Anything you recognise isn't mine.

Grayfia hovered in the air on her ten Devil wings, her eyes narrowed at the purple-haired beauty that floated in the air close by, and was coming closer to her at a leisurely pace. Backed up by all the other members of her husband's peerage, the seven of them prepared to face down Circe, who had clearly noticed- and was approaching- them.

Sirzechs' first Rook, Surtur Second, a clone of the original Fire Giant from Norse Mythology, Sirzechs' Mutation Rook and the Strongest Rook, was a large muscular man standing at about two meters tall, with spiked-up fiery-orange hair. Though he usually wore a large, thick coat that covered his whole body, and had a bottle of sake on him at all times, neither seemed to be on his person right now, with anyone who looked in his direction getting an eyeful of his huge muscles. The brown pants he wore seemed to strain from how large his legs were.

Surtur Second's fellow Rook, Bahamut, formerly a Dragon King-class Dragon before being turned into one of Sirzechs' servants, was a large (the largest of Sirzechs' servants by far) Dragon, around fifteen meters tall. It possessed a humanoid body, a long neck and two very large wings, Under its grey scales, its skin seemed to glow the same purple as its pupil-less eyes. There were horns all over its head and along its neck, small tusks, and clawed hands and feet.

Samuel Liddel MacGregor Mathers (better known as just MacGregor Mathers, or better still, just Mac) was a skinny man in his late-twenties with sharp blue eyes and long, wavy hair that was a mixture of black and blond. He was dressed in an elaborate crimson robe, and held an ornate magical staff in one hand.

Souji Okita was a girl who looked to be in her late-teens/early-twenties, with short blonde hair that went down to her neck, and bluish-grey eyes. She wore a Hakama and long, leather boots, and had two sheathed katanas loosely wrapped around her waist.

Enku, one of Sirzechs' two Pawns (who had taken three of his pieces), a Qilin from Chinese mythology, was a being who resembled a kind of horse or deer, with with dark-red scales in place of fur. He was of similar height to Surtur Second, around two meters tall, and his face looked more like that of an Eastern Dragon than any kind of horse or deer, like the rest of his body.

Beowulf, the other of Sirzechs' two Pawns, was a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties, with short brown hair and greenish-blue eyes. Though normally clad in a business suit, he- given the situation- had switched that out for light battle-armour.

"Ohh, how cute." Circe remarked, looking over everyone in the group with distain. "Sirzechs couldn't be bothered to come out and fight himself, so he sends his posse out to do it for him. Typical Devil."

"As small as it is, our King didn't want to take the risk of destabilising the Underworld, for any length of time, by coming out and dying on the battlefield." Mac replied. "Though I believe he's waiting on standby should this situation deteriorate. Is that right, Grayfia?"

"It is." Grayfia replied, looking over at Circe. "Besides, as... atypical, as our King is, Goddess, we don't need his help to defeat you."

"Tch." Circe replied, shrugging and throwing her hair back. "Whatever. Just means he's not around to watch his little underlings DIE!" She threw out her hands and, after charging up for less than a second, fired off several powerful blasts of magical energy right at Grayfia, who she (correctly) guessed to be the leader of the group of little Devils that she had to face. However, no sooner had the energy-blasts left Circe's hands had Surtur Second jumped forward, becoming enveloped in a fiery-orange aura as he did so. Within a second, he transformed into a Dragon that was covered in flames from giant head to giant foot, putting himself in between the magical bolts that Circe had just fired and his fellow peerage members.

Grayfia and MacGregor both reached their hands out, pooling their respective energies into casting powerful magical barriers in front of Surtur Second, hoping to (at best) stop the blasts that Circe fired from hitting- and potentially hurting- Surtur Second, and at worst reduce the damage that would be done to the Ultimate Rook. His magical resistance was... lower, than most Rooks, and lower than most Devils in general, so being confronted with one as talented in the magical arts as Circe was was... a recipe for disaster, to be blunt.

MacGregor and Grayfia were able to layer their created barriers on top of each other's, overall forming very thick protection between Surtur Second and the magical bolts flying at him. Just as soon as they were able to do so, the energy-bolts struck the barrier that MacGregor had made. Though the barrier was able to slow down the energy-bolts, they eventually broke through and struck the barrier that Grayfia had made. Ignoring the loud cursing that came from MacGregor, Grayfia instantly pooled her demonic energy into upholding the barrier, the only thing that stood between the powerful magical bolts that Circe had fired, and the Devil/Fire Giant Clone in front of the rest of her husband's peerage.

However, it was not to be, at least not this time. In spite of Grayfia's barrier holding up against Circe's bolts for several seconds longer than MacGregor's did, the bolts broke through and struck Surtur Second, right in the stomach. And though they were relatively small, just the two of them alone were enough to send him stumbling backwards, though he was able to keep his footing. The rest of Sirzechs' peerage flew out from behind the stumbling Surtur Second, with Okita dashing towards Circe faster than the eye could see... and far faster than she could react, as she delivered multiple slashes to the Goddess of Magic before said Goddess was even able to try and put up a barrier of her own of any kind.

"Are you okay, Surtur?" Grayfia asked, shooting a look at MacGregor that told him, without the need for speech, to GET THE FUCK OVER TO HIM AND HEAL, OR HE WAS GOING TO CATCH UNHOLY HELL LATER ON.

"I'm fine!" Surtur Second replied, groaning as he felt MacGregor's healing magic envelop the area of his stomach that Circe's magical bolts had hit him.

"Good." Grayfia nodded, conjuring up a lance made of primordial darkness in her hand and floating forward, gritting her teeth as she saw Okita flying backwards, letting out a shout of pain. Evidently Circe (who had several cuts all over her body, some of which were even dripping blood) had managed to catch her with a magical attack, too. The Ultimate Queen threw out her free hand and caught Souji with her magic, instantly enveloping her with powerful healing magic as she threw her darkness-lance with her free hand, distracting Circe long enough for Bahamut to fly up behind her and slash at her with his clawed hands, and for Enku to fly up on his Devil wings and add to the assault with his fiery breath.

