Act.30 Polmos & Everglow: Hellscape of Eternity pt.1
Have you ever wondered what was the meaning of friendship? To create bonds with others in life when you are born alone, live alone and die alone in the end?
That was what i wondered so often in the back of my mind before i fell asleep on the cold bed of my loneliness. What was it that drove people to forge connections with one another when they were not guaranteed to endure the passages of time? Perhaps one would say that nobody wanted to be alone in this world or in the next. Perhaps it was that craving to belong, to have a place where you could become the best version of yourself by finding more about who you were through those bonds. Some would say friendship itself is a form of parasitism to endure the hardships in life and have a crutch to lean on when you fall. Or that it was the instinctive purpose of survival by banding together with like-minded individuals to bring forth the ambitions dwelling inside you. There are many interpretations as much as there are people on this world but most share the common motion of finding that shared purpose that binds us together to navigate in the dark.
I was born into the darkness. I was the darkness itself, bleak and truest to the point of bitter truth but even then i realized it that no matter what you aren't truly alone. Yes, you might not be close or even far from them but the shared experiences between many we see or may not see makes us connected through invisible bonds that would repeat and repeat over time. The weak gather together to withstand and oppose the strong, the strong find solace in the presence of a goal that connects them to the world and the rest. But this cycle never ends, it never changes as that is our nature.
Is the impulse the real cause of what you do or the mere ideation of having control through logic and reason that prevents you from doing what your heart desires? Are we just a bundle of impulses or desires that force use to act when the opposite direction is available always? To sit in one place and never change. Some might call it stagnation but in another way it is perfection for it never changes or moves. And i was like that. Not moving, not changing and stagnating in my own sense of perfection until i wanted to see more.
To go beyond my self, to reach higher for a purpose that i had forgotten at some point during my life that it felt refreshing to remember. The cycle would never end but it is what makes it interesting. The cycle can change a little in the grand design but the reaction, the influence and shape we give to it can be seen in so many ways where you might not get bored. For me friendship is an ideal, it is a virtue of good will and a testament to one's ability to choose and overcome their own egocentrism. It's not just the people. Everything is connected in a way, one process or another and i do realize my own deficiencies and ideals might not be the greatest path to follow but one must follow their path to the reach their true nature and accept it. I had accepted mine and at times i wonder if what i really do is the proper way or the right path but...
There is hunger in me. There is a craving and a passion i cannot contain. To follow my own path and leave a mark on the world even if insignificant as a testament to my existence. To me that is what friendship is as a result. To leave an impression, a mark and an influence on someone's life and world and to bridge the two worlds to create that network. Friendship is the collision and shared existence of two worlds that overcome the differences and endure the test of time. Despite doubting my chosen path i thread upon it with pride and dignity for what i have achieved and what i dream of in spite of my abhorrent existence. For that is what it means to be alive. So walk the walk and leave the talk since words are merely words and actions speak louder than them.
But it got quite poetic so i wouldn't say I'm confident in my lyrical skills or if i would touch someone's heart but the attempt wouldn't hurt that much, right? So tell me what do you think of friendship whenever you see the people around you? Does it still mean the same time as it once used to or is it merely a reflection of something impossible as you drift away from the memories of those who you once called your kin in purpose?
Sometimes you just have to leave them like the fall of a snowflake. Pure and simple and then it vanishes when it reaches the cold ground and turns into mud. That is the fate of all that is transient and mortal but perhaps that beauty lies in the brief moment of purity and innocence that lasts forever frozen in time. Until the memories fade away within time.
But make no mistake for there are a lot of horrors waiting at your door. So will you open the door and let them in your heart or will you stare at the abyss and let it swallow you whole?
Or maybe... i should have a drink and stop being so philosophical all the time and let's have a party. Yes, indeed. That would be the greatest feast to bear your eyes upon so would be an angel and fetch me a drink?
And then drown in the inebriety of a world you so much desire as to never wish to stop the party of your own making. Make it loud and funny since there's no punchline at the end. Because once that inebriety ends all you will see is a hollowed out view of a world lacking in empathy and compassion.
That's how it is so i hope you make some bonds that will keep your hunger alive and make sure you find a worthy companion to share the gift of friendship because it's not that lonely or cold.
Or... why not light up a fire and see what happens next?
XXX
13th September, Sitri Manor, Kuoh City, 14:35 pm
Serafall had rushed as fast as she could to the remains of her burning manor to check up on how bad the situation was. She altered her appearance to match her usual mask of sweetness by exchanging her armor for a set of business clothes consisting of a black pencil skirt with stockings and classic high heel stumps, a fancy violet dress shirt underneath a small coat and she masked any burns and wounds she had with a healing spell to present herself as pristine. Her eyes changed back to their usual colour and she left her hair loose to finish the look.
What she saw first when she reached the gates of the house were a few firetrucks parked and a crew or two of firemen who were battling with the raging fire to extinguish it. The sight of her burning home was a shock at first but deep inside it somehow made her want to laugh because it was a bit funny to her. This was just another insult to add to the ones she would unleash on Katerea so it made it slightly sweeter to consider that.
She approached the gates further and saw mister Bassett among the rescued staff, havinlorg pulled out as many people as possible on his own after the fires began to spread.
In fact, none of the staff were hurt and most of them were standing near him as they watched the building creak and groan while the firefighters were doing their job. To keep appearances they had to stand back and merely observe as the fire was being extinguished. There were some firefighter brigades who were dealing with the forest fire that extended not so far away from the manor but that wasn't something the Sitri girl cared much.
There were a few ambulances nearby and some of the staff that hasn't been so lucky were getting treatment.
Serafall waved at mister Bassett frantically to get his attention and ran on her high heels as much as possible to reach out to him. She didn't hide her horror at all, it was genuine but seeing her staff alive and mostly free of any wounds did set her mind at ease but only a little. She regretted letting her adversary run since she forgot to ask if she had taken her sister but mistakes were made in the heat of the moment.
"What the hell happened exactly?! Is my sister okay? Where is Sona?!", she shouted and waved her hands in panic as she asked the older butler about the whole fiasco. The whole city was being scrutinized by her legion one place at a time.
The butler wiped his sweaty forehead with a handkerchief and calmly presented the situation with a mild approach. He didn't want her to know it was probably the boy who likely set the whole place on fire and dismantled the barriers around the manor out of fear of what she might do. Instead he would skip a detail or two for his sake.
"We got ambushed by a group of Khaos Brigade soldiers but none of the staff were actually hurt. They were the Leviathan's group and Andrea was a traitor who led them here but she's dead. Miss Sona was taken by her friend before the fire started and headed towards the forest.", he finished with a twirl of his mustache while keeping his voice low so no one would hear them.
Serafall opened the gates and snuck in to hug her attendant. Her small hands grasped onto his back and she rubbed her face against his chest in seeking comfort. "I'll assume my sister started that forest fire and somehow got away. Did she put up a fight?"
"But of course. She's got it in her, that spice and everything like your dad. I feel proud of her and she was the one to end the traitor. She stood up to Leviathan as well." he answered with pride and his eyes bore down on her's. "She's a capable girl so I'll assume she is doing fine with the boy. They'll pop up in a day or two maybe till everything calms down so first we need to take care of this before your mother tries to breach the Veil and start a mess here on Earth.", his tone died out whenever the image of Semira Gaap's face resurfaced in his mind. That stone cold face without a single change and that overly long hair were pretty vibrant whenever he tried to block the image from resurfacing because he feared her like everyone else.
He took in a small breath before lifting his hands. He had been working here for years and to see it all burn down made his heart ache. He continued on and rubbed her head after he gave her a grandfatherly smile. "My girl, we ought to pull the wool on their heads and make up some terrorist attack or some arsonist for a cover up. It should be easy but how are things on your end?"
Serafall Sitri rolled her eyes by habit and nearly slipped out of her cheerful, cutesy mask to return to her true cold nature. She had to put some effort to hide it so rubbed her eyes to make it seem like there were tears for before the public.
She gestured for him to lean a bit and parted words with a mechanical tonality to them. Her speech became austere and even, monotone to be precise. "Half the capital is fucked up, we lost some troops and i wasn't expecting this to be such a huge operation but most of all Katerea is alive so it means the others are as well. It was a bold move to reveal themselves so it means it was enough to stir panic and confusion. Gremory's house is probably fucked up too or she got her ass handed to her. Did we manage to establish any connection with them?"
"None. It's all jammed, I'm afraid. Even teleportation has been cut off for the most part so we'd have to confirm it on foot if you desire. Shall we pay them a little visit?", he asked while trying to make sense of some of the situation fully. The information he received was disturbing to consider so he was making plans on what to do next because as it was everything spiralled into extremely dangerous charts. "Not to mention...do you have a phone at hand? My granddaughter and my daughter are waiting at the airport so i was going to see them before this happened."
The girl pulled out a smartphone from her coat pocket and handed it to the old gentleman rather fastidiously. She did like Milla and the old man was loyal and trustworthy as much as to make plans together and discuss strategy.
She had learned plenty from the Reincarnated Devil and she would allow him to go meet his granddaughter first. She would handle things here. "Shit... I need to get Gasper out of here too! Gremory can handle herself probably but Gasper is my priority. Can't let my boy get taken. Nah, nah. Not on my watch."
"You really disturb me at times, girlie.", he commented before he made the call.
Serafall's response was to twirl a lock of hair and have some of the other servants explain the situation to gain more information. The consideration of calling her father did cross her mind but she didn't want to risk it. But this attack on their territory and specifically the two girls only solidified her assumption that someone was actively trying to cull them. As a matter of fact she did believe Katerea but that did not mean she trusted the rest of her friends. There were plenty who had a bone to pick with her and the targets for the Culling.
One of her suspicions was that it was an inside job and it seemed likely. The quarantine did prove effective but also lead to the capital's devastated state due to an oversight of theirs. No one expected the Khaos Brigade to gain more allies and strong ones because most factions and entities tended to avoid conflict with others or were too busy doing what they did best.
Not to mention the rare happenstance of her kind actually banding together under a common goal and trusting each other. She didn't even trust Falbium or like him even a bit. The same extended towards Ajuka Astaroth whom she secretly despised like the rest but found him amusing enough to play around with. So he was one of her primary suspects aside from the lazy idiot whom nobody paid any mind.
There were multiple hypotheses and she was looking for evidence on which ones to discard and which to further investigate. Multiple plans were being made in her head, regulations and even staging Sona's death to run things smoothly. Gasper was far more important to her than Rias was since she trained him and made him grow a spine. Not to mention his powers were quite handy but she did hold affection towards the sister of her husband since she was the aunt of her two kids despite them never having met the ginger bombshell even once.
Mister Bassett concluded his call and turned his attention towards his employer. He handed the borrowed phone and took a glance at the firefighters as they were nearly finished with the building. The recently arrived police officers began to question the servants on what had actually happened but sooner or later they would have asked Serafall as well.
She didn't want to bother with any cops so she waved her finger and stealthily used her real Sorcery Trait to erase her presence from their minds. She had completely manipulated and overwrote their memories as to avoid being seen and she pulled a little trick on them by making them feel rage. She loved seeing people fight as it made her heart flutter, messing with them gave her such a high she could barely resist it. And to even push it further she whipped out her pink chainsaw Mistilltein and swing it over her head since they wouldn't even register her presence.
"My plans get ruined one after another. This sucks but patience is the key.", Serafall mumbled to herself when she propped the chainsaw. She was thinking when a pretty wild idea came to her mind. Blurting out whatever came to mind was not something she did often but the realization did help in doing it. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! They want my prized possessions! Of course, put a few diversions, keep me out of the loop and busy while they go steal the hard work we put in.", anger painted itself over her face when she scrunched her brows in a nasty grimace as she took another glance at the charred building.
"You just had another really stupid idea, didn't you Serafall?", Abraham Bassett gestured at her while he was staring at the same building. They didn't share many words in that moment but there was an understanding, a sincere trust and respect in the way they stood next to each other.
Serafall didn't say a word but nodded down in agreement.
"Go fuck things up, lad. I'll handle things here while you go save that precious dominion of our own.", he spat the words out without any hesitation and smacked her ass to get her going. He did raise a brow and made a witty smile but the fire in his eyes could not be mistaken.
The Sitri girl took the cue and turned around to dash backwards with alarming speed while she turned invisible. She was going to use a shortcut if teleportation wasn't available - she intended to dive into the dark side of the city and then pop out directly at the Gremory mansion and fetch Gasper. Then she would stash the center of the hell dimension in her body. It comprised the other side of the city and she would wait for the thieves who wanted to take this prized possession of theirs from her. That was the plan so far.
She wasn't sure but her intuition was sharp so she anticipated her beloved would likely be in a pinch but his wording told her not to do anything or lest everything would be ruined. She did want to help, she didn't want to worry but couldn't help it when she hadn't gotten a word from her sister or the one who took her.
She had to wait and wait but she could go around and take out her frustrations on some unwitting victim or two.
She put all her strength in her legs and ran among the streets like mad in trying to reach the Gremory mansion as fast as possible.
That would have to do for now.
XXX
13th September, Rome, Outskirts, Italy, 14:09 pm
"Hang in there, Leo. You're gonna be okay! I promise."
Georg held the feverish Leonardo in his arms while he was trying to make him feel better. The second the Annihilation Maker liberated itself from the accomodator's control the worst case scenario happened.
A scenario he wasn't prepared for or had actually considered given how well the boy controlled his Longinus Gear - the small boy was struggling to breathe as his body was overheating and various lacerations were appearing and disappearing in a constant state of healing and destruction while his life was wilting at an alarming speed.
When the Jabberwocky announced it's return did he start to exhibit these ailments as if the very thing that should have been a mere figment of imagination was alive and stealing his life to fuel itself to prolong the fight. Those words he heard well and felt terror grip his whole being and crush his spirit. Georg did his best to halt the process as much as he could but he was no expert on Gears so he had to substitute with his casting proficiency.
He applied several buffs and healing spells in an elaborate pattern of his own making because if he moved further the boy would have died. He actually tried to move but Leonardo's condition rapidly worsened so he had to wait for the others to hone in on his location and get them out since his hands were tied down to healing the boy.
Leonardo was suffering because of the Annihilation Maker. The spawns were symbiotically linked to him so he felt what they felt and he passed out a few times from the strain but the Longinus did not cease to exist. Instead it woke him up and kept him alert, straining him further and taking more from him to keep going. He did not resist, however.
He knew his mission was of critical importance so he pushed himself to boost the creatures further without realising what they truly were. Victory was on his mind and kept him strong even in the face of danger. He grabbed Georg's hand and tried to smile but he could not muster such strength.
Things weren't looking good at all. He saw another crack manifest in Leonardo's face and then another after he healed the previous ones too. There was conflict in his frenzied mind, a dark thought did lurk beneath the surface and became increasingly more difficult to refuse.
He didn't have any time to cast a fancy spell or ritual that would have done the trick; he was barely holding out and he was getting tired supporting the small boy. But he willed himself to keep going for the mission.
He didn't care what Cao Cao would have said or if he would kick him out of the team, there were bigger fish always and he had a few sponsors who would have given him far more than what the Chinese man and his stupid ideals would ever offer. Georg Tanner was perhaps ruthless or maybe a pragmatist but when it came to Leonardo he became soft and mellow as a marshmallow.
"There's gotta be something... Something strong enough to cut the connection...", he pondered as sweat leaked on his forehead and down to his eyebrows. They were pretty far away from the city but it was a matter of time before they'd be caught. Not to mention this was the rendezvous point so it increased the chances of being spotted. "Maybe... I should try to put more distance...or maybe I don't have to try anymore? I did my best...my life matters more...no. Can't think like that."
Leonardo's fingers fiddled around Georg's collar as he looked away. "I… get out of here... I'm scared... but don't die over someone like me... please, Georg...get out of here right now and live...", feebly he mustered the strength to talk and tried to push him away but couldn't do anything when the older man grasped his hand tighter and didn't let go.
Georg nodded. "Fuck the rest. It's you and me, buddy. We're gonna make it big in life no matter what. Maybe we should switch sides and blame it on Cao Cao? But hang in there, help is on the way. I promise."
What caught his attention was the bright light that was forming in the skies. He couldn't make out anything concrete but he noticed celestial and infernal sigils forming and several overlays manifesting in the skies. They were bright enough to be seen by anyone with gifted senses while it merely appeared as something unusual but not impossible to the regular person. All that power was circling and magnifying towards one point and the trigger would likely initiate the entire system to spring into action.
There was no telling what sort of ritual it was other than being nigh-impossible to accomplish unless the most extreme and unnatural conditions were met. There was the story of the Forbidden Child, there was the highly prized knowledge from 1500 years ago. He only knew the smallest of details and nothing more but he hypothesised something obvious.
That thing would be the end. The calamity that would trigger the change in everything he knew so he had to make a decision here and now.
Leave Leonardo and live or stay with him and die.
But another light flashed before his eyes so fast he could not react as he was blinded.
His concentration was broken and his control slipped as he was swept off his feet and hurled several meters away from the dying boy. The impact bruised and broke his femur and damaged his lower back when he felt the light pass through his defenses and tore them asunder. Nearly all of his protective wards and sticker crests were melted in that area but the ones on his chest and upper limbs compensated that by applying a dampening effect to preserve his body. His healing crest was not damaged so the repair occured almost instantaneously as bone shards were being mended and strengthened to a healthy condition.
A squadron of Angels had sprung out of nowhere and nearly ended him on the spot. They had found the culprit in less than seven minutes after figuring out the possible locations he might be hiding. They literally checked every spot in the city and divided into several teams to cover more ground until one honed down the location and teleported right away with several others following suit.
One of the Angels lifted Leonardo carefully and placed it's hand on his head with soft illumination escaping from it's armored palm.
It put him to sleep peacefully and stabilised his condition to preserve him in a state of stasis, rendered unconscious and frozen in his current state to calm him down. The Angel did not kill the boy but merely suppressed the output and link to the Longinus Gear but it couldn't be shut down in a location like this. Raziel was needed to conduct his expertise since he was one of the lead designers of the Sacred Gears alongside many other Celestials.
The Annihilation Maker had not safety lockdown code so that made it harder to deal with... But Dimension Lost was the second Longinus made and it was fully finished so it had one like the other nine originals.
Georg was swarmed by Angels before he could have even stood up. Several lances of light pierced his protective wards while several others were being formed to enable him another second to snap his fingers and vanish in this air. He reappeared behind the Angel holding Leo and attempted to ram his hand through the celestial's head while dark miasma coated his fingers to make them into a conduit for Dimension Lost.
His arm movement was accelerated by the sigils on his shoulders and he nearly would have killed the Angel if he didn't notice the thin ribbon of light severing his hand up to the shoulder and another cauterized the sliced off right leg, leaving him with a stump that ended at his knee.
The Angel had left an illusion by manipulating the angle of light falling on it's adapted, corporeal form while it merely took a few steps and smacked the hell out of Georg by following with a quick punch to his nose that nearly took his head off.
"Will you struggle further, Georg Tanner? Have you not caused enough carnage and destruction upon your fellow man and woman as to continue this charade?", one of the Angels raised her hand and telekinetically lifted the limbless man in the air while she applied pressure on the open wound to stop the bleeding. "How many innocents did you sacrifice for your experiments in the dark? Was it enough to make you feel significant or proud?", she knew.
She saw everything he had done and every thought he had till now. Every sacrifice he made to please his patrons and his quest for power and forbidden knowledge.
Those inhuman eyes bore directly into his dark soul and pried out secrets he could never tell. But those eyes met resistance in the form of a few crests that had been carved into his body from the inside. Malevolent and vicious sigils that belonged to his sponsors in return for his loyalty. All of them demonic in nature which made him far easier to smithe as taint ran through his blood. Every blood vessel of his was full of demonic taint to the point where he felt short of being human and more like them in the same way as Walburga was.
He didn't manage to make a scream as he felt the burning hot lance of light pierce his abdomen and splatter blood from the cauterized wound the second it was removed.
His defenses were compromised completely but taint flowed out of the wounds and covered them in a hard layer of black ichor, bursting through the stumps and triggering Dimension Lost to produce new limbs out of it's miasma that fused with the taint. Uneven, bulky and grotesque fingers stretched out towards the Angel but the moment it's lance met the new limb it was sucked in and warped away.
