I spiraled upwards, through multiple ceilings, to finally make it to the top. I saw scant few things through my black haze but the few things I did see, I wanted to destroy. The people that I saw, were not people to me. They were just another thing to knock over. My eyes, like small flames, blazed bright and got giddy at the prospect of death. Aeshma wanted nothing more than to finally plunge the world into chaos. Well, fuck that! I reached inside of myself, and felt a terrible, dark greasiness. It refused to sit still and be grabbed. It squirmed and writhed and raged, refusing to be cheated out of its destiny. How silly we must have looked, a black-feathered ram wrestling with itself.

We fought not on the physical level, but on the mental. I plunged into the wasteland that has become my psyche with teeth bared and gun ready. The scorching winds reached a crescendo and buffeted me with winds that would have torn my skin to ashes. I did not even deign to notice this pitiful wailing and simply drew my coat closer around me. My eyes wandered to the sunset skies to look upon Aeshma's version of the Eye of Sauron; two black pupils that were black holes, sucking in the light around it, with candles' flame for irises. With a baleful glance, the flames opened up like the abyss and out poured a legion of insects that were melted black wax given half-forms. They spoke in a tongue that was an attack in-of-itself and brought to mind the clicking of crickets warped by a black mind.

They swarmed me, trying to latch on and dig their insidious unbodies into me. I raised my right hand and indifferently created a barrier. An invisible force sprang to being and formed a thin shield between me and the mouths ringed with pearly white teeth. There was a metaphor hidden in there somewhere, how a man relies on a mystical force he created to keep himself safe from the Hell he plunges himself into. I brought my revolver to bear, and struck down the fetuses born from natures' worst nightmare with every step forward I took. I could see nothing past the mass of little bodies. They all had different expressions on their minuscule faces; some were about to twist themselves apart with rage, some were filled with lecherous lust for the chance to feast on me, and some yet were simply impassive. They were filled with an incredible hunger. I saw some consume their brothers in front of them, only to be consumed themselves by those behind them.

I walked for a time unknowable until I grew tired of being surrounded on all sides by an ocean of black wax, and slit my wrist. They could smell the blood and thus drove them into a greater frenzy. I let the blood collect in a growing puddle before me until I sent it floating past my barrier and into the insects watching with greedy eyes. They all crowded into a focal point directly above me and forming an inverted pyramid. If the Egyptians built pyramids to worship the gods, would this be to worship the behemoth? They drank until there was none left and then the rest of them killed their kin bloated with my blood, rupturing them and surging to drink spilled out. The corpses slid off the domed shield as a waterfall of black oil. This continued until there was only one left. I watched it with curious eyes to see what this last survivor would do; he lazily gilded down until he was nestled between the corpses of its brothers. I had a feeling that he would stay there until he died, fat on ambrosia.

I let the magic die and I was left standing in a perfect circle surrounded by death. I moved on, ignoring the sounds of the meat sticking to my shoes like gum. I walked and walked and walked under the watchful gaze of Aeshma, seeing but not moving against me. I walked until I saw a mountain jutting out of the ground like someone had took the Marina Trench and placed it upside-down. I could see no end to the great thing. I grew tired of the idea of walking any longer and slammed my foot once on the barren earth, sending myself rocketing to the summit. I saw the blurred forms of his minions as I sped up the mountain and I was glad that I did not have to do battle with his countless spawn. I gently set down on a boulder that was placed on the peak and looked at the throne of Aeshma.

It flickered back and forth from a throne of flame and brimstone to a throne of entropy. The flames had faces, the faces of the people I had gotten killed, they judged me and jeered me. There were too many flames. The brimstone assaulted my nose in a cascading wave of regret, sorrow, and impotence. It was not a mere flame nor a mere brimstone. It was there at Ground Zeros around time; Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 9/11, Sukhoy Nos, Alexandria, Rome, Chicago, and so many more.

The throne of entropy was made from bones of all the genetic dead-ends of humanity and the creatures of rot. You could see the bashed in skulls of the children of primal humanity. They were so small but carried an incredible weight. They didn't deserve this, the skulls that decorated it could've been very easily us if not for a few good environmental rolls of the dice. Crawling between the bones were maggots, flies, parasites, fungus, and every decomposer imaginable and impossible. They ate, they died, and were consumed; fueling the cycle of life with their deaths.

Aeshma was not fearful of me, and why should he be? I was just another stepping stone in his path, useful but forgettable. He knew that I knew that there was nothing that I could do to make him fall from his ruinous throne. At least, normally there was nothing I could do but it's amazing what mind-numbing, all-consuming fear can do to a man. A sane man would have fled, a foolish one would be already dead, and a good man would never be here in the first place. But I was none of these things, I was a mad one. I always did shine the brightest with my back to a wall and surrounded by rabid dogs.

