Sirzechs Lucifer watched in silent shock as the sheer scale of the automated army came into brutal focus. Dozens, then hundreds, of golems surged across the battlefield, hurling themselves at the remaining magicians and devils. Golems made of stone and metal.
They were crude creations, unelegant, unsophisticated, but their materials were robust, compressed granite, iron, and alloys. He had seen better golems for sure, but he did think he had ever seen this many at once before. This was an entire force, hell, he knew factions that didn't have up to a hundred people, and yet they were more than that with these golems.
Kenji really had a faction that surpassed smaller factions just with this. This human really is something else.
The golems looked like they were winning. Crucially, their tactical advantage was their total lack of biology. They felt no pain, no fear, and possessed nothing to slow them down as they just kept charging the enemy.
Even with limbs sheared off by counter-magics, they did not pause. They crawled, they clawed, they grabbed, and they held opponents down so others could deliver the crushing, lethal blow. A mid-class devil could easily vaporize one, but two more would immediately take its place, forcing the enemy to expend precious, tiring mana on fodder. Because that was what they were. Fooder. Yet.....
By Satan… How did a human build an army of this size without anyone knowing? From the materials, the magical engineering, resource management, and logistics, someone should have gotten word of this, this should have been whispered somewhere at least. Yet he hadn't heard of anything, even when he investigated the human thoroughly.
Had Takahashi been preparing this for years, building a private realm where these legions were forged in secret? If he had this, what else did he have. Sirzech couldn't even just lie to himself and say this was all because he didn't even know about the golems, so who was to say that Kenji didn't have something else hidden. Sirzechs, the man who held the Power of Destruction, felt a chill run down his spine.
And he wasn't the only one who felt that chill.
The entire battlefield, angels, devils, and fallen alike, watched in stunned silence as the tide shifted violently.
The Kuoh kids, having secured Gasper, huddled together, forming a defensive wedge. Issei, Rias, Akeno, Kiba, Koneko, Asia, and Xenovia, with Irina, gathered together to protect themselves.
The faction leaders returned to the center, staring at the artificial army tearing through enemy lines in shock.
But among everyone, there was no one who looked more horrified than Katerea Leviathan and Creuserey Asmodeus.
This… was not in their plan. Their strategy had been predicated on a single-target confrontation, overwhelming the exhausted leaders after a devastating time-stop.
They had accounted for Michael's defense, Azazel's cunning, and Sirzechs's overwhelming might, and having the kids around would prevent the leaders from going all out without risking them.
What they had not accounted for was a completely unknown, unquantifiable third, a human, a human who seems to keep surprising them with each passing moment.
When the yokai had said they would handle him, she had thought it would have ended fast. Well, it ended fast, alright, just not with their side winning.
Katerea snarled, her demonic power erupting in a massive surge. She channeled it into a focused, condensed blast of Destructive energy, obliterating a dozen golems in a single strike, sending fragments of stone and metal flying.
The act was easy, but after her battle with Azazel, it was tiring and a waste of magic power. The power she needed to save for her fight against Azazel if she wished to finish him off. She glanced back, and her stomach lurched.
Her forces were being completely overwhelmed, reduced to pulverized meat and shattered earth by the relentless constructs. They were losing the numbers game rapidly.
This entire thing was a failure, they had no choice but to leave, to retreat, she thought, and felt hot anger surge through her, but she forced herself to calm down. Getting angry and losing herself here will not gain her anything. They needed to leave, but before she could do anything, she heard a loud, crazy laugh.
She twisted toward the source of deranged laughter: Creuserey.
Seemed he was past the point of strategic thought, completely swallowed by the chaotic power of the Ophis fragments he had used to empower himself.
It was always the risk, power that immense had a price, and the snake did not protect those who couldn't withstand her blessing. Creuserey screamed and fired wildly in every direction, his wings flaring violently, his attacks erratic and chaotic, tearing apart his own allies as often as the enemy constructs. He was less of an ally now and more of a dangerous, uncontrollable liability.
Katerea clicked her tongue, the sound sharp and frustrated. Idiots... all of them. They hadn't eliminated a single meaningful target. Teleportation was still blocked. Their guards that had been teleported away were still not back, but time was already running out from the moment the time stop ended.
But the plan would not work even if they tried to continue it. Their numbers were cut down to a fraction. And worst of all… Sirzechs Lucifer still hadn't gotten serious yet, standing there like a pillar of crimson inevitability.
She could admit it, that man, that monster, was the reason the Old Satan Faction failed to reclaim their place up to now. Sirzechs and Ajuka alone were enough to crush entire armies. If she stayed any longer, she would die here for nothing. Her dream was chaos, yes, but to achieve it, she needed to survive.
"Tch." Katarea swallowed her pride, a metallic, bitter taste in her throat. She lifted her staff, creating an immediate shield to deflect a lightning-fast Iron Golem rushing her flank, and called out, her voice raw with reluctant fury.
"Retreat! All forces!"
Her remaining loyal forces instantly began flashing out. It pained her to flee, but she was no fool, there was no victory here today.
"What do you think you're doing, Katerea!" Creuserey roared at her in a blinding, spittle-flecked rage. "Running?! You coward!"
She looked at him with genuine, cold pity. This fool was past saving.
"We have lost the strategic advantage," she snapped, her eyes calculating the remaining demonic power in her body. "We have lost today, it's time to leave."
"NEVER!" he shrieked, fueled by borrowed power and utter madness. "I am Asmodeus! I will kill these impostors and claim the underworld! I possess the blood of Satan Asmodeus! I shall rule this world!"