His Gear was becoming Internalised on it's own in a manner akin to the Red Dragon and the Twilight Maiden but nowhere near their level of synchronization.
Now was his chance as the gigantic spell nearly set off from the skies. There were seconds to act upon in order to grab Leo and make a run for it. He had no power or mana left in him to fight back unless he unleashed the full might of his Gear which he did. Mist escaped from his pores while he was being attacked repeatedly from a distance, teleporting each attack and returning it against his attackers who swiftly dodged or took on their own attacks without flinching. The quantity of mist started to cover the perimeter around him and made almost any attacks unable to reach him on a physical level but that didn't mean he was untouchable by other means.
While keeping their distance the Angels counted the seconds because there was a peculiar trait to the Longinus - the user still had to breathe and experience outside stimuli otherwise prolonged use would render them starved for sensory information and disoriented as there was no feeling of gravity or weight upon them. Merely a state of nothingness and lack of motion would be the result of that experience. Not to mention the air around them was also sucked in aside from any other phenomena such as gravity, light refraction or motion. So Georg would be forced to come out of the surrounding mist and take a breath.
Carefully timing the moment they would strike was important.
Georg appeared at least 800 meters away from them and took a deep breath before he would dive in and get closer. But despite his usual acumen he had fallen to stress and fear so he made a mistake. The assumption that he would try to put great distance between them had activated a minor spell that did the opposite - once the target had taken form and resumed their presence in the world in a specific spot they would be marked and forcefully made to appear in a designated position given the difference in space. Eight hundred meters turned into eighty centimetres...
The German magician was facing a tall Angel who skewered him repeatedly with dozen of light spears and boiled his flesh upon contact. Dealing extreme damage to his nerves and muscles while pouring light radiation directly into his cells left him without much time before he would either bleed out or his organs would fail him in that instant. The defenses didn't last long so the effects were immediate despite the specific spell being minor.
From the mist did figures appear. Everyone who had used a container was materialized and spewed out of the purple-blackish mass in a disoriented state since some felt nauseous from the travel and wanted to puke. The group that Heracles led noticed the situation and instantly took defensive measures while those who were wounded or too frightened jumped in the physical manifestation of the Gear and tried to use it as a gateway back home. Cao Cao and Joan were the second group to appear but instead of running they did something else.
Jin Wei held the baby in his arms and held Leticia's hand as she grasped the Spear of Destiny and tapped into it's warping ability. She used the spatial control from the golden spear to open a hole in reality beneath their feet and sank down into it in opposition to using Dimension Lost. There was disgust in the blonde girl's eyes as she made Blade Blacksmith rapiers spring from the ground and skewered Georg's leg in an act of righteous anger.
The mist did act as a smokescreen for the couple so they quickly fell into it and vanished before any Angel would reach them. But the casters from the Heracles group had lost their defenses when Georg fell to his knee and screamed. Accidentally sucking in the erected barriers and covering the squad left him fully defenseless as no one stood up to protect him. The things he did were too much for even some of them so no one felt sympathy for him.
His Longinus Gear was failing. With the remainder of his strength did Georg try to use Dimension Lost to absorb the angelic group but something wrong was felt when his mist limbs started to go haywire and take out chunks of his flesh as he realized it. He was being torn apart by his own Longinus and taint because when he saw the Angel's eyes he instantly panicked but tried a last ditch effort to save himself.
He didn't think of Leonardo as his personal safety overcame his feelings of friendship. In the end the boy was just a luxury, an easy tool to conduct his experiments with but he did like him enough to let him assist in the gruesome tests he had prepared.
His Gear was shutting down. The lockdown code appeared on his flaying skin in unnatural, indecipherable patterns and structures that belonged to no exact language and could not be comprehended by his mind despite his experience with odd or dead tongues. There were unnatural sequences of numbers and whole rows of what appeared to be code.
The Angels knew the safety protocols and initiated the lockdown of his Gear which was rendered unusable and would shut down in mere seconds as his life was ending. It felt as if it had been ripped out despite it still being intact; it was as if someone had hollowed him out of a part that he had been born with.
"... I don't want to die. I don't want to die! Please! I'm scared!"
So many were dead because of their actions, so many lives were sacrificed to their plan. Not even Jin Wei Yao would have found it in his heart to forgive him so the Chinese man did not hurt him because he once thought he was a friend and only left him to get out on his own. He was certain the crafty bastard would think of something and return to the base or even if he did not it wouldn't have been a big loss to the tentatively named Hero Faction for he was no hero in his eyes.
The Longinus lost almost all functionality.
Georg Tanner was a regular human at this point and he was already dying, he was facing certain death. With the last moment of activity he used Dimension Lost on himself to conduct something unbelievable - his skin slipped on the ground as if a lizard had shed it's skin and only the human cover remained with bloodstains and wounds left. He committed suicide in this specific way as to literally scoop out his inner being from his mortal form and plunge it into a location unknown. He was practically dead but the demonic crests were something to be wary of so the celestial soldiers only nodded down in anticipation for his next move. Likely claimed by his sponsor in return for the aid he received was the common practice.
They only showed apathy afterwards as they had seen this happen so many times to the point of it being nothing but boring.
"It's mandatory that we fix these issues with the Gears immediately. Dimension Lost has returned to the Vault so tuning would be necessary. He'll be back sooner or later, i know it. The boy needs medical attention.", the female Angel spoke as she warped before the light would envelop them completely. She carried Leonardo in her arms and her squadron followed suit by making sure no trace of the German caster remained by destroying his bloodied skin completely.
The world wasn't the same afterwards. It would never feel the same ever again.
XXX
13th September, Kuoh City, Suburbs, 14:10 pm
Riser and Ravel were running as fast as they could through the streets past Issei's house in order to reach the school grounds undisturbed. Xuelan was following suit right behind them after they had separated from Aslatiel and Wilhelmina, each with their own task to follow. Issei was was alive as far as she heard on the phone so they had to do what they could to get Matsuda and Motohama out of the school and drop them somewhere safe while the albino Devil would rescue Sayaka and bring her to the house. Mina would stay and tend to the house with Asia while they observed the sleeping Valkyrie on the couch.
The reason they didn't use any teleportation pentacles was because it was risky and could give out their position so they opted for the more safer option by merely running to the location. Not to mention Ravel sensed something was amiss and when she tried to teleport. The magic didn't start up so she assumed there was a lockdown preventing it. They were sitting ducks, poisonous insects and other animals trapped inside the jar that was Kuoh City, the famed Devil Slum.
It was the principle of the Jincan poison, th famed Gu ritual where the strongest bug would reign on top while carrying the poison of every fallen creepy crawly. To be the Jincan was the goal. To be the King of Venom in this case.
To hide their absence from school they had Issei make what he referred to as Aether Drops - using his Affinity he conjured mobile constructs not so different from his preferred walking amonia bombs but the difference was those drops looked exactly like them. Those had most of their memories to make them believable copies with an expiration date. To anyone skilled they were nothing more than crude carbon copies to be used as decoys but to someone mundane they were near flawless replicas.
If he had further pushed his element to the third level of mastery he could have made them far better and grant other abilities but his Affinity was still clocked at level two in comparison to someone like Eleonora or Hilda whose respective Sound and Air Affinity were level four and three. Reaching the conceptual fifth level was only a matter of time.
And for the few days they were in Las Vegas these Aether Drops managed to fool the rest and attend school in their place. Their expiration period was in ten minutes or so, thus having to switch places soon but thankfully school had mostly ended.
"I sure don't like this, big brother. There's something fucked up and i can tell it's straight ahead of us.", Ravel muttered as she ran full force next to Riser. Her full powers had returned after that exchange but she didn't want to put more mental strain on herself so she wanted to avoid any fighting.
They did restock on some arsenal to supplement their combat abilities in order to conserve stamina and avoid further weariness. "These damn streets are narrow and it annoys me a lot. We'd be pushed in a corner if we had to mind our surroundings.", she yawned but couldn't hide her anxiety about what had transpired.
"There's no way that red prick wouldn't take action knowing this place and his sister being here. We've got more serious problems on our hands than to worry about the rest.", Riser raised an eyebrow skeptically and took the lead. He was preparing for anything at this point, he was sharpening his senses and wits while he was doing a brief heat signature scan around the perimeter to ensure only humans were around. Not that it made it easier if they were casters or summoners.
"Lan, can you do this? You're compromised so if it gets heated bail out right away.", the smaller Phenex stretched her hand towards the Rook and grasped it. She knew the trauma had been rekindled and worried over her condition because if something happened now it would be hard to deal with it.
Xuelan responded by taking her hand and nodded in an unsure manner, full of uncertainty and fear but she tried to suppress it to the best of her abilities. She knew she would be a burden and was afraid of holding them back. The Chinese beauty made a quizzical, frightened expression and pulled back Ravel to stop her in her tracks and pointed at something ahead of them.
Riser instantly halted in his tracks and took a defensive stance before his sister and Rook as he beheld what appeared to be several holes and tears in the boundaries between the street's asphalt and fences.
"It had to be this... Fuck our damn luck, sis. I didn't want to say this but get ready for it...", he commanded with respect and authority as the leader of the Bloodstained Cross unit. He was suited to be the leader so unanimously Issei and the rest told him to take on the position.
Traces of demonic taint were up in the air around them.
The tears were getting bigger and appeared more frequently as the seconds passed. This only meant one thing - the boundary that kept the dark side of Kuoh and the real one was disappearing till both sides would conflate into one space. The hell dimension that was constructed by using the foundations of the city would overflow into the upper plane and haphazardly mix and replace some parts of it, breaching the constraints of reality and exposing it to the world. But the most worrisome aspect was others of their kind targeting this bountiful piece of territory that was the Devil Slum. In here whoever owned this pocket dimension was the ruler of their personal Hell and that was a prospect many desired.
Xuelan did try to take a step back but saw reality drift further away from them and found herself drifting towards the dark side of Kuoh as if the rug had been pulled underneath their feet. This was enemy territory now since the residents were only loyal to Sona and Rias. But when it came to Phenex who would have snatched away their crimson princess they were an enemy to be put down like a mad dog.
The dark streets and dark skies were seen with a disgusting tint of red marring the clouds as the sun vanished from their view. Thick vines and black marble tiles were sprawled before their legs and monochrome colors flushed out the life out of the upper plane they had entered through. They were invited in a way as to speak.
Aside from the barrier that protected the city and scanned the residents for any Sacred Gears there was the barrier that separated the two realities from one another and a third that kept the dark city safe if one entered the dark mirrored realm of Kuoh. There was a tremor as if a battle was being waged at this moment. The shaking was sensed from the vibrations on the ground. Something was happening at this moment.
There was likely a siege.
Ravel grit her teeth and spat. "No choice but to venture further till we find the next tear and get out. We might get faster this way if we're going to get to the school and let's try to be swift and lethal if we have to.", unmistakable joy rang out of her mouth if it meant paying back Rias for the humiliation her family had to endure because of the stunt she pulled on them. It was a slight on their pride, a slander on their name and she knew they were mocked by the rest in the Underworld because of it.
"I just want this to end... I'm too tired and scared, Rae. I just know we're going to get attacked again.", Xuelan countered her moment of joy by voicing out her pessimistic view on the situation at hand. This was a first for her when she made the first hesitant step forward.
To make the passage easier Riser and Ravel shifted into their natural forms and cycled across Xuelan's arms, transforming into two rings on both of her hands for stealth. A small margin by any means but it did lessen the number of people being spotted so it wasn't a bad strategy.
"I figured as much... If we get attacked which will happen it's on you!", Xuelan allowed herself to grumble for once and sprinted ahead carefully, minding her surroundings.
It was just bizzare if one had to describe it. After running for less than a minute the Chinese girl found herself running upside down and then sideways as the roads twisted and curved in a myriad of odd spirals and shapes that connected to the various buildings where disassembled living spaces were freely floating in the air. The whole place was like a maze, a puzzle piece that made no sense to the human mind but to another inhuman entity it felt like home. Even the directions were switched up and made no sense till she found herself standing on what appeared to be the grocery store's roof but turned upside down.
Carefully she slithered into the brightest parts of this monochrome world where the dark was abundant. She did so by landing where the shadows normally would have been and her eyes were dazed - this was like some schizophrenic art fueled by psychedelics and whoever designed it was clearly insane.
As a matter of fact the lack of shadows where they normally should have been alarmed her as she could not tell when a Shadow Demon could attack her. So she stuck to the opposite. Hiding behind the corner after climbing up on the reverse building she spotted a group of demons casually walking without any disturbance on their usual stroll.
Xuelan did feel appalled and repulsed by their natural forms as she was only human in the end and the Rook piece didn't make any unrecognisable changes in her if going by her own admission.
Avoiding conflict was her aim. She silently waited for them to turn to the other corner and stepped on the levitating bricks to cross over to the next building where she rolled and knelt down to observe. There were plenty of new residents that were doing whatever they wanted but there was this unease in their movements and expressions - something was bothering them enough to let out a few odd glances here and there.
The Rook was stupefied for a second but regained her composure, jumping from brick to brick to grasp onto the lamp of another building which appeared to be a bakery or some flower shop. The building was sliced in pieces and remained that way like some patchwork of scraps sewn together within the fabrics of space. There were holes and blocks in it and doors marked the surface of the outer layer. Flowers and vines bloomed out of the cracks and surrounded the complex like a garden where bones dangled from the thorns and a few skulls were spotted here and there. Human skulls by the looks of it.
She could see what looked like the school from her current location but it meant having to execute a few titanic jumps to cross over three kilometres to reach it. Such a task wasn't impossible for her but the chances of being spotted grew with each second passing. Such an occasion occured when a vine wrapped itself around her arm and hurled her straight onto the marble tiles away from the building and she landed with a heavy thud on her buttocks.
"A little mouse has crawled into the cat's playground. And a human one on top."
The shrill and distorted voice of an odd creature pierced the stale air with its unpleasant tonality upon slowly approaching the Rook. Twisted, misaligned limbs and eyes were entwined together in a sinewy, skinny hunched figure that had it's hideous arms full of cuts and scrapes scratching a stitched face. The body was clad into a black cloth made of skin where burn marks poked out of the seams of the makeshift costume. It's face was covered by a gimp mask while it's lipless mouth revealed the gums and uneven teeth with a clawed tongue slithering.
It was a feeding ground.
Xuelan reacted by slamming her straightened palm atop the vine and tore it apart to free herself. The next second she was already running for her life with everything she had and spread her wings out to take flight. Immediately vines pursued her and lunged at her torso to pierce her. Without any delay she swerved and twisted to avoid the onslaught of vines and spun in midair to execute a retaliation by clasping both of her hands together and fired a stream of fire as if it were a flamethrower at the wicked creature, bathing the area in flames. She then landed onto the surface of a inverted building and knelt down to avoid a vine from reaching her skull.
"I told you this would happen... No choice but to fight and it's not going to be okay!", she murmured as she forced the rings on her fingers to shapeshift into oversized Khyber blades that covered her entire arms in wisps of fire and blades of air.
From the building next to her jumped a canine creature with multiple faces and exposed skin, bearing horns from the cracks and having a wide maw open with hands sprouting out of it. It used it's extended hands to latch onto the building and swiped at her with both fists to pummel her. Xuelan had to defend so she brought the first blade against the left hand and used her other one to leave a deep gash into it's chest - air pressure sliced it open and spinning air saws shredded it's armpits to chunks of meat and skin as she pushed it away from her.
To make sure it took more damage she swiped her arm and pulled a grenade from her custom pentacle, threw it at the exposed mouth and jumped over the next building as the explosion echoed through the area as the fragmentation grenade erupted with vigor, sending shrapnel indiscriminately and tearing up the landscape in the process.
The closest buildings to the grenade on either side of the building were riddled with exposed brick and metal, leaving smouldering mass and dust to uplift as a smokescreen for her.
"Incoming!", Ravel shouted as she disengaged from Xuelan's arm and regained her corporeal shape, clapping both palms to create an air pocket to dampen the shock of a kinetic spell being thrown at them. It was a close call, the thing would have imploded them but she could have reformed anyways.
Xuelan couldn't so she took a look and spotted several other residents storming the streets in alarm to their presence. They were intruders, unwelcome guests in here and there was a bounty over their heads.
The building rumbled and quickly started to collapse beneath them, forcing the blonde girl to pick up her friend and head towards the skies but met resistance in the form of a barrier that blocked the skies in that specific spot. She had to utilize her free arm and pyrokinetically shapeshift it into a tendril to grab onto the nearest street lamp and she spun in the momentum; creating another hand from her shoulder she brought out her new sniper rifle and took aim in that moment to snipe down the gimp masked Devil with a clean shot to the head.
The collapsing building flooded the perimeter and she had to make a run for it. Allocating herself atop the roof on the left Ravel started to shoot at whatever she saw and with such precision she landed shots after shots while Xuelan was defending her. Riser was kept as a trump card, an insurance.
The blonde girl was actually enjoying this opportunity quite a lot. When would she get to shoot at followers of Gremory and Sitri and say it was self-defence? Likely never but she didn't care about it much.
A moment of hesitation struck her. "We need some backup and a clear path. Not to mention they are too many and they keep popping up like rabbits...", she sneered as she pierced the skull of another Devil with her new sniper rifle. "I need a good distraction so these idiotic creatures would latch onto but they're not stupid... Well then, plan C it is.", with a relaxed tone she answered when she made another arm pop out of her back and used the it to hold the rifle while she scratched her main arm to draw out blood.
Each drop she shapeshifted into bullets and when the clip was empty she simultaneously loaded it while using all four hands. "Let it rain fire and hatred upon them. This is far easier than what we went through earlier."
Whatever Xuelan was going to say was cut off as a large series of bullets shook the landscape nearby. Her blood was pretty much napalm at this point so whatever was grazed or touched by it exploded violently in a sea of flames. Luckily she did hit a few Devils to cause some mayhem and disarray as a result - then she gave the signal and moved out.
From the flames emerged various Devils in their ghastly forms. Some were humanoid while some were far too alien to describe but all of them held a distaste for the blonde girl. The whole block was bursting with life; the fires and damage were reverted on their own accord and remodeled into spiral structures that went towards the skies and the red tint only turned darker. The whole entirety of the area morphed into a battleground, gone were the regular buildings and street lamps for decoration. It became a maze of sorts, an ever-expanding playground under the false stars and a moon of blood appeared.
Vines were growing sporadically into a living wall from every corner in an attempt to trap them. There were still some tears that connected the two realms together but alas even those boundaries were vanishing with the tick of the clock arrows moving ahead. Someone raised a hand and the streets were flooded with demonic taint and the hungry growling of something mad.
Ravel and Xuelan were trying to dodge the growing vines and hold onto the surface due to the shifting landscape removing the cover they could utilize for defense and offense. Any barricade had been taken away from them. Any place to hide was torn off the face of the realm and absorbed into it's very foundations.
"You didn't have to piss them off! Now we're gonna get screwed over and it's on you...", Xuelan stated with frustration and fright mixing together when she looked back to see what was happening. That only pushed her to run faster than ever and jump ahead when the road itself started to rise and threw the girls forward like a bouncing ball. "I really, really, really hate you at times. I need new friends..."
"Hell no! This is perfect for me.", Phenex smirked as she grasped her hand and used her as a platform, shapeshifted her body to rapidly switch her field of vision by switching the front and back and snapped her fingers. "I won't let you leave me ever again! So hell to the no!"
After the snap the road suddenly scattered by the force of her air bullet. She had put every bit of power into it to propel them further ahead where a few tears were present. It would have been enough to jump out of them and finish the track course by foot. The Chinese girl had another idea in mind so she stretched out her hand and used the force of the blast to throw something before her into one of the tears before it would have been too late.
Pavement flew outwards and rubble spread everywhere. But in that nick of time vines ensnared Ravel's leg and broke her momentum, reeling back both of them violently. Without any choice left the blonde Devil tore her own leg with a shapeshifted blade from her ankle and freed herself to react by spewing a torrent of flames from her mouth to burn down the vines in one swift go. With her wings sprouting and then transforming into hands she pushed away Xuelan into one of the tears and landed on the distorted ground with both of her hands shapeshifted into oversized Khyber blades.
