DMAW Chapter 92: The Kings in Sin, Part 2 (Patreon)

Zekram Bael’s hand paused for a moment, and he looked up with his brows furrowed. He sensed something, a presence he hadn’t felt since… his eyes widened in recognition.

Lotan.

But that was impossible, that ancient sea serpent was dead. Had been for several millennia now. How was it possible for that monster to have been revived?

He reached up and gingerly brushed his fingers through his moustache, and very carefully, his insidious energy crept through the warp of fate and time. His very existence worming its way through the Underworld, reaching out and prodding through possibility and reality.

But he pulled back, hastily withdrawing his presence as if he were about to be struck by a serpent. He felt it in his bones, a presence far more terrifying than himself. The Infinite Ouroboros was meddling through reality once more. But to what end…?

Softly, his feet fell before one another, and he arrived at the grand window of his office, which stared out towards the direction of the lands of the youngest Sin, the heart-thief.

It was ironic, so incredibly ironic – because he could clearly sense Satan’s presence near Lotan’s – along with that detestable witch Gremory. Like many others, he had been shocked that the Crimson Scourge had willingly bound herself in servitude to the human turned Sin. Though, in hindsight, he wasn’t all that surprised. She always had been wild in her passions and desires.

As was the course for Demonkind. He was hardly any better; Zekram had plenty of vices of his own, plenty of obsessions.

Carefully, he looked from the corner of his eye and gazed at the faulty imitation – at the white hair and almond skin. His lips curled in disgust, nothing more than a stained reminder of numerous failures.

But he returned his attention to the battles playing out across the Underworld. All five Satans deployed for war… and the one he hated the most at odds with Lotan…

He wondered, what game was the Infinite Ouroboros playing? This was no mere accident, nor coincident. Why had it engineered such a conflict?

And yet… he felt a stirring in his heart. An ancient and all-too-familiar ache. And with it came that hollow throbbing that was inherent for all Demons, the hopeless pursuit of fulfillment of want. The boy was occupied with Ophis’ games, as was Sirzechs and his peerage. It would be so easy… so simple…

How long must I endure?

He turned away from the window, his eyes falling to the maid with that alien yet familiar face. And just like that, the Heart of the First Demon throbbed powerfully. The veins in his neck bulged and crept up his face, his eyes gena to redden madly.

The maid took a hesitant step back. “Ma-master?”

So meek, so submissive. So utterly and infuriatingly and insultingly wrong.

With a wave of his hand, she dissolved into motes of nothingness, and he sucked in a deep breath, his lungs growing cold even as his thoughts turned sharp.

No… no more. I cannot endure more. Just a look, just a glance… just one word said… one word shared.

With a breath of exhilaration, Old Bael stepped through the folds of space.

=======

Gremory regarded the two dragons with mild interest as their power radiated throughout the region and pressed heavily against the Underworld.

Grendel she remembered, though their paths had crossed only once and nothing of consequence had come from the encounter. He had been a brutish creature, even by the less-than-demanding standards of Dragons; filled with an immense desire to inflict violence upon anything unfortunate enough to wander within his reach. Carnage appeared to be his principal pleasure in life, although he had also possessed a rather powerful preference for female elves.

According to an old legend, Grendel had once enslaved a tribe of Snow Elves for so many decades that he eventually sired an entirely new species of half-elven, half-draconic creatures upon them. Most scholars had dismissed the tale as one of the many vulgar fictions that inevitably gathered around ancient monsters.

A dangerous smile curved across Gremory’s lips – she knew all too well it was no mere legend.

Her attention moved toward the far larger sea serpent slithering through the sky. Dark-blue scales covered its immense body, broken by numerous fins and small wings that shifted along its length, yet Gremory found nothing familiar in its appearance. She had encountered innumerable dragons throughout her existence and had heard countless more tales about them, but oddly enough, she had no idea what this creature before her was.

How novel.

It was rare she encountered something new in her ancient life. Really, enslaving herself to Lord Ichigo was proving more rewarding by the day.

As Gremory continued studying the serpent, her master’s consciousness moved through the bond connecting him to his peerage.

‘The dark one is Grendel,’ he said into their minds. And in influx of information about the dragon flowed into her mind, including memories of past battles against the beast. Memories that were decidedly not his.

But, ah, she understood quickly enough. After all, virtually everyone in the Underworld knew of her master’s romance with the oldest and most powerful of the Dragon Kings. What a delightful resource to have on hand against these scaled brutes.

‘As for that one,’ and collectively, they all looked at the sea dragon in the sky, ‘that would be Lotan.’

And Gremory’s eyes widened in recognition immediately. Over the millennia, she had collected countless secrets of the Seventy-Two Pillars in her endless rivalries against her Demonic siblings. And Lotan was a name that only ever came up in the history of the First Pillar. Back before Zekram was the First Demon – back when he was something else.

But then…

Her eyes turned towards her master, and even as he filled their thoughts with the long lost lore of Lotan to them, within the confines of his own mind she could sense the shadow of the Undying Storm, of his beloved Tiamat.

But… Oh. I see.

The smile on her lips curved all the more dangerous. Oh, what delicious irony. The Infinite Ouroboros was playing games within games. And as her gaze returned to the deep-ocean blue sea serpent, she had to hold back a laugh.

What delightful cruelty.

She hadn’t been this entertained in centuries! Not since Sirzechs overthrew the Old Empire and conquered it for himself.

But her master’s sharp voice ripped her from her amusement.

“Gremory,” he said heavily, “Create a dimensional barrier that’ll isolate everything around us.”

She put a hand to her heart and bowed at the waist. “As my master commands.”

It was a necessary arrangement whenever Demons and those equal or greater in power to them fought seriously. Otherwise, the Underworld would have been ruined a hundred times over by now – and then where would they keep all the serfs and peasants?

“Saviġuk, hold off Lotan as long as you can, I’ll come help you once I’m finished with the Heroes.” The mutt let out a guttural growl, but Gremory had to appreciate the sheer ferocity of its aura as it fixed the sea dragon in the sky with a baleful glare. “Humbaba, I’m assuming you can beat Grendel into the ground just fine?”

The ancient giant merely blinked once, and her master let out a small laugh. “Yeah, of course you can. Help Saviġuk when you’re done.”

He then turned towards her and gave her a quick glance. “Get started, I want to end this as quickly as possible and meet up with the other Sins.”

Her sorcery flowed outward and found the innumerable bonds fastening the region to the wider Underworld. Gremory began winding her power around them, carefully separating one connection after another while layers of dimensional barriers formed beyond the valley. Space folded around the battlefield as she worked, enclosing everyone within a localized reality capable of containing the devastation to come.

However, midcast, the mortal Hero – what was his name again? Ciao? Chai? - puffed himself up and pointed the True Longinus at her master. “Now, you shall regret turning your back on Humanity, Ichigo Kurosaki!”

Gremory rolled her eyes in exasperation.

Mortal Heroes were always so theatrical and melodramatic, particularly when it came to all their boisterous virtue signaling. As if they didn't commit numerous atrocities themselves in the name of their precious and mercurial ethics and morals.

Nonetheless, even Gremory had to begrudgingly admit that the True Longinus itself was something no one could afford to ignore. Its Holy power saturated the air and pressed painfully against her existence, continually seeking to burn through her flesh and magic. Time and again, she had seen it turn the tide of a battle in the Great War for the Angels, or the unqiue occasion where one bearer of the Spear had decided to side with the Fallen.

That poor, deluded girl – so easily seduced and manipulated by Azazel into doing his bidding. She had died a miserable death at the hands of Belial and Mephistopheles.

Still, she was not about to go underestimating the holy superweapon; no matter how foolish its bearer seemed, it had deemed him worthy of wielding its immense and monstrous power.

The mortal drew the spear closer to his body as its sacred radiance intensified around him. “I will become the Hero who defeats the Demon King and proves that humanity—”

Her master launched himself forward before the Human could finish whatever tedious declaration he had prepared.

His searing soul-sword crashed against the True Longinus, and the collision spread sacred and demonic power across Gremory’s unfinished barriers and through the very lands. The dimensional walls shook beneath the impact as the Hero was hurled backward and his companions blown away by the sheer force of the Crown Prince’s strike. Meanwhile her master wasted little time and pressed the offensive before the mortals had time to recover.

She held back a soft laugh; though she hadn’t known him for long, Gremory had quickly come to appreciate the Crown Prince’s little care for posturing. It was oddly in character for the Sin of Wrath to have so little patience with others, but unlike his predecessor, he was quite entertaining in his irritation.

