Flight cost him nothing in normal form at this point, but doing so while boosting himself to the utmost limit felt completely different. It made Fate Weaver feel like he propelled himself through the ocean, needing more power to push forward the deeper he went. Displacing such densities and losing momentum in the process. In reality, he didn't slow down, but it felt like his whole body strained against the invisible forces of his own surging power all the same.
A mistake, and the pressure would crush him. A moment of hesitation, and he'd stop. But it mattered more that he got to his target as powerful as he could, rather than arriving safely. Thus, he gave it his all. Feeling the back thrusters of his Balance Breaker strain the more powerful they got as he visualized the place that he'd been told about.
[EXPLOSION!]
His landing displaced slime and pieces and environment alike, almost vaporizing them with the sheer pressure with which his draconic power was released. He felt like he'd implode from how suddenly all of his power was drained, but the holy aura that bristled through all his body quickly made the awful sensation wash away. Drowned by the heavenly power and turned into vitality to do it again.
The slime had changed into a myriad of people, even before Fate Weaver got to the scene. It did not react to his arrival beyond correcting the parts of itself that became undone due to the powerful strike. At least in the bodies that were only grazed, because the other ones were just gone.
Magic sigils caught Fate Weaver's attention. Far in the air, surrounding a single individual that by the looks of it had his own focus caught by Fate Weaver's arrival.
The Miracle Child clicked his tongue but went on the offensive.
"At least you're taking responsibility for your fuck up, I'll give you that!" He yelled as he smashed the Stray Devil's bodies with his armored fists, releasing draconic and heavenly aura with each strike while the creature pulled back and tried to keep some distance.
"Oh, you're sane?" The other guy's voice reached Fate Weaver's ears like he stood a couple of feet away from him. Even though he spoke from so far away that neither could distinguish each other properly "I thought that the nyrie kirie would've gotten you too."
Fate Weaver almost stopped in his tracks.
"The what now?" He thrusted his left palm out, and power surged like propelled by a cannon. Scorching the bodies that couldn't help being slower than his beam of pure light.
"Ingvild's Sacred Gear. I don't actually remember what its name is." The other guy kept doing something with his magic circles. Some visibly disappearing, while others simply made Fate Weaver feel a change in their surroundings. Not very physical, but in a distinct way.
"Wait, Ingvild?! The Leviathan girl?!" No way! If she was here, then Fate Weaver should've known! If the guy masquerading as Diodora knew, then what did that mean for Fate Weaver? Would he lose another girl because of him?! "Where is she?!"
"Gone." Was the only answer he got.
"What?"
"Stain got her first. She's gone." The other guy neither sounded disappointed nor surprised. And it actually made Fate Weaver have a bit of a chill. He made an effort to remember, even while trading blows with the Stray Devil, but he couldn't remember any sort of inflection in the guy's voice.
Maybe because he was projecting it out. But something in Fate Weaver's mind made him feel like the other otherworldly guy was actually feeling next to nothing here.
"Did it… Did it kill her…?" Fate Weaver asked to the air, doubling in effort to get as many creatures as he could.
They didn't react visibly to the change of pace. They kept moving around him and putting barriers in front of him, and bidding themselves time. Every time he tried to go for a big release of power, every time he thought he caught them, the great majority pulled away and he got his boosts reset.
The news made him angrier than he wanted to admit, but this slime's fighting style was also getting to his nerves.
"Irrelevant. If it did, then it took her Sacred Gear first. So it can use it whenever and wherever. If it didn't, it used her both as bait and power battery for the Longinus. Something like with happened with Gasper… Which also means that it can use it wherever, whenever."
"Don't give me that crap!" Fate Weaver felt sick from the clinical, cold way that this guy used to speak "She's a living being too! She deserves to be rescued!"
Some of the slime reached out into the sky, trying to claim the flying devil or swat him off his position.
More magic circles appeared, and the slime froze, exploded, and got cleaved all in different parts once it reached a certain proximity. As if having triggered a bomb planted all around the guy's surrounding area.
