As the declaration of Alichino rang out upon the battlefield, the freezing winds of the Eighth Circle seemed to catch in the throat of the world.
Lavinia, still hovering amidst the glittering remnants of her white mist looked at the sudden change with a confused tilted head. Her eyes, still glowing with the faint light of her Balance Breaker, scanned the scene where a moment ago a death match had been inevitable between Jay and the Asmodeus' Sword of Desire.
"Hm? What happened..." she muttered to herself, her voice barely a whisper.
From the ground, Jay watched as Alichino's figure began to ripple.
Suddenly, her body was engulfed in a tide of ink-like black demonic energy. The silhouette of the white-haired woman thinned as her physical form collapsing inward and merging into the jagged jet-black sword she wielded.
The transformation was seamless, like a soul returning to its vessel. Her weapon form manifested completely as the longsword dropped toward the ground, its tip biting into the frozen ground.
Ame-no-Murakumo slowly dissolved into a flurry of light particles, retreating back into Jay's pocket dimension as he stepped forward and reached down to pick his new sword.
His fingers wrapping firmly around the hilt of the Sword of Desire.
Instantly, Jay felt a jolt of electricity shoot up his arm.
It was a strange sensation, he felt as if he had wielded this sword for a lifetime. The grip fit his palm like a glove, the weight balanced perfectly against his center of gravity. As cliché as the thought was, there was no other way to explain the synchronization that occurred the moment he tightened his hand on it's hilt.
'Alichino… Can you hear me?' Jay projected his thoughts, testing the bridge between his mind and the sentient blade.
'Yes, Master,' her voice echoed back. It was clearer now as a resonant consciousness dwelling within the sword.
'I see. So this is the difference if I wielded the Evil Claws with its soul instead of separating the two of them…' Jay mused.
The connection was intimate, allowing him to feel the faint pulse of her demonic power through the hilt. It was a far more sophisticated tool than the hollow vessels of the rest of Evil Claws he had looted earlier.
'Alichino… I have a question. I noticed that your leader is not here. Where is he?'
'He… He said he was waiting for you…'
'Oh?' Jay thought.
The sheer confidence of the statement surprised him.
Though if the legends held true, that even the original Satans were said to have feared unsealing the leader of the Malebranche, then that confidence was likely for a reason.
Jay shifted his gaze to the remnants of the Evil Claws. There was the massive Crimson Dragon, the red-faced terror Rubicante perched atop its head like a lunatic, and the veiled, purple-haired woman standing in the pale shadow of the icy ground.
"Why don't we just end this fight..." Jay said to the three of them.
His voice was calm but sharp as it cutting through the tension around them.
He honestly hadn't expected the fight against these legendary weapons to be this easy. He thought that despite their immense power and conceptually broken abilities, they don't really know how to fight at least in their normal form.
Or perhaps, the more likely reason was simply that he had become that much stronger.
"HA HA HA... A KING SHOULD NEV-"
SPLURTTT
Rubicante's speech was cut off with a sickening wet sound.
Out of nowhere, Jay appeared atop the dragon's body, teleporting faster than Rubicante's perceptions could register. With a single, brutal slash of Ame-no-Habakiri, he severed Rubicante's head in an instant.
The head flew through the air, tumbling toward the ground in a spray of dark crimson blood.
The black flame on the Grail, which hovered faithfully at Jay's side, flickered on its rim.
In a second, the red-faced terror's soul was wrenched from its human vessel and absorbed into the black chalice.
What remained of him was a red crown. It floated before Jay for a heartbeat as the physical body beneath it began to decompose into ash. Before the crown could fall, Jay snatched it from the air and tossed it into his pocket dimension.
Sensing the intruder on his back, Draghignazzo twisted his massive neck, looking at Jay as if he were staring at a ghost.
His yellow, reptilian eyes, rimmed with blackened scales, stared at Jay as he stood on his back.
Jay did not move. He simply stared back, meeting the dragon's gaze with the cold, piercing light of Avesta.
They remained in a silent staring contest for a long moment, the wind whistling through the dragon's wings. Then, the dragon let out a low, grunting sound.
It was growling vibration of submission that surprised Jay.
He widened his eyes.
'I thought a dragon like him would have a hard time bowing to a human... Wait, is he perhaps sensing Avesta as a danger...' Jay thought. The dragon's reaction was almost amusing.
He wished he could ask for an answer, but apparently the beast lacked the gift of speech.
'Probably because you smell like a Dragonslayer, Master,' Alichino answered, her voice ringing in his mind.
'Alichino... don't read my mind or I will never use you in a fight,' Jay retorted.
The white-haired woman fell silent.
'.... I'm sorry, Master. I'll never do that again,' Alichino whispered, there are some sadness in her voice.
'Anyway, you mentioned about smelling like a Dragonslayer. What is that about?'