She didn't use her Ardor Maiden 01 because of her weakened mental faculties and didn't want to risk being trapped in it because of her condition. She could have burned through it or be encased by it's metallic parts into a shell if there was a Devil who could bend metals. Getting her brother and friend out was her priority first and thus she took a stance and prepared for the onslaught. It wasn't confidence that made her arrogant in her abilities, it was merely something she had spotted in the distance atop of a roof that made her feel like standing her ground.
"Come, you lesser filth and face your destiny. Screwing over the dumb broad and the four eyed donkey is just the cherry on the top.", she cocked a brow and reacted as fast as possible in raising her left arm above her head as she took a second to look up. The next instant was then occupied by the tearing of flesh by her flaming blade having slit and cauterized a devil's torso that she flung backwards and spun.
Moments later the spin she performed was followed by wisps of fire latching onto the surface and applying air pressure to tear chunks of the road and hurl them like a machine gun firing, striking several barriers head on with precision.
The barriers merely bounced back the rocky asphalt and before the girl had turned her focus onto the incoming rain of arrows, the skinny hunchback Devil had burst from the ground and grasped her throat to execute a vicious slam by cracking her skull on the ground. Not feeling any pain at all was a great bonus for her so instead of dying she merely used the oxygen around her and combusted in flames by latching onto the legs of the creature using her shapeshifted feet into clawed hands, sending fire through it's veins upon mere skin contact.
To ensure she would have the upper hand she sent a small bolt of heat in one of his arteries and it traveled fast to reach it's head. There the heat was raised and burst a major artery to inflict a gruesome death upon the Devil.
By raising the heat in one of the blood vessels she was able to kill by merely causing a cranial infarcticide when the blood started to spurt out if it's skull and dripping from it's twisted leathery face onto her.
Pushing the corpse away she prepared for the next attack but only felt weaker by the minute. There was nothing wrong with her body, it must have been the very dimension itself trying to eat her from the inside as she was an intruder. Or perhaps it was the hand of the dead Devil that had yet to completely burn as the cause of this.
Pain and stiffness returned to her body even when she had not turned on her pain receptors, dizziness and violent visions started to take a hold of her mind when she raised her eyes to notice she was surrounded by a sizeable group of residents, each raring to kill her in some way if possible.
One of them clamped her neck with a demonic branding tool that looked like a pair of tweezers, tightly pressing on her jugular vein and preventing escape. She couldn't pyrokinetically warp or shapeshift at all, she was rendered docile by the horrid visions and torture the branding was applying to her.
It had been designed as a tool for the subjugation of any Stray or as a tool for torture on any unlucky member of their kind, especially those who had failed in their backstabbing and taking out the competition. Despite her immortality it didn't matter when she was forcefully made to experience the debilitating effects of the brand materializing over her skin by the use of blessed water to burn it deep into her existence.
Yet... Ravel Phenex only laughed in joy and graced them with a mocking smile when she grasped the pieces of the torture tool and produced a deranged glare that showed her true nature.
With a calm voice of faked confidence she bluffed and rose on her feet. "It's such a pity that you didn't get the welcoming you deserve. And how's grandmother doing, auntie? Tell her i said hi~"
"The hell's wrong with you, dumb bitch? I'm not your fucking grandma but I'll make sure to send her a very -
Without having been able to finish the words it wanted to part the Devil's head was eaten in half before it had put up any resistance or could have realized it was already dead. Panic and shock occured right away among the lynching mob when gigantic hellish jaws broke through the ground and snapped the one holding the torture tools and chewed him up completely. The hold on the girl was loosened so she rammed her hand into the closest victim and broke several ribs in the act, pulling out one or two of them and stabbed both shards in her eyes to blind her.
She confidently gawked and stepped on the corpse's head right on the bone fragments to drive them further against the helpless female's pleading and split her legs into a series of razors to mince her to bloody bits.
"So someone managed to open the very Gates of Hell themselves? Are you alone or she's with you?", Ravel spoke to someone as if they were before her. Her sweet but venomous tone held only curiosity and wrath despite her pleasant expression. "You can kill them now. I'll ask about the details later."
The mob was suddenly assaulted before the blink of an eye. No matter what defenses were put up they were being eviscerated completely by something fast beyond what the eye could see. Not even Ravel herself could pinpoint what was happening as it was unbelievably fast when the first attacker was reduced to a limbless state and it's insides all hollowed and eaten. It seemed to be that if the sign of the huge hole in the chest was any of indication. Another one tried to run but met face to face with a black blur that ended the brief skirmish with the entity being torn into half and devoured from head to toe.
"Fuck. It's the bloody -
Another one tried to warp away at the last moment and used it's metallic shell to protect it's vitals until it noticed a hooked lance poking out of it's ribcage and with a small twist of the shaft it got riddled in every inch of it's bod. Flesh eating pikes inside of it made mince meat out of it. It had been caught at the moment of teleportation midway, fished out of the waters like a salmon and ripped out of the portal it had sprung up to escape.
It became meaningless slaughter. It became a bloodbath and a feast.
Ravel only looked in awe and laughed at the grotesque scenery painting before her.
The biggest Devil amongst the group did his best to protect himself by activating several barriers around his body, deflecting blows that tore the asphalt and split the nearby buildings in two.
It had been humanoid in looks and bulky and yet, it had been cornered by that very barrier of his. Gigantic jaws ran their teeth against the surface of the multi-layer barriers and cracked them open while blackish mist entered inside and upon exiting it left a smear of blood and flesh when the invisible layers became dyed with crimson. Viscera and organs were splattered and leaked out of the ruined defense, ground down bones were scattered and one of those fragments was used to chop off the head of an imp-like Devil with a clean blow to it's tender neck.
Those that were running did not pay any heed to what was happening behind them. Only survival mattered to them and the terrain gave the advantage when the area turned upside down.
Running on what used to be the skies the fleeing creatures shifted the surrounding streets and buildings into an elaborate maze that was multi-dimensional in structure and changed patterns to block the entrance of sorts. The sudden flip of up and down was always enough to distract and confuse most victims but it was only a temporary lull when a spiralled lance pierced the closing blocks of buildings right into the center and collapsed into several piked blades to open the tiny gap a little bit more.
Within the next seconds there was only the sudden scream of death and gore that tore apart the silence and then it became peaceful once again.
Ravel cocked a brow and scratched her chin in boredom. "That wasn't bad at all. But it needs a little more spice if you ask me.", she swept her hand behind her back and within it she held her sniper rifle and pressed the trigger when a Devil tried to stab her in the back. The muzzle pressed onto it's lower jaw and the blonde girl callously blew it's head off with a bullet to the brain.
She didn't flinch or panic at all and only took a few steps to avoid dirtying her clothes any further as the corpse hit the ground.
"It seems that you're here and it's time to go, right? How's mother by the way?"
Upon saying that the distorted streets returned to a rather normal looking state where two figures stood with blood all over them. Each one of them was clad in a dark combat suit with various straps on the torso and limbs, bore combat boots and weighted gloves while the neck was guarded by a metallic collar with bolts attached that led to a spine harness on their backs. Their faces were obscured by featureless helmets with dark opaque glass that had LED light tubes built into the faceplate to light it up in a pattern that resembled eyes. There were similar circuit lines on the frame of their suits that ended around the neck in a circular shape.
The taller one stood at 1,68m tall with a slender and feminine build that exuded elegance and sophistication. Slim and fit was the best way to describe her with a dash of sexiness that was further accentuated by the tight bodysuit that hid nothing away from her beautiful body. Her frame was far more slender than the shorter abomination if one had to mention the difference in body curvature but her appeal couldn't be denied. The color of her circuits was a deep magenta one and she was dragging one of the survivors with one hand.
The shorter one clung to her side with a hand holding onto her palm. This one was far more curvier and heavily built in body shape with a clear difference in breast size when one compared them. That height of her's was 1,59m and it made her big breasts and thighs the first thing one would have noticed while she presented a more innocent image in spite of her sheer sex appeal and charm. Her circuits glowed in a hot crimson coloration as she dragged another victim she had spared to present as a warning.
The taller one answered Ravel's inquiry with a pleasant tone, full of energy and enthusiasm. She spoke with a slight African accent that was from the Cape Town area and confidently answered. "Big sister is doing perfectly fine and we took the first chance we had when the Gates of Hell were open. The Veil is undamaged but i fear some have escaped so better watch out for any surprise visits. Did you grow taller or is it just me?"
Ravel rushed towards them with a spring in her step and would have thrown herself at them if the shorter one didn't stop her in her tracks. But it was obvious by the way the two held hands that they were family.
And they were Ravel's family to be precise.
"It's not bad. It's been more than fufty years since I've seen this world and the first thing i see is you.", the shorter one added with a Slavic accent peppering her words. It wasn't that strong but it could be felt at times. "We had a bit of exercise but i won the bet. I killed far more than you did so dinner is on you, Rosabelle!"
"I'm sure you cheated as always, Rayet. Remember what big sister always says? Or what mother reminds us of?", the tall sister murmured in a displeased tone that didn't feel so chipper anymore. "It's all about the presentation and make sure you devour your enemies so they won't come back after some time. As i was about to say -
The Phenex girl then enthusiastically waved her hands to get their attention and tried to disrupt their bickering. "Auntie, i need to get some people quickly so could we do this later? I'm really glad to see you both but business comes first.", trying to present herself as mature was Ravel's attempt to stir the conversation in her direction but it didn't quite work. "But you're right. I'm starving. Had a crazy night and we nearly died a few times, insane shit happened and more is happening right now.", she was nonchalant at this point without a care in the world.
The taller one released her hostage and quickly responded to that question. "I know what you want mean so the special buffet is ready."
In the blink of an eye her hand tore out the heart of the released Devil from it's ribcage and squashed it while it's limbs were severed before it could have realized it. "Bullying my cute little niece is a big deal so I can't forgive that insult."
The other Devil tried to break free and chop the short one in two when a moment presented itself but the end result was beyond banality.
"This is what a real chop feels like!"
The one called Rayet merely raised her hand and executed a straight chop upon it's ugly head and literary split the victim in two equal parts that she pushed away from each other. Then she grabbed each half of the torn hostage and stepped forward to her sister's side where they prepared a message most wondrous to anyone who could see.
"Split in two!", yelled Ravel.
"Rayet.", the older sister called for her.
Rayet immediately answered her call with a casual reply. "Here!"
In unison both sisters grabbed and pressed the severed halves of the second Devil onto the first one in a gruesome manner that loosely resembled a sandwich and presented it before their cute little niece Ravel with such a perfect coordination as if they had done this many times before to the point of perfection.
"The bully sandwich has been served~", chimed in the sisters with a lax tone and melody in front of the stunned blondie who could not hold back herself and threw up from the sheer disgust she felt for her aggressors.
Or perhaps it was mostly due to the fact that she lost all her appetite.
"Bloody disgusting but i always love it when you do that. Ughhhh...uhh!", and then she threw up her dinner again when the corpses collapsed before her feet.
"Always gets her, doesn't it?"
Rayet pressed a hatch on the back of her neck to remove her helmet and revealed her face. Beautiful blonde hair that reached her buttocks was revealed in a flash; several of the bangs jutted to the sides in a somewhat messy hairstyle with the forehead slightly exposed where her bangs were brushed to the sides and a single lock of hair dangled before her eyes. Those eyes were somewhat relaxed and portrayed nervousness and were in a pretty blue coloration with a hint of innocence in them. Her face was surprisingly cute and serene like that of an angel with a soft smile plastered upon it.
Her big sister followed suit and unzipped her body glove at the front to return her helmet into her dimensional storage and armory. Hundreds of teeth between her bare breasts closed together in what appeared to be a vortex of hellfire and darkness with rows of sharp teeth in a circular grinder formation and the protective headgear vanished completely as the gateway vortex spun. The severed hands of the killed Devil were shoved inside that chasm and residual blood and small chunks of meat flied out once the grinding and eating was complete. She then closed her gateway vortex and it resumed the shape of her perky breasts once more.
Rosabelle removed her helmet and let her hair flow out of it. Unlike her younger sister she sported a shorter hairstyle that reached the middle of her back and had a darker blonde colour to it with the bangs parted neatly while framing her delicate face. She was extremely beautiful as well as it was expected and had reddish-brown eyes and an overall confident and dignified features with a sassy smirk on her face.
To anyone else in the world it would have been a shock but to Ravel it was an everyday sight because her mother was a prime example of this. Her cousin and niece were of the same nature because each one had modelled and given her likeness to a company or two to gain a territorial boost.
The most shocking part was that what was standing in front of her were the spiting images of Karen Shinomiya and Rio Momose in the flesh. Rosabelle gave her voice and likeness to make Rio while Rayet did the same for the team to make Karen.
It was due to Ravel's family members and other Demons taking quite the ingenious step in establishing a territorial boost to further increase their already immeasurable power. Their likeness was used to fashion idols in the various brands of the Idolmaster series as a way to gain veneration, adoration and influence by association through the characters based on them.
Each piece of art, each thought of them, every song and image or video was a tribute to them and offered them an increase in strength by the number of people who adored them. Every portrayal was another boon and every association only further spread their influence and shape in the minds of humanity. And to top it off there were millions of fans across the globe so it had worked perfectly in building an image that would instigate love and admiration. Others had done the same with varying results but the tactic was working without a doubt.
It did explain quite well why Ravel had an idol-esque appearance in the first place.
"Want an autograph, darling? Be my boy~", Rosabelle nudged Ravel in the shoulder and hugged her affectionately as if she were a puppy. "I hope to find my Konomi and Kaori one day so help me out. But I won't let anyone get near Rayet without my approval. So what's this business you mentioned?"
Rayet also joined in on the hug and added her own opinion to it. "If you want them then i want my Megumi too because a Karen without a Megumi doesn't feel right. Where's the ginger broad? Ilona told me to send her a message to come and visit her."
The Phenex girl shuddered in fright when she considered what they would likely do if she had said anything.
"So... the Peerage Killer sends her regards to Rias... Maybe it's for the best to have cousins meet and hopefully she beats her stupid ass hard...", there was fear and reluctance to mention anything about the Peerage Killer among the residents of the Underworld as most of it had been covered up or outright made taboo to speak of. "I need to get out of here first. There is a lot to explain and why don't you torch the area while you're at it? I'm in a bad mood if i had to be honest."
Instead of honouring her request her mother's sisters lifted her up and vanished in thin air before rematerializing outside of the dark side of the city. Their landing was directly in front of the academy and Rosabelle didn't let Ravel go. She merely hugged her tightly and prevented any escape while patiently waiting for her to calm down as there was no rush for her.
After all they were among the fastest of their kind if not the fastest. They were ruthless and powerful and their name was one to be dreaded for they were the very Guardians of the Gates of Hell. The keepers of the Veil that separated the true horror from the other realms in existence. Naberius was their calling, the hounds of the Sheol.
The watchdogs of the infernal planes, Cerberus were they and the two of three sisters had come to wreak havoc and chaos onto the upper plane. And no one dared to trifle with the very champions of true demonkind. If they felt like it the Gates would be opened and flood reality to shatter the balance at any time upon a whim but because of the deal they had made they refrained from abandoning their posts.
The first thing to greet them was the sight of Riser and Xuelan carrying an unconscious Matsuda and Motohama, likely chloroformed to render them docile, at the front gates.
"Hey, my stupid sister! We already got them so get your flaming ass right here and let's beat it. I don't want to deal with another mess for this day.", Riser's voice rang in her ears like thunder. "What did you do again?! You set the whole place on fire and hey, auntie. Looking good~"
Rayet merely smiled and waved back in nervousness while Rosabelle produced an almost human expression of warmth to greet him back. From having been born here on Earth they were pretty close to appearing human and could imitate each behaviour possible due to their rearing in a human settlement to become more efficient at blending in. They did slip from time to time but covered it in ways no one wished to imagine.
Ravel took the initiative and clapped her hands in satisfaction. Her intention was picked up and her plan was flawless in that regard. Being a decoy was a great excuse while her brother did the heavy lifting and kidnapping.
When Xuelan was tossed she threw the ring that he had became to act as an insurance and to save them time by picking up Matsuda and Motohama from the school and then carry them over to the house. He would have pulled them out and they would have gone home safely... probably.
Ravel had taken it further and tossed her out as well or she would have tried to stop her.
"We're done here. And between us... There is something horribly wrong with Asia.", she used the moment to share her worries because of what she had experienced and seen not so long ago. That chill and coldness she felt when she saw the blonde girl reinforced her fears and she had to forgo any agreement they had for the sake of their personal safety. Confiding with her family was important so she had to let it out. "I didn't tell you but she's the first human being to scare the fuck out of me. And she's all alone now in the house. Can't fully trust the vampire of the Valkyrie either so you catch my drift, right?"
"... shit, you're not the only one who feels that way. ", Riser didn't want to doubt his sister as he too shared that sentiment when he was around the girl. "There's something abnormal in her behaviour and it could be because of her trauma but I just can't write it off. What if she's an enemy? We should be ready to do what we promised to each other in the hotel room. If one of us is the enemy we kill them. Be it me or even you. No exceptions."
"Then let's go check this human of yours and find out what's she made of. Lead the way, my boy.", Rosa cracked her fingers and twirled a lock of hair in curiosity. This was bound to get interesting for her. And it meant spending time with her family so it was a great vacation of sorts.
Times were surely going to become turbulent and peace wasn't to be had.
XXX
It was a home or maybe it was supposed to give that impression to anyone on the outside but to say that would mean they knew nothing about it. It was a house but it didn't feel much like a home would since it didn't feel warm to her at all.
Sayaka was standing at the front door of her house after Adam dropped her off and vanished to do his own thing. He did what he could for the girl and was kind enough to pack up her shattered phone despite there being no point to such an act as it was completely ruined. At least the SIM card did survive so that was the last thing to worry about. However, he knew it wasn't right to leave her but he was a stranger at best so he didn't do anything else aside from brutalizing those who bullied her.
Saya dusted her blazer and searched around her bag to pull out her key and slid it in the keyhole. There was nobody home at this time since her uncle worked till late night so she spent most of her days alone in her room day after day. Was there anyone to even hear her voice or welcome her properly? Highly doubtful it was to assume such a notion.
It didn't matter that she was skipping class since she didn't care at this point.
With a shaky hand she opened the door and almost reflexively tried to greet someone but stopped midway once she realized it was empty as usual. It was a regular house but nothing more than that. She snorted and wiped her eyes with her sleeve as she lightly kicked the door and entered with unease and drowsiness inside the corridor after she closed the door. It was a bit dark and she didn't mind it. She didn't bother to take off her shoes and threw her messenger bag on one of the shoe stands without looking back.
"I'm home... Yeah, right?", she spoke in a low voice that was barely holding the turbulence of emotions she was feeling deep inside. Tiredness marked her features and apathy shone in her deep green eyes when she tried to take a step forward. She sighed a few times before walking ahead towards the left where the kitchen was located.
The brunette walked slowly with a bit of pain in one of her legs but managed to reach the kitchen easily. The dishes were in the sink, there were utensils to be cleaned and the floor needed some mopping here and there. She sighed heavily and pulled a chair near the table upon which she sat on and started feeling up her legs. The bruises and blue marks were not going to be easy to hide as there was a ruptured vein and swelling near her knee and thigh. It hurt, it was unpleasant and it was humiliating...
She was brooding and there was this inkling of wanting to say something but she didn't have the strength to mutter a single word. Instead of further trying to speak she closed her eyes and pressed her hands over them as the very scenes and regret she felt flashed before her eyes. "I hate it... I hate all of this... I'm so tired of this... Why did i deserve this?!"
Despite that she held it in. She did sob and yelp but endured it. No matter how ugly she looked while trying to suppress that bile of pain and bitterness she resisted the urge to cry and rubbed her eyes heavily while trying to catch her breath.
"...What did i do to be this miserable? Fuck it all, fuck everything. I can't do this anymore...", murming and brushing her fringe she exhaled deeply with the same timing to calm down.
Saya stood up and went to the sink to wash her face. There was swelling and bruising on it and she was embarrassed about it. The thoughts about going to school looking like this were troubling. Someone would have made fun of her or assumed she was a victim of domestic abuse and all kinds of rumours would be spread. That alone made her shiver but didn't produce any emotional reaction as she didn't care at this point. She was used to ridicule and bullying, she had hidden all the black marks and bruises before so she would do it again in order to avoid that. The chances of police getting involved was not out of the equation and the neighbors would talk bad about her uncle.