"It can take us. It tried to do so to me, through Ophis' snake. If you think you can trump over that power, then be my guest." He answered after a few seconds of considering it.
In battle, it felt like an eternity of silence. But Fate Weaver pushed onward.
Instead of trying to destroy the creatures all around him, Fate Weaver started opening up a path toward the other guy. He wouldn't punch him in the face, not now, but the anger and his battle experience pushed him both toward him all the same. Perhaps due to righteous fury, or to make a point, or maybe because that was the smart thing to do.
The other guy seemed to notice, because his area with magic circles changed. And other, bigger, magic circles appeared in the space between him and Fate Weaver.
Pillars of light fell on the slime like cave spikes that crushed and bursted some of the bodies away. While others retreated when the circles that conjured them changed once more, and the pillars melted away to turn into a tide of power that threatened to burn them alive if they stood in the path.
It wasn't perfect, but Fate Weaver had a clearer path to follow. He channeled his boosted power into speed, salvaging as much as he could before the next cycle of releasing and starting to boost anew. This creature was too dangerous for him to go all out right off the bat, and he'd be royally screwed up if he ran out of stamina here. So he took the help to conserve his power, looking for optimal chances to release his stored power.
"Dragon Smite." Now that Fate Weaver got close enough and the other guy flew lower, they could see each other. So the Miracle Child noticed how his attack started the devil as some of the clouds parted.
The pillar of draconic power and holy light made the other guy pull his arm as if to shield his head, and the magic circles around him turned and changed in place.
The smite came down a moment later, but it didn't land on its intended target. Instead, it visibly bent away from the two guys' position and scorched the land while touching absolutely nothing of the slime. Effectively wasting Fate Weaver's stock of power.
Even as he blasted some of the bodies away, the Miracle Child turned to the devil with an 'are you fucking serious?' stare of disbelief.
"Oh, that was you?" The other otherworldly guy asked, still without inflection, as his eyes returned to a neutral stare. Some of his magic circles disappeared and his voice sounded as far away as he physically was "That spooked me a bit."
So he was indeed projecting out his voice as-is… Creepy. Xenovia usually spoke in a neutral tone, but it sounded natural. This guy? He spoke like he'd emptied himself of emotions instead. Like a machine.
"Are you fucking stupid? I didn't even aim close to you." Fate Weaver groaned. Maybe trying to get a raise of his fellow otherworldly guy, trying to hear something remotely normal in him. Or maybe he just didn't want to admit that he hated the fact that his attack got changed so easily "How did you do that anyway?"
The devil looked away, concentrating in his magic circles. Behind the cluster of power, he wore some loose pants and t-shirt, badly damaged but functional. His rock-like hands stayed up, halfway reaching out to the magic all around him. Halfway hanging in the air. He'd lost part of his left cheek, which had also turned mineral-like. But otherwise, this was indeed Diodora Astaroth. If an emotionless version of him.
"Are you dense?" He answered when Fate Weaver snapped out of his thought as the slime tried to close in on them again "Do you really need everything explained to you?"
Fate Weaver stopped in his tracks, feeling his chest tighten up. Heat raising onto his cheeks.
The slime turned into some sort of freaky gorilla creature with extra limbs. It smashed Fate Weaver with all of its fists all at once.
Fate Weaver did not budge an inch, his Scale Mail did not even get a scratch.
"Buddy, pro tip: Never say that to me ever again." Fate Weaver released his stored power again, but he put some more heavenly power in it this time.
Many of the slime bodies sizzled and burst into holy flames as Fate Weaver punched forward. Creating another path that the slime quickly covered for. But which made it have to go in the air as the scorched land kept some holy energy. Even the air made the creature release some sort of steam as the aura that lingered burned at its devilish body.
The other guy had his attention elsewhere and didn't do anything to indicate that he'd heard Fate Weaver.
