...Oh, I remember now. It was because...
No sound escapes Deimos’ lips as the finishing blow comes to his head, turning it into a splatter of blood and bone and gore. His brain is destroyed, the center of his activity… and the source of his regeneration. Deimos' corpse is hardly recognizable, flayed of all identifying features and clothing, more of a near-shapeless lump of lacerated flesh that crashes into the ground, kicking up dust and blood. A fine red mist surrounds it, the last of his leaking gloom and the blood that's been cut so finely that nothing that remains could be called a liquid.
All is silent. Nakya lowers her arms, her work done. Perhaps she was overconfident in his potential. To have died so easily to her... With him gone, the alliance will crumble, and Zlata will overrun them. A shame... But that's just how far some people can get in life.
Being forgotten is more unpleasant than death or torment. I will not let my story end with a whimper.
A colossal pillar of dark red energy suddenly erupts from the body. Gloom floods like a liquid, overrunning everything around the corpse and flooding the streets. Nakya is forced to take higher ground if she doesn't want it to overrun her. All the corpses and curses on the street caught in the flood are grabbed by hundreds of hands, sinewy, multi-jointed monstrosities guided by piercing yellow eyes that tear them apart and drag them down into the depths, accompanied by hundreds of piercing screams that echo throughout the city.
This world will not forget so easily.
The spinning pillar of darkness is more akin to a tornado by this point... And inside, nakya can see him. Deimos. His first words are gurgles against all the blood in his regenerating throat, but are still audible.
"So... long..."
His corpse, even now, is regenerating. Limbs slowly force themselves out of the bloody mess, clinging to the ground like a spider as they take proper form.
"I haven't felt like this in so long. It's been years. Years since someone was able to... Hurt me."
More hands sprout from his body, clinging to him as new layers of flesh and fusing into his flayed form, settling into white strips like armor plating. As his form regenerates, Nakya notes an increase in height and body mass, and the horns regenerate with flames running through them, burning on the inside like a furnace.
"It's exhilarating, but I'm still alive and kicking. gloom energy is destructive power. While it can enhance the body, it can't heal, it can't regenerate. So I can only rely on my biology, and of course that has limits, right!? I can't heal myself without brainpower!"
He sounds high. He's almost stuttering over himself, breathless and talking faster than usual.
"So, what I did, was I poured my biology into making new organs. More brains, running tactics and subroutines. And I finally grasped it on the verge of death. Healing from my own head being destroyed. No warlord could ever come this far besides me! And I could never have done that before now! Thank you, thank you so much for bringing me so close to death! IT FEELS GREAT!!"
From head to toe now, Deimos is now coated in stark-white, bony armor, patterned on the limbs in ways resembling hundreds of hands layered on top of eachother. His chest and the folds of his regenerated jacket more resemble scales, and a thick, sinewy tail with jaws on the end and bony armor sways behind him. Even his head is coated in a helmet of bone, with two pillars and hair that now floats alight with dark red flames. In his chest, five glowing circles are arranged around eachother, although one of the circles shatters, crumbling away to reveal a hollow hole within. In the middle of those, a red Magatama is fused, and a cloak of pure malice flows behind him.
Chrysalis of Rebirth
_ _
The demon king stumbles across his own body in the knee-high blood, getting his bearings. "Oh my god, our fight's just getting started, I'm gonna go all out and do this all on my own! It's fun, isn't it? So let's keep going, until everything around us is dust! Nakya, Nakya, NAKYAAAA! I think you're making me fall for you!!! Let's destroy each other, over and over again, TOGETHER!”
Deimos holds out his armored palm, and from it rather painfully extends a massive two-handed sword, clearly made of his own flesh, with a backing like a spine. A quartet of beings crawl their way out from the blood: Phantoms, with his appearance, but phantasmal and crimson. Each bears a different weapon. The bow from earlier, a sword with a dark, four-pointed abyss for a hilt, a club with a gold handle and serrated protrusions, and a black sphere that pulses with chilly blue energy.
And, of course, the gloom. It clings to the buildings as the blood lake starts to surge upwards, dozens of hands reaching out to grab onto Nakya. There's no doubt about it; The battle has changed. No more veneer of humanity to be shown from the king of domination.