He really has lost it. She shook her head at the sight.
She watched him charge toward the faction leaders, a solitary, desperate figure of carnage as he cut through all that were in his way, enemy or ally. Great Satans, he's really lost his mind.
She shot a final, venomous glare toward the leaders, her face a mask of cold fury.
"You may think you've won this time, but remember this, this isn't over. I will return, and I will drag your corpses from your thrones of the underworld!"
And with that final, empty threat, she vanished in a flash of orange light, abandoning Creuserey and the remnants of his followers to their inevitable doom.
Kenji blinked, mildly surprised by her tactical shift. The anime Katerea was supposed to be stupidly stubborn. Her willingness to prioritize survival over a doomed final stand suggested a degree of cunning he hadn't expected. In the anime, she died just taking one of Azazel's arms and lost, even then spouting shit like how it didn't matter if she died as long as chaos rained in the world.
He watched as Creuserey, now completely unhinged and attacking everything indiscriminately, tore through the last of his golems.
The constructs were not designed to withstand Ultimate-Class power after all, so it was no surprise that he had been easily able to wipe them out himself, but rather they were made to function as overwhelming numbers against the mid-to-high class fighters.
A shame. He had lost over a hundred constructs today, but the data was invaluable. The Golems' reaction times, their durability against different elemental attacks, and their ability to successfully pin opponents, which material worked better for what, and so on, it was a perfect, real-world test. The models were improving better than when he first made one, but he was hoping to make them better in the future.
They failed at the end, though.
'But they could be better. Much better. He already had ideas for rune sequencing and core stability.
He watched as the last of his disposable forces were destroyed, leaving Creuserey and only about thirty of his most fanatical men left, breathing heavily and covered in dust.
Sirzechs stepped forward, his expression grave.
"Creuserey Asmodeus. Surrender. You have lost."
"LOST?!" the mad devil barked out, laughing hysterically. "LOST? I haven't even begun yet, false Devil! I will not stop until you impostors are dead, you false devils who not only stoop low to work with fallen angels but want to make peace with angels themselves as well. Disgraceful!"
Sirzechs quietly exhaled. A subtle wave of grief and regret crossed his face, instantly gone.
"Then so be it."
He opened his wings, the crimson light bathing the battlefield, and rose slowly into the air.
Everyone froze. The atmosphere compressed, the air itself vibrating at a frequency that made teeth ache.
Even Kenji paused, sensing, feeling, the pressure. His skin prickled. His lungs tightened. His instincts screamed in warning, translating the pressure into a single, terrifying truth, This being is a monster.
'Holy shit… this bastard really is a monster'.
Sirzechs lifted his hand.
A sphere of crimson humming with annihilation appeared on his palm before it shot towards the devil, and it expanded, surrounding him in crimson light.
In an Instant, Creuserey's body started dissolving instantly into dust. Then the dust, and the very air around where he stood, vanished into the nothingness.
"WAIT! NO! STOP—STOOO—"
Creuserey never finished.
Not even atoms remained.
Kenji whistled low, the sound cutting through the newly formed silence.
"Yep. Gotta reevaluate my chances against this guy," he muttered. 'Destruction giving form, Annihilation on a molecular level. Hard counter, he'd need to think of a way eventually.
But that could wait.
For now, he stared at the remaining thirty or so surviving magicians and demons still floating in the air, the ones who had followed Creuserey into madness, too slow or too loyal to retreat with Katerea.
He made a decision. He stood up and walked forward, his motion fluid and deliberate, catching the attention of the remaining faction leaders.
'What is he up to now'
Azazel's head snapped toward him, just in time to feel something shift. It wasn't magic. It wasn't Touki.
A weight that pressed on the mind and soul, the air around Kenji had a feeling Azazel had never sensed before in his entire lifetime.
'What the hell is that?' Azazel thought, eyes narrowed, fascination mixed with dread. Just how many surprises does this guy have?
The surviving enemies suddenly started screaming.
They clutched their necks, their bodies spasming violently as pain filled their bodies, and then they collapsed.
Snap.
Kenji snapped his fingers, a sound loud in the vast, shocked silence.
They simply vanished mid fall, a sickening finality to their disappearance.
Kenji turned around and smiled pleasantly, the terrifying golden light in his eyes dimming to a manageable warmth.
"Well, that's that. Now, how about we finish that meeting of yours so I can get what we agreed on?"
The leaders, Sirzechs, Michael, Azazel, and Serafall, exchanged looks. Their faces mirrored a mixture of professional respect for his efficiency and deep, political fear of his unaccountability.
And just as the tension began to cool…
BAAAM—!
A blast of brilliant white light slammed into Kenji's side.
He didn't move. The invisible gravity barrier absorbed the force of the attack without so much as a tremor. It was a perfect, invisible shield.
Slowly, Kenji turned his head, the pleasant smile gone, replaced by the grimace of a man whose patience had been violently shredded.
His voice dropped to a deadly whisper, each word filled with barely contained menace.
"…What do you think you're doing right now, boy?"
Vali Lucifer hovered in the air, his Divine Dividing Balance Breaker shining like a silver meteor, his wings beating a steady rhythm of intense challenge.
A grin stretched across his face, radiating pure, untainted exhilaration. He had watched the entire show, waiting for this very moment, a chance to play.
"Finally," Vali said, the words echoing with burning anticipation.
"I've been waiting for my turn."
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