"Sebas! Watch out!" Aureole shouted loudly from the air.
The Head Butler of Nazarick kept his eyes closed, taking a deep breath as if making a profoundly difficult decision.
The moment Aureole's warning fell, Sebas's eyes snapped open.
His usually calm, ripple-less eyes flickered with a violent, vertical crimson slit. The immaculate, tailored gentleman's suit on his body instantly tore apart, shredded by massively expanding muscle and bone.
The polite British butler vanished in an instant. In his place stood a towering, terrifying Dragonoid, covered head to toe in thick, razor-sharp silver scales.
"Sebas!" Aureole gasped, relieved but tense.
"Mm. Do not worry," Sebas's voice was now a deep, rumbling growl that vibrated the asphalt. "I will block his advance. You provide absolute support with magic from the rear, Aureole."
Having said that, the Dragonoid Sebas charged forward with the speed of a falling meteor, intercepting the incoming Fox Sin.
Sharp, crushing dragon claws caught Ban's swinging hands, and the two monsters began to grapple in the center of the ruined street. Compared to the fully transformed, Level 100 Dragonoid, Ban's raw physical strength at this exact moment was undoubtedly a notch inferior.
Under the continuous, earth-shattering exertion of power from both sides, Ban's back couldn't help but bend violently backward.
CRUNCH!
The sickening sound of a thick bone snapping echoed through the quiet plaza. Ban's spine was directly and brutally snapped in half under Sebas's immense, draconic strength.
Even so, Aureole and Sebas did not let down their guard for a single microsecond. They knew exactly what they were dealing with.
"[Maximize Magic: Blazing Laser]!"
"[Maximize Magic: Reality Slash]!"
From the sky, a searing crimson laser pierced a massive hole cleanly through Ban's chest. It was followed immediately by a spatial Reality Slash that cleanly cleaved his already broken body in two.
At the same time, the Commander-type maid did not forget to rapidly buff her vanguard.
"[Maximize Magic: Body Enhancement]!"
"[Maximize Magic: Defense Enhancement]!"
"[Maximize Magic: Resistance Enhancement]!"
Multiple rays of brilliant buffing light washed over Sebas's scaled dragon body, further amplifying his monstrous stats.
Conversely, even though Ban had been cut in two and his bisected corpse lay miserably in the rubble, Aureole did not stop aggressively applying debuffs to his remains.
"[Poison]! [Weakness]! [Slowness]! [Heal Reduction]!"
"Hey! Hey! Hey!" a voice complained from the rubble. "This is a bit much, don't you think?"
In the blink of an eye, the recently dismembered and poisoned Ban was completely whole again.
However, the high-tier magical debuffs Aureole had applied clung to him like maggots on a bone. Ban shook his wrists and hopped in place a few times, cracking his neck. He could indeed feel that his body was currently a bit sluggish and unresponsive.
However, it didn't matter.
"Continuing!" Ban yelled with a manic grin. "Bring it, Dragonoid!"
After bouncing on his toes, Ban's feet suddenly exerted explosive force. A crater erupted beneath his boots as he launched himself toward Sebas.
Sebas's silver dragon claws and Ban's bare fists blurred across the battlefield. Every single high-speed collision caused massive, sonic ripples in the air.
It also caused fresh blood to splatter wildly from Ban's knuckles.
The two exchanged blows continuously until Ban, unable to physically withstand the compounding injuries to his body, was forced to retreat a few steps. With the presence of Aureole's high-tier debuffs, his instantaneous recovery speed had temporarily fallen slightly behind the speed at which he was being mangled.
Seeing Ban finally start to fall into a disadvantage, Aureole in the sky continuously released a barrage of offensive magic from her hands. Fire, lightning, and ice relentlessly bombarded the Fox Sin from all directions.
Finally, she successfully hit him with absolute-zero magic, freezing Ban entirely inside a massive block of solid ice, locking him in place.
"Sebas! Take the opportunity now to cut off his head and secure it!" Aureole commanded. "Do not give him a chance to resurrect!"
Hearing this, the Dragonoid lunged toward the frozen pillar.
SMASH!
Sebas shattered the ice pillar with a devastating punch before Ban had time to react. His dragon claws thrust forward like spears, slicing cleanly through Ban's neck.
Sebas's two massive claws grabbed Ban's severed head by the hair, intending to lift it and retreat.
Two slender human hands suddenly clamped down over the dragon's wrists, interrupting the movement entirely.
"That won't do."
The severed head that Sebas was currently holding was now perfectly, seamlessly reattached to Ban's neck.
Ban's hands, gripping the scaled dragon claws, exerted an impossible, overwhelming force. With a flawless over-the-shoulder throw, the ten-foot-tall Dragonoid Sebas was slammed brutally onto the concrete, shattering the street.
