The city of Grangold was rapidly filling the party's sight as they got closer and closer to the city. It was the middle of the night, and yet, the town was bathed in a supernatural, purplish light. They could neither see ant girls nor guards at the entrance. As soon as they entered the city, they hid in one of the small side streets, hoping to remain unnoticed amidst the chaos. Curiously, not a single soule left its house to try to see what was happening. Micaela tried peeking from behind the building, but could not see the palace entrance from her observation spot.

"We have to move closer… We can't see anything, and casting a spell would get us detected."

"I'll do it." Tamamo carefully moved in the street, still hidden by her cloak. The group lost sight of her as she climbed up the main street. As they waited for her return, each second felt like an eternity, and even the normally impassible Alma Elma was showing signs of nervosity as her tail was twisting on itself. They hadn't felt any other shockwave since the first one, but even then, the tension kept rising. To their relief, the kitsune came back barely a minute later.

"There are a lot of ant girls around the palace. I don't think there's a fight going on, but with the chaosization effect over the place, I am as blind as a bat."

Micaela nodded. "I can't feel anything either… Actually I can't feel the seduction aura! Did that Tamamo No Mae stop? What's happening inside the castle?"

Luka tried considering the options available to him. The entrance was blocked by confused looking ant girls, so the only option available to them was once again…

"We can enter through the sewers, but…" the hero pointed at the palace. "I don't think going in there like that is a good idea…"

Alma Elma looked over the roof. "I admit, Luka-boy may be right on this one. Dying doesn't look very fun."

"And then what do we do? Flee?"

"No." Luka exhaled. "We bring in a second team with Nuruko to help us deal with that. And have two others checking buildings to evacuate everyone." He handed down the Pocket Castle to Alma Elma. "Please Hurry."

The succubus grabbed it and disappeared instantly in a gust of wind.

Micaela smiled and patted her nephew on his back. "Glad to see there's still some hero in you."

Luka awkwardly smiled and pointed in the direction he remembered the entrance to the underground was. "Let's go."

The group rushed in, weapons drawn. Luka slashed the locked entrance door without even slowing down, and jumped down the ladder in a single move, soon followed by his two companions. Several golems and mud girls had gone berserk, and were tearing the place apart in a fit of rage. Two of them threw themselves at the group, and were instantly cut down by Micaela and Luka.

"It didn't happen either last time I suppose?"

"I have no idea what's happening anymore."

"No chit-chat, let's move. I have a horrible feeling about this."

The group ran through the sewers, eliminating the usual monster that tried standing in their way in the blink of an eye. As they got closer and closer to the palace, signs of supernatural erosion appeared. Micaela shivered as she recognized the same purplish slabs she had seen in Tartarus and in her dreams, and crossed her fingers that it was not a sign of her fate. Eventually, several apoptosis started appearing in front of them.

"That wasn't here last time either."

Tamamo threw herself like a cannonball and scattered the apoptosis around like broken dolls. In the blink of an eye, Luka and Micaela were on the survivors, slashing down apart all of the strange beings as they scrambled to face this new threat.

"C-. Class X-3 deviation detected…"

Luka looked down at the dying apoptosis with an eyebrow raised. That was something he hadn't heard before.

"Hey." Tamamo unceremoniously turned him toward her. "Focus. We have to move."

Luka nodded and felt a wave of determination sweeping through him. Another apoptosis stumbled toward him and got instantly cut in half by a diagonal slash. Eventually, the sea of apoptosis got thicker and thicker to the point of blocking the passage entirely. Worse, the strange mechanical monsters seemed to come out of the more eroded walls. While Luka and Micaela cut down hordes after hordes of monsters with precise, flowing attacks, Tamamo tossed them around with her tails, digging through a horde like a shovel through soft dirt. However, as they progressed, they realized they risked being surrounded by the monsters spawning behind them.

Micaela cut apart an apoptosis whose attack glanced on her. "Tamamo! We have to move back or we'll get overwhelmed."

"It's out of question! No matter what happen, I won't be held back!"

"Kyu."

The next second, a barrage of missiles tore apart a whole group of apoptosis that had spawned. Luka turned to see Nuruko, holding a large makina and followed by Alma Elma, Alicetromeria, Hild and the mecha pope.

"Sorry, without Mephisto back there, organizing a party took a little more time than usual."

Luka exhaled in relief as Alma Elma handed him back the Pocket Castle. "Still on time, thanks Alma."

"I wish I could say we're good."

The horde of apoptosis was pushed back by a barrage of spells and makina projectiles. The group steadily made progress, until the horde of apoptosis finally started thinning considerably.

"It looks like it's calming down, let's go!"

As the two casters were cleaning the remainder, Luka and the rest of his party finally climbed up the ladder leading to the palace itself. Kitsunes were fighting against the apoptosis roaming the hall. The party also noticed that the ant girls seemed at loss even as they were getting attacked, which could only mean one thing.

"Queen ant is no more!"

Several apoptosis started attacking the group, opening fire upon the hero's party with automatic makinas. Micaela managed to shield the group, but several attacks passed through, wounding Luka. The next second, the assailants were getting torn apart by a storm of blades.

