Iustitia: Angel of Justice.
Within Paradiso's Divine Will, also known as the Cardinal Virtues, Iustitia, or Justice, is known to take a particularly strange physical manifestation.
A large mass covered with numerous faces, and extending outwards via countless tentacles, Iustitia could easily pass for a demon. This may be due to the fact that those depicting the angel are filled beyond comprehension with awe of the sheer difficulty of encouraging justice in the world.
Among Paradiso's Divine Will, there are those who believe that Iustitia is the closest of the Cardinal Virtues to hell.
Justice is said to be based upon rules established by man, to be followed by man, and changing one's viewpoint can lead to a change in what is evil.
This uncertainty may be a manifestation of the existing folklore and depictions of Iustitia.
Excerpt from the Hierarchy of Laguna
I'll get this out of the way first. This is one ugly angel. Iustitia is supposed to be the Angel of Justice but what Justice is tends to vary wildly depending on who you are and where you come from, as such Iustitia possesses one of the most chaotic appearances of all angels, of any sphere. This also makes Iustitia the most unpredictable to deal with amongst the Cardinal Virtues. Normally an Angel's personality and tactics are determined by the thoughts, ideas, and actions that gave birth to them, but in Iustitia's case that's all over the place.
In some parts of the world it's considered dishonourable to use a sneak attack to eliminate a violent criminal or group, in other parts of the world it's encouraged to eliminate clear threats to public order as soon as they appear with extreme prejudice.
The first time we fought I got lucky, I had a powerful Umbran armour and Iustitia was dropped basically on my head, which if not for the extremely obvious and drawn out summoning process might've worked against me.
Instead I basically started blasting the moment he was about to appear and when he caught me and was about to turn the fight around I blew up the mech and escaped.
The second time we met he decided to apply a bit of a turnabout.
After a minor highway accident I was tossed into Paradiso, where I spent the entire time there getting hit with harassment based attacks such as ranged attacks with tentacles or having entire chunks of land flipped over blocking my path, if he was seriously trying to kill me then the entire island I was standing on could've easily been flipped over and dumped me into the endless void below. Instead of trying to tell you about tactics I will instead speak of abilities.
Iustitia's tentacles can spit acid, open up into deadly maws and fire off beams of energy. Also Iustitia uses Earth magic, which means 'fun' things like attacking from underground, Earth walls, Earth spikes and other assorted Earth magic based attacks and magic to screw you up from below. In short, when in doubt, look down below.
Excerpt from Cereza's interview on Iustitia
The Earth was rumbling. Deidre could make out precious metals and gemstones in the stone on the surface, in the distance beautiful mountains were clearly visible, and everywhere you looked was beautiful stone statues of excellent craftsmanship. Fields of golden wheat, corn and other forms of grain sprawled off into the distance surrounded by luscious green forests. If Deidre was to bring a team of porters and miners into the place, preferably with at least civilian grade Armour models and a few airships, she would likely make enough money to buy Holfort several times over. The only problem was the Earth was shaking.
"Are you supposed to be this Angel of Justice?" Deidre was already wearing a Louise's hat and had her wand, the Alakazam. "I quite look forward to delivering your head to my crush. Hu Hu Hu Hu!" The Earth shattered, a giant bulbous mass that looked like someone took several statue heads and forcibly crammed them together into a ball, the mouths had several long tentacles sticking out of them which also ended with statue heads. "...it looks like I'll have my fair pick to chose from." The several heads spoke in a language that Deidre didn't know, that said. "Allow me to make my introduction, I am Deidre Fia Roseblade, Fiance of Leon Rapha Blackmore." Deidre might not be able to understand the Angel, but the Angel understood Deidre. Several of the more bulbous heads slammed into Deidre's location jaws open attempting to swallow her whole, but by the time they pulled away she was already gone. "Oh nice try!" Deidre could throw her voice with wind magic, the Alakazam could manipulate space to transport her from place to place, together they made an effective combination for hit and run tactics. As for the 'hit' portion of the tactics.
