08. Trouble brewing!
Sirzechs Lucifer
Sirzechs looked with trepidation as Ajuka weaved through hundreds of magical circles to analyse what really happened.
Ajuka's green magic circle weaved his famous Kankara formula as several computations were performed simultaneously.
The last circle floated before him as Sirzechs waited for an answer.
But when the circle burnt out into red sparks, Ajuka turned to him seriously.
"Sirzechs. Send the peerages back. We need to use full power if the situation turns hostile. I am sensing demonic energies in concentrations never measured since Lucifer creates the Pillars."
He stared at his fellow Satan and friend with shock as he heard gasps from his peerage and from Serafall.
Sirzechs looked at the ruined ground where a single man stood naked with nary an expression. His face was like alabaster, unmarred by emotion, and he would have been a regular devil, if not for his demonic eyes.
Sirzechs looked at his queen and mother of his child. "Retreat for now. Everyone. This is an order."
His peerage nodded as he stood alone with Ajuka.
The two friends and fellow Satans nodded at each other as they geared themselves ready for the situation to get worse.
But the man never came to any blows.
He looked at Sirzechs and Ajuka, then at his maid and his ancestor, the first Stolas, before curling his fingers.
Robes made of shadows and darkness conjured themselves around his naked body as he walked away without any word.
Sirzechs truly expected things to turn for the worse when felt the dense magical energy from the young devil, the likes of which he never experienced before.
The man turned away and disappeared into his eyes as the two Satans looked at each other with concern and confusion.
Normally when beings turn more powerful than their leaders, things usually escalate until one of them dies or is put in their place.
As soon as the young devil turned away, the wards were raised again and all they saw was a hazy magical dome from the ground covering the entire domain in the wards.
"What do you think?" Sirzechs asked as Ajuka grunted.
"I think, there are no need for hostilities, yet."
Sirzechs agreed.
All they knew for sure was somehow there were reports that Shalba Beelzebub and Creusery Asmodeus had been abducted along with four other known high level Old Satan Faction members by a young man with similar descriptions as Aracxus Stolas Berith.
And the magical sensors in Underworld all sounded out alarms of massive surges of demonic energies and the peak activity was registered from Stolas property.
Nothing more was known and the reason all devils arrived to see what was going on was because of the sudden uneasy feeling he felt deep in his bones. Like his blood singing out, calling him away...
The feeling had subsided, but it hadn't truly gone away.
He wished his people stopped making his life so difficult. A young devil like Aracxus should no way have power to cause surges like that. Nor should his powers cause any effects as were recorded today...
"Let's head back for now. I do not think we can do much here."
Ajuka suggested as they both left.
Stolas of the 72 Pillars
Stolas stared at his descendant sitting calmly before him with his demonic eyes. Glowing red iris within pitch black sclera stared blankly at him as he looked at his descendant.
"Are you Aracxus or have you succumbed to the malice within the Qllipoth?" He asked as the last of his descendants smirked.
"Aracxus is Qllipoth and henceforward, Qllipoth shall be Aracxus."
Stolas stared deeply. "What does Qllipoth want with Aracxus?"
The last of the Berith shrugged. "Aracxus wanted to wake Qllipoth within him. He has succeeded. Qllipoth wanted to awake. Qllipoth succeeded. Now, Qllipoth can reach where Sephiroth can, and Aracxus can achieve what Qllipoth desired for devils. Qllipoth wants what Aracxus wants and when our desires unite, W̷̡̧̤̠͆͂̿̃̍͠ẹ̴̹̭̯͓͍͛̑̽ ̶͔̩͓̟̃̃͠a̵̧̛̗̗͕͊̏̐̄̄ř̸͈͇̊͆̀̒͌̊ë̴͇̙̹̽̓͑̆ ̵̨̫̼̼̉̊̈̚ơ̶̢̺͂́́̊͠ǹ̶̢̤̯ͅͅê̵͇͔͈!̴̳̘͚̖̞̐̿͜͝ ̶̧̰̹͒͌́"
Stolas felt a wet sensation on his nose, lips and eyes, as he wiped the fluid. Only, it turned out to be blood.
