"Let's continue."
The words were spoken with a chillingdetachment that sent a shiver through the very foundations of the sky.
Sirzechs, Ajuka, and Grayfia remained frozen, their pupils dilated as they stared at the empty expanse of air where an army of thousands of Old Satan Faction Devils had stood only seconds earlier.
The drifting grey ash of the Old Satan Faction continued to rain down upon the city of Agares beneath them.
'He killed them all... just like that,' Grayfia thought, her breath hitching in her throat.
She found it nearly impossible to reconcile the reality before her with the young man standing atop the crimson beast.
He was not even older than Rias, yet he possessed a destructive power and lethality that bordered on that of the Satans. And not only that…
'He is just a human…'
An anomaly. That was the only word Grayfia could use to describe the man standing before her.
To annihilate thousands of high-class devils and an ultimate-class descendant of the original Satans in a single breath was a feat of such magnitude that even her husband, Sirzechs, would likely have to enter his True Form of the Human-Shaped Destruction to replicate it with such terrifying efficiency.
Ajuka Beelzebub narrowed his eyes, his mind working at speeds that surpassed any anyone in the Underworld.
The rhythmic sound of the obsidian scythe, Graffiacane, clinking against the dragon's scales echoed through the unnatural silence as Jay began to walk forward.
In his other hand, the jet-black blade of Ame-no-Habakiri remained unsheathed, enveloped in that same terrifying black aura that felt like a hole in the universe.
The Satans and Grayfia tensed instinctively. Their bodies, honed by centuries of combat and survival, hummed with a desperate readiness.
Every muscle was coiled like a spring as they watched the Godslayer advance.
'That black flame... I have never seen a phenomenon so destructive before,' Ajuka thought.
'Even Sirzechs' Power of Destruction, the literal concept of annihilation, is being consumed by it... And it's seems like my Kankara Formula can't comprehend what exactly it is... ?'
He was analyzing those terrifying flames, as the black flames simply annihilated everything they touched almost instantly. That was what made them so absurd.
And then Ajuka suddenly narrowed his eyes, as if something had just crossed his mind.
He adjusted his position, his fingers twitching as green equations began to orbit his wrists like glowing bracelets.
"Sirzechs, let me handle the black flame. You focus on him," Ajuka said, his voice steady despite the stakes.
Hearing his best friend's voice brought a flicker of focus back to Sirzechs' eyes.
"I will trust my defense to you, Ajuka! Just like the old days," Sirzechs said, as his crimson aura flaring with enough intensity to tint the clouds red.
"Just like the old days, huh," Ajuka smirked, a brief, sharp flash of nostalgia crossing his face.
But the expression vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by the grim mask of the One who held the world beneath his feet. He fixed his gaze on Zayyn Illya Kovalenko, studying him carefully.
Jay watched the three of them, his dark hazel eyes scanning their movements for the slightest opening.
By the look on Ajuka's face, it seemed as if the scientist had planned something in advance.
Jay couldn't pinpoint what it was, but he knew better than to underestimate the man who had created an outrageous technique like the Kankara Formula.
The real question was how he could gather enough time to activate Graffiacane's Embodiment of Evil, which, according to the grail, would take seven seconds to fully form.
Jay then considered something as he cast a glance at the grail.
'Hmm… that is worth trying.'
Before he could fully think through his plan, the atmosphere shifted. The mana in the vicinity suddenly imploded as Sirzechs Lucifer vanished in a flash of dark crimson light in the blink of an eye.
'Behind!' Jay shifted his body.
Sirzechs reappeared directly behind Jay, standing atop the back of the crimson dragon.
His hand was raised, gripping a massive, condensed ball of crimson destruction that hummed with a frequency that threatened to shatter the obsidian scales beneath them.
He moved to slam the sphere into Jay's back, intending to annihilate his whole body before he could react.
But Jay's reflexes were quick, and he spun his body one hundred and eighty degrees in a blur of motion, swinging the Habakiri in a wide, horizontal arc.
The blade became a streak of absolute darkness, slashing through the air as black flames danced along its edges.
SHIIING
The sphere of destruction was sliced perfectly in half.
And instead of exploding, the two halves disintegrated into nothingness.
In the presence of the black flame, the Power of Destruction suffered the very fate it normally inflicted on the world.
Annihilation. Erasure. End.
But the Crimson Satan was a man of peerless pedigree.
