Blessed by Night

Three thoughts crossed his mind in that moment.

\'You know… I\'m glad I told the girls to go to bed before I came here. They don\'t need to see this.\'

\'I wonder if my head is ever going to stop spinning. I\'m getting dizzy.\'

\'Wait a second... I think I feel something...\'

Malachi wasn\'t out of his mind. He wasn\'t feeling any pain.

There did exist some mild feeling of discomfort, but that aside, he barely noticed anything.

In fact, his body... it was tingling. It had been since earlier actually.

"I\'m not the sort of opponent you stand still with, boy! Don\'t get idle on me!"

Satan\'s provocation was like the jolt that Malachi needed to get his head on straight... Literally and figuratively.

As Satan\'s foot came barreling back towards his chest, Malachi made his body gaseous so that he wouldn\'t accidentally get his chest caved in.

Simultaneously, he had his bracelets take the form of two electrically charged maces.

He swung his maces on either side of Satan\'s knee to crush the bones inside and render the leg useless.

However, his weapons never came within ten inches of striking distance, because Satan caught them with his bare hands before they could.

As if the moment couldn\'t get even worse,he made Mal really uncomfortable as he stroked the cold metal and made some... interesting noises.

"Oooh.. Really nice kid. These\'ve got some great grip feel to them. Let me take them for a whirl sometime!"

"...Funny."

Electricity crackled around Malachi\'s body and a large bolt of cyan lightning fell out of the sky.

When it dropped onto Satan\'s head, Mal was expecting for there to be some sort of resistance.

A wince. A look of surprise. Some mild dismay?

No… nothing... there was nothing.

Satan didn\'t even look phased in the slightest.

In hindsight, he should have expected this from the very same man who had just been set on fire earlier.

"Don\'t waste my time here, kid! Be creative, or go suck on Nyx\'s bosom again!" Satan taunted.

"...You are so lucky I don\'t carry a crucifix around."

Malachi\'s body dissolved into a pool of black water.

The liquid spread across the entirety of the sandy floor until it seemed like Satan was standing on a small lake.

The king of wrath felt his mood beginning to damper.

"I said be creative, not HIDE!!"

Satan raised his leg high in the air.

Before he could stomp it on the ground and cut this hiding nonsense short, a huge black crow lunged out of the ground and clawed at his face.

Bu what was a little bird to the first King of Wrath?

Satan easily tore the bird apart with his bare hands and he didn\'t even have a scratch to show for it in the end.

However, as soon as the bird turned back into a black water, a huge snake wrapped around his body next.

It was followed by two lions, four more birds, and what felt like the entire animal kingdom.

Every time that Satan put down one animal, it seemed like three more took it\'s place.

But this busy work was really starting to get annoying. He didn\'t like animals all that much to begin with either.

Satan roared so loudly that the heavens could probably hear him. Every shadowy beast in his vicinity exploded and turned into puddles.

Finally, Satan could see Malachi at the very back of the colosseum on all fours.

Electricity crackled along his paws and he shot forward with a speed that was just a bit inferior to what Satan had displayed earlier.

Feeling challenged, the king of wrath laughed maniacally as he rushed forward to meet him.

In Satan\'s left hand he held an insidious-looking rusted axe. In the other, there was a short rusted sword.

As they grew closer, Satan left a very visible opening as bait.

At the moment that Malachi took it, he was going to cut those annoying little wiggle worms off his back and flay open his belly!

You know, as a joke.

Roaring, the two finally came into close contact and as Satan expected, Malachi took the bait.

He clenched his fist and threw out the fiercest haymaker the animal kingdom had ever seen.

Satan, who greatly enjoyed the pain of war and even got off on it, had no intention to avoid this attack.

And sure enough, at the very moment that Malachi\'s fist connected with Satan\'s jaw, Satan stabbed Malachi in the stomach and severed two of the four tails on his back.

But the greatest surprise of the century occurred when both men screamed in agony.

This marked the end of their confrontation.

Because out of nowhere, the very sky seemed to turn against them.

A large woman made from stars and darkness appeared and towered over the entire coliseum.

She lifted up Malachi by the nape of his neck and cradled him in her palm.

Wincing in pain from his wounds, Malachi looked up at a figure who was both eerily familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

And yet, Malachi knew her like the back of his hand.

"...That you, ma? You look a little different in this univ-" Experience new tales on мѵʟ

"Not. One. Word." Nyx said firmly.

After making sure that Malachi was alright, Nyx turned her attention to Satan, who was sitting in the sand fondling his broken jaw with a perplexed expression.

Or at least he was. Until Nyx smushed him with the pad of her finger like he was an ant in her kitchen.

By some miracle, Satan was able to avoid being crushed completely was by pushing against her in a show of titanic strength.

"H-Hey, cool your pits, woman!! It was an agreed upon spar! Just a bit of men being men! Believe me, if I wanted to kill the brat at any time, then I could-"

Nyx applied just the faintest bit more force and Satan was squished.

His remains looked like a ketchup packet in the middle of the street.

Of course he immediately tried to reform himself... but Nyx only squished him again.

And again..

And again...

This persisted for a couple of minutes before Mal stood up in his mother\'s hand while holding his side.

"Ma, that\'s enough. It was my decision to do this, nobody tied my arm behind my back. I\'m a grown man who can deal with the consequences of his own decisions and fight his own battles."

Nyx looked at her son out of the corner of her eye.

Unbeknownst to him, parts of his body were dissolving into thin air; albeit very slowly.

"...Leave it." She demanded.

Malachi was a bit disoriented, but he didn\'t have to ask his mother what she meant.

His body shimmered and soon he was back to normal with Zazu, Serosh, and Ajani all surrounding him.

Only then did Nyx\'s gaze seemed to soften a little bit, but it was honestly clear that she was still quite troubled.

"Honestly... What do you expect any of us to do with you?"