His blood.
"Hmm! So even a demon born of darkness cannot bear the sight of the abyss. Such discordance. Such weakness. How low have you fallen?"
His words caused Stolas to freeze, as he looked at Aracxus.
"How did Aracxus find Mother's remains? I thought her son Rizevim hid his mother away." He asked hiding his discomfort talking to the literal darkness and embodiment of all darkness, evil and malice.
Lucifer was the creator of all Devilkind, but Lilith was their mother. The Unholy Mother birthed them from the darkness of the damnation just as Father of Angels created her to do.
But she had grown weak and tired after birthing devils to fight in the Great War and turned catatonic and unresponsive after the stress and fatigue got to her.
Her blood and flesh was key to reaching the fountain of darkness from whence he and his kin came.
"Aracxus attacked Old Satan Faction base and forced the spawns of Asmodeus and Beelzebub to reveal their hideout.
Stolas leaned forward.
"Does Aracxus have Mother of Devils with him?" He asked as the young devil smirked.
"We do. If you can guess what we are, care to hazard a guess what we want to do next?"
Stolas thought deeply as he put the pieces together.
Rizevim cannot guard Lilith all the time. This meant Aracxus attacked the base knowing Rizevim was not there. Or perhaps he created a distraction that lured Rizevim away.
The son of Lucifer left his mother unguarded, which Aracxus used as leverage and obtained her performing the ritual to awaken the Qllipoth.
Now that he is a vessel of Qllipoth, and he still has Lilith, there is but one choice that is visible, after all that was done to awaken Qllipoth. But all these plans require a certain powerful object. But nobody knows where it is.
But nobody knew where Lilith was either. And nobody thought invoking ancient rituals to host the world's darkness inside them was even possible either.
"Do you know where Sephiroth is?"
He asked bluntly as the young devil smirked and began to clap slowly.
"You did not disappoint Stolas. Very good. And yes. Aracxus has an inkling where the sacred gear currently is."
Lucifer! If Aracxus succeeded with his endeavour, he would become even more powerful than he currently is. It would be quite dangerous, if he wasn't on their side. After all, Qllipoth is just as much their creator as Lucifer and Lilith are. Devils were created from the darkness by their creators and into the darkness they go upon their demise.
Darkness is all there is. All there ever will be. Before the light, there was darkness. Before there was God, there was still darkness.
And Stolas couldn't help himself as he began to cackle loudly. Things were getting very interesting!
Aracxus
I may have been a human, a mortal who saw this world as a fantasy anime/manga as a kid.
I may have been reborn in this world as a young devil child born to two Pillar Houses and inherit their clan traits.
I may have been the powerful devil who trained and tested his powers, growing in strength beyond imagination until my mind and my might equalled my ambitions and greed.
But now...
I was so much more.
Finding my existence melded with the Source of Devil's creation, finding the sentience within allying with my own ambitions...
I have become so much more...So much more than I could ever be by myself!
"It is in both our mutual interest to be allies. When our powers were wrested from our control, the original Satans of your kind wrestled a fragment of our powers to create Malebranche, the demonic antithesis to Heavenly God's Sacred Gears. But in doing so, these entities became sentient without purpose inheriting our nascent rationale. That was what scared those Satans so many centuries ago."
I nodded. I had read some bits of Hermetic and Jewish Kabbalah. I knew what the Almighty One Ain Sof and his antithesis were. Kabbalah described in detail different facets of the Heavenly Father's powers and abilities as well as their antithesis in evil malevolent Qllipoth.
I knew, since demonic energy was chaos energy, and Holy energy was like Order magic, then there must similarly be a source of Chaos Magic.
