Jayr POV - Nasuverse, Moon, Far Side, Sakura Labyrinth - 2030 AD
After that brief pause, the battle resumes, and Kang Yaling is now dictating the pace with her clean, efficient, and suffocating assault.
Every exchange is measured, every movement calculated to shave off space and options.
Kang Yaling doesn't rush as she doesn't need to. Each step she takes is deliberate, placed with surgical precision, her footwork subtly herding me backwards, cutting angles I haven't even taken yet. The distance between us shrinks not in a straight line, but in tightening arcs, like a noose slowly being drawn closed.
Her shoulders remain relaxed, her breathing steady, but her eyes never leave mine. She's reading everything. Timing. Posture. Intent.
If I keep following her tempo, I'll lose too much momentum, and likely this fight too, so I stop.
Not physically at first, but mentally. I let the rhythm she's imposing slip past me instead of matching it. My stance loosens, my weight shifts just enough to break the pattern she's been building. Instead of reacting to her, I wait.
And I let her come in, and for the briefest instant, there's a flicker of change in her gaze. Not surprise nor hesitation, just a recalculation, then she commits.
The Persona Yoshitsune flickers into clearer focus at her side, its spectral form phasing in and out like a reflection on disturbed water. Its presence overlays her movements in a synchronised manner, amplifying every motion with impossible sharpness. The faint outline of a blade traces alongside hers, doubling angles, refining trajectories.
The air tightens as she moves with a pace that is neither a charge nor a quick dash, but something in between, a controlled burst that erases the distance in a heartbeat. Her first step barely makes a sound, yet the pressure it carries ripples through the ground beneath us.
Blade, gun, and knife. All at once.
The sword of her Persona comes first, a clean diagonal cut aimed at my shoulder, fast enough to split the air with a high-pitched hiss. Before the strike even completes, her off-hand snaps upward, the muzzle of her gun already aligned with my centre mass. At the same time, her wrist turns, a concealed knife slipping into her grip, angled low, targeting my ribs from a blind spot.
Three vectors. Three timings. One seamless motion.
I shift slightly inward, letting the blade pass just close enough that I feel the edge kiss the air beside my neck. My gauntlet snaps up, deflecting the gunshot at the exact moment it fires using the shield, the impact ringing sharply through my arm as the bullet ricochets away in a burst of sparks.
But the knife is already there.
Yoshitsune's influence sharpens the angle beyond human limits, the strike adjusting mid-motion to follow my evasion. The blade glides toward the opening under my guard, precise, merciless.
I twist my torso just enough to avoid a direct hit, but the tip still grazes along my side, slicing through the armour and drawing a thin line of blood before the Cloth and my body regenerate shortly after.
She doesn't stop. Of course, she doesn't.
The moment her first sequence ends, the next begins. Her foot pivots, turning the momentum of her missed slash into another strike, this time horizontal, aimed to force me further off balance. The gun fires again, not at me, but at the space I'm about to move into, cutting off my escape before I can commit to it.
She's not attacking where I am, but attacking where I'll be.
Yoshitsune mirrors her perfectly, spectral blades echoing her strikes a fraction of a second ahead, as if the future itself is guiding her hand.
The pressure builds instantly.
Each movement I make is met, countered, restricted. Every option narrows the moment I consider it. It's not just skill, as I'm confident that I can match and even surpass what she has shown. It's control. Total, suffocating control of the flow of the fight.
And if I let this continue, I'll be crushed under it. However, I'm not without options.
I feign a slight distraction as I tear my gaze away from her to look at Nero, who is sent blasting by yet another scream unleashed by Tiamat.
That small opening is exactly what my opponent has been searching for, and without any hesitation, she dives in.
That's the moment I've been waiting for as I manipulate the Spiral Cosmo within my body to cast, "Omnipotens Dis."
At the same time, the name of the spell rings out, the Spiral Cosmo surges and generates a powerful gravitational wave that detonates outward from my body, repelling everything in my immediate surroundings.
The air itself fractures while the ground is upturned as the gravitational wave forces Kang Yaling off-line for a fraction of a second.
That's all I need.
