It didn't take long for Alma Elma and Micaela to reach the Puppeteer's tower. However, instead of the epic ongoing battle they were expecting, the place was completely devoid of any life. Micaela let her senses run wild to determine whether or not something happened and they were too later, or if there was at least any clue as to where her nephew could be. As she investigated the place, a mental message from Tamamo reached her.

"There's no sign of activity neither near any Tartarus nor near the Vampire Castle."

"There's nothing here either." Micaela turned toward the tower. "Nothing seems out of place so far…"

The seraph analyzed the tower. She remembered that Luka's partners had checked it a first time when they were on their way to Sabasa, and that they hadn't managed to deal the smallest damage to it. It was no wonder. The place was almost as heavily warded as the Monster Lord's Castle during the Great Wars, which required an alarming amount of magic to be kept running. Was Black Alice really considering that place that important? In any case, the only way she could force this barrier open required her most powerful attack charged beyond reason, and even if she managed to tear it down, she would be left vulnerable to Black Alice or her goons.

She felt a small jolt of activity, and two dolls appeared. She recognized the sixth Monster Lord, always in her large dress, and another one with several insectoid limbs she remembered as being the ninth. The two dolls wordlessly hovered toward them, and suddenly, the insect-like one was assaulted by a large projectile. Micaela managed to recognize her nephew, his mouth frothing and his eyes red with rage while every one of his attack was filled with pure wrath, leaving a trail of fire afterward.

"Nevermind. He was just really well hidden thanks to your ninjutsu."

"Again, sorry, I never expected that he would use it against us."

"You'll make it up by calming him once we'll manage to bring him back."

She could hear Tamamo snarl on the other side of the communication. "The Lilith Sisters are on their way, and will reach you in barely more than a minute."

"COME THE FUCK ON! CAN'T THEY EVEN STAY OUT OF THIS ONE FOR ONCE?!"

Micaela rushed the doll of the sixth Monster Lord and started slashing at her with a series of rapid holy assaults. She got surprised at first by the lack of effectiveness in her attacks, before she noticed the wards against holy the dolls were covered with. She instead imbued her sword with fire, giving it much more effectiveness. The doll parried her opponent's assault with her arms in the blink of an eye, but couldn't manage to cast any spell as counter-attacks. After a few seconds, her movements started becoming slightly stiff and slower. Micaela pushed her assault with a series of violent slash aimed at her opponent's head that the doll kept parrying, until eventually, its arms collapsed from the shock. She instantly fell apart as soon as it happened, a lifeless body with broken mechanical limbs. The seraph took a spare second to glance at the hilt of her weapon.

Ok, so those anti-dolls talismans are really effective, I'll have to thanks Chrome on that one.

She started moving toward Alma Elma and Luka as the duo was dealing with the other doll. Between the hero's anger-filled assaults and the succubus queen's own skills coupled with her equipment, the doll was also already starting to fall apart, and soon teleported away in the blink of an eye.

"Luka!"

The hero didn't answer and instead started charging toward the signatures that were approaching. The Lilith Sisters were already splitting up to take down their opponents. Alma Elma, Lilith, Morrigan and Luka were engaged in a strange dance as the oldest of the Lilith Sisters was focusing on frying the hero's mind with pleasure spells, while Alma Elma was rushing her to keep her away from Luka, while Morrigan was trying herself to keep the succubus queen away from her older sister. In the meantime, Astaroth rushed Micaela and attacked the first seraph in a flurry of rapid-fire punches with a rage that reminded her too much of Luka's own brand of anger. Still, she was still fresh and managed to hold the succubus at bay for a time, even gathering enough focus to shout across the battlefield.

"LILITH! WE HAD AN AGREEMENT YOU GOAT-LOVING FISH BRAIN!"

The succubus didn't answer, and instead, Micaela suffered another vision projected by the succubus of the seraph being toyed with by Minagi. The angel shook it off in barely a second, but it was enough for an attack to hit her. She felt an absolutely searing pain through her chest that completely knocked the wind out of her. It's only when she looked down that she realized Astaroth wasn't the one that managed to hit her. Both her and the succubus had been run through by a large, purplish spike glowing with an otherworldy energy.

"Gee, you were starting to take the fun out of this game. Maybe I should have disposed of you earlier."

The First Seraph was disgusted upon hearing Black Alice's voice so close to her ear as her energy had completely left her. She couldn't even turn around to attack her assailant.

"Micaela?!"

