Cough! Cough!
Deep within the choked rubble of the neighbouring building, Tsumugi lay crumpled on her side, violently coughing up blood. A thin, fragile layer of glowing blue mana flickered erratically across her battered body, threatening to dissipate at any moment.
A second later, with a soft, dying hiss, the protective shield shattered completely.
"Ugh..." a tiny, weak voice groaned from against her chest.
It was Latia Astaroth, securely wrapped within Tsumugi's protective embrace. Tsumugi had used her own body as a shock absorber to shield the girl from the blast just now.
"Wh-what happened?" the young Devil asked in a frail whisper. Her vibrant eyes were still bleary and unfocused from being violently knocked unconscious earlier.
"You're awake," a mature female voice murmured beside her, the tone strained from exhaustion.
Hearing this, Latia turned her head slightly, trying to focus on the speaker. When her vision finally cleared...
Ba-dump! Ba-dump! Her little heart suddenly started pounding. Kneeling beside her in the rubble was an incredibly stunning, mature woman. With her long, elegant black hair and sharp, striking dark eyes, she looked like the picture-perfect traditional Yamato Nadeshiko.
In that exact moment, little Latia Astaroth found herself inexplicably drawn to Tsumugi. Her eyes began to sparkle with intense admiration. "O-onee-san..."
Hearing the affectionate title, Tsumugi raised her brows slightly, but she didn't think too much of it. Slowly pushing herself up from the debris, she reached down and gently pulled Latia to her feet. "We should go. This place is not safe."
Then, without another word, the battered maid turned and began to limp slowly forward.
Seeing her move, Latia quickly followed close behind, her gaze completely starstruck.
The reason Latia was reacting this way wasn't necessarily because she had an inherent attraction toward the same sex, but rather because she was experiencing a severe case of the "suspension bridge effect." Her young mind had just been deeply traumatized by the repulsive, visceral sensation of Gensai's slimy tentacles. Desperate to scrub that horrifying memory away, her psyche automatically latched onto the beautiful, heroic figure who had just shielded her from a deadly explosion, rapidly overwriting her lingering fear and disgust with a fierce, misguided adoration.
**********
Meanwhile, back on the battlefield...
"Tsumugi-nee!" Ren shouted in terror.
Hearing the panic in his voice, Fumiko forcefully turned her head toward him, grunting through the immense pain of her impalement. "Ngh... Tsumugi will be fine! An attack of that level will not kill her!"
In such a high-stakes, life-and-death struggle, the veteran Head Maid knew she couldn't allow a single person to become demoralized. A sudden fracture in their resolve could instantly doom them all.
The proof of that danger was immediate.
A few feet away, Kaguya had been completely engrossed in constructing her intricate magic arrays. But the exact moment she heard Ren's distressed cry, her obsessive focus violently snapped. Her concentration wavered for just a fraction of a second, but it was enough to critically slow down her delicate spell-casting process.
"Focus!" Fumiko barked harshly, instantly snapping the young mage's wavering attention back to reality.
Realizing her near-fatal error, Kaguya fiercely bit her lip and forced her eyes back to the glowing arrays. "Ten more seconds!" she shouted. The momentary lapse in her concentration had painfully extended their sixty-second countdown to seventy.
Fumiko gave a curt nod. She didn't waste precious breath on a reply; instead, she clamped her grip even tighter onto the violently thrashing tentacles impaled through her torso.
But the toll on her body was escalating horrifically. Instead of just bursting blood vessels, her muscle fibres and thick tendons literally began to snap and tear under the agonizing strain.
Through decades of gruelling, life-or-death combat, the seasoned veteran had learned how to consciously disable her brain's natural physical limiters. Even without relying on supernatural energies like Ki or mana, Fumiko can force her raw, biological muscles to unleash one hundred percent of their maximum potential, achieving terrifying, superhuman strength through just her flesh and bone.
