Chapter XL

Vali's skin was tingling.

His heart was pumping.

Every inch of him trembled in anticipation as the roar of challenge washed over him like the waves in the ocean. A powerful yet short lived sensation of panic flickering through his thoughts as the godslayer's voice drove itself into his mind like a spike, only to melt away once it had been repelled.

Even then, he was ecstatic.

"So, this is what an Authority feels like!"

His first time experiencing the strange yet wondrous abilities earned by the few who triumphed over the divine as mere humans. It was truly the sort of experience he had come to Japan for. His blood yearned for it!

Even so, there was something missing here.

[He did not invoke it.]

Hmm?

What did that mean.

[The authorities possessed by Godslayers come in two 'modes', you could say. A full chant is required to unleash its full power in most cases.]

Ah! So that was the reason. The Godslayer wasn't still fighting at full power. Good, that means he was on a similar wavelength as Vali. Why bother using all your power in one go when you could steadily build up to see which side could climb up higher by the end? Obviously, it would still be Vali, but he wanted to squeeze out every single bit of power out of the Campione.

He wanted to experience it.

The power capable of killing a god.

'Show it to me, Tyrant!' Readying another blast, Vali watched the beam of light as it flew through the air with the force of a cannonball as it was unleashed. Only to crash into a large ivory stele as it rose from the ground, exploding in a cloud of dust… only to reveal the wall had withstood the shot!

It was cracked and dented. But the fact it hadn't broken was proof of its quality.

'No, it was as if it had been there to begin with!'

Then it was obvious. The Godslayer was capable of either matter manipulation or conjuration or some combination of both. Combined with that staff attack from earlier, the scream, and the fact he hadn't used much of a chant at all, then Vali had a solid understanding of the basics of his kit.

More importantly, there was nothing in there that the tyrant would be able to use as a true super move - no one-shot kill!

So they definitely had the time to experiment!

"Then I'll grab Kuroka right away."

Flaring his devil wings, Vali allowed Albion to narrow down, angling them and directing the power outflow like a jet engine. All he needed to do was control his descent and manage the angle of impact, letting him grab his comrade and Half the idiot fox that had grabbed her. And as he rocket forwards in a flare of blue and white light, he allowed dozens of blasts to fire off in passing, bracketing the Campione and restricting his movements by destroying any platforms or landing spots that he didn't create.

'They may be stamina monsters, but every action, every thought, every choice drains on their mental endurance, too.'

The sudden volley of spears, each one cracking the sound barrier as they rocketed upwards, were surprising, but not too terribly so.

Maneuvering at speed was difficult, too, but not impossibly so. Especially since he could simply demanifest his wings, drop into an uncontrolled, and still accelerating, dive, and then flare them back out with only a single moment of pain.

'Tch. Still not good enough to handle sudden decceleration at mach 2. Albion, we need to practice more.'

Each of the spears blasted in front of him, rocketing off in the distance, and it broke contact between him and the fox spirit. The bitch had disappeared inbetween the buildings she'd been jumping off of.

"Stay out of my way!"

However, that did not mean the Campione was in any mood to break the chase.

"Or take this!"

Suddenly, blasting off from the ground, using his red staff to propel himself upwards, the weapon turned to ash as the godslayer spun mid-air. And he manifested another staff as he continued spinning, accelerating into the attack as he slashed at Vali!

The Devil, suddenly appreciating the fact he utterly lacked cover so high up, completely deactivated his sacred gear and once more de-materialized his wings. This dropped him into a very sloppy arc, but forced him under his opponent's attack, but he had to levitate before he slammed into the ground. And the bed of needle thin, three meter spikes that appeared under him.

He was nearly crushed by the massive block of white stone as it descended, too.

Barely avoiding it by accelerating out of its path as it crushed the bed of spikes.

[What this one lacks in fire power, he makes up for with versatility. There is visually no way to detect where he might manifest his constructs from. Making them difficult to navigate without spatial awareness.]

Getting boxed in would be fatal then.

"Not clever enough, Campione! I'll show you what it means to truly use omni directional attacks!"

Vali manifested Divine Dividing, trusting the flow of power Albion trickled into his body to boost his speed, as he cast a spell of grease on his own feet.