It didn't take Okita long to recover, thanks to the powerful healing that Grayfia had administered, and after being provided a platform to stand on by Grayfia, she flew off at speed and joined the assault against Circe, unleashing a great many of the Youkai powers that she'd gained control over thanks to the many rituals and magical alterations that she'd put her body through in the past, which had transformed her body into a Youkai nest... of sorts.

Circe let out a growl of mixed anger and pain as she felt Okita's sword slashing across her back as well, and turned to fling a powerful bolt of magical energy in her direction, but was forced to raise her other hand to form a magical barrier behind her, in order to prevent Enku's fire-breath from damaging her too bad.

Getting an idea, she cast out a rod (of sorts) of magical energy and, to Enku's horror, was able to wrap it around one of his legs, and yank the Qilin towards her. As soon as said Qilin was close enough to her, she cancelled the magical rod and simply held Enku in mid-air, forming several magical spikes around his body and levitating him in front of the rest of Sirzechs' peerage.

"Move, and this... thing, gets it." she warned the group. "I'm sure you don't want one of your precious underlings to die, do you? Or maybe you just don't-!"

Circe let out a loud gasp of horror and pain as she felt one of Okita's swords entering her through the back, fully impaling her. Not even a second after the Goddess realised what had just happened to her, she felt herself flung downwards, away from Enku, Okita and the rest of Sirzechs' peerage. Managing to catch herself before she hit the ground, she flew back up to Sirzechs' peerage, utterly enraged at the AUDACITY of one of the servant-Devils to impale... her, a Goddess!"

"Oh, NOW you're going to get it, you stupid little peon!" she screeched at Okita. "I am Circe, Goddess of Magic, and-"

"SURTUR SMASH!"

Surtur Second, seemingly fully healed from the magical shots that Circe had dealt to him earlier in the battle, had suddenly crashed his gigantic fist into Circe's body, sending her flying backwards. Over and over in the air she span, dazed from the punch, until she managed to right herself in mid-air. Circe's head swam from the pain of Surtur Second's punch, but thanks to her current situation, all she could do was shake her head and retaliate, firing off several dozen powerful bolts of magical energy while also summoning a great amount of magical smoke and casting it over herself.

Grayfia and MacGregor instantly threw up as many magical barriers as they had the power and time to do, with MacGregor also casting a quick long-range enchantment on Okita's blades so she could dash around and deflect as many bolts of energy as she could away from said barriers, in hopes that that would reduce the load on them. As this all happened, a single bird with purple feathers flew up out of the magical smoke that Circe had cast, climbing higher and higher with every flap of its wings.

"Okita!" Grayfia called, as the last bolt of energy impacted one of the barriers she had created, and didn't break it. "Up there! Don't let her escape!"

"Way ahead of you, Queen!" Okita replied, landing on a platform that MacGregor conjured up for her to land on at that very moment, spread her eight Devil wings and seemed to disappear up in the air, so high was her top flying speed. The bird that Circe had transformed into barely had a chance to even turn around and process the fact that Okita was coming at her before its right wing was sliced off, causing the bird to almost instantly begin plummeting downwards, blood pouring from the wound that Okita had inflicted.

"And... got you!" Grayfia called, throwing out her hand and freezing Bird-Circe in mid-air, capturing her within many quickly-formed many-layered seals. The one-winged bird flapped around indignantly with its single wing, letting out screeches of pain as it did so. However, it wasn't able to escape the seals that Grayfia had put it under, let alone the magical barriers around itself, which Grayfia had placed as an extra layer of imprisonment against the transformed one-winged Goddess of Magic.

"So, what now, Lady Grayfia?" MacGregor spoke up, floating up to his Queen. "Now that we've beaten Circe..."

"I'll take care of her, don't worry about that." Grayfia replied. "Head down to the valley, where the Malbolgeans are." She pointed to where the battle between the Archviles (who already seemed to be summoning Demons out of hellish portals) and the Devil military forces, led by Zeoticus and Diehauser, seemed to have already started.

"Understood, ma'am." MacGregor replied, flying downwards, with the rest of the peerage following him. Grayfia simply conjured up a single black magic-circle, and deposited bird-Circe inside it, a small smirk crossing her face as her earlier boast to her was proven conclusively right.

Floating above the large group of Magicians that rained down heavy fire on their position, backed up by about a dozen enormous Giants, a very large magical barrier between the Lilim troops presently led by Gid Deviluke and his wife Sephie formed from Gid's demonic power, shielding said troops from the Magicians' and Giant's assault.

"Come on, Sephie!" The diminuitive Incubus called out, a couple of seconds after the barrier had been formed, and began taking heavy fire from all the Magicians, plus the Giants. "I can't hold this massive fucking barrier for forever, you know!"

Sephie simply raised both her hands, and formed several large magic-circles above the groups of Lilim troops that had been assembled to where they presently fought: directly between them and the Giants. Looking back over at her husband, Sephie nodded, with Gid lowering his hands and dispelling the barrier that he'd formed a moment ago.

"Now!" Sephie called. "Fire everything into the magic-circles! I'll take care of the rest!"

Looking at each other in slight doubt for a second, the Lilim troops obliged their leader's orders, and fired their offensive spells- which they had been throwing back at the Magicians ever since the battle had begun up until now, into the large magic-circles that Sephie had conjured up in front of/above them. As more and more offensive magics were fired into the magic-circles, they began to glow a powerful pink colour as the power of the fired magics was combined with each other, and further enhanced by Sephie's own considerable demonic power.

When all the circles were fully charged-up with as much power as Sephie could both hold and charge up within them, she let out a loud shout as all the power of the combined magics, plus her own power, were released in powerful beams that streaked towards all the Giants. The quicker Magicians who had noticed this tactic going on attempted to throw up shields to prevent the beams of energy from hitting the Giants (who they were relying on for offense), but each and every shield that was hurriedly thrown up was blasted through by the energy-beams as if they weren't even there, with the Giants themselves meeting the same fate. Some were being simply pushed backwards by the energy-beams, while the energy-beams that targeted the weaker ones straight up travelled THROUGH them, like they weren't even there.