After just a brief moment of combat, Sebas could clearly feel it.
Ban's physical strength had become vastly stronger again.
Climbing up from the rubble, Sebas clenched his dragon claws, his scales trembling. The two began to trade blows once more, fist to flesh, as bursts of compressed air exploded around them.
Sebas's reptilian expression was incredibly solemn. In his line of sight, Ban's fists had been blood-stained and mangled just a moment ago, but now they were as clean and perfect as new.
Their fists and claws collided several more times. Sebas could no longer maintain the upper hand. The agonizing pain radiating from his own dragon claws told him the horrifying truth: Ban was absorbing his stats. The human was getting stronger and faster with every passing second.
"Sebas, hold on! I have a way!" Aureole's voice suddenly reached his ears.
Sebas did not doubt or hesitate, clashing with Ban once again to buy time. He understood clearly that he no longer had any chance of winning a melee brawl; Ban's **[Snatch]** and immortality countered him too perfectly. None of his own physical methods could kill the Sin of Greed.
The longer it dragged on, the further victory slipped away. Since Aureole had a tactical solution, he would play the vanguard support role flawlessly.
While the brutal brawl raged on the ground below, Aureole began casting her highest-tier spatial magic.
"[Maximize Magic: Dimensional Banishment]!"
"Sebas, get out of the way!"
Hearing Aureole's warning, Sebas instantly jumped backward, putting massive distance between himself and Ban.
At that exact moment, several brilliant points of spatial light lit up around Ban. They stretched and connected into a glowing, rectangular, multi-dimensional cage, successfully trapping Ban in place.
The light flashed blindingly bright, and the cage violently collapsed inward, disappearing entirely.
Disappearing right along with it was Ban.
"It should be fine now," Aureole panted, descending from the sky to land safely by Sebas's side. "Dimensional Banishment will imprison him inside an absolute, void-like pocket dimension. He is trapped there permanently... unless he possesses the magical ability to tear through the fabric of space itself."
Seeing Ban finally vanish from their reality, both of the Nazarick loyalists breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
Among all the enemies they had ever encountered across multiple worlds, Ban's level of difficulty was definitely second to none. Not only could he absolutely not be killed, but he would also passively drain their strength to fuel his own.
'This guy was more like a monster than even we are,' Sebas thought, clutching his bruised, scaled arm.
The two stared intently at the empty spot where Ban had vanished. After a good, tense minute, there was still no sign of the void opening or him reappearing.
Sebas's dragon body slowly shrank, his silver scales retracting as he magically returned to his neat, human butler form. Aureole also lowered her hands, stopping the reserve magic she had been preparing.
"It seems he hasn't escaped," Aureole said softly. "We can go back."
Looking around the ruined street, Aureole respectfully used her inventory magic to collect all the scattered corpses of her recently deceased Battle Maid sisters. She walked to Sebas's side again, suggesting they return to the Supreme Being's side immediately.
The deep seriousness on the human-form Sebas's face did not relax because of Aureole's reassuring words. He had a terrible, sinking premonition; his Level 100 warrior's intuition was screaming at him.
'The spatial fabric in this strange world is so fragile,' Sebas thought, recalling the Chitauri wormhole. 'Could a simple Banishment spell really trap a monster like him?'
SQUELCH.
"Cough... cough..."
"H-How... how can this be?" Aureole gasped, her eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated horror.
Sebas violently turned his head to look. The bloody scene before him made his pupils shrink to pinpricks.
Aureole Omega's chest had been violently, cleanly pierced through from behind by a human arm.
And the person attached to that arm was none other than Ban—the man who had just been banished to an inescapable void.
Pulling his blood-soaked arm out from her back, Ban let Aureole's paralyzed, dying body fall heavily to the asphalt.
Ban shook the blood off his fingers and looked lazily at Sebas.
"That magic just now was a bit troublesome," Ban admitted, cracking his neck. "It took me quite a while to adapt to the pressure inside that weird pocket dimension. Anyway..."
Ban gestured casually to the dying shrine maiden at his feet.
"This magic caster is a bit of a nuisance. You don't mind if I take her out first, do you, old man?"
While speaking, Ban did not stop his ruthless actions for a microsecond.
He raised his heavy boot and stomped forcefully downward.
When Sebas registered the movement, it was already much too late to rescue her. Thus, right before Sebas's horrified eyes, Aureole's skull was directly and brutally crushed by Ban's stomp.
"No!!" Sebas roared, his gentlemanly composure finally shattering entirely.
"Don't be in a hurry," Ban smirked, his crimson eyes glowing with absolute malice. "You're next."
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