The need to attack him grew by the second, but the Miracle Child dutifully kept his attention on the Stray Devil. Sirzechs himself entrusted him with this mission, after all. He couldn't allow himself to disappoint the Demon Lord when Rias was his younger sister. Once the peace treaty happened, he'd have a better opportunity to be with both of them at the same time. And he knew that the older devil's good word would be helpful in bridging that gap between Fate Weaver and Rias. He couldn't miss the chance.
He released a lungful of air, blowing some steam on the monsters in front of him. Burning the image of the man that raised him every time he punched or blasted one of the slime's creatures. It gave him mixed feelings, thinking about both his previous life and his goals for this one, but it helped Fate Weaver stay focused.
Projecting like that helped very little, but in doing so he managed to wrestle with those painful memories. Contrasted by the sheer importance of what he did now, of the difference in scale. He reminded himself that such a life was in the past, and even if it wasn't, who Fate Weaver was now greatly outweighed whatever that monstrous man thought of him before. That man did not matter in the grand scheme of things. He was only human, only a weakling that'd have died if put in Fate Weaver's position.
He no longer mattered, he no longer existed.
"Why are you not using Juggernaut Drive?" The other guy spoke up, distracting Fate Weaver for a moment.
"Are you insane? I can die."
"I know you can pay with a miracle instead of your lifespan." He answered with a side glance. He looked like he had seen an ugly bug instead of Fate Weaver now.
If only that expression translated to his voice…
"I don't wanna." Fate Weaver stated, ending that conversation.
"Useless, as expected." The devil clicked his tongue and focused on another part of the slime.
"Oh, shut the fuck up! Seeing how you're the only one here, I realized that I was brought here only because you can't do anything by yourself!" Fate Weaver roared as he summoned another pillar of power from the heavens, scorching the slime where it landed "I'm here because mister Dildora Asstomouth can't fucking fight for himself! He needs the chick he tricked into becoming his servant to get him out of trouble!"
The other guy didn't look at him.
"What did you even say?" The otherworldly devil asked, voice a bit more forceful but still a far cry from any emotion Fate Weaver recognized.
"Oh? Did I strike a nerve?" Even though the devil wouldn't be able to see him, Fate Weaver smirked. It looked to him like the other guy was trying to keep his emotions in check, regardless of how obvious or not it was.
It reminded him of his family, whenever something annoyed them in public. They'd have to put up with it, because they were assholes that cared more about what people thought of them than about treating their children nicely. So much so that even the kids had that bad habit themselves.
The other guy's magic circles shrunk, and part of the landscape went dark as power sucked things all around itself, some few feet away from the two fighting guys. Even light couldn't escape it, and the slime countered with its own magic. The very same that the devil twisted and canceled while still vacuum sucking creatures with his power.
Then, it exploded. A violent bang that Fate Weaver felt under his Balance Breaker armor.
His smirk grew a bit more.
"I'll take that as yes."
"About what?"
"No, no. Leave it at that. It's no fun if you get rattled so easily." Fate Weaver tried to shrug it off, but he couldn't do that while fighting.
The other guy turned to him.
"So you'll stop being annoying?"
"I know how to behave around little bitches. I'll be good."
"I'll take your word for it." The devil spoke more forcefully again, pulling away his sight from him and back into the battle.
"For real, for real."
"Speaking of. Where are your teammates?" The devil changed his magic circles again, and the creature seemed to freeze in places. While in others it slowed down enough for Fate Weaver to aim a devastating blow with time to spare.
"They got to the other place where the slime appeared. No need to waste our numbers on this."
The devil shook his head.
"You do realize Stain is biding its time until I get tired, right?"
"I didn't know the world revolved around you." Fate Weaver scoffed.
"No, it revolves around you." The devil stated. No forced neutrality here.
"Always knew it." Was all that Fate Weaver could come up with.
The silence that the statement created could've drowned the sound of fighting, yet Fate Weaver didn't have time to consider the implications. While the other guy kept the slime at bay and gave Fate Weaver the ability to focus on the more immediate threats, he dispatched as much of it as he could. They took turns going a bit easier, catching their breath both metaphorically and physically before they had to carry the fight again.
