"Lady Valetta, Orario's Adventurers are too strong—we cannot hold them back! P-please, you should run."
A member of the Thanatos Familia delivered the warning carefully, not daring to stand too close to his leader.
The Empress of Slaughter was insane not only toward her enemies, but also toward her own people.
If she was in a foul mood, she would execute a subordinate without a second thought.
She was a madwoman!
"Why are you standing so far away?" Valetta noticed the subtle movement of her subordinate and turned a dangerous gaze upon him.
"I—I…"
Puchi!
"Ughaaaah!" Valetta closed the distance at a speed he could not track, piercing straight through his chest with a single strike.
She grabbed his still-beating heart in the palm of her hand.
"Do you think trash like you needs distance for me to kill you?" She crushed it.
After dropping the corpse, Valetta cursed in frustration. "Damn it! Zald actually lost? What kind of joke is this?!"
Despite bearing the title Empress of Slaughter, Valetta was no true warrior.
She bullied the weak and feared the strong.
When her faction held the advantage, her arrogance knew no bounds. Once the tide of battle turned against her, she cared nothing for saving face.
"Hey! Pass down the order—everyone is to retreat out of the city! Do not let Orario's Adventurers discover the secret passages!"
"Y-yes…"
'Tch. Just you wait, Orario! This is not over yet! Next time, I'll definitely destroy you!'
....
Meanwhile, on the 18th Floor—
Rayleigh surveyed the vanguard, all of them too exhausted to move, and rose to his feet.
Erebus remained at large.
Rayleigh had changed his mind.
Rather than simply sending Erebus back to Tenkai, capturing him and dragging him before the divine assembly for a public execution sounded far more entertaining.
He wanted to see what kind of expression the evil God would make when faced with his peers.
"I'm going after Erebus."
Following that declaration, Rayleigh sprinted toward the surface.
He knew exactly where Erebus was heading.
The top of Babel Tower.
It was the best seat in the house.
In truth, attempting to execute a deity was a theory he had wanted to test.
In reality, it proved impossible.
Gods existed as higher-dimensional beings compared to all life in the Lower World.
That was no mere metaphor.
When a mortal attempted to harm a deity, the God only needed to release their Arcanum, and the offender would be forced to halt their attack.
Regrettably, Rayleigh had discovered he was no exception to this rule.
Faced with Erebus's Arcanum, he could not execute a lethal strike against the god.
Restraining him, however, posed no problem.
Rayleigh sprinted out of the labyrinth at tremendous speed.
Emerging from the Dungeon, he bypassed Babel's interior stairwells entirely, running straight to the tower's exterior structure.
Erebus was likely taking the central magic elevator up at a leisurely pace.
"Perfect. I can test this out, too."
Rayleigh dropped into a half-crouch, gathering dense Reiryoku into his legs.
After a brief moment of charging his strength, he launched upward violently. He shot into the sky like a fired projectile.
Relying on his physical stats, Rayleigh ascended a considerable distance up the tower's face.
Just as his upward momentum began to stall, Rayleigh executed another launching motion.
This time, the physical wind-up was so brief the action remained almost invisible.
Yet, his body propelled upward once again.
"Success." A smirk tugged at the corner of Rayleigh's mouth.
He felt confident in the theory, but executing it flawlessly on the first attempt surprised even him.
This was an advanced application of Shunpo.
Among the four foundational Shinigami combat arts—Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hohō, and Kidō—the art of "Step" (Hohō) did not solely refer to high-speed movement techniques like Shunpo.
It encompassed the precise control and utilization of spiritual power.
By gathering Reiryoku beneath the soles of the feet, a practitioner could forge a solid foothold in empty air.
For a trained Shinigami, it was a fundamental skill.
A Shinigami skilled in Reiryoku control only required a few attempts to grasp the underlying principle.
With less than a month of dedicated practice, they could master aerial footing. Still, efficiency mirroring Rayleigh's first-try success remained exceedingly rare.
Boom!
His coat flapped violently in the gale.
Rayleigh raced up the exterior stone of Babel Tower, ascending toward the dome at extreme speeds.
If he pushed the theory a step further, he could potentially use Reiatsu as sustained propulsion to achieve true aerial flight.
High-level Shinigami never worried about losing their footing or lacking the leverage to dodge in midair.
They could generate platforms at will, and those footholds did not need to remain level or aligned with gravity.
Even while inverted in freefall, a master could instantly trigger Shunpo.
In just one minute, Rayleigh scaled from the base of Babel Tower to the summit.
Landing on the observation deck, he extended his Reiraku senses to track Erebus's Spirit Ribbon.
He discovered the God was still ascending inside the slow elevator.
Rayleigh unclipped the Zanpakuto from his waist and set the scabbard aside.
He sat down on the polished stone floor, propped his chin against his hand, and waited for his "guest" with an arrogant, leisurely posture.
'Ding.'
The elevator arrived.
One final stretch of architecture remained to be walked on foot: a winding spiral staircase leading to the roof.
With both hands stuffed casually in his pockets, Erebus climbed the steps at an easy pace.
Through his divine intuition, he already sensed that Alfia and Zald had been defeated.
The chaotic malice the Greatest Evil had directed toward him had also vanished from the Dungeon below.
'Those children were truly capable.'
'How enviable, really.'
'To think my fellow gods possessed such exceptional, captivating children in their Familias.... how envious!'
Step. Step. Step.
When the final stair brought the God into full view, Rayleigh offered a dry smile.
"So you've arrived, Evil God. Judging by your expression, you seem surprised to find me waiting for you."
Rayleigh's weapon rested several feet away.
His expression remained perfectly neutral.
His posture was relaxed—almost lazy. Observing the scene, Erebus correctly deduced that Rayleigh had not come here seeking a fight.
"Surprised? Yes, that's true. But I am not surprised because you are here."
"What?"
"Though even I find it rather unbelievable, I seem to be quite fond of you. The moment I stepped into the elevator, I had a divine premonition that I might meet you at the top of the tower." Erebus's voice carried a magnetic quality.
His tone was strangely gentle.
"Hehe," he laughed softly. "Honestly now, to what extent do you intend to satisfy my expectations?"
"It's almost as if you saw the future… no, that's impossible,"
"Rather, it seems you understand me quite well, and that is something I can't comprehend."
Hearing the God rule out the correct answer entirely on his own, Rayleigh laughed inwardly.
He maintained a perfect poker face.
When dealing with a deity like Erebus, displaying even the slightest reaction might reveal a secret he needed to keep hidden.
"I just think all you thrill-seeking lunatics share the exact same brain wiring," Rayleigh stated flatly.
"Thrill-seeking lunatics?" Erebus froze.
In all his hundreds of millions of years of existence, it was the first time a mortal had ever labeled him with such a description!
He let out a breathless series of laughs.
"Hahahaha. I see. That really is a title that suits my nature perfectly. I will accept it as your farewell gift to me," Erebus said, looking genuinely satisfied.
Rayleigh was taken aback.
'Farewell?'
That phrasing did not sound like a villain planning a retreat.
'Wait, this guy… is he planning to return to Tenkai of his own accord?'
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