'Um... We Evil Claws can read each other's minds. Basically, Draghignazzo thinks that you... and that jet-black blade... are tingling his sense of danger. That's also the reason why he hesitated to attack you earlier,' Alichino explained.
Jay took a moment to process that.
'Well, I have killed a dragon, a powerful one at that... but to think that someone's presence can change based on what he kills is rather... Supernatural.'
'It's more like an instinct, Master. That's also the same thing that I felt when I saw your black flame,' Alichino replied.
"I see."
Jay watched as the dragon slowly descended, its massive talons gripping the ice with a heavy thud.
And Jay casually hopped off its back, landing softly on the icy crimson-ground. He then looked into the dragon's face one last time before turning his body to face the last standing member of the group.
The veiled, purple-haired woman.
"What about you?" Jay pointed the black sword at her.
Libicocco didn't flinch.
In fact, she seemed to be ignoring the threat entirely as she began to walk toward him with an unusual, haunting grace.
Her black wedding dress fluttered across the icy wind, the lace dragging through the frost. And then, something happened that defied all logic and expectation.
Libicocco suddenly threw herself forward, her arms spreading wide as if to pull Jay into a desperate hug.
Before she could even get within a meter, Jay's eyes narrowed.
"Stop."
The desire was absolute.
And in an instant, her body was frozen in motion, her momentum cancelled by the conceptual ability of the Sword of Desire.
Jay had used the weapon's ability for the first time, instinctively. He cast a wary glance toward Lavinia, who was watching from the sidelines. She wasn't angry or preparing a blizzard. She was…
'Smiling?' Jay thought, feeling a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the frozen hell. He turned his head back to the purple-haired woman.
Libicocco had a heavily flustered face, her cheeks flushed a deep rose despite the cold, and there was a frantic, borderline crazy look in her eyes that made Jay's skin crawl.
He looked at her with a mixture of confusion and genuine concern for her sanity.
'Hey Alichino, what is wrong with her? Can you read her mind?'
'... Um, it seems like she wants to marry you, Master.'
'What the fuck?' Jay's eyebrows shot up.
He stared at the frozen woman, whose eyes were still darting toward him with terrifying affection.
Without a second thought or a shred of hesitation, three dark purple portals manifested around Libicocco. The Chains of Envy erupted from the portals, wrapping around her voluptuous body and tightening it with a metallic screech.
But instead of screaming in agony as the obsidian links bit into her flesh, a look of pure, ecstatic pleasure crossed her face.
Jay watched the display with a completely empty, deadpan expression.
'There is no way... Let's just seal her, shall we?'
'I agree, Master,' Alichino nodded spiritually, her voice sounding just as disturbed as Jay felt.
The black flame on the rim of the Grail flickered once, twice, and then surged as Libicocco's soul was slowly wrenched from her body and absorbed into the black chalice.
As the process finished, her physical form began to crumble, turning into a fine dust that scattered across the icy ground. The only thing that remained was the black veil she had worn, fluttering momentarily in the wind before settling on the snow.
"Now, that makes it the last of them..." Jay muttered, his voice a low rasp against the settling silence of the frozen wasteland.
His gaze fixed on the horizon.
Slowly, he watched Lavinia's figure descend from the sky. She drifted downward with an ethereal lightness, her white aura still enveloping her body in a shimmering light that pulsed with the rhythm of her mana.
She was smiling, her expression filled with a relief.
"Is that everything... Illya-kun?" she asked as her boots finally touched the permafrost, sending a small puff of crystalline dust into the air.
"Yeah. Now the last thing we need to do is to take Ars Goetia and probably defeat the leader of the Malebranche, Malacoda the Evil Tail, in the process... Alichino said that he was waiting for us," Jay said, his hand tightening slightly on the hilt of the black blade.
"Alichino?" Lavinia tilted her head, her blonde icy hair spilling over her shoulder as she looked at him with a puzzled blink.
"Ah... Alichino is this sword," Jay explained, lifting the jagged black longsword slightly.
Before Lavinia could respond, a voice resonated directly from the steel itself. It was a soothing, hauntingly melodic tone that carried a strange hollow echo.
"Hello, Master's wife... I am Alichino. It was a pleasure meeting you."
The voice was clear, but Jay and Lavinia were both caught by a completely different detail than the mere existence of a talking, sentient weapon.
Jay's eyes widened slightly, and Lavinia's entire face lit up with a radiant, mischievous glow.
"A wife!? Aww~, You are such a sweetie Alicchan~! It was a pleasure meeting you too. Take care of Illya-kun, alright?" Lavinia said, her voice lilting with a sudden, overwhelming affection for the supposedly Evil Soul residing in the blade.
"I am his sword. That is my duty," Alichino replied. The voice remained perfectly emotionless, offering no hint of warmth despite the high praise she was receiving.
"Right~" Lavinia giggled, clearly charmed by the formal response.