The slime didn't relent, didn't slow down. It summoned creatures that didn't belong to it and casted magic that the other guy had to redirect or nullify, but it felt like it was always gaining terrain. Always closing in, even if Fate Weaver had maintained the same area clean for a few minutes already.
It gave him a really bad feeling.
[That presence…]
Fate Weaver almost recoiled from hearing that voice for the first time since he transmigrated. It was so out of the blue that he almost forgot to fight back against the tide of slime that assailed him. But when he vaporized the current threat, he realized that even the other guy had slowed down. Looking at the horizon.
His chest and arms glowed a pale purple, and the world drowned in a presence so unfathomably large that Fate Weaver had goosebumps when he felt it 'land' in its entirety.
"Are you insane? Why… How did you bring Ophis into this?" The other guy asked to the air, his expression visibly changing now. As if the previous mask of stoic coldness had been an illusion.
"The Sacred Gear has called for her." The slime spoke in many voices, all around the two in a very creepy synch "Just like it called the snake within the Lord's soul."
The devil stared at the distance, visibly growing angry as seconds passed.
"You're a very clever goo."
"This one is thankful for the praise." The slime replied "Now, choose: Will the Lord keep fighting against this one, or will he risk getting close to the being that has control over the only thing keeping his soul intact? If the Lord is…"
"All is Mine."
Fate Weaver felt a pulse of power as the only indication that something happened. Then, the whole stack of boosted power and his very Balance Breaker armor were ripped from him. Broken down into specks of power that flew out and into the waiting palm of the otherworldly devil.
Fate Weaver screamed in agony, feeling like he was getting scorched alive for a single second. Just like the slime exploded into energy, so did too Fate Weaver's Sacred Gear. And in the single moment of agony, he saw the small satisfied smirk of the devil giving him a side glance.
"Don't forget I too can cheat, Stain."
Fate Weaver wanted to snark, to curse at the devil while his exorcist gear got revealed below his Balance Breaker. But his attention came to the guy's feet.
His skin dried out and peeled within seconds, the muscles below growing to resemble very dark rock sculpted into the form of feet. The devil's expression didn't change, but he felt less than before. Somehow weaker in spite of the spike of power he just obtained.
Not enough. He couldn't cheat enough to get away with it.
"Your girls are in danger." The devil spoke up as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't just lost part of his body from the knees and lower "We must hurry. If it's Ophis, nothing will remain to salvage."
"Ophis? What would Ophis even do to them?"
"Don't let your knowledge fool you." The devil frowned "She's still the Infinite Dragon God. Even if she doesn't try, she'll just obliterate anyone in her path. And if she's under Stain's control…"
The devil shivered, and his magic circles were replaced by a huge ritual-looking sigil that was ingrained on the floor.
"Are you coming?" He hovered over the magic being powered, seemingly unwilling to move his feet anymore.
Fate Weaver gave him a smirk.
"If you let me meet up with Yuni, yes."
Diodora twitched, and Fate Weaver was pushed by an invisible force right into his waiting palm.
He tried to shrug it off, but having most of his power stolen had weakened him somewhat. And the immediate surroundings had turned so dense that he couldn't even breathe.
"Don't you fucking dare, C******n." Diodora's words were filled with hatred, almost venomous in how twisted they sounded. Like he was talking straight out of his stomach instead of using his voice, like a cavern monster about to devour Fate Weaver.
It almost made him forget the strange noise that came out of the devil's mouth, right when his sigils changed and Fate Weaver was smashed against the recently purified ground. Left to struggle until he used a blessing to make himself more powerful and activate Balance Breaker again.
At the end of that noise… Hadn't this guy said…?
"What… No way. You're…?" Fate Weaver's voice wavered, rushing to find a solution that was right in front of him. Years upon years of repressed memories crashed against his mind like a violent wave, and were suppressed just as quickly. Letting only glimpses peer through his mental fortress, through the walls that he created to protect the current him from the past.
The devil hovered higher into the air.
"I'm a monument to all your sins."
His little brother teleported alone.
