God of Destruction: Living Among Mortals

The manipulator straightened, his grin widening devilishly, his lips peeled back to reveal teeth stained with smoke and ash. He no longer even remotely resembled a man, only a wolf disguised as a sheep.

The way his body moved, jerking, twitching, bending too far, was wrong in all the wrong ways, like something monstrous had crawled inside human skin and was wearing it like a disguise.

He leapt towards Nova, who had just gotten up. His life was fading between the realms of consciousness and unconsciousness. His daggers glitched as he realized that he had already lost too much energy and mana, just by trying to defend against the powerful attacks hailed by the fire manipulator.

The manipulator lunged at Nova again, his body fully emitting flames from every corner, cracking under the intense heat and pressure of the flames, but still carrying on, as if he felt nothing but pure arousal.

He grabbed Nova again by the throat, lifting him with pride, as Nova dropped his daggers, losing oxygen, suffocating, as the flames burned his throat, his eyes slowly closing, his body going limp, not struggling to survive anymore.

Then, he closed his eyes, the fire manipulator throwing him stridently to the ground, the floor cracking from the collision.

Nova opened his eyes as he saw his inner self again, standing proudly in front of him. They both smiled, but for different reasons. One smiled because he was proud of himself for unlocking the ability faster than he had anticipated, and the other because he got to see his inner self again.

His inner self spoke, his voice content, as a soft smile appeared again on his face: "I can't believe you have awakened an ability faster than I predicted. I was sure the flare would work and that woman would come to protect you, but instead, you awakened. So, congratulations."

"I had a motive, and that was to protect Adam," he said, smiling, knowing that he wouldn't have awakened if Adam wasn't there, half dead. "I knew I wouldn't have awakened, even if my life flashed before my eyes, so Adam being there, reminding me that I had a promise to tend to, made my body race, and I would just feel my ability ready to awaken. But now..."

Nova looked sad as his inner self realized the situation he was in. "Don't fear. That fire manipulator might have absorbed that green crystal and beat us to a pulp, but we both know that you won't die this easily. That we wouldn't die this easily. So, get back there and show him what those entropy daggers can really do."

Nova smiled as he teleported back to consciousness. The daggers materialized in Nova's hand, forged from entropy all around him.

The blades were midnight black with streaks of ruby-red running through them. An intense, suffocating red-black aura emitted from them, twisting like smoke and fire, hot and wild. They looked dangerous, alive almost, shimmering with power as if they were begging to be used.

He got up again, as the fire manipulator slowly turned back, confused by the situation at hand. Nova gave him a cocky smirk, fingering him to come at him, making the manipulator irate and irrational.

The fire manipulator leapt at him again, faster and stronger this time, summoning two fireballs and combining them to form a massive fireball, pushing it against Nova, as he defended himself with his daggers, screaming from his lungs, as he dove further and further into the ground, cracking the ground in half.

He screamed more gutturally as another black pillar emerged on his Circle of Pillars, and he stepped forward, pushing the fire manipulator back. The fire manipulator was scared, not knowing what was happening, to in fear, he used all of his fire on the fireball, pressing even harder than before, pushing Nova back this time.

Nova's knees buckled beneath the crushing weight of the fireball. The fireball wasn't just intense heat anymore; it was suffocation incarnate, like a star pressed into his chest, fragile mortal chest, molten air singeing his skin, threatening to vaporize him where he stood.

His vision glitched, flickering, as the world warped in the intense heat, his bones vibrating under the strain. For a second, despair clawed at his chest like a parasite, whispering surrender.

Through the intense heat and beyond the cracking sparks and flames, Nova's mind latched onto the image of Elesch, slumped behind the counter, unconscious, her breath shallow, her frame fragile, and her skin burned to a crisp.

A spike of pure, unfiltered primordial rage rose within him. His heart pounded, his veins flooded with fire of their own, not the borrowed flame, not the stolen power of the green crystal, but something far deeper.

His eyes flared open, glowing with a suffocating ruby-red, so blinding it it pierced through the flames. It wasn't just light, but hunger, and fury for the fire manipulator's blood on his dagger, to avenge El.

Nova's lips curled into a snarl, animalistic, guttural, more like a wolf than a human. His daggers glowed, black and red veins crawling up his arms as if the weapons were feeding on his hatred.

The entropy daggers sliced into the heart of the fireball, tearing it apart as if ripping through flesh. The flames shrieked, split down the center like a corpse gutted open, and before imploding into black sparks that fizzled against Nova's aura, the alley went silent for a moment.

In a blink, Nova closed the distance, daggers carving an arc through the air. The first strike sliced into the manipulator's abdomen, the daggers not only cutting flesh, but the matter itself.

His stomach burst open like rotten fruit, intestines splilling, sizzling instantly as the residual flames cooked them midair. The fire manipulator screamed, but it was bubbled, wet, as blood poured like a waterfall from his throat.

Nova didn't stop. He carved again, upward this time, ripping through ribs and sternum, cracking bone like splintered wood. His dagger plunged into the chest, twisting, shredding lungs into ribbons. The fire manipulator's body convulsed violently, flames sputtering as his own organs were shredded from the inside out.

But he didn't stop there. One final strike.

Nova carved again, driving both daggers into the manipulator's skull, the blades bursting through eye sockets with a sickening pop. The head split apart like an overripe melon, brain matter spewing out, seared against the heat of the weapons.

Nova stood over the corpse, his chest rising, panting, eyes still glowing with that red aura, as the daggers dripped with the gore of blood.