Ajuka Beelzebub stood at the center of the chamber, his eyes narrowed.
He watched the man in front of him with analytical intensity. The intruder's heavy black cloak fluttered violently with every powerful beat of the dragon's wings as he rode it. Ajuka was able to identify the beast instantly. How could he not recognize one of the creatures he had sealed in the past, one of the Twelve Evil Claws, Malabranche.
'Draghignazzo the Nasty Sneering Dragon... and that sword, Alichino the Harlequin,' Ajuka thought, his mind quickly analyzing the legendary weapons.
The Maou stared into the absolute darkness beneath the intruder's hood.
Ajuka then stared at the darkness beneath the hood. Despite not knowing whether the person in front of him was the same one who attacked the stadium, Ajuka's instincts told him otherwise. All of these attacks had happened in a very short time. The stadium attack, the chaos in Agares City just hours ago, and the breaking of the sealed Malebolge.
"And he is a half-devil too," Ajuka noted as he scanned the demonic energy flowing within the intruder's body.
To Ajuka, there were far too many coincidences for these events to be dismissed as separate incidents. Deep within his mind, the scientist in him demanded proof and refused to accept any conclusion without a clear and verifiable chain of logic. Yet his intuition whispered a different truth. Beyond calculation and reason, something within him had already reached its verdict.
He was certain that the man standing before him was the orchestrator who had set all of this chaos into motion.
"Thousands of people being killed... all of that just for those weapons," Ajuka said, his voice echoing with a low, dangerous resonance through the chamber.
Jay remained silent, the hood obscuring any reaction he might have had.
He didn't attempt to justify his actions, nor did he feel the need to deny the accusations.
After all, everything Ajuka said was true.
'But what is the point of counting numbers? What difference is there between killing a million people, killing thousands, or taking even a single life? In the end, all of them are the same. A murderer, nothing more and nothing less,' Jay thought.
Every life is priceless. To weigh one against another is disingenuous. Killing only one person does not make you morally superior to those who have killed many.
And without a second of warning or a shift in his posture, Jay sent a sharp mental whisper through his connection to the blade.
"Teleport."
Immediately, a thick shroud of dark demonic energy engulfed Jay's figure and the crimson dragon.
The spatial authority of Alichino took hold, attempting to rip them out of the chamber and into somewhere elese.
However, Ajuka was faster.
With just a flick of his fingers, hundreds of green magical circles manifested in the air, glowing with a neon light that saturated the darkness.
Jay raised his hand, his Avesta igniting as he tried to deconstruct and nullify the interference of Ajuka's magic. Yet the number of magic circles was far too great to cancel all at once. The Kankara Formula had rewritten the physical laws of the space they occupied, reducing his Desire to teleport to nothing.
Alichino's dark energy dissipated like smoke in a gale, and the teleportation failed completely.
'Tsk...Even Alichino's Desire is categorized as a phenomenon,' Jay realized.
But the question remained: how far could he rewrite the natural order of the world? What were the limits? That was a question Jay needed answered if he hoped to stand a chance against this Super Devil.
Jay then raised his gloved left hand, and suddenly, dozens of dark purple portals spiraled into existence around Ajuka Beelzebub.
KRIIIING
Ajuka's eyes widened slightly as the familiar, chilling rattle of obsidian chains filled the room.
'Calcabrina too?'
Before Ajuka could reposition himself, the obsidian Chains of Envy shot out with predatory speed. They wrapped around Ajuka's limbs and torso, constricting tightly until he was encased in a metallic, pitch-black mummy.
Jay didn't waste the opening as Draghignazzo let out a guttural hiss and rushed forward, its massive claws digging into the stone.
Jay's cloak fluttered in the wind of the charge as he leveled the jagged black blade of Alichino toward the center of the bind.
The dragon unhinged its massive jaws, revealing a throat glowing with the intensity of a dying star.
And then, he whispered under his hood.
"Dracarys!"
RARGHHH
FWUOOOOOM
A torrent of dark crimson demonic flame erupted, washing over the encased Ajuka. It was a burst of hellfire so incredibly hot that it transcended the physical properties of any fire, even one created with magic.
The heat began to corrode and melt the Chains of Envy themselves, turning the marble walls and the stone floor of the chamber into fine white ash upon contact. The atmosphere in the room turned into a superheated vacuum.
In a blur of speed, Jay vanished from the dragon's back and reappeared behind the Maou, his blade positioned for a lethal strike.
