Please note that the events in the next two chapters take place during the course of 'Storm of Tactics and Before Now', not after.
Hope you enjoy...
Limits - Part I
While Mordus continued his path over the bridge the great creature stalking him in the river bed finally revealed itself.
"Your power…" the strange beast cried, "It's so raw and pure."
"Tatyana," Mordus responded unsheathing his cutlass, "if you want it come and get it."
In an instance, four spider-like legs jousted out of the water on opposite sides of Mordus and drove through his body at inverse sides. The red road of blood dissolved into the river as Mordus' sword fell and Tatyana rose from the water in a hideous form of tentacles waving and slithering over themselves. With this appearance it was unsure to see where exactly Mordus' death trap came from or if this was Tatyana's true form or not.
Four of the mobile tentacles opened up at their tips and began to take onto Mordus' limbs as to swallow him whole while he lay unconscious.
"Yes, even when you came to plead with Aeolus I could sense your devil blood throbbing with that of the dark prince." As Tatyana spoke her tentacles consumed Mordus' body. "But there's also a taint to your blood that limits…your potential. So I'll demonstrate to you what a matured demon, the queen of demons, can do with such power."
This comment seemed to awaken a disturbing aura from deep inside Mordus causing his body to resonate with a new form of energy. As Tatyana's leeching arms came to a joint over his chest, the strange power pulsated from his leg causing the tentacle to burn from the collection. The devil queen let out a horrific cry as her arm withered to ashes.
"What…is…this?" she mourned. The three marks on Mordus' head began to glow intensely with a red energy while his eyes opened with a darkness swirling within in them.
"I am a child of a devil lord," a darkened tone announced from Mordus, "the son of a demonic angel."
The pulses of energy burst away two more tentacles from Mordus' body in a flare of energy, leaving only the one over his right arm. The energy around Mordus kept him in the air as it pushed out in all directions, even stopping the natural flow of the river.
Tatyana tried to pull the last of her tentacles away predicting its outcome if it remained there. But before she could fully escape, Mordus grabbed onto the tentacle releasing another flare of energy from his hand.
"You're still trapped you fool." Tatyana taunted, twisting her thick needle like arms within Mordus' body. Yet instead of expressing pain, Mordus gained a sort of enjoyment from this even laughing at the devil's efforts.
"Calling you the queen of demons," Mordus started, while his body began to shift between his current form and a new demonic state, "is an insult to my throne."
Mordus' demonic lapse appeared as a white bodied form, one which most would consider angelic. It boasted an intense guarded look having thick large horns planted across his body. His feet looked like talons with two horns carrying from the front and one in the back. Horns from his knees curved up in symmetry with his leg as did those from his elbow curving down his arm. The largest of his horns sprouted down off his back bearing feathers of sorts but obviously not for the purpose of flight.
What arose as hair also carried the horn theme falling behind his head like dreads. The three red orbs that sat on Mordus had now converged into a third eye acknowledging his true ascension to Mundus' rank, though not glowing red but black. The only human feature that carried over to his demonic face was the scar running through his eyes.
For an instance Mordus held onto the demonic form and used his great claws to clutch and shatter the demon's deadly anchors from his body.
"Mundus," Tatyana cried recognizing Mordus' altering appearance and a distinct evil in his voice.
The multitudes of tentacles started to unravel from Tatyana finally revealing her true form, an elderly, gray haired woman. Not wearing any clothes, a large tentacle stretched around her body, covering the less gracious parts of her body. As it slid across her body, a small insignia could be seen embalmed on her chest mimicking an 'X' with dots outlining its spaces. The source of her various arms seemed to be a deafening pit extending across a slit down her back that remained open as her tentacles swung freely behind her.
"The limits of your power come from the obsession you have with the powers of other demons." Mordus revealed with a new sense of wisdom, "I see now how Sparda defeated my father…by relying on his own strength."
"You would mock your own father by acknowledging his enemy, you're no prince," Tatyana replied opening her tentacles to unleash the spider-like legs that impaled Mordus before, "and you're definitely no Mundus."
"You're right," Mordus returned, "I'm the avatar of my father's power. And his will is my power."
Mordus expanded his arms as his flaming aura concentrated over his hands. The atmosphere started to burn around Mordus while the wavering river's water evaporated. The newly strengthened devil pulled his hands together as if he were struggling through his own power. Suddenly, in a flash of intense heat a magnificent, long sword lit a blaze with Mordus aura appeared in his hands.
"The Flamberge…" Tatyana thought, "No, why would Mundus entrust his greatest weapon to a half-breed such as this." Mordus gripped the blade and slowly waved it through the air causing flames to fall from behind it. "But this power, I must obtain it. Maybe then I'll be able to break Sparda's god-forsaken curse."
Mordus' form continued to shift unnaturally between his human appearance and his devil guise. The Flamberge's power seemed to be linked to his own being that when he turned human the sword's flaming aura faded. And from the constant shifts it loomed that converged eye of his demon had carried over to his human form, no longer having three stones on his head but a third eye.
"This power," Mordus started, "is limited. So I will kill you now, just to show you the difference between our powers."
"The insolence of youth," the devil queen replied. "Allow me to show you your limitations, boy!"
In an instance, all of Tatyana's legs sprouted screw-like razors folding back on its edges and charged towards Mordus. Looking to impale his entire body at once the shank limbs surrounded Mordus giving him no way to dodge the assault. Mordus didn't appear to be trying to defend himself as he took the hilt of his sword and raised it in front of him like a guarding knight.
The bladed appendages finally came into contact but were suddenly negated as the Flamberge's aura had expanded over Mordus simultaneously causing his demonic form to stabilize. While most of the arms that came in contact with Mordus' body had already started to burn to ash, those that didn't
strengthen for a second attempt at impaling Mordus but to no avail. Mordus simply used the Flamberge to parry the strikes thus leaving him able to chop them into cinders.
Repeating this technique Mordus pushed towards Tatyana's position till he was right in front of her. The disgraced queen looked upon Mordus in astonishment of his new found power. She went to speak but couldn't get the chance as Mordus had already latched his claw onto her throat.
Out of fear the tentacle enrobed around Tatyana's body expanded and got tighter around her body. Yet, while gripping the sword, Mordus drove the horn from his elbow through the tentacle flesh causing a blue blood to run from her side. As the tentacle fell from her body her retched old body became drenched in the blue that was her blood.
"Your power could not even tip my own further than it has gotten," Mordus taunted, "But your soul will solidify my form."
The skin around the void of Tatyana's back started to quiver as if she were trying to pull something out.
"Wrong! It's over now!" Mordus yelled tossing Tatyana's breathless body in the air. In a blur of speed Mordus materialized behind her and drove Flamberge into the pit of her back causing flames to burn her body from the inside out. As like before with the death of a devil lord, the insignia faded from Tatyana's body before her soul was absorbed being taken in by the Flamberge.
Mordus fell to his feet and reverted back to his human state. Holding the now seemingly normal sword, with jagged ridges on both sides of the blade, in his hand the devil prince chuckled with great delight. He ran his hand back through his hair pulling it from over his third eye, which was closed without any hint of opening soon.
Adjusting the lock for his cutlass to his back Mordus put away the dormant Flamberge and began his trail up the now dried up river bed. And as he walked with a consistent smirk, Mordus' demonic aura radiated around him causing random bursts of flames to spark around him.
Who ever expected Mordus wasn't going to be an influntial part in my story was wrong. Limits - Part II is up now.