I step in as I again manipulate and make my Spiral Cosmo burn, which then gathers around my fist and transforms into a water-like energy that twists around my fist, and with a single decisive punch, I yell, "Torrential Rain!"
My fist drives forward, wrapped in spiralling blue energy that explodes outward on release, unleashing countless condensed droplets of energy that surge forward in a single direction, a focused storm that devours everything in its path.
The storm hits her clean.
An uncalculable number of impacts tears through the space between us, slamming into her before Yoshitsune can fully stabilise her footing.
The ground fractures beneath the force, the air ripples and her figure is completely swallowed by the storm as she is sent flying back until she crashes into the invisible walls forming the borders of the arena with such force that makes reality itself shake for many seconds before the authority of the Concepts quickly reinforces the arena and quells the rampaging forces.
For a very brief moment, everything stills as I keep my gaze on the dust cloud in the distance, expecting some kind of retaliation, as I know perfectly well that this isn't enough to put Kang Yaling down.
Indeed, the next moment, the sound of footsteps is heard as Kang Yaling's figure calmly emerges from the quickly fading cloud of dust.
She is wounded, quite heavily too, as blood is trickling down from the corners of her mouth, the top of her head, and even from many places under her clothes, as many dark stains can be seen.
However, she is not shaken; she remains serene and focused as she keeps her cold and calculating gaze locked on me before she calmly mutters, "Maria. Use Salvation."
The statue-like Persona quietly emerges from behind her before releasing a soft, almost motherly light that envelopes Kang Yaling's body and fully restores her to a perfectly healthy state, as if she didn't just endure an attack capable of destroying an entire universe.
Seeing that, I exhale slowly and slightly lower my stance as I prepare for her counterattack.
At the same time, she smiles, a cold one, as she says, "That was a good one… You are much stronger than that foolish pretender. Since that's the case, it is time I stop holding back."
The moment she says it, the battlefield changes as the Chaos Tide surges.
Tiamat's Sea of Life expands violently, flooding outward in a thick, suffocating wave. It spreads across the arena, swallowing ground, climbing over broken structures, turning everything into a viscous, unstable surface that clings and drags.
Then it deepens, darkens as its volume increases, and something begins to move beneath it.
I feel it before I see it, something flows out from Kang Yaling's body and mixes with Tiamat's Sea of Life.
Then they start emerging, hands first, claws, followed by masks, tearing free.
Demons rise from the Sea of Life in waves, many of which I encountered before in Kang Yaling's floors, like Pixies, Slimes, twisted humanoids, and in the span of seconds, they escalate. Larger forms follow. Heavier presences. Oni. Winged entities. Dragons coiling out of the black mire.
Like in the floors we crossed, those are not constructs, nor imitations, but real entities, real Demons originating from the Shin Megami Tensei/Persona Universes.
Seeing that, I click my tongue and mutter, "Tch. So that's how they did it..."
The emerging Demons don't hesitate and quickly start to swarm me.
From every direction, every angle, every layer of space that still exists, they rush in. No formation. No hesitation. Just numbers and pressure.
I don't move but keep burning my Spiral Cosmo so much so that a pure golden aura surrounds my body, and the phantom image of the cup appears behind me, my Guardian Constellation.
I cross my arms, then I spread them wide while yelling, "Pouring Rain!"
Unleashing an utterly insane amount of condensed droplets of energy in every direction at once.
A storm of blue light erupts around me, shredding everything within range. Demons disintegrate instantly, their forms erased before they can even reach striking distance.
For a brief moment complete silence amidst the ruined, empty space, but then the Demons are back.
New ones rise from the Sea of Life as if nothing happened, with no delay and seemingly no limit.
I narrow my eyes while thinking, 'It seems that this isn't an obstacle that I can easily clear... For the moment, I can only limit myself to enduring it. At least until I figure out more about what she is trying to hide. Like, why isn't she using Satanael despite clearly showing her desire to end this battle as swiftly and efficiently as possible? Is there some kind of limit or weakness? Is she trying to lower my guard to bait me? Anyway, for now, the only thing I can do is endure trying to learn as much as possible.'
Coming to that conclusion, I shift my stance, tightening my guard.