The intricate magic arrays, which had dimmed slightly during her brief lapse in focus, began to shine with blinding intensity once again.
"Five," Kaguya intoned gravely.
Gensai seemed to subconsciously sense the rapidly approaching threat. Through the chaotic haze of his mutated fury, his mind suddenly gained a sliver of clarity.
"ENOUGH!" he roared.
"Four."
A concentrated sphere of raw energy suddenly materialized within his monstrous, puckered mouth. A violently spinning red magic circle quickly manifested directly in front of the budding attack.
Instantly, the thick, serrated fleshy segments of his maw began to rotate furiously, acting like a biological turbine drawing in massive amounts of pure oxygen. Fuelled by the rushing air, the glowing blue ball of mana violently ignited, turning into a furious, searing crimson.
As the magic circle spun faster, the swirling mass of flames grew larger.
"Three."
And larger.
"Two."
Critical mass has been reached. The gigantic, volatile sphere of fire and pure mana suddenly began to hyper-compress, vibrating fiercely with apocalyptic power right in Fumiko's face.
"One."
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!
An absolute, blinding flash of white light instantly swallowed the entire corridor. From outside the estate walls, the devastating explosion was so bright it looked as though a miniature second sun had violently erupted out of nowhere.
**********
When the choking dust finally settled...
The corridor was scorched pitch-black. Or rather, there was nothing left that could even be called a corridor. The apocalyptic explosion had completely levelled the entire building.
At ground zero, thick, suffocating soot blanketed everything except for a single, pristine circular spot. What should have been the epicentre of absolute destruction was instead shielded by a glowing spherical barrier. Complex runes shimmered erratically across its cracked surface, flickering with a trembling light before the barrier finally hissed and dissolved into the ash-filled air.
Against all odds, Kaguya had pulled off a miracle with her genius intellect.
At the very last millisecond of her spell's activation, she had forcibly redirected her sealing arrays away from Gensai's physical body and directly onto the nuclear fireball he had produced. By instantly sealing the core of the blast's destructive energy, she had repurposed that very same power to construct a defensive dome, ensuring that Ren, Kon, and Fumiko survived the cataclysm.
But the backlash of manipulating such an attack was devastating.
Blood flowed profusely from all seven of her orifices, a testament to the horrific internal trauma of overdrawing her mana. Her eyes had rolled completely back, leaving only blank white sclera. Yet she did not fall.
Like a heroic ember frozen in its final, burning moment, her body remained rigidly locked in her casting posture. With her bloody palms still pressed firmly against the scorched earth, the genius mage had fallen completely unconscious, refusing to yield an inch to her foe.
"You bastards..." a weak, raspy voice echoed from the smouldering rubble.
An emaciated, blackened figure slowly clawed his way up from the debris. His entire body was covered in thick soot, and what should have been his monstrously mutated left arm was completely gone, violently disintegrated by the point-blank backlash of his own nuclear attack.
Slowly, dragging his ruined body, he crept toward the group. His desperate, bloodshot eyes locked dead onto the young boy who had been knocked to the ground by the shockwave. "...Give... me your body..." Gensai wheezed, driven by a mad, agonizing attempt to save his failing life.
"Ngh... Stop..."
Reverted entirely to her wrinkled, elderly self, Fumiko somehow forced herself to stand. Her frail body was horrifically riddled with gaping, unhealing holes. The vibrant, overflowing emerald energy that had just made her look like an incarnate goddess of life had completely vanished, replaced by the heavy, suffocating aura of impending death.
"You damn old hag!" Gensai gritted his teeth in absolute fury, staring at the walking corpse who was still trying to stand in his way.
"...Obaa-san..." Watching the tragic scene unfold, Ren's eyes filled with hot, streaming tears. He already knew exactly what the inevitable outcome for the loyal Head Maid would be.
Vwoosh!
Suddenly, the sharp sound of air being violently cleaved echoed from the sky above.
