First Demonic Dragon - Chapter 1080
Chapter 1080: A Pertanent Distraction
Ever since he was born, Straga had possessed anger issues.
Abaddon often thought he had cursed his son with that trait. Though Valerie and Seras are usually unwilling to let him take the full blame on himself.
Despite being such a kind person, when Straga was young, he could throw tantrums that lasted for days at a time.
He wasn’t a malevolent person. But back then, his brain was literally not equipped to control himself.
He got much better with it as he grew older, especially after meeting Monica.
When she was around, he could almost find nothing to be mad about. Such was the power of love.
But Straga didn’t have Monica today. And with the arrival of Percival’s faction, all that he could remember was how his oldest brother came home with a hole in his chest.
The third son had barely been keeping himself together ever since Percival showed up in the stadium.
After seeing the women in chains, Straga’s hearing went fuzzy. He didn’t hear anything else said after that.
And then he saw Percival turn around while pointing towards his family with that annoying smile.
That was all it took for his thread of reasoning to snap.
The sky seemed to collapse in on itself.
An enormous fist made of scales and flame fell through the powdery white clouds at the speed of light.
For nearly everyone in attendance, all they saw was a flash of light before their world was consumed by fire.
“Straga!”
Thea appeared above the crowd and held out her hand.
A barrier of magic appeared between the flames and the crowd.
When the two opposing forces collided, there was a calamitous rumble as a fierce quake seized the entire colosseum.
Some gods covered their heads and shrieked.
Other deities made their own barriers just in case Thea’s failed.
Such a cause for concern was completely unfounded from the very beginning.
“Straga, stop!”
Straga’s eyes regained their usual luster and clarity when he heard his sister call for him.
He looked around in a disgruntled daze, not yet comprehending the gravity of what he had almost done.
Straga felt no remorse about attacking. He felt guilty that, in his rage, he had attacked indiscriminately.
Perhaps only a third of the gods would have survived if his attack had followed through. But he didn’t see that in the moment.
His face burned with anger and embarrassment.
“Apophis.”
Thea landed on the colosseum grounds in he mist of the demon horde. Her brother followed, radiating a heat that caused most of the demons to shrink back.
“Thanks for the assist there, kiddies. We might’ve really been up shit’s creek there for a moment if it weren’t for you…. some people just can’t help themselves, can they?”
Thea and Apophis ignored all of Percival’s taunting as they kept moving through the crowd.
The only indication that they heard him was that Apophis’ aura was gradually getting hotter.
They moved to the back of the pack, where Beelzebub was sweating profusely underneath Apophis’ unsurvivable heatwave.
His skin began to blister and bubble. The air began to smell slightly of beef tallow and fried bologna.
“Ugh..! Keep this up, I’ll consider this an assault if you don’t fuck off back to daddy right now! Do I look like the kind of bloke who needs a tan?” Beelzebub gestured to his grotesque blue skin.
Apophis’ aura diminished, but not for the sake of Beelzebub.
They walked behind the blue demon and kneeled on the ground beside the three women chained to his waist.
With a thought, Apophis melted a small segment of the chains and separated the two parties.
“Oi! Those don’t belong to you!”
Beelzebub reached for Thea’s hand, but he didn’t get within two feet of her before one of Mira’s sharp, icy knives was a hair’s breadth away from his nose.
Thea knelt beside the demon queens and pulled the barbed collars out of their necks. Starting with Lilith.
The first wife of Adam wept as the metal was pulled out of her flesh. They were embedded so deeply that Thea couldn’t believe they weren’t coughing up blood every time they took a breath.
“Hey! What kind of treatment is this, mother goddess?!” Beelzebub turned around and flailed his arms in agitation. “These two are stealing from me and the demon faction right in front of your faces!”
Asherah, while often passive, was still a larger-than-life power in the heavens.
Something that was reflected when she crushed the podium underneath her grip and grew to a colossal size.
The floor of the colosseum vanished, leaving nothing but the clouds to hold up the demonic denizens. And they had visible trouble keeping their bearings.