"GGGAAAHHH!" Cursed stakes were shoved into the eyes of Iustitia, while being a big ball of faces was convenient for 360 Degrees of vision it also made him a big ball of potential weak spots, so there were lots of places for Diedre to put the hurt on.
Deidre confidently smirked from the vantage point of the nearby forest, sitting on top of a tree, she was out of reach of the stupid mullusk and even if she wasn't she could just transport herself away again. Diedre should've read the study notes that Olivia had compiled on the four bosses, if she had she might's realised that this particular enemy subscribes to 'An Eye For An Eye' Philosophy. Iustitia raised all of it's tendrils into the air and slammed them down into the ground, a shock wave went through the Earth, spikes of rock diving down and rising up into the air tearing apart the landscape in the process without showing any signs of discrimination.
"Uh oh!" Deidre thus popped into the air, and was met by a giant mass of Stalactites that had been fired into the air like bullets, intending to spare no space in the sky to vanish off to safety instead Deidre returned to ground level. A mistake. A pair of stone boards lined with spikes suddenly snapped on Deidre like a giant bear trap. "What does this have to do with justice!?" As Deidre complained she slapped a magic card on her training brace. A familiar black demon sixteen feet tall appeared before the blonde before he grabbed her and took off into the air, now Iustitia had a bigger target to work with, and the stone cannon shells increased their intensity.
"What did you do to piss him off!?" Leon grabbed the Devil Arm from Deidre, turning into a pair of giant bird like creatures, one a pair of legs with a bird head and large wings off to the side and the other a three faced giant with wings from the back. "I just attacked him from his blind spots!" Deidre defended herself. """Don't expect him not to use the same tactics you used against him!""" Deidre was confused for a moment.
"Are there three of you in there?"
"""Yeah, I'll explain later.""" Leon didn't have time for a history lesson, there were hundreds of spikes flying at them right now. """Mash em!""" Space folded on itself, the stone cannon shells crashed into each other, smashing them into pieces. """Mix em up!""" The stones were thrown into a twister repeatedly smashing them together like the world's biggest nuts in the world's biggest blender, each strike producing sparks. """Stick em in a stew!""" The continuously sparking stone melted together into a single mass which was then thrown at the demon who snarled out a another line of enochian and punched through the molten metal and rock with a tendril.
"RRREEEEEE!" Iustitia screeched in pain as it's tendril was torn off as the result of a space manipulating spell tearing off the Tendril and sending it off to the another dimension. Of course Leon didn't merely go through the trouble of refining a big ball molten metal just to watch the tentacle monster smash it to pieces, Leon instead create tubes of space with no air inside, in other words a vacuum. The still soft half molten masses were put into each of these vacuum tubes and then fired by letting normal air pressure return from the back, a little space magic to boot, and not ever the squid crusader would be able to beat back the enemy with brute force alone.
"Space magic is supposed to be your two's speciality!"
""It's not exactly easy for us to do this here. Even if we didn't have a third wheel!""
Leon appeared to argue with himself, or more accurately the demon he was sharing a summon with, they had two bodies and two faces to work with so it was easier than you'd think but still it was conversation between a torso and a a pair of legs.
"I suppose this means that I am going to have to be the one to fend them off." Putting on a put upon sigh Deidre pulled out her fan as she eyed the crop field that had miraculously turned back to normal after the spike wave from the first attack. "Lemme show you a trick my family uses to defend our island in the event of an emergency." Deidre waved her fan at the crops field, creating a tornado that tore off all the grains from the wheat field, the tornado of dust approached Iustitia, passing through the attempts made to stop it, and when it was directly on top of the tentacle monster Diedre snapped her fan shut and the entire tornado exploded in a massive dust explosion. "And that is how it's done! Oh fu fu fuuuu~!"
The two demons defused again, Leon grabbing Diedre while her weapon turned into a giant bird monster and took off through the air as Iustitia's tendril reached out and tried to grab her. While Deidre had been bragging Iustita was going on the offensive again, fighting using it's tendrils to extend the reach and stone spears to limit Leon's movements and attempt to land the finishing blow. Leon was faster but also considerably weaker, he lacked combatibility with Deidre and worse yet she hadn't undergone proper witch training to support him and help him to control his current body. He was also not the one Iustitia should've been focusing on.