The weaker giants that met such a fate were killed instantly, and flopped downwards on top of any unfortunate Magicians that happened to be standing on the part of the ground that they were occupying, whereby killing them instantly as well. If Sephie had to guess, about 40% of the Magicians' forces had been taken out by that single move alone, as well as 50% of the Giants. Not bad, for a single attack, Sephie thought.

"RETREAT!" One of the only remaining Magicians who wore more ornate and extravagant robes than the other grunts did, seemingly denoting his role in the group attacking them as a leader. "Everyone who's still alive, we don't have to die for Hera and her crazy bullshit! We can strike out, and rise on our own!"

"Oh, really~?" Sephie replied, stepping forward and swaying her hips in a hypnotic way, giving the Magicians a pleasant smile. "You sure you want to leave me~?"

Sephie threw in a wink on top of all that. Though she had turned her latent charming abilities (which she was particularly good at using for her own benefit) up to the max, meaning that most people would bend to her will without her even really needing to do anything, it wouldn't hurt to put in at least a little bit of physical effort. She had one of the best bodies in the Underworld and she knew it, might as well put it to good use, she thought.

"I... uh..." the Magician who had called for everyone to retreat, who had been right in the middle of casting a transportation-circle to facilitate his own escape from the area (or at least attempt to facilitate one), instantly stopped in his tracks and turned around, suddenly struck dumb by Sephie's supernatural beauty. And he probably had the least reaction out of all the Magicians: some of them slowly began walking towards Sephie, seeming to completely disregard everything going on around them, and others began practically climbing over each other to try and get closer to the beacon of pure desire floating in front of them, without a thought in their heads except further desire to be closer to the pink-haird Succubus.

Sephie simply let out a quiet giggle, and snapped her fingers. By her non-verbal command, all the Lilim troops opened fire on the Magicians, who didn't even attempt to defend themselves as they were mowed down, with the Magicians not even defending themselves in any way as they blindly charged towards Sephie. It took barely fifteen seconds for all the Magicians in the area to lie dead at Sephie and the Lilim's feet.

"Alright, good job." Sephie remarked, floating backwards a few feet, away from the dead Magicians. "Now, focus on the giants!" she called out, summoning more of the same large magic-circles that she had made earlier, angling two each of them towards the six remaining Giants who now lumbered towards them. "Quicky now, come on!"

Obeying their commander, the Lilim troops all got to filling up the magic-circles that Sephie had cast with their own power, for another attack on the Giants.

"Hehehehahaha!" the black-haired Eris cackled, looking between the twelve Humans- of the New Round Table and Slash/Dog Teams- that dared to square up against her with weapons drawn. "Sending humans to fight me, a Goddess? Has Azazel's mind finally shrunken to the size of his dick? Hahahahaaa! This is too good!"

"-Fools ye art, deformed Creator Gods." Tobio finished chanting, under his breath, and began to be covered in some kind of dark energy. He also began to grow in size, and his body seemed to turn from that of a definitive human to that of a humanoid hound, with one- two- three- four- five- SIX tails. He let out a loud howl and outstretched his hands/paws, letting out his power and causing the surrounding area to be tinged in darkness, that surrounded him, his team, Arthur, his team and Eris, the latter of whom simply laughed again.

"You're the fool here!" she giggled. "Did you forget who my mother is, and the kind of power I can access thanks to her?! Any kind of darkness you attempt to attack me with will be all but usel-"

The Goddess of Discord was interrupted by a great number of black blades forming and extending out of the darkness that Tobio had coated the area in, with a couple of them catching her by surprise and impaling her through her right arm. Eris gasped in surprise and pain, with said gasp being quickly replaced by a loud shriek of anger.

"Y-you... you little fucking nothing!" Eris yelled, gathering several balls of some kind of destructive energy in her hands and tossing them at the humanoid hound that Tobio had become. "How DARE you attack me?! You need to learn your-" The Goddess' tirade was interrupted by the blade of a sword travelling into her back, drawing out another loud gasp of surprise and pain from her. The sword retreated from her back, and Eris turned around to see the disembodied end of a sword floating in front of her, covered in her divine blood.

The disembodied end then rose, and came flying at her neck, with whoever was wielding it clearly intent on ending this fight quickly by cutting Eris' head off. Eris, however, was quicker, and quickly propelled herself upwards and away from the sword, turning herself around in mid-air and looking down at the humans that had challenged her. She noticed that one of them- a male with blond hair and glasses- seemed to have opened a portal with the Holy King Sword and stuck his sword through it, with the other end of the portal clearly having been opened near her head.

Growling, Eris summoned several bolts of dark energy and fired them down at Arthur and his group, causing all of them to jump away lest they be blasted to death. Her attention now drawn to a girl in a witch's hat who looked to be the youngest of the group, she gathered up a larger collection of dark energy to fire at Le Fay. Just as the energy was about to leave her hand and surely smite the scared young girl from existence, she felt something large slamming into her side, sending her flying sideways for several dozen feet. She was able to right herself in mid-air and turn around to what had just attacked her. The sight of a large red-eyed black dog with what looked like swords growing out of its back staring back at her... wasn't the first thing she figured she'd see.

Jin let out a loud growl and dived at Eris, sinking his teeth into her uninjured left arm and hanging on, with countless darkness-produced swords flying out of his back, spinning around in mid-air and flying at her from every which-way, leaving the Goddess of Discord quite distracted in her attempts to get rid of both the swords flying at her- coming closer and closer to piercing her divine flesh with every passing second- and the giant fucking dog that was hanging onto her arm by the teeth. Extra-annoyingly, said dog was extremely hard to make let go of her, no matter what she did. She fired blasts of divine energy at the dog from point-blank range, unleashed all manner of magics, both light and dark, upon Jin, and hell, she even physically smacked him a couple of times in a vain attempt to shake him off, but he just... wouldn't.

