Audrina recognized this feeling all too well.
Anxiety.
Her thoughts beca suspended. She moved on autopilot, dropping the veil around her darkness and revealing them to the outside world.
Looking down, Audrina shuddered at what she found. Had she been paying attention, she would have noticed that even Dagon seed surprised by what he was seeing in front of them.
"ISABELLE!"
Audrina's shriek of horror cut through the vastness of space for several light years.
-
"This is... certainly a change."
Abaddon tried to hide his look of approval as Courtney rolled around on the back of a large blue whale.
"How was I supposed to hurt this little guy?? He's so cute!" Courtney kissed the large whale affectionately. "He can even shrink! Do the thing, handso-boy."
"B-Babe..." Aj blushed.
"N-Not you!"
Apophis and Belloc crinkled their noses in disgust. Bashenga looked relatively unbothered as he drank from a coconut.
The kun peng blew a jet of water out of it's back, lifting Courtney's body into the air like a loose sheet of paper blown by the wind.
She laughed innocently and in a carefree manner. It ward Abaddon's heart to see her in that state.
"Dad, I wanna keep him!"
It didn't warm his heart that much.
"Funny, Courtney. Very funny, darling." Abaddon started to walk away.
"Co on, I'm serious! I want to keep him!"
"People in hell want ice water." Abaddon said over his shoulder.
"Dad!"
Abaddon turned around but held his hands up in surrender. "Look, your moms told we were all done with pets after they let keep Bayle."
"B-But Mira and Thea have pets!"
Abaddon yawned. "Your oldest sister is a grown woman who has her own realm, kingdom, and two children as well. And Mira... she has your brother to help clean up."
Apophis' eyes beca dark and faraway. "I've cleaned bat god guano out of places no one should ever have to clean bat god guano..."
Abaddon patted his son on the shoulder. "Thank you for your sacrifice, son. And for reminding why Mira is not allowed to make her room any bigger than a downtown apartnt."
Truthfully, his daughter still looked like she was unconvinced, but Abaddon still wasn't budging.
"Sorry, kiddo. Unless you can convince your moms, then I doubt that..."
Suddenly, Abaddon went down while holding his ears.
His heartbeat was loud enough to be heard even outside of his chest. All four of his eyes were wide open and red with irritation.
"DAD!"
Courtney forgot all about her kun peng and leapt off it's back while rushing to her father.
Before she could reach him, all three of her brothers went down as well.
Next ca her grandfathers. Her uncles.
One by one, everyone on the guys' trip went down, aside from Shin, Aj, Mateo, and Ziz.
Courtney's panic was imdiate.
It didn't fade away, even when her father stood up, with scales beginning to cover his face, and his horns were doubling in length.
"Satan! With !"
"Hell yeah!"
Satan got up with bleeding ears and rushed to Abaddon's side.
Courtney knew her father was fast, but seeing him blink in and out of existence impressed and terrified her to no end.
It also filled her mind with questions- naly, what could have been the cause to make him rush off like that.
-
Eleven different rips ford in space.
From each of them, a horrifically large dragon erged from the cracks with flas licking from their nostrils and their eyes glowing with malice.
They surveyed the area all at once before they found what they were looking for.
Odd ruble floated harmlessly through space, both organic and tallic alike.
Normally, Lailah would have been intrigued by the sight and pursued it for further investigation. But as of right now, there was sothing far more important on her mind.
Suspended in the air by shadow was a man that Abaddon knew full well. As soon as he saw him, Abaddon appeared in front of him as a colossal figure.
His ten heads hissed in agitation as he stared down at Dagon. The vampire tried to et his eyes, but before he could do so, blood began running freely from his tear ducts.
'What.. Did you do to her?'
Hearing Abaddon's voice in his mind only worsened the stress on his body.
His eardrums burst, and several of his internal organs ruptured.
"...What did I do...? Nothing at all."
Satan hopped off of Abaddon's shoulder and cracked his knuckles.
"This is less of a party than what I thought I would be walking into... You'll have to keep entertained to make up for my disappointnt."
Slowly, the girls descended from the sky and hesitantly approached Audrina.
Four figures were lying on the ground.
Three of their distinguished Euphrates and Isabelle were in a bad way.
A strange corruption was taking place on their bodies. Their armor and even their bodies were showing signs of mutation and discoloration.
Even stranger, after a few monts, the affected areas were calcifying, almost like they were turning to stone...
Behind them, Gandora, L'asir, and Nyx were watching Audrina from a safe distance. Their eyes were full of worry.
The only sound that could be heard was that of the girls gently coming closer, and Audrina trying to shake her sister awake.
"Isabelle... Isabelle, it's Drina, I-I need you to open your eyes for , okay..?"
Isabelle groaned in response. Her voice was weak, and her breath even weaker. "I'm not... exactly asleep... I am tired though.."
"W-Well, don't go to sleep right now, okay..? We need to take you ho and get you looked at so that you can be all better..."
More and more of Isabelle's body was turning to stone as the seconds went by. The sa applied to the three Euphrates lying beside her.
Audrina glanced over her shoulder at her loved ones who were approaching.
"I-I need help..!"
She barely had to ask.
In an instant, Eris, Lillian, and Lailah were at her side.
"Tell what you know about this so far." Lailah said as she tied back her hair.
"I-I..."
"It's got sothing to do with the monster these guys got touched by." Nyx answered. "T-They had like these burns on their skin, and... this happened."
Laialh couldn't believe that sothing like an infection could cause this sort of reaction in a Nevi'im.
Isabelle's breathing was still shallow. The petrification was still spreading.
"She's not dying... I can't feel an end to her lifespan." Lillian said.
The girls knew her words were of no comfort.
If Isabelle died, Lillian could at least revive her.
And there were so many other fates that were worse than death. So many kinds of torture that break the mind and soul.
Laialh's eyes widened as she looked past the surface of Isabelle's body towards the soul. "This...."
She turned her head towards the sky. "Aba-"
Abaddon was at her side before she could even finish calling for him.
"She needs rejuvenation. E-Enough to purge the soul of foreign influence."
Abaddon nodded.
His skin turned pitch-black, his tattoos golden.
As a shining light shone from his eyes, a heavenly radiance was released from his body.
In that mont, Abaddon released the single largest output of aether that he had ever produced in his entire life.
As he did so, Eris accompanied him by releasing her own inner divine source.
Together, the two sources rged to create unparalleled phenona.
They transford the very essence of the universe around them and affected the lives of every creature inside of it.
But they didn't care about that for now.
At present, their only worry was fixing Isabelle.
During the process, Abaddon exerted his dominion over Isabelle's soul.
He could now see what Lailah had seen. This petrification wasn't just affecting Isabelle's body, but also her soul.
Imdiately, he tried to purge the parasites that were already attached to her.
"Ugh..!" Isabelle tossed and turned with her eyes closed.
"W-What's going on..?!" Audrina tried to hold her sister's hand, but Lailah wisely held her back.
"This infection..." Abaddon began hollowly. "It's as if it has tastasized to her very soul... I can't pull it out without taking pieces of her soul with it."
Roughly 35% of Isabelle's soul was infected so far, compared to 60% of her body.
As much as Abaddon wanted to purge Isabelle's soul, he couldn't. Not without taking chunks of her with it.
Her mories, personality, hell, possibly even so of her powers. There was no telling just how much she could lose, or what she could lose.
The damage could have been as small as forgetting her favorite color. Or she could forget ever having a sister.
And that didn't just go for Isabelle.
The very sa concept applied to his fallen soldiers, too.
Audrina was beginning to panic.
"O-Okay, well she just needs more ti, right..?"
Audrina snapped her fingers.
Ti ca to a dead stop throughout the universe, and she exhaled a deep, heavy breath.
"O-Okay, now we..."
"D-Drina...!"
Lailah pointed to the petrification on Isabelle's stomach.
Sohow, so way, it was still progressing. Even with ti completely frozen.
Audrina began to hyperventilate. She squird uncomfortably in Lailah's arms as she hysterically tried to reach her sister.
Lillian was no longer willing to be patient.
Underneath the gaze of everyone in attendance, she lifted up her sleeves and sharpened her claws.
Stabbing herself in the chest, she wrapped her fingers around her heart, and yanked it free...
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