Cracks like a spiderweb appeared in the sky above the hotel. With the crisp sound of shattering glass, long, pitch-black, twisted fissures began spreading outward. The area of collapsed space rapidly expanded, and through the nearer rifts, the endless black void beneath them could be seen alongside overlapping glimpses of other dimensions.
"Boom!"
Within mere seconds, the spatial fissures had spread across the entire sky. Then, like a balloon whose internal pressure had exceeded what its material could withstand, the sky suddenly shattered like a glass wall exposed to extreme heat. Space collapsed, and enormous amounts of debris poured out of the alternate dimension, covering an area far larger than the hotel itself.
"Aaaah!!!"
Several human silhouettes fell from the alternate dimension, screaming in midair, only to immediately stop calling for help. They saw that the huge torrent of mud and rocks pouring from the center of the collapsing alternate dimension had been blocked by the makeshift shelter built on the hotel rooftop, and their eyes lit up.
"Over there!"
Someone shouted from high above. Most of those still in midair twisted around and used Magical Power to generate thrust, changing their landing point from outside the hotel to its rooftop and avoiding the fate of being buried beneath the mud and debris.
"Thud, thud, thud…"
The fastest descending figures landed directly in front of Epsilon and the others. Like stones skipping across water, they bounced several times against the ground before rolling across the rooftop, smashing through a pile of obstacles along the way and finally coming to a stop near the edge.
"Guh… Ugh, cough, cough, cough…"
Rias clutched her chest and coughed violently. After coughing up several mouthfuls of filthy blood mixed with dust and ash, she raised her head and warily surveyed her surroundings, trying to figure out where she was.
Then she saw three women in black staring at her curiously, Giada, the Third Primogenitor, who was obviously just enjoying the spectacle, Azazel, the Fallen Angel Governor General, wearing a thoughtful expression, the Witch holding Natsuki Minamiya and looking at them pensively, and the man in a white lab coat onstage, who was staring at the sky and his surroundings in confusion.
I think I just stumbled into somewhere seriously dangerous…
The thought instinctively crossed her mind, but Rias did not let much of it show. She simply struggled to her feet, focused her gaze on Azazel, and assumed a guarded stance.
"Rias, we don't know what's going on yet. Don't do anything rash!"
Akeno Himejima, who had fallen alongside Rias, saw her stance and immediately grew worried that Rias might end up fighting these people at the slightest disagreement. She hurriedly spoke up before Rias could act on impulse.
"Don't worry, Akeno. I'm perfectly calm. But could someone please tell me what exactly is happening here? Why are all of you here?"
Rias did not recklessly jump straight into a fight. Instead, she kept her voice as calm as possible. She knew there was a very good chance that some of the people before her were accomplices of the terrorists who had attacked them, but they could only account for a small portion of the group.
Take the Third Primogenitor, for instance. Giada might be famously fond of watching trouble unfold, but she was unquestionably on the Lawful side. She had even helped them deal with Dahaka, that Dragon King-class Evil Dragon, before.
Of course, that did not mean Rias lacked a specific suspect.
At the very least, she strongly suspected Azazel might have been involved.
It could hardly be helped. Kokabiel's previous actions had sent the credibility of the Fallen Angels Organization plummeting. Rias and the others had also been among those responsible for sending Kokabiel to Hell, and now Azazel had conveniently appeared here at exactly the right time.
Motive, character, timing. He had all three.
Who else was she supposed to suspect?
"Well… I'm not entirely sure what happened here either. After all, I was invited here by someone else. But…"
Giada tapped her chin, a faint curve forming at the corners of her lips. Her emerald eyes shifted mischievously before she turned toward Laugus on the stage and the bewildered Azazel.
"I'm sure someone here knows exactly what happened."
"Well now, I'm terribly sorry, Sirzechs's sister. But I was invited here by the same person as Her Majesty the Third Primogenitor. I have no idea what happened to you."
As Giada finished speaking, Azazel felt all those gazes suddenly settle on him. He chuckled and promptly rejected the blame she was trying to dump on him.
He had no intention of allowing the Fallen Angels to become the spark that ignited a war between the various factions. Just from Rias's battered appearance and the large amount of blood staining her clothes, he could tell that something extremely serious had happened on the Devil side.