"Unstoppable."
Black demonic energy crackled and danced along Alichino's jagged edge.
Jay thrust the sword forward, the concept of the strike designed to pierce through any armor or barrier to find Ajuka's heart.
But suddenly, Jay's eyes widened. He felt a presence, a sharp pressure from behind him... And in a black flash of reflex, he spun his body, swinging his blade around.
CLANK
The black demonic energy was nullified by the Kankara Formula, and so was its desire.
The sound of the collision was like a lightning strike. A spark of black metal hitting a sword formed of pure, solidified green demonic energy lit up the chamber.
Ajuka stood there, completely unscathed, having manifested behind Jay, while what was supposed to be himself inside the burning chains was nothing but air.
But it did not bother Jay in the slightest.
"Stop Moving."
The command of the sword rippled outward.
Ajuka found himself suddenly suspended in time, his body locked in place as the law of the Sword of Desire took hold. Jay moved with predatory efficiency, spinning his grip for a horizontal slash aimed to decapitate the Satan.
However, in that microsecond, hundreds of identical Kankara Formula magical circles appeared in a dense, orbiting shell around Ajuka.
Ajuka's eyes remained sharp as he watched the hooded figure.
'Try to cancel my Formula,' Ajuka thought.
Jay narrowed his eyes.
The Maou was using his Kankara Formula with extreme redundancy. By activating hundreds of magic circles simultaneously, he prevented Jay's Avesta from being able to cancel his magic like he did before.
Activating hundreds of magic circles at the same time was not a light task. As a magician himself, Jay understood this better than anyone.
But of course, with the sole exception of the greatest mind in the Underworld, Ajuka Beelzebub.
CLANK
Ajuka, having regained his mobility as his formula overwrote Jay's Desire, parried the black sword with his own energy blade.
"Explode."
BOOM
The energy sword in Ajuka's hand shattered into a million jagged shards under the conceptual weight of the Desire.
And Alichino's blade continued its arc, moving to slash the Maou's throat. But suddenly, the air itself seemed to resist Jay's movement. It was as if the wind had become hundreds times denser.
Jay's slash slowed significantly, his arm feeling as though it were being held back by a wall. The oxygen in the room became so compressed that breathing became painful.
'He can even influence the air like this... what is this power?' Jay thought, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Realizing he was trapped in a disadvantageous position, Jay used the momentum of the air resistance to kick off the ground and retreat. But Ajuka was relentless.
With a sharp swing of his hand, the Satan unleashed hundreds of invisible, enormous wind blades. They were silent and deadly, designed to shred anything in their path into microscopic pieces.
But-
"Dracarys!"
FWUOOOM
Draghignazzo sneered, its eyes glowing with a malicious light.
The dragon roared upward, unleashing another controlled burst of hellfire that fanned out like a shield. The flames incinerated the invisible wind blades, turning the winds into superheated air and creating a vacuum that disrupted Ajuka's control over the atmosphere.
From within the swirling embers and smoke, Jay descended gracefully back onto the dragon's neck.
He stood tall, his black cloak scorched but intact, as he and Ajuka stared at each other through the hazy darkness of the chamber.
Ajuka Beelzebub's sharp gaze fixed on the hooded silhouette atop the dragon.
His mind raced in disbelief.
'To be able to use one of the 12 Evil Claws is one thing, but how is he even able to subdue and use three of them at the same time? Those maniacs... they don't even bow to their own creators,' Ajuka thought, his brow furrowing behind his spectacles.
The history of the Malebranche was written in blood and madness.
The reason they had been sealed in the deepest, most forgotten reaches of the Underworld was not merely because of their god-slaying capabilities, though those were formidable enough. It was because they were mentally insane.
Each of the twelve was a maniac, a sentient disaster that refused to acknowledge any authority. Even the original four Satans, in all their primordial glory, had never dared to wield three of them simultaneously.
They were infamously uncontrollable, and that was the exact reason why Ajuka and Sirzechs had never attempted to integrate them into their own arsenal despite their immense power.
Even if the current Satans could technically best the human forms of the Malebranche in combat, wielding them as weapons required more than just strength.
It required a total submission from the weapons themselves.
These living weapons would rather rot in eternal confinement than be drawn by someone they did not hold in the highest regard.
Yet, here in the modern era, a nameless criminal stood using three of them with a terrifying, casual ease.