Not rigid or defensive in the usual sense, but more compact, more efficient. Every movement is trimmed down to the absolute minimum. My centre of gravity lowers slightly, my footing adjusting to account for the unstable surface beneath me, while my awareness stretches outward, splitting cleanly between the swarm closing in from all directions and Kang Yaling's position within it.
There's no point wasting energy trying to wipe them out completely, as I've already tested that.
They don't thin out. They don't hesitate. The moment one falls, another three take its place, rising from the Sea of Life as if the concept of exhaustion simply doesn't apply to them.
So I stop trying to win this part of the fight. I just need to survive them and her.
Because she also hasn't stopped her attacks. She never does.
The pressure never dips. Not even for a second.
The swarm surges again, a mass of claws, fangs, and distorted forms collapsing inward from every direction. I move just enough to avoid being surrounded completely, my strikes precise and minimal, destroying only what directly threatens me while using the others as an improvised shield.
A claw reaches for my back. I don't turn, just drive my elbow backwards, Spiral Cosmo flaring for an instant as the impact erases it completely.
A second later, something heavier crashes down from above.
I shift half a step, letting it slam into the ground beside me, then bring my heel down, crushing its core before it can rise again.
No wasted motion. No excess. Every action is measured, controlled, and then I feel it. A shift.
Subtle. Precise. Out of place amidst the chaos.
I perceive a flash of movement, too clean, too intentional to be anything but her.
I pivot instantly.
Steel meets my guard with a sharp, jarring impact as her blade slams into my side from a blind angle, the force travelling through my arm and into my core. The timing is perfect, hidden within the noise of the swarm, her approach masked by the constant movement around me.
Yoshitsune's presence is still there, layered over her like a second reality as it sharpens everything.
The angle of her strike adjusts mid-motion, correcting for my reaction before it fully happens. The pressure behind it isn't just physical; it's predictive, as if every exchange has already been calculated several steps ahead, while I also try to do the same.
I push back against the blade, redirecting it just enough to break its line, and immediately retaliate. My fist drives forward, Spiral Cosmo igniting along my arm, the energy compressing tightly around the strike.
I don't aim for where she is. I aim to break through Yoshitsune's interference.
The moment my attack connects, the energy detonates outward in a controlled burst, forcing its way past the layered defences, disrupting the Persona's influence for just an instant.
It lands, and I feel a few bones break under the might of my blow, but before I can sink it in and cause more damage, she's already moving away.
Minimal. Efficient. Just enough to reduce the damage. No wasted motion. No hesitation. Annoyingly familiar in its execution.
And before I can follow through, light blooms behind her as Maria emerges once more.
The presence is unmistakable. Soft. Radiant. Motherly. Holy. Gentle. And completely unfair.
The glow wraps around Kang Yaling's body, flowing over her like liquid light, sealing wounds before they can fully form, stabilising her stance, reinforcing her condition as if the previous exchange never happened at all.
The damage I forced through? Gone. Erased. Like it never existed.
I exhale sharply, irritation flickering for a split second before I suppress it. Emotion is a liability here. And more importantly, I'm doing the same thing.
At the same time, the temperature drops instantly.
The air chills as Black Frost manifests at range, its presence warping the battlefield with a cold so intense it feels like it's biting into my skin. A moment later, waves of freezing energy surge forward, sweeping across the arena in wide arcs, cutting through demons and space alike as they converge on my position.
I move, but not away from Kang Yaling, but through the narrow gaps between attacks.
A step to the side to avoid the first wave. A slight lean to let the second pass just behind me. A forward shift to keep her within range, but the division of focus is absolute now.
Swarm. Kang Yaling. Maria. Black Frost. Yoshitsune. Each one demands attention. Each one punishes hesitation.
And through it all, Kang Yaling waits.
She doesn't press recklessly. She doesn't force openings that aren't there. She simply observes, her gaze tracking every adjustment I make, every microsecond where my attention shifts just a fraction too far in one direction.
Not the big openings nor the obvious ones, but the kind that exist for less than a second, the kind that get you killed.
A demon lunges at me from the side, its distorted form crashing into my range at the worst possible moment.
I don't even look at it as my hand snaps out, Spiral Cosmo flaring for a single instant as I erase it with a clean, decisive blow, its body disintegrating before it can even register contact, but that was enough.
