion, a long, white velvet embroidered scarf on the head of the priest’s corpse. He turned his head to the side, in an attempt to hide the tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Have someone check Archangel Michael’s memory core… I must know what happened to my disciple.”

The woman on his right, wearing a long, unembroidered and black cossack nodded and walked outside of the room. The opening of the door brings a semblance of light into the room. Once it was closed, light came only from a small crack in the stone wall.

The elderly man fell on his knees, his hand clutching at Father Mathias’s tattered clothes. The sound of his sobbings was the only thing that echoed inside that room.

“Oh my dear Mathias… I will destroy the one who did this to you!” He shouted.