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Zelas had nothing to do, no distraction from her foundation of being (hey, end the world, that little instinct said), and now she wished she had never started this.

The machine's alterations by Dalphin's cult were all disposed of, ready to be rebuilt according to the old plan. As far as they could, at least, since the old plan would have seen Lina back by this point and add the finishing touches with information gained from the Black World.

That left everything to crude improvisation. Nobody here really understood programs and computers. Even Zelas's use of them was as arbitrary as a beginner's and hindered by her devil nature. It counted as using tools too much, it was like denying her own capacity. Some of these things she could do just with magic ...

More than ever, she needed to be able to do this, since something had happened to the one god who was in on the real plan.

She just had nothing at hand. That would have been the case before this fiasco too, but it stood out more now.

Zelas had gotten a hold of some of the remaining cult members of Dalphin and tortured them for a few hours. Two of them even talked, telling her everything they knew about Dalphin's plans. Too bad for them she was only here for dinner. No way the grains would know about any grander plan, like Dalphin setting Xelloss up. Did that even fit what she'd seen? Did it matter? She dwindled them down one by one anyway.

Luna usually cleaned up the blood, complaining without bite about the mess. This hour she didn't, she had questioning of her own to do.

There wasn't anywhere to go. Her tribe was attended to by her lieutenants. Valwin and Rangort attempted to brew an angelsblood talisman with Orun's help, only requiring Luna to redirect the flow and no input from Zelas — they would use Luna but she was too messed up, too busy with fusion, too filthy. It probably wouldn't work, but let them try. Luna would be around.

So Zelas just walked across the island, driving away time and trying not to think. She destroyed what annoyed her, tore down memories of Dalphin or lingered in corners as a wolf.

She wanted a diversion better than anyone could offer here. It led her to the futile task of trying to find evidence for what changed Xelloss — as if an astral change could leave physical traces.

According to a squirming dragon, Filia's room was behind these walls. Zelas broke the coral and rock down with burning ease.

The quarters mixed the abominal mixture of frills and weaponry with remnants of Dalphin's tacky marine theme. Sappy little paintings on the walls, pottery things all around. Savaged straw mats all over the place, a nice reminder she was grasping at a straw.

One room served as fridge for Sailoonian ice cream, now full of melted goo and residue magic. Zelas tried to guess when it had started melting as to have some clue when Ragradia had really gone unhinged, but the frost magic was newly developed. In a few hours she might be able to guess at what speed it waned.

Idly, she made figures with the tip of her boot.

She needed answers. The treachery was out there on its own, but that within hours of Filia's death and Xelloss's departure, the Aqualord had stopped functioning. She took no other form than Lyos, would reply to questions but not voice opinions and barely feel anything. At first Zelas had speculated she had shut down to mourn or something similar, but the Aqualord just plain did not take any initiative. Then just to make matters worse, the god had just plain evaporated once the pillar activated. The other gods blinded as they were, they could not even tell whether the Aqualord had died or gone off somewhere, either in this world or another.

Maybe all of this had been part of Xelloss's plan. Maybe he had come back wrong from his dream attempt, had drawn Filia along, had tampered with the rebirth of the Aqualord, had ... had ... had ... but why?

He had been too theatrical, she should have realized something was wrong. Now there was no ready chance to learn anymore, except from this damn sugary mess.

Waiting a few hours just for measly information did not appeal as much as indulging her barely contained rage.

A few pieces of coral burned up when Luna stepped in. Zelas didn't turn, only mildly annoyed by the inevitable comment, thanks to Luna's constant purification.

Luna leaned over the melted mess with fake interest. "Of course, why didn't we think of this before. Surely the cause of the Aqualord's boo boo is in the fridge, the final destination of many women."

"Must you make such tasteless comments?"

"Yeah, cause having to smell this rot is bad enough," Luna said, waving at the melting ice cream. "On the other hand, I'm sure there's other tasty things here."

Luna pulled open a cabinet, where she found a stack of chocolate ice cream cones. She claimed the whole pack and dropped in the nearest comfortable chair to munch them.

With Luna already easing away her irritation, Zelas found it easier to focus again.

"Did you get anything out of the Sage?" Zelas asked evenly.

Luna zipped her hand before her mouth. "Ooh, smooth chance of topic there. Nah, she didn't talk. Well, nothing relevant anyway."

Her holy energy went into overdrive in cutting negativity, so Zelas asked, "Not relevant in what manner?"

"Eh, she's trying to tell me Filia's alive. Says we'll have evidence if only we lower the shield for a bit longer."