He didn't retreat. Instead, he channeled his power into his limbs, enveloping both of his hands in blade-shaped destruction.
The air rippled and groaned as every atom in the path of his hands was deleted as he moved, and with a swift movement, moving as fast as a predatory insect in flight, he launched a barrage.
SHUUUNG
Sirzechs thrust his right hand forward, the blade of destruction aimed to pierce Jay's stomach.
Jay leaned his body back at a precarious angle, utilizing the dragon's movement to create a sliver of space.
And as he dodged, he stamped his foot down, triggering a burst of black flame from beneath his boots.
"Burn Everlasting Sins."
FWUOOOM
A burst of black flame erupted between them, rushing toward Sirzechs as a wave of darkness designed to reduce the Maou to ash.
Sirzechs saw the pointed edge of his destruction blade begin to crumble into grey flakes of ash as it made contact with the flame.
His eyes widened in shock, and he prepared to bank away to avoid the lethal strike.
But then, something impossible happened.
FWUO-
The wall of black flame suddenly bent. It veered sharply to the side, as if caught in a localized hurricane, changing direction away from Sirzechs' body. The fire was redirected into the open sky, leaving the path between Sirzechs and Jay completely clear.
Jay's eyes widened.
He immediately snapped his gaze toward Ajuka Beelzebub, who was hovering several dozen meters away.
'So this is what he was planning,' Jay thought.
This was a first.
Usually, all of his opponents so far either died to the flame or spent every ounce of their energy dodging it.
No one had ever reached out and physically manipulated the direction of the flame.
Jay's Avesta ignited in his left eye, deconstructing hundreds of green Kankara Formula magical circles that orbited Ajuka Beelzebub that subtly altering the physical laws of the surrounding space.
And it seemed Ajuka was never trying to extinguish the flame.
Jay realized.
'Honestly, that makes perfect sense.'
But Jay didn't have the luxury of admiring the genius of Ajuka Beelzebub as in that same heartbeat, Sirzechs exploited the opening.
In a flash of red, the Crimson Satan appeared directly in front of Jay, his face a mask of determination. He thrust his left hand forward, the blade of destruction screaming as it moved to pierce Jay's heart, but suddenly-
"Suspended."
The word was a quiet decree that brought all of Sirzechs' momentum to a halt.
A jagged black blade, Alichino, slid out from a spatial slit in Jay's pocket dimension, hanging precariously in the sky like a needle in the fabric of the universe.
The conceptual weight of the Desire slammed into Sirzechs, and for a heartbeat that felt like an eternity, the Crimson Satan was frozen mid-motion, his body suspended in a void of forced stillness.
Jay did not waste the opening.
He swung his right hand, aiming to sever Sirzechs' head with the Habakiri.
As hundreds of dark purple portals tore open in the air surrounding the suspended Maou, their edges flickering with a malevolent, hungry light.
KRIIIIIIING
From within those apertures, hundreds of obsidian chains enveloped in dark purple demonic aura, Calcabrina's Chains of Envy slithered out like striking vipers. They hissed through the air, seeking to coil around Sirzechs' limbs and immobilize him as Jay aimed to kill him with a single slash.
But before either of the cold metals could make contact with the Satan's skin, a violent surge of pressure erupted from deep within Sirzechs' core.
His Power of Destruction refused to be bound by mere concepts.
Jay's eyes widened as his Avesta registered millions of runes signaling an impending spike in energy.
BOOOOOOM
Jay initiated an instantaneous teleportation just as a massive sphere of crimson light exploded from Sirzechs' position.
The blast moved at a speed bordering on that of light, a localized supernova that erased everything around it. The Chains of Envy, the portals, and even the air molecules themselves were obliterated instantly, leaving behind a perfect, terrifying vacuum.
It was a pocket of absolute nothingness where not even an atom could exist.
"That's dangerous," Jay muttered, his voice barely audible over the rushing sound of air trying to fill the void Sirzechs had created.
Draghignazzo had already banked upward with a powerful beat of its wings, reappearing safely several hundred meters above the blast zone before maneuvering to position itself behind Jay.
As the vacuum collapsed, the atmosphere roared, creating a shockwave that rippled through the clouds.
Jay stared down at the Crimson Satan, their eyes meeting through the swirling wind of the high-altitude battlefield.
'Sirzechs' Power of Destruction is one hell of an ability,' Jay thought, his mind racing to re-evaluate his opponent.