In that same instant, she's there with no warning and no excess movement, just presence.
Her blade is already angled for my throat, the trajectory perfect, the timing flawless, Yoshitsune's influence sharpening the strike into something inescapable.
I twist and barely avoid it as the edge slices through the space where my neck was a fraction of a second ago, close enough that I feel the cold of it brush against my skin.
I counter immediately, my arm snapping forward in a tight arc, aiming to catch her before she can disengage, but she's already slipping past it.
A minimal shift. A half-step. A slight turn of her shoulders. That's all it takes.
My strike cuts through empty space.
She wasted no motion, didn't overcommit, and there is nothing I can punish.
She resets instantly, already outside the range of a clean follow-up, her posture as stable and controlled as ever and the battlefield closes in again.
Demons surge. Cold spreads. Light pulses behind her.
She's not trying to overwhelm me directly. She doesn't need to. She's letting the battlefield do it.
Suddenly, yet another shockwave tears across the arena, this one much stronger than the previous ones, to the point that the whole arena shakes for a few moments.
I erase yet another Demon and block the bullet aimed at my eye shot by Kang Yaling using the shield attached to my gauntlet before I glance to the side to check on Nero.
She's already engaged.
Tiamat stands rooted within the Sea of Life, her feminine form partially restrained by the very ocean she commands.
The black mud surges around her legs, connected, alive, pulsing with a will of its own.
Then she screams, and the sound hits like a physical force.
A blast of raw energy detonates outward, the pressure alone enough to tear through the surrounding demons and send Nero hurtling back across the battlefield.
Even from here, I feel it.
That's not just plain sound but sheer power compressed into a single release.
Nero crashes, skids, then she's already moving again.
She charges straight back in, cutting down and burning into ashes all the Demons standing on her path, but her attempt is met by another scream and another shockwave.
This time, the Sea of Life rises with it, tendrils of black mud snapping upward, trying to wrap around her, drag her down, consume her entirely.
She cuts through some, dodges others, but there are too many enemies, too many angles, too much pressure.
I see it happen, a single opening created by a Demon entangling her, a fraction of a mistake, and that's enough.
The Sea closes in, and the unreasonable scream hits again, slamming into Nero with such force that it makes her body shatter into motes of light.
My jaw tightens seeing that scene, but I don't move; I don't need to.
The next moment, the light gathers, and Nero reforms as she is back in perfect health.
Invictus Spiritus: Thrice, Though I Welcome the Setting Sun, the skill that saved her many times in this Holy Grail War.
Now that it is active, it will allow her to revive herself when falling in battle up to three times, which means that Nero has two more lives left.
The moment she returns, she sends a quick glance in my direction, our eyes meet, and without any need to communicate through any other means, I instantly understand her intentions.
Without any hesitation, I send my Spiral Cosmo to Nero, who stabs her Aestus Estus into the ground while chanting, "Behold my talent! Listen to the thunderous applause! Here is the honour of the Imperium! Like a blooming flower... Opening! The Golden Theatre!! I shall offer this gift to a full moon... Dancing scatters the flowers, and cleaves open a star! Behold the supreme beauty... and praise it! Aestus Domus Aurea!"
Her voice echoes through the arena, imperial and absolute, while golden light erupts around us.
The battlefield warps into her palace, the magnificent theatre she designed and constructed during her lifetime, sunlit marble, towering pillars, gilded balconies, all that manifests all around us, overwriting the surroundings, trapping our enemies inside where they can't escape, constantly weakening them while empowering Nero and making sure that her attacks bypass all defence.
The oppressive Sea of Life is forced back, replaced by the radiant, imperial domain of the Emperor of Roses.
The next moment, Nero pulls out her Aestus Estus, which is then shrouded in flames like that of Mount Vesuvius, causing an inferno while rose petals would dance in the air.
For a brief moment, control shifts, but then it breaks as Tiamat makes her move.
There is no intent behind her action, just pure instinct as she releases a frightening roar.
The space warps as the area around her turns monochromatic and quickly expands, and everything it touches simply vanishes.