What was the Sage after? Trying to convince Luna Filia wasn't dead seemed as pointless as suggesting they try blending gods without glue. She had to have some sort of plan, but what?

One of the things she'd said had been "You should not try to reassign Ragradia's power to Rangort and it's a bad idea to try to rearrange the shield to do that. Ragradia is whole. It's an excellent idea to tell others I said this." They'd gone ahead with the whole bizarre experiment, right up until Luna somehow got contacted by Filia's ghost, claiming it'd kill someone. Just a moment, Luna had doubted Zelas. They'd reestablished the shield rather quickly though, when Luna asked Zelas whether the Sage had talked to her. Yes. She could answer that much.

Too late. Now they lacked the only functional god. Maybe Luna would be next. One more tool taken away.

"Do not visit her again," Zelas said. "That is an order."

Luna shrugged and said nothing. She just worked the rezast spell harder, cutting into Zelas's mind in a form of pain she had no words for.

A few thousand years ago, she had taken over a country while posing as various humans, her assassin role had ended up up for torturous execution. She'd feigned a perfect human body for the event and gotten a creative torturer with a spell to pull veins from the body. Physically that was unpleasant, the spirit equivalent incited hatred every second, but it was better than losing her focus to rage.

Luna seemed content throughout the process, despite handling what was poison to her. Zelas could just guess what was going on in her pretty little head. Some smug satisfaction in that she was human enough, most likely. How she wanted to be able to read minds, whether for curiosity at Luna's bizarre mind or need to see where Xelloss had gone off the trail.

"Your ice cream fueled philosophical musings will absolutely go into my memoirs," Luna said while chewing. "You get that, right?"

Zelas growled low, but Luna didn't take the hint. "Well, if you're being deep, I hope it's about the women in fridges thing. It's probably just mothers in this world. Mad or missing. I'm gonna bet Elena didn't survive the attack on Sailoon."

"I am not a mother."

"Don't you devils call Her the Mother?"

It was symbolic. It was ... who cared? Zelas didn't.

"If She is the kind of being that dictates mothers must die or fail, then damn Her. Damn Lucifer," Zelas hissed.

Luna tensed up, but fear didn't take over.

"Do you believe your own jest, lady corpse? Perhaps my death was spelled out before me the whole time." Zelas turned away from the room. "We may never know what the Lord of Nightmares truly desire."

When she walked away, Luna followed. "That matters way too much to you."

"What I do not know or understand can ruin me. Get this feeling off of me already," Zelas snarled. "I need to be able to think as myself."

Luna shrugged and worked her holy power deeper. The blinding wrath sizzled away, leaving Zelas cold and wrong, but rational.

Being rational did nothing about how reasonable it felt for the world to be void again.

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Getting Luke into this world was probably impossible anyway.

As an angel, Milina could travel the planes at will, perhaps with even more ease than astral beings. The obvious answer was to turn Luke into a chimera too, but nobody knew how. Luna, despite being a chimera of astral and human, didn't have the capacity to withdraw to the astral plane like Valgarv had been able to. There had to be something more to being an angel and a demon than just being a chimera. Garv had been the only one to know how to do it right and he had the nerve to be annihilated. It was almost as rude as Filia being dead.

Luna agreed on that one, on some level. Luna had caught Milina when she was about tl leave and pulled her into the room she'd been cleaning — freshly burned by Zelas — to ask about Filia's soul.

"I wouldn't know. The entry registers are down because we are short on staff. Thanks for annihilating so many angels. Most of the remainder is now making sure no devils slip into our barrier across Megiddo's flow."

"Oh come on, how hard would it be to notice her? I doubt she'd pass through silently, and hardly anyone's dying here—"

"Animals and spirits have souls too, and this sea is full of life. Your fusion shield does nothing against the flow of Megiddo and we are busy. Take a hint."

Luna hesitated, then said, "Look, I'm sorry—"

"Spare us the fake apologies, I can tell you don't mean it."

"Fine, be that way. Anyway, how do I get in touch with Filia?"

"Why?"

"Oh, nothing big. I just have to chew her out over her fatal life choices, like dating Xelloss."

Zelas cringed despite herself. It had seemed so harmless. She'd seen herself thousands of years ago, in her first awkward attempts to play with mortal lives and minds. She had gone for kings and deacons to sow discord in societies, her pawns. While she had been a better actor and learned quicker than Xelloss, it hadn't been surprising he would get a taste for the same. Power play worked at its finest if one's partner believed the relationship fair and equal, and it would be so convenient to string along Filia, given her capacities.