As dumb as it seemed, the human trick essentially reduced friction to zero, allowing him to "skate" across the ground while his wings propelled him forwards. Freeing him to use another particularly simple spell.

"Solar Flare!"

Forming about a dozen glowing orbs in his hand, he lashed out with the modified and intensified flashbang spell, sending each orb at the Godslayer from a different direction. Impressively, he simply manifested a stone shield around his body, stopping the violent flare of light.

But not the equally violent blasts of sounds and air pressure, the wrung the whole thing like a bell.

Unsurprisingly, his enemy came out of the barrier in extreme disarray, but didn't fall to the ground below. Instead, a platform manifested, keeping the tyrant aloft and easing him over to a rooftop.

'It's a versatile ability for sure.' Vali echoed Albion's earlier assessment.

But he was starting to understand how it worked. As well as its limitations.

'Some kind of rebound effect occurs when he manifests his weapons inside other objects. They are repelled harmlessly without damaging surfaces.'

Had the godslayer been capable of it, Vali was sure he would have already tried manifesting the stone around him or inside his body, so that must have been one of the limitations of the ability. Either that or his body was past the threshold where that might have been possible.

Something to keep in mind for the future.

"Is this the limit of what a Godslayer can do? I came here expecting a fight, not just a warm up."

The phrase came to him naturally.

It was just the right kind of thing to say in order to fire up an enemy, or goad them into showing something new. Maybe he would finally start fighting at full power and use one of those chants that Albion mentioned before?

Of course, when the other teenager manifested what looked like a normal baseball bat made out of stone, Vali quirked a brow.

Was he going to extend it?

How disappointing.

All he had to do to avoid the incoming sweeping strike was to increased his altitude by a foot or so and there wouldn't be anything to fear-

"Grow!"

Immediately, the stone bat became a bright scarlet color, and instead of growing, the bat became instead the size of a small bus as it swung. Vali threw up a hasty barrier barely in time to cushion the blow as it sent him hurling upwards, the arc of the swing cracking Vali across the chest as the impact instantly broke through the barrier.

Fortunately it didn't touch him directly.

But that was when another massive block of stone, one the size of a house, crashed on top of him before he could recover his balance.

'These constructs are heavy…'

But they were also brittle. Dust filled the air and a single bead of sweat formed on his forehead as he flexed his will. The Devil blood in his mortal veins strained at the constraints of frailty, urging him to unleash even more of his inherited power. Yet he resisted, this much alone was already enough.

And with their lack of durability and vast size, it was all too easy for a blast of demonic power to shoot through the Campione's constructs before he could be crushed against the ground.

Only, when the dust cleared, Vali realized the Campione wasn't on the rooftop any longer.

"Coil, pounce, and bite! The cursed maiden's fangs shine like ivory."

Suddenly, the remains of the marble cube, the bed of nails, and the spears seemed to melt and flow into one, crashing around and over Vali as the godslayer placed his hands over the white-dusted floor.

"Your temple is a prison."

He shot a blast.

Then a second one. Then a third. Each time pumping more and more energy into the strikes, sharpening them into spears of tainted, changing energy instead of unfocused spells of destruction.

Yet all he could do was temporarily disperse the liquified marble before it became too resilient. Blowing it away didn't…. destroy the material, only disperse it, no matter how he willed his power to eat it into nothing. And as the tide grew and gathered, it was simply too much to stop from dragging him into its depths with lashing, grabbing tendrils.

All before the liquid stone quickly hardened and a harshly numbing feeling of Divinity bombarded Vali from all sides as the 'weight' of the marble increased over twice the original.

"Your world… was a Mineral Garden."

Though he did manage to catch the campione's words as he was locked away.

[Well now, it seems he finally decided to take us seriously.]

That was the chant needed for the Authority, then.

[Yes, from now on his powers will be amplified until the Authority is depleted or he stops using it. But to think this much divine stone could be generated and then manipulated so expertly. He must be a rather artistic soul.]

Vali couldn't see his own face, buried beneath the hardened prison as he was. The half-devil took a moment to savor the sensation of the fully powered divine stone as it pressed against him from all sides. He couldn't breathe, dust clogged his throat, no air slipped through the prison, and no light reached his eyes.