"I'm done for. Save Luka."

The other group slowed down as Lilith and Morrigan instinctively reacted to the danger their sister was in. Before they could react, however, every one of them found themselves isolated in small, unbreakable spheres of emptiness, powerlessly watching the show Black Alice was giving to her now captive audience. The whole area was also surrounded by a magical barrier to prevent interferences.

Astaroth was still frothing as she struggled to free herself. Black Alice shook her head and whistled haughtily before summoning another salvo of spikes to skewer the succubus. In the blink of an eye, the second-born of the Lilith Sisters was expiring as her body was filled with glowing spikes.

"SISTER!" Morrigan was distraught as Lilith was silently looking at Black Alice with narrowed eyes.

"Shush!" The blue haired succubus became silent as Black Alice removed air from her bubble, forcing the succubus to sustain herself on her own magic. "Don't disturb the actors in their play!"

Luka was completely shocked by what had just happened. He had come here with the hope to put the hurt on Black Alice without getting any of his friends into harm's way. And instead, Micaela, his aunt, was now dying because he thought he could face Black Alice alone, her heart pierced by the Monster Lord who had transformed one of her arm into a long, purple claw.

She died because she came here for me. What I have done? BY ILIAS, WHAT I HAVE DONE?!

He was brought closer to Black Alice who was still smiling. "Mmmh, I wonder what made you rely on her so much? She remains an angel of Ilias, and is a filthy liar. I mean, she didn't even tell you about Morrigan! Not her, the other, the one you boinked like the whore she is. Weeeell, as it happens, Micaela-chan and Lucifina-chan killed her! That's right! Some of your friends killed each other!" She brought Luka's face even closer to hers, barely a few centimeters apart. "Won't that make you cryyyyy?"

Instead, Luka's mind finally completely and utterly collapsed on itself, and the hero fell unconscious in front of a disappointed Black Alice. She frowned and threw him slightly back near the others while she looked at her handiwork again. She tapped her chin with her free hand, the other being the enormous spike that had ran through both fighters.

"Mmmh, I wonder what I shall do with those two…" She noticed Micaela still gurgling blood. "Oh, this one's still alive? I'll enjoy your suffering. You failed to protect the world, and I'll make sure you live to see it burn until the end before torturing you for all eternity. Oh! I know, I'll ask Kagetsumugi to combine you with that dead rage-filled semen guzzler and toy with you personally!"

She ignored the glares from the two remaining Lilith Sisters.

"What, do you really need someone else to do that?"

Black Alice raised an eyebrow as she looked at Alma Elma. "Mmh. I almost forgot you existed." She sighed. "You know, you have all the quality required to serve me… You do and take what you want when you want, and yet…" She made a drawn out, contempt-filled whistling noise with her mouth. "You instead just move left and right, not exploiting your power, and just being a nuisance here and there. I would have granted you everything you wanted if you joined me."

Alma Elma chuckled. "But where's the fun in that? And besides, you're destroying too much too fast and just spread misery. I prefer making sure I'll still have the possibility to have some fun down the road, with people fearing me, while secretly hoping to get a taste from the succubus queen..."

Micaela exploited the opportunity to think of a plan. The only thing she could easily reach was Astaroth's now dead body. She slowly started accumulating holy energy to create an explosion with the dark energy still present in the succubus body, careful not to attract Black Alice's attention.

"What a sad, saaad little ambition. You could be better than that." Black Alice raised a finger like a parent who scolded her children. "I mean you're exceptionally skilled, and yet, you made so many bad choices that right now, you're stuck trying to gain time while miss angel here try to accumulate energy to blow me up." She turned back toward Micaela, who refrained from whimpering in pain as Black Alice moved around. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice? I almost feel insulted. Here, let me show you…"

In a single motion of her hand, she gathered all the energy around, and then some from parallel dimensions for good measure.

"See? This is more energy than you could ever consider playing with in your lifetime! Maybe that could hurt me… But then again, since your best plan was trying to make me lose time to prepare your wet firework, I don't think I have much to fear from you worms…"

"Time, ACCELLERATE!"

"And from them?"

Black Alice instantly locked on the source of these words, but it was already too late. The barrier had just a small hole in it, but it was enough for a projectile to pass through and make the mix of holy and dark energy accumulated by Black Alice react.

Micaela grinned in front of Black Alice's expression. In the blink of an eye, nothing remained of her, Astaroth, and Alma could swear she heard the seraph laugh when Black Alice was propelled by the explosion. If anything, it wasn't the worst way to go.

