Chapter 229: Chapter 228: Family Conflict Part 4

Their delight in fighting Carl as he fought them without the reservation of his civilised upbringing breathed new life into the dwindling motivation of the contest’s participants and as the daughters of Lillim finally cast aside their attempt at mimicking his restraint he could see it as the olive branch and demonic attempt at familial bonding it was.

As Carl allowed himself to enjoy the exchange as the equivelant of when his mums would attempt to play video-games with him growing up, Gillian noticed the difference and realised that the daughters were studying the movements, expressions and exertions like a language and decided to go all out himself.

His body hardened as he took on the hardening trait of his nemean lion summon, his fur took on black stripes as well as the spirit rending claws of his white tiger and then he began fighting in earnest himself whilst also trying to gain some measure of how the demons seemed to discern such a clear cut sense of understanding from such exchanges.

Somewhat infuriatingly from Blanc’s perspective, the two of them were completely blind to the fact he was introducing more and more automatons to the fray and only holding onto Tiamutael’s interest.

Ironically the infatuation it made him feel led to him having the deepest conversation with the daughters out of any of them and they were all too happy to listen. His rigid and impulsive movements telling them a story of someone who had a tragically fragmented mind and desperately sought some measure of retaliation against those responsible.

Unbeknownst to Blanc, those who were fighting with him were wordlessly reaching the same consensus of his best course of action and realised that keeping up the fight would only start to make him feel inadequate as his increasingly diminished vessels reached a point they couldn’t even pose a challenge a point they couldn’t even challenge the weakest of those still fighting.

“We surrender. When we’re done here though, we want you to come with us instead. There is a realm that would be good for you to visit, one governed by an aspect of Mind that will help you to grow quickly and prepare for the coming challenges.”

“But why surrender!?…” Blanc was shocked by his own anger at their sudden pacifism. “…Ugh, sorry, I don’t know why I got so ang-”

One of the sisters interrupted him by completely destroying the automaton that housed his primary consciousness. “Don’t do that. You have a right to feel however you feel. Pretending that you don’t feel anything might be easier, but it’s the coward’s way out and a coward wouldn’t have survived the things that fractured you so badly.”

“Fine then, I’m pissed. I’m going for a walk, I’ll talk to you after…”

“We best grab that girlfriend Clarisse mentioned, he could be in there for a while…” As the demon’s sisters nodded they moved over to where the others who had surrendered had made their way and continued watching.

When Leanna and Aegis finished their spontaneous break, which had come about when the former realised the same thing as her mother and decided that Aegis needed to calm down for a while, they rejoined the fray in a desperate attempt to try and whittle away the numbers as much as possible before Lillim managed to escape Equinox.

Between Carl, Gillian, Leanna and Aegis, all now fighting at full capacity, the numbers began dwindling quickly. Even though there were several occasions where Carl accidentally blinded allies, he was a little glad since it was a good way of making him aware of an issue he had neglected.

As he continued fighting he found he realised that the resolution was to simply create sensory blocking barriers around him and his immediate opponent, which also left them wide-open to sneak attacks at the same time and left Carl feeling a bit annoyed he hadn’t thought of it before.

As he implemented it, the others mostly rejected the opportunity and only Aegis was willing to make use of the openings.

The fighting came to an almost immediate halt however when the area under Equinox’s control returned to normal and they saw Equinox prostrated before Lillim. “A good attempt, better than anything the other two ever tried and you still have growing to do, be proud…” Lillim stretched, as all eyes fell to her. “…Now which one of you will be next? The almost divine crimson-banshee? The fallen fox who has no memories? The long lost law of Divinity’s new incarnation?”

She had barely finished before her answer was a punch to the gut from Kyubi. “I still need to even the score from last time Lillim.” The blow connected solidly to Lillim’s gut and launched her upward.

The others immediately resumed their own battle, desperate to bring an end to the relatively minor battle