However, in the same instant that her master moved, so too did the giant and the mutt. The ancient one charged Grendel as his Auras flared around his body, while the Amaroq sprang into the sky after Lotan, her claws extended and a fierce snarl tearing from her throat. The dragons responded immediately, and the first collision of their powers rolled with such a tremendous force that the local reality buckle.

It was a good thing that the Prince had the foresight to command her to protect the rest of the Underworld. Still, she would have to actively reinforce the barriers through the battle – otherwise, with this many power beings unleashing their auras, her palings would collapse within a few minutes.

Still, she couldn’t help but pout a little. It would have been nice to kill something to pass the time. But even as she had the thought, her eyes fell to the terrified looking army that was loyal to the Old Lords.

And just like that, her lips curved.

She slowly turned her gaze back toward the army behind her, the one that had been placed in her master’s command by Lord Falbium.

Well… it had been some time since she played the part of general. Besides, what could go wrong? It wasn’t as if anyone in the army was someone valuable.

And as the Dark Lord clashed with Heroes, and the Beasts battled Dragons, Gremory glided towards the army with a playful smile. Because yes, that’s what this was – some innocent, fun play.

=======

Serafall spiraled upward through the clouds, a baleful shadow enclosed within a halo of searing pink. The wind tore at her hair and dress until she arrested her ascent and spread all twelve wings, whereupon white radiance flashed from their black pinions and swept across hundreds of miles. Mountains disappeared beneath glaciers, valleys filled with snow, and enormous crystals of ice erupted from the transformed earth until their jagged peaks rivaled skyscrapers.

The Orobas triplets rose behind her as a single formation, their combined magic swelling until it brushed well past the domain of Satan-class power. And while it was mildly impressive, Serafall could feel how poorly that power sat within them. Ophis’ blessing had dragged the sisters beyond their natural limits without granting them the mastery such heights demanded. Their foundations trembled beneath the strain, and Serafall smiled as she turned to face them.

It’s not like she was going to complain about an enemy having unstable power, after all.

The Orobas sisters answered her smile with a violent surge of magic that split the glaciers below. Enormous trees erupted through the frozen waste, their white trunks rising hundreds of feet before bending like serpents and converging upon Serafall beneath a canopy of silver leaves.

Oh? How pretty. She could use such plants for many future shoots. And a part of Serafall was now tempted to capture and enslave the sisters, rather than outright killing them.

Serafall laughed as she twisted at the waist and swept one hand through the air, sending cold racing along every approaching bough. The trees froze before reaching her, then shattered beneath their own momentum and scattered through the sky as glittering fragments.

The sisters immediately forced more life through the broken ice. White roots intertwined into a colossal body while nine wooden necks unfolded from its shoulders, forming a hydra large enough to straddle the surrounding mountains. As each head opened its jaws, green lightning crawled between its wooden fangs and spread along the silver leaves covering its neck. Countless motes of demonic energy rose from the forest below and streamed into the nine mouths, coalescing into unstable green orbs that swelled with every passing second. Their surfaces convulsed as the power compressed, throwing off jagged bolts that cracked the air and melted deep wounds through the ice beneath them.

She raised a fine eyebrow, even as a sort of excitement bubbled within her. It had been a while since she last stretched herself – usually, these days, that Berry-headed brother of hers did most of the fighting on the Sins’ behalf. This was the first time in nearly a century she had genuinely come out and fought on the frontlines.

Her Bishop entered the battlefield almost immediately, the familiar touch of the Rusalka’s magic brushing against Serafall’s awareness as she began working.

‘Totes on it, mistress!’ Kosara replied cheerfully into her mind.

Layers of defensive barriers unfolded across the region, overlapping until they spanned the width of several countries. Serafall sensed them settle into place and smiled with approval. The other Satans would be taking similar precautions across their respective battlefields; with all five of them fighting seriously, they could easily destroy the Empire they were supposed to be protecting.

Serafall vanished and reappeared beyond the Underworld’s stratosphere just as the hydra fired. Nine green beams, each hundreds of meters across, tore upward after her, their unstable radiance distorting the atmosphere along their path.

She placed one finger against her lips and smiled playfully as pink energy gathered at the tip of each of her twelve wings. The lights swelled from tiny sparks into blazing spheres, their brilliance spreading across her pinions and outlining her body until Serafall burned against the darkness like a newborn star. Space curved around the twelve concentrations of power, bending inward as the surrounding fabric of reality struggled beneath their weight.

With a graceful sweep of her wings, Serafall released them.

Twelve immense beams of pink energy ripped through the warped space around her and collided with the hydra’s attacks. The resulting explosion consumed half the Underworld’s sky, sending waves of supercharged magic through the atmosphere until radiant auroras unfurled across the entire plane.

“Everyone appreciates fireworks,” Serafall said cheekily to herself.

She then folded her wings and plunged.

And the thousands of miles between her and the triplets vanished before the sisters could even blink; nevertheless, their magic answered on instinct. Colossal beasts of white wood tore from the frozen earth and crowded the sky, their silver-leafed limbs sweeping toward Serafall from every direction. She wrapped herself in searing pink power and flew straight through them, reducing trunks thicker than skyscrapers to plumes of burning splinters.

And as she arrived next to her three foes, Drei’s snapped a hand and a barrier appeared between them instantly.

Serafall casually swept her hand through the air, unleashing a wave of magic.

The shield buckled around her onslaught, and the force of the impact raced through the air and pulverized several mountains below.

And she was already gone before Drei could recover, twisting between grasping branches and firing beams from her eyes towards another of the triplets. Like her sister, Sechs wordlessly conjured a gigantic magical shield that collided with Serafall’s beams. Dozens of frost spires shattered completely as the resulting shockwave ripped through dozens of miles in an instant.

Neun then brought her hands together and thousands of wooden spears glowing with emerald energy raced towards her, but the Demon Lord merely stood still with a smile and made a parting motion with both hands – every projectile curved around her and landed far away, blasting away entire mountains as they detonated when they hit the ground.

How adorable. They still thought they could keep up.

The Orobas sisters retreated beneath Serafall’s assault, raising one plant titan after another between themselves and the pursuing Demon Lord. Mountains of white wood hauled themselves from the frozen earth, their enormous bodies splitting into countless boughs that descended upon her like grasping fingers.

Serafall swept one hand through the air, and a spiraling gale of frost followed the gesture, freezing the foremost titan before pink radiance erupted from her palm and shattered it from crown to root. The others pressed forward through the debris, only for pillars of ice to spear through their bodies and carry them into the sky, where a second volley of pink blasts reduced them to burning splinters.

Green magic gathered around the triplets as they continued withdrawing, taking the shapes of immense swords, spears, and war hammers before hurtling toward Serafall from every direction. She twisted between the first barrage with twelve wings folded tightly behind her, then flared them outward and released a ring of glacial power that froze the weapons in midflight.

Pink bolts streaked from her fingertips an instant later, detonating each construct and filling the sky with emerald fire. Serafall emerged from the explosions smiling, accelerated through the collapsing magic, and struck the sisters’ shared barrier hard enough to drive all three toward the frozen mountains below.

And the sisters hurtled through the frozen mountains, their shared barrier carving through one peak after another and leaving a trail of snow and pulverized stone miles long. Entire summits burst apart around them, while avalanches poured down the surviving slopes and buried the valleys beneath churning tides of ice. The wake of their descent rose high enough to obscure the horizon, spreading outward as a vast wall of white dust that swallowed forests of frost and toppled Serafall’s crystalline spires.

She watched the destruction with a cold smile, but soon enough, all three sisters teleported back into the sky before her. They looked none worse for wear, but Serafall could clearly see that their resolve was shaken. There was no doubt in her mind that they were fully aware that she was all but playing with them.

They may have entered the realm of Satan-class, but they were not true Demons. And they certainly weren’t Sins. The gap between them was simply far too great.

“Disappointing,” Drei said.

“Wasteful,” Sechs added.

“That such strength should be used to coddle our race into babes is deeply tragic,” Neun said softly. “Would that you used it to stir their hearts into warriors, fanned the flames within them, and tempered them until they were unbreakable. Do you not see your own folly, Serafall Sitri?”

Serafall glanced toward the armies clashing below. Her soldiers advanced steadily through the blizzards, exploiting conditions they had trained within for years while the rebels struggled against the frozen gales.

She placed both hands beneath her chin and smiled cheerfully. “All I see is victory!”

“Arrogant,” Drei said.

“Unwise,” Sechs said.

“Victory?” Neun asked. “You have seen only a shadow of what is to come. Soon our kind will return to what once was, our dignity and ways restored to the first brushstrokes of the True Satans.”

