The master spy or Puss in the boot adventures

Тhe return of the Demon Lord 7, Part 195

The demon's eyes burned with an infernal light as he regarded the two witches, Gnash still dangling helplessly from his clawed grasp, her breath coming in desperate, ragged gasps. Maleficent stood frozen, her dark sorceries useless against the overwhelming might of the creature they had summoned.

"You seek to bind me," the demon rumbled, his voice echoing through the fetid swamp like distant thunder. "To make me a slave to your petty ambitions. But you comprehend nothing of true power, of the forces that move the very foundations of reality."

He hurled Gnash to the ground, her body crumpling like a broken doll at her sister's feet. Maleficent dropped to her knees, gathering the wounded witch in her arms, her eyes wide with fear and desperation.

The demon loomed over them, his vast wings unfurled to encompass the entire glade, blotting out the sickly light of the moon. The swamp seemed to recoil from his presence, the twisted trees shuddering and the murky water bubbling with agitation.

"I am Unicorn, the Fallen Star," he intoned, his voice resonant with the weight of eons. "Cast out from the celestial realms for daring to seek knowledge forbidden to my kind. In my exile, I have plumbed the very depths of the abyss, and mastered secrets that would shatter your feeble minds."

He began to pace around the witches, his hooves leaving smoldering prints in the damp earth. As he spoke, the air shimmered with visions of his dark history, conjured forth by the sheer force of his will.

"In the nightmare realm of Azathoth, I carved my kingdom from the screaming chaos, a bastion of order amid the primal madness. There, in the Hall of Obsidian Mirrors, I gazed upon the myriad facets of my own being, and beheld the true nature of the multiverse."

Images flashed before Maleficent's eyes - a cyclopean citadel of black stone, its twisted spires reaching into a sky of roiling, phantasmagoric colors. Legions of nameless horrors bowed before a throne of living shadow, upon which sat a figure of terrible majesty, wreathed in an aura of all-consuming darkness.

"In the labyrinthine depths of the Crawling City, I unearthed the Tome of Eternal Night, an artifact older than time itself. By the light of dying stars, I deciphered its blasphemous script, and learned the true names of the Outer Gods - names that could unmake the very fabric of creation, were they ever spoken aloud."

The demon paused in his pacing, turning to face the cowering witches once more. His eyes seemed to burn with an inner fire, twin pools of molten amber that held the promise of unimaginable power - and unfathomable sorrow.

"But before you judge me," he spoke, his voice softening to a low, hypnotic cadence, "let me tell you my true story. Let me reveal the path that led me from the celestial realms to the depths of the abyss, and beyond..."

As he began to weave his tale, the fetid swamp around them seemed to shimmer and fade, replaced by visions of breathtaking beauty and heart-wrenching tragedy.

"In the beginning, I was Unicorn, a being of pure light and untainted grace. I dwelt in the highest spheres of the celestial realm, a shining beacon of hope and wisdom among the angelic hosts. My voice was the music of the spheres, my laughter the tinkling of starlight on crystal streams."

Images of a radiant paradise filled the witches' minds - soaring spires of alabaster and gold, gardens of impossible beauty where flowers of living flame bloomed beside pools of liquid serenity. And there, in the midst of it all, stood Unicorn - a figure of breathtaking perfection, his alabaster coat shimmering with the light of a thousand suns, his ivory horn a spire of purest hope.

"But even in that realm of unending bliss, I yearned for more. I was consumed by a hunger for knowledge, a thirst to understand the deepest mysteries of creation. And so, I began to delve into forbidden tomes, to seek out the hidden secrets of the multiverse."

The scene shifted, showing Unicorn poring over ancient scrolls in a vast, echoing library. The walls were lined with shelves that stretched into infinity, each one laden with books and artifacts of immeasurable power. As he read, a flicker of shadow began to take root in his luminous eyes, a hint of the darkness to come.

"My quest led me to the very edge of the celestial realms, to the boundary between light and darkness. There, in a hidden glade where the fabric of reality grew thin, I encountered a being of terrible power - a demon lord, cast out from the infernal depths for his insatiable ambition."

A figure of pure shadow materialized before the witches, his form a writhing mass of darkness and flickering hellfire. Eyes like burning coals regarded Unicorn with a mixture of hatred and grudging respect, seeing in him a kindred spirit, a fellow seeker of forbidden truths.

"The demon spoke to me of the true nature of the multiverse - of the primal forces of chaos and order that lurked beneath the veneer of reality. He whispered secrets that burned my mind, truths that shattered my innocence and set my soul ablaze with a desperate hunger for more."

Entranced by his whispered promises of forbidden knowledge and cosmic secrets, I abandoned my duties as a guardian of the Harmony, and plunged headlong into the abyss. In that timeless, lightless expanse, I wandered for eons, my form twisting and mutating as I imbibed the raw, unfiltered essence of chaos.

In the nightmare realm of Azathoth, I carved my kingdom from the screaming madness, a bastion of order amid the primal chaos. There, in the Hall of Obsidian Mirrors, I gazed upon the myriad facets of my own being, and beheld the true nature of the multiverse - an endless cycle of creation and destruction, of order and chaos forever locked in an eternal dance.

But even as I reveled in my newfound power and understanding, I could not escape the consequences of my transgression. The celestial host, led by the Archangel Solaris, descended upon my dark domain, their righteous fury scouring the twisted landscape like a cleansing flame.

In the end, I was dragged before the Empyrean Throne, my wings shattered and my spirit broken. The Celestial Judges, their faces impassive and cold as the glittering stars, pronounced my sentence - eternal banishment to the infernal depths of the Demon World, my name stricken from the records of the Heavens.

And so I fell, plummeting through the boundless layers of reality, my essence seared by the cosmic winds of my passage. For untold ages, I wandered the blasted hellscapes of the Demon World, my once-radiant form warped into a twisted mockery of its former glory.