Further worsening Eris' mood was the feeling of several spells slamming into her back while she was preoccupied with Jin and all the swords, courtesy of the very girl who she'd been aiming at only a few seconds earlier. Eris was jolted for the briefest of moments thanks to a powerful lightning spell engulfing her... but Jin was as well, to the point that his grip on Eris' arm loosened, and Eris was able to finally shake him off of her. Focusing healing energy onto her Jin-bitten arm, Eris turned around and glared down at Le Fay, who twirled her staff around a couple of times and slammed it into the ground, opening a large magic-circle in front of her. Seconds later, something enormous burst out of it, delivering a powerful uppercut to Eris' entire body, sending her flying up into the air. Everything hurt for the Goddess of Discord as she came back down, feeling like all of... okay, not all, but at least several bones in her body had broken.

By the time the sudden dizziness that had come as a result of her getting punched, she looked down at the gigantic stone statue that had appeared out of Le Fay's magic-circle. It looked similar to a Gargoyle, in certain ways...

"Alright, Goggy!" Le Fay called. "Give my big brother and Sir Tobio a hand, will you?"

"Goggy? Goggy?!" Eris called back. "What kind of stupid fucking name is-"

Goggy, or Gogmagog, let out a gutteral noise from... somewhere, and its eyes glowed for a couple of seconds before powerful lasers were fired out. Eris was so busy gloating about how terrible a nickname 'Goggy' was that she had no chance of stopping 'Goggy's' lasers from impacting and burning her. The front of her dress didn't survive the lasers, leaving her (for all intents and purposes) with her tits completely out in front of anyone who would even look in her direction.

The black humanoid hound that Tobio had transformed into after finishing his chant gave a dark chuckle as he flew forward, clawed paws pulled back and ready to slash at Eris, whose face had gone crimson at the realisation that her tits and pussy could be seen. Letting out a very childlike squeal of shock and embarrassment, she threw up a barrier between herself and Tobio to protect her bare chest from him, and though she was able to protect her assets from getting slashed by Hound-Tobio, his clawed paw slid down and instead scratched Eris' bare stomach, with the wounds left on her pale skin being darker than what would usually be expected from such an attack.

Eris fired a bolt of blinding light at Tobio from point-blank range, but Tobio was able to barely dodge out of the way of the attacks before it struck him in the head, and extended a hand out towards the wounds on Eris' stomach. From the middle, longest dark scratch that he had inflicted on her seconds ago, Jin suddenly popped out, as if climbing right out of Eris' body.

Eris may have been a Goddess, but even she had her limits. The squeal that she had let out seconds earlier ascended to a shriek of pure terror, as she fired shots of magic down at Jin in an attempt to get him away from her. But no matter what she shot at him, Jin wasn't dissuaded from clamouring out of Eris' body and diving on her, sinking his teeth into the same arm that she'd healed a few moments ago. He didn't hang on for nearly as long, however, as Hound-Tobio (who was floating backwards) let out a loud whistle, calling Jin to him and leaving Eris alone.

"Y-yeah, you'd better r-run!" she yelled at Tobio and Jin, trying (and failing absolutely horribly) to put on a brave face. "I'll beat all your asses, and-"

Her attempted declaration was cut short by a gigantic fist hitting her in the face, followed by a number of deep sword-slashes to her back in extremely quick succession. So dazed was she by the punch from Gogmagog, she was unable to defend against the slashes to her back that Arthur had delivered her.

"Now, Sir Gawain!" Le Fay called from on the ground, pointing her staff at Gawain and pouring a great portion of her magical energy onto him with a powerful Enchantment.

"Yeah." Gawain replied, jumping up into the air towards Eris, as Gogmagog landed on the ground and Arthur sheathed Caliburn. Pulling out Excalibur Ruler as his enhanced jump took him closer and closer to Eris, he plunged the sword deep into the Goddess' dazed form, seemingly instantly shaking her out of said daze. Upon realising what was happening to her as she (with Gawain on top of her) flew down, she struggled against the descendent of Gawain for a couple of seconds, but the sheer power of Excalibur Ruler, backed up by Gawain's will and further enhanced by Le Fay's Enchantment, overpowered the Goddess of Discord.

Her eyes seemed to glaze over as she and Gawain landed, and she moved no more.

Zeus let out a heavy sigh as he looked upon the three Cyclopes that he was presently faced with. Brothers of the Titans and the Hundred-Handers, closely related to the Giants (though they possessed even greater strength and size than the more regular ones, at the cost of possessing a single eye) and the ones who had crafted Zeus his almighty thunderbolt, it was a shame to see them standing against him.

Though they were most-likely being controlled by Hera in some way or another, and though they were being used as nothing more than meat-shields for whatever fucked-up agenda his now-former wife was trying to achieve... Zeus couldn't afford to waste time. Whatever relationship he had had with Arges, Brontes and Steropes prior to today didn't matter now: they were enemies of the Olympic Pantheon, of the entire supernatural world, and they had to go.

Channelling the lightning that he was so famed, both in his own pantheon and across the wider supernatural world at large, for, Zeus extended both hands forward and unleashed his lightning at Arges and Steropes, who were the respective left and rightmost Cyclopes.

Neither Cyclopes had a chance to even process the fact that they were being attacked by Zeus as they blindly charged towards him. When the lightning struck them, Arges and Steropes were blown back onto the nearest hillside, crashing through it and leaving Cyclopes-shaped holes in where they had landed. Not that that would've done any more damage to them than Zeus' divine lightning had already done, they were dead the second that the lightning had struck them. Brontes, seemingly recognising the deaths of his brothers, began to charge at Zeus much harder and faster than either Arges and Steropes had done, too fast for Zeus to charge up a bolt of lightning that would be sufficiently powerful to one-shot the single remaining Cyclopes.

In lieu of lightning, Zeus rose himself into the air and threw a devastating punch at Brontes, catching him right above his gigantic stomach. Though the punch didn't instantly kill Brontes, it did cause him to stagger backwards a couple of steps, clutching at his stomach and gasping for breath. A couple of seconds later, he fell on one knee, practically heaving as he tried to regain the breath that he'd lost from Zeus's punch. THAT allowed Zeus the time he needed to charge up a bolt of lightning that would be sufficiently powerful enough to finish Brontes off.