That would have made her life harder.
Everything seemed bleak and cold to her. It was merely dull, it was monochrome and suffocating being in this home every time she returned after school. And she was scared of going somewhere else as there was no place to go. School itself was only a miserable place for her, she practically lived on her own and didn't always eat together with her sole caretaker due to conflicting schedules. If it weren't for the scholarship she would have transferred to a different school to avoid being bullied. It was a prestigious educational center and she entered with high grades and a lot of hard work so throwing it all away wasn't an option as she had too much to lose.
That made it feel like she was pushed into a box with no lid to escape from.
Sayaka wiped her face with a towel and took a look at the mirror above the sink. What she saw was her swollen cheeks and bloody lips with a few cuts to them. A miserable expression of coldness and misery washed out of the bottom of her heart. Her eyes were sunken and puffy, there was nothing but disgust and rage swirling inside those green orbs that were drowning in helplessness. Her hand touched the mirror to help her steady herself and she started scrutinizing her face for any other swellings or such. Because she had hit the ground head on there was some bleeding Yuuto had missed at the side of her head so she grabbed a cloth and wiped the blood repeatedly in shame and clenched her fist in anger and frustration.
It was written all over her face, her lips contorted by emotional duress and her eyes turning moist and she faced downwards towards her feet. "Fucking bitches... I hate feeling like this... What am i gonna do? What if they kick me out of school because of that?", her lips quivered as if she was about to cry.
Her mask was falling apart.
Her deeply repressed feelings were poking holes through her facade. She was scared because that girl could tell her dad and by pulling some strings here and there her uncle could be fired and they would have no money to live with. It wasn't easy on him to support both of them and pay the bills. She hated being poor and did her best not to be a burden to him when he did everything in his power to provide them with food and shelter. He overworked himself plenty and when his depression struck him after his wife ran away to be with some young guy he drowned himself with alcohol to cope with the pain.
Her cousin was taken by his mother and left the two of them alone after she stole most of their savings. Shinichiro Takeyama tried to sue her but lost in the court and had to take up more hours and a second job to keep themselves afloat. Sending her to a good school and making a good life for his niece was his priority but he never showed his feelings, always stoic and tough to keep going on. He was plenty involved in her life and wanted to offer her a decent life despite their financial struggles. He was a strong man who bounced off with hard work but his sole company was whiskey.
"I need help...no, I don't want to bother anyone but...", she yelped in pain when she removed the cloth and saw all the blood. Her hair was dirty already and she didn't have the strength to wash it so she only removed her scrunchie and left it to flow freely. "Why does it always have to be me? Why... why always me... I don't want to go there anymore..."
"...Why is it...s-so fucked up? I really... really...want them to d-die. I want to vanish from this stupid world...", Saya was rather expressive in her gestures despite her best attempts to hold them back. An unreadable expression of many feelings raced through her face like a race. She was slowly dropping the smug mask she chose to wear to reveal something far more uglier than what she showed.
Laughing was hard.
There was nothing to laugh about but a lot to fear of what would happen the next day if she went to school. Yuuto did save her but there could have been someone who saw that and knowing how well Saejima was known among the upper class in Tokyo it made her concerned about what they would do to them for scarring his pretty little princess. Keeping quiet about it was how she survived so far. Trying not to stand out in fear of being squashed. There was no envy and jealousy like that of a female.
And because of that sole act of his it would all become a burden on her shoulders. If she had only kept quiet and ignored him things wouldn't have escalated so much. She would have endured the usual roughness and head home but now she had to worry over her entire future because of his intervention. It may have been kindness but it was not for the best. It would only bring a ton of problems and the prospects of revenge were high.
It was hard for her as a washed up grimace with thinned lips in a sneer formed instead.
"So much for the help... I don't have a choice... Ugh... I don't want t-to but...b-but...", even her hands started clenching into fists and releasing back in a single moment of spite. Her mask was shattering like the drops of blood soaking the white cloth. In that moment her rage flared up but was drowned in a wail of despair and anxiety. There was no strength behind her legs when she would have nearly hit her jaw in the mirror if she didn't hold on the sink.
She tried to pick up a sponge and some dish cleaner to scrub those dirty plates and utensils. Picking one of the plates and the sponge she started scrubbing vigorously in a bid to calm down her nerves and gain some peace of mind. With each scrub she tried to forget about it, to imagine it all peaceful and happy but reality kept reminding her that it was only a fantasy. It was dish after dish that got squeaky clean. Cleaning the dishes or doing the chores felt so heavy and disheartening at this moment but she had nothing else to do. A thought raced through her head. And then another followed it. And another and another till she saw something drop onto the plate she was about to wash.
Stopping for a moment she left the plate and threw the sponge into the sink and propped herself on it before she rose up and tried to take another breath but only a sigh that was drawn out took place.
"You're so goddamn disgusting. You shouldn't have been born in the first place..."Twitching repeatedly in trying to exert control she shivered when a cold chill ran down her spine. The look in the mirror revealed everything to her on who she really was. The strain was too much to bear. The horror and pain were too much to bear. It was enough already...
No more did she hold it back.
The tide that flowed out of her broken heart emerged on the surface. No matter how tired, depressed and impassionate she was the torrent of emotions burst through like a tidal wave and swept her off her feet. Her lips quivered in inexplicable pain over her misery. Her features were twisted in an ugly, twisted and hopeless grimace of anguish over her inferiority and life.
From a shrill whisper it turned to sobbing, her eyes were moist with tears forming at the edges of her eyes and start streak down her cheeks. She didn't want to cry but she couldn't help it anymore. And then her weak voice devolved into a crestfallen and defeated whimper when she broke down in tears.
Bitter tears fell onto the sink.
Changing into her favourite clothes was hard. Sluggish and heavy fingers moved around each button of the fine blue shirt as each one was buttoned up till she left two or three of them to be loose. The skirt she was gifted she had put on and finished the look with long socks and slippers that needed to be changed. The hair she tied up with a different ribbon this time and wiped her tears. She had to look her best at the very least. The mirror she did not look into at all and closed the door shut.Everything was ready and set. It was tidy and neat while she took a pen and a piece of paper and scribbled down something quickly. There wasn't much thought put into it, a rather short notice she had made and placed it under the night lamp in her room. Taking a glance at her abode she left without closing the door since she didn't want to bother with that.
No one would have robbed them and they didn't have anything extremely valuable to steal in the first place. However, she did open the nightstand compartment to take out a small black box with a plastic cover on top.
Timidly she took it and opened the box where a medallion in the form of a scale resided. It was the gift Issei had given her and told her to wear at all times. She hadn't actually touched it before but maybe it was the time for it. The silver chain that held it she placed on her neck and closed the compartment as she headed downstairs.Everything had been prepared.Saya was leaning against the wall in the living room, staring at the table underneath the high chandelier. Her arms were wrapping around her knees and she felt the cold floor touch her skin. Her eyes were red from crying, her cheeks were puffy and swollen from the beating she endured. But none of that was as painful as the loneliness she felt at that moment. There was no glimmer of life in her green eyes.
Only emptiness was present in them as she kept staring in silence while counting the minutes. A clock on the wall ticked and ticked ever so slowly the passing seconds while she huddled herself closer to the wall.
"Thanks for the fun times, Ise. It was different from what i usually do during the day.", she was remembering their first meeting that night and how awkward it really was. "You get so worked up when i tease you... You were scary at times but despite that i felt like we were the same. Maybe it's just me but I don't regret choosing you for the contract. There wasn't much that i could give but you took it..."
The garden at the outskirts of Kuoh. It was quite the sight to look at the city from above. It was a relaxing memory with a good vibe to it and it was a place she used to visit on her own. Sharing it with someone made the sensation new, as if she was seeing it for the first time.
"It's probably stupid but it was fun. Maybe i was lacking genuine connections and a strong figure in my life all along. I'm spineless, i know... But you had enough for both of us and here i was thinking it could turn out different. But your eyes are nasty... I kinda liked that."
The scenery of the nightclub they visited together rose up from the depths of her mind. The flashing lights, the loud music and drunk people dancing had their own charm with how lively and exciting it felt. It was a good night where she had fun and felt wanted. And there was no denying how drunk she got and the bar at the top was magnificent. The night skies were marvelous but one thing struck her. The memory of them dancing together and that passionate kiss they shared.
"It was pretty cool and dreamy. We should do that again sometime...", she stopped daydreaming and looked at everything around her. It wasn't colorful and pretty like her dreams. It was grey and dull within her vision, it was cold and bland as far as she could tell.
All of these were memories she had made. Good ones that somehow gave her a sense of being alive when it only felt like she was spectating her life from the sidelines as a shadow. It was a change from the monotone lifestyle she had lived up till now. Not everything was terrible since there were good times as well. Perhaps it was enough to make a difference or perhaps not.
"Would you care if i suddenly stopped calling? Would anyone lose sleep if i didn't respond? No... it's selfish but it's the truth.", she stared again at the ceiling and stretched one of her legs. "Would it matter if i tried not to remember? If it's time to go then let's do it... Would anyone care? I don't think so..."
Rising up on both legs she stretched her arms wide and made the first step in silence. Not a glance was spared at the wall she left behind her - she walked forward and backward but in the end she reached it.
The first step was the hardest when she pushed the table and stepped on a chair she had brought. Her eyes were glued to the ceiling before she traced down the chandelier and stretched her arms to grasp it. It was secured tightly. It was done right as intended.
"I wanted to be someone i could like better... I doubt you can forgive me but would it matter at all?", Saya's hands held the end of the rope and put her neck through the noose. It was tightened at the back and she closed her eyes with an anxious expression locking on her face.
A final decision to put an end to this misery. Only then would there be no one who could hurt her anymore. Wishing for a single thing was on her mind in these last moments of her's.
"This is goodbye... I'm glad you tried to save me but there's nothing to left to save... If you could remember me i would be happy i was there... Thank you for caring about me... Thank you..."
She then kicked the chair under her feet and the sound of it falling echoed through the living room...
Someone was watching her all this time. Sitting on the sofa in a relaxed pose with their legs crossed leisurely. It's hollow eye sockets were bleeding while it smiled softly and gestured to keep quiet. From within it's mouth streaked blood and it only kept smiling while it was watching her.
How it got in there was unknown. Or it was waiting there already.
Only the sight of her tender legs was reflected into the darkness of it's sockets, it's crooked teeth clicking in rhythm.
It only smiled...
XXX
The multitude of hundreds of spells were devoured by the tears in reality like jaws that snapped and closed repeatedly. Due to their vicinity Asia didn't have the chance to redirect them by opening new portals so instead she relocated them to a safe place to denotate outside reality. Had she been struck by even one of those spells she would have met her demise really quick so she chose the best option available.
She had not manifested her Void Dress for she barely had any mental strength left so she had to stick to her basic abilities and creativity to endure but her planning was not bad. Still, she used the moment to touch her medallion and cover herself into her 02 Argent Ghost armor a second before the first Demon would have reached her. In a split second she raised her arm before her chest and utilized one of the barriers installed to block the deadly attack that would have skewered her and end her right there.
However, the nun had to take a moment to pull out the new gun from one of the holsters and take aim. It was precisely that motion that was exploited: from above a serpentine demon lunged at her and trashed it's claws against the surface of her helmet and ran down it's hideous claws in a brutal swipe that offset her balance. The previous one pushed further and threw a heavy punch that sent her downwards as more and more of those who could fly swarmed her with nothing but coordinated attacks.
Another one who was composed of darkness and flames grasped her ankle and hurled her with a mighty throw after having had it's finger slit by the spinning ankle blades that popped out upon contact.
Having been enchanted they did actually do damage to the entity but alas, it regenerated it's missing fingers and spat a torrent of fire upon the hapless girl who was in disarray.
Ariadne reacted first by swinging her bladed chain and ensnared the hand of the bulky Demon and forced her blades to dig into it's flesh where each tip expanded and impaled it's limb so she could reel it backwards. The blonde woman channeled the blue hellfire wings on her back to travel over the chain and spread out over the abomination, applying the devastating effects that they carried.
The creature was set ablaze from the moment those flames coursed through its punctured arm and began to devour it's adapted form from the inside - it didn't merely destroy the physical form but it delivered true death upon it as it had nothing to defend itself with from those flames. It's body she swung like a morning star and began to swat away anyone incoming.
She tore an arm and threw it in front of the torrent of fire to block it so Asia could unfurl her devil wings and break her fall. The armor was protecting her well against the likes of these abominations but their numbers were exceedingly overwhelming. This wasn't a fight against a mob of semi-intelligent beings but outright war against a deadly army of demons with centuries of experience.
Eclipse took the lead and grabbed her conjurer to help her regain her footing while multiple pentacles sprang up in a complex overlay and divided the distance between them and the ground via conceptual manipulation of Numbers. The sinister glow in Eclipse's eyes behind the visor intensified when she touched the exposed areas of her combat suit and waved her hands in a simple motion to activate multiplication pentacles of her own design, permeating the air with something invisible and putrid.
But Carmine knew what she was by the way she grimaced. The ginger Demon touched the ground and raised huge chunks of earth that would have destroyed a decently sized house with one hit and telekinetically lifted them and hurled them at Asia in order to get her in the right spot. For there was a surprise prepared.
She rushed forward and raised more of these rudimentary blocks to act as shields and projectiles for her to offer support to her group. Boulders were shot like a machine gun into the skies, preventing Ariadne from reaching the blonde nun and kept her occupied for a few seconds.
Ariadne responded on the go by using the meat shield she had acquired and rammed it into one of the boulders that was about to hit her. Taint spewed out of her and destabilised the corpse, binding it's molecular bonds into a new structure and she practically transformed the body into a bladed shield, forming spikes upon the surface to break through the earth formation. She was forced to fight off a swarm that came at her from all sides and even the rock itself was used as a platform for Hekarim to crawl over and he pointed his riffle in her face.
The Incubus scrunched his brows and made a witty smile, pulling the trigger to put a bullet in her head but he did not expect her to curl her spiked lower wings to actually change the bullet's trajectory slightly as to miss her face. Ariadne's grunts upon being hit and her shield being broken were heard but she pressed on by re-binding the rock formation into spikes to push him off and get herself a second to react by blocking another bullet with her arm.
Hekarim was persistent like no one else. Upon stretching his wings did he break his fall and shoot a whole magazine in her without any consideration for his allies since he knew they would have dodged it. In fact, there was a metallic looking Demon that took advantage of the bullets and elongated them into thin spikes that were aimed at Ariadne's thigh and that left her open for the rest to kill her. Alas, the masked woman did not give up and mercilessly swung her arm that enlarged and elongated to gigantic proportions and pushed off her assailants but not before she made eight carapace covered spider limbs burst from her back and puncture a flying demon in the jaw and she dove down after her conjurer.
To defend from the spikes she swept her hand around and shot off multiple Dyson spheres that revealed her true identity. Power of Destruction surged within the containment spheres that were dismantled to release their contents in the form of unstable molecular bonds that overloaded the pieces of metal she had snapped off to use as a bomb. The shockwaves were enormous and covered the space around her with dust and explosions.
She could have likely created something like the Tsar Bomb if she had uranium available but she did not need to utilize radioactive elements. She could make bombs just as fine as she was and to avoid any waves of radiation from slipping in the outside world she had restrained it's use. Not that radiation would likely kill a Demon in the first place so using it would have been meaningless.
That kept them from coming closer to her for now.
Beneath her was the Blood Rose Alraune who raised tall trees from the black soil to act as a defense and cover while she was spreading seeds around the field for terraforming. Her compatriots who had no wings did take up some of the trees as makeshift weapons and instead of fighting they threw them with kinetic acceleration spells straight towards the barrier that Asia had came to guard.
"Luxia! Do your thing!", commanded the nun in a shrill voice as she reached out towards the skies for Vespertine to land besides her. The black haired woman took her side and placed her Khyber blade arm onto Asia's own and triggered a resonance of sorts. The arm shapeshifted back to normal in the process.
Because Vespertine had the same arm as those of Asia's so the gems on them resonated and duplicated the effect of the Gift that was once bestowed upon her in life. However, the revival spell did something to all of them in a way to alter them. She had a Gift once more that belonged to the Void itself.
And now it became Time Relocation in contrast to the lost Time Dislocation. By using her as a proxy Asia could use that ability and synchronise with Eclipse to utilize her own multiplication to tap into her earlier product. The colourless and odorless poison that was emitted from Eclipse's skin was already in the air so she used it as a field to relocate the spells she had to contain less than a minute ago.
From within the poisonous field did the spells flung at her emerge - heavy bombardment and a variety of effects did follow up when the first round of mana surged out and then a second one followed. And a third and a fourth were expelled from within the field all the while Eclipse was multiplying her pentacles to apply a simple equation to double their potency. It was all relocated from the past to return to the present.
"Not bad at all.", Carmine bemused and telekinetically pulled backwards her allies on the ground while they were assuming a defensive position and lined next to each other as they were retracted from the spot. The red headed woman smirked in mild amusement and suddenly vanished with the rest of her group, literally having the combined power of a city buster phase through them completely and detonate behind them in the distance.
The background was akin to a war torn field. Decay, craters and smoke were spreading. The ground was ruined, desolate and cracked with no life residing within it.
The Blood Rose Alraune dug into the ground deep to avoid the incoming blast and tunneled through the soil, using her connection to the earth to locate her prey from beneath. Her petals had wilted and fell, leaving her naked and she produced new ones to cover herself and burst out of the ground behind them. She did so to change her defenses to razor sharp petals and made thorns spring out of her body.
Right where Luxia had been positioned.
Luxia herself discarded the rudimentary construct of a sword she had made and snapped her fingers to unleash a volley of Destruction orbs the size of a basketball against the incoming trees. She had been fighting on the ground relentlessly despite the heavy pressure that was laid out on her. There were already scratches and chinks missing from her combat suit but no serious wounds were present.
The young girl clapped both hands and clenched her fists to have the orbs flatten and expand into a honeycomb wall that disintegrated most of the projectiles while Ariadne threw her chain of Destruction to protect the silverish-blonde girl from a point blank attack from a Shadow Demon that jumped from tree to tree and was right before her.
Exactly on the moment of materialisation did the chain wrap itself over Luxia and flung her sideways to avoid a deadly strike from her own shadow. The youngest girl instantly took the opportunity to use the momentum she had gained and broke apart the ground underneath her feet with a stomp to raise up some chunks and bound their atoms together to make a small shell that wrapped around the Shadow Demon and encased it in a hardened shell to prevent escape. Destroying it wasn't easy to accomplish but to trap it and exploit it's weakness was.
The Alraune had been waiting for that moment and stabbed her thorny vines in Luxia's legs, each spike leaking Alraune blood into the puncture wounds to poison her. The neurotoxin was being pumped into her veins, the relaxation of her muscles followed afterwards when she tried to cut off the vines but she felt her flesh necrotising at an alarming rate. That poisonous blood was extremely hard to stop or cure unless extreme measures or preparation had been undertaken.
Not to mention there was no guarantee even if there were preparations made as it was a notorious poison that had made their kind highly feared. Soon it would reach her heart and kill her while she degraded physically every second.
The Alraune had to dive in the earth to avoid getting decapitated by a Dyson Sphere that burst to release all the stored energy within it and blew off huge chunks of earth in every direction.
Ariadne flailed the chain that held Luxia and reeled her back into her embrace for reasons she did not remember. Her spider limbs were weaving a thin rope that was laced with the properties of her Sorcery Trait while Luxia was forging a core of Destruction with a protective shell around it alongside two elongated spirals that became a lance. The rope was wrapped around it to give it a solid form and the resonance between the two unstable cores that were next to each other forced it to bind and become stable.
She did so despite the fact that she was going to die.
The lance she threw at Asia who caught it just on time to pierce a flying enemy and slam them down. However, the blonde girl felt something was amiss and mentally commanded her spawn to get Luxia near her.
"Protect the barrier while i handle her. Vespertine, assist Eclipse in building a shield. I'll deal with the rest.", she teleported to the poisoned girl under enemy fire pelting her devil wings with holes as she could not focus on so many things at the same time. Enduring the pain she grasped Luxia's ankles and activated Twilight Healing to counter the poison ravaging her body.
It was another reason why Twilight Healing was so sought out besides there being only three copies of it. It could potentially cure almost anything and that very blood was one of the things it could heal from.