The number 666 was assigned to the beast of the end. The malevolent end that dooms the world. The number was a human number, even if it was intended to be 616. And that was why, in my ritual, I chose to sacrifice 6 innocent devils who were born in the sixth month, 6 enemy devils with blood of the Original Satans and 6 powerful beasts who have been fed on the blood and flesh of Lilith for six days and six nights.
The ritual invoked the principle of root or the source, as the innocent devils had been bathed in the blood of their forefathers caked in the ash of their ancestor's graves.
The alchemy principles were invoked for returning to source and instigating this transformation.
And as a result, when my conscious mind shut down, I found myself standing in pitch black darkness with red eyes staring at me. I had succeeded in awakening the sentience in Qllipoth, the source of malevolence, suffering and evil, which Lilith wielded as the Human Witch and Lucifer supported with his antithetical powers from Sephiroth as Fallen Angel of Light, to create 72 Pillars.
The three other Satans were powerful because they were created from corpses of angelic Seraphs Lucifer slew when he was banished from Heaven.
I had to collate several pieces of information over the years as well as actually use Lilith's broken mind to revive her memories before I could see what I wanted and understand what I truly needed.
Sacred Gears were powerful abilities, and having something like Annihilation Maker or Dimension Lost would be plenty useful, but there were always limitations on such powers. They were borrowed powers, and borrowed powers have a way of weakening you when you rely overly much on their abilities.
And secondly, there are beings like Rizevim who can deny the divine Providence and cause Sacred Gears to malfunction or deactivate completely.
This was undesirable in the long run. Overly so, when I knew there were threats in this world that cannot be resolved without overwhelming powers.
And that was why, I needed strength. I needed power that cannot be denied, that cannot be weakened, that cannot be suppressed.
And Qllipoth was my answer.
"We are not there yet. Once you use Sephiroth to set us free, chaos magic will be unrestricted. You will absorb its conceptual weakness. And in turn, our power shall be beyond compare. But we must be careful. As soon as I was awakened, I sensed the presence of Lord Vishnu and Lord Shiva on my realm. The Hindu Trinity saw my awakening in their meditation, and they are aware of your actions and your intentions. As long as you do not meddle with the natural order of things, they should not be a problem for our plans. Do not change the fate of any important person. Don't attack Longinus wielder because Indra already has his sights set on him. Do not venture into the Indian subcontinent, until you are sure you can escape the powers of the Hindu Trinity."
That made cold sweat run down my back. Shiva and Vishnu. The Destroyer and the Protector. The powers of two ancient gods so beyond compare that even Qllipoth warned me to not invoke their anger.
It is no surprise that the Holy Trinity are feared and revered if their powers can reach such heights that even other gods can only stare at it like peaks beyond the clouds in the skies.
"Can I ever hope to grow as powerful as the Hindu Trinity?" I asked as I heard a scoff.
"You don't even understand what makes them stronger, never mind thinking of reaching those heights!"
The voice sighed.
"The supreme gods of Hindu Pantheon are almost as old as the Universe itself. The Divine Trinity are powerful beyond compare, not because they wield more power than you. But they are powerful because they are so attuned with the Universe they dwell in, that they don't even need to wield any power to manipulate the laws of the universe. Do you understand?"
I shook my head as Qllipoth sighed.
"Magic uses energy to cause certain stimulus and the Universe reacts to it. Your demonic energy is concentrated Chaos magic, just as miracle systems in Heaven are concentrated Order magic. These branches of magic create stimuli that manipulate the world into the effects you desire. The Holy Trinity doesn't even need that. They are so attuned to the concept of creation, protection and destruction that these concepts take form when they just think about it. They don't even need to expend any magic to create chains around you, protect you from using magic or destroy you to your last essence."
That was fucking terrifying.
"And I can do nothing against it?"