It was the cavalry, but they had arrived late.
The massive, leathery bat wings on Azelior's back were fully extended, beating fiercely against the ash-filled air, while Kyora hovered ominously beside him, standing firmly atop a glowing magic circle.
"Gensai," Kyora growled, his eyes burning with cold, unadulterated rage as he looked down at the ruined traitor.
"Where is Latia?!" Azelior roared over the wind. The pure-blooded Devil was completely unconcerned with the tragedy playing out below them; his only priority was the safety of his kin.
The two patriarchs descended rapidly to the ruined earth. Without a shred of hesitation, they unleashed the crushing weight of their full, unbridled auras over the entire battlefield, completely unconcerned for the battered survivors or the dying Head Maid.
"Ugh!" Ren and Kon were instantly slammed face-first into the dirt, entirely immobilized by the sheer, suffocating pressure.
Beside them, Fumiko's frail body finally slumped lifelessly against the scorched ground. The last flickering embers of life had officially left her.
A few feet away, Gensai desperately tried to push himself up, but his violently mutilated body simply couldn't withstand the overwhelming gravity of two Ultimate-level auras. He was forced flat against the debris.
"Uncle Azelior, please stop this!" a frail, mellow voice suddenly cried out.
It was little Latia Astaroth, stumbling out of the distant rubble with a heavily bruised Tsumugi limping close behind her.
"Latia!" Hearing his niece's voice, Azelior instantly retracted his aura and sprinted toward the young Devil to frantically check her for injuries.
Seeing the VIP was secure, Kyora also withdrew his heavy pressure. Moving in a silent blur, the Ritsuzen Patriarch instantly appeared at Gensai's side. He drove a heavy knee straight into the traitor's ruined back, pinning him violently to the earth and refusing to let him move even a single inch.
**********
With the heavily mutated Gensai securely arrested, the surviving personnel retreated to the pristine safety of the Ritsuzen reception hall.
"Lord Ritsuzen, I trust you will provide a proper explanation for this disaster?" Azelior demanded imperiously, furious that such a catastrophic security breach had occurred during what was supposed to be a simple diplomatic visit.
"Rest assured, Lord Astaroth. The Ritsuzen Clan will certainly compensate House Astaroth for our inexcusable oversight," Kyora answered solemnly. He bowed his head slightly. It couldn't be helped; the incident was entirely the fault of his own clan's internal corruption.
"And as for the matter regarding the young lady's peerage...?" Kyora probed carefully, needing to ensure that this fiasco wouldn't completely dissolve their tentative alliance.
"Hmph!" Azelior snorted coldly. "That decision will have to depend entirely on my niece!"
Handling the final choice over to Latia wasn't because he deeply respected the nine-year-old's autonomy; rather, he secretly didn't want to dissolve the alliance either. With the powerful Ritsuzen Clan backing them, House Astaroth could rapidly expand its influence into the human world.
He had heard rumours that the younger sister of the current Satan, Sirzechs Lucifer, was deeply fascinated with Japanese culture and planned to establish a territory there. By gaining a secure foothold on Japanese soil through this magician clan, Azelior could use the opportunity to strengthen his political ties with the Satan. Earning the favour of a second Satan certainly wouldn't hurt, after all.
"Uh... um..." Standing close to Azelior's side, Latia hesitated. Glancing at the young boy who was currently staring at the floor in profound depression, she quickly shook her head. "I don't want him to be in my peerage!" she declared childishly, completely unconcerned with Ren's feelings.
Kyora's heart nearly dropped into his stomach, terrified that the alliance was ruined, until he heard her very next sentence.
"I want maid-onee-san to be in my peerage!" Latia demanded brightly, turning her head and pointing her little finger directly at Tsumugi.
Tsumugi blinked, her normally stoic facade cracking just a fraction. She pointed a bruised, soot-stained finger at her own face. "Me?" she croaked in disbelief.