"Still, you could ask the person who invited me here. Someone whose relationship with me is… average, at best. He should know what happened."
Azazel turned toward the raised platform, where Laugus was still staring around and up at the sky in confusion, and smoothly passed the blame to the man actually responsible.
"Hm?"
As though only now snapping back to reality, Laugus lowered his head and frowned at Azazel. He did not seem particularly bothered by what Azazel had done, however. Instead, he took something out and looked in a certain direction.
"Excuse me. Could you give me an explanation? This is Astaroth's stronghold on Itogami Island. Why are you here? I suggest you answer me seriously, or I'll attack."
Seeing that Laugus was ignoring her, Rias stepped forward and issued a warning. At the same time, the Power of Destruction began surging around her.
She was confident that this middle-aged man, whose Magical Power fluctuations were so faint, could not withstand even a single strike from her Power of Destruction.
"Don't misunderstand…"
Hearing Rias's warning, Laugus glanced at her and replied casually.
"I'm just waiting for someone…"
Above them, the spatial collapse had finally reached its last stage. Most of the debris accumulated within the alternate dimension had already been expelled onto the streets, and the torrent of falling objects had nearly stopped.
Just as the world's corrective force began repairing the remaining spatial fissures, a large group of figures leaped from the final rift and landed on the hotel rooftop.
On the back of the last enormous Dragon-like shadow was a massive blood-red Cross.
"By the way, what went wrong with the plan? How did you sacrificial offerings manage to escape?"
Laugus delivered the merciless question in an utterly calm tone as he looked toward the alluring woman who was clearly leading the newly arrived group. A strange gleam flickered in his eyes, making the accusation in his gaze unmistakable.
"I'm under no obligation to explain anything to you people from the Cult of Diablos. But considering we're allies for now, I'll give you that much."
Katerea spoke impatiently, her expression dark.
"That Diodora bastard was secretly killed by someone. The same person also tampered with the ritual array maintaining the alternate dimension. It suddenly collapsed when the ritual was already well underway. We were only a tiny step away from finishing it."
Katerea was obviously in a terrible mood. A plan she had believed was certain to succeed had suddenly suffered such a catastrophic failure. Anyone would have been furious.
Worse still, the sister of the man who had stolen her ancestral throne had taken advantage of the chaos to escape. That only made her angrier.
"Hum…"
A strange vibration suddenly came from the sky.
Everyone instinctively looked upward.
The spatial repairs had reached their final stage, and even the operating foundation of the array that had maintained the alternate dimension was being expelled.
At first, there seemed to be nothing unusual about it.
But as the array's foundation fell, it suddenly scattered into countless particles of light and formed two enormous words in the air.
[Been Here]
"…"
Katerea stared silently at the two glowing words in the sky. Two throbbing anger marks immediately appeared on her forehead, and her fists clenched tight.
"You coward hiding in the shadows because you're too scared to show your face! Come out if you've got the guts! I'm going to kill you!!!"
Lost in her impotent rage, Katerea failed to notice something.
As she shouted those words, Epsilon and her two companions, along with Aya Tokoyogi, were all staring at her as though she were already dead.
"Interesting. Could everything she said actually be true? Does a God who knows everything really exist in this world?"
Laugus was entirely different from the raging Katerea. The corners of his mouth rose involuntarily as he stared at the two enormous words in the sky with excitement and fervor.
"…I really want to meet you. Let me see for myself whether the God that girl praises so highly truly knows everything. Hahaha…"
"Oh my. It seems your plan has been ruined by a certain adorable little fellow, Laugus-san. I wonder how you feel about that?"
Giada smiled at Laugus with an almost friendly expression, her excitement plainly visible. Yet deep within her eyes lurked unmistakable malice.
"No one can guarantee success on the first attempt. Experiments fail all the time…"
Laugus spoke casually, showing no trace of disappointment whatsoever. His gaze swept over Epsilon and the others, who had just tried to seize the opportunity for another sneak attack only to be stopped by Azazel once again.
He paused briefly, took something out, and tossed it to Katerea.
"But there's always a Plan B!"
"Clack!"
Katerea caught the controller Laugus had thrown to her. A trace of hesitation flashed across her face, but it quickly gave way to ruthlessness.