"You can try to wrestle control away from their concepts. Or grow so strong in concepts that your existence is not affected by their own conceptual reality. That is why Ouroborus and Divine Dragon of Dreams can exist freely. One embodies the concept of Infinity, and the second embodies the concept of dreams, hope and dragons themselves. As long as these concepts exist in this world, these beings would never truly die. Because you cannot erase them without erasing the entire universe. And nobody wants to do that. Not yet."
"Thanks that makes me feel so much better." I said sarcastically as Qllipoth pouted.
"You should not ask questions, if you do not want to know their answers. All creatures and beings of the supernatural races in this world exist because their parents sired them and wished their existence. Mortals use their life essence to birth their children, and supernatural creatures use their own existence to birth their own. But this existence is not carved in stone, but written in the sands of the beach. A small tide can wash the sands away and the indelible marks will vanish with the tide. Gods and Buddhas are different. Their existence is either based on the concepts of their divine authority as in the case of Gods, or attuned to the Universe and its natural order like in the case of Buddhas. Powerful beings know that killing gods is like killing the conceptual reality of that dominion in this universe. And that is why, in every world and in every age, godslaying is a grave crime."
Holy shit! That is not what I expected!
"As you grow stronger, you will learn there is a cost for every action you take. Every consequence may just be so dire, that you must rethink your choices and formulate your strategies. That is why wars on world breaking scales don't take place that often. There are centuries of grudges and vengeances at play, but acting on those impulses will spell doom for both the parties."
I didn't expect that.
"Of course, you didn't. You simply craved more and more power, without realising how to truly wield it. That is why, despite having Valerie Tepes under your control, you shouldn't use her mutated Sephiroth Graal just yet. Let time teach you your place in this world. Learn your footfall, learn about your surroundings. As you are, there are not many Beings in this world stronger than you. And yet, you are not invincible as those weaker than you have centuries and millennia of combat and general experience which you severely lack. I suggest you rectify that situation."
Yeah, I agree with that sentiment. Fighting powerful enemies is cool on paper, not very much so, when one realises powerful supernatural beings have been fighting each other for more years than I can possibly fathom.
"What do you suggest we do now? Valerie is safe in the Underworld. There are no immediate concerns that need my attention, and Rizevim might attack me, but I have ways to circumnavigate him. I have gained power, and there is no situation to test my powers with."
Qllipoth scoffed. "This just shows the limited foresight you possess. Why seek an enemy when your Underworld is so full of it? After all, what is dead may never die. There are all afterlives and hells connected to each other in this region. From Hades' domain from Styx to Tartarus, to Hindu underworld and Narak, to Shinto Yomi under Izanami to Sumerian Ereshkigal's domain of Kur. Let's not forget Helheim. All these lands have vast swathes of undead overfilling their respective domains. And with my assistance, you can fight to your hearts content without allowing the necrotic energy to ever affect you."
Hmm! I mean, I have no commitments here. I can secure Valerie as Rizevim getting his hands on her is the worst thing that can happen. But apart from that, there isn't much that I can visibly do here. Not until the cannon starts.
I checked. Rias Gremory is 5 years old. So, is Sona. Issei Hyodou is 4 years old with Cleria Belial living in Kuoh as its administrator.
That let me know the timeline.
I can shield Cleria from King's Faction schemes. That will prevent Diehauser Belial supporting the Qllipoth faction.
I have set my pieces and all that is left is for my opponents around the world to make their move.
This gives me a buffer time of about 8-10 years. I can use this time to my advantage.
Later
"I can accompany you, Master. You need not be alone where you are going." Mira pleaded as I shook my head.
"I cannot take you where I am going, Mira. I need you here to keep my affairs in order. Take contracts for me. Look at my ledger. I have given you and Damian full access to it. Use it to keep up on my contracts and by proxy continue my work on that end. I need you to also set the wards to defend as well as alert me if credible threats rear their heads. If everything goes as planned, I shall be in training until the end of this decade."
Mira had her head low, as I saw Damian had grit his teeth and curled his fingers into a fist.
I didn't want them with me as it would be quite dangerous even for Ultimate Class devils like them.
