Belial naturally fell into a familiar state of confusion, racing through the Void with nothing to fight. Surrounded by endless resentment and empty space, it was extremely boring. He would rather charge straight into the earlier Dark Vortex than sit around like this.
"So could someone please jump right in front of me, or broadcast a loud challenge already?" He even considered exposing his own location to bait enemies. After thinking it through, he rejected the idea, since getting swarmed would be dangerous, and his old enemies were probably not that foolish.
If he got ambushed and lost, that would be embarrassing. It was better to keep searching and slowly wear down their forces. With that in mind, he was already prepared to drift here for days, months, or even decades.
Then, not long after he set off, a strange frequency washed over his face. It was a bizarre sound, mixed with something like singing and prayer. He had no idea why he could hear it at all.
It felt wrong, and before Belial could understand why, his eyes lit up. This was perfect timing. It seemed he was not the only one who could hear it.
"Come on. Let me see who you are." He let out a vicious grin, wrapped his entire body in Crystal, suppressed his energy and presence, and quietly drifted toward the source.
A bloodshot, turbid Gold Rank pupil opened for a brief instant within the Void, then the information was delayed and erased before appearing again and closing. After confirming that no one was nearby, the blood-red Abyss and Void itself showed faint distortion, then slow writhing. The space twisted again and again, as if something inside was testing the boundary.
A formless state took shape, impossible to describe, as a massive mouth packed with endless tentacles opened and released a sound close to a whimper. An eye opened, then another, then four, and soon countless eyes spread across an area like the surface of a moon. Its body was torn Rend apart into tentacles, and between the tentacles more mouths split Rend open.
Greedy mouths and eyes formed a crawling mass within the Void, like a thick swamp in motion. After every eye scanned all directions and confirmed safety, it cautiously extended a section of tentacle that could barely be called a hand and slowly pulled something open. A glowing Rift spilled light so obvious that it had to cover it completely with its body and seal it with its domain.
Withered trees, rusted wrecks, and unattended corpses were roughly mashed together and absorbed into its body. It needed to be careful, because things had been too frightening lately, with several of its kind dying without warning. It was also in the middle of doing work for others, and failure would mean being hunted by more than one predator, including a gold the Lord settling accounts later.
Delay it, delay it a bit more. It carefully opened its privately hidden Rift and stuffed in a little soul offering from those ants. It was barely enough to fill a gap between teeth, but it was better than nothing.
Next came the real work. On the surface, it granted power to a tiny ant and casually modified it into a vessel for its descent. For the major event ahead, it had to plant its own pieces in the world first, and it could not letCompanion get ahead, since at least three of them had already placed their pawns in that key ritual area.
It might be slower now, but that was fine. It would proceed steadily, reap the benefits, and then deal with the other harvesters afterward. Black power mixed with blood-red surged toward the Rift, seeped into the world, and poured into a fanatic figure covered in boils and carved with bloody patterns.
It listened to the ant's endless praise and worship without caring. When it turned its attention aside, it noticed a figure carrying a familiar kind of light. Its eyes narrowed in silence.
It was that cursed light again. It decided to kill it casually. There was no special reason, and the ants would handle the rest.
Back then, if it were not for that damned light, it would not have fallen to this state. Just as the thought passed, a strange fluctuation came from behind.
"Hey…"
"Hm?"
It took a moment to search its memory before realizing this was an ancient method called sound, a way of sending messages that required mixed gases and basic particles. As it grasped the meaning, its body suddenly churned violently, like an explosion thrown into a sewage pit, and the sticky swamp turned into raging waves. Something had come far too close.
It tried to activate Authority to stop the intruder, but it was a step too slow.
"The roast chicken's about to be gone!"
After charging inside his Crystal shell for a long time, Belial finally struck. The shell was torn Rend open and burst apart, flooding the area with intense white light, while an equal surge of blackness poured out beneath it. The shadow of a Great Dragon spread, and his right hand carried the force of Lightning Magic crackling with power.
It was a direct, overwhelming blow to the front. Antimatter domain force from Magnetic Field Rotation and Divine Severing Thunder followed through. Built on plasma cutting and mixed with three Godzilla power traits, this was a move Belial had refined since tearing apart that Extra-Dimensional Space Shard.
He had just easily segmented another material demon god earlier. Now he wanted to see what would happen to this seemingly formless, slime-like demon god.
"Of course the only end for you is getting smashed head-on by me!"
The black, muddy swamp was split in two by surging lightning, and the torn edges collapsed and burned, unable to regenerate. Countless mouths on its tentacles screamed in agony. The response was a hoarse roar.
"What are you screaming for? Just kneel after I beat you and spit out what I want to know!"
He followed with another Divine Severing Thunder layered with Ecological Corrosion. At the same time, he spread his form into blockbuster black mist and began corroding the surrounding ecology.
Belial quickly noticed something strange. Past bosses usually came with their own map-like domains, so he would cover them with Ecological Corrosion to deny that advantage. This one was different, already fused with its own domain, and the beating forced it to reveal its true form.
"Damn… that's disgusting."
"Didn't I already take out Black Dora earlier? Why is there a bigger one here?"
That hideous shape, the countless blood-red eyes above, and the muddy body made it obvious. In the entire Godzilla lineup, only this thing could be ugly in such a pure way.
Because its body was fused with its domain, its size was extreme, like a living planet. It opened its huge mouth, trying to swallow Belial whole. A slowing force pressed down, making everything move more and more sluggishly.
A higher-level power acted on every basic particle that formed Belial's body, causing disarray like scales falling off. It did not deal direct damage, but instead caused his structure and frame to desynchronize, making everything unbearably slow. As he beat his wings, he realized not just his speed, but all of him, had slowed.
Some Crystal corrosion spread across the living planet, and crystal forests tried to grow on its surface. They were resisted, and their advance was just as slow, almost like time had stopped. Then endless tentacles with eyes and claws surged toward the halted Belial, crashing into something extremely hard.
It was Photon Reflection Shield. He felt slightly better as white light burst from his body, firing an internal blast that refracted outward through the shield. The scorched tentacles were forced back, and he immediately layered more effects, expanding Energy Field with an electromagnetic field and shifting into the Black Mist Dragon form.
With multiple nested domains supporting him, Belial regained much of his mobility. The effect still lingered, but it was enough to fight. He shook his head slightly.
"Your move isn't lethal, but it's really annoying."
His complaint earned no response, only hollow echoes and roars from within the massive living planet. Countless eyes and mouths split Rend open, all fixed on Belial inside. It also realized something was wrong with this intruder.
Normally, a single use of Authority would nearly freeze an opponent, but this thing was still moving. Worse, strange, virus-like ecology was corroding its domain foundation. That was a problem, since it specialized in entanglement and harassment rather than direct killing.
Since Authority could not decide the fight, it chose brute force. It began compressing its domain from all sides, trying to trap Belial completely inside, like sinking into a sticky swamp with no escape. The intended end was decay and dissolution, a fixed Fate.
Belial already had a plan. He fired Fusion Reaction Beam first. White light exploded inside, was quickly swallowed, but left a massive cavity and streams of filthy sludge like bloody tears, proving real damage.
The enemy was simply too large. Normally, he would rely on Ecological Corrosion to slowly consume such foes before finishing them off, but the corrosion was advancing too slowly now. He could not summon multiple large bodies either, so he had to rely on himself.
"It's not that different. This is how I used to fight anyway."