Asia held the lance in her arm while she was healing Luxia, sharpening her senses since the assault stopped. The Demons in the skies had also vanished and yet she knew better than that - her experience as an assistant and bait told her to wait, to be patient for the demon to slip because sooner or later they always did. She was anticipating a few possible moves, calculating as her Gear was healing the unfortunate girl despite her strained grunts and hissing.
No sooner than she closed one eye did she see things in a different way: the poison in the air was acting as a sensor all this time.
It did not matter if she could not fully perceive their true forms clearly as long as she could sense and pinpoint them exactly. Her extrasensory perception gave her an edge to feel around her space and wait. She held her breath, tightened her muscles and suddenly stabbed her newly acquired lance backwards as she nicked something in the chest. She was right, the demon that attacked her materialized for a second and it was then that Luxia pointed a finger at it from under Asia's arms and blasted it's head off with a concentrated beam of Destruction, burning a hole where it's ugly head used to be.
The Blood Rose Alraune was waiting for that very moment to spring up her trap.
The ground cracked and started to sink!
Vines stretched out from every angle to surround them, thick and spiked, layers after layers were created to become a prison as each vine wound up together and meshed will the other ones. Inside the prison cage were growing oleander flowers that were set on fire to let the smoke carry their poison and permeate the closed space. Rock slabs were slammed together from both sides when Carmine regained corporeal form and she commanded her troops to move ahead since they only needed to go past the barrier to enter the city. It was not that far away since some had reached it before being pushed back and having to feign retreat.
Asia was a valuable resource but it didn't mean they needed her to be in good condition. Barely alive or dead would do the trick for them ever since the red haired woman had devised a method to extract Relics and Gears from unfortunate victims before they would vanish and enter the vault.
Hekarim ushered the demons who used soldiers as hosts to plant enough explosives over the vine prison, having his allies stack C4 and Element B together as the Incubus crafted an airtight bubble to surround the container. He clicked his tongue in boredom and signaled with a wave to have the explosives detonated. Of course, to make it more effective those were enchanted and holy water was added to increase the chances of hurting Devils far more than usual.
"She's better off dead than being in the hands of the crimson fuck. It almost touched me how she tried to act like a hero. Being arrogant is not in your interest, girlie.", the Incubus used air pressure within the bubble to crush them further. He didn't feel anything bad towards her but more importantly he did show interest in pissing off Sirzechs Lucifer.
If it meant killing the Twilight Maiden then so be it.
Eclipse and Vespertine did not react - they merely stood their ground and defended each other as best as they could while sustaining damage. However, the dirty blonde haired woman did decrease the intensity of the blast as her link to her master told her what to do.
They were communicating by using the Abyss as a hub to relegate information between the outside of reality and reality itself but not without a small lag. It did however let them be aware enough of their position to coordinate somehow.
"Astaroth. Why do you aid these cretins? Did you forget on whose side you're on?", it was Carmine who manifested behind Eclipse and threw a punch covered with rocks at her spine while her Alraune comrade raised a tree from underneath to stun the devil for a two part sequence.
Eclipse grunted only and did not respond to the question. Instinctively she bent forward to avoid the punch and moved her sharp wings to intercept Carmine but they were stopped by a telekinetic bubble. That did not discourage the petite woman for she had used a multiplication sigil on her wings to increase their strength tenfold and ruptured the barrier violently before she had her feathered wings nearly take off Carmine's head in retaliation. The tree she avoided by pouncing backwards and spun to execute a somersault and latch onto the stem as it was growing rapidly before she lunged forward at the ginger Demon.
Carmine's neck bore a light cut already. She had her suspicion and she noticed it a second too late. In the moment her adversary had reacted did she spot multiple cuts that were dealt by her friend in having injected a great amount of her poison in Eclipse. The skin wasn't necrotising or the muscles relaxing at all despite vines having pierced her exposed areas. Eclipse continued to move unhindered by those constraints and came close to stabbing her eyes out if Carmine hadn't moved an inch in fear.
She was not dying. There were various possibilities but one that came to mind was that she was immune to the poison. For the poison that killed her while she was alive contained Alraune blood in it and now upon her resurrection it had become a part of her. Her very skin released the poison that killed her. Her pores were filled with poison and only skin contact was necessary for her to kill swiftly.
This was not any Astaroth she knew.
Hekarim began to shoot at Eclipse in the opening that presented itself, using explosive rounds to divert her attention from Carmine. It was a battle of three versus one. The rest were moving ahead per their leader's command as she was going to make sure that they would reach the barrier first while she held off the resistance.
Vespertine chose to deal with those projectiles as she relocated them in time to save Eclipse. Her hellfire wings were extinguished and the spear she held vanished in thin air. She was the only human among the four resurrected women but she had battled Demons during her life that was cut short tragically. She raised her fists and propelled the bullets backwards at their source, forcing him to de-materialize to avoid the collision.
As it stood, Vespertine was assaulted immediately by the metallic Demon and was forced to shield herself with a barrier that was cracked as soon as she raised it. To strike back the spear she had cast aside appeared in the moment her arm would have been broken and took the brunt of the attack. She was forced back by the blow and nearly lost her balance if she did not twist her body to touch the ground and rise up.
That motion made her lift her leg and spread out hellfire from the sole of her shoe to drive back the demon. That act saved her life and when she regained her footing she threw her spear at her aggressor. It was all timed: it was relocated and reappeared a second later from above and pierced the metallic demon's shoulder.
The spear she had used was pulled out of the past where it's origin was that of a Tainted Relic that had driven it's user mad and gained the properties of binding curses and maladies upon those it struck. Once the spear had found it's way into the hands of a local guard from her village at the times of the black plague it was used to kill criminals and the damned malady stuck to it. It gained the moniker of the Spear of Pestilence for it's ability to inflict those who were struck by it with the accursed plague and other lesser curses.
She could relocate weapons from the past but as she was not a Natural-born Holy Relic user she could not use their special abilities or synchronise with them. That however made the relocated copies expendable and renewable so she relocated another one to stab it's leg and pin it down.
Eclipse had prepared herself by casting speed enhancement spells of her own design to cut short the distance and assist Vespertine by rapidly punching through the demon's metalic hide and tear it from the inside while she compressed air around her for a spell to be unleashed. Carmine reacted by telekinetically pulling her off her friend and began to apply a different force upon her neck with her other hand.
Hekarim dove at Vespertine to keep her at bay.
"It doesn't matter who you are. You're in the way so get the fuck out of here.", Carmine sneered and pressed tight on her neck to prevent her from fighting back. Her green eyes lit up in rage as the slits thinned further upon being taunted by Eclipse trying to tap her cheek in an affectionate manner.
However, that wasn't any ordinary tap. It was a signal, a little trick every one of their kind had if they had already led other demons or lesser beings of the dark. That also included abhorrent entities such as familiars...
Exactly like the looming shadow that stretched out of the poisonous woman's own.
The beating of vast wings broke the grip Carmine had on Eclipse, pushed her away and sharp talons that could tear buildings alike were pressed over her body that she guarded with a telekinetic bubble. No matter how great of a telekinetic she was, brute force that exceeded or could break her concentration would shatter her defense. The massive limbs were pressing hard and were cracking the bubble when the ginger Demon met it's hideous white eyes with her own.
The other thing was the stretched out maws that held sharp rows of teeth and the charging Breath of a dragon that was to melt her skin and bones completely. Black scales shone under the eyes and single-minded craving and pursuit in hunger for blood were unveiled as she was to become it's next meal. Twenty meters of raw muscle and aggression with powerful jaws and amazing strength were pounding upon it's new prey.
For the familiar that the resurrected Astaroth woman had called for was none other than her own steed in life.
Her very own hatchling King Bahamut was let slip of it's leash and was ready to play. And it's fangs craved for blood as it was about to unleash the devastating breath it was renowned for as the Cannibal King Dragon.
It's very own Toxic Breath was rearing it's horrid stench as the dragon was about to devour the unfortunate woman.
But what had happened to Asia?
XXX
Before the barrier itself the nun had teleported to survive.
Luxia and Ariadne were by her side as she had succeeded in escaping that death trap in the nick of time and moved further to intercept the invading enemies. So far nothing they did was working. Despite their power the difference in skill and experience was as deep as the surface and the bottom of the ocean. If the barrier fell down and the dark side of Kuoh was taken there was no telling what would happen to their lives.
Rias would be killed. She would be hunted down and living in fear. And she had to know more about what the slit eyed woman told her.
And yet her mind was drifting and her thoughts were jumbled. Physically she was pristine but her mind wasn't keeping up even when she had unleashed her Fairy Chess Piece to gain the superior mobility of a Knight and gain heightened reaction time. She was straining, she was doubtful and yet she was not scared.
She wasn't as sane and mentally healthy as she once was and it showed itself fully in her insane plan to fight a whole army. No sane man or woman would have chosen this certain death but Asia selflessly decided upon it.
She was going to defend this place no matter the cost.
"Come. Come, you filth.", she uttered in a stone cold tonality as her voice regained that faint echo of a second voice overlapping with her's. She stilled herself in place and tapped on her chest plate nonchalantly in her own insane way of showing happiness.
Steel talons were nearly tapping on her chest when she gently wrapped her armored hand over the fingers and mercilessly snapped them in two. The horrid echo of bones breaking permeated the air as the situation turned around in an unexpected way - miniature tears in space had made their way all over the barrier with her chains barring the way by weaving together to make a net. It was a momentarily idea she had made in her desperation.
Those silverish chains of her's had trapped the incoming forces and separated them behind a fence of time and space. The former nun wagged her index finger in a coquettish manner and her suit's circuits flared up in dark blue. Time was stopped to enable her to channel her blue hellfire upon each link of the chains in a wide perimeter, extending a second to several in order to spread the flames faster.
Such a large amount she had called forth for the first time and she was already reeling in pain because of the toll that was put on her mind. Time resumed again and the net of chains was set ablaze, keeping the demons of various sizes at bay from proceeding further.
It did not matter if they could enter their true forms if she could damage them so severely as to actually prevent some from phasing in and out to heal. That act kept them away from moving forward since it would equate to true death if the flames had touched them the slightest. It was only a temporary solution since she had to stand still and focus to keep it up. There was no help coming. She had to find a way to kill all of them while being guarded by Ariadne and Luxia.
She could not control her hellfires at will and the small fraction of time she could keep them up was far too short for her to use them properly. The same applied to her guardians to whom it was twice as foreign as it was for her.
There were too many and everything thrown at them was bounced back and did not work. Minimal results were present at best and to make matters worse she could not bind any of them due to being changed by the Evil Piece. She had no Summoning skills as non-human entities could not summon each other and she had no legion of her own to call forth with the natural ability that was granted to a Devil. Her casting skills were superb but she didn't know a lot of spells to turn it around or to actually deal devastating damage to her surroundings.
But every combat suit of the V3 Red Viper series came with preloaded spells woven inside the frame. Seven at best but made to maximize survival and grant a trump card...
She remembered it from the manual she had actually read about her own Argent Ghost 02. Meticulously she had read about every detail and weapon installed, every feature she did review to gain a proper understanding of her combat suit.
She had met all the prerequisites to cast Composition Magic herself. To do so the bare necessity was to have three casters together to power up the downscaled ritual nature of that branch of magic. Composition Magic usually started at the eight tier but in this case her two guardians would compensate her lack of skill as she focused on maintaining her net.
Each Red Viper V3 suit had at least two spells that constituted the necessary segments for such a task, all preloaded and prepared. They were interchangeable for convenience but in this case she had to use both carved pentacles within to initiate the process while maintaining that defense.
Ariadne placed her hand on her back while Luxia followed suit and began to weave the necessary pentacles. Her taint permeated the four pentacles of varying origin, namely being based on the six elements that were corrupted by that sole act. The taint altered it's properties while Ariadne was tuning the additional six hexagram pentacles to align with the elemental ones and spin like a clockwork mechanism in surrounding the trio at 360 degrees where the pieces were shifting. Instead of chanting anything she materialized the script itself upon the overlay to speed up the process thrice while her own taint was leaking out of her body.
Asia became the core piece of this downscaled ritual - considering her usual role the Composition Magic she was granted was that of Binding since she had experience and knowledge as a former nun in the know. The dual sided lance she rammed in the ground and started twisting like a clock arrow as it resonated and duplicated into twelve identical ones to represent the hours. It was an eight tier ritual spell that would bind the enemies in place and become a prison within time to capture them.
The reason why she didn't try to use it earlier was out of fear that she would have been found out. She was scared and mentally compromised, she didn't have the necessary pieces and she didn't trust herself in being able to execute it properly. Not to mention she didn't have the time to sit still for it to happen.
However, she felt something slip in before she would have activated the spell. A creeping sense of unease and dread gripped her mind like a vice when she quickly swerved her neck to see what was behind her. It was was invisible but she knew that it was spreading all over the world at this instant. She felt the wave that was about to reach this dimension as well when her connection to her mannequin Queen of Roses told her that it had used it's abilities to assist in the formation of something going beyond a twelfth tier spell. Her very Bishop Piece was burning in her chest in agitation in a subliminal message of primordial origin. The Gates of Hell had been opened and something else was happening.
The world was changing. It had began. All because of the use of a Sorcery...
That disruption broke her focus and her defense shattered with the chain links flying everywhere the second her concentration broke. She panicked, she made a mistake due to an outside factor she had not predicted or foresaw fully when her own mastery was still lacking to be able to see the future clearly.
In panic she stopped time and hastily triggered the ritual as she had only one shot at this. Time resumed a second later just when it was about to take effect until she looked at her side and was flung directly into the barrier so hard that she had no chance of reacting. The damned thing that swatted her was so brutal to the point where she had to activate the manual barriers of her suit before she could have been crushed into mush when she collided with the barrier around the city.
Neither Ariadne nor Luxia had regained their full senses and abilities so they did not react properly in time to prevent that.
She was literally flung at it and nailed upon the multiple layers of the protective shell that met face on with her own personal barriers to the point actually crushing the area where she landed. The impact was so great as it shattered the dome and disrupted the various layers as to produce cracks within that sturdy defense.
No matter how much shock absorption padding there was in the body glove inside the armor she had cracked her ribs and her cocyx was broken alongside her shoulder and a fracture occured in her spine...
Blood she spat out violently in a cough from the shard of her rib penetrating one of her lungs. She was crippled when she plopped violently on the black soil as the barrier was further cracking from the impact. If she were still human she would have been dead immediately. There was no mistaking it but the pain she felt was immense and beyond description as she tried to scream out and instead nearly suffocated from her own blood.
She wheezed for air, gasping and struggling to stand up in spite of the pain. Reflexively Twilight Healing was activated and began to mend her wounds instantaneously in tandem with the healing spell that was preloaded on the Argent Ghost. It was too much shock to regain her composure right away since she was invaded by pain and her vision was distorted. If she were to die it was this moment that would have spelled it.
Her head was about to be crushed by the heavy foot of a hideous Demon that resumed it's material form while three others were about to tear her apart limb by limb. She wasn't reacting as anyone normal would have in this state. Her body moved on it's own with inhuman precision as if she were another person - the shadow imitation function had kicked in to make her move like Issei by crouching backwards on her knees to avoid the stomping. Reactively she opened a few portals at point blank around her limbs and gruesome hands tore their way out into reality to deflect the blow and crush the appendages that were about to rip off her own.
She had made tears big enough to allow for the creatures lurking into the Abyss to try and protect her incidentally when they were trying to escape into this reality. With all the strength she could muster did Asia unearth the second bottle of blessed alcohol and dunked it into the Demon's face, throwing in a match that she had lit up by rubbing it on the armor plating to set on fire the hideous creature. She was saving it for a desperate situation and it was now; the fire burned off it's face and damaged it's multiple eyes to blind it effectively for a few seconds that she used to break it's knee and gouge out it's intestines with such ferocity as to roar out in anguish and pain.
She stood up and exhaled when the faceplate opened and allowed her to spit out the blood in her mouth. "Ugh...f-fuck... Uhh...hah... They're so...so-so gonn...kill me... It's just not my day..."
Everything around her was swept away by the wave that spread out from Rome and enveloped the whole world after a Sorcery had been used to allow the impossible to become reality. Asia was perplexed and horrified as everything turned white for a second and everything would never be the same afterwards.
XXX
Diodora Astaroth casually sat upon a comfortable chair while he drank wine from a fancy glass as he stared at the wall with a calculating gaze. His eyes were hidden always behind the dark shades he wore and did not reveal any hints of emotion. The dirty blonde haired man was thinking of many things at this moment and measuring out the scope of the entire scheme and how much he would play in it.
The room was dark as he did not enjoy the light within his warehouse. On the other chair was the former Glasya-Labolas Queen, staring at him with an uneasy expression that did not hide her discomfort despite being rescued by the snake eyed Devil. Anastasia Giovanni had been staying here all this time as an insurance for him to have the cardinal play by their rules. Partially, that was one of the reasons but another one was merely because she was an exciting conversation partner and played chess with him often as if to pass the time. Even now they were playing a game of chess in the darkness, staking plans upon plans via the chessboard.
"It should work out like this...", he tapped on the chair a few times as he moved his own knight piece. "Knowing the situation it's to my advantage. The pieces are set and if my predictions come true it would be one step closer to the goal.", Dio murmured softly after another sip of wine.
Anastasia Giovanni moved a Rook piece and took out one of his Pawns as she leaned forward. She was treated well, far more than any unfortunate soul that was in a situation like this. "How long do i have to be a prisoner here? It's not as if I don't despise your kind so cut the bullshit. What's your end game?" she quipped without looking away from her game.
Dio nonchalantly raised a brow and smirked in a nasty grin. "Who knows, my dear friend. I do enjoy these moments of comfort and relaxation. Most of all, you're entertaining at least unlike those other ones before you. You see, Anastasia...", he stopped for a moment and moved his second Knight further in her territory. "If it goes well you'd be free within a week or two. My master has some ideas to try and i think it would be quite interesting to watch as it unfolds. But you play no part in all of this so sit back and enjoy the show."
"I never tried to understand your perspective because i can't. I don't know what goes within a demon's head and i would never want to know.", she made her turn and sacrificed a Pawn. Oddly, they weren't playing chess anymore...
"I do know one thing and it's you're quite the motherfucker. You immortal fucks don't even understand the fragility and sense of despair we humans feel. Fear of death, fear of abandonment. Fear of clowns... especially clowns. I hate those a lot.", she repeated.
Dio made a risky move and moved his Queen to the side. The music that was playing was soft and ambient. He didn't pretend to care as he continued on with his own tirades. "At times you people amaze me a little. I've seen plenty so i always enjoy a good story. A puzzle more so is to my liking so i try to fit the pieces and make something that actually makes sense.", he chuckled and his eyes scrutinized her frame. "It doesn't make sense why we're playing chess when it should be checkers or mahjong or why not all of it? The board is big enough to play more than one game and there is plenty to go around."
"Exactly how you try to make yourself the ultimate evil when you're a scarred, pathetic child, right?" she said with an icy tone as if she was announcing the weather. She didn't feel human, she felt more and more alien and further from whom she was. "This is all about trying to get back at your mother, isn't it?", Anastasia added.
"Sure. If my brother also keels I'd be the happiest creature alive. Perhaps that is what makes us superficially similar because i know the pain of losing someone. At times i feel like it was me that killed my father." he replied.
"Why do you think so?"
"Figure of speech, my dear. I'm not gonna gush out my damn life story to you. Your attempts at provoking me are quite predictable and petty.", he started playing by their own rules and had his Queen blitz straight towards her field. It would be surrounded by so many pawns but the Knights were there to act as bait.
"But I'll tell you something about yourself. You're just scared of going back to how things used to be since you'd be all alone. Just like yours truly."
His sudden remark made Anastasia pause and freeze for a moment. He did not mince his words when he continued to push her further. "Your brother is an old man now and who knows how much time he has left. No family, no parents and no friends left. You have no home to go back either as you'd be damned to walk upon the face of the Earth till everything you hold dear is dead and gone. It's all memories to haunt you till you go insane from the loneliness. It's what scares you the most, isn't it?"
"You…" a scowl formed upon Anastasia's face. She looked up at him with barely suppressed disgust and anger welling inside her. It was never her choice, there was nothing she could have done by ending up this way and she resented it. It was her damnation, her suffering through the decades that wore her down and made her lose hope until she saw her brother again.