A spark of recognition at what was about to happen entered Brontes' single eye in the seconds before Zeus unleashed the lightning, which rather than blow him away, Brontes was simply obliterated by the blast, leaving nothing but light smoke in the wake of the Chief God's attack. Zeus returned to the ground, regretful that this was the fate that befell the Cyclopes, who had been perfectly loyal and agreeable members of the Olympic Pantheon up until Hera had taken them in.

"After this day, nothing like this will ever happen again." Zeus muttered to himself, as he continued forward. "NEVER."

A Malebolgean Baron, one of the largest species of Demon native to the realm that many called the 'True Hell' strode forward, the fiery blades emitted from its forearms glowing extra-menacingly as it bore down on the group of Devils that it had chosen to focus on that minute, its yellow eyes burning with fury and hatred as it pulled back one arm, preparing to stab the closest Devil with its right arm-blade, letting out a roar of satisfaction at the thought of seeing the Devil in question impaled and dead on the business end of its arm-blade

However, before it could thrust its blade deep into the Devil that it had set its eyes on, the arm that the Baron had pulled back suddenly fell off its body, landing on the ground with a thud and igniting the ground around it in flame. The Baron let out a grunt of confusion, looking at its now-severed arm, before its other arm fell off a second later. The Baron let out a roar of pain and anger as it looked around for the being that had robbed it of its main method of killing. He wasn't able to find who, or what, had done this to him with its eyes before something landed on its back.

A gloved hand closed around one of the Baron's horns, yanking its head backwards to expose its neck. Another hand adjusted its grip on a dark-red spear before quickly impaling the Baron through its recently-exposed neck with said spear, and withdrawing the spear just as quickly. The Baron let out a gargled roar of pain, dropping down to the ground where it moved no more. Just to finish the job, the spear-wielder landed on the ground beside the Baron, adjusted her grip on Gae Bolg, and delivered a quick slash to the Baron's neck, decapitating it in one move.

'That's another one.' Scathach thought to herself, looking up at the Demons. The Devil troops led by Zeoticus Gremory and Diehauser Belial, backed up by the two Devils in question, weren't doing the worst job in the world at keeping the Malebolgeans at bay, though why no-one had gone in and cleared that whole realm out since Mundus had been sealed in by Lucifer so long ago completely escaped her.

But whatever, she thought. Maybe Demons actually causing a tangible problem in the world would potentially cause the factions of the world to act, and actually do something about it.

"Better late than never," she inwardly remarked as she threw her spear up into the eye of a Cacodemon, a large spherical floating demon with an enormous mouth, a single eye, misshapen underbelly and four stunted, useless limbs. She jumped up, landed on the Demon that she'd thrown her spear at, yanked Gae Bolg out of its eye (pulling its eye with her as she went), tossed the eye away and jumped off of the Cacodemon before landing back on the ground, as the eye-less Demon exploded above her.

Seeing an opening in between a crowd of lesser-looking Demons, Scathach dashed forward in between them, launching into a spin with Gae Bolg outstretched, which she used to catch all the Demons in her wake, bringing them all together and through the air towards her. Scathach allowed herself a small smirk as she cast a powerful ice-spell with her free hand, freezing all the lesser Demons that she'd gathered up towards her in mid-air, and leaving them to drop and shatter against the ground like glass as she left the hill-range entirely, past where Strange had closed the entrance to the Mirror Dimension on Hera and her allies.

After making it out, she turned and made a beeline for the Temple of Herarion, where she was certain that, if anywhere, Hera would be found there. If she could be found and killed quickly, then... well. It'd make things a lot easier for everyone currently fighting to bring the Khaos Brigade down.

Within seconds, Scathach made it to Hera's temple, where annoyingly, there seemed to be no Hera. However, there was someone else there... two people, in fact. One of which she happened to be particularly familiar with, thanks to their shared work with the SSPCH: Diana, and a young red-haired woman wearing similar armour beside her, who Scathach could only assume was an apprentice of some kind.

"Scathach." Diana greeted the Celtic warrior, her sword out but loosely held at her side, while the redhead beside her didn't pull out any weapons. "Nice to see you on the battlefield today. It's a shame you're on the wrong side, though."

"Cutting straight to the bullshit, Diana?" Scathach replied, holding Gae Bolg slightly less loosely at her side, just in case the daughter of Zeus decided to launch a sudden attack, or in case her presumed apprentice got any similarly funny ideas. "Suits me."

"You might say it's bullshit, but we have a common enemy, Scathach." Diana remarked. "One that will be a lot easier to defeat and destroy if you fought with me, for Hera."

"And what 'common enemy' might you be referring to, Diana?" Scathach asked, casually twirling Gae Bolg in her hand as she talked. "Palutena? Roxas? Morrigan-damn it, Diana, are you STILL angry that Strange picked him over you? Is that what this is about? This petty shit?"

Diana didn't need to reply to Scathach. The expression on her face that had formed the second that Scathach's question left her throat told the purple-haired spear-wielder all that she needed to know. The redhead beside her saw the expression on Diana's face too, and shifted a couple of inches away from her mentor.

"Diana...?" she spoke. "You... you told me-"

"And I was telling the truth, Pyrrha!" Diana replied, looking coldly at Pyrrha. "We ARE fighting for a better world! And for better lives... for everyone." she added, looking pointedly at Scathach, whose red eyes rolled. "And we'll get it, thanks to Lady Hera and her leadership."

"Yeah, every cult of crazies and dumbasses says that they're fighting for a better world." Scathach replied. "And they barely have the bite to back up their bark, so why don't YOU come over, away from the wrong side?" The warrior-Queen's expression softened slightly as she looked at Diana and Pyrrha, both of whom looked back at her silently.

"Come on, Diana." she spoke. "I know you're better than your grudge against Roxas, and if you've taught Pyrrha well, I'm sure she's not far off."

Both Diana and Pyrrha continued to remain silent, as Scathach stopped twirling Gae Bolg, and held it in a more ready position, looking like she was preparing to attack. Diana, in response, readied her sword and got into a combat-stance of her own, narrowing her eyes at Scathach as the two warrior-women prepared to battle. Scathach's legs tensed as she prepared to spring at Diana, before-

"Wait!" Pyrrha cried, both her hands up, drawing enough attention to herself to briefly stop Diana and Scathach from jumping at each other. "I'll..."