The mecha pope healed the hero and gave the party several blessings as Luka could finally take a look at the fight. While he recognized most of the apoptosis as the ones that were roaming in the Tartarus in the Gold Region, there were a few that he was unfamiliar with. Worse, those looked even more powerful than the mutated angels he had fought into the Ruins of Ilias Temple in his past adventure. One of them looked like an amalgamate of makinas the party used in fights. The San Ilia king and Hild combined their own firepower to take it down before it could start attacking, but it took several seconds of sustained attacks to destroy it.

"They're getting tough here!" Micaela was exchanging lighting fast blows with another one whose body was made of several blades. The only thing that prevented the fight from drawing on longer was the sudden intervention of Alma Elma who punched what was likely its head with a lightning imbued fist.

The group only managed to progress so little in the middle of the battlefield as they kept getting attacked once again. Tamamo whispered the words of dispel that allowed her to get back her true body. The next second, her cry echoed through the hallways.

"KITSUNES! RALLY TO YOUR QUEEN!"

Without questions, several of the kitsunes guarding the palace joined the party and fought the apoptosis with a renewed vigor. The growing group slaughtered apoptosis left and right as they slowly made their way to the center of the chaosization when an horrible realization hit Luka. The Tartarus was not taking birth in the throne room, but in one of the cell.

They didn't…

His train of thoughts was interrupted by another apoptosis that wrapped a mechanical tentacle around him and tossed him in the middle of the horde, far from the group. Luka recovered on his feet and started slashing repeatedly around him, trying to keep the apoptosis at bay.

"Sylph!" The hero imbued himself with the power of the wind, dancing around his assailants while striking again and again, taking down an apoptosis with each blow.

Suddenly, the door leading to the entrance of the palace was pulled from its hinges. Several blades of wind tore through most of the apoptosis like paper, only leaving the strongest standing. Those were soon cut apart by the new monsters that arrived, allowing Luka to rest for a second. Tamamo and Micaela caught up, soon followed by Alma Elma and Lucretia. The harpy queen had a grim expression.

"We didn't find anyone in the city."

Everybody silently nodded as the implications sunk in. They continued fighting toward the source of the chaosization, led by Tamamo in her ancestral form while the kitsune kept wrecking groups of apoptosis after groups of apoptosis without breaking a sweat, alternating between her tails, claws and spells to carve herself a path.

As they got closer, Luka realized that what he originally thought to be wrecked apoptosis being spread apart on the walls were in reality humans directly fused with it, a catastrophic sign of a brutal and advanced chaosization. As he looked closer, he realized that, contrary to what he saw in Tartarus, those that had been caught up in the chaosization were already dead. Several ant girls were also present into the mix, and, occasionally, the horrible fresco included an ant girl striking down a human.

Luka could feel bile rising in his body. Queen Ant had been manipulated by Lilith into murdering everyone, and had been discarded after outliving her usefulness. As he progressed, he was expecting to see her body crumpled on the ground, or worse, integrated herself into the wall with an expression of agony, begging to be pulled out of her misery.

Each step that brought Luka's party closer to the center of the anomaly was becoming harder and heavier, as if the laws of physics were relegated to a simple suggestion, and the floor was covered with the contorted bodies of apoptosis, ant girls, kitsunes and humans alike. Micaela grimaced at the sight of the bodies. This was why she stood up to the Angel World. This was why Tamamo stood up to the Monster World. This was what they were fighting.

Several apoptosis put themselves into the way of the group to find themselves dispatched by a storm of violence slowly progressing through the hallways. Eventually, the group reached like what looked like the source of chaosization, bathed in darkness. The group couldn't make the details of what was happening amidst the mess.

"Kyuuuu…"

Once again, Nuruko transformed into her Spirit of Chaos form, and slowly started channeling the phenomenon away. Luka couldn't see anything happening at first, but he noticed that the area behind him returned to normal. After a minute, the only thing remaining was a large ball of darkness and chaos that filled the cell.

"Kyu!"

In an ultimate effort, both disappeared. The time seemed to slow down as the content of the place was revealed to the party's eyes. They could see a passably exhausted Tamamo No Mae turning toward them, several bodies of apoptosis and of Ant Girls scattered around, as well as a small puddle, a dead dog girl whose limbs were unnaturally contorted, and an all too familiar small, purple and red lamia whose body had been grisly torn apart.

Luka's mind wasn't even tracking what was happening, his eyes fully focused on Alice's dead body as his sword dropped from his hands. He didn't even hear the cry of pure, unaltered rage as Tamamo jumped at her still exhausted counterpart and ripped her throat apart with her claws. The projection from the Monster World was only starting to stand up when another clawed attack blinded her. She tried summoning the power of the earth to protect herself, but the protection was dispelled as soon as it got cast. She then got slammed back by Tamamo's foot straight into the stomach, knocking the wind out from her, and flew across the room before making a crater into the wall she hit. The berserk kitsune continued her savage assault on her counterpart, tearing apart her other self's throat with her teeth.