Asherah pointed an enormous finger at Beelzebub and spoke with a voice so loud that it ruptured his eardrums.
“You and your faction prove yourselves a consistent blight on these proceedings every time that you open your mouths in these sacred grounds!
You are in no position to make objections here! Your faction’s desire to play the role of provocateurs is tasteless, craven, and cause for capital punishment!
If you believe our rules to be something that you can trapse around with as you wish, then you are sorely mistaken! If you speak foulness in these hallowed halls again, the Judicator will be permitted to remove you by any means necessary!”
The emphasis on Asherah’s final words rattled the bones of every demon in attendance.
Thea and Apophis finished pulling the barbs out of the demon queens’ necks.
Together with Mira, they picked up Eisheth, Lilith, and Naamah and brought them toward their family.
Percival let out an impressed whistle.
“Such a polite show of fellowship… The demon queens aren’t exactly good people, you know? They would hardly have done the same for you if the shoe were on the other foot.”
For the first time, Thea stopped in her tracks as if she couldn’t let those words go.
She didn’t turn back to Percival, but he could most certainly feel her gaze on him.
“…That doesn’t matter to me. They are who they are, and I am who I am. And I don’t let people suffer in front of me.”
Thea went back to the stands without wasting another word on him.
She didn’t see it, but everyone else there did. The twisted, vengeful glare that bore into Thea’s back. It was one so ferocious that none here would easily forget it anytime soon.
With a look alone, everyone in attendance knew for a fact that, however bad they believed Percival to be, the reality was more than a thousand times worse.
Even Lucifer hadn’t been this great an evil.
He sneered as he went back to his seat, forgetting all about picking with Abaddon and his family.
“What do I care if you take them…? We can always get more dogs.”
Every god in attendance was suddenly wishing that they had at least come to this place with more armor and a few weapons.
– 30 Minutes Later…
It took some time, but eventually the matter of the trial actually did get underway.
Asherah brought out the accused, and he sat chained to the podium while the people with knowledge of him and the crime gave their testimonies.
Even Baba Yaga had been called to testify. Though she was clearly daunted by the pressure, as she would occasionally stumble on her words and her cheeks would become flushed red.
Her testimony took around ten minutes. Barely anyone listened to it; they were all focused on the fierce staredown between Abaddon and Percival.
Within the first five minutes, almost everyone had picked out an exit to run to in case things got hectic.
With Baba Yaga’s testimony over, next came the kidnapped god of tricksters. And since so few people here were paying attention, that meant he got to ramble on as long as he wanted…
“So at first, I’m thinking ‘Man. This kid is unstable! I gotta do everything he says so that he doesn’t try to turn me into meatloaf and feed me to one of his neighbors!’
But then, after I had been there for a while, he proved that he was way more sinister than I thought!” Loki said in a grim voice.
The five gods who were still listening leaned forward.
“He bought wings from Wingstop, but he got garlic parmesan flavor! Can you believe that shit? Who the hell eats Wingstop and doesn’t get original hot, or lemon pepper?? Serial killers, that’s who!”
Suddenly, the five gods were no longer listening.
“And let me tell you, this bastard was cheap!” Loki continued. “Not only did he have a fucked up taste in wing flavors, but he literally never shelled out for the large ranches!
I mean come on! You robbed your family for a couple of million dollars, but you won’t spend three extra bucks to make sure your hostages are properly fed!? Do I look like Aphrodite to you!? I don’t like putting dry meat in my mouth, damnit!!”
As Loki gave the most insufferable testimony imaginable, Abaddon was still focused on his stare-down with Percival.
Suddenly, he noticed his hated enemy reach inside his jacket pocket, where he removed something unexpected.
A bright red pen and some notecards.
With his smile returned, he started scribbling something down, and Abaddon braced himself for another wave of childish, irritable antics from a soon to be dead demon.
Percival lifted up the first note card, knowing Abaddon was watching.
And when the dragon saw what was written on the card, his eyes widened dramatically.
Nice house.
SOMEBODY GIVE ME MY THEME MUSIC