Scathach raised an eyebrow, and Diana looked over at Pyrrha with a slightly shocked expression on her face.

"I'll go with you." Pyrrha spoke, taking a couple of breaths. "I'll... I'll go with you."

"Alright." Scathach replied, reaching her free hand out towards Pyrrha, as the redhead slowly began stepping towards her. As she did so, the expression on Diana's face switched- with impressive speed- from shock to fury.

"PYRRHA!" Diana screamed, her attention away from Scathach and now fully on her traitorous apprentice. "YOU FUCKING COWARD!" She launched forward, sword out and ready to punish Pyrrha, but Scathach was faster, activating a transportation-circle around Pyrrha that warped her away milliseconds before the edge of Diana's sword made contact with where Pyrrha's neck had been.

Scathach lowered the hand that she'd used to cast the transportation-circle, her red eyes narrowed at Diana, who turned back to her. With nobody in their way, the two warrior-women stared each other down for a couple of seconds before, at the same time...

They both charged at one another.

"Great fuck-mothering Hera!" Enyo cackled, almost doubling over. "Are my eyes fucked, or are both wielders of the Heavenly Dragons squaring up to little me at the same time?" She blinked a couple of times, taking in the sight of Esdeath, Akasha, Akeno, Rias, Xenovia and Imogen behind them, before bursting out into giggles again. "With a bunch of extras backing them up?! This shit's either fucking hilarious, or fucking sad! Fuck it, it's both!"

"And I thought Roxas was foul-mouthed." Valian muttered to herself, getting into a mid-air battle-stance as she did so, with Isane transforming into Crimson Fiery Goch a couple of seconds later. However, neither Valian nor Issei were the ones to attack the bloodthirsty Goddess of War. That honour(?) fell to Imogen, who was flying towards the Goddess and equipping her Scale Mail armour mid-flight. Black and purple flames danced around the armoured woman's hands as she approached Enyo at speed, a growl escaping her throat.

"Who the hell are you calling an extra?!" Imogen shouted, pulling back to throw an armour-covered flaming punch at Enyo. Enyo looked up at the black armoured woman throwing a punch, and lifted her hand to easily catch the Ebony Envelopment wielder's punch. Smirking at the Belial Heiress, she threw a punch coated in divine energy back at Imogen's face, catching her in a solid hit. Much to her surprise, however, Imogen didn't buckle, and simply returned by kicking Enyo in the side to get her to let go of her, before throwing out her free hand to catch Enyo in the face.

Unlike with Enyo's punch seconds earlier, Enyo flew back a couple of feet from the force of Imogen's punch, and was instantly wrapped around by a moderately-sized black tentacle that extended from Imogen's hand, span around a couple of times and thrown towards the ground, with the armoured Imogen almost instantly in hot pursuit.

"Isane, you know what to do!" Valian called out to her fellow Dragon, flying forward to help Imogen out. "Everyone else, provide support!"

"Got it!" Esdeath, Akasha, Rias, Akeno and Xenovia called out, getting into mid-air battle stances themselves. Rias and Akeno began firing shots of their respective signature powers at and around Enyo- who was darting around in the air in an attempt to stay away from Imogen... or in particular, her fists, covered in cursed fire as they were-, Xenovia swung Durandal in wide arcs in the air, sending out powerful waves of Holy energy at Enyo as she did so, while Esdeath began flinging out large icicles at the Goddess of War, created out of thin air.

Dragon-Isane flew up into the air, steadily charging up her power and, after a nod from Rias, Promoting to Bishop. When fully charged up, and when she had her chance, she'd bombard Enyo with powerful fire from long-range, hopefully surprising the Goddess of War to the point that Imogen or Valian would be able to deal more major damage. Failing that, she could send the charged-up power in the direction of those of Roxas' peerage that were around, whether that involved transferring the power directly to them to buff their damage output, or transferring it to a barrier that Rias or Akeno would pull up in order to enhance said barrier's protective capabilities.

"BRING IT ON!" Enyo screamed, flying back up from where Imogen had thrown he down, her nose broken and bleeding. She seemed to be covered in a dense silvery aura as she looked at everyone attacking her, a psychotic grin on her face. "I'm going to LOVE... TEARING YOU ALL... LIMB FROM FUCKING LIMB!"

"Psychotic fucker." Rias muttered to herself as she charged up with her Power of Destruction, pouring the Holy power she had gained from Roxas' second Bishop piece into it as well. "Isane!"

Isane let out a screech of understanding as she looked over at Rias, focusing her charged-up power towards her and transferring it over, watching and beginning to charge up again as Rias held for a second or two, continuing to charge up her Power of Holy Destruction for a couple of seconds as Enyo began to throw up a barrier, in hopes that that would shield her from both an incoming punch from Imogen, and a bolt of dark energy from Valian. As soon as the barrier was fully formed, Rias unleashed the destructive energy in an extraordinarily powerful beam that struck Enyo's barrier before Imogen's fist or Valian's dark energy could, blowing it apart instantly and leaving Enyo completely open to take the hits from Imogen and Valian.

"How do you like THAT, you crazy bitch?!" Imogen asked, flying forward and headbutting Enyo before grabbing her arm, swinging her around a couple of times, and throwing her towards Valian, who created a spear of her Primordial Power of Darkness to impale the Goddess of War on, before grabbing her in turn and swinging her towards Akasha, who unleashed a large Dragon- made entirely out of blood- on the unsuspecting Goddess. Large enough to swallow her whole in one go, it did just that... though it didn't last long before Enyo released a large pulse of energy from her body, blowing the blood-Dragon up from the inside.

Valian quickly cast barriers around everyone to shield them from the outpouring of blood that came from Akasha's Dragon being blown up, because who really wants to be covered in blood, least of all in the middle of a fight?

