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He tasted divine. And he hated it. And he kept devouring.
The flavor of sweet saturated holy, webbed into the lines of his teeth, dripping the carnage like rainfall into the red pools that rippled with each ravenous bite. He panted out his fervor and lapped a red tongue over redder lips and took more of them into his mouth, clamping his teeth down into their flesh, and rivers of their gore-dyed honey was slick down his throat. Enough was never enough.
Lucilius went for the neck first.
A widened palm swallowed their face while the other steadied Lucio by the shoulder, denting crescents into their armor like nails into skin, and a slackened jaw ripped him apart starting from the stem.
“Lu…-” Lucio retched.
Their spine snapped. Lucilius gnawed through him like a bear trap, pulling away from the wet elastic until it slapped back into its place, gulping down the mesh of horror and bearing their bone between his bite like a medal. His jaw shut and slivers of bones shatter into his mouth. Some of it splintered and stretched, slicing the tender warmth of his tissue. The sharp pricks of white ivory were weapons against his gums but he kept crunching, and crunching, until those crunches became chews, and he began chewing and chewing and he dived in for more.
Six raven-feathered wings engulf around them; the silky black illuminated with the cataclysm of several storms, infused with a rainbow bridged prism of natural disaster. The tips of his feathers were soaked and stained in dark burgundy and each flick and twitch of his wings splattered abstract art onto the walls of Etemenanki. Everything that echoed was wet, groaned, ringing with the cracks of bone and dripping into the pond of crimson as Lucilius’s gullet knew no mercy. Their armor was like bending coins with your teeth and the sharp iron made his mouth feel sour and bitter, their cloth swollen with blood and he tore through that too, swallowing broken plates and shredded sheets like they were simply unwanted texture. The only time Lucilius has ever been on his knees was to guzzle down the omnipotence’s mouthpiece. It was ugly, how he curved over in faux prayer, met hands even with blood between the lines. His smile was corrupt and his laugh was wet.
He sucked the juices out from his teeth and panted out. The taste dried his tongue. His gut whined. Lucio’s mangled state was a sight to see, completely indiscernible from what he once was. Nothing more than a slab of meat thrown onto the tile for a vulture’s bidding. Lucilius didn’t break away to breathe, he didn’t need to, he wanted to turn him over and eat around the rim of his core.
Lucilius never needed to eat. That’s why his stomach is never full, and never hungry. That’s why he couldn’t stop until he was finished. So he kept going back in, again and again, starved of something, in need of something. His stomach lurched with every gulp and churned with every swallow. His teeth, eventually, met light, a beaming flare, like starlight in his bloodied palms.
Lucilius’s eyes were glossed over in his lust for carnage and he swallowed it whole.
* * *
The quakes of catastrophe eventually eased into an unnerving stillness as the Singularity ran down the length of the hallway. The air was stagnant. Djeeta’s lungs felt tight and her legs were firm with strain. A herd of approaching footsteps echo down the hall, from boots to heels, to the barefooted stumbles of Lyria assuring her spot next to Djeeta above all else.
Vyrn could’ve easily perched himself onto someone’s shoulder to save himself the energy, but he opted for exerting himself just as much as everyone else.
There was no time to talk, to pant out a few words of encouragement, thoughts, comments of any sort. Sandalphon was expressionless. Djeeta, who mostly kept her sights forward to the light that beckoned her, found herself stuck on the mien of Sandalphon. He was cold, eyebrows pressing together and his lips fell flat naturally. It was an anger that stewed inside of him, she could see it in his eyes, something beyond the animosity she met him with. It was darker, deeper than that. Something scarier, no, not scary. She can’t think of him that way. It was something more along the lines of vehemence.
The hallway opened and the red that donned the room hit them like a freight train. It reeked of wet iron and Djeeta almost choked on a waft that stung the back of her throat. She stood her ground even at the face of the monstrosity that stood in the center of bloodshed, dressed in the Speaker’s own trickling remains, letting droplets plop from his wings and stained body into the lake of crimson.
Her blade's hilt was firm in her hand to an almost painful degree.
They all tried to reason with the apotheosis of sin to no avail. He was seemingly unfazed with the retaliation, the thwarts of attacks that performed nothing against his superiority. Red was everywhere. The violence rang against the walls like a chorus of hellfire. It had her ears dull out the sound until it all became scratchy cotton against her eardrums.
It was as if the world was yelling at her from all directions, asking her what to do, telling her what to do, and she couldn’t bear the thought of having her eyes leave the caricature of vain before her, effortlessly and without a twinge of expression deflecting every hit and effort opposed against him. Her feet hadn’t moved from the entrance of the hallway. Djeeta hardly felt conscious.
Lucilius huffs. A dwelling thud of resurgence overwhelmed every spread of his veins, starting in his chest like the thrum of a single heartbeat. The sound of a million little things crinkle and crack, similar in sound to the smacks of tree branches against each other during a high wind, and they only multiply and grow louder against the unfurnished walls of Etemenanki. Six more black wings unfold between the spaces of his preexisting six, freshly feathered and clean of gore. A ripple of colored light spreads to the tips of his feathers. A deeply hued tongue licks over his teeth.
Then he smiled, a low effort chuckle.
"Your move."