Yet, she was powerless to fight against them.
"... you make me sick..."
"That makes two of us, love.", Diodora's tone was harsh and hard. "If you were to ask me as i said before i wish for a world without any of my kind and the rest. I hold no love for anyone but myself... Well, there's grandmother Lorna and Michaela but that's another topic. I too didn't want to end up like this but I accepted it and now I can't be anyone but myself. It's in my nature, you could say. The girl i loved is the one who lost me. I do intend to make them pay dearly for their grievances against me but it should be entertaining. "
Despite the intensity in Dio's voice his eyes were serene and calm. He had accepted it as natural and continued on his with narrative. "It took me some time to realize it but it was plain to see. In our greatest moment of need they abandoned us and left us to rot. Venelana Bael did nothing but flee instead of returning the gesture for everything my mother did for them. And Rias Gremory... She is just the same if not worse. Her brother ain't far either but he's the worst if you ask me."
"So we were both tricked, i take it? We were hurt by those who we trusted.", her eyes darted across the floor as her mind raced. She bit her lower lip while her fingers played with the chess pieces. Her next move was to take out the first Knight piece and advance with her Pawns. "How bad do you want them to suffer? As much as i am suffering?"
She did not try to emphasize with him. She was actually disgusted, terrified and puzzled but her curiosity made her go further. There was the suppressor in the form of a bracelet on her hand so she was powerless in front of him. Only the game before them was the wall that kept her calm as much as possible so she was trying to play by his rules.
"You made one mistake. She didn't hurt me, i hurt myself by having trusted her and loved her. It's all just a shame but it's mine.", casually he flicked his second Knight piece and tore through her ranks by taking out her Rook and stepped further in her territory.
Diodora closed his eyes and let out a breath of air. "I have ambitions too. Goals, wishes and desires to show them that my father was right. I know he didn't kill himself. He would never do that no matter what so I'm searching, I'm chasing after the truth and if i can fuck up all those motherfuckers along the way then I'll do it gladly. So yes... I want them to experience what we did and ruin this bloody accursed land they call the Underworld. But let me tell you that it's not Hell, my dear. It's far from it."
The Queen stared at her feet, deeply thinking of anything she could use to buy herself more time. She was taking in as much as possible to formulate a plan to escape and see her brother. Studying his reactions, times of departure and return. Analyzing the defenses and possibilities of escape were the activities she kept herself occupied with whenever she didn't want to listen to boring music. All she did was glean details to build her hypotheses and prod him little by little. The damn suppressor was the problem otherwise she could have overpowered him, perhaps...
The way he murdered the Glasya-Labolas peerages was calculated carefully. Planned many times and likely repeated multiple times to reach a satisfactory result since he was not strong like the rest.
It was why she feared him; because everyone regarded him as weak she knew he was putting on a show and stirred opinion in the way he desired. False impressions and expectations were his weapons as he meticulously and carefully crafted his plans to take them down.
The weak were ready to use anything to survive and win. He was a cockroach and thus she knew well he would rise again.
Just as she was about to speak up he made a ridiculous move by having his Queen step forward and take out two Pawns. He was gunning for a checkmate. He took off his shades for the first time in her presence and revealed his yellow slit eyes.
Those eyes of a snake gleamed with such an intense light it would have made her sick to keep looking at those disgusting orbs of flesh. The light they emitted could never go away no matter what camouflage or distortions he used to conceal them. It was impossible so he opted to using shades so no one would be disturbed.
"I know what you want. Tell me what is it that you desire?", his sultry voice emanated within her ears as she could not tear away her gaze from his. She stared at those eyes with a daze and forgot about everything else.
"I want all of those monsters dead. Especially that bitch who used me as a decoration. As a pet."
He turned and moved away from her after he placed his aviator shades again. The light faded away behind the dark covers of glass as he smirked in satisfaction when Anastasia Giovanni regained her bearings. He placed his hands on the board and purposely had his Queen moved in a detrimental position, recklessly using that asset in his goal to score a checkmate.
But this wasn't chess anymore.
There were a few times in her presence where he felt slightly human. Short moments of something resembling human emotions or sentiment were painted on his pretty face but she knew better than to trust him.
The moment she realized what he did to her she instantly used her King to execute a maneuver and take his Queen off the board. Her lips thinned and quivered in anger. "Foul bastard, you always cheat like this... This is ridiculous and whatever is in your head scares me...", she pulled back in fear after she took his most valued piece and tried to defend herself as much as she possibly could in such a weakened state.
The suppressor made her pass off as a human perfectly just as the human she was.
Diodora laughed for a few seconds and then had one of his pawns sweep in and take her Queen as well. This was the strangest, most bizarre game of chess they had ever played and he toyed with the stolen Queen piece by twirling it between his fingers. "I share your wish and what I'm about to do is going to take care of more than one obstacle in my way. This is what they call the Queen's Gambit. Impressive, isn't it?"
He sacrificed his strongest piece as a diversion and risked losing but he needed that to proceed with his plans. It was all so he could win. To use outlandish tactics and ideas in search of a way to win was his forte.
When she turned to look at him this time, all the excitement and enthusiasm were gone.
Only his cold expression returned as he cleared the chessboard and started arranging the pieces anew. He did carefully observe every move of her's since he did not want to risk any variable from ruining his plan. Namely, if she removed her suppressor it would trigger the safety mechanism of her Evil Piece and contaminate her, mutating her into a Stray due to the lack of control from the King Connector piece that tied all peerage members to their owner. She had grown strong with the decades so she could relegate the taint safely and delay the process.
She was camouflaged very well but if she stepped out of the warehouse she would die since humans couldn't exactly survive in the Underworld as it made her seem human and restrict all her abilities. Not that a Reincarnated Devil could survive stepping into Hell either but they couldn't get to the Veil in the first place. Such an experimented had been done before and the result was more than obvious.
"It's a little bit impressive but aren't you tired of all of this?", Anastasia Giovanni muttered, trying to probe him further for any bits of information or to gain an inkling into what ticked inside his head.
"I am... I really feel that way often", he looked away in thought.
He beheld the Pawn piece that he liked in silence as if reminiscing about his entire life and then he sighed deeply. "Some entities are merely born to suffer. Born with terrible luck and being forced to thread through thorns while others are blessed with fortune and it's bread and butter for them. All my life i cursed my immortal existence, staring back at the rest who were fortunate and blessed while all i did was suffer in my own mediocrity and losses.", he brushed his fingers over his shades as if to try to hide the possibility of tears showing so he turned away completely.
But he did not stop.
"Every person I've loved has betrayed me and hurt me deeply. Every single woman that has appeared in my life has done nothing but to break whatever bond there was between us so say whatever you want. I let that happen and hurt myself because of them but to me there is no difference between each and everyone of them. I hate everyone equally but sometimes the one i hate the most is me."
"Are you certain there isn't someone left who does give a meager, tiny fuck about you?" she spoke as she looked back at him. "I can't help but pity you a little. Not enough to make me care about you or anything... Yet, i despise how pathetic and pitiful we are. A wise man used to say that people are merely sacks of shit and it holds true when you think about it, no? If you hated yourself so much why didn't you kill yourself and do some good that way?"
Not a hint of compassion did she offer with those words. In fact, she was curious how a being like him could live with so much shame and so little dignity. If she were to say, he would have done the world a favour by ending his pitiful existence. However, a part of her that was still human despite eroding at an alarming rate felt kinship with this atrocity who kidnapped and defiled the innocent.
Dio turned around upon hearing those words. He was slightly unnerved so if he did anything it would show weakness. He held it within him to maintain his frame and thus answered her question with a tint of emotions staining his words.
"I don't wish to give them that satisfaction. Merely by existing i piss off someone and it gives my life meaning. If i were to perish then who would make those pricks mad?", he cackled with a dose of sadness ladden within his voice. "I won't die for them to be happy. I'm miserable, deplorable and pathetic but it's who i am and i want them to taste what's it like to be me. To be weak, to be meaningless. To be useless. To be discarded when all I wanted was to win just once in my fucking life."
She seemed slightly pleased if one were to judge by the creeping smile upon the edges of her lips. Even if small dents were made into his ego she enjoyed those meager victories deeply. She was forgetting who she was as her memories were fading within time. Cornelius Agrippa could not be said to be the same man he was when human. They were two completely different existences despite sharing the flesh and identity of the man who became nothing short of being like those who made him what he is. Anastasia was no different despite her best efforts to maintain as much as possible of herself.
"Then I'd say fuck them up bad, brudda. Life ain't kind nor fair so why play fair when they wouldn't do it?"
At the door was Bikou who carried some supplies as he closed it behind him, stepping towards the table with a heavy thud. He did his best not to be spotted and made a quick dash since he felt danger if he remained out there for extended periods of time. It was regarding the chances of being tainted and his existence being corrupted and twisted.
Anastasia did not answer.
"Any leads on Vali and the rest? How's the search going so far?", Diodora inquired immediately.
"Regrettably none, I'm afraid.", Bikou hesitantly replied with dejection lacing his words. The expression he had changed to awry for a moment. "It's been more than a week now and i got no lead. Tried a lot of things i could think of but no luck finding them. Who's gonna cook if Fay ain't here?"
"You mean you're worried over mere food when your friends are missing? What sort of pig are you, i wonder?", Anastasia did not hold back as she said that with a mirthful expression. She recalled what little details were exchanged about that predicament and hypothesised the value of each missing person in their team by bits of information here and there. She was aware of the rumours and whatnot.
Bikou merely stated with finality. "The kid knows how to make some great salad and eggs. Can you blame me for that?", he placed his hands on his waist and stared her down as if she had insulted his pride.
He did however twirl a strand of his hair between his fingers before he remembered something important. "One of my clones heard that the old bug sent the spear guy and his girl to investigate that. Some huge ass operation in Italy and whatnot. They're assuming our precious Valentina has defected and leaked information to our enemies so knowing how it goes she might be rotting in some alleyway..."
"The White Dragon Empress wouldn't leave without a reason. She's sticking with all this shit cause she has a goal and needs their power.", Dio knew who Vali really was and obviously contemplated on ways to neutralise her should she endanger his wellbeing.
But most of all, he considered her a kindred soul if he had one in the first place. They were similar and both wanted to achieve their goals so they helped each other as scorned and reviled beings. "Someone else obviously intervened and she's either a hostage or has found a better deal. She wasn't among the other corpses so I'm positive she's alive. She cut ties with us so we wouldn't be dragged down with her if the old bloke made a move."
Various ideas and theories he held within his head, calculating possible scenarios and motives on her absence. Arthur and Fay were too weird so anything goes if it were them. Kuroka was the sole factor he paid attention to the most as she was the likeliest case of throwing them under the bus and putting her own wishes ahead of the group. Thus he was wary of her. Especially since he knew how attached she was to her sister.
Bikou nodded in agreement. He did his fair share of searching but he couldn't find a lead to confirm his own suspicions so he had to carefully snoop around the other groups in hopes of overhearing something important that could help. He opened his mouth and elaborated. "From what i know most of Cao Cao's peeps were dispatched in Italy alongside that crazy broad Walburga. It seems they went with the plan and another strike team was sent elsewhere. I'm not sure why but it was one of the big guns, ya know?"
Dio wasn't surprised. He knew a bit of it in advance and yet he pondered. Perhaps one of his assumptions would become reality. "Who did they send out? I doubt it's Creuserey or Katerea since they take advantage of the fact that everyone thinks they're dead. Maybe someone not so important?"
The descendant of the Monkey King muttered with trepidation. His own reaction to what he heard was only of surprise and fear. When he pushed the words out of his throat it made it clear how big the task was at hand. "Not them. It's Crom Cruach and Niddhogr themselves that flew over the Pacific Ocean. The latter joined not even two weeks ago but decided to jump on it. Ragnarok has started. You know what that means, right?"
"They're gonna fight something big.", Diodora crossed his arms and twirled the Queen piece between his fingers. He was slightly amused but more than anything genuine concern crept past his pokerface. "Send a Dark God and Armageddon itself to fight comparable monsters... Fuck, my peerage were cluttering close to my mother these days so it's means she's going to be there! It's a summit, of course!", merely by finding out who was sent did he think of his mother and her position.
Not long after he did that massacre at the Glasya-Labolas domain and he already knew why they sent his mother to accompany the delegations, aside from being a representative.
If she was going to be present then it meant the Lords of Darkness would be there too and what better chance to finish them off than a sneak attack during a gathering?
It was mostly because of how much they feared Malina von Astaroth so to balance things out they had a big player tag along to ensure enough blackmail or punitive force would be used upon the Astaroth household. This whole quarantine did annoy him but he was not afraid despite being a target of the Culling.
Usually only one of them would be present and it was only for the truly world changing decisions but to also have his mother there meant it was certain that it would require the one who represented the pureblood Devils and the one who did so for the reincarnated and additional ones.
It seemed like he produced a disgusting, satisfactory grin for a few seconds before his expression stiffened and bore down a heavy contemplation written all over it. The snake eyed man sighed deeply and then waved the chess piece demonstratively before he placed it on the board upon enemy territory.
"It's the perfect timing for my operation. There is no better time than this one so hold the fort while I'm gone, Bikou. I'm playing my Queen's Gambit to scare them a little so we won't be able to contact each other for quite some time or maybe who knows how long.", he finished his declaration with finality and certainty. Despite that in his voice there was a hint of sadness and worry.
Anastasia who kept quiet spoke up in reaction to everything that she heard. "I don't know what you're planning but you'd get killed. It would be good but i don't want to be stuck here any longer so what about me?"
He didn't bat an eye to her inquiry. "Bikou will take care of you for now. If your brother plays well you'd see him soon. "
"It's insane... Do you really want to risk it all for that?!", Bikou blurted out bluntly. Emotionally charged as he was he did understand his plans despite not liking them one bit. "Fuck it. It ain't worth dying over for some shit like this, brother. It could go sideways in so many ways that I can't even begin to describe it."
"That makes two of us. Hopefully whatever happens is going to get rid of my mother. At worst I'd be thrown out of the Underworld or executed but it won't cause them any grief so who actually cares in this goddamn world?", Dio casually waved his hand and dismissed his friend's worries. He held his poker face and did not lose his motivation.
"I know you care and maybe a few more. I appreciate it, truly but when you're playing the long game you have to take a hit or two and that's what I'm doing right now. If it means scoring a hit on all of them then i do believe it would bring some peace to my dead father. I'm going to find out who did it and fuck them over so badly they'd scream for eternity begging me for absolution."
"Alright then. I won't try to dissuade you but consider everything again since you're a friend of mine.", the dark haired man knew there was some goodness in that blackened heart of his so he tried to bring out a bit of it to the surface. He was expecting it already so he merely played along cause he was a bit bored and didn't want to leave without a proper departure. "Survive so you can see the fruits of your labour and I'm sure even your mother would be proud."
"I know. I really love my mother for everything i had to endure because of her." he said with a mockery of a smile yet it felt confusing.
Did he really hate his mother that deeply or did he pity himself and her for how things turned out for them? There were mixed feelings welling up inside him.
"I did love my mother but now i don't know if we could ever return to how we were before my dad was killed. I still love her a lot… But my brother is still a douche, i tell you."
He was certain. His father did not commit suicide at all. But he also knew something about it - while his physical form may have been destroyed his true immaterial one was somewhere out there, recuperating so one day he would be able to see him again.
He didn't know that answer precisely. He had contemplated and remembered his mother's love till he had to see his own father hanging on the noose. That day twelve years ago changed everything in him.
"... perhaps she pushed me like this to create the same monster who can survive and win. I hated her but she did a pretty good job. Can't deny she's the strongest and most beautiful of our kind and that's what makes her the scariest. It's that absolute truth that she could destroy this realm if she wanted without even having to leave her bedroom. So the planet itself is no hard task if she willed it."
Bikou nodded. "She did have a sweet ass too...", without a doubt the staff wielder had seen her in pictures and had the urge to kill himself out of wanting to give his most precious to Diodora's mother. And that was merely from staring at her picture. She always had a filter that downplayed her appearance to prevent others from being unable to handle her beauty and killing themselves from witnessing what bordered on the scale of absolute perfection.
"One more word and you're going straight to the gallows, my friend.", the blonde man calmly stated without showing any hostility despite his response being nothing less than a genuine threat.
Anastasia rolled her eyes at this ridiculous banter between them. She definitely did not want to be around these things even a minute longer yet she had to choice in all of this.
Dio looked at her with annoyance and wagged a finger. "Behave or you're going there too. Might as well toss you to the Crossroads Demon if you're naughty.", he giggled like a school girl with an obnoxious tone to back it up. "God bless us all. I could use some good luck on my side right now and a better chess player."
The dark haired girl did not miss that detail out. She had to check her ears because she did not expect that showcase of such an unprecedented occasion. Disbelief was written on her face as she reached out towards him with questions rising up in her mind. "You just said that without experiencing pain or even bleeding or anything! How is that possible? I tried and tried but it never worked!"
Unamused. That was what he portrayed when being asked of such a trivial thing about himself. As graciously as possible he retorted with a nonchalant response. "It's simple. Very simple, in fact. Because I'm not an ordinary Devil plus there are others who can do so without any retribution. If you were to ask it's due to my family history and ever since i met my master i unlocked this blessing on my own."
A book was placed on her lap as he slowly moved away from her while there was a paper note that marked a few pages that could have given her some of the answers she sought. Anastasia flipped the pages as she read through their contents, absorbing all the information available at an alarming pace and calculated some answers in an astonishing speed since she had been bonded with an Evil Piece for decades now and her mental abilities had drastically been altered beyond the confines of the flesh.
"Oh, that's his father's book! It was quite the fascinating read and there were a ton of things that i did not know.", Bikou exclaimed while sharing his opinion of a book he had actually read. He had not read many books in his life to be precise. "It's precisely what the truth is. Not this whole make-believe and rewritten history the Underworld has. Just think about how many things don't align or make sense! I mean, the birth rates are one thing but straight up labeling some as Extra or denying the origins of their kind and everything is some blatant marketing for control. A few things i know for sure and this is the real deal."
"To state it briefly", Diodora began to narrate with the proper cadence and showmanship he loved to display, "your answer lies within those pages about how this realm was stolen from it's original inhabitants. They were called the Demons of Inferno, once human beings who were exposed to a source and evolved into Homo Sapiens Infernus, moved to this place that we call the Underworld. Ten thousand or so years ago the Demons kicked them out of our reality and took this place as an extension of Hell. Only my ancestor stood up for them and before every Infernal was banished from this universe they sired a child bearing that blood as an act of loyalty. Because of that the Astaroth family is reviled by those who know the truth. We are the culmination of that kindness and it explains these distinctive features that haven't changed since then."
He wasn't just a Demon. He had something human in him all along as a direct descendant of the Demons of Inferno. Bearing half the blood was the consequence of that union that no matter how many years had passed could not be purged from the bloodline. They were altered forever.
It was why he could not hide the glow in his eyes because it was something that denied any camouflage, disguise or physical alteration as a permanent reminder of that legacy. His only choice was to use shades to mask them as much as possible since they were unaffected by anything they had tried for thousands of years.
The woman began to read more and more while the two men ignored her completely and exchanged a few words.
Diodora walked towards the door with a light step, fully prepared and unarmed to demonstrate his willingness to risk it all. He had to if he wanted a chance for it to work so he could not appear threatening. Not that he ever seemed to be one given his poor performance in the Rating Games and being overall weak in the eyes of others, proven time and time again. The dirty blonde hair was neatly brushed as he prepared to leave the warehouse.
"Make sure you survive cause we have a ton of work to do. I might get thrown past the Veil so who knows what comes next but it offers me the chance to break someone out of there. Ever heard of the Peerage Killer? That's what I'm thinking about."
Upon the table was the picture of a female they didn't know about. It appeared out of thin air and gently rested on the mahogany wood. It was someone who could help if placated the right way but a wildcard to utilize due to it's sheer unpredictability. It was akin to calling a disaster upon this realm and initiating Doomsday on all of these pretenders. Someone they all feared and reviled for they could be their next target.
"She's smoking hot for sure. I definitely wanna fuck her.", said Bikou while Anastasia froze in disbelief. That was outright crazy in considering that option.