"A fucking lot, actually." Enyo replied, surprisingly calm as she brushed herself down, and got back into a battle-stance, her body glowing with a more intense silvery aura than before. "That actually hurt. Nice one."

Enyo opened her hand and summoned a sword into it, before flying towards Imogen at such great speed that only Valian was able to notice her taking off, but still not react to the silver-haired Goddess plunging her sword straight through the Belial Heiress' armour and into her stomach, followed up with another punch to Imogen's armoured face with her free hand, which sent her off her sword and flying backwards.

"Argh... fuck!" Imogen groaned, holding a hand up to where she'd been stabbed and clearly grimacing in pain underneath her armour. Looking up, she glared at Enyo and unleashed a tentacle-line from her hand in an attempt to wrap her up again, but Enyo casually cut through it with her sword and flew towards Imogen again, faster than she was able to react.

"Time to die, you little-!" Enyo screeched, seemingly holding herself back from bursting into peels of maniacal laughter, but just as she was about to reach Imogen and, most likely, kill her, she found herself flown into from the side and dragged downwards, away from her prey. The boost in power that she'd gained from the fight that she'd been wholly enjoying so far seemed to vanish from her body as a deep voice cried out ["Divide!"].

"Ohh, no you don't!" Valian muttered, one arm wrapped securely around Enyo and throwing punches at her face as rapidly as possible from the other. "Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep-"

"NO!" Enyo screamed, twisting herself around in a manner that could hardly be called comfortable judging by how it looked, and let out a concentrated burst of divine energy at Valian through her mouth from point-blank range, forcing Roxas' Queen to let go of the Goddess and take evasive action, lest she get a faceful of godly force. Though if she'd actually taken that faceful of godly force, she doubted that her face would end up looking worse than how Enyo's looked right now.

One eye completely swollen shut, the other well on its way there, her nose broken at least three times over, blood practically pouring from her mouth, the normally dignified-looking (when she wasn't in a fight, at least) Goddess of War certainly wasn't in her best shape right now. And to say that she was pissed-off about that fact... would be a grave understatement indeed.

"You... you're FUCKING DEAD!" Enyo screamed, her voice barely even coherent due to so much blood in there, and her divine blood being spewed out with every word she spat. "I'LL KILL YOU, I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU FUCKERS DE- AAAGH, FUCKSHITFUCKFUCKCUNTFUUUUUUUUU-!" The Goddess' declaration was cut rather short by a powerful bolt of lightning, courtesy of Akeno, striking her. Thanks to extra power being transferred into the lightning, courtesy of Dragon-Isane, the bolts from Roxas' first Bishop were powerful enough to temporarily shock the sapped Enyo, stunning her in place and causing her to babble incoherently as Valian flew back towards her, and threw another couple of punches, these ones at her stomach, before grabbing her and sapping some of her power again, accompanied by Albion's shout of ["Divide!"] from within her Sacred Gear.

"Almost got her! Come on, come the fuck on!" Valian muttered to herself. "Go down, you daughter of a bitch! ...Shit, that really doesn't roll off the tongue all that well, does it?"

["It doesn't, Valian. It really doesn't."] Albion remarked. ["Also, DIVIDE!"]

Valian inwardly growled, both from Albion's dry dismissal of her attempt to insult the Goddess in her grip, and from the incoming energy sapped from said Goddess being enough to overflow the power she currently held beyond her maximum capacity. Kicking Enyo downwards, she flapped the wings of Divine Dividing, releasing the excess energy through said wings in order to keep herself at the upper limits of her power, before flying back down towards her and delivering another punch that sent her down to the ground.

Enyo hit the ground, barely able to register anything that was going on. Squinting out of her one barely-functional eye, she could only vaguely register objects that somewhat looked like Nephalem flying around her. She was slammed into from behind by a large, blunt, cold object, sending her stumbling forward, and sent a powerful bolt of divine energy in the direction that what she'd been hit with came from in retaliation. Whether that bolt actually hit anything, Enyo didn't know, and at this point, didn't care.

She felt her conciousness fading as she looked up, and saw a large, red... something descending from above. It moved out of the way of the bolt of divine energy she sent its way, and not even seconds later, Enyo began to feel herself getting extremely hot all over, practically burning as the world around her went a bright red and orange.

Soon after, Enyo finally lost consciousness in Isane's fire.

"On your left, Serafall!" Fianna called out, extending her hand out towards a nearby Giant and sending a concentrated beam of intense fire at it, burning a hole where its brain used to be. Serafall looked to her left, and noticing a group of Magicians gathering their magical energy in an attempt to attack her, waved her staff down at them and froze them inside blocks of ice, ensuring that they wouldn't be attacking anything anytime soon.

"Thanks, Fianna!" Serafall replied. "Hey, above you!"

Fianna looked up just in time to see a Pain Elemental: the horned, darker-toned, orange-eyed horned cousin of the Cacodemon, that was currently reaching into its gaping maw to pull out a... flaming skull? Before Fianna's mind could process something like that, the Pain Elemental threw the flaming skull at her, with the Satan Asmodeus forced to divert her flames away from it in lieu of punching the flaming skull so hard that it practically exploded on her fist.

With her free hand, Fianna cast a magic-circle forward, which attached itself to the Pain Elemental. It had no immediate effect, causing the Demon to look over at the Devil with an expression that clearly said, without the need for verbal communication, "fuckin' really?". The Demon's expression didn't last for all too long, however, as with a snap of Fianna's finger, the magic-circle that she'd cast was activated, blasting the Pain Elemental from point-blank range with such sudden and intense flames that it couldn't do anything else but scream in pain as it was annihilated within a second.

"How the hell did Hera get her hands on Malbolgeans?" Fianna remarked, watching the charred remains of the Pain Elemental dropping down to the ground and landing with a dull thud.

"Beats me." Serafall replied. "She'd have to have gone through at least one of the rulers of Hell to get to them, and even then I'd have heard about it, at the very least!"

"Damn right, you would have." Fianna nodded, not even reacting as an Imp threw a fireball up at her and Serafall from below, after which it was cut to pieces by Okita. "It just doesn't make any sense. On your right, by the way."