"I cannot trust anyone but you two. I need your support, so that I can venture into the unknown knowing that my home is safe in your hands. You cannot come with me, but that doesn't mean you stop helping me." I put my hand on their shoulders as they looked me in the eye.
"I need you here. I need you to stay in the light, so that I can continue my work in the dark. Keep careful watch on the guest, and keep away any uninvited guests. If the New government calls, tell them I am unavailable until 15 years. Nothing takes precedence over this. I trust you can act on my behalf."
The two looked at each other then nodded resolutely. "We shall not disappoint you, Master."
I smiled. "I know you will not. If things get dire, activate the ritual only for Protocol RL-6. For all other intents and purposes, be my proxy. No one is allowed in our premises. And trespassers should be dealt with severely. No servant is allowed to leave the premises, and no one else is allowed inside."
Receiving a serious look from the two, I smiled at them.
"I will see you soon. Be well."
And with a flash, I was embraced in the shadows as I appeared in complete darkness.
A cold chill spread in the air, as I felt my heartbeat quicken. The air smelt foul and the winds were blowing bone biting chill around me. Something that was potent permeated in the air shrouding my senses in stillness and inactivity. But I could feel someone, something.. They were watching me.
"Do not let your guard down. You are slowly being surrounded."
I cannot see anything in the dark. But devils have the ability to see in the dark. This was not natural. Which means, the test is already upon me.
"What is a baby devil doing in my territory? Have you lost your bearings, little one?"
A cold feminine voice asked me, as the voice came from all sides.
I smiled at her taunting voice.
"I greet you Queen Ereshkigal, Goddess of the Unlife. I seek to train, and wish to train against your mighty forces to test my capabilities."
There was a soft lilting laugh.
"Such a bold and upfront devil. Immune to death's embrace, too. And quite powerful if the whiff of chaos on you is what I expect it to be. Very well. Go ahead. See what you make of my forces. But be warned. You entered my domain of your own volition...But If you leave, it shall be of mine. If you survive that is."
I felt a cold feeling spreading around me, as I channeled the darkness, the grim malevolence and the powerful dimensional energy flow within me.
My demonic energy felt compressed even further almost as if it was saturated in every fibre of my being. The darkness around me was foreign, it was stranger. It was away from me. Against me.
Not anymore.
Now, darkness is like an old friend. My vision seeped into the black abyss of the dimension that opened my soul too, and the Qllipoth embraced me with its abyssal grip. I was now Qllipoth as it was now me. And as soon as I channeled it inside me, I felt the fundamental difference from before.
I was no longer a devil. I was no longer bound to the template that was created when I was born to the devils who were several generations ago created by Lucifer and Lilith.
I was no longer a Pillar devil bound by the same racial weaknesses and same racial traits. Whatever I am, whatever I was. They are two different entities. I am no longer a devil. Even if there are remnants of that being that existed before the ritual.
I am something more. Something beyond compare. Beyond Satan Class or Super Devils or any of those terminologies.
I was not on the same scale anymore. For I cannot be measured. I am beyond compare. Beyond what I used to be.
As I opened my eyes to the truth of the world, I saw the domain of Ereshkigal as I stood in it. Necrotic energy lapping my powers trying to corrode my life essence. Her death domain attempted to weaken me. Her thousands and thousands of souls of warriors in arms, ready to attack me on her command.
The entire world, a small piece of the Underworld, but a mighty Sumerian Underworld and afterlife with all the mortal, demigod and even godly souls ready to annihilate me at a moment's notice.
And all I felt was...
Excitement.
A bloodthirsty savage grin broke open on my face as my twitchy hands grabbed firmly on darkness that cloaked me. When I am in the dark, I am never truly alone. Or powerless.
For darkness is my friend. It is me.
With hands coated in eldritch energies and strength that beggared belief, I smiled at the visage of the Goddess who looked shocked that I could see her.
"Found you~"