Bel Lucifer had a problem. For most of her life, being strong counted as the best solution to any problem. And it just so happened that she had the tools, potential, and disposition to make this very valid answer to anything her own. She trained, she worked with strong people, and she listened to the advice of those that understood her powers. Azazel had been instrumental in mastering the Juggernaut Drive using her demonic power, for example. And Kokabiel had always encouraged her to go nuts during training and some low profile missions.
Ophis' existence challenged the safety of 'just grow stronger, lmao'. It made her realize time and again just how wide the gap between herself and the absolute was.
Devil hunters she could beat, dragons she could challenge. Albion always approved of her position of establishing dominance. They understood each other like only the people with hunger for power could, except that their goals would never not align. As she stood in his place to keep the legacy of the White Dragon Emperor alive, the ancient dragon gave her someone to talk to in the most fundamental ways. Without worrying about being offended or thinking that she was being far too dedicated to warfare.
Azazel's worries bothered her just as much as Kokabiel's eagerness. She didn't care for someone that wanted peace, nor for someone that wanted war; when it came to matters of battle. To her, combat had nothing to do with ideals or destiny. It was a fundamental part of her, a part that only cared about establishing dominance. And that, only a Heavenly Dragon understood well.
[Submit]
So even now, Albion understood better than anyone else the predicament and struggles that Bel was going through.
[Endure the humiliation and bow down. Ophis is not a being that exists in a realm we can understand]
Even through the reptilian tone of his voice, Bel understood well how little Albion wanted this to happen. She knew that he struggled as much as she did when it came to accepting defeat. Let alone show themselves as pitiful and pathetic right off the bat. She always listened to him in the end because of this, because they understood each other better than anyone else in the entire world. She heeded his advice because she knew that their feelings aligned, and if he went out of his way to advise her like this, then it had to be the best option.
"Ophis." She tried to smile, but it came out crooked as the Infinite Dragon God finally landed before her "Didn't think I'd see you around before the big day."
"Bel." That single word carried enough power that the heiress of Lucifer almost physically saw it manifest. Wavering like heat in the desert, or a current within an ocean. Vast, deceptively powerful, and very much alive "Why are you… Here?"
"You know how it is. I like to challenge myself with strong opponents." She tried her best not to tick off the Dragon God, but she found it very difficult to keep her tone from showing annoyance. She didn't want things to turn this way, and yet she had to console herself with the fact that everyone else chose to run away.
"The Oozing One is… Indeed strong." Ophis nodded, but then her expression changed "But there's… Something annoying… Here."
Bel frowned.
"Annoying?"
"A power that beckons me." Ophis mimicked her expression "Me. How dare they? Even if… It's through one of my snakes… How dare they?"
Ophis extended her arm, and part of the landscape simply vanished. Turning into dust and revealing the people that had tried to hide. To wait for the dragon to change her attention to somewhere else. Those were pulled back. The host of Vritra, the two hybrid girls.
And Kuroka.
"You children. Do you know what I mean?"
[It must have been the Sacred Gear from the child used by the slime]
Albion spoke up, helping those trapped within Ophis' invisible grasp as the Dragon God shifted her attention to them.
Bel stiffened, seeing how those that were grabbed needed to regenerate against the simple touch of Ophis' power. Gently put down, yet damaged even more than the slime had managed to in however long the battle lasted.
"The White One speaks the truth." Vritra manifested in Saji's body, appearing as several tiny snakes that pointed their heads at Ophis "My Otherself had to purposely negate that effect while we fought. Even the White One was no better."
[It is an unprecedented power indeed, one that might even affect the Great Red above in the Dimensional Gap, but one that we're ill equipped to obtain due to our nature]
Ophis stared at both Bel and Saji, her expression unreadable.
"So you mean to say that… The Oozing One managed to find a very powerful artifact?"
Oh. Oh no. This ridiculously ancient snake didn't understand the implications at all.
"That is not the case." A shadow spread behind Ophis, turning into a humanoid form as the final hybrid showed up.