'What makes it exponentially more dangerous is how it creates a resistance-less medium. By annihilating the air itself, his attacks can travel at maximum velocity without being slowed by friction or density.'
It was a terrifying realization.
The first Ruin of the Extinct had nearly claimed him if not for the all-burning properties of the black flame, his body would have been erased before his nerves could register the pain.
'Wait...' Jay's gaze shifted to Ajuka, who remained at the periphery, his hands moving in a hypnotic blur as he maintained the web of hundreds of Kankara Formula circles.
Meanwhile, Sirzechs stood his ground in the center of the sky, the crimson aura around him pulsing like a beating heart.
He glanced back at his best friend, who was slowly drifting closer to flank him.
"What did you do to his black flame just now, Ajuka?" Sirzechs asked, his voice steady but filled with curiosity.
"You know how my power works, right?" Ajuka replied, his eyes never leaving Jay's silhouette.
"Your power... changing equations out of phenomena, right?"
"Well, more or less," Ajuka explained, his voice taking on the detached, academic tone.
"As you know, every phenomenon and ability in this world operates according to a set of underlying rules and laws. My Kankara Formula allows me to find the answers to those equations and fill in the variables myself, effectively rewriting the outcome."
He paused, a rare shadow of frustration crossing his features.
"But that black flame... that thing is an anomaly. Intrinsically, it either lacks rules and laws entirely because of its void-like properties, or it contains laws that simply do not belong to this world. No matter how hard I calculate, my formula cannot comprehend its fundamental properties, let alone rewrite them."
Hearing Ajuka's admission, Sirzechs fell into a deep thought.
He looked at his own hands, which wielded a power meant to annihilate everything.
If Ajuka Beelzebub, the man who had decoded the very essence of the world, could not understand the flame, then Zayyn Illya Kovalenko was wielding something that bypassed the logic of anything in this world.
"Then... how were you able to change its direction earlier?" Sirzechs asked.
"It's honestly not that hard, because though I cannot influence the flame itself, I can influence the world it exists in," Ajuka explained.
"For a flame to move through space, it requires a medium, namely wind and air. I realized that a simple wind spell would not be enough, as the flame seemed unaffected by the dragon's wings or the natural gales at high altitude," Ajuka said.
"And then I realized it is not the air around it, but the air that carries it, which are two different things. So I changed the equations of that air, from its vectors to its velocity, ultimately altering the direction of the flame."
Sirzechs smiled, a genuine flash of pride for his best friend.
"That's amazing... It's been so long since I've seen you thinking that hard in a battle."
Ajuka just scoffed at his words.
"Now, now... we still have the boy to deal with. There is no time to joke around, Sirzechs," Ajuka said, his aura sharpening as he prepared for the next phase of their assault.
"You are right."
High above them, floating in the air in front of the crimson dragon, Jay watched the two Satans confer.
Jay realized that Ajuka's Kankara Formula is apparently capable of changing the direction of his flame, and it is most definitely due to the air that carries it.
He realized that there was still something he needed to work on with the black flame.
But, despite Ajuka pointing out Jay's weakness, he also revealed a weakness in his own Kankara Formula.
"It seems that his Kankara Formula cannot influence my black flame directly, which is good. If I can eliminate the air that carries it, just like Sirzechs' attack, the black flame might become completely immune to his formula."
But the question remained.
'How can it move without the air? Is it physical or magic?' Though Jay had used his black flame all this time, this was the first time he truly questioned it.
All this time, no one had been strong enough, nor had anyone possessed anything capable of making his black flame fail.
The all-burning flame.
'Let's look into that later...'
Because he wasn't here to win a battle against the two strongest beings in the Underworld, he was here to fulfill a mission.
He needed time, seven uninterrupted seconds, to activate Graffiacane's Embodiment of Evil.
And to get that time-
The Black Grail manifested once more in front of Jay, hovering in the air like a pulsating heart.
As Jay's dark hazel eyes reflected the absolute void erupting from the chalice, a chorus of various, enormous demonic presences began to bleed into the world.
The atmosphere grew heavy with an enormous presence of the forgotten sins.
Sirzechs, Ajuka, and Grayfia felt the shift in the air. Especially Ajuka, because he was the one who had sealed them from this world.
Jay then reached out, his fingers grazed the stem of the Grail, and then he poured the viscous liquid of souls into the world.
As he whispered,
"Come forth… Malebranche."