She knew exactly well what happened three years ago during a Rating Game gone horribly wrong. Two entire peerages were slaughtered all by one individual singlehandedly. The whole dimension used for the games was burned out of existence and the casualties included more than half of the spectators, going past four digits and leaving as many others scarred and traumatized for life. That incident left a deep trail in the minds of other Devils and changed the rules of the game to avoid something like that from ever happening again. The rules used these days were precisely due to that accident and the implementation of special rules followed suit.
The dark haired woman tried to say something but it was already too late.
The Devil vanished within a blink from their sights. Diodora Astaroth had some big plans that would benefit not only himself but others in the long run. That would be a great gift to deliver by reconciling cousins again and getting someone who craved for the destruction of this false hell as much as he did. Alongside that it would have been worth seeing the looks on their faces when the Executioner escaped Hell and returned to enact justice upon those who were in dire need of it.
That was one plan he could use as a consequence of his main idea if things turned out that way and he was to be banished. He was thinking of calling upon the Peerage Killer.
Illona Flauros, first cousin of Rias Gremory.
XXX
"A little help here?! Help me, damn it!", Carmine wheezed as she struggled with her telekinetic bubble to toss the King Bahamut away. Her beautiful face showed a good amount of fear now that she was being pushed back without any resistance working for her gain.
The cannibalistic dragon was pouncing and scraping it's magnificent talons across the bubble as it pushed down further to crush her flat. It's Toxic Breath was prepared and was about to be unloaded when the Blood Rose Alraune burst out of the ground and lashed at the beast with her thorny vines in a vengeful retaliation. For a moment it directly caught her vines and tugged on them, dragging her closer to it's maw where it expelled it's breath upon her and dug it's claws into her tender shoulders.
She screamed as she was hit by the corrosive attack that began to melt her flesh in a vicious cycle of dealing damage as she regenerated and was injured again. Truly, one of the most horrible aspects of being a Regenerator was to be put through continuous streams of damage as fast as one had healed their flesh and to then experience it again. A maddening experience as one would say but the Alraune reacted by making a tree sprout underneath it's chin and had used the sudden growth spurt to uppercut the dragon with a surprise attack.
The dragon roared out in agony as it was flipped over by the sudden appearance of a pine tree, damaging it's lower jaw and marring it's neck scales with tiny fractures and drops of blood. Truly, it was extremely durable and relentless in it's single-minded pursuit - Eclipse was already in the air when that had happened and swiped her finger in a cutting manner to unleash several pentacles around the Alraune while deflecting attacks from the nearest enemies. The flowery Demon stumbled back and closed off herself using her petals to act as a shield for her upper body as she burrowed in the ground.
Carmine had regained her bearings during that gap, throwing slabs of rocks in the air towards Eclipse as a diversion while she crafted a hammer from the particles in the soil. The weapon she levitated and hurled at the dirty blonde haired woman, forcing the slabs to alter their course and act as the real spearhead of her assault. Namely by having them shapeshift into grotesque spiked orbs that clashed against the pentacles, sticking upon them and tearing the initial processes that started the spell. The released kinetic energy was enough to cause shockwaves from the impact that she needed to encase within telekinetic bubbles and had them burst near Eclipse, bombarding her with enough pressure to offset her flight and damage her.
The hammer was stopped by the King Bahamut's claws, crumbling it and snapping it's jaws at the red haired Demon at that precise moment. Carmine flipped backwards and repelled the teeth through a few telekinetic walls that absorbed and redirected the brunt of it's assault backwards. Yet, it was to no avail when the creature easily snaked through that trick and was surely to have eaten her in half if she had not dematerialized. However, Carmine did suffer damage since her hand was seared by the corrosive properties of it's breath and was taking time to recover it's proper shape.
Eclipse merely landed on the ground, producing a crater from her fall and rapidly began punching the ginger Demon with both fists in a brutal onslaught of flesh colliding with flesh. Her two sets of wings were utilised in tandem with her fists to scrape, cut, nick and flail every spot she could touch to have her poison laced arms permeate the enemy's skin upon mere contact. It was a one-sided beatdown when telekinesis could not be used.
The King Bahamut followed it's master to tackle the girl and swung it's tail to crush the opposition in maddened frenzy. Things were happening too fast to register with the normal human eye but it was certain that Carmine was not giving up since she took every hit and returned in kind with punches of her own. Poison did begin to circulate within her so the tactic she applied was to remove the damaged skin from her body violently and toss those bits onto the mask of Eclipse.
It didn't matter how much pain she felt when her rage curbed it enough to keep going as far as to shapeshift her left arm into a humongous, ugly feline one with deadly claws that expanded in seconds and acted as a piston to strike the dragon familiar in the jaw, breaking several teeth with one hit. Her arm clasped it's head and her right one was altered in the same way to bash it's skull with barriers overlaying the knuckles. She growled, screeched and hissed in rage as she pummeled the steed to the point of bleeding.
The pattern repeated itself dozens of times within a span of a few seconds, strikes after strikes rained upon the unfortunate dragon despite it fighting back. From beneath did the Alraune pop out like a drill and had her vines penetrate the weakest parts of the cannibal dragon, forcefully growing trees within it's flesh as it was being torn apart from the inside. It did rip off the torso of the second female and clenched it's hand, crushing her and tossing her like rubbish on the ground. The remaining lower body it tore apart with a swipe of it's leg and flicked it at Carmine, blinding her far more than her rage.
The master of the dragon grasped her legs and flung her up and down, crashing her against the dirty soil like she was a filthy rag. It was nothing less than using a stick to hit over and over, going as far as hitting the girl into the sprouted trees akin to a game of pinball. The dragon itself freed it's torso from the wood and dragged on the massive muscles despite the wounds to the stomach. They weren't that deep, luckily so it quickly charged another Toxic Breath and blasted the spot where the enemy leader was thrown at.
Carmine shielded herself with a telekinetic shield at the last moment while guarding her crushed companion as the Alraune was already regenerating her lower body and stabbed the earth with her stem to draw further resources from the tainted soil. Her crushed upper body bloated and deflated with her condition turning pristine.
The rest did not assist them as per her orders. They were far more important to her than herself and thus she would ensure they would reach the destination. The Alraune did what a friend would have and stabbed her leader in the shoulder, using her vines to suck out the poison that was degrading her liege's condition at an alarming pace. It was a hasty procedure but it had to do.
Nevertheless, Carmine did not let up.
They didn't bother using any spells or the like because it was useless against the likes of the King Bahamut and it's sixth tier resistance. Therefore they only relied on their natural abilities to overwhelm - and one aspect of that was their teamwork. That expresses itself when Hekarim found an opening while battling Vespertine by tossing a grenade underneath the Bahamut's neck and dematerialized to reappear before his companions.
The grenade blew up and stunned the dragon long enough to cancel it's breath attack, allowing the trio to sweep in and retaliate. The Alraune spread her vines from the ground to tie it down while Hekarim pounced upon it's head with everything he had, applying a simple gravity spell to make himself heavier and pin it down. Carmine herself finally resorted to a hidden trump card and had her oversized feline arms clasp together and release a Dyson Sphere with chaotic, unstable particles clashing together within near the dragon's head.
When it collided against it's hinged open jaws did it burst and irradiate the unfortunate familiar; it's organs ruptured and exploded like a balloon without a trace being left behind...
This particular specimen was a youngling. It had not been tempered enough nor had it gained the experience of the strongest among it's kind. If it were a fully matured King Bahamut things would have been drastically different even if it put up a good fight.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Eclipse did not mourn or grieve since her familiar had returned to her and would be called forth later in time. Such was the nature of demonic familiars as they were nigh-indestructible like their owners and would resume their duties as long as the master held their essence to respawn them.
The Astaroth woman merely laughed with an odd moan mixed in between when her emotional outburst died out and was replaced by deadly silence. The sinister shine within her slit eyes was followed by a ghost of a smile that promised nothing but destruction and agony.
Silently she raised her finger and forced all of them on their knees as she unclenched her right fist and dropped a tiny orb that seemed so pitiful and weak by it's appearance. It's mana was pathetic by any standard but it multiplied again and again via Number manipulation to restructure it into a chaos core that had enough force to blow up this pocket dimension and affect the outside world.
The power of this chaos core would have destroyed any adapted form and collapsed the dimension itself if she had not lowered it's potential.
Vespertine stopped her by relocating the core into the future or lest they would have perished as well. Vestigial memories were resurfacing within them as their shells were cracking and confusion took them by surprise.
Hekarim tried to rush her but was smacked away helplessly and then drawn towards the snake eyed woman. She changed the vectors of his fall and instead propelled him to stand before her feet.
Her eyes widened behind the mask as she comprehended what she was seeing, as she deciphered the true nature of Eclipse. Instead, Vespertine opened a hole to the Abyss with whatever strength she had left and brought it down upon Hekarim and his two companions. She would have used something in the vein of Void Cutter to rip them into shreds if she did not feel a voice in her head.
A compulsion, an urge to rebel was born when another memory started to surface from her subconscious.
Things would have ended differently if her fine control was not disturbed.
A memory of her child and craving to see him was what offset her and allowed the Incubus to quickly jump at Eclipse with his hand straightened as a spear.
Eclipse only tilted her neck and his whole arm was torn off, twisted and turned into sacks of meat by changing the limb into useless lumps of flesh. She used her Numbers to recreate it in this shape and turned the direction of his blood within those vessels to induce pressure and have them blow up violently. A near hysterical laughter made itself known when she touched her mask and it began to crack, showing parts of her face in trying to reclaim her identity. A wicked, sadistic grin was revealed at the broken edges of her mask and one of her sickly yellow eyes glared menacingly at her prey.
Her ego was too strong to be submerged for long and thus she scraped at the vestiges of control she was wrestling to get at the cost of making Asia distracted and being unable to move them subconsciously as much as before.
That act was the cause that ruined her one chance to finish it all as the nun was hurtled against the barrier...
Without an anchor the two started to fade away. Vanishing from reality was what was happening with Eclipse. Perhaps it was the duration of the spell that resurrected them or perhaps a voice whispered in their ears that it was the time to relocate. A grand plan to contribute to, a second chance to grasp was what was whispered via their connection to the Throne Room. Vespertine struggled with herself as she saw mysterious butterflies of blue dance around her and leading towards a path she had not seen before.
Both vanished from this hell plane and no traces of them were left as if spirited away.
Carmine froze when she spotted a butterfly fly past her and realized what they were up against. She had to accept what she had heard the first time but she would not give up. Her green slit eyes gazed upon the incoming wave and she could not smile at all. Only that she dematerialized with Hekarim and the Alraune in preparation for the world to come.
Then this mirrored world was bathed in the light of a Sorcery that altered everything...
XXX
"...i-I'm... Alive! Ughh... huh, ahh...", Asia breathed out as Twilight Healing patched the last of her wounds and healed her broken bones.
The pain was receding and she could move normally in no time. Her Argent Ghost did need some maintenance. Issei would have suspected her without a doubt if she did not do anything about this problem soon.
What was before her were the ruined plains past the barrier. The red and dark skies were torn, the ground was mostly missing and in patches of scorched land. Truly bizarre was the term she would have used to describe this place after what happened. This reality was so damaged that it barely maintained an order of sensibility and meaning. Nothing less than a painting or the production of a schizophrenic had it become where everything was jumbled, out of order and lacked any coherence between each section that constituted the outside of the barrier city.
It was existing and not at the same time in the boundary between real and imaginary.
The outside of the Devil Slum had been destabilised so thoroughly it was a miracle it held together despite the severe consequences of a Sorcery affecting reality on such a grand scale.
The barriers were breached at several places despite still being able to protect the inside from the chaotic mess of the outside.
Whenever she searched for Ariadne or Luxia she did not find them. Neither her other assistants. Perhaps they had been swept away by the wave and ceased to exist after all the trouble she went through to claim the pages from that book. She had practically stolen Issei's chance to bring back his family and used it for her own needs.
Asia was alone in this queer world of infernal making.
That was supposed to be the case until she had to dodge a slab of earth heading her way. The slab crashed upon the barrier layers at the crack and halted after doing it's intended job. That act alarmed the blonde nun that it had yet to be over since she managed to spot the Demons resurfacing within this hell plane for a second round at bloody vengeance.
The one responsible for her failed ritual appeared within this reality as it's hideous visage materialized among the rest. Smouldering purplish flames from head to toe were encased in a twisted frame that expelled them, covered with jagged spines and interwoven arms together to give it shape. A horned skeletal visage with multiple eyes peered at the helpless nun with curiosity and amusement - it's crown of horns curved downwards as Chaos symbols were glowing from each point of it's exposed frame. It's blazing limbs were nothing more than an odd configuration of bloodied arms and legs entwined together with crooked teeth littered all over them.
A Chaos halo lit up above it's fused skull with two others merging into it and bore a seventh eye that resided within it's jaws.
Using Chaos magic did it disrupt and alter the ritual to cause it to fail as it laid in waiting for it's leader to bring it out to play. A hidden ace in the sleeve as one would say. It wasn't very difficult to do so due to it's twisting abilities that distorted almost everything in it's wake.
Right as she was about to put the finishing touches to her ritual Asia felt a gaze pierce through her, disorienting her sense of direction just when she was about to end it. The Chaos Demon was lurking behind her, emerging from her own shadow as it punched her so hard with it's fist that it sent her flying and breaking several ribs in the process. The sole act of cutting it's own finger and dropping it upon the overlay pentacles infused it with a chaotic element, twisting the sequence and scrambling some of the script into a comingled mess.Ariadne and Luxia did not have time to react as Chaos magic affected their movement since they acted as the auxiliary components of Composition magic. The Chaos Demon dove into the shadows and hid within Carmine's pendant where the slain had resided in wait of regaining their adapted forms.
The Chaos creature was further empowered by this state of disarray, sapping the dimension of it's stability and causing a fluctuation in the integrity of it's being. Everything here was a playground for it to twist and alter upon the mere flick of a finger or a single thought. A path it created to anchor the floating pieces of land in order to grant a semblance of reality to this empty place, patching various blocks in a deranged manner to it's own depraved liking.
It appeared to be number three in leadership despite it's abilities and skills eclipsing Hekarim and the Blood Rose Alraune. As such it lowered it's master upon one of these platforms to assist and directly spoke to Asia in a hollow, shrieking voice.
"I Remember. You. Pitiful. Girl.", It spoke as it unraveled it's left arm into the human limbs that it was composed of. "You. Are. But. A. Puppet. Of. The. False. Ruler. Of. Hell. You. Will. Damn. Them. All."
"She does not belong here. We'll extract the Gear from her corpse so kill her now!", ordered the red haired Demon as she pounced off the Chaos Demon's palm and touched the ground. Primal fear and indignation showed their colours upon her pretty face, locked in a visage of wariness and outright hatred.
It was as if she was scared already by this small sack of flesh.
Hundreds of these Infernal creatures attacked in unison. Wave after wave they lunged towards her, hundred in strength and size. Those with hosts abandoned them in favour of their natural forms as the host bodies were hurtled akin to projectiles in a bloody rain of flesh and guts at her.
Asia had nowhere to run and she didn't have any support left. She was aching plenty, fearful for her life but brave enough to make a stand. There had to be something useful she could do with her current level of mastery, something that she had experienced before. Upon gazing at Carmine a second before she was to be attacked she murmured something in a mocking tone with a sickening smile behind her faceplate.
"A spawn of Baal. You look like them so I'll assume you are a sister of Rias or maybe her brother's child, no?"
Asia warped space to open holes in reality in order to combat the rain of bloody guts from pelting her but she could not foresee the Alraune bursting from within the fleshy storm as it swept it's vines and uprooted the patch of land she was standing on. An Incubus rapidly punched her into the air where Hell Carrions began to draw their claws at her armor like piranhas devouring their prey. Claw swipes upon claw swipes showered the girl as she tried to defend herself by teleporting and stopping time for two seconds to drop down. However Hekarim anticipated her landing point and kicked her stomach to nail her upon the barrier once again.
Roots sprang from the ground and entangled the blonde Bishop, holding her down as multiple Shadow Demons crawled from the shade and began to mercilessly beat her with their shapeshifted limbs. Lashing, biting, kicking and stomping her with not a moment of rest to break her.
Her position was like a turtle being hammered with rocks by birds of prey until she activated the barriers of her suit to repel the attacks and buy a second or two. She was taking a lot of abuse that would have killed a regular Devil if it were not for Twilight Healing mending her wounds and her Argent Ghost shielding her from harm.
"Fuck... I can't...", she groaned in agony despite the padding absorbing the repeated waves of shock that would have reverberated thought her bones. It didn't matter that she had used her Mutation Piece to turn into a Fairy Chess Piece in the form of the Ferz. It gave her the superior speed she needed but in this case she could not use the accelerated casting speed due to the lack of concentration.
The glow of her barriers cast shadows so she had to turn them off and use her wrist blades to free one arm so she could use one of her firearms. She had her bullets dipped into holy water beforehand despite having to suffer greatly but it was worth it when she fired multiple shots and actually damaged the Shadow Demons by grazing their mass.
The Alraune however was upon her, lifting her by the torso and clenched it's fist to crush her waist and pop her like a balloon. The Twilight Maiden screamed as Carrions began to peck at her suit and rattle her in trying to puncture the sturdy defenses of her armor.
Not for a second was she given rest as each one tried to maim or kill her straight.
Warping above the barrier was the next move she made despite being chased by her myriads of enemies. It did not matter how much she teleported as in each corner or available spot where reality existed was a Demon in wait for her demise. In a desperate bid Asia forced herself to open holes to allow the creatures lurking within the Abyss region of the Gap to snatch her opposition in a bloody clench and to snap them like bloodied twigs. She was firing both guns into whatever demon she saw, making portals to alter the trajectory of each bullet to hit their intended target. In no less than a minute of heated gunfire both magazines with 30-40 bullets were exhausted and thus she had to switch to a new cartridge.
However, the Chaos Demon disrupted her bullets by changing their angles and altering the paths they traveled upon in a chaotic manner while a Succubus resorted to an unexpected tactic by snapping her fingers to forcibly try and invade her mind with pleasure to reduce her to nothing but a moaning mess.
That did not work as the scales of her suit were those of the Red Dragon. Their barriers bore it's ninth tier magic resistance so that attempt was rendered mute when Asia opened a portal beneath her feet and had one of the creatures of the Abyss claw at her feet.
In order to free herself she triggered her spinning ankle blades and tore through the vines with ease - she did however have to dodge a vicious punch but that did not get her far since the Shadow Demons crawled out of the muscular demon and thrust their sharpened fingers at her. Asia took the brunt of the attack as best as she could by twisting her upper body to the side and spun, ramming her foot against the stomach of the big one.
Using it as a pad she shot upwards where she was immediately attacked by Hell Carrions in swarms. That was what she actually wanted to happen; she opened two portals around herself and engulfed herself from both sides to vanish from that spot.
Reappearing above the Chaos Demon did she use the rock she had picked up and tried to bash it's head open in a surprise attack. That was countered easily when the nearest Incubus rushed her and tossed her downwards towards the dark abyss that had opened from the surging wave of a Sorcery. Within the darkness she was followed by over twenty Demons of varying types, colliding together into a merciless flurry of strikes back and forth. It didn't last long as she teleported upon a floating piece of land.
"Finish. Her. Carmine.", in retaliation the Chaos entity spat flames out of it's ugly maw when it spoke.
Carmine merely channeled an orb that shifted into a whip that struck the floating debris, crushing it with ease. Her scared face showed the rage and bitterness within her escape to the surface for being compared to the Baal siblings. That much hatred fueled her powers further as she simultaneously used her telekinesis and coated her other hand with taint to craft a khyber knife over it. It swirled with destructive ichor like a ravenous beast in anticipation of it's prey.
Dragging the former nun down to her position the red haired girl tried to crush her organs via putting pressure with telekinesis around her chest, and tried to rake her throat out with her blade. In response to that Asia used what was left of her strength to extend the foot blade from the sole of her combat wear, rammed it as hard as possible against the knife and in a desperate attempt used a portal to allow for a huge hand to claw at Carmine as she was left in free fall.
"Move! Now!", out of the dirt the Alraune rose up and snatched her leader from being splattered by the use of her vines. Holding onto the fragment by stabbing her stem into it was a temporary foothold, the Alraune tossed Carmine to a safe patch before she followed afterwards in having avoided the hand of the creature from the Abyss from squashing them.