Having made her decision, she raised her blood whip.
Epsilon, who had moved closest to them during her attempted sneak attack, instinctively assumed a defensive stance.
"Aaaah!!!"
"W-why, Katerea-sama?"
"Damn it! We were tricked! That bitch wants to use us… as sacrifices…"
Epsilon held an arm defensively in front of herself, yet no pain came.
Instead, screams erupted all around her.
She froze for a moment. Then, realizing what had happened, she lowered her arm.
Sure enough, the sight before her was exactly what she had expected.
Katerea's crimson blood whip had pierced more than a dozen of her own subordinates at once. Already so red that it seemed ready to drip blood, the whip now appeared almost alive. Its length swelled and contracted like a beating heart as it drained the life force from the black-robed figures.
The sudden attack had instantly pierced the bodies of these powerful individuals. Their violent struggles pulled away the black robes they had used to cover their heads and conceal their presence.
Perhaps because she was not the one being attacked, Epsilon calmly counted them.
Exactly half of the black-robed figures were Devils, while the other half were Humans.
"Shut up! You should consider it an honor to give your lives so the Old Satan Faction can reclaim power! Once we seize control of that world, your names will be carved into the history of the Underworld!"
Katerea snarled at her own subordinates. With a forceful pull of her hand, the blood whip piercing all of them instantly retracted.
Then she hurled the whip, now saturated with their life force, toward the Cross binding Yuuma Tokoyogi.
"Aaaah!!!"
The instant the blood whip touched the Cross, the two fused together.
The Cross, already almost entirely blood-red, filled in its final remaining gap.
Yuuma Tokoyogi, who had been unconscious, suddenly opened her eyes and screamed in agony.
"What exactly is the Cult of Diablos trying to do?! You sacrificed so many people, and you're even willing to do this to a child that young!"
With Azazel watching her closely and leaving her no opportunity to attack, Epsilon could only glare furiously at the man on the stage.
She had completely lost patience with all this deliberate suspense.
"What are we trying to do? Nothing more than obtain proof…"
Laugus shook his head. He did not even look toward the sky, which had begun to change now that the ritual was complete.
Instead, he slowly explained his objective.
"The Three Primogenitors possess The Cleansing, authority equivalent to the ability to manipulate the world itself. Yet even they cannot alter the Contract Demons or High-Dimensional Angels. That most likely means these are seeds that have already grown. But because of what the Deva Realm did, both of those entities became trapped in a glitch. They keep recruiting people without personally entering the world."
"So I wondered. If we used the blood of a Devil from another world as a sacrifice, together with the bloodline of a top-tier Witch, could we drag the so-called Contract Demon down from the world's rules, remove that glitch, and allow me to understand precisely how the world operates?"
"Unfortunately, our calculations showed that there wasn't enough energy. The glitch was too severe. Even if we exploited the Demon's contract rules and added the power of the Red Dragon Emperor, it still wouldn't be enough to pull the Demon out."
"But I got lucky. That guy Kanase contacted me on his own. All he wanted was for his niece to become a true Angel instead of an Ascended Angel."
"However, after analyzing everything, and after he showed me the experimental project he was currently working on, we eventually reached a conclusion…"
At this point, Laugus's smile became utterly unrestrained.
"We can't pull out a single Contract Demon. But with two mutually conflicting entities, we might just be able to pull it off."
A spectral, pitch-black, keratinous arm extended from Yuuma Tokoyogi's body.
Its five razor-sharp claws tore through the void, turning illusion into reality as the arm materialized in the physical world. Dense black mist poured from the fissure, and an overwhelming pressure erupted in an instant.
"This is both proof that our theory is correct and the material for my next experiment. A Root seed from ancient times…"
Laugus stared greedily at the arm as he spoke with arrogant confidence.
...
In the quiet corridor, Cid walked ahead, leading the way for Kanon Kanase.
Then he suddenly stopped and turned around in confusion.
Kanon Kanase had frozen in place.
"What's wrong, Kanon?"
***
...
...
If you'd like to support my work and unlock advanced chapters, you can follow me on p-@-treon.
[email protected]/PinkSnake (50 Chapters Ahead).
You can also follow as a free member to read a few advanced chapters.
***