Serafall turned to her right, and after twirling her staff around a couple of times, pointed it at a crowd of Cacodemons that had silently been floating towards her, and sent out a wave of icy energy that froze the floating meatballs in mid-air. Smaller, individual pulses of energy fired at each of the Cacodemons were all that it took for Serafall to blow the Demons to bloody frozen chunks, that dropped down to the ground just like the corpse of the Pain Elemental that Fianna had killed.

"How about 'right in front of you'?" a new voice spoke up, almost instantly followed by a swirl of white fire making its way towards Serafall at speed. The Satan Leviathan noticed it in the nick of time, however, and flung up a barrier to hold the fire back before teleporting herself backwards a dozen meters or so, making sure that she was fully out of harm's way.

Serafall held her staff up in a combat-stance, pointing it in the direction that the divine fire came from, as a slim man in a brown tunic, with white hair and violet eyes, slowly floated down until he was on a level with her and Fianna. Another slim man in a brown tunic, with blond hair and brown eyes, appeared beside him.

"Deimos and Phobos, huh?" Fianna remarked, her eyes flicking between the pair of Gods as she readied a couple of fireballs around her hands, with Serafall began to gather icy energy around her staff. "Of course you guys would throw your lot in with Hera. Just like your cuck of a father, right?"

"He's not Phobos!" Phobos shouted, looking over at Deimos and then back at Fianna, an annoyed expression on his face. "I am!" He began to gather the very white fire that he'd attacked Serafall with moments earlier around his hands, in preparation for the incoming fight, while Deimos summoned spears of what looked like black ice.

"Yeah, what he said." he remarked, getting into a combat-stance of his own and pointing the ice-spears at Serafall and Fianna. Both Satans inwardly acknowledged the irony of them, being Devils who specialised in the control of ice and fire combat-wise, facing down Gods who also seemed to specialise in the control of ice and fire, for a couple of seconds, before all four beings charged at each other.

"And down... you... go!" Roxas muttered to himself, punctuating the last three words with heavy swings of Clarent Galatine, cutting down the giant in front of him like an angry tree. As the chunks of the giant's corpse fell down to the ground, Roxas spread his Nephalonic wings and floated back a little bit, wanting to avoid getting giant-blood and giant-guts on himself and his clothes. Once said chunks had finished falling to the ground, and now moved no more, Roxas flew past them, past the range of hills that the battle had begun at.

Landing on the ground, he glanced in the direction of Hera's temple, which could very faintly be seen from where he was at. He'd seen Scathach heading off in that direction earlier in the fight and, figuring that either Hera was there, Scathach could use some help with whoever she ended up fighting there (because Hera would have to be a fucking IDIOT to leave her home base unguarded, even inside a Mirror Dimension), or maybe even both, also began to make his way there.

As he flew, he noticed a couple of Prowlers who seemed to have either wandered off on their own after being summoned by the Archviles, or whose wills were bent into running away in order to find other potential prey. Whatever the reason that they were so far from the fight, Prowlers were hunched over bipedal Demons, the skin of which was a dull purple colour, and had three closely-knit red eyes as well as a tri-segmented jaw.

One of the Prowlers noticed Roxas flying above, and let out... some sort of noise from its mouth to get the attention of its fellow Demons, who all began to hurl purple fireballs at the Nephalem. Roxas let out a small scoff under his breath, and raised himself into the air in order to avoid the fireballs easier (the Prowlers' aim wasn't the best, most- if not all- of the fireballs would have simply sailed past him even if he had slowed down to a stop in mid-air). Gathering his signature Twilight energy in his hands, he fired it down at the Prowlers in concentrated blasts with MUCH better aim than the Demons had had.

Each of the bolts of Twilight energy that Roxas had fired at the Prowlers met their marks with pinpoint precision, with said Prowlers barely even having the time to open their mouths to scream as they expired. Roxas didn't spare them a second look as he lowered himself back to his original altitude and continued onward, towards the Temple of Herarion.

Somehow, he doubted that Scathach would end up in a situation that required anyone's help (never mind his own) to bail her out of... but hey, it didn't hurt to at least check it out. Plus, if Roxas was correct in his assumption of Hera having gone to her temple (as he couldn't see her anywhere in the hilly area that the battle had begun in), and if him heading over meant that Hera would be defated faster, then it was all worth it.

It was quite unfortunate, however, that Roxas' fast yet steady trip to Herarion was interrupted by a fist seeming to come out of nowhere and crashing into his face, sending him flying backwards, spinning over and over in the air. He righted himself in mid-air, and looked in the direction that the fist had come from, clapping eyes on a certain muscular, white-haired brown-eyed brown-tunic-wearing God of War, who glared down at him as he slowly descended.

"I thought you were dumb for standing up to Lady Hera before, Nephalem," Ares spoke, "as well as stupid for directly coming here for the first time. But again? Do you actually have a death-wish, Gremory?"

Roxas shrugged, and summoned Clarent Galatine to his hand, twirling it around in his hand a little bit before pointing it at the God of War.

"Nah." Roxas replied, getting into a mid-air combat stance. "I just have a score to settle with a certain godly prick, that's all."

And that's Chapter 59 of Nephalem! 6 chapters to go, for this first part of Nephalem.

The biggest battle of this first part of my biggest DxD fic (so far) has begun, and fuck me... it's been a bit of a doozy to write. I don't know what it is about multi-chapter big battles, that take place from multiple POVs, but I always find them hard to write. Especially the bits that serve as preludes to fights, rather than the fights themselves.

But whatever. I'm this close to the end, I'll push through. No matter how long it takes, I'll finish this. I'm not gonna stop at the point of climax, I'LL MAKE YOU ALL CUM, DAMN IT!

...

That probably came out wrong. Eh, whatever, you know what I mean.

Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed this chapter. Whether you did or you didn't, please leave a review and let me know, because I really do love hearing feedback, of any kind. If you fancy letting me know about some possible ideas you might have for later in the story, or just have questions for me (because I'll be happy to answer them), let me know in a review, drop me a PM or hit me up on Discord (my name for it is on my profile), Either method works for me!

Seeya!