Bel growled without thinking. Sin Devourer had turned out to be more of a pain in the ass than she anticipated. He knew things, and acted on it in ways that she could never predict. He alone was the reason that Azazel kept his faith in Bel as he figured out she hadn't just bumped into the devils during a Khaos Brigade incursion. If he kept believing in him, it was because this Miracle Child had his trust too. And he worked behind the scenes so much that his work was almost spotless. Like he was the author of a theater play and Bel and the rest were the actors.
"You."
"Me." Sin Devourer nodded "The Khaos Brigade doesn't have your best interest in mind, Ophis."
The Dragon God frowned again.
"Explain."
"Right away." Sin Devourer snapped his fingers.
A ginger girl landed a few meters away, steampunk wings extended to both sides before they folded and she showed a lamp with blue flames within.
The presence within the lamp made Bel feel nauseous, angry. And it seemed like Ophis did not like it at all.
"That's… The same thing that Freed had." Saji spoke up, looking spooked out "That Sacred Gear."
"This is an artificial Sacred Gear, one made by the Khaos Brigade in secret." Sin Devourer explained "It carries part of the soul of the Poison of God, the dragon-fallen angel hybrid Samael."
"Samael is the incarnation of God's dislike for dragons." The ginger explained, looking uncomfortable when she said 'dislike'. Taking into account her exorcist gear, it sounded to Bel like this girl didn't like the negative connotations it placed on her god "It carries a deadly poison with dragon slaying properties. It is so effective, in fact, it was used to defeat the Heavenly Dragons during the Great War."
Bel hadn't known that, but knew better than to prove Albion for answers. He'd not want to speak about his greatest loss, and Bel respected that.
"Is that so…?" Ophis didn't sound too interested in it, which bothered Bel even more. That presence inside the Sacred Gear felt like barely contained evil. Even if Ophis was so much stronger than everyone else, surely she understood this much "So what?"
"These tools have been created behind your back." The Miracle Child explained without hurry "They do not care for your goals, but are developing tools to get rid of you even as we speak. Do you not find it strange that Stain didn't offer to use this Sacred Gear for you? Is it not concerning that you had no idea it had it to begin with?"
"I've been told everything should go at its own pace."
A magic circle appeared, and the people gathered saw the former heir of Astaroth appear from it. Helped along by a girl with short silver hair.
"They wanted you to stay put, not get in their way." The girl sounded very serious, helping her brother move as he struggled to put one foot in front of the other in quick succession "Look for yourself, oh Infinite Dragon God. See what everyone is doing, remember what they told you. You'll find no lie in our words."
"Sure sounds like… You're trying to distract me." Ophis tilted her head.
A mountain, kilometers away from their position, vanished into dust.
Bel felt the backlash the power brought like a wave, almost like it knocked the air out of her lungs. Casually folding her as she struggled to breathe.
"Stain is gone!" Saji spoke up, staying straight as he spoke with some difficulty. His hands trembled, but he didn't let the fear show in his voice "If we were lying, it could've just stood here and proved us wrong. But it didn't. It ran away, like a liar."
"My slime is smarter than it looks." Diodora spoke in a tired voice, a small smile on his lips as he struggled to stand in place "For that, I apologize. We wanted to deal with it without further fuss but…"
"You." Ophis gestured to him.
Diodora's body started breaking down even faster.
"Wha-?!" Saji, Kuroka, and Yuni had to hold themselves back before they attacked Ophis. They saw their leader lose more of himself as the snake within struggled on.
"All is Mine." He stated, and his body stopped losing skin. With the parts that held his scars visibly glowing as power settled and he breathed roughly while keeping himself on his knees and hands. He lifted his hand with a cheeky smile "No, no. This is mine now. It's a part of me."
Attempting to steal from Ophis was ballsy, but denying her outright made Bel's heart drop. For the first time, she wanted to run away. Yet she had to stay put in the face of the Dragon God.
"How?"
"Blame the children of Heaven." Was all that Diodora replied.
"I see…" Ophis took a few steps in his direction, forcing the hybrid girl that wanted to help him pull back.