“Brushstrokes of the dead?” Serafall gave them an exaggerated, pitying pout. “Sadly, I prefer my palette more colorful. It draws the eye better!”

The sisters offered no reply, but their combined aura erupted instead. And the frozen wastes split apart beneath their pressure as innumerable trunks of white wood burst through the ice. Roots thick enough to encircle cities tore mountains open from within, devouring stone and frost while silver-leafed branches spread across the sky. Within moments, the forest extended thousands of miles in every direction, its tangled canopy swallowing Serafall’s frozen range beneath a pale and restless sea.

She maintained her cheerful smile, though concern flickered within her as she felt Kosara’s barriers begin to strain – she really did need to start filling out the rest of her Peerage, another capable Bishop wouldn’t hurt.

But her musings aside, the Orobas sisters’ forest carried a corrupted vitality that sought to infest everything it touched, twisting matter into further extensions of itself. Thousands of creatures rose from among the trees, each as large as a mountain and fashioned from writhing roots, knotted trunks, and snapping wooden jaws.

A heavy silence settled between them as the sisters’ white hair whipped in the frozen wind and their visible eyes burned emerald. Serafall answered their stares with a cheeky wink. “Come on, give me your best shot. I promise I can take it.”

Wordlessly, three pale hands pointed toward her and the entire forest surged forward with an earth-sundering roar.

But heedlessly of it all, the Demon Lord lifted her hands through her hair and raised them above her head as her pink aura erupted, shaking the Underworld beneath its pressure. She lowered one hand to her lips and blew the sisters a kiss. And no ice appeared, nor any wind blew, yet every monster, tree, and grasping branch abruptly stopped, held motionless by some unseen thing.

“Impossible,” Drei said.

“Bindings?” Sechs questioned.

“What have you done, Serafall Sitri?” Neun asked in the same monotonous tone. “Our magic refuses to respond.”

Despite the serene smile on her lips, Leviathan’s voice came out as cold as the darkest abyss. “Entrapped by the embrace of my radiant affection, their very existence has been frozen. It happens to everyone when they have their first time with me.” She gave the sisters a salacious wink. “Don’t worry, ladies. I’ll be gentle with you. We wouldn’t want to hurt those pretty faces.”

Leviathan’s aura continued to rise, its pink radiance saturated the sky and pressed against the sisters’ bodies and minds. They drew closer together and projected their combined power outward, forming a spherical barrier to repel the invasive cold of Lust. But the surface of their magic trembled beneath the Crown Prince’s presence, and it began shrinking steadily around them as her desire pushed down against resistance.

For the first time, the neutral expressions on the faces of the three sisters began to break, a hint of worry and even fear made its way into their gazes as the Demon Lord’s hunger began calling out to their Devilish souls. Even with the Infinite Ouroboros’ blessing, their souls were stained with Hell, and the call of the Sins was not so easily denied.

The sisters were moments from her reach when Serafall’s head whipped toward the distant horizon.

A deafening crack rolled across the frozen wastes, shaking snow from the white canopy as a jagged wound opened in reality and two gargantuan shapes emerged from the darkness beyond it. The first was a western dragon covered in bluish-black scales, its enormous wings spreading across the sky, while the second dragged its serpentine body forward upon two powerful arms, reddish-green scales gleaming along its legless length.

Serafall finally lost her smile.

She recognized these two, she remembered them. Niðhöggr and Lindwyrm Regis – two of the most infamous dragons of the Emperors’ War. Even as she and the others were waging their rebellion in the first Devil Civil War, these two, along with many other Dragons, were cutting a swath of destruction through the Germanic realms as they warred for the title of Heavenly Dragon.

Even deep in the Underworld and in the midst of battlefields of her rebellion, Serafall had sensed the powers of the horde of dragons as they tore through one another and ruined entire kingdoms in their dreadful wake.

And now those two same vile creatures were in her Empire, siding with her enemies, and posing a threat to her faithful and children.

Her gaze returned to the triplets, and annoyance sharpened into the first genuine anger she had felt since the invasion began. Serafall’s aura climbed higher, flooding the sky with pink light as the cold deepened until the surrounding crumbled away, frozen onto nothing by the force of her rage.

“Oh, but we have been bad girls, haven’t we?” she asked, malevolent hatred lighting her eyes. “Making deals we shouldn’t have? Don’t worry, though. I know exactly how to set bad girls straight!”

=======

Marquis Shax was the Minister of War, serving under Lord Falbium, for seventy-three years now. And in his entire tenure, he had never felt more vexed and tried than he did now.

He stared at the magical projections which covered the vaulted chamber, each displaying a different region of the Empire and the legions stationed around their territory. But what truly grabbed his attention where the scarlet warnings flashing across nearly every surface as enormous surges of power appeared throughout the Underworld – a disturbing number of which climbed high into the ranks of Satan-class.

All the while, officers hurried between data stations while communication crystals rang without pause, filling the chamber with overlapping reports from frightened commanders from all over the Empire.

“We have word from Lord Falbium’s peerage!” an ensign cried from his station. “The Old Satan Faction has launched a coordinated invasion across the Empire!”

“I want locations and confirmed enemy numbers,” Shax barked. “Where are the blasted frontline Legions? Order full counteroffensives across every compromised -”

A tremendous tremor suddenly rocked them all.

The floor bucked beneath them, throwing several officers from their feet as tables overturned and projection arrays flickered. Cracks raced across the walls, shedding dust and fragments of stone into the chamber. Shax spread his stance and remained upright, using his immense magical reserves as an Ultimate-class Devils to keep himself from being overwhelmed by the shaking of the Underworld.

“What in blazes is going on out there?” He yelled angrily.

“M-my lord, it’s—”

“Out with it, boy!”

The ensign stared at the readings before slowly turning towards the Marquis, his eyes wide with terror. “All five Satans have mobilized, sir!”

The chaos inside the command center died instantly.

Officers froze over their instruments. Messengers stopped between stations, and even those who had fallen remained upon the floor as every face turned toward the ensign. For one suspended moment, the entirety of High Command stared speechless.

And then another quake struck.

The walls groaned around them as the command center shifted upon its foundations. Several communication crystals toppled from their pedestals and shattered, while a suspended projection array tore free from the ceiling and crashed against the floor in a shower of sparks.

But Marquis Shax paid no attention to any of it.

The last time the Satans had personally fought had been during the first Civil War – before they had become Sins. They were much more powerful now than they had been back then. Worse, Lord Ichigo had joined their ranks, turning four Demon Lords into five. All five waging war simultaneously placed the entire Underworld in existential danger, along with every lesser plane fastened to it! It was an apocalyptic level event!

“Lucifer preserve us,” Shax breathed quietly to himself.

But the words had barely left his mouth before he straightened himself. Whatever was happening beyond these walls, panic would contribute nothing except additional casualties, and he would be damned before he permitted the High Command to collapse into frightened gawking while the Crown Princes fought for their civilization.

“Get your jaws off the ground, you witless fools!” His voice cracked across the chamber and shocked the officers back into motion. “Deploy every regional barrier network and awaken the dimensional anchors. Issue evacuation orders wherever the power readings exceed local tolerances, and make certain every civilian shelter in the Empire is opened.”

Officers scrambled toward their stations as Shax continued.

“Order the Central Armada to abandon reserve formation and reinforce the boundaries between planes. I want spatial ruptures contained before they propagate, magical storms diverted away from populated territories, and response vessels positioned over every major city. Leave our masters to their war! Our duty is to ensure they still have an Empire when they finish it!”

“Yes, my lord!”

“Right away, my lord!”

“And if I discover that any commander has neglected an evacuation because he was too busy trembling beneath his desk, I will personally beat them into the ground and use their bones to pick my teeth!”

The command center erupted back into disciplined activity. Reports began flowing between stations, evacuation routes appeared across the strategic projections, and the Central Armada’s distant formations shifted as thousands of vessels received their orders.

Shax watched them work with his jaw clenched.

If the threat to the Empire was grave enough to draw every Crown Prince onto the front lines, then he would protect their people with every soldier, vessel, and scrap of magic at his disposal. No one would ever question the ironclad loyalty of House Shax. The Sins had dragged Devilkind from the ruins of the old order and forged an Empire in which their people could survive and prosper. Shax would sooner jump into his own grave than allow the Old Lords to bring back to the days of savagery and madness!

But his mood further soured when he realized that the Parliament of Hell had not yet been informed.