It wasn't a fight in any sense, but a display of violence, born from a mix of rage and hatred from someone whose reason to live just got destroyed.

Tamamo straddled her counterpart and viciously slashed her opponent's face repeatedly until she stopped resembling anything. The projection disappeared into dark particles, and the kitsune was loudly breathing in and out, her expression still contorted into a mask of rage. As she was forced to return to her sealed form, anger made place for sorrow, and her body was shaken into hiccups before she blew into crying. She found herself instantly supported by Alma Elma and Micaela, who comforted the kitsune and the loss of her pupil.

The next second, Luka's body collapsed, only slowed down in its fall by Nuruko's tentacles.

The last time he had stopped the war, the hero had difficulties savoring the victory. The main responsibles had escaped, and the Monster Lord declared war only a few days after during a banquet. But at least, most of the population had been saved, and the only deaths were the soldiers who valiantly diverted Grangold's armies.

This time, there was nothing to celebrate. Most of Gold's human population had perished, as well as the Sixteenth Monster Lord.

Still hugging the desperate kitsune, Micaela grimaced in anger while a tear was running alongside her cheek. She used to hate Tamamo like only someone victim to her manipulations would, and, even after so much time, she still was wary of the kitsune. This didn't stop her to share her pain. Nobody should have to bury someone they considered as their own children. Micaela was desperately checking around, her eyes stopping periodically on the violent scenes as the width of the bloodbath was fully sinking in.

"Why… How could this even happen?"

Astaroth was in a bad mood as she was going through the Monster Lord's Castle. With Lilith busy negotiating an agreement in Succubus Village and Morrigan taking her spot at Yamatai after the redhead nearly shattered the spine of a particularly annoying "offering", she found herself with the dubious honor of being the one in charge of announcing the Monster Lord that her daughter was dead.

Of course, the Lilith Sisters had carefully prepared their tale. Officially, the small Monster Lord had been turned into a wandering scylla's toy, and had been torn apart before being tossed in a toxic river that finished dissolving most of her body. She was then found by Lilith who noticed an unusual signature as she was on her way to Grangold to accomplish her daily duty, but it was too late to do anything. Of course, her cdaughter had been avenged appropriately on the spot, and the Lilith Sisters would come share their respect this evening, once their daily duty was complete.

Astaroth announced herself at the guard at the entrance of the throne room. The door opened to reveal a tired Monster Lord: She had dark circles under her eyes, and she was wallowing on the throne rather instead of adopting a posture more fitting for a ruler. The succubus was not surprised by her appearance, as she was a pacifist who would soon declare an extermination war against the world, which weighed down on her. Of course, it was all part of an act… But one the lamia resented.

"Greetings, Astaroth. What brings you here?" Her voice was quite soothing, but the succubus could detect a subtle sorrow that she imputed to the weight of her duty.

"I bring you grave news…" She proceeded to tell her carefully crafted story, extremely careful with her wording. Acting too sympathetic or distant could attract unwanted questions extremely fast. All the while, the Monster Lord listened, her expression turning grim.

"I see…" Her words were barely a whisper. "I should have known something like that would have happened. It was risky to send her alone weakened, with so many careless people roaming around."

The succubus did notice the underlying message, but decided to let it pass.

"Because, you see, as it happens… You're not the first person reporting me what happened."

Astaroth managed to hide her expression, but she could have sworn she heard something fall and shatter.

"And, for a reason, while some… details are missing, I have a feeling Lilith was more directly involved than what you told me." Her gaze was heavy on the succubus. Astaroth understood that the Fifteenth was not waiting for an answer. She was only stating things as she saw them, and had drawn the obvious and correct conclusion. Nothing she could do would change her mind and her perspective on what happened.

The Monster Lord was clearly fighting tears when she started talking again. "I had exactly one demand. One. I only asked that my daughter was kept out of this. And you failed."

Astaroth swallowed loudly as she looked at the guards surrounding her. If she had to fight her way out, it would end very badly for her.

"According to Tamamo's writings, the White Rabbit should have-"

"ONLY MERELY GUIDED HER! DO NOT TRY USING HER STORY AS A SCAPEGOAT FOR YOUR CARELESSNESS!"

The Monster Lord calmed down.

"This is only by respect for the Founder from your world that I don't get you and your sisters torn apart right now. Go back to your masters, and, if it has not been done yet, tell them our alliance is off." She proceeded to chuckle darkly. "Oh, it's true, you can't go back there. And don't stay in Hellgondo either. If you could just fly over the sea until you die from exhaustion or get killed by Black Alice, that would be fine by me. You are free to leave."

Astaroth left the room, blaming Tamamo No Mae all the while for wanting to hurry the soul transfer process. Sure, her sister had a part of responsibility, but it was that damn fox who ruined everything. And then, she got wrecked by her counterpart in this world, the latter being supported by the hero Luka. The succubus chuckled sarcastically. At least, the little kit would be unable to exercise her revenge on the Lilith Sisters… Or could she?

The succubus brought a hand to an ear. "Morriluka, if you hear me, get out of the Pocket Castle NOW! DON'T ASK QUESTIONS!"