Fix it, she'd told him. He obeyed in the most amusing manner ... had she pushed him too far, or had he simply gotten bored trying to uplive to her?

Fix it. Fix it. Fix it. It was so vague, where had the snare been? Or was it a loophole?

· · · · · · ·

She didn't count the time, so when the expected happened, it was a surprise that to learn how long it had taken. Less time felt like it had passed, between the betrayal and the earth spirits announcing that the devil army was headed this way, spearheaded by Shabranigdu.

Zelas had no talismans, no hosts of Shabranigdu on earth, no Lina Inverse. Just three broken gods and two shields. If they enemy was coming, they probably had a plan to deal with those. Who knew what else Volphied might have taught Valgarv?

"My liege, what are your orders?" one of her lieutenants had asked when delivering the news. She had no orders yet. Just sent him off, while she went to the northern side of the island and waited on a half finished balcony. For good measure, she had an ice bucket with wine bottles and glasses to go.

If the bottles weren't done by the time her enemy got through the barrier, she would fight. If they were finished, she would go in and open the gate into the nothing.

Luna joined her there not much later, radiating with excitement — the first time she'd felt that way since the betrayal.

She sat on the edge of the railing. "Hey, guess what? According to the nereids, Xelloss is with them. I'm going to kill him. Is your pseudo pack non-instinct gonna get in the way?"

How was she supposed to know that? The past days had made it evident something had gone wrong, and she was almost positive Xelloss had lied to her face at least once. Despite not having been created that way. That meant she didn't know something about herself well enough.

"I take it you want to kill him yourself?" Luna asked.

Zelas had every mental resource telling her to reply yes, like the proud devil she was, but ...

... she didn't want to kill him. He had to die, that was a practical fact, but he was also hers, her finest creation, she didn't want to finish it like this ...

This all was do disgustingly sentimental. Her form flickered.

"Cause if you don't, I'd love to do it. You can focus on defending the machine. Maybe they're even counting on him mattering to you ... I bet he's gonna talk. Does he understand what he did, when you created him?"

Luna asked an awful lot of questions lately. Zelas considered to just stop projecting and leave Luna behind ...

"Did you ever tell him directly, never betray me?"

No, she shouldn't have needed to. Xelloss was supposed to be like her.

Luna swung her legs over the railing and leaned closer, trying to get a look at Zelas's downward face.

"Come on, no climatic declarations? Devils are usually fond of that, and you are a devil like no other. I bet your story for what changed you has some juicy material."

Ah, Luna was baiting her for weakness, or maybe something to laugh at. Humor being the only thing she could still feel, and no healthy fear, that probably seemed like a fine idea.

Of course she wasn't going to tell this revolting human about that. She was better than that. If she went down before Shabranigdu, the last that would be her own would be her choices and her history. Luna wasn't worth that privilege, it'd have to be pried from her astral fingers.

"It started with imagination. Just like everyone else, we devils are driven to reach a goal. Mortals strive to live happily and can get that even with reaching smaller goals. Get up, work, feed, reproduce, love. Envy them? No. But it did not make sense. We also gain contentment from smaller goals reached. I imagined what I would be like if my fundamental desire changed. As devil we must slip into roles to define our identity. I did not give any further thought to choosing wolves — living creatures — as my theme.

I did not choose to change, it merely happened. Just like everyone in the world. But everything I did after someone pushed me over the edge, that has been my choice. For a thousand years, potential and questions lingered in my mind. The way I created Xelloss was my first choice acting on it. My first true experiment."

Damn it all. Sticking to principles without an emotional boost like anger was a little not very easy.

Luna clapped once. "Hmm, that's more a soliloquys than the declaration of resolve you should've gone for, but it's nice. Makes it easier to appreciate the pile of shit you are."

How much of not feeling insulted was general world ending apathy, or Luna putting extra effort in dispersing negative emotions?

It didn't really matter if this was all just Lucifer messing around for her own laughter, or whatever else it was.

"Lemme know once you figure out how you want the experiment to end." Luna took one of the wine bottles and drank without a glass.

How easy would it be to just stop moving. Cast a spell, stop being. It went against every fiber of her being that said she had to take the world along, but not as loudly as before. Maybe Shabranigdu would defeat Valgarv's control and just end the world, like it was supposed to be. If only she could believe that.

She stayed still and waited. The horizon started writhing with darkness before Luna even finished half the bottle. As her eyes turned eagle, she sought out their forms.