The final thoughts of the First Seraph were for her nephew, and how his suffering might be worse than what she had endured for her whole life.

The void spheres that Black Alice had used to imprison her audience were also propelled by the explosion before disintegrating. Alma Elma could only thanks her luck that Luka was within arm's reach. She grabbed him and teleported away back in the Pocket Castle before anything could go worse. However, she had not lost her momentum in the teleportation, and ended up hitting the wall near the entrance of the place. In the smallest of instants, she was surrounded by healers and a distraught Tamamo.

Kagetsumugi had been safely watching the show given by her mistress from her tower. She had some work to do after her dolls had been damaged, and suspected the hand of the Artiste family in the vandalism. In any case, her mood was bettered by the sight of her lord dealing with those that had damaged her creations.

However, she soured up again when another interloper made that orb of energy explode so close to the tower: The attack had actually damaged the barrier surrounding the place. And then the Seraph died, which directly created a Tartarus near the tower in the same rumble. Alone, one of those actions would only be a minor dissatisfaction at worst, but all those combined directly threatened her work. The security of her lair was now compromised, and the quaking alone did damage some of the priceless work of her life. Furthermore, her superior was nowhere to be seen for now, and she was the only one able to do something about that new sore sight.

Even worse, Izanami, the last of the monsters brought back to life by Black Alice and kept around as a safety measure had decided to silently bail out on her. She'd have to inform her lord of that issue.

More concerning, however, was the Tartarus that was already starting to lick the tower's walls, and which progression was visible to the naked eye. She snarled at the abyssal hole slowly creeping toward her.

Eventually, Black Alice reappeared in the tower, not worse for wear, as if she hadn't just been blown by an explosion that would have reduced the largest of town to rubbles. She didn't look particularly pleased, however.

"Well, that wasn't quite the fun game I hoped for…" She was holding her teddy bear with a frown. "I will take some rest now."

"I apologize your majesty, but we have an issue with the arrival of the new Tartarus. That new hole is directly threatening our tower, and I'm concerned it's only a question of days before our fortress gets swallowed by its threatening jaws."

"Mmmh, you're right." Alice tapped her chin with a finger as she pretended to think over the situation. After a minute that and several sighs that grated Kagetsumugi's nerves, she simply shrugged. "I guess I'll just leave it then."

The small puppeteer's eyes widened upon hearing the decision. "Wait! I mean, surely her majesty will transfer my equipment to her new palace?"

Black Alice pouted as she poured herself a cup of tea from a pot after making both appear from nowhere.

"Truth be told… I'm disappointed by your dolls. I initially found controlling my own family funny, but it lost that luster quite fast. Besides, I originally thought you would keep them in reserve, and yet you kept sending them without even considering me first…"

"May I remind her majesty that she was the first to reveal one of these dolls to our enemies?" While Kagetsumugi managed to maintain a courteous facade, she felt rage boiling inside her.

Black Alice made a dismissive gesture. "It doesn't matter. Let's forget those dolls, they can stay here. You can stay here for all I care too, you're no longer amusing me during our tea partys. I'm done with you. Bye bye!" Her tone sounded like a child disappointed with a toy. She disappeared right afterward as she haughtily waved at the puppeteer.

Kagetsumugi stumbled for the smallest of second before recovering: She could teleport herself and her dolls, but moving all her equipment would be impossible. Besides, where would she go with all those Tartarus and apoptosis?

She checked the map. There was this cavern between Sabasa and the Snow Continent. It was damp and not the best place for her dolls, but it would do for now. Still, she cursed the eighth Monster Lord for pushing her there. She prepared herself to move as much equipment as possible there.

But first, she engraved a new instruction for her remaining dolls to follow.

Spider Princess cut down apart another apoptosis with her katana before throwing a talisman at another group, destroying them in a storm of thunderbolts. Her team had been sent on the south coast of the Noah lake, with the goal to clear any apoptosis there on the off chance that they could wander to Grand Noah. At first, she had been reticent to go, but upon hearing that it was part of her betrothed plan, she put every effort into it.

She took a second to look around: the only other presences around were her allies, which included several other predatory monsters. She wasn't fond of the competition, but if anything, they made a fine team.

"There's no other apoptosis around… Should we go check elsewhere?" Cassandra was strolling around while leaving a small trail of slime behind her.