Ophis got to her knees and touched Diodora's head.
"It should be mine, but now it's yours."
"Correct." He answered with barely any breath left.
"That can't be. You too, promised something to me. Yet all you did was to take."
"I'm aware."
"I'm mad."
Diodora's smirked turned into a pained one.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry." Ophis reached into his chest "Be better."
She pulled out the snake that kept his soul from collapsing.
"NO!" Saji screamed, but Bel didn't pay enough attention to him.
Several things happened at once. Blasts crashed against Ophis, doing nothing but to bother her. Bel herself extended her Divine Dividing wings to pull back, and Saji extended snakes to reach out for the crumbling body of his master. The slime, too, rushed in to absorb as much as it could while the guy decayed into dust. Collapsing into himself.
The half vampire's eyes changed, looking like cameras that had been activated all of a sudden.
Diodora Astaroth was frozen in time mid-death.
Saji punched into Ophis, blasting everything around them with his black flames. But revealing that she took it with the forehead without even flinching.
The white haired half-devil swung a projected sword into Ophis, going for the throat. The weapon broke. And as it did she tried to also blast Ophis away, with the same results.
Even Kuroka launched an attack, a combo of senjutsu and youjutsu that Bel had only seen once before. Used by Bikou instead of Kuroka.
"GIVE IT BACK!" Saji screeched before channeling all of his Sacred Gears at once, creating a sphere of draconic power that grew a maw and surged against Ophis. Biting into the Dragon God, absorbing and suppressing power, cursing and slowing her down, but which quickly exploded into itself due to the immeasurable power in its target "DON'T LET HIM DIE LIKE THAT!"
"No." Ophis stated, and the movement of her head blasted everyone but the half vampire away. As she was shielded alongside the time-frozen devil by something Sin Devourer did.
The Miracle Child dropped to a knee, throwing darkened blood all around him as his body recoiled from the backlash of Ophis' power.
"Liars must… Be punished."
"Everyone lies, you silly child." The half-devil, Yuni, spoke as neutrally as she could. But her voice simply broke in too many places. Bel had the impression that she was a frigid girl, but she quickly realized just how in check her emotions always were "And they've been so blatant that it's not even funny. You're a joke. All that power and you can't even see what's in front of you."
Ophis tilted her head.
"Counting Bel? One, two… Like five people."
Saji… Genshirou's answer was to drive even more power into her. The Dragon God didn't even seem to realize.
"Give it back." A voice made the Dragon God turn around.
A small portion of the slime had slithered forward, with most of its body being eradicated by the manic attacks of those that tried to harm Ophis.
"Give it back." The slime shifted into the appearance of a young woman. Gray hair, braided behind her back,robes like that of a holy maiden. Her voice had just a little bit of emotion, and in her hands a power resided that Bel immediately recognized as the Sacred Gear that had been used to mind control her while the creature teleported her away.
"This one… This one will conjure the Great Red into this world. But this one must beg of you… Give it back. Do not let this one's Lord die like this. Not like this…"
Bel landed again, feeling incredibly out of place as things developed.
Ophis gave the slime her attention, even though the creature's form started breaking down and the woman it had supplanted started melting back into goo.
Sounds like someone's plan came to fruition way too late.
"You promise?" Ophis asked, noticing that the creature was having trouble staying alive.
"This one does."
"..." Ophis scratched her chin "Okay."
Genshirou visibly relaxed as Ophis released the snake in her hand and turned to him.
"You there, give me your hand."
Genshirou looked confused, but reached out to the Dragon God.
Ophis tore that hand off, getting the blond to screeche as blood poured out.
The Infinite Dragon God swallowed the whole thing and burped out only the bone. Then, she traced a line on her own arm and let drops of blood flow out into it.
The snake coiled against the limb.
"He just has to live, right? This should be enough." Then, without much care, Ophis turned back to Sin Devourer "You have something to do with death, right? You do the rest."
Sin Devourer struggled back to his feet.
He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers.
The heavens parted.
The half vampire hesitated but released her brother from her time prison in the end.