Because Ziz was still in the air and thanks to Leon's distraction the witch had all the time that she needed to open a portal directly beneath the mass of Tentacles, and then the bird dive bombed it. The numerous tendrils of Iustitia stabbed into the ground around the Angel, Earth magic went to work carving a pattern into the ground while a massive stone dome wrapped around Iustitia in time to block the giant bird's attack. Another round of stone projectiles were fired through the air, and this time they had a few extra surprises mixed in, a modified spell of fertility. Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen and Carbon, these were the four ingredients of ideal fertile soil. However they were also the key ingredients in something else too: C4, a powerful non nuclear explosive created by the humans of the old era, it is densely packed and extremely stable under every stimulus bar one: A shock-wave, a level of force that exceeds the speed of sound, which in this case is easily accomplished with a pulse of Earth magic sent through the rounds of C4.
Iustitia knew what had been opened underneath him, a portal to Inferno, demonic and angelic energy mixed together and created mana. Iustitia was being cornered, the terms of the agreement he made to come here and act as a punching bag were being violated, so now the tentacle monster had no more reasons to hold back any longer.
"You aren't forgetting about me now are you!?" There was more than one way to skin a horse, and more than one way to stop a projectile attack. At once the carbon dioxide in the air was gathered together, forming thick layers of Dry ice on top of the tips of the projectile spikes, weighing it down and drawing the projectiles to the ground while the air continued to thicken around them. With a loud boom the C4 spikes exploded as the space manipulating bird increased the distance and protected herself. As Iustitia was preparing a second attack Leon closed the distance and slammed his fist into the main body of Iustitia pushing the tentacle monster out of the centre of the magic formation, and away from the portal in the process. "I thought we wanted him to go in?"
"We also don't want him to keep spamming those super attacks with the mana the portal is generating." Win some lose some.
At once a new magic formation appeared around Iustitia, only this time it wasn't a mass of explosives he was creating, instead thousands of bricks gathered around a newly formed core of orange crystal. The Bricks and crystal core formed a crude Golem taking on the form of a massive draconic head, weaker in comparison to the one Leon fought in Alzer, but it's pure angelic physiology was a poorer match. The Jaws of the beast slammed down on Leon, freeing up Iustitia to fight against Ziz, which was good because Ziz wasn't going to give him any breathing room either. At once portals began rapidly opening all around Iustitia, leading to swiping claw attacks, pecking beak attacks, and explosive and slashing wind magic. Any other opponent would be thoroughly cornered by such a set up, but Iustitia was built to fend off attacks from all corners all at once with its ball of faces, mass of Tentacles and spray of acid released into the air around him and into the portal itself striking back at Ziz in the process.
"What an annoying enemy." Deidre let out a complaint as Leon was pushed away when the Golem transformed again, turning into several floating arms and they worked together to hammer Leon with. Ziz landed on the stone dome as Leon sat down in front of her. In the mean time Golem turned into a ball and rolled away to Iustitia's side. And then Iustitia talked.
"I'm here to mess you up you stupid angel." Deidre didn't understand the creature's language, from Leon's answer she assumed it was asking what they were doing here.
"Does it understand us?" Deidre asked in confusion. "If it knows our language why is it speaking to us in words that we can't understand?"
"That you don't understand." Leon corrected bluntly. "Why would it bother talking to you, a nobody?" Needless to say Deidre found herself rather miffed.
"I want to be offended, but unfortunately I already threw my best attack on him and I didn't even scratch him." Deidre snapped her fan shut. "I would like to take the opportunity to correct him of his clear lack of knowledge."
"We should be grateful that he's ignoring you, both of us are only able to be here if you keep going. Furthermore the deal has already been violated, if we're lucky he'll just hold you hostage until he gets a reasonable explanation and suitable compensation." Leon described the best case scenario for if this creature manages to beat them.
"My what a courteous gentleman!" Indeed, such an enemy that takes the time and the effort to take them enemy alive, especially given the difference in power between them. "Shall I step away then?"