He held most of his peers in contempt. They had become lazy, self-absorbed peacocks over the centuries – far too comfortable in the shadows of the Crown Princes. He was one of the few Pillar Lords who still ventured forth into the wilds and beyond into other worlds, sharpening his battle-skills and honing his instincts.

Yes, it would make little difference if the rest of the Upper Nobility knew the details – no doubt they could sense the Sins now loosening their powers. But the finer details could be kept from them. Especially since he knew there were a few amongst his compatriots who would use the chaos to create advantageous havoc on their own.

It was best for everyone if the other Pillar Lords sat in their homes uncertain and scared.

But his thought process was interrupted as a thunderous detonation rolled across the Underworld before another tremor passed through the complex. This one carried an immense wave of demonic power that made every projection in the chamber distort. Marquis Shax looked toward the largest observation screen as its image fickered and revealed the sky burning a deep, luminous pink.

The color stretched from horizon to horizon, suffusing the clouds while auroras spread across the heavens in radiant ribbons. Several officers stopped working to stare.

“Lord Serafall is in rare form today,” he murmured.

But he looked away and quickly noticed that the nearest officers continued gawking at the transformed sky. The Marquis drew a slow breath through his nose before yelling out, “Get back to work, or the skins of your families will fly as my banners!”

Every head snapped down, and High Command threw itself once more into preserving the Empire while the power of its rulers undid creation around them.

=======

Falbium lowered his head and released a disgruntled sigh as two enormous dragons lumbered from the Void. Every step of theirs shook the surrounding mountains even as their malicious power flooded the region and drove thousands of Devils from both armies to their knees.

He reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose because naturally he couldn’t even murder Creuserey in peace. No, of course not, that would be far too convenient and simple. And apparently even the Infinite Ouroboros itself was conspiring to make his life as complicated and cumbersome as possible.

Falbium truly possessed the most rotten luck in all the Underworld.

With another sigh, he cast a vexed glance towards the hulking brutes far off in the distance. The smaller of the two – though still quite gargantuan – walked on all four legs as powerful muscles rippled under silvery-black scales. It was also a wingless creature with a short neck and a long triangular head.

Falbium let out a breath through his nose even as his mouth twisted sourly – Ófnir of the Black Flame. One of the lesser known Drakes of the Nordic Nine Realms. It had spent most of its life lurking in the shadowy depth of Yggdrasil’s roots before emerging to contend with the rest of its kind in the Emperors’ War, before being unceremoniously slain by the Dragon King Fáfnir.

His eyes then swept to the other dragon. It had a large round body covered in murky brown scales, and like its counterpart, it also possessed four long limbs and no legs. But atop its skull were two great horns skinning with blue light.

He could feel his scalp begin to itch as annoyance set in even further because, while he had never laid eyes on this creature before, he had read plenty of tomes in the past that chronicled it.

Amhuluk the Abyssal Plague.

A beast of the Kalapuya mythos, one of the many indigenous spirit tribes of the North American continent. He knew very little about the creature, other than basic facts that held some authority over poisoned water and diseases.

He let out a groan – two Satan-class dragons out legends, lovely.

He planted both hands upon his hips and allowed his head to fall forward in defeat.

For several moments, he remained that way, silently mourning the easy victory he and the others had planned. Speaking of which, if he was here dealing with these two scaled menaces, undoubtedly the other Sins also had their hands full with ancient dragons as well. What was the old adage? No plan survives contact with the enemy.

Falbium sighed and nodded to himself reluctantly; he then proceeded to snap his fingers.

Two light-grey summoning circles appeared upon the ground before him, each bearing his personal insignia within its revolving layers of demonic script. Jaqrin Vassago rose from the first, a dark-haired, blue-eyed man who carried four of Falbium’s Pawn Pieces and was the younger brother of the current Duke Vassago. From the second circle emerged Cornelia Contescu, an ancient vampire that served as one of his Bishops. She had long ebony hair that framed her pale features and crimson eyes that glinted in the dark.

Jaqrin frequently served as a front-line commander and had been a decorated general in the Empire since the days of the first Civil War. Cornelia, for her part, had retired from the military after Falbium had rewarded her with the title of Viscountess and had given her her own peerage. She had done remarkably well in the Rating Games and was a high ranker.

Both began bowing the moment they laid their eyes on him, but a vicious snarl rolled across the wastelands. Slowly, his two Pieces looked toward the distant mountains, where Ófnir and Amhuluk continued their slow march in their direction.

Cornelia stared at them for several seconds before painstakingly turning back toward her king. “You have got to be bloody kidding me.”

Falbium gave a simple shrug.

He then walked toward a large boulder protruding from the broken ground, sat atop it with little ceremony, and reclined against its surface with his hands folded behind his head. Once he had found a tolerably comfortable position, he closed his eyes and smiled to himself.

“Well, get on with it, then,” he said with a shooing motion. “Do the Empire and your duty as prime servants of Asmodeus proud. Go forth and slay the dragons.”

Silence answered him, and when it continued for an unreasonable length of time, Falbium opened one eye and peered to the side. Jaqrin and Cornelia were staring at him with matching expressions of profound disbelief.

“And what will you be doing, O great Lord Asmodeus?” Jaqrin asked dryly.

Falbium waved one hand in a suitably important yet deliberately ambiguous manner. “Why, using my prodigious magic and power to keep the Underworld safe from the rampaging dragons and clashing armies, of course.”

It was even partially true. Someone would need to reinforce the surrounding dimensions once everyone began fighting seriously; preventing the destruction of the Underworld was arguably more important than personally killing anything. The fact that such work could be accomplished while lying down just happened to be pure coincidence.

Cornelia placed one hand upon her hip and fixed him with an icy glare that would have cowed a lesser man.

“You do recognize that neither Jaqrin nor I are capable of slaying two Satan-class dragons simultaneously, don’t you, Master?”

“Don’t forget about Creuserey,” Jaqrin said wryly.

Cornelia rolled her eyes. “Why on earth would we take into account that bloated shit-stain?”

“You miserable slut!” Creuserey roared from far away. “I’ll tear out your eyes!”

For her part, his Bishop threw a casual glance over her shoulder and loudly said, “Hush, mummy and daddy are talking.”

Creuserey began another round of insults and curses, but the three of them readily tuned him out.

“The point still stands,” Cornelia continued as she turned her gaze back to him, “Jaqrin and I are at the apex of Ultimate-class, but both those dragons are well into Satan-class, we’d die within minutes.”

Falbium let out a huff and said, “I suppose it never occurred to you that I have a plan? In fact, when have I ever not had a plan?”

His two pieces exchanged a look, only to cross their arms in unison and fix him with a flat look.

“Oh fine! Be that way!” Hmph, they got bolder and bolder with each passing decade. He’d have punished them long ago if it didn’t require so much effort. “But just one more! You both know there are things I can’t leave unprotected.”

He snapped his fingers again and a high-pitched whine spread across the battlefield.

Ófnir and Amhuluk halted midstride, their enormous heads rising as the sound climbed beyond the ordinary range of hearing and burrowed into the foundations of the surrounding reality. Tens of thousands of Devils looked upward in confusion. Even Creuserey turned away from Falbium as uncertainty passed across his features.

And then the sky began to darken.

Every shadow across the plains twitched independently of whatever cast it, then they stretched toward the heavens as though answering a distant summons. The wind died so completely that dust remained suspended in the air, while a deathly cold descended upon the battlefield and smothered the heat rising from the fractured ground.

Darkness gathered above them and folded inward.

A vast dimensional aperture opened across the sky, its interior revealing no recognizable realm beyond. Black tentacles descended through the opening, each wide enough to encircle a fortress and covered in glistening mouths filled with humanlike teeth. More followed until the heavens writhed beneath an immense tangle of limbs, and the thing behind them began forcing its impossible bulk into the Underworld.

Its body refused to settle upon any single shape. Tentacles twisted through one another, mouths opened within mouths, and enormous teeth migrated across folds of flesh that appeared solid only until they passed through themselves. The sound it released resembled the final cries of a goat being tortured to death, magnified until mountains trembled and thousands of soldiers clutched their ears.

“What in Lucifer’s name is that horrible thing?” the rebel screamed.

Falbium’s brows drew together as he felt a brief bout of ire. He propped himself upon one elbow and glared across the battlefield. “Oi, don’t be rude, you miserable git! Her name is KREK-JJGH-HRKY, and she’s my Queen! She’s a delightful lady with impeccable taste in whisky!”

His two Pieces shared in his sentiment as they both glared distastefully at the Old Satan Lord. But Cornelia turned her disgusted look away and then smiled brightly at the Queen in the sky. She even gave it a small wave, to which one giant tentacle waved back.