A normal Devil would have been crushed by the pressure and weight, never mind the divinity.

Still, as impressive as the trick was, it only made for an appetizer.

[Divide!]

From now on, he would be taking this to the next level.

Where did she go.

Where did she go!

'WHERE did she GO?!'

Issei looked around, wind whistling past his ears and blowing back his hair as the momentum from a pillar launched him into the air and above another building, eyes scanning his surroundings.

Even now he was in search of the masked lady, gravity steadily started pulling him back down and he manifested another column to land onto. The pillar of marble held him up as he tried and failed to find his friend, his cat, and the ghost that had taken them both.

"COME OUT! Come out now, or this will just get worse!"

Down below people had stopped, a few looking up, aiming phones and pointing fingers. Issei didn't care. So long as they weren't in danger, they weren't an issue, and with the idiotic foreigner locked away, he was less trouble than Luo Hao had been.

"Damnit."

His fists clenched so hard his nails would have cut his palms, were it not for his supernatural durability.

"There!"

A flash of a tail, the tinkling of laughter. Violently ejecting mana out of his feet, and trusting the very basic lessons given to him by Amakasu and Smith, the teenager was launched in a wild arc towards his target. Landing proved more difficult, but still manageable, and he was off - rushing towards where he could smell wine and meat and… copulation.

Unfortunately, he couldn't get the drop on her.

If anything, the masked woman looked like she'd been expecting him, sitting on top of a pile of discarded boxes as if they were a throne, legs kicking out idly as she watched him stumble into the alleyway like a bull in a china shop.

"Well now, it didn't take you that long to get here."

Issei stepped closer, eyes zeroing in on the girl. Before noticing something was off.

"Where's Yoru?"

He couldn't see her face, but he could tell she was scowling beneath the fox visage.

"The kitty cat? She managed to get away, but that's okay. I'll just have to play ratcatcher myself later. Wouldn't want her to get too curious for her own good, right?"

Issei let out a sigh of relief.

It didn't feel like she was lying, but it was still strange that his cat managed to get away. He was still worried about her, too, even if [Doctor Venom] healed her up, there was no way she should be running around again.

However, it simplified things.

"You're coming with me."

"Ooh, am I? Not even gonna pay for dinner first?"

Leaning forwards, the masked lady rested her chin on her hands, looking down at him with a weird mixture of condescension and, dare he say it, fondness. It was like he was some sort of exotic pet that she was marveling at. Like a lion at the zoo. Only the madwoman had jumped down into the cage with full confidence that she wasn't getting mauled.

"What are you even doing this for? Do you really think you can beat me like that?"

It just didn't make sense to him. What was she really after?

"Beat you? Not really. I know I can't."

That made even less sense.

"Then why do this at all?! Why take Aika's body and then curse everyone? What do you even get out of this?" If she knew she couldn't do anything to him, knew there was no way to win, then what was all of this even for? What did she get out of this wild goose chase?

"Because it's fun."

That brought him up short.

"What?"

The masked lady giggled, jumping off the small tower of boxes.

"Do you know how bored I've been in the past few hundred years or so? Ever since the Great War, everyone's been trying to play nice. There haven't been any big battles, any scandals, nothing that could really scratch my itch. It's like this world is stuck in place trying to balance a house of cards when all I wanna do is see someone knock it down."

Bored?

She was doing all of this… because she was bored?!

"Maybe people don't want any more problems after that, you know? Maybe we actually just want to live without having to constantly fight each other? That sure sounds better than having to worry about an angry god showing up to attack your city." Something he was oh so familiar with in the past few weeks, after all was said and done all he wanted to do was settle down and go to school.

Something like this… he just didn't understand it.

"Oh please, like that's ever gonna last. Humans always have these stretches where they feel like they'll finally calm down. Whether it be Atlantis, Lemúria, Jericho, Kowloon. It's always the same story, it always ends with everything going up in flames."

Twirling in place, the masked woman gave him a sultry smile.

"So why not enjoy it? If the peaceful good times are gonna end anyways, we might as well find some enjoyment in the chaotic bad times, right? That's the best way to live, choosing when to take it easy and when to go wild… and I feel like 500 years is long enough."