The weapons that even the original Satans were terrified to touch were now being swung by a terrorist.
But, one burning question drowned out all others in Ajuka's mind.
'Who are you!?'
***
Miles beneath the suspended Island, within the partially ruined Agares City, a circle of grey light carved itself into the cracked pavement. From the swirling mana, a young man with crimson hair and a woman with silver hair and a sharp maid's uniform emerged.
Sirzechs Lucifer and Grayfia Lucifuge.
The two of them immediately moved toward the makeshift evacuation centers.
Groups of Devil civilians, covered in soot and deep cuts, huddled together as medical teams in white lab coats moved among them, quickly treating the dying while also collecting information about the attack from the supposedly Old Satan Faction.
One of Ajuka's researchers, spotting the arrival of the Great Satan, hurried forward and gave a deep, hurried bow.
"Lucifer-sama, Beelzebub-sama has been waiting for you."
Sirzechs nodded, though his heart felt heavy. He had never doubted Ajuka's ability to handle the attack.
"How many people died?" Sirzechs asked.
"Around 1500 people died," the researcher said, his expression one of sorrow.
Sirzechs felt his jaw tighten.
The Devil race had been at its lowest point since the Great War. More than half of the 72 Pillars were extinct, and their overall population was at a historic low. Even if 1,500 didn't seem like much, it was actually a significant number in Devil society.
This was especially true considering how difficult reproduction was among Devils. The pregnancy rate was very low, sometimes requiring would-be parents hundreds of years to produce a single child, and having more than two children was considered rare.
This was also the reason why Ajuka, his own friend, had created the Evil Pieces. They were specifically designed to replenish the Devil population by reincarnating other species into Devils, ensuring that their kind would not go extinct.
"But, where is Ajuka?" Sirzechs asked, looking around.
"Beelzebub-sama said that there was something to check back at the lab," the man replied.
"I see..." Sirzechs muttered. He exchanged a glance with Grayfia, who gave a sharp, subtle shake of her head.
He then turned his gaze upward, toward the island suspended in the sky, where the heart of the Underworld's research was kept.
***
Back inside the subterranean chamber of Agreas Island, Jay's cloak continued to flutter as he stared at Ajuka with indifferent eyes. The dragon beneath him let out a low, vibrating growl that shook the very foundations of the room.
"As expected, fighting one of the Super Devils without my Black Flame would accomplish nothing. It is only a matter of time before he finds a gap in my defense and reaches me with his power," Jay thought.
He could feel Ajuka constantly probing for his weaknesses, searching for a window to strike.
Jay looked around and saw Ajuka stepping forward, his gaze fixed on him.
"You cannot run… there is no exit from here. Your teleportation magic will lead you nowhere but this room. So… why don't you just submit and let the law deliver justice for the suffering you have caused?" Ajuka said.
Though he generally considered himself an objective, laid-back scientist who preferred the laboratory to the battlefield, Ajuka took his responsibilities as a Maou seriously.
He was the shield of the Devil race, and he would never back down when their survival was at stake.
Just like his friend, Sirzechs.
But Jay just fell silent, his hood casting a deep shadow over his face as he looked up at the green-haired Satan.
Runaway?
The truth was, Jay could have broken the runes confining him and Lavinia inside Malebolge in seconds. With Avesta, any language or rune was as easy to read as a child's primer. He could have escaped, grabbed Lavinia, and vanished into the Dimensional Gap.
But he hadn't.
He had come back here of his own will.
There was a reason he had sent Lavinia away. There was a reason he had stayed behind to face one of the strongest existance in this world.
Why would he risk his life against one of the Four Satans?
Jay moved his left hand, and in a flash of dark light, a black obsidian scythe manifested in his left. The blade was curved like a crescent moon and felt as though it were made of solidified shadows.
Seeing another of the Malebranche appear, Ajuka's eyes widened in shock.
'No way... Graffiacane? Four of them...?' Ajuka thought, his hands moving faster as he prepared his spell.
While Jay stood his ground, his mind was fully focused on the final phase of his plan. He wasn't here to win this fight.
'Because from today onwards...'
He knew he couldn't defeat Ajuka in his current state. Even with his Black Flame, it was still too soon.
He was here for something else.
The Agreas Crystals,
The Evil Pieces,
The medium through which Devils reincarnate humans into Devils.
'...This whole island-
-will be no more.'