Creuserey merely looked at him as though Falbium were mad. Bah! What would an inbred, philistine troglodyte like Creuserey know about appreciating true beauty and grace. KREK-JJGH-HRKY was a wonderful woman from an ancient and noble lineage that dated back to before the advent of time itself! Falbium had immense respect and admiration for his Queen and her history; why else would he have recruited her?

But even the dragons seemed uncertain as they hissed and snarled from their place on the horizon. Ófnir lowered its muscular body as black fire gathered between its teeth, while Amhuluk released a rumbling snarl and spread a haze of diseased brown magic through the air. Above them, however, KREK-JJGH-HRKY turned several hundred mouths in their direction and answered with another chorus of tortured bleating.

That seems adequately balanced then, he thought to himself with satisfaction.

Falbium then settled back against the boulder and returned his hands behind his head.

“Well then, make with the dragon slaying already, I’ll be mildly cheering you on from here.”

And with that, he shut his eyes and tuned out reality. Honestly, the only good thing about being a leader was that he had subordinates to delegate his work too. Otherwise, he’d have long since absconded from the Underworld.

=======

They were losing, and everyone knew it.

Cornelia flew ahead of a torrent of black flames as it swept across the wasteland behind her, consuming stone, soil, and abandoned siege engines within an inferno so intense that the ground collapsed into molten sludge. Heat rolled against her back while she climbed, but the ancient protections woven through her body and armor held firm. Far below, Imperial and rebel Devils alike scattered from Ófnir’s path, their battle forgotten beneath the more immediate concern of surviving the dragon’s rampage.

The two dragons were simply too powerful. She had decided to distract the Black Flame Dragon while Jaqrin was currently occupying Amhuluk, and from above, KREK-JJGH-HRKY used her shadow magicks to bind and restrict the two dragons as much as possible. But it was proving incredibly difficult due to the sheer, brute strength of each wyrm.

It didn’t help that the idiot Creuserey kept flying around the battlefield and using whatever openings he found to bombard them with his own magic.

Bloody Falbium and his insane plans.

But with that thought, a sudden shadow fell over her and her eyes widened in alarm.

Cornelia folded her wings and dropped as Ófnir’s claws swept through the space she had occupied, their passage splitting the clouds and sending a concussive wave across the mountains. She teleported before the dragon’s second foreleg could crush her, reappearing several miles behind its shoulder while the impact pulverized the ground below, sending a shockwave that ruptured a mile of earth.

Cornelia extended one pale hand, and dozens of violet summoning circles opened across the broken landscape.

Skeletal warriors clawed their way from the ground, each inscribed with explosive curses and swollen with necrotic power. They charged Ófnir in a clattering horde, scrambling over its legs before detonating together in a series of violent explosions. Sickly green fire engulfed the dragon’s lower body and erupted high into the sky, consuming enough land to swallow an entire city.

Yet, within seconds, Ófnir ploughed through the fire with a thunderous roar. Its furious gaze set firmly on her as it bounded in her direction.

Cornelia’s gaze narrowed as she failed to see a single scratch on its silvery-black scales.

“Oh, fuck off,” she muttered angrily.

The dragon leaped into the sky, jowls open and aimed right for her.

She fled before its snapping jaws, weaving between mountains while each furious swipe shattered peaks and sent tremors rolling through the plains. Cornelia repeatedly changed direction, forcing the larger creature to turn, but Ófnir remained far faster than anything of its size had a right to be.

But mid-charge, it jumped onto the nearest peak and Cornelia felt its aura sharply rise.

She looked back and found the dragon braced against the mountain, its triangular head drawn low as black fire gathered behind its teeth.

Oh, crap.

She teleported instantly, and not a second too soon as Ófnir unleashed its breath in the same instant. A colossal beam of black flame tore across the horizon and erased the mountain range behind her, leaving a burning trench that extended for miles through molten stone.

But she wasn’t one to gawk at the spectacle - Cornelia reappeared above the dragon’s head and attacked before it could close its jaws. Necrotic bolts poured from her hands alongside hooked strands of soul magic, passing through Ófnir’s scales to rake directly across the spirit beneath them. The dragon’s jaws slammed shut as its head recoiled, and hateful eyes snapped toward her.

She nodded to herself as her suspicion proved itself true – attacking its flesh would accomplish nothing. She had to use her necromancy to attack its spirit.

Unfortunately, causing pain was not the same as inflicting meaningful damage, and it remained nowhere close to killing the damned thing.

Cornelia gathered another mass of necrotic power between her hands as Ófnir turned toward her.

However, before she could renew her assault against the powerful wyrm, she was suddenly hit with a powerful blast of magic from behind and pain exploded through her side. She grimaced through the sharp spike in agony as she was pushed uncomfortably close to the dragon. Luckily, she regained enough of her faculties to change direction mid-flight, but she turned her gaze just enough to see Creuserey Asmodeus laughing manically.

“Take that, you damned undead witch!” the Old Satan Lord said gleefully.

Cornelia seethed at the sight of Creuserey’s smug satisfaction. The pain burning through her side was already fading beneath her regeneration, but the indignity of being struck by that deluded fool, of all people, seared much stronger.

Unfortunately, she had taken her eyes from Ófnir.

The dragon launched itself from the ruined mountain, crossing the distance between them with terrifying speed. Cornelia turned just as its jaws opened with an inferno of black flame burning within, but quite suddenly, enormous hands formed from living shadows erupted beneath Ófnir and closed around its hind legs. KREK-JJGH-HRKY’s magic wrenched the dragon downward before it could reach Cornelia, sending the ancient Drake crashing through the mountains below. Stone burst upward in a plume miles high, and the impact sent fractures racing across the wasteland.

Yet within seconds, Ófnir tore itself free, shredding the shadowy hands between its claws as it rose from the debris with a furious roar. The respite was brief, but Cornelia used every instant of it to teleport beyond the dragon’s immediate reach.

‘We need to get rid of that maniacal idiot’, she said telepathically to Jaqrin.

‘A little occupied at the moment’, he replied tightly.

A mountain-sized pillar of sickly green energy erupted in the far distance and consumed everything along its path. Several peaks disappeared inside the radiance, leaving molten craters where entire ranges had stood. Cornelia caught only a glimpse of Jaqrin racing along its edge while Amhuluk pursued him through the devastation.

She released an aggrieved sigh. The dragons possessed enough power to tear apart entire countries, and the battlefield was rapidly becoming unrecognizable beneath their attacks.

Nonetheless, not a fraction of that destruction reached the wider Underworld.

Cornelia extended her senses and felt the incomprehensible architecture of Lord Falbium’s power surrounding them. Her master had severed the local reality from the rest of the Underworld, cutting every spatial and dimensional connection until the battlefield drifted alone within a sealed continuum. He had gone further still, folding both armies into another separate dimension and holding tens of thousands of Devils in perfect stasis, safely removed from the monsters annihilating the landscape around them.

And he maintained it all while reclining upon a boulder with his eyes closed.

The effortless display of spacetime sorcery was downright terrifying, and it showed the absolute mastery over defensive and barrier magic that the Crown Prince possessed.

If only he wasn’t such a lazy bastard!

Ófnir climbed from the shattered mountains and fixed its mad gaze upon her once more, and with a casual sweep of its neck unleashed a raging tsunami of fire over a mile high and triple that in length. Cornelia quickly teleported once more and gathered necrotic power around her hands as she assailed the dragon’s flank with her curses.

‘You have a plan?’ Jaqrin then asked her.

‘Dearest’, she reached out and brushed her mind against her Queen’s. Though she was very careful about it – friendship notwithstanding, she would not survive a full psychic immersion into her eldritch Queen’s thoughts. ‘Can you hold off the two overgrown lizards while Jaqrin and I deal with the idiot? Five minutes at least.’

Both she and Jaqrin received a series of unintelligible sounds, but centuries of being friends with her let them know it was a rather unenthusiastic maybe.

“It’ll suffice,” she said under her breath.

‘We’ll lead the dragons to the forest in the north’, Jaqrin suggested. ‘But be mindful of Creuserey, he seems to be fixated on you.’

Cornelia flew far as she drew Ófnir northward, retreating from the ruined mountains toward the forest at the edge of the wasteland. Distance meant little when she could teleport and the ancient Drake could cross dozens of miles in milliseconds. So, it wasn’t surprising that within moments, the dense canopy appeared beneath her, its trees burning and flying uprooted as Ófnir landed among them.

She sensed Jaqrin approaching from the opposite direction, with Amhuluk’s diseased power rolling behind him like an advancing storm.

