Magical Soul Parade

Finn unhesitatingly slashed out with a wing as he passed by in a blur, intending to decapitate the madman.

But Nathaniel, despite his chaotic madness, twisted his body with impossible flexibility, dodging the razor-edge of the wing by a hair's breadth. He laughed harder, the sound chasing Finn upward.

Finn gnashed his teeth but didn't stop to turn. He could feel the immense urge of the Sky Tyrant's debt demand he go higher. Up to the actual peak of the Needle Tower.

He shot past the observation deck, past the roof of the tower, climbing until the air grew thinner and the wind roared in his ears.

There, at the very zenith of the Needle Tower, was a single, sturdy metal spire. Like a lightning rod aimed at the heavens.

Finn staggered in the air, feeling his flight become unstable as the transformation reached its agonizing final stage. He quickly slammed into the metal spire before he fell, wrapping his arms and legs around it, hugging the cold steel tightly as he gritted his teeth.

"Ghh-AAAAHH!"

He shivered and twitched, screaming in pain as the final physiological changes transformed his body. His bones hardened, becoming denser and stronger, like it was infused with metal. Blood flowed freely from the tears in his clothes and skin, trickling down his body and down the pristine metal of the needle as he spasmed with the final changes. His eyes throbbed behind his shut lids, hurting from the evident changes he could feel happening.

His body was a boiling pot of pain. Everywhere hurt.

But slowly and eventually, his cries mellowed. The trembling lessened.

The pain was still there, but Finn's mind — now influenced by the Pride Before Healing debt — simply chose to ignore it. To the Ferropteryx Eagle, pain was a weakness. And he was the embodiment of the Ferropteryx Eagle.

He slowly opened his eyes.

And the first thing he noticed was that the world had changed — His world had changed.

The darkness of the night was gone, replaced by a vibrant, hyper-detailed chaos of information. He could see the thermal heat rising from the buildings below. He could see the ultraviolet band of light his human eyes could not.

He looked down. Even from this dizzying height, his vision possessed intense telescopic clarity. He could see the expressions on the faces of the crowd that had formed below, squinting and pointing up at the sky.

Despite the raging winds at the peak of the Needle Tower, he could hear Nathaniel's manic cackles echoing from the open glass a few floors below.

"WHERE DID YOU GO, LITTLE BIRD? COME BACK AND PLAY!"

Finn stood slowly, releasing his grip on the spire. He flapped his massive wings and landed softly on the very tip of the needle, balancing perfectly on what was no larger than a closed fist despite the fierce winds whipping him from all sides.

He reveled in the height. The vertigo that would have paralyzed his human self was gone, replaced by a profound sense of rightness. This was where he belonged. Above all.

He looked down to the hundredth floor.

Yes… Nathaniel.

The name sounded foul in his mind.

The Sinner Nathaniel. He has wronged me. And now… he deserves to die.

Finn spread his wings like an angel.

The massive, black span unfurled to its full limit, casting a long, grim shadow over the tower. The moon shone brightly from behind him, illuminating his silhouette.

He looked not like a hero, nor a monster, but a lonely, fallen angel, poised to bring judgment upon his enemy.

With a soft sigh, he descended.

It was time to kill.

Finn folded his wings tight against his body and let gravity take him.

​He fell like a judgement, a kinetic missile of steel and hate aimed at the broken mouth of the hundredth floor.

​Nathaniel was waiting. As Finn smashed through the remaining glass, scattering shards like diamonds, the madman didn't flinch. Instead, the massive shadow creature that had been looming behind him moved.

But this time, rather than the horror that the creature brought him earlier, the Ferropteryx's pride within him sneered at the abomination.

​Finn crashed into the room with momentum carrying the force of a wrecking ball. He slashed out with his metal-tipped wings, aiming to eviscerate Nathaniel in a single stroke.

He moved so fast, shocking the madman with his astonishing speed. But at the last second, the tall shadow creature intercepted the blow with its massive, lanky arm, sending a shockwave through the room that pulverized the floorboards.

So you were toying with me earlier! Finn snarled internally, feeling incensed by the ​massive difference between the creature's strength now, compared to earlier. The blow this time sent him flying​. But Finn twisted in the air, his wings snapping open to arrest his momentum.

He skillfully transmuted the immense shock into blinding speed like he had been flying for ages and this was not his first time — perhaps because of the nature of his embodiment.

He banked off the wall, blurring past the lumbering giant, and descended on Nathaniel behind.

​He drove his knee into Nathaniel's chest, shattering the sternum, and followed up with a savage slash that opened the man's chest from shoulder to hip.

​Blood sprayed into the air like a fountain painting the ceiling crimson.

​It was a blow that should have been fatal. In fact, it should have killed the madman there and then.

​But Nathaniel didn't die.

​"[Chaotic Reassembly]!" he gargled through a mouthful of blood.

The same chaotic energy erupted around him, knitting his flesh together, forcefully dragging the severed muscle and bone back into place with wet, snapping sounds.

​As Nathaniel healed, the Tall Shadow lunged forward, throwing its massive body between Finn and its master, absorbing the follow-up flurry of Finn's blows with unflinching loyalty.

​"MORE!" Nathaniel roared, standing up as his chest sealed shut, without leaving a single scar. "IS THAT ALL THE BEAST HAS? EMBRACE IT! STOP FIGHTING THE MADNESS, LITTLE BIRD! LET IT CONSUME YOU!"

​"Shut up and die!" Finn roared with blinding fury.

​He attacked again. And again. And again.

​It became a brutal dispaly of gore. Finn would overwhelm the lumbering Shadow with speed, tear into Nathaniel, severing limbs and crushing bone. Nathaniel would laugh, vomit blood, and rebuild himself in a flash of chaotic energy while his Shadow took the beating.

​The room was reduced to a slaughterhouse. Blood coated the floor — Nathaniel's blood. Its metallic smell filled the air to the point Finn could literally taste the tang on his lips.

​But he didn't tire. He didn't care how many times Nathaniel healed. At some point, no matters how broken his Chaotic Reassembly spell was, it would cease to work. He would hack him apart continuously until there was nothing left to reassemble.

​He grabbed Nathaniel by the throat, lifting him off the ground, prepared to rip his head from his shoulders.

​"Revel in it!" Nathaniel choked out with wide, manic eyes, grinning through bloodied teeth. "Feel the chaos! We are the same, you and I!"

​Finn raised his hand.

"Die."

​But just as he was about to deliver the final killing blow... the world unraveled.