Tremors came afterwards when the armor clad Devil ran landed on a patch of land. The aftermath was enough to cause seismic waves and uplift the scattered fragments of the outside around as the battlefield was further destabilised. That certainly damaged her and meant wasting more time on fixing her ribs. The outside beyond the barrier was falling apart and would need serious maintenance to recover it but that wasn't her problem.
"You may feast upon her. She's out of juice. I was scared for nothing, it seems.", huffed the Alraune in a moment of respite.
It was a swarm, it was pestilence and death as one when the Demons banded together to darken what little remained of the skies and were about to reach their prey. Cautious to avoid any traps some detached parts to throw as projectiles to check if there was another barrier like the one that held them back not so long ago.
Reactively Asia stopped time for a second but gave out afterwards. She tried again and the result was the same. Her endurance and stamina now matched her exhausted mental state so her control and ability to use her Gift had waned considerably as it was tied down to her stamina. One might say she was out of juice due to the fatigue that built up from two insane battles in a seamless succession with nothing but a rough 10-15 minute break to restock on ammo.
Thus she asked for help.
"If you can hear me then give me something to use or we're roast beef! Anything would work as long as i can save this city.", Asia pleaded. She was deathly afraid. Pale as a corpse and all color flushed out of her face, the Twilight Maiden was hoping for something to turn the tides or an intervention. Her mastery was low and she didn't have enough power to finish this. "I'll give you everything i have so give me something to save them, please!"
There was no response. Her repeated use of time was slowing down with each attempt.
"Anything would work! Please... Please..."
"Thou are not ready. There is nothing i can do for you at this point.", answered Aisa who had appeared next to her. She was holding Asia's hand and looked at her with no emotion present on her delicate face. There was nothing in her green eyes as she stared at the older girl as if this did not matter at all. Nothing would have changed. "I already helped you but you desire far too much."
Even while time was slowing down to buy herself enough time Asia did not stop. Then nothing came out of her, it sizzled out so she failed to stop time again as she threw out the ideation of making a run for it. She shook her hand and hugged Aisa in resignation to seek solace in her final moments. Regret filled her mind as she underestimated her abilities and the odds were stacked against her. It was a valiant fight but a futile one nevertheless.
Carmine was already about to break her skull when the space between them drastically prolonged itself to keep them at bay. Asia was not as sane as she once used to be. It felt outlandish but the one thing she knew was that she was crazy enough to go this far.
She was courageous, certainly. Everything was stretching further away from her feet as her mind felt heavy and sleepy. As if she was falling into a trance before her death throes. Knowledge was being poured into her very being, permeating her mind with so much sensory input and experience that she felt like another person was erasing her.
That expression of sheer surprise was shocking. She wasn't doing anything of this, her arms were numb and her legs shaky. Thus she couldn't concentrate, stuck in a state of shock and disbelief.
Even the Chaos Demon was unexpected surprised by this development.
Aisa craned her feeble neck and stared at her with stilled eyes as she showed something seemingly human on her face. Seemingly was the precise word as it felt unnatural to picture anything resembling human emotion or sentiment with a doll-like visage like hers. A whisper was what she offered as a consolation. Her voice rang into her mind as no one could see her.
Only Asia did when she spotted a blue butterfly fly past her green eyes when her sclera was turning black slowly.
"There is one thing that can be offered. Only four minutes is what thou can handle but beware the aftermath of this intervention. It shan't last more than thou can handle and thus i grant you thee desire that you wish upon."
Argento raised her head high and swept her arm akin to a knife in the air, shakily holding on with her weakened legs and messed up posture. The other hand pressed a point on her armor to dismantle it, reverting it back to it's medallion state due to an accidental tap.
Yet, she merely pulled out a ghostly smile on her lips and touched her chest in feeling up her own rapid heartbeat. Defenceless, bare and human was her natural state as she remembered. Bare of any taint or madness.
Chaos energy and spells rained all over and the tired nun beheld the hail of magic amongst the invading forces with indifference. Returned into her black party dress, she had nothing to cover herself with from the onslaught.
She raised a hand towards the incoming forces with nothing but courage and dignity. To stand her ground with her human pride and soul on the line against those who dwell in the dark.
The golden locks were pushed by the pressure but she did not budge when her lips creased further into a sickening grin. The blackened eyes were revealed fully as she whispered in a voice that was her's and not at the same time, ringing with a dualistic tone that overlayed upon her own.
The blue gems on her black hands glowed with a sinister light as the infinity symbol appeared within the left one while the right arm was marred by a rapidly increasing numerical value, from zero to fifty six.
All that mana and salvos were halted before her feet, frozen in space and reverting to nothingness by her silent command. From a step it turned to two and then she sprinted forward with both arms crossed together despite being under heavy gunfire. Bullets were flying across her as invading demons were storming in to murder her with everything they got.
"Hellscape of Eternity."
Within a few meters from meeting their arms, Asia jumped in the air with an arm stretched to grasp the first demon's firearm. Kicking it in the shin she pulled the riffle from it's ghastly hand and spun ahead by shooting one of her chains into another to reel herself forward while unloading the entire cartridge into the nearest spawns with no hesitation. Since they were designed to damage their own kind each bullet was dipped in holy water to cause bleeding and burning wounds upon entry.
Tossing the gun aside the blonde girl rolled after bouncing off the back of a five meter metal demon, swiping her chain under it's feet where each link blazed to life with blue hellfire. Severing it's legs and kicking the torso she then spun her chain above her head, leaving blazing trails which tore gashes in reality with every swing and then slammed it down as it extended indefinitely to swat everything in her way!
Within a split second the chain was rattling in a wide circle, leaving a blazing trail in it's wake and multiple corpses who were burning with their immortal forms taking damage but not enough to grant true death. Asia altered her path by unexpectedly swiping her chain upwards and slamming it down, followed by a quick dash to the left where she tugged on the silverish links to shorten and repeated her deadly swing by throwing off multiple demons within her perimeter.
Her style was violent, bloodthirsty and utterly barbaric as she flailed the Alraune with the chain links making each spot she touched unable to regenerate.
Her stamina should have run out if her Ferz piece did not recharge her mana and convert it into stamina to fuel it's speed oriented half. Retracting her chain over her arm the Bishop undertook an arduous task - having to dodge a hail of vines she leapt in the air for a somersault to avoid being crushed. Instead of relying on crowd control she chose the alternative by calling forth a weapon she had absolutely forgotten or did not know about.
Within her hand she held an oversized gunmetal blue cleaver with spinning clock gears inside it's fullers, dark blue metal shone with bolts around the elongated handle that supported the very blade itself. A crude, barbaric slab of iron with ticking clock hands at the tang with a silverish chain was her choice.
Malebranche.
The blade that was designed to be used by her familiar Queen of Roses had made it just in time when on the other side of the planet Xenovia had called for the animated suit of armour to aid her. Just at this very moment both sisters were fighting their own battles simultaneously, using the two pieces of the Void armour respectively.
Pillars of metal shot from the ground in quick succession with Carrions crawling on them as platforms. Colliding with the devilish birds was the worst experience when the blonde Bishop had to clash with horrendous talons that scratched and left deep wounds all over her despite her best effort to kill as many as possible. The dress was already torn to shreds and covered with her own blood. Her hair and face were bloodied but her deranged smile had not ceased to exist despite the profuse bleeding.
Asia quickly repelled a direct hit through a portal before her face and slammed her forehead in it to sink her teeth within a Carrion's jaw seconds before she would have been torn asunder. From her mouth she expelled her blade that pierced the creature's head directly and then she teleported atop of it to bring it down to the first patch of land she saw while tearing it's wings out.
"GOOOO! I WANT HER FUCKING HEAD STUFFED IN HER DAMNED ASS RIGHT NOW!", Carmine spat in rage as she saw her Carrions being murdered like sheep led to a slaughterhouse. Her care for her fellow Demon was genuine and she would make her pay dearly.
Twilight Healing mended all the bleeding gashes one by one as the user sprinted in the opposite direction.
The Carrions that were still numerous dove straight for the girl in mindless fury in tandem with the Shadow Demons from the shades. Both forces coordinated perfectly and split up to tackle her from the sides and beneath her thin legs. Tendrils of shade burst to entangle her legs while sharp claws ran across her blade but she did not falter when she delayed time to extend a single second into ten, moving away from the spot and resuming time; she did so to defend against multiple demons with time or spatial immunity, deflecting claws and blades with her sword and landing hits herself despite receiving some herself that drew blood.
[Maiden of Annihilation 02]
Upon receiving a stab in her shoulder did she laugh like crazy.
It severed tendons but she used Twilight Healing to fix it and cleave a Shadow Demon's head with a bluish shimmer running upon the sharp edge of Malebranche. Next she flipped backwards and unwounded the sword by the chain to use as a projectile while chains sporadically flailed from her lower back to impale as many as possible. That however was avoided by the Chaos Demon having unfurled it's arms to release several orbs of Destruction with Carmine's help as a smokescreen to erode the chain storm from taking shape.
Malebranche was deflected by a pillar of stone from a different demon.
One link was dangling freely, thus allowing a Succubus to pull the owner towards the missing portions of the land into the pitch darkness. Feeling herself dragged down was not to her liking so the Gremory Bishop passed through a portal and opened two small ones behind the woman's legs, wrapping all fingers on them and made her fall over Malebranche that was poking out of a third portal. Blood sprayed on her face, dyeing her blonde tresses with warm scarlet to blind the eyes as Asia ran the blade deeper into her jaw and tilted to the left to take off her face.
This gift she could only use without the armour getting in the way so she did not use it again.
Her tactics, her moves were completely different from those of an amateur with self defense skills. Her very countenance and expressions were those of another person, yet her own. She was herself but someone else simultaneously as she hungrily leapt in the air and anchored herself with a chain from one of her portals, scarring the very fragment that she stepped on and grinded it into pieces. Said pieces she passed through several portals and opened fire like a machine gun for a moment to distract them.
The Alraune raised trees to stop the slabs from hitting them, also to make platforms to thread upon. Carmine protected her comrades by telekinetically redirecting said projectiles towards their source and prepared her claws on her left hand. The troops were reduced in numbers by now. However, they held the advantages in numbers and ability.
Precisely that experience played it's part in dematerializing to confuse the Bishop by allowing the red haired woman to tap into one of the abilities she was born with. Precognition or Future Sight tracked where the accursed witch would have spawned so Carmine entered the physical plane in a precise second after Asia did and pierced her chest with three of her fingers.
"Do i look that similar to my father's sister to you?", the slits in her eyes thinned further in aggravation. Being reminded that she was the firstborn of the Crimson Lucifer pissed off her more than anything. Blood dyed her fingertips as she twirled them to reach the aorta and end Asia once and for all.
"Then I'll send them a welcome gift from you."
Hekarim pushed aside the lesser minions to decapitate the Bishop with his wings but before he did that the stabbed woman tilted her head to headbutt Carmine with insane vigor, cracking her nose with one strike and ducked to avoid the sharp wings. She spat blood from her mouth into Hekarim's eyes and freed her hand to stab Malebranche into his nether regions.
The male Incubus screeched in pain upon losing his composure, giving time for the petite Bishop to open a portal and punch him in the Adam's apple to crush his throat as she then switched to doing the same by dismantling Malebranche into a compact short sword and pierced Carmine in her knee before she was hurled away. Falling on her behind was disadvantageous when it came to fighting so Asia rolled to the side before a thick claw would have taken out her torso.
Out of the gashes she made into the fabric of reality emerged hideous hands that began to crush the Demons and dismember them into pieces. It mattered little if it didn't kill their true forms as long as it meant sending them to oblivion where they would have spent time trying to regain corporeal form. Perhaps maybe after centuries or longer. Controlling the abominations from the Abyss seemed easier than before thanks to the present she received.
Hellscape of Eternity became her world for the brief period of four minutes.
She was channeling the Maiden of Annihilation's battle experience and skills into her own body due to their eerie compatibility. It was possible because this was Asia Argento from the nearest alternate reality where she had become the user of Annihilation Maker. Fifty six years of experience were flowing within her existence to even the odds.
An Eternal Hell of loneliness. The lonely pilgrim of the Apocalypse was the reality of this skill. From world to world each version of her walked alone on the path of fighting the end times as it's sole pilgrim in the battle against chaos. This specific one was especially bloodthirsty and cruel...
The torn gaps in this pocket dimension were filled with superimposed fragments of the worlds that each Asia lived through. A scenery of the Apocalypse was stitched onto the crumbling reality with clocks and gears ticking and rumbling the countdown of this gift.
Closing the wound was slower than expected. A stab to the chest was horrible to experience but not as horrible as what she felt that day. Pain laced her breasts when it fully closed and healthy skin appeared over it without a trace of there being a perforation in the first place.
"Do you know where the end of the tunnel is?"
[Mother Confessor of the End 03]
Asia Argento of the third alternative reality was overlayed upon the second one, further increasing her experience and power to the number of years she could handle. This one was insane because her ability had rendered everyone to love her to the point where everyone she loved killed themselves upon her accidental outburst of anger and jealousy.
First, this one swerved to the side and screamed at the top of her lungs obscenities and profanities as she was stabbed in multiple spots from the incoming waves of demons. But that pain made her smile as she was the shield against pain and torture just like in her own world.
As a compensation for each cut the Mother Confessor redirected the debilitating effects and curses at random, grasping the neck of a Shadow Demon with her fingers clad in blue hellfire as she transferred all that pain to it, crushing it's throat and tossing it like rubbish.
Four Succubae struck the girl with darkness to disable her, trapping her into a bubble that began to shrink in order to make her into mush. Stuck in a raging compressor did Asia stop using Twilight Healing and covered herself with her silverish chains in a protective cocoon. That tactic she applied and whiplashed all segments as if she were a tornado at an unprecedented speed, reaching Kiba's superior reflexes due to her Ferz piece.
Tearing off the veil of darkness allowed for the mass impalement of the bladed tips of the chains to occur. In no time did a wave of Destruction face her as Carmine limped to the spot and bound her flesh forcibly by creating new molecular bonds and having her cells converge to close the gap. It was wide and reached over five hundred meters horizontally which forced Asia to warp to the skies where she was assaulted by Carmine who saw her future plan. A blade of Destruction clashed with Malebranche, eating at it's metal like termites devouring wood.
This however was to her benefit - in the same vein as Queen of Roses, it's blade was made from the corpses of the humans and Fallen Angels who had harassed her on that street more than a month ago. Therefore it did retain their light manipulation.
Constantly degrading and reverting the compact short sword exchanged blows with it's foe while the user had to increase her count further to match the superior Demon and her brethren.
"I'll hold her off! She's mine.", Carmine defused her blade and nicked Asia with spider limbs bursting from her thigh, leaving scratches and gaining the upper hand by controlling each leg with an orb of Destruction surrounding it. Each orb shifted into pikes and rained at the nun who was offset by a Carrion pulling her leg down. Two could play that game when Asia responded with chains sporadically manifesting from her wrist to swat the pikes at the cost of losing links.
From there did the chains extend and latch into the tears in reality where Asia shot forward like a bullet!
[The Scarlet Dragon Empress 04]
From link to link she appeared and murdered Demons with Malebranche dealing grievous wounds over each spot it scarred or severed. The trajectory was changing as the nun upturned within the air and flipped over by using a chain as a stopgap, cleaving the head of a gigantic Demon down to it's groin like it was butter being cut with a knife. Before landing she was already in a different spot within the net of chains where she decapitated and smeared six infernal abominations with overlayed slashes within time.
The Scarlet Empress was all about hit and run unlike the Maiden of Annihilation. As a another Longinus Gear bearer that version added forty three years of battle into the mix with grit and perseverance unlike any other.
Her greatest concern was the flaming one below so she snuck in for the finishing blow.
From within the ground she grasped the ankles of the Chaos Demon and clenched with all her strength to crush it's feet while her blade appeared from a different portal; the chaos being however distorted the portal to deny her the killing blow as it unfolded the arms and legs that comprised it's limbs and threw punches and stomped hard enough to produce seismic waves within it's premises.
Only to feel Malebranche cut off several limbs from the composite shape, having redistributed the superheated edge to snuff out it's own flames and produce smoke from the hardened vessel. Making it's way into the chest cavity and expelling light into the surrounding organs, Malebranche was crippling the three faced creature with agonizing pain and light began to pierce the vessel in trying to escape from it's horrid frame.
Carmine could not bear this any longer.
The spawn of Baal resorted to using her medallion to draw in all remaining from her legion to store them inside. Every comrade that had lost it's physical form or was damaged badly was stored there except the very few who experienced true death. As long as some pieces of their adapted forms remained they would reconstitute far easier within time instead of having to recreate a new physical body which could have taken decades, centuries or millennia as with those who fought during the Second Faction War.
So she chose to run in fear.
Her legs enlarged and assumed their feline form to enable her to cross unabated in a cowardly dash towards the cracks in the barrier. Trying a few times was already enough so she quickly changed her mind to conserve her able troops. The chaos abomination chose to block the way and hamper Asia by trying to create a distortion in space to separate them from it's leader by fragmenting the dimension.
Lifting up the short sword did split the head of the three faced one and allowed the Bishop to grasp it's upper jaw and tore it off completely with savagery as she stepped on it's shoulders and sprinted to end Carmine. Hellscape of Eternity was ending with ten seconds remaining so she had to do it now or die!
Carmine was almost to the crack in the barrier until green eyes greeted her's in return as the owner emerged in front of her. The sword was shanked towards the heart with full knowledge of the predictive ability of any Baal being at play. That would have been the case if she had not switched to the proper owner of the body, letting the Twilight Maiden to scream a prayer that would have damaged both!
"God bless you, motherfucker!"
What would have been a deep lunge into Carmine's chest was deflected by a fragment of the dimension having been fused into her sternum, bouncing off by her hardened breasts and when she tried to slash her neck Hellscape of Eternity ceased to be as the last second ticked away. Losing all the accumulated years and experience was what allowed Carmine to punch Asia to the ground and step on her.
Raising her foot to crush her head, Carmine aimed for the kill but was wrapped by a chain on the ankle and tugged to the left, letting Asia create four portals next to her limbs and pressed hard to sever the meat from her torso. In a fit of madness the red haired woman forcibly bound fragments of the scrambled reality onto her frame akin to an armor of infernal nightmares. Her temporal immunity and the seals she had on the back rendered Void Cutter to halt from tearing off her appendages. Only those sinister eyes of cunning bore upon her insignificant life as the chill of death was lowered onto the target. A sword of Destruction was created and was about to split her skull.
If anyone had seen that chaotic shell of an armour they would have said it was Rias Gremory herself wearing it as the similarities were remarkable.
To deal with Carmine's sword she ensnared it with a multitude of chains to divert the blow to the side, leaving her open for a punch into her stomach to land. For a small girl the blonde nun packed quite a punch to dent into literal fragments of reality as one finger focused a tiny bit of the Abyss to devour the front of the makeshift armor, stunning the ginger Demon.
All those years of experience were erased as the blue diamond showcased zero and then the numbers were deleted from existence. Asia had strength for only one portal to escape but had to take a deep breath to regain her concentration. Her weakened state was resumed so she crawled like a worm barely in trying to escape.
Carmine could not let this one go like this. Her sword was thrust once more but a miscalculation occured in the form of the chaos core that Vespertine dislocated in time having appeared nearby.
To make it worse it was about to detonate...
"We're fucked... I really hate my life.", Asia murmured and made the portal swallow her whole before the blade could penetrate her skin. Escape was achieved by a hairs length, leaving the frustrated demoness to scream in rage.
The detonation would sweep across the shattered surroundings of the Devil Slum and collapse the barrier completely and take out a third of the pocket dimension. Carmine grabbed the chaos core and threw it into the darkness where the detonation occurred as she flung her medallion at the nearest crack by warping reality with the falling fragments for a moment to seal off the explosion and dematerialized herself to enter the medallion that found it's way inside the barrier...
Asia fought bravely but she had failed from halting their entry into the Devil Slum.
No one knew what would have followed next but one thing was certain. Both forces had to recuperate or run since such a commotion would have brought the attention of the owner and the firstborn of Sirzechs would be on the run in the upper plane as she intended to.
XXX