"No. If you go somewhere I can't see you you might die from one of those annoying AOE attacks he keeps using." Instead Leon threw Deidre to Ziz. "Stay up there for a while, I'm going to end this now and I'd rather not have to worry about you while I get rough." Deidre landed on the bird's back, and was surprised to meet a bizarre figure like three people fused together sticking out of the back of the bird.
"So you're the reason why it sounds like there's two of you." Deidre was satisfied that she had her curiosity answered.
"You should get ready to fall." The Bird woman's voice wasn't as deep as Leon's was, there was something else different though but she couldn't put her finger on it. As Deidre was about to ask for a better explanation Ziz made her move, dropping Leon through another portal as he landed behind Iustitia, and immediately delivering a round house kick to the giant angelic ball back to the portal.
"SSSKKKRRREEEEEE!" The squid monster dug into the ground trying to stop it's momentum from carrying itself into the portal any further.
The Golem turned itself into a stone Centipede and wrapped itself around Leon biting him, stabbing him with stone spikes and attempting to crush him with brute force. With a loud flap of her wings the stone pillars supporting Ziz's perch were taken out from under her, slamming it down on top of the Angel, and followed up by an entire mountain's worth of giant stone blocks being repeatedly dumped on top of the beast.
"Over kill don't you-" The top of the tower of blocks burst. Iustitia had tore it's way out of the weights that had been thrown on top of it and was now attacking Ziz from below. "How stubborn is this thing!?" Ziz activated another spell, switching places with Leon as a result.
"Go down into your damn hole already you bloody hentai monster!" Leon slammed his fist down on top of the Angel, a loud gunshot sound echoing out as the Angel was sent flying back down the hole through the portal leading into Castle Bernhard.
"Has it gone through yet?" Deidre asked cautiously looking at the hollow tower of stone blocks.
"We'll go through and seal the portal from the other side just to make sure."
Dark Priests: Deranged Cultists of an Evil God.
The Dark Priests were pulled from the elite of Wygol City, the old money, trust fund brats, the monsters in the skins of humans. the secret elites of the city posing as priests and clergymen.
These sons and daughters of influence were indoctrinated from a young age into the cult of Satan.
These men and women engaged in the darkest most depraved of rituals, feasting on human flesh and sealing the remains inside of statues as eternal guards of their private graveyard, where on the eve of their dark god's arrival they had themselves buried alive to complete their transition into soldiers of the Army of Satan.
The Dark Priests in combat are functionally ghosts in battle, flying overhead and dumping offensive power on those unlucky enough to catch their eye, but when faced with opponents that truely outmatch them? The Priests fuse together into a singular being of overwhelming power.
Excerpt on Inhabitants of Castle Bernhard
Iustitia fell from the sky and slammed into the open courtyard of the Downtown District, where old Human and Gothic Architecture blended together. And where hundreds of bodies had been ritually buried. All around Iustitia ghosts rose from every grave in the graveyard, each of them as monstrous as the last. Each of them Iustitia knew to be a justice unfulfilled, a monster who preyed on the innocent of this accursed city and worshipped a monster for the purpose of bringing ruin onto the world. This was what you call a rare opportunity to make up for lost time. Iustitia knew that he couldn't do any permanent damage here, knew that any deaths that he inflicted would only be temporary, that the curse of this place would bring it's prisoners back to life no matter how they beg for death.
So the Angel decided to make them beg for death. Tendrils raised up into the air and slammed back down digging deep, at once the bodies of the various people who had been buried under ground, sealed and 'protected' by statues made in their likeness, had been ripped out of the ground. Each of them had been buried in the ground for so long that each corpse could be considered part of the earth itself, in other words fair game for his Earth magic. With a loud snap the coffins were crushed, the bodies inside were subjected to being squished, pulled, twisted around and contorted. And the owners of those bodies now floating in the air felt every last moment of it.
"RRREEEEEEEEE!" Screaming in pain the various ghosts gathered together fusing into one entity, anything just to escape from the intense pain that they were being subjected to, still only a mere fraction of what they had done to others though.
"He really doesn't like them very much does he?" Deidre asked looking down as Iustitia manipulated the various corpses as a child would manipulate puddy.