I feel it more than I see it, the fact that something fundamental is rejected and mutter, "Nega-Genesis…"
Realising the gravity of the situation, I immediately use my Spiral Cosmo to protect both myself and Nero, taking advantage of our bond.
The next moment, the golden world fractures as cracks spread through the Reality Marble, light collapsing inward as if reality itself refuses to sustain it, and then it shatters.
The theatre disappears, and the Sea of Life floods back in instantly as new Demons start to emerge.
At the same time, Nero is exposed because even if my Spiral Cosmo protected her, the destruction of her Noble Phantasm still has its repercussions.
The next instant, Kang Yaling moves. She doesn't even look at me; her focus shifts entirely, her target clear: it's Nero.
I react immediately and move to chase after her, but the battlefield doesn't let me as Demons surge in to delay me, Black Frost appears from behind Kang Yaling and fires again, and the Sea of Life drags at my movement.
For a fraction of a second, I'm delayed, and that's all she needs.
Yoshitsune, behind Kang Yaling, flashes, unleashing his signature move, Hassou Tobi.
The eight simultaneous strikes land, and Nero shatters again.
Light scatters, and before long, she reforms for the second time in just a few seconds.
She's still standing, still confident, but I can feel that she has reached her limit in her current form.
I exhale slowly, forcing my mind to stay clear despite the pressure stacking from every direction, 'This isn't sustainable. Not like this. If this continues, Nero is going to fall. And if she falls... We lose. That's the truth of it. Simple. Absolute. It's time to flip the table.'
Coming to that conclusion, I stop holding back.
I reach deep within me, and fully awaken the senses that I have kept somewhat restrained until now, my 8th and 9th Sense, and in an instant, my Spiral Cosmo ignites and surges through my body like a blazing star as Divine Will erupts outward.
Shortly after that, from my body, a pure golden aura that seems to contain countless small stars bursts up, which keeps expanding and getting stronger until my Cloth starts glittering with tiny pure golden sparks, which soon become a blazing pure golden flame that covers my whole body, and I feel the Cloth covering my body transform into a God Cloth.
And once the transformation is complete, I feel something within me click, and with an energy pulse, I disperse the flames covering my body and finally feel truly complete and unrestrained as I now don the Crateris God Cloth, which allows me to fully embrace the Divinity within me.
Now the Crateris God Cloth covers my whole body, leaving very few places exposed, and none of them are vitals, but still retains the colour scheme of its previous form, Silver, Blue, and Cyan with gold ornament.
The head piece became slimmer, the double-layered shoulder pads became thicker and sharper, the chest piece now covers my whole upper body and is connected to the waist piece that retains a similar shape, only now protects even more.
The leg pieces retain the same general shape, but now they are more refined and with more details and ornament compared to their Silver Cloth form, while the arm pieces now cover the whole limb.
But the gautlets are the ones that went through the greatest change as the tear-shaped shields that made up the foot of the Cup in its Constellation Form are now gone, instead, they became much larger and moved to my back, taking the function of the wings that all the God Cloth have as they slowly rotate like some kind of yin yang symbol.
Even if they aren't physically attached to my Cloth, they are still part of it, and I have total control over them, as I can move them however I desire.
The battlefield reacts to my transformation, even the Sea of Life recoils slightly, as if recognising the shift.
At the same time, across the battlefield, Nero begins to shine.
I feel her through the bond, Nero answering to me as I release the true power of her origin, the Mythological Mystic Code of Emperor.
Light explodes around her, and her parameters surge to impossible levels as her attire also goes through some noticeable changes.
She wears a golden chest plate with red accents, a short, pleated black skirt, and thigh-high black stockings.
Over this, she has a voluminous, layered garment that is predominantly gold with red trim, featuring large, wing-like extensions on the sides.
The outfit is further detailed with golden gauntlets on her forearms and golden greaves on her shins.
Her presence spikes, rising sharply as something deeper within her awakens. The energy around her changes, stabilises, then surges upward in a way that feels completely different from before as she announces, "Mythological Mystic Code of Emperor"
When I look at her again, she's no longer on the defensive. The pressure that was crushing us just moments ago stalls completely.
Not because the battlefield changed, but because we did.
And now the fight enters a whole new stage.