It was just an upper crust, really. Mere scouts, but they didn't move like scouts. The real army was already here, fighting lack of sight and wayward flow below the surface of the sea.

Luna tapped her shoulder. "I can see better below there."

Zelas stood up and poured out what was left in her wine glass.

"I have no time for distractions. You may kill him for me, miss Luna," Zelas said. Almost successfully an afterthought.

Luna smirked as her astral corpse folded open, shot veins and razors into the world, sick holiness.

"I'll tell you all about it later," Luna said as she took to the air. "Try to survive."

· · · · · · ·

With Luna at a distance, her ability to purge negativity was less strong. Zelas upheld a makeshift contact with her, infection more than pledge, but it wasn't enough. By the time she appeared in the central hall to confer on strategy, she was back to a barely restrained rage.

Milgazia moved to the other side of the hall as soon as he saw her. Not that it'd help much, but if she didn't have to see him, it was better.

Valwin had made no progress regaining astral sight and still relied on Orun. Rangort was hardly better.

A swarm of nature spirits had gathered, reporting to the dragons. Apparently the enemy was digging below the fusion magic shield at a point where Rangort's shield didn't mesh well with the earth.

The fusion magic shield itself ended where Gaia's range began, because while magic could be cut, souls could not be severed this way. Aggravating Gaia was a bad idea, but loophole exploit? Easily done. They used demons : devils who had possessed objects and beasts, as well as other cursed entities. Shabranigdu as Valgarv also had been involved.

Xelloss must have told them this was an option, because it wasn't common knowledge among the devil clan that Gaia's astral borders weren't an inhabited field so much as linear. It could be tricked for a while and there were faded zones. Of course Zelas had told Xelloss this, he might need to bypass a barrier cast by someone who didn't get the concept of holy ground being needed to be surrounded.

Any time now, someone would ask her to adjust the fusion shield for this. She wasn't in the mood to explain that she'd send Luna away. She wasn't in the mood for anything, except maybe tearing open the world. Just open a hole without connecting to anything, let it break. They wouldn't know what she did before it was too late. Lucifer would get what She wanted, but wasn't that better than what Volphied wanted?

Best would be if nobody get anything they wanted, except herself, even if it was just that base desire for the world to end.

SPLAT.

The sound thundered through the air. A few yelped, many feared and quite a few whats joined in.

Zelas shifted to the nearest window on the east side, from hence the sound had come.

A few kilometers out onto the sea barrier, the Aqualord had splattered against the outer barrier like a fly on a window. She was currently in the process of prying herself off, one wing at a time.

"Oh, look, the Aqualord's back," Valwin droned somewhere behind her. "Let her in."

"First of, no. Second, Luna just left so I cannot tell her of any changes to our fusion shield. Third, no," Zelas said.

"Right," Rangort said. "Last time we saw her, she was Lyos chewing coral. I would rather not find out that she has become a doll controlled by our enemy, as Lyos had been susceptible to."

This caused a ruckus of chattering down below. The dragons thought the gods should be respected, except for their subtle doubts shining through, the humans wanted the extra forces aboard and had Orun as their loudest voice, and her own devils were all over the place.

"Where did Memphy go?" Milgazia asked. "She and Sylphiel were here just a moment ago."

If Zelas hadn't been so hyper aware of him as the first one whose head she wanted to bite off, she would've dismissed it among the noise. Not now. Especially not now.

Zelas focused on the water and saw a trail of white shooting east below the surface. It emerged at the edge and yes, that was the Zenaffa of Memphis. Zelas had seen it a few times around the island. Two smaller figures were on its shoulders, one of which jumped into the water with an air shield around.

She broke the window and deprojected to plow through the murky astral plane. Bursts of muck interspersed with salt air brought her closed to the eastern border. By then, the Aqualord had rearranged herself already. While the god cleared the area of nearby devils, the human had made a small island by raising earth using magical vines, the elf helped stack and a vulpen — Filia's beast — darted around with his devices. Gaia's power flowed in concord with them.

The vulpen noticed her first, almost dropping something he worked on. A second was enough for her to get right before them.

"Wait, don Zelas! It was all a pl—"

She slashed her sword at him, but it scratched over a sickening astral hollow. Drawing back from the Zenaffa, she tried to focus herself — fresh off of holy mind mutilation wasn't helping her. Jillas scrambled behind the leg, pulled out a tiny bomb and called to Sylphiel, "Ready yet?"

"Five more seconds!"