"Speaking as someone who has been inside of this castle's library, trust me they deserve much worse." As Leon was thinking about how much pain and suffering the people below deserved Iustitia continued to act.
From one of his tendrils a massive energy beam was fired off, striking the Dark Monk directly, the intense holy power burned into the form of the Dark Monk leaving behind agonising pain in the process, making each individual feel the pain of having pieces of their soul torn off one by one. Iustitia would get back to them later, but for now the master of the house himself arrived, a grotesquely fat man with sharp shark-like teeth being supported by a staff of office.
Guido Szandor: Leader of the Church of Satan.
In Life Guido Szandor was a Pope in the Church, though in truth the God he worshipped in public and the one he worshipped in Private are two entirely separate things.
Guido's one true God was the Demon Lord of Treachery Satan himself, his very father.
Leading the Church of Satan it was ultimately Guido who managed the day to day of the Cult coordinating his subordinates and siblings actions to bring the world into chaos and enable his father's return.
For his reward Guido was the first to be killed by his father upon his return, or rather executed for incompetency upon the realisation that Satan's enemies still walked the Earth, and is now trapped inside of the fortress of said enemy.
Guido is a master of dark magics, summoning demons, manipulating the undead and casting curses.
Excerpt on Inhabitants of Castle Bernhard
"An angel in my house! Unacceptable!" Guido still had a grudge over his father's, a fallen angel, betrayal.
"Ahh. Is the little priest still butt hurt that he was betrayed by the king of traitors?" Iustitia had no problems making fun of a loser, to him the butt pain being offed by the one being in the entire Trinity of Reality that he had truly loved was almost exactly what he deserved. Almost. To Iustitia Guido's death was all too fast, and after he died he had kept all the followers that he had recruited while he was still alive.
"I will sacrifice you to my name and ascend as a Demon Lord!"
"We both know that's not going to happen!" And thus a familiar field of spikes appeared throughout the graveyard.
The Lumen compound had many facilities, several for interacting with the outside world. Medicine, a personal Dungeon filled with angels and demons, and embassies to the countries that they had friendly relationships with such as Alzer, Rochelle and Repard. Their legal offices were particularly well regarded, after all one of the Lumen's patrons was nothing less than the living incarnation of the people's sense of justice. A loud thud echoed out as a young woman's head slammed against the desk she was working at, at once the brown haired girl picked herself up from her desk, a sheet of paper stuck to her face.
"Fell asleep again Uriel?" A passing office boy made fun of the young woman in question. The paper in question was peeled off of Uriel's face by her own hand, leaving the script she had been working on written across her face backwards, she didn't even notice, considering the size of the bags under her eyes no one in their right mind would notice either. "That's an interesting way of taking notes for the trial Uriel!" Another man made fun of Michel who had her notes for the impending trial written across her face.
"Actually I'm going to have to skip the trial." Uriel refused to elaborate further or give any explanations as she grabbed her satchel and ran out of the office.
Mylene arrived at the Blackmore compound via airship, and to her increasing annoyance was directed to a dive bar of all places to hold a meeting.
"So has the shadow given you the notes of the meeting we had?" Mylene looked over to Cereza, who had a bottle of some kind and a shot glass next to it as she read through documents.
"I have more important things to do today then deal with your pitiful concerns." Cereza stated bluntly as she poured herself another glass.
"In lieu of being insulted I'll assume that there is a good explanation for that." Mylene stated bluntly. And waited. And waited some more. "This is the part where you explain what was going on."
"No it isn't." Cereza snapped as she downed the shot. "There is nothing you can do to speed this process along and explaining it to you will waste too much time." Mylene was taken aback by the words she was just told. "Stop wasting my time and get out of here."
"While I'm sure that whatever you are dealing with is important but-" A massive black knuckle and thumb appeared in front of Mylene, before she could figure out how such a incomprehensible thing was possible Mylene was unceremoniously flicked out of the bar like a insect being swatted.
Several snaps echoed out as Mylenes bones suddenly unbroke, the culprit responsible looming over Mylene at her full eight feet tall.