Crazy.

This lady was crazy.

"And who are you to decide for them? Why should everything be about what you want?"

She tilted her head, pensive.

"Who am I? Well… I was going to go by 'Aika' once I got this body, but since you wouldn't believe me anyway I can give you some of my other stage names? Tamamo would be the latest! Or maybe you've heard of Kayo? There are some others too, like Yang Guifei? Xi Shi? Diaochan? Zhaojun? But my favorite one has got to be…."

"Daji." Issei realized.

The lady in the mask pouted cutely.

"Aww, ruined the dramatic revelation. Girls don't like it when you steal their thunder, you know?"

Even he knew that legend. The story of the evil spirit who was sent to punish an 'evil king', only to make the situation so much worse when she replaced a young woman and joined him in making everyone's lives miserable.

The stories said she was either killed or driven away.

'Is she a Heretic God? Or is she the real deal?' She wasn't a goddess. The feeling was just too different from the Gorgons, Athena, or Wukong's group. Not a single drop of divinity to her.

"If you are Tamamo… shouldn't you be sealed away under that stone?"

She shrugged with a smile.

"I needed a cover story while I laid low, so the entire stone and the seal made for a good way to get people off my back. Getting someone else to take the blame for you works too. Poor Tamamo must be feeling lonely down there."

A shiver went down his spine.

Ddraig rumbled, stirring inside of his soul.

[You can't afford to let this one go, kid. Eat her and show her the price of cowardice if you have too!]

'I suppose this cuts too close to the bone. Damnit! What do we do?'

This woman… no… this monster had been doing this for centuries. Replacing girls, making a mess to amuse herself, and then leaving when people looked for the culprit. And from the looks of it, she'd probably been doing it for so long people had only the stories to remember her by.

They might not even know she was still alive till this day!

Now he had to stop her. Had to do it, because no one else could.

"And you think I'm just gonna go along with this? Do you think I'm stupid." He had to catch her now, or else she'd just slip away and cause trouble for someone else. The thought repeated itself in his mind as he turned the problem over and over, not sure what his options were, but already… already he could feel his teacher's gift coming to mind.

"No, of course, not. Your Majesty is a powerful warrior who defeated many foes already. But you are a Campione, a Demon King, a Tyrant. You cannot escape your nature anymore than you can escape your own shadow. Sooner or later, you will attract a great calamity just like your peers, and when you do it I want to be there to savor every moment of it."

Issei was done listening.

There was no way he was convincing someone like this to stand down if he didn't force them to, and the fact she'd picked an alleyway actually made it all too easy for spears to pop out of the walls, the ground and a nearby ceiling, turning the open space into a veritable thorn bush of white stone.

"Ah, what a beautiful authority you have. You should release it more often like this." She pricked her fingers on one of the stone vines with a giddy smile, utterly unaffected by the display.

"Don't move unless you want to get crushed." Touching the thornbush, Issei felt his power spread through the construct, preparing to melt and reshape them as he had before.

But she just winked, clearly amused by the display and not at all taking things seriously.

Forming a balloon of flickering embers, the madwoman bounced it playfully, making a show of the explosive as if it wasn't about to level the surrounding buildings and the street in front of them, as the thorns around her softened and started to meld together into a prison.

Only for her to toss the explosive.

But not at him.

Issei stumbled, feeling a violent pull at something deep inside of himself.

[Divide!]

The explosive orb shrunk in half as it detonated, the force of the explosion shaking the nearby buildings and shattering part of the stone bush. And that all happened instead of completely obliterating the alleyway as it did the park.

He had a sinking feeling he knew what he was up against.

"Tch. Stop hiding, stop running away. Come, Tyrant, come God Slayer, show me your strength!"

It barely stopped the familiar white haired guy from earlier as he flew straight through the smokescreen, only slightly bruised and with small burns on his clothes. And more pressingly, utterly undaunted. In fact, he was so fast he ended up blurring as he moved, little else but a stream of white, blue, and black.

Before appearing in front of him.

'Crap!'

Issei threw up a quick wall of stone to block the obvious strike!

[Divide!]

