Deces breathed at the window and backed off from it. As she walked away, the part of the window where she breath, was corroded and turned into liquid, that was her 'DEATH BREATH'.
MEANWHILE...
Vanzel, followed by Alcesto, Schwartz and Zhao stepped inside the stone castle. They had a feeling of chill when they passed through the gate. The inside of the castle was totally empty. There was only dust and spider's web. There wasn't even a single furniture. The inside of the castle was also made of the black stone, or Dark Megalithium. Even though the castle looked seemingly well built and strong, the ground on which they were standing was pretty weak. As they entered, Zhao was the first who saw the stairs on turning right. While pointing her finger towards stairs she said,
"Look guys! There's a staircase right here!"
"Yeah-yeah, let's continue movin', right fellas?"
Alcesto stepped in and said.
Vanzel held his shoulder and said,
"I am the leader, so I will go first. You shall follow me."
There were approximately fifteen steps in the staircase. Vanzel started climbing them slowly. When he reached the fourth stair, below him was Alcesto and below Alcesto were Schwartz and Zhao. As Vanzel stepped the stairs, less smaller the doubts in his mind became. He was on the second last step. He stopped there for a second, turned back and said,
"You all should stay on that step until I get on the upper floor."
"Come on, Vanzel! You are getting overly cautious! There is no need for such precautions!" Alcesto said.
"No, there are absolute needs for such tough precautions. After all, Deces is a hellish God."
Vanzel replied. Everyone followed his order.
As soon as he reached the last step, some sort of darkness split open his abdomen. That dark power was visible from his back as it created a whole in his stomach. His intestines dropped on the ground. He bled heavily. Everyone was shocked. Suddenly, Vanzel flew back with a huge force. He fell on the ground. He coughed blood and got unconscious. While he fell bellow the stairs, everyone's eyes were set on him. As they turned their head, they saw the the completely black, but shining eyes of Deces Tartarmus, one of the 9 gods of death. Her legs were in a position as if she had just kicked someone. Her hands were holding some sort of dark energy. There was no doubt that she was the one who tried to kill Vanzel by her dark energy and then kicked him which resulted in more of his injuries. She rushed towards Alcesto while he shouted,
"Back off! Zhao and Schwartz back-"
He was interrupted as she held his throat tightly on her grip. It was the first time that Alcesto ever felt cornered.
Schwartz jumped forward and tried to slash Deces' arms with his spiritual sword created from his golden divine energy. She blocked his sword with her dark energy. While she was busy fighting with Schwartz, Alcesto kicked her in the stomach with Azure energy flowing in his leg. She recieved a fatal blow and backed off. She leaned against the wall and breathed heavily. As Schwartz looked back to observe Vanzel's condition, he found that Zhao was already treating him. He thought to himself,
"Thank God that Zhao is such a quick thinker."
He looked forward and found that Deces was already healed. She got up and breathed at Schwartz.
Meanwhile, Alcesto was helping Zhao treat Vanzel's wounds. He was using his Azure energy to help his blood circulate properly in his body instead of letting it bleed out. Zhao was using her fire magic combined with Alcesto's Azure energy to burn and close down the huge wound that Vanzel recieved. Alcesto asked Zhao,
"Zhao! Is there something more that I can do?!"
A tear jerked from Zhao's eyes as she said,
"H-H-H-He cannot be saved now. We already did what we were able to."
Alcesto contained the blood of her mother, Sylvia-Milo-Azaloth, who never cried at her brother and friends' death because she thought that they weren't meaningless. Same as her, without crying, he got up, and thought,
"I cannot let this happen to anyone else!!!"
His body was filled with Azure emperor prowess. He stepped forward. But, suddenly Schwartz was sent flying by some king of huge impact from a force.
He landed near Vanzel. He wasn't much injured but his hands were almost corroded. He said,
"Alcesto! Be careful! Her death breath can corrode anything! She used it on me and I blocked it with my divine energy but... My hands got damaged! Fight her! Zhao has to keep our boold warm! You are the only one we can count on!"
"No kidding. I... Am...Definitely...Gonna... Slay... You!" Alcesto said as he climbed the stairs once more. This time, he destroyed the stairs with his special Azure prowess punch. The staircase was shattered in pieces. As it was too sudden and Deces never thought that he would destroy the worthless staircase, she got surprised by his current reaction and as a result, instead of backing off, she jumped forward. She fell down on the ground. She was disgusted by the sight of humans standing on the same level as her. She said,
"Ugh! Why do I have to stand on the same ground as you stupid humans?!"
She tried using her death breath on Alcesto, but, he dispersed her death breath into the air with his Azure prowess. Her death breath wasn't like normal breath, the exhaled particles were dark black in colour, and they were clearly visible by the naked eye while normal breath by any normal being in a normal temperature isn't clearly visible. She was shocked by seeing a human blocking off her death breath. She said,
"How could a human like you block off my death breath?!"
As Alcesto moved forward, he said,
"Who the hell said that we were humans! Everyone in this castle has a godly energy and the person you just killed now even had the demonic energy! We all have godly blood because our parents also had it! Even though Zhao doesn't has any godly blood, her aura is godly, her energy is godly because of her parents giving birth to her in the holy lands!"
After finishing his saying, he rushed towards the hellish God and started attacking her with a strong blow of fast punches flowing with Azure energy. However, Deces didn't lost her name in their battle. She kept blocking his attacks for sometime and when she saw that his speed was slowing down, she attacked him with a huge blow, a strong punch overflowing with dark energy. Her punch knocked out Alcesto far away on the ground.
In this despair filled moment, everybody had the same thought,
"Is... This really... The end for us?..."
____TO BE CONTINUED____