"Here's the bluff notes." Jenna snapped as she looked down at Mylene. "My idiot brother has started a war. It might not be a war between the nations you are familiar with but that is effectively what he has done, and now the rest of us are scrambling around to try and mitigate the mess he has made by as much as humanly possible." Jenna picked the smaller woman up like she had picked an unruly cat up by the scruff of her neck. "You can sit out and think over your national policies or who you're going to force onto my brother next in a side room." Thus Jenna dragged Mylene into a side room, sat her down in a chair at a table, left her a pitcher of lemonade just to be polite, and then locked the door on her way out.
"So do you have any idea what's going on here?" Mylene asked looking to her side, where a drone decloaked itself.
"We're screwed." Luxion explained in simple terms.
"That's rather annoying." Mylene's tone had just a drop of sarcasm to it.
"Reading however we find some deals going on in the back room between them and another clan of extra-dimensional worshippers, the Lumen." So long as Luxion didn't do anything to actually bother her, then Cereza was more than content to let him read over her shoulder.
"Any differences to distinguish the two Clans?" Mylene already felt the headache coming.
"The Umbran specifically deal with demons while the Lumen deal with Angels. An important distinction since it seems the only reason why angels are in Avalon forest, including the Colossi, is because of a deal the two Clans have made." Luxion explained in simple terms. "Among the relevant details to this conversation is that the four Angel Colossi were not to be brought to long term harm."
"Define long term harm?" Mylene asked as she leaned in on her fist. "When a powerful Demon or Angel dies their body is transformed into a weapon, if that weapon receives a sufficient quantity of nutrition in the form of Orbs for Demons or Halos for Angels then the individual in question can be revived." Mylene understood this, it was one of the main reasons why dungeons were such a profitable enterprise to begin with, instead of having to wait until the monsters naturally replenish themselves through breeding as would be the case with deer or other wild animals after a few days the killed monsters come back to life on their own. "Now however these four powerful angels are missing."
"Missing? Not killed?" Mylene admitted that was rather odd, however... "Why do they think Leon did it?"
"Because Angelica, Olivia, Hertrude and Deidre were the ones who entered the Angel's domains last, and they haven't come back out yet." That raised a lot of alarms.
"Angie's missing?" Mylene asked audibly concerned.
"Among the others yes." Luxion stated bluntly. "Right now the older brother is in the midst of breaking into the Angel's personal realms, there is a delay however because there are fail-safes in place to specifically keep people from doing exactly that. They also believe that the Lumen's patriarch is on his way as we speak. One Charles Whitehill."
"I remember that you made a report that you met someone by that name when you were in Repard." Mylene recalled as she held her chin in her hand.
"I did. He assisted me in eliminating an ancient extra-dimensional bio-weapon from the Shattering War, alongside the two Umbran Matriarchs."
"So he's an ally?" Mylene asked cocking a brow suspiciously.
"Ostentatiously. He might not be after whatever this is finished though." Luxion as he began moving his orb side to side in an approximation of pacing.
"Do they have any idea of why Leon would bring this on us or his family?" Mylene asked holding her head to fend off her headache.
"His mum and her sister think that he's trying to raise another Sacred Tree." Mylene's eyes went wide at that.
"Are you serious!?" Mylene looks like she was just told something that was absolutely insane.
"I can only convey information that I've learned, I am not making this up." Mylene was glad that Erica was off with her Fiance Elijah instead of being in the capital.
"Very well, do we know where this Whitehill is coming from?" Mylene was happy that at least it wouldn't get worse.
"As I understand it, he lives on the boarder of Rochelle." All of Mylene's thought processes came to a grinding halt. "He's coming here from Rochelle?"
"Correct."
"Meaning that he's going to pass through the Fraiser families territory?"
"Correct."
"The same Fraiser family that Erica is staying at?"
"Correct." Mylene slammed her face down on the table wanting to sob at her misfortune.
Review Section:
Guest: It gets worst: there are more after him but they ran out of angels to compete with.
RonaldM40196867: They both have their pros and cons, I think demonic as less commitment, and better politics considering some of the things the Christian church has been up to the past few centuries.