Fear has pushed Men to the extremes, both good and bad. It allowed him to run away from the beasts hounding him and tipping at his heels for miles. It allowed him to fight to incredible ends, long after his arms grew as heavy as lead. It allowed him to make incredible things, such as harnessing the power of the sun. But it has resulted in genocides. In wars. In purges of arbitrarily drawn-up ethnic groups.

I barked out a harsh word pregnant with power and sent an earthquake at him. He did not so much as tremble at my pitiful display since he knew his Infernal enchantments would shield him and his throne. But I was aiming at the ground beneath them, and I sent them plummeting. I did not let up and launched mountains down the chasm to bury them completely.

The ground shook once again, but this was not my doing; it was Aeshma's. He was still sitting in his throne when it blew through the layers of bedrock, his expression only changed slightly from one of disdain to slight amusement as he looked down at me from his levitating perch. A glance, and the ground beneath me was suddenly a nest of venomous snakes. I kept looking at him as I tapped my foot and crushed them all with invisible force. I strode closer to him and took out my athame. Before he had a chance to react, I shoved it deep within my chest to pierce my heart. My chest was a cage that got blown open when I ripped my still-beating heart out and stared at my heart that sent out pulses of Amber every time it beat. I whispered words that I didn't know I knew and my heart became a golden river, covering me in the armor of Ra and changing me. I wielded a golden, two-handed fan-axe in both hands in place of my gun and my coat became a set of rippling, bronze scales. I had golden bracelets on my wrists and a set of chains appeared, linking me to Aeshma. I freed one hand and used it to pull Aeshma to me and I raised my axe high above him. He opened his maw and out spewed a fountain of blood, drenching me and blinding me. He took advantage of my momentarily confusion to ram me in the gut. The scales managed to rebuff the blow but the force behind his blow sent me flying until the chains grew tight.

I stood back up wordlessly and slashed the air in front of me with my fan-axe to send a shimmering crescent of blue energy at him. Aeshma deftly dodged it but my attack simply changed direction to sink solidly into him, leaving a cut running diagonally across his chest. He looked taken aback at the fact that someone had managed to finally hurt him in centuries, and that it was a mortal to boot. His confusion allowed for me to rush forward and slam the head of my axe into his torso. A fan of black blood gushed out, it covered me and ate away at my scales. I paid no heed to the hiss of the metal being eroded away and kept at my bloody work.

My hammering blows woke him up to the reality of what was happening and he wrapped the chains around my neck, choking me. I pulled frantically at my neck, trying to break his hold on me, and dropping my axe. He had a simply titanic strength and while I was nearly as strong, I had no idea how to use it properly. Hell, I could have been able to summon the godly equivalent of a mini-nuke for all I know. The blackness around my vision were getting bigger so I did the only thing I could; I jumped off the cliff. We were two lovers embracing each other to the bitter end.

He looked into my eyes for any sign that I would let go, but all he found in my yellow eyes was a death wish. There was nothing more scarier to an immortal than a man with nothing to live for. If a man has the will to live, then there will be certain things he will not do. He will not take measures so drastic as to destroy the world. He will not kill himself if the slimmest chance of winning exists. He will not do the unthinkable. But I was a man fighting for control of my body. My mind. My life. And there was nothing I wouldn't do to remain myself. I would set the world ablaze just so if Aeshma took me over, he would have nothing to do with it. I would shatter my own mind just so he could never leave nor could he move my body. I would die before letting him take me over. I would do anything.

He knew this. He knew that I would never let him take over, even at the expense of my own life. He saw the look in my eyes, and it was not one of a man's but of a beast's. He roared in frustration as he conceded defeat to me and promised flee my body if I would let him live. Not satisfied with just his word, I followed his exit out of my body making sure he left no parasitic seed in me to later sprout in me and have this whole process begin again. I followed him all the way until he finally left in a swarm of the tiny skeletons of insects out of mouth.

My mind snapped back into place and I could finally see the world in front of my eyes again. I was no longer a deity of destruction, but just Jack. I was somewhere in an office filled with fleeing people and growing fires. I stood back up shakily and I was determined to get my stuff back before I left this building.

God! Was all of this really worth my life? Then I remembered the horror that The Historian would set on me if I didn't get his damned artifact for him and thought "Yes, it is very much so worth it, Jack,"

I walked over to an unconscious office worker, took his clothes, and pulled him off to the side where he should be relatively safe until help arrives. I followed the herd of people fleeing the room and hoped that I blended in well enough.