‘Amhuluk is a water-aligned dragon’, Jaqrin told her.

Cornelia teleported beyond another sweep of Ófnir’s claws. ‘And Ófnir is a fire Drake. You think we can turn their elements against one another?’

‘It’s worth trying.’

She altered her course until she was flying directly toward Jaqrin’s approaching presence. Ófnir followed without hesitation, bounding through the forest as black fire streamed from between its teeth. Trees vanished beneath its claws, and each landing excavated enormous craters through the woodland.

Cornelia climbed sharply once the dragon drew close and experience had taught her that that once she had put enough distance between herself and the Drake, it would unleash a breath attack.

And just as she expected, Ófnir planted its legs against the ground and raised its triangular head, its jaws opening as black fire gathered within its throat. But unlike what Cornelia expected, the flames instead compressed into a single sphere. They swelled beyond the dragon’s jaws, expanding until a churning black orb had grown several times larger than Ófnir itself.

The surrounding forest ignited without being touched and the surrounding area immediately burst into flame – the sheer heat of the dragon’s miniature black sun boiled the bedrock for miles into molten magma. She was disturbingly reminded of the one time she had gone on a mission with Lord Ichigo.

Ófnir then swung its head and released the sphere.

Cornelia attempted to teleport, but much to her shock, the sheer density of draconic power had warped the fabric of space to the extent that her spatial magic failed her. The pathway folded before it could form, leaving her suspended directly in the orb’s path.

“Oh, you miserable—”

The next thing she knew, living shadows enveloped her.

KREK-JJGH-HRKY’s magic dragged Cornelia through the darkness and deposited her several miles away and she emerged beside Jaqrin, high in the sky. The Pawn had appeared within the same mass of writhing shadows at nearly the same instant. His armor was slightly scorched and she could see the remnants of some sickly energy desperately trying to cling to him.

They had only a second to meet one another’s eyes before Ófnir’s enormous sphere of black fire and a similarly immense orb of diseased green energy hurtled past them through the sky. The two attacks continued in opposite directions and struck the earth hundreds of miles apart.

And in the next moment, the entire dimension felt as if it were nearly undone.

Black fire swallowed one horizon while virulent green radiance consumed the other, and the devastation expanding from both impacts met across the intervening wilderness. Everything for hundreds of miles disappeared beneath the overlapping waves of heat and force. Cornelia and Jaqrin raised their hands together, layering barriers around themselves as the isolated reality convulsed and the combined shockwaves drove them backward through the burning sky.

But even through their combined magic, she could feel the skin on her hands and face blister from the immense force.

Again, KREK-JJGH-HRKY’s magic cocooned them, this time in a protective layer. And as soon as the waves energy began to die out, they were on the move. They were experienced enough veterans of war to know that they could not stay in one place for long when facing more than one enemy who was stronger than them.

But as they both took to the skies, Ófnir and Amhuluk both sprang to their location. However, surprisingly, neither dragon pressed the advantage, instead they glared at the two of them. And Cornelia’s frowned heavily as she beheld the mocking laughter in either dragon’s murderous gaze.

Amhuluk snapped its jaws with a growl. “Perfidious Devils, did you think us mere beasts so easy to trap?”

Ófnir threw back its head and let out a roar. “We have prowled and hunted through the dark long before your Lucifer fell. You are but mewling babes beneath our claws.”

However, in that instant, a third outraged cry interrupted them.

“You wretched, overgrown lizards!” Creuserey yelled. “You nearly killed me with that stunt!”

The Black Flame Drake let out a dangerous growl as its eyes narrowed at the flying Asmodeus descendant. “You bear the blessing of the Infinite Ouroboros, but it will not stay our fangs if you do not stay your tongue, worm.”

Creuserey stared furiously at the two dragons, but even he had enough brain cells to know not to enrage the two immensely powerful dragons.

“Well, it seems everyone is here,” Jaqrin said quietly to her.

“So indeed,” she replied before throwing her head up and loudly calling out, “Now would be ideal, dearest!”

Immediately KREK-JJGH-HRKY descended from the darkened heavens and Cornelia felt her Queen spread through every shadow cast across the broken world.

Darkness poured from beneath shattered mountains, crawled from the burning craters, and peeled itself away from the clouds until every slithering patch of black became another arm, tentacle, or grasping limb. KREK-JJGH-HRKY’s immense body unfolded through them all without ever settling into a single shape.

And Ófnir answered her descent with a roaring sea of black fire, while Amhuluk raised a continent of poisoned water from the devastated earth. Both attacks surged toward her Queen, carrying enough power to erase what remained of the landscape.

Yet darkness opened and swallowed it all.

Flames vanished into KREK-JJGH-HRKY’s formless body without producing heat or light, while the diseased waters disappeared beneath her spreading shadow. Nothing remained behind except a darkness so absolute that Cornelia’s senses and magic recoiled from touching it.

But that did not deter the dragons, their assault continued as they unleashed a barrage of enraged violence.

Claws ripped through curtains of darkness, teeth closed upon shapeless limbs, and elemental power tore holes across the heavens, yet none of it seemed capable of reaching their Queen. KREK-JJGH-HRKY possessed countless teeth and tentacles, but those things were merely suggestions of a body. She was the darkness beneath Ófnir’s feet, the shadow sliding across Amhuluk’s scales, and the black absence stretching between the stars above them.

She was everywhere and nowhere at once.

But Cornelia knew this state would not last. Despite her appearance, KREK-JJGH-HRKY was just a youngling of her kind. According to her master, their Queen was still in her infancy stage, and it would be literally millions of years before she matured into an adult. What that would look like Cornelia had no idea, and part of her didn’t want to know.

Yet what she did know that her eldritch friend could not keep up this state of invincibility for long and would soon tire out.

So as the dragons roared and rampaged against the tentacled Queen, Cornelia furiously erupted towards Creuserey and unleashed a wave of necrotic force that hurled him away from the dragons. The false Asmodeus recovered quickly, only for Jaqrin to appear above him and bring his greatsword down against the rebel’s hastily formed barrier. Creuserey crashed through the burning wasteland below while Cornelia and Jaqrin pursued him, pressing him farther from the ancient wyrms with every exchange.

Ophis’ blessing had elevated Creuserey beyond either of them in raw power. Cornelia felt its vastness in every spell he cast, each blast carrying enough force to annihilate cities and break mountain ranges. Unfortunately for him, power was all he possessed.

Creuserey fought without discipline. He hurled immense torrents of demonic energy wherever Cornelia or Jaqrin appeared, frequently changing targets before completing an attack and leaving gaps throughout his defenses. His movements carried no economy, his spells possessed no refinement, and his fury made him increasingly predictable.

Cornelia attacked from range, filling the air with curses and twisted strands of pure necromantic energy. Creuserey swept them aside with overwhelming force, only to expose his flank to Jaqrin. He spun and fired wildly, but the swordsman had already withdrawn while Cornelia struck from the opposite direction.

They repeated the pattern until Creuserey’s frustration overwhelmed what little judgment he possessed.

With an incoherent scream, he gathered his power into both hands and unleashed it toward Cornelia. She teleported aside before the blast could reach her, leaving Creuserey extended and unguarded.

And Jaqrin entered the opening.

His greatsword punched through Creuserey’s back and erupted from his chest. The rebel stiffened, his mouth falling open in utter shock and disbelief, but Jaqrin gave him no chance to utter even one more word.

Without ceremony, he tore the greatsword upward through Creuserey’s torso, splitting the would-be Satan into two pieces and scattering both halves across the ruined ground below.

Cornelia met Jaqrin’s eyes across the two halves of Creuserey’s corpse, and together they released the same exhausted breath. Thankfully, both of them were only lightly wounded, but the fact still remained: Creuserey had only ever been the lesser threat.

Without a word, they turned back toward the dragons and flew as fast as they could.

KREK-JJGH-HRKY had spread herself across the blistering remains of the northern forest, her darkness rising in immense columns that bent and twisted around the rampaging wyrms. Ófnir tore through her with claws wreathed in black fire, while Amhuluk released torrents of poisoned water that dissolved entire plateaus and corrupted the earth beneath them. Every attack passed through the Queen without leaving any discernible wound, yet her own innumerable mouths and tentacles accomplished equally little against the dragons’ scales. She could restrain and distract them, but she could not meaningfully injure either creature.

“We need to finish this quickly,” Jaqrin said as they approached. “If those two fall into Outrage, we're all dead.”

Cornelia’s mouth tightened grimly.