While Jay simply looked down at his sword, his eyebrows raised in a pure skepticism.
"So, where is Ars Goetia located?" Lavinia asked, refocusing on their objective as she stepped closer to Jay.
"If what the Grail and Alichino said is true, then it's still quite far from here," Jay said, scanning the desolate plains that stretched out toward the frozen crimson horizon, with giant walls of ice enveloping it.
"I see... So, how do we get there?"
Hearing Lavinia's question, Jay turned his gaze toward the crimson dragon.
The massive beast was already resting on the ground, its gargantuan obisidian wings tucked neatly against its armored sides in a display of silent submission.
"Now that you said it, there is actually a perfect accommodation to get there..."
***
High above the crimson sky of Malebolge, the dragon cut through the stagnant air with thunderous beats of its wings.
Its span was so vast, it casting a gargantuan shadow over the frozen armies of artificially created Devils that lay dormant on the ground below.
Despite its size, the dragon flew with a terrifying speed, the wind screaming as it whipped around its jagged hide.
On top of its broad muscular back, Jay and Lavinia stood firmly. The wind buffeted them with incredible force, but they remained unmoved as they surveyed the grim panorama of Hell from a vantage point few mortals would ever witness.
"This is amazing~" Lavinia called out, her voice carrying an infectious sense of wonder.
"I mean, you literally fly every time you fight and also haven't you ridden your Ice Dragon, Lavi?" Jay asked, his hair whipping wildly across his face.
"No, I mean the view!" Lavinia's voice was partially beaten back by the gale hitting their bodies, but her eyes remained fixed on the world below.
'The view?' Jay looked down, his expression hardening into one of disbelief.
From this height, all he could see was a bleak tapestry of suffering and despair. There was the frozen crimson ground that looked like clotted blood. He saw lakes of boiling ichor that hissed into the atmosphere, and the infinitesimal flickers of several souls wandering aimlessly through the waste.
'What is she even talking about?' He wondered.
"You don't seem surprised, Illya-kun! I thought you haven't ridden a dragon before!" Lavinia said, noticing his stoic, analytical gaze.
"Does riding on top of Azi Dahaka's body count as one?" Jay asked dryly.
"Kinda? But yeah... It's fun, isn't it?" Lavinia said, her laughter ringing out as she reached over and grabbed his hand, her fingers interlaced with his to ground him in the moment.
Jay simply nodded, conceding to the sensation.
They traveled for an hour across the blood-red expanse, the dragon's wings carving a path through the heavy sulfurous clouds.
And finally, Jay felt it.
An immense, overwhelming aura began to emanate from a specific point on the ground ahead, as it was pressing against them. From atop the dragon's back, Jay and Lavinia saw a structure emerge from the haze. It was a shrine, but it looked like a total anomaly in the middle of the wasteland.
The surrounding terrain was the usual scarred, crimson desert, but the shrine itself was nestled within a lush sanctuary full of greenery.
Fine, vibrant green grass carpeted the earth, and clusters of various flowers in colors of ivory and pale lavender swayed in a breeze that shouldn't have existed in Hell. The shrine itself was crafted from pure white stone, gleaming with a celestial radiance that stood in stark contrast to the dark crimson sky.
"Is that the place where Ars Goetia is stored?" Lavinia asked, her voice dropping into a solemn whisper.
Jay nodded in response to her question, his eyes fixed on the white architecture.
"Yeah... And inside that shrine..."
Jay paused. He could feel it now. It was an ominous, cloying presence.
The dragon began its descent, banking sharply as it glided toward the flowery gate of the sanctuary.
It landed with a heavy, controlled thud as Jay and Lavinia hopped off its back, their boots sinking into the unnaturally soft, fragrant grass.
As they stepped forward.
Suddenly, a figure manifested from the depths of the white stone interior.
The figure was a towering, otherworldly entity that seemed to be sculpted from deep crimson and blackened red minerals.
Its body was elongated and asymmetrical, shifting with a slow, internal luminescence like living, molten crystal. Vein-like tendrils and shard-like growths extended from its limbs and torso, creating an organic silhouette that felt both skeletal and heavily armored.
At its crown sat a single, burning eye embedded within a circular, halo-like structure, radiating an ominous, godlike presence that commanded the very air around it.
Jay activated Avesta, the golden light in his eyes deconstructing the figure before him. As he scanned the entity, his mind was hit with a singular, terrifying concept that formed the foundation of the creature's existence.
Unlike the other Evil Claws, this being was constructed of one thing.
Evil
"So that is Malacoda The Evil Tail," Lavinia muttered, her hand tightening on her staff as she felt an ancient malice radiating from the being.
A voice, surreal and inhuman, then lingered into the grassy field of the Shrine.
"It's a pleasure to meet you again... Spirit,"
Malacoda said, his one eye fixed on Jay.
"Huh?"