But it barely stopped the man's glowing fist as it blasted through the wall and buried itself into his gut, before the force sent him skidding away. At the very least, he'd managed to… end his connection to his creation before the blow. Meaning there wasn't another violent wrench at his energy.

'Ddraig! Who the Hell is this guy!?'

[Your destined rival, the White Dragon Emperor, the current host of my old foe - Albion. In other words, partner, he's going to give you a good fight! Now save your woman, crush this gaping fool, and prove your strength!]

His Sacred Gear's laughter roared across his mind, apparently absolutely thrilled with the current situation, the normally taciturn spirit radiating approval and joy. In fact, Issei got the impression that the longer he held back on the Boosted Gear, the more it amused the spirit, who seemed to be growing more… ahem… enthused with the situation by the moment.

Great, just great. The damn chuuni was back and now the voice in his head was agreeing with him!

And somehow the white haired bastard felt even stronger now.

"Will you piss off, already?!" Grabbing a random spear off a nearby wall, Issei's power spread through it, turning it bright red as he tossed it. The command of 'multiply' turned the single tossed weapon into dozens as the winged teen flew backwards and above to avoid the attacks.

A blast of blue light cut through the air, singing Issei and melting through some of the nearby stone thorns.

Issei realized too late that was exactly what Daji wanted. Turning into a small fox, she bounded off the thorns, leapt up the side of the alley walls, and had fully escaped the trap. All before the embers had died out.

The fox turned back into a girl and jumped off the ground and then kicked off the side of the alleyway as she tried to get away once again… only to get blasted in the back by a ray of blue light.

"Aika!"

Issei's heart stopped for a moment as he watched his friend's body bounce off the wall with a thud - and as the back of her dress was blasted open! Only to sigh in relief as the woman turned around, barely phased and with a look that screamed bloody murder. There weren't even burns where clothes had been torched, so it seemed like the spirit offered some defense to Aika, too.

"I did not permit you to leave, witch."

Said Witch clicked her tongue, thick tail-shaped shadows grabbing onto the roof to stop her fall. In her hands, she held what looked like a blast of her own. The smell of blood, fire, and rot emanating from it.

Having to make a sudden choice, Issei flexed his will, hoping against hope what he was doing would be enough before turning to face the white haired Devil and possessed girl.

"Okay… you two wanna fight that badly? Then Let's fight!"

Ena was actually feeling rather pleased with herself.

She had been chosen to carry a message to her lord, the note safely secured within her uniform as she bounded from rooftop to rooftop.

Her personal thoughts on the Maskirovka aside, she knew the HCC would cover up any and all events in the city with very little difficulty. Not because they were so particularly good, per se, but because modern society simply had little use for the truly supernatural.

'Even this is simply "parkour".'

Yes, her leap casually let her move more than ten meters up and fifteen meters forwards.

Yes, she was able to keep pace with motor vehicles so long as they didn't go too much faster than fifty kilometers an hour.

Yes, she had an understanding of acrobatics and athleticism honed by olympic athletes, international tutors, and martial prodigies alike.

But that was just "good training" and "good breeding" to the minds of the common man. And any evidence to the contrary was computer generated or a stunt.

'It helps that some of the free runners really are quite good at what they do. And the Grandpa Ninja of Heisei really actually was a wonderful help!'

So she was able to use some of her family's Arts and not risk ruining their little game of Noh.

"Okay big guy! You wanna fight? Let's fight!"

Positioned up high and at an angle, she noticed that part of her lord's trap had crumbled in a flare of blue and white light as a black cat darted away. The attention of all the others firmly locked on the man with the… dragon wings!

'Oh my, little lightning, it seems your mate's other half has arrived. How delightful!'

Her sword rattled in its sheath and Ena forced it to calm down, locking it in place with bonds of iron will.

She made a split second decision.

"Issei, focus on the other enemy. I'll face this one!"

Leaping down, she unlocked her blade only at the absolute last moment, trusting the leaping slash to lend weight and force to the strike. It was a basic maneuver, relying on surprise and the strength of her blade to force the enemy into making an unpleasant choice. Because if he turned to face her and counter strike, then Mineral Garden would have been quite capable of skewering him.