Outrage was the final madness inherent to Dragonkind. When pressed beyond the limits of their endurance, Dragons could surrender themselves entirely to their fury, multiplying their strength several times over while abandoning every instinct except the need to destroy whatever had provoked them. Once the transformation began, they would continue fighting until either they or their enemies were dead.

Ófnir and Amhuluk were already Satan-class, if they fell into an Outrage – never mind them, she doubted that even Lord Falbium could defeat the two. At that point, they could only rely on Lords Sirzechs, Ajuka or Ichigo.

And there was little doubt in her mind that those three were dealing with their own abundance of problems at this moment.

“We’re outmatched,” Cornelia said flatly. “If the entire peerage were here, perhaps we could kill them. But the three of us by ourselves cannot.”

Jaqrin tightened both hands around his greatsword. “I’m sure Lord Falbium has a plan.”

“He had better,” she said bitterly, even as her mind was briefly filled with those grey eyes that often haunted her thoughts.

With little fanfare, the two of them descended to KREK-JJGH-HRKY’s aid.

Cornelia poured summoned waves of undead and unleashed powerful necromantic curses into Ófnir’s spirit while Jaqrin carved deep wounds through Amhuluk’s diseased aura. Above them, KREK-JJGH-HRKY repeatedly swallowed the dragons’ attacks and folded shadows around their limbs, slowing each charge long enough for the two Devils to evade. The exchanges continued across the ruined reality, every collision breaking more of the dead landscape and widening the cracks across the isolated sky.

But gradually, the dragons adapted.

Ófnir began feinting with its breath, forcing Cornelia to teleport before turning toward wherever her magic would reassemble her. And at one critical exchange, she recognized his ploy one exchange too late.

As she had just teleported from its crushing tail swipe that shattered a chasm several miles long, she found that the drake had disappeared from her sight.

In that moment, instinct drove Cornelia to raise every defense she possessed, and layers of crimson barriers unfolded around her while bone and phantom armor hardened across her body.

But it was too late.

Pain erupted through her world and Cornelia froze in place, her eyes wide as slowly she looked down and met the savage delight in the Black Flame Drake’s gaze.

Cornelia felt her right arm vanish first, followed by most of her shoulder and torso as a single massive black talon tore through the entire right side of her body. The impact hurled what remained of her across the sky, scattering blood and fragments of flesh through the air. Her magic collapsed. She could no longer feel one of her wings, and the distant ground blurred beneath her as her consciousness began to slow to painful, singular focus.

Her regeneration tried to answer but… oh… my heart’s been destroyed.

Without a heart, her vampiric regeneration could not work. The most powerful Vampires could regenerate from a speck of blood, but she hadn’t reached that point that yet.

Yet… heh. I suppose I never will now.

She crashed to the ground and a fresh wave of pain erupted through her… but it mattered little. She was already dead… these last few breaths in her one remaining lung were but a formality.

Her eyes searched the black skies, and from a distance she could still hear the roar of dragons. Jaqrin would not last long, and KREK-JJGH-HRKY would be forced to retreat. At the very least, she would survive.

But then…

Cornelia heaved a breath, as her severed lungs filled with blood and she coughed up a mouthful of what little vitality she had left.

Lord Falbium was still there, he was still holding this dead dimension together. Those same grey eyes she had imagined earlier came back into her mind. Those same grey eyes that she always found herself staring into ever since she first saw them over four-hundred years ago.

She would like to see them again… at least, one last time.

Because those damn eyes were the reason she had even joined him in the first place. The way they had looked right past her beauty and power and seen her. But she wouldn’t be able to see them again… there wasn’t a chance in Hell the lazy bastard would come for her, not even on her death bed.

She wanted to laugh – for all her power and ability, here she was, yearning in death for one last look from her master.

What a pathetic way to die, Cornelia.

As if to prove her point, Jaqrin appeared next to her, his face bloody yet morphed into one of terror and shock. She met his blue eyes – not grey, her mind said – and she tried to smile, but she couldn’t quite muster the energy.

Well, at least a friend and comrade she had cherished for centuries was a solid consolation prize.

Jaqrin quickly kneeled next to her and put a hand on her brow. “Hang in there, Cornelia. You’re going to be fine.”

The Pawn’s blue eyes glowed a monstrous red color, and the last vestiges of life within her spasmed as she felt something heinous and ruinous invade what remained of her body. And she wanted to scream as she suddenly felt as if she were set on fire.

From that burning, her bones extended from the ragged remains of Cornelia’s shoulder, rebuilding her ribs and arm as cords of sinew wound around the pale framework. Muscle spread over them in dense, crimson layers before newly formed skin sealed everything beneath it. Blood formed in the air before coalescing in long ribbons as it streamed back into her veins. And within her restored chest, a heart took shape and struck its first heavy beat. Cornelia then drew in a deep breath and felt her new lungs expand and fill with cold air.

She shuddered as life flooded through her reconstructed body.

Cornelia sat up with a jolt and looked down in amazement as she flexed her pale and bare new arm.

Ah, but not new.

The power of Vassago – the Theft of the Past.

It had once made the first Vassago one of the most dreaded Demons among the Seventy-Two Pillars. He could steal torment and misfortune from others, feeding upon their suffering and misery until it became his own strength. With sufficient effort, he could even steal a person’s history in its entirety, stripping away every experience and connection that had shaped them until the victim remained alive as an empty husk bereft of a past.

Though that ancient power had thinned considerably within his descendants; Jaqrin could steal only thirty seconds.

But for Cornelia, thirty seconds had been more than enough.

She gave him a shaky smile, “Thanks, old friend. I owe you.”

“You don’t,” he snorted as he stood up and offered her a hand. “I’m sending you right back at those dragons.”

She clasped his hand and stood quickly, readying her magic and power, allowing it to clad her reformed body protectively.

Ironically, from beside her, Jaqrin’s own aura had vastly increased – by gorging himself on the pain and suffering of her near death, he had gained a massive bolster to his power. And not just the death… but the heart grief caused by those grey eyes still watching her from her memories.

It was a tad bit embarrassing having that part of her pain being made apparent to Jaqrin, but she’d take that over being dead any day.

Cornelia’s newly formed heart struck another beat, and her anger exploded with it.

Dark magic poured from her reconstructed body as she launched herself into the air, spreading across the ruined dimension in a vast web of violet summoning circles. The ground ruptured beneath them, and undead began clawing their way into existence by the thousands. Skeletons emerged first, followed by rotting giants, armored revenants, and enormous beasts assembled from the remains of creatures that had not walked any mortal world in millennia. A skeletal dragon hauled itself from the largest circle, spreading tattered wings as necrotic fire burned within its empty ribs. It possessed only a fraction of the strength wielded by Ófnir and Amhuluk, but Cornelia had not summoned it to fight alone.

More than a hundred thousand undead answered her will.

She then closed both hands and the horde collapsed upon itself.

Bone, flesh, and armor flowed together beneath the pressure of her necromancy, swallowing the skeletal dragon and reforming into four immense bodies. Each titan rivaled the living dragons in size, their limbs constructed from interlocking skeletons while countless hands and jaws writhed across their rotting flesh.

Two hurled themselves upon Ófnir, locking their arms around its neck and forelegs. The others tackled Amhuluk from opposite sides and drove the Abyssal Plague into the broken earth.

KREK-JJGH-HRKY reinforced their assault. Enormous hands rose from every shadow remaining across the devastated landscape and closed around the dragons’ limbs, torsos, and jaws. Darkness layered itself over them until both creatures were bound beneath the combined weight of the Queen’s power and Cornelia’s titans.

Jaqrin immediately took advantage and flew at the two dragons.

The torment he had stolen from Cornelia burned through his aura as he flashed between the restrained wyrms, bringing his greatsword down again and again. Each blow carved across their scales and left another shallow cut behind. None penetrated deeply enough to threaten the dragons’ lives, but their snarls sharpened as dozens of wounds accumulated across their bodies.

But shallow wounds were sufficient for Cornelia.

She reached toward the blood spilling from Ófnir’s flank and curled her fingers. The crimson streams swelled, refusing to clot as her blood magic widened every cut Jaqrin had inflicted. Necrotic power then followed, seeping beneath sundered scales and infecting the exposed flesh, causing it to blacken and swell with pus and bile. She repeated the curses upon Amhuluk, turning thin sword marks into darkened wounds that bled corrupted water and foul-smelling blood.

For the first time, they had managed to meaningfully injure the dragons.

And they responded with apocalyptic fury.