"We can take a minute to rest here. And besides, I have a feeling that something is going to happen soon enough…"

Cassandra chuckled. "Your spider sense is tingling?"

Spider Princess groaned. "Oh, please, like I've never heard that one before…"

Cassandra haughtily laughed, but she had to recognize that her fellow had a point: the air had become unbearably heavy, and she could feel a deaf rumble starting.

"Is it coming from Tartarus?"

"Back away."

The next instant, in a deafening cacophony of earth shattering sounds, the black hole clearly expanded southward. The party instinctively teleported away in Grand Noah, and fortunately avoided the fate of being swallowed by the abyss. As they made their way back to the spot they defended, they were greeted by the assault of a large horde of apoptosis.

"How many of them are there? Bah! It doesn't matter! We'll just slay them all!"

Several apoptosis attacked the party with makinas, wounding one of Spiser Princess's companion before they riposted with a salvo of spells of their own. Spider Princess herself threw a few talismans at the wave of monsters, destroying several of them in waves of light, while Cassandra launched a corrosive bomb that exploded in the middle of the horde, melting down a few of them.

And so the battle for Grand Noah resumed.

"So much for the safety of Sabasa…" Sara sighed as she saw the new Tartarus spawning right next to her kingdom. It was still far from her capital, but Monte Carlo would fall victim to the expansion of the new hole. The slew of report they received was alarming. At least, the sudden expansions only did minimal casualties…

"Every Tartarus grew in size by fifty percent at average in the span of that incident, except for the central one which only grew by slightly less than ten." Promestein was typing on one of the makinas. "However, their growth rate has greatly increased, and I'm afraid to say that we now have less than a month before they reached the center." She repositioned her glasses. "I can't say what will happen once they join, but…"

"I don't think that will be necessary. And that's not the biggest issue." Tamamo pointed at Iliasville. "Luka told me that he could only access Hades and Reaper through Ilias Temple."

"That place will be swallowed in five days. And apoptosis are already marching on the village."

The place fell silent for a minute as everybody around looked at each other. "Is it really necessary? I mean, the situation has become difficult, but we still have some time to find an alternative, don't we?" Ilias was nervously fidgeting around and was breathing heavily, as if she was about to explode in crying.

Tamamo opened her mouth to say that it was only a last resort and that they'd probably not need it, but she fell silent and her ears drooped in shame. That "restart" was indeed a last resort plan, one she had considered asking for Luka to use as soon as the catastrophe in Grangold happened. She hadn't really planned for failure, and considered that their situation would be fixed as soon as they killed Black Alice and pushed back the other agressors back to their own worlds. And that plan went out of the window hard, crashing everyone's hopes and dream in the blink of an eye.

Ilias' voice pulled her out of her reverie. "Tamamo?"

The kitsune answered in a monotone voice. "We're completely out of options. This world is doomed. We don't have the means to hold back the apoptosis, and we will never be able to kill Black Alice with what we have."

Ilias sighed. "Don't tell me you're back into your depressive state again… We still have time to think up a plan and enough forces to take down anyone in our way, and their tower is weakened, we can finally attack it!"

Tamamo snarled and got up closer to Ilias, bringing their face barely a few inches away. "Do you really think Black Alice would stay there? She already moved! We noticed several teleportation spells from the place!"

The small goddess held fast. "Then scout the world! We have to act fast if we want to grab that small still existing chance!"

Everyone slightly moved back from the altercation happening near the map.

"We can't rush in! Attacking the wrong target will get us all killed! The angels are only waiting for the succubi to show up, and if something big happen, Black Alice will come too! First, we need the hero back to fight!

"This is not what Micaela would have done! If she was here, she would have led the attack herself!"

"MICAELA'S DEAD! SHE'S NOW WITH ALICE AND IT'S UP TO US TO DEFEND THE WORLD!"

Ilias balled her fist in anger at Tamamo's words, and moved back slightly, red faced as tears of anger covered her face, as if she prepared to attack her interlocutor. Everybody moved even further back as they expected an all out fight to blow out in the middle of the room…

…But instead the small goddess collapsed on the kitsune's shoulders and started crying. "I know… I know… I've missed her good advices even since she left Heaven… After Lucifina left several hundred years ago, she was the only one that could reason me… And I kept discarding her advices until one day, where she simply left…"

Tamamo herself nodded as she consoled Ilias. Micaela had been one of her oldest enemies, but one she respected enough and gladly sided with when it was needed. She was afraid since the Great Monster War that they would come down to kill her. And then Lucifina, fell on this ball of dirt and started losing some of her power before the First herself joined the surface of the world. At that time, she considered that if both somehow died, the supremacy of monsters on this world would be assured… But in reality, the Micaela's disappearance only signed the death knell of this world instead.