The Zenaffa kicked at Zelas, missed and would have been ripped apart if the Aqualord hadn't rammed her head against the shield right then. She didn't get through, but the resonance of her power with the Earthlord's sent a shockwave that threw Zelas back. Just long enough.

Jillas ignited a tiny magicless bomb and the island exploded, leaving behind a crude ring of roots and earth that was entirely natural. The shield registered it as Gaia's magic, served as edge for both barriers and zip, the god poured through.

Zelas prepared for a number of hostile events, but none of them involved being picked along by the dragon without any harm what so ever.

Before she understood it, the Aqualord had teleported into the central hall, where she dropped Zelas and others aside of the lowest central platform. Then she expanded her form and curled upward. Rangort pushed against her, but didn't outright attack. To the left, Orun just barely kept Valwin from joining in. Zelas caught some of her words, a rapid chain of explanation that made no sense. It was a plot. Xelloss was a mole for us. I'm sorry. The rest drowned in the rush of the gods above.

The Aqualord filled the hall with torrents of ghostly scales and moderate resentment.

"Okay, now who broke my pledge stone?"

Zelas snapped her head to the source.

"Gunmoll, you made it!"

Jillas threw his arms around Filia ul Copt — very much alive — just as Memphis withdrew her armor.

Filia returned the hug before she looked around, angry at first but soon more worried. "Xelloss? Where are you?"

"He didn't arrive when we left the tower," Sylphiel said. "Isn't that normal?"

"He was supposed to split from the army as soon as they got in," Filia said. "Val's in control, but if he slips up just once, Valgarv might attack him or warn the others. Uhm, maybe he's waiting to prank us?"

Filia looked around again, only to find more stunned mortal faces. More than a few asked whether she was real. Zelas did similar, private in her own mind.

Orun approached her, said a few quiet words, then turned to the dragons and elves. "She is real. She did die, but never left for hell because of a pact. It was all a plot that went so wrong the moment Luna and Zelas cut Ragrairyos in half by accident."

Oh. Xelloss. Had been involved in a plot. How ... not new.

For the first time in her life, Zelas felt like conducting the practice of headdesking, though more refined : replace the desk with a guillotine. She'd live, but this was the height of embarrassing.

Filia's eyes landed on Zelas and within a golden blink she stood before her, small in her human form but somehow an obstacle. "Why on earth didn't you figure out it was a ploy?"

"He's not supposed to be able to disobey me," Zelas said dully.

"He wasn't! He did all of this on your will," Filia said.

"I ... he went mad, or so it looked."

"I know, that's what we meant for! But why would you keep thinking that?" Filia asked. Her face scrunched up, desperate. "You created him. You were supposed to be shocked long enough for Dalphin to believe it, but you would figure things out and not get emotional and stupid. Where is he?"

She feared that Zelas might have killed him, and might not be wrong.

Whenever she said that unexpected things always happen, Zelas had meant : it may happen that the want of a nail ruins my kingdom and I am bracing myself for this, as it is a natural effect of causality. It took a lot of mental acrobatics to predict oneself as being the nail instead of the rider, however.

"So ... this all was a plot to plant Xelloss as a mole for some purpose. How did he get that idea?"

"It was mine," Filia said.

"Yours?"

Off course Xelloss wouldn't be drawn to a dragon unless she was like him. Hadn't he told her years ago?

"From what I heard, during their first meeting she pretended to be a vicious monster attacking the city to provoke miss Lina into displaying her power. She has a manipulative streak, I really shouldn't have been surprised when she turned out to be a rebel too. Too bad it's hampered by her silly standards."

Zelas had set in motion a lot of things that would force Filia to abandon those standards, if not her morals. In hindsight, she should have seen.

"Yes, mine," Filia said. "Is this it, are we going to argue now on whether I can? We have a crisis here, where—"

"Why would you?" She stalled, because Filia's question sounded even worse than before.

"I would because my priority is the world. I will use what I can to save the world, whether it's a god, a shard of the world's staff, ignorance, Lucifer's name, or your son, ... or my son." Her voice broke at that last part. "Now, where is Xelloss?"

Zelas would have liked to say in a most condescending tone that she might have used him up altogether, sneer at her, nose turned up because a dirty dragon like her deserved no better.

Maybe she could speak of how she too used people, the most recent one being Filia's friend to kill Xelloss, ha ha, wasn't it all amusing? What a nice world.

"I don't know." Don't know enough about anything including her own priest, and that was the worst joke she had ever heard.

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