Beneath the blood red moonlight, the being that had once been a demigod of the "Life School of Thought" had become utterly warped.
Silas frowned, as though he could hear strange sounds coming from within it.
That was destruction, that was creation, that was the sprouting and flourishing of all things, that was the ending of everything.
That was the embodiment of beauty, that was the incarnation of a mother, that was the concrete form of depravity, that was the symbol of evil!
Those overlapping voices grew louder and louder beneath the moonlight, weaving together inside Silas's mind, and in an instant swept away every thought he had.
They howled, they screamed, they praised, they cursed.
They were calling out one name, all together: "Fallen Mo..."
Bang!
Silas's head burst open at once, blooming into a small firework.
But before the firework had even finished unfurling its petals, an invisible force took hold and gathered it back together, restoring it to an ordinary head.
He clutched his head, blood streaming from his eyes, ears, and every other opening.
Damn it. This thing is dangerous.
He silently cursed even as he summoned the Illusory Tide inside his mind to hold back the corrosion.
And besides, those voices had called out a name that didn't match the information he had. Wasn't the god supposed to be "the Primordial Moon"?
Silas instinctively sensed that something was wrong.
The corrosion and harm he felt from this evil god were so intense, far more overwhelming than other evil gods like the "True Creator" or the "Mother Tree of Desire."
The moonlight grew ever deeper and richer in crimson, enveloping the entire world, as though dragging everything into thick, viscous blood plasma.
Emlin was terrified. Even in his astonishment, he did not dare look up to confirm what had happened to the moon.
On the street at this moment, Silas stood facing off against the twisted, out of control demigod.
Under the light of the blood moon, its power seemed to have grown considerably.
It flickered in and out, at times merging with the moonlight itself, launching claw strikes, blood arrows, and curses of Gaze of Darknesss at Silas in the center, but each was blocked by his abilities.
Boom!
Silas released the cyan flame drawn from Medici once more, and the searing fire blazed fiercely across the demigod's body.
Yet although the demigod let out a miserable cry, a vigorous vitality kept surging out from within it. Lush blades of grass grew at astonishing speed, and in the end even smothered the flames.
"Medici, lend me a bit more strength... Medici?"
He called out deep within his body to the Red Angel evil spirit, hoping it would offer more support.
But the latter only hid quietly in a corner, saying nothing.
Ever since Silas had joined the Evernight Goddess's church, perhaps resentful at having its business stolen by Arianna, or perhaps unwilling to be watched by the goddess, the great "God of War" had gone silent for a long while.
Even so, Silas could always sense it observing the outside world. A moment like this, where it hid away completely, was rare indeed.
Did this fellow also think the "Primordial Moon" was dangerous?
Silas thought to himself.
The out of control demigod before him kept expanding further, as though something inside its body were resonating with the moon above.
That being was watching him across a vast distance...
No. He couldn't afford to keep dragging this out.
As time passed, this thing kept growing stronger. In the end, might not the being behind it manage to slip through and take a look at him too?
Silas's mind raced, searching for a solution.
To utterly destroy something so overflowing with vitality, he wasn't sure his Cull of Spiritual Flesh could manage it... or he could simply use the power of the "Sun" Pathway, but using another nation's power here felt a bit too conspicuous...
Soon, he thought of a viable plan, and began to summon a certain lamb within himself.
Shff!
Silas's figure instantly turned sinister and filthy, as though he had become a byword for curses.
His eyes flickered with red light, like burning coals. A malevolent presence coiled around him, rising and falling with each breath he took.
"Death Announcer"!
The Sequence 3 "Word-Eater"!
Crash...
Inside Silas's body, the sound of the tide surged and roared, and his spirituality drained away in great quantities all at once.
Driving a Sequence 3 lamb while only Sequence 4 himself was indeed exceedingly taxing. The Death Announcer's twisted soul struggled and resisted, but he barely managed to hold it down.
Time was short, and he wasted none of it. Even as he set the herding in motion, he turned those coal black eyes, brimming with malice, toward the out of control demigod across from him.
"Praise the moon."
Silas murmured the words of temptation softly, letting loose a corrupted whisper.
At the same time, he also used his ability to Master Desire, further amplifying the madness inside the other's spiritual world.
Don't you worship the "Primordial Moon"? Aren't you its believer?
Come. Let me allow you to indulge without restraint, to praise it to the fullest!
"Praise it. Revel in it."
A terrifying, filthy, utterly maddened, indescribable voice spread outward, like a devil's whisper, echoing again and again inside the other's mind. "Burn your spirituality, beneath this moonlight..."
The out of control demigod froze at once.
A moment later, an excited gleam burst forth in its eyes.
That extreme ecstasy, that utter despair and longing, had been thoroughly stirred up by Silas, and now it burned fiercely.
"Praise the moon, praise the Mother Goddess!"
It cried out through its twisted, deformed mouth, its spirituality pouring out wildly from its whole body, surging and churning like a rushing tide.
Boom!
The powerful current of air battered everything around it, tearing the asphalt on the road apart with ease.
Across the out of control demigod's body, lush vegetation grew at tremendous speed, only to wither away again in the same instant.
Death and life were locked tightly together in that single moment, impossible to tell apart.
The blood red moonlight flickered, as though the being behind it had been enraged.
"Get more excited. Your praise for the moon still isn't enough!"
Silas paid it no mind at all.
The veins on his forehead bulged as he endured the spiritual shockwaves coming from the other side while also bearing the massive drain on his own spirituality. "Offer everything you have to the moon!"
With the demigod at its center, a violent gale howled wildly.
Its spirit had already been driven off a cliff by Silas, and now it was wringing every last drop of spirituality from itself, letting its body flicker beneath the moonlight with beauty and strangeness, with new life and destruction all at once.
Boom!
At last, its form collapsed.
Great chunks of flesh and blood, withered blades of grass, flourishing branches, black bat wings: everything tangled and wove together in the storm of spirituality, shredding its weakened soul completely, and under the pull of the Beyonder characteristic's own aggregation, it was all mixed back together anew.
Clang.
The violent current of air stopped abruptly, and Silas heard a clear sound of something landing on the ground.
He looked up, and at the center of the explosion, a peculiar staff lay quietly.
Its shaft was made of wood, but at the head of the staff was a strange yet beautiful face.
Above the face grew blades of grass, and the whole thing gave off a feeling both full of life and utterly forbidding.
The blood red moonlight fell upon it, and strange light shimmered and swirled across its surface.