Eventually their hug was interrupted by the Grand Noah queen politely clearing her throat.

"I apologize for my rudeness… But whatever we do next, we first and foremost need the hero."

Tamamo looked at Ilias who nodded. "We'll check on him." The two of them proceeded to get out of the room.

When the duo left the place, the queen collapsed on her chair with a long drawn sigh, which didn't escape Sara. "Are you alright?"

"Probably as much as they are. I'm only pretending everything's fine on the surface with the hope that we somehow manage to get through." She turned toward her junior. "I wonder if I would have accepted the crown if I knew what would befall me?"

Sara shrugged. "I would, at least so that nobody else gets to suffer through that."

"That might make you a better ruler than me. You had to be forced against your will in their plan, and I accepted the first support I was offered…"

"And still… We both ended here. With nothing less than a share from the hero's burden on our shoulders, and our best hope relying on hearsay to send him back into the past. I wonder if trusting him on that one is the best choice."

"Actually… Where do you think we would be if we didn't place every bit of trust in him, no matter how crazy it appeared?"

The Grand Noah queen spent a few minutes pondering the question, taking into account everything that happened from the moment she took the throne to that single instant. She remembered welcoming Mephisto, the moment the hero arrived and exposed the yoma's plan before helping her take down Grangold, then ultimately pushing back an army of elves and fairies. Although did that happen in another place, another time? Still, if she was there today, it meant that whatever decision he had taken since she started accompanying allowed her to come this far, no matter how bad they were. Eventually, all her reasoning led to the same conclusion, one that could be summarized in only one word.

"Dead."

A few minutes later, Tamamo and Ilias entered Luka's room to see Alma Elma and Laura by his bedside. The mermaid queen had a grave expression on her face, which only served to fuel the worries of the duo, while the succubus queen had an unusually concerned expression.

"Sooo…"

The mermaid queen sighed. "Physically, he's perfectly healthy. Mentally, however… He's a mess. I'm not one to say much, but everything that happened recently completely destroyed his mind, and I have no idea what to do to bring him around."

"This is sad..." Alma Elma was gently holding his hand. "He spent the last months switching between questioning his importance, being outright depressed, and spats of rage. We always asked ourselves how he could keep moving forward without areally actually supporting him..."

"Well… We did try to help him at a time, but…" Tamamo started fanning herself as her face reddened in shame. "Things kept happening so fast, I barely managed to bring him back up before the world, or, more exactly in that case, Black Alice or those annoying assailants kept kicking him down. Again and again."

"Unless you have a way to get directly in his head…" Laura shook her head. "I have no idea how to help him up."

Tamamo sighed. "I'm good at playing mind games on peoples, but they do need to be conscious for that. What we need…" The kitsune's eyes narrowed. "Would be someone like Lilith."

"Actually…" Ilias slightly raised her hand. "I also maybe can do something. Just please don't compare my craft with this whore's."

Both Tamamo and Alma Elma raised an eyebrow.

"I mean… I used to get into hero's dreams to give them visions about going to kill the Monster Lord… I can maybe influence him, but I'd have to put all my power in it and…"

"And?"

"And that'd leave me vulnerable."

The underlying message was clear as she looked at Alma Elma, then at Tamamo, then at Laura. There was still some fear in her eyes.

"Look, we can leave you alone with Eden and every one of your angels if that's the only thing you want. Just… Be careful with Luka, he's our only hope."

Ilias nodded. "He offered me a third chance when I tossed away the second one. I won't take the risk of harming him."

She looked back at the hero. His eyes were close and his face was slightly pale. Despite what was happening, his breathing was calm, as if the torment of this world no longer affected him. Ilias swallowed loudly as she thought about all the descendants of her dark nemesis surrounding her: They had already accepted angels by the time she arrived, and if they had wanted to kill her, she'd have died at least ten times over. And yet… Even if some of them bullied her, most of them welcomed her, taught her and helped her as if she was one of them. Maybe she hadn't given them the chance that they were really due…

"I shall get started as soon as possible."

Ilias focused her mind toward the hero, trying to reach him.

When she managed to reach him, she felt herself being swallowed by a hurricane.