By the time the dust settled and the battlefield fell eerily silent, we couldn't move.
The feed returned, shaky and distorted, but what it showed left us frozen in disbelief.
The human—no, that monster—sat upon a ghostly throne that seemed to grow out of the shadows themselves.
Behind him, the dragon loomed, a black and gold monolith of aura and power, eyes piercing through the darkness like twin blue moons of madness.
The aura surrounding them wasn't just energy—it was command.
The very screen vibrated with it, making the hair on my arms stand on end.
All the chaos, all the destruction, all the agony of Riser's peerage paled in comparison to this.
We couldn't tell if it was the fusion of human and the dragon that radiated such force, or if the throne itself, carved from shadow and distortion, was alive.
Either way, it mattered not.
The broadcast captured everything: the ruined school building behind them, the lingering black smoke, the shattered battlefield, the human—no, the monster in human skin—sitting with calm, insane authority.
Even on a small monitor, it felt like the eyes were looking straight through us.
Some of the older devils started whispering, their voices trembling:
"Is… is that even a human?"
"No… that's not possible…"
"He… he's nothing!! I refuse to believe he can hurt us when we have four Satans protecting us… that's… impossible..."
And yet it was real.
Every detail of the aura, every ripple of the distortion field, every motionless, confident posture of the throne-bound figure shouted a warning: we are no longer spectators. We are witnesses to a new order.
I swallowed hard.
My hands trembled.
Even the mid-class devils around me—the ones who had scoffed at humans, who had cheered for the Phenex clan—sat rigid, pale, their earlier bravado drained completely.
Suddenly, that monstrous figure on the throne spoke.
"Hello, dear devils," the voice boomed across every screen, calm and unnervingly casual, like reciting a mundane daily routine.
"You see, I am very upset. I only wanted to live a peaceful life, to make a family. And yet, your kind—your politics—came knocking at my door. Can you imagine the girl I love being forced to marry some thug for political gain? So yes… I became angry. And this is the result of that anger."
A chill ran down my spine.
The words were casual, almost serene, yet the sheer weight behind them screamed of the devastation we had just witnessed firsthand.
Then he said something that made the air itself grow heavy:
"Can you devils look outside? Just… take a look at the sky for me."
Hesitant, I glanced out the window—and what I saw made my stomach drop, my blood run cold.
The sky was pitch black, like spilled ink swallowing the horizon.
A suffocating darkness pressed down from above, yet paradoxically, the ground was bathed in an unnatural light, as if day and night were simultaneously collapsing on top of each other.
And then… the sky opened its eyes.
Yes—eyes.
Hundreds, maybe thousands, of grotesque, unblinking eyes, all twisted in form, each radiating a malevolent awareness.
They weren't merely observing—they were feeding on our terror, twisting our fear into a spectacle for their monstrous amusement.
A low, collective gasp rose from the devils around me.
Some staggered backward.
Some fell to their knees, overwhelmed.
The static from the broadcast flickered, almost as if the cameras themselves refused to fully capture what was happening.
I could feel it—not just with my eyes, but in my bones.
Something primal.
Something that whispered that no force in Hell could withstand the presence of this monster, this living apotheosis of chaos.
And as those monstrous eyes blinked—or maybe they never did—I understood something terrifyingly simple: we were utterly, irreversibly insignificant.
Nothing we had ever seen in Hell, no cunning, no power, no hierarchy, could prepare us for this.
The screen trembled again, the aura pulsing like a heartbeat, as if the creature on the throne—and the eyes in the sky—were one.
As if to mock us, the voice from the feed continued, calm yet dripping with amusement.
"I've heard devil society is all about hierarchy, rankings, nobles, and the like," the monstrous figure said.
"So let me make one thing clear: I am the apex. Not you. Not your nobles. Not even the Satans."
A guy from a tavern somewhere shouted back, disbelief echoing in the chaotic broadcast.
"There's no way! You're not stronger than Satan! They'll protect us!"
As if anticipating every reaction, the voice chuckled softly, almost taunting.
"Oh? I hear some of you doubting me. Very well, allow me to prove it."
Suddenly, a pressure unlike anything we had ever felt descended from the sky, crushing down with invisible weight.
The ground beneath us seemed to bend, our knees buckling as we were forced flat, our breaths pushed from our lungs.
Even the bravest devils groaned in pain, faces pressed into the scorched earth.
"Oh! Wait! Perhaps monsters are more… effective!"
The voice rang out gleefully, like a child playing with ants.
In an instant, the oppressive weight vanished—and we were no longer in the heart of the city.
The outskirts.
Open space.
Sunless, dark black sky filled with eyes.
Yet the air was alive with chaos.
And then… we saw them.
A swarm.
Horrific, grotesque, malformed creatures beyond comprehension.
Each was a mockery of life, with twisted limbs, gaping maws dripping black ichor, and eyes that burned with unnatural hunger.
They moved as one, a writhing, shrieking mass, tearing through buildings, shattering streets, and smashing whatever dared resist them.
The capital city of Lilith—once proud, orderly, a monument to devilkind's strength—was falling in seconds.
Windows shattered.
Statues toppled.
Flames erupted where there had been none before, painting the ruins in hellish orange.
I tried to lift my head, my arms trembling, heart hammering in my chest.
I wished I hadn't.
The monsters swarmed closer, and the ground trembled under their weight.
Each step was an earthquake.
Each scream from the civilians—or devils, rather—was swallowed in a cacophony of chaos.
Some devils tried to rally, forming small clusters to resist.
Weapons were drawn, spells cast—but the monsters moved too fast, striking with precision and brutality that felt impossibly intelligent.
The scene was no longer a fight.
It was sheer annihilation.
And overhead, the eyes in the sky—the endless, mocking gaze—watched, as if savoring every moment of our terror.
It wasn't just destruction.
It was a lesson, a message: we were insignificant. We were prey. And our apex… was nothing.
Suddenly, just as those grotesque monsters lunged to tear into a group of fleeing civilians, they vanished—snuffed out in an instant, like smoke swept away by the wind.
If not for the ruins they had left behind—the shattered walls, the mangled streets, and other such things—I would have thought it had all been some mass hallucination.
Before we could even comprehend it, our surroundings shifted again.
In a blink, all of us were back inside the half-collapsed tavern, dust and broken wood littering the floor.
Some devils vomited from the abrupt teleportation.
Others simply lay trembling, trying to process what had just happened.
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