It was a little annoying to have her top bloom out, but it didn't obstruct her strike, and her blade cleaved straight for the foreigner's neck!

She did not expect to hear her lord clapping his hands together in prayer.

"Thank you oh mighty and merciful Kami-sama! For you have shown me a glimpse of paradise!"

"Gah! How… how the Hell was that a prayer!?"

Nor did she expect the cry of pain from the masked fox spirit.

Thankfully, the flying Devil's response was more understandable. Manifesting a shield of energy, he threw out the wall of blue and white energy in an attempt to smack her from the sky. Ena, however, simply slashed through it, feeling her blade's wild joy as she did so.

"Ok. I trust you."

A platform manifested mid air, allowing Ena to bounce off of it and redirect her momentum to land on a rooftop - the slab of marble careening down towards the foe with glowing wings. Issei himself blasted upwards, landing next to her, and conjuring a rain of hundreds of tiny stone needles.

"Tch. Stop screwing around!"

The foreigner retaliated with a single, massive shot.

Light flared from his metallic wings, energy seemingly being sucked in as its flow reversed. He clapped his hands together and raw power began to flow between his fingers like arcing lighting, before lancing out in a wide, indiscriminate blast.

Ena, however, simply threw her sword into the mass of lightning and divine stone.

"Grandfather! Cleave the heavens and split this dragon's tail!"

And the lightning spell failed, having only destroyed a fraction of the projectiles, as the energy was sucked into the blade.

"Enough tricks!" Only for the white haired invader to blast forwards through a gap in the attack. "Fight properly, or not at all!"

His face twisted up in a snarl and his wings flared. But this time, instead of blasting away, he rushed forwards ready to exchange punches.

"Stop Aika, but please don't kill her!"

Not understanding what her lord was talking about, and assuming the poor girl had been possessed by the fox spirit who'd been trying to escape earlier, Ena simply obeyed.

"Understood."

Reaching out to her blade with the magical energy still charging it, even if it had flown a rather long ways away by now, she summoned it back to her hands in a bolt of lighting and began moving to engage the curse slinging witch… who had been trying to escape once again.

Seeing or sensing her approach, however, the fox unleashed a volley of glowing balls of fire… and sent several curses straight towards her. However, with Grandfather's power still lingering in her sword, and the Orochi itself snarling in defiance of the invading magic, the spells that relied on deceit were ripped apart before they could touch her.

Which meant Ena needed to avoid the explosions about to destroy an entire building!

Dropping low and slashing up, she did her best to parry the explosive attacks. Slashing them in half and forcing them "up" and "out" from where they were fighting. And where civilians might still be hiding. However, she was a tad annoyed when it turned out the witch had somehow chained them together.

And once the dozen or so blasts had all been split into pieces… they chain reacted.

Raining burning flower petals down towards Ena.

Thankfully, her lord was watching out for her, and a thin layer of marble manifested mid air - forcing the petals to detonate against it. And with so little material destroyed, the only debris was a gritty, unpleasant dust and sand that suddenly rushed over the area. But that, too, was to her benefit. Because while the Witch cried out in discomfort, she simply leered.

Because the fox's shadow had been crawling straight towards hers.

So Ena lifted her blade, watching the blurry, unclear shape mimic her actions, and slashed with every bit of violence she could muster at the creeping, unnatural shapes trying to grab ahold of her "other self".

"FUCK!"

Hearing the witch scream out in pain when the flat of her blade smacked her on the ass hard enough to, somehow, make an extraordinarily loud crack, well, the retainer couldn't help it… she just had to enjoy the moment!

"Come on, really? Did you think poking a sleeping dragon was a good idea? Ena knows that silly little foxes can play pranks, but don't you think the risks were obvious?"

The possessed girl flashed her sharpened pearly whites.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Some of us have to use something other than our bodies to succeed, sweetie."

"Oh! Ena sees! You used your body till it became withered and haggard, so you decided to try and steal Ena's Lord's concubine! Well, that makes sense."

For a moment… neither said anything.

But just a moment.

Then the world above them exploded with the shrill roar of a serpent as it pounced towards the white dragon.

Ena's sword slashed through the air.

The masked woman responded with a cursed blade of vacuum.

The fight now was truly on.