Ófnir thrashed within the mass of undead, pulverizing thousands of bodies with every movement. Amhuluk tore one titan’s arm away and drowned another beneath an eruption of poisoned water. The isolated dimension shook around them, its fractured sky bending as the two wyrms strained against the powers holding them.

Above the battle, KREK-JJGH-HRKY released a series of deep growls and wet, gurgling noises. Cornelia understood the warning beneath them. Their Queen could not maintain her grip much longer.

“Fine, fine, I’ll do something.”

Cornelia whirled around and her heart skipped a beat as she saw those grey eyes she thought about in death.

Lord Falbium floated in the air with his hands tucked into his pockets, looking every bit as inconvenienced as he had while reclining upon his boulder. Relief swept through Cornelia. Her master had finally decided to intervene.

Then Lord Falbium released his aura, and the relief curdled into dread.

Grey power erupted from the Crown Prince and spread through the isolated reality, draining vitality and motion from everything it touched. Cornelia had witnessed his Sin many times across the centuries, but familiarity offered no protection from the horror of standing within the immediate presence of one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Especially as her soul was bound to him via one of his Evil Pieces.

The Sin of Sloth crept past his flesh like a vile contamination, reaching beyond the physical world to impose stillness upon magic, thought, and existence itself.

The dragons sensed it and Ófnir and Amhuluk thrashed harder against their restraints as their eyes began burning crimson. Their auras surged violently, climbing beyond the already monstrous heights they had possessed.

“They’re entering Outrage!” Jaqrin shouted.

However, a high-pitched whine pierced Cornelia’s ears and every other sound disappeared.

The dragons’ roars vanished first, followed by the shaking of the earth and the tortured noises of their Queen. Cornelia saw Jaqrin’s mouth moving but heard nothing. Her vision blurred around the edges, colors bleeding together until Falbium’s distant shape became little more than a grey shadow.

Her mouth went dry and she couldn’t even taste the breath on her tongue…

Cornelia tried to raise a barrier, but her magic refused to answer. The pathways through which she had wielded it remained intact; they had simply become too lethargic to function. She attempted to teleport and could not gather enough will to complete the thought.

A dull heaviness spread through her consciousness.

Her thoughts began to slur together as every instinct urging her to move, flee, or defend herself lost its weight. The battle no longer seemed urgent. The dragons no longer seemed dangerous. Even remaining upright demanded an effort she could no longer understand why she should make.

Her wings folded behind her and Cornelia fell to her knees upon the broken ground, her hands hanging loosely at her sides as darkness gathered around the edges of her vision and her eyes slowly began to close.

She felt the soft lull of oblivion overcome her.

And then Cornelia awoke with a sudden start.

She dragged in a sharp breath and blinked blearily at the broken ground beneath her. Her thoughts remained sluggish, while a lingering numbness clung to her senses, but the terrible pressure smothering her mind had disappeared. Lord Falbium must have withdrawn his Sin, she realized.

Cornelia then planted one hand against the earth and tried to stand, but her legs trembled beneath her, refusing to cooperate. However, one of KREK-JJGH-HRKY’s tentacles descended from the darkened sky and gently coiled around her waist. The limb lifted her onto her feet and remained beside her until she regained her balance.

“Thank you, Dearest,” Cornelia murmured, patting its glistening surface.

A soft gurgle answered her.

Nearby, Jaqrin sat amid the rubble and rubbed both hands over his face as though attempting to scrape the sleep from his eyes.

 “How long were we unconscious?” he groaned

“Oh, about ten minutes,” Falbium answered from behind them in a nonchalant voice.

Cornelia turned and found her master standing with both hands in his pockets, looking entirely miffed at having to be on his feet. KREK-JJGH-HRKY proceeded to release a long sequence of wet, reproachful noises from above.

Lord Falbium frowned up at her. “I held back, didn’t I?”

The Queen’s nearest tentacle wiggled with obvious skepticism.

Cornelia’s attention then moved beyond them, where two colossal cocoons of living shadow rested upon the wasteland. Their surfaces shifted with the outlines of immense bodies, and she could sense Ófnir and Amhuluk imprisoned within, both unnaturally still. Falbium’s power saturated their minds, holding the ancient dragons in a slumber so profound that even their fury had become too lethargic to continue.

Her master glanced between her and Jaqrin.

“Good job keeping them occupied. It would have been far too cumbersome to ensnare their minds while actively holding them off. They would have fallen into Outrage almost instantly.”

Cornelia looked from the shadowed cocoons to her master, and understanding settled over her with growing ire.

Lord Falbium hadn’t just been just reinforcing the dimension and protecting the Underworld as he claimed. While Cornelia, Jaqrin, and KREK-JJGH-HRKY occupied the dragons, he had been winding imperceptible strands of Sloth into their minds. Every moment had given his Sin more time to spread, dulling instincts and weakening their resistance. It wasn’t just to avoid having the dragons fall into outrage… it was so he could end the battle with as little effort as possible.

They had been glorified decoys.

The sour look Jaqrin directed at their master told her that he had reached the same conclusion. Above them, KREK-JJGH-HRKY released a sequence of disgruntled growls and wet, accusatory gurgles.

“I quite agree, Dearest,” Cornelia said. “You’re a cold and callous bastard, my Lord.”

Falbium rolled his eyes. “It worked, didn’t it? No one died.”

“…I nearly did,” Cornelia said softly.

And immediately those grey eyes fell on her heavy, and she felt her heart manage to lodge itself in her throat. Briefly, she saw his gaze flicker over to her bare right arm, but he quickly looked away with a sigh.

“Oh, very well,” he said, running a hand through his dark hair. “I’ll give you all a reward. What do you want?”

Jaqrin pushed himself to his feet and fixed Lord Falbium with a sour look. “I wouldn’t mind a pay raise, my Lord. Let’s say, triple my salary?”

“Oh, sod off!” the Demon Lord exclaimed with a cry. “Triple?”

When Jaqrin only answered by raising a single eyebrow, Lord Falbium pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “Fine, fine! Bloody Sirzechs and his damnable hazard pay laws.”

Above them, KREK-JJGH-HRKY squirmed across the darkened sky and released a hopeful sequence of gurgles. Several tentacles curled together beseechingly while hundreds of mouths produced what Cornelia recognized as a carefully rehearsed pitch.

Falbium looked upward and asked incredulously, “Three years?! What in Lucifer’s name do you need three years’ worth of paid time off for?!”

The Queen’s tentacles waved with immediate delight.

“A concert in the Andromeda galaxy!? What kind of concert lasts three bloomin’ years?! Oh, never mind – have your damned time off!”

 Those grey eyes then fell on her, and despite the obvious irritation within, she couldn’t help but feel the anticipation within herself.

“And you, Cornelia? What rational and reasonable demand do you ha-”

“Marry me.”

The words came out before she could even stop herself and everything fell dead silent. The Demon Lord looked utterly gobsmacked and Jaqrin stared absolutely dumbfounded. As for KREK-JJGH-HRKY… she was vibrating and twirling in her shadows, which Cornelia was quite certain was the eldritch equivalent of a girl’s high-pitched scream.

The Crown Prince opened and closed his mouth in rapid succession, and for the first time since she had known him, he was left utterly speechless.

Very slowly, he raised a finger and pointed firmly at her. “We will discuss this later.”

She merely raised an eyebrow at him, but she was both too tired and too concerned with the rest of the Empire to press the point. But yes, they certainly would be talking about this later.

Jaqrin snorted from the side and said, “Only took you four-hundred years.”

She gave him an annoyed look. “Oh, shut up, Jaqrin.”

KREK-JJGH-HRKY’s tentacles swooped down around her and vibrated excitedly.

“Oh, honey,” Cornelia said softly. “Of course you’re going to be one of my bridesmaids.”

“I said later,” drawled the Demon Lord as he approached the two slumbering dragons within the cocoons of shadow. With a wave of his hand, he shrunk them both down to the size of marbles and deftly deposited them into his pocket.

“What are you going to do with them, my Lord?” she asked politely. Risky marriage proposal and confession aside, he was still a Crown Prince of Hell and she wasn’t about to outright defy a command from him.

Lord Falbium plainly said, “I’ll hand them over to Ajuka, I’m sure he’ll have some use for them. But for now, from what I’m sensing, it’s best we go reinforce Sera.”

Jaqrin let out a tired sigh and said, “And by we you mean…?

“You, obviously.”

“Obviously,” she repeated.

Lucifer, he was such a bastard.

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A/N: Not gonna lie, I didn't enjoy writing this chapter very much, but that has more to do with the constant dull ache in my jaw and my mind addled with painkillers.

Anyways, I hope you all have a lovely weekend! Cheers!