The black castle rumbled as people screamed. On the ground, every attack sent at the apparition just seemed to be absorbed by it as they tried desperately to stop it. But as everyone looked on, the thing swung again and again, causing the projection of the massive black snake behind it to fade more and more as it roared in anger.

"Where the hell is Laz?" Nesha yelled as she looked for his steady presence.

"How do you expect Laz to handle something like that?" Pooja yelled back, the dust and energy from the attacks flying in all directions.

No one could see the still form of Laz, standing idle as a sword manifested in his hands, it’s dark energy beginning to creep into his body as it’s seals broke, causing Laz’s veins to darken as though some infection began to ravage his body.

It took all his strength to no throw the blade away with the feeling it gave him.

"It’s open. I’m free..." The shadow dragon yelled as it made for the door.

Before it could reach it, it felt the world fall away from it as everything began to turn in circles.

Standing behind him, Laz looked down at the beast that had given them so much trouble and couldn’t help but feel that chopping off it’s head was somehow anti-climatic. But turning to face the thing in the sky, Laz knew the real fight had just begun.

Laz didn’t hesitate. Even though the thing was in the sky and a ways up, it was still within reach. And seeing as how it was distracted, Laz knew he had one chance to strike at it before he gained it’s attention.

Bringing the blade back, Laz leapt towards the apparition’s neck and swung wildly, slicing a massive gash in the flesh like pressing a hot knife through butter. Just as he had expected, his actions caused the thing to rear back and roar loudly as Laz stabbed the blade in deep and took hold, hoping to hang on as long as he could.

Unfortunately, the apparition was quick to react and began swatting at itself in a effort to smash whatever had caused it harm. Without another option, Laz pushed off with his legs and drew out the blade before flinging himself wildly out of the way. Like swatting a mosquito, it brought it hands down upon it’s neck and came back with rivulets of blood from it’s own body, something that shouldn’t have been able to happen. Seeing this caused the thing to finally ignore the castle and focus on Laz.

As such, Laz now stood facing an even bigger threat before. As he gave himself more distance between himself and the nameless god, his troops tried to rush over to support him, only for him to scream out,

"GO BACK! GET INSIDE AND STAY THERE!" As he moved farther and farther away, trying to keep the things attention. At the moment, it was only hovering there in half it’s body, that being the upper half and even that was some strange collection of twisting horror that was hard to see. As for the arm that it had produced earlier to attack, that thing was more like a collection of tightly wound tentacles than an actual arm, of course that didn’t matter anyway since only Laz could look upon it and not lose his mind. Even then, doing so put an unnatural strain on his brain.

As the troops followed Laz orders, Hera, Pooja and the other god level beings began rushing to Laz’s side, but he waved them back as well. Thanks to his bloodline memories, he knew that even full cycle, regular gods couldn’t deal with a chaos god. They wouldn’t even be able to harm a toe if it had one. Maybe ancient gods could, but even that was up for debate as once one entered the chaos realm such a change happened that they became so far apart from existence that they no longer needed to follow certain laws of the omniverse.

If they meant you harm, there would be no saving you. The only thing that kept this apparition in check was that it was only a soul speck of a chaos god and they were in a split off dimension with limits.

What Laz didn’t know and what this spirit spec was currently experiencing was that if there was a being that could impose limits on a dimension, even to one such as the nameless god, then it would have had to have been stronger than the nameless god while it was alive. While this was a crazy thought to the nameless god, it couldn’t shake the truth of that.

’It could only be that remnant of a divine beast,’ it had thought to itself more than once.

But that didn’t matter. While that beast was there, it’s strength was suppressed. But it also couldn’t harm it in any way or it would have already. What could harm it was this god being who wasn’t even at the full circle of godhood, meaning that it must possess an extraordinary means in which to do so, like the sword in it’s hand.

Laz felt the apparition eyeing the blade as well and knew that he had to play keep away just long enough for the apparition to fade and they would be in the clear. After all, he knew he couldn’t fight it and win. He was confident in himself, but Laz also wasn’t stupid.

Seeing it’s eyes on it, Laz started to run when a black figure appeared in front of him, it’s form covered in a dark robe that covered it from head to toe. Looking back, Laz noticed the apparition in the sky was gone and knew it had somehow appeared in front of it.

*GIVE ME THE BLADE!* Came the shrieking demand to Laz’s head. It was so powerful it almost made Laz drop to his knees, but a surge in his blood along with a burning desire to resist blew up inside of him and Laz swung at the thing.

It’s body faded like it had never been there before appearing right beside him. Laz turned and swung again, his body falling away while the blade flashed. But just like before, the figured faded just as it was hit and appeared again, almost at the spot Laz was about to fall to.

Almost as though he was dancing, Laz flung himself and the blade around, attacking the thing while staying away from it at the same time. While he hadn’t received training with a blade himself, the asura who’s memories Laz had experienced combined with the martial arts training he had received so long ago proved to be effective in keeping him from making a mistake and falling into the thing. Laz had the feeling that if he did so, it would be game over.

While this went on, Laz had a bad feeling. This thing shouldn’t be so passive and yet it was just following him around with seemingly no rush to attack him. Had it tried to strike him like it did the black castle, then what chance would he have to survive? Sure, it would waste it’s energy faster and might get slightly injured as a result, but it would be over by now.

What was more, while it still gave off a dangerous feeling, it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as when it had first appeared in the air.

’Only half as deadly? Wait...’

Laz swung the sword around in a massive arc, launching streaks of black flames everywhere as he did so, flames that not only burned the body, but the soul. The beast shrieked and put it out quickly, but there was another shriek in the distance.

"THERE IS ANOTHER BODY IN THE BLACK CASTLE!" Laz yelled out, making sure everyone heard him.

Those in the castle reacted immediately, rushing to find the intruder while Hera, Pooja and most of the gods in the fortress flew up to the black castle as quickly as possible.

"NAGI IS MISSING!" Hera called back loudly after a moment. Looking at the beast in front of it, Laz almost thought he saw it smile.

"You son of a bitch!" Laz said, striking out again with the blade while punching to the side, causing the beast to again be hit with the black flame. While Laz had been fighting it, he had been learning it’s movements and was able to predict where it would go to some degree. While the black flames didn’t pose much of a threat to it, it was a flame that burned the soul and this creature was nothing but soul.

It screamed and retreated back a bit, but the scream from the castle was what he was looking for.

"TRACK THE SOUND!" Laz yelled back to Hera who understood immediately and began running to where the scream had come from.

"THE GATE!!!" Came the voice of Two from inside the fortress, grabbing Laz’s attention and causing him to look over at it for a brief moment.

And in that brief moment Laz caught sight of a headless shadow man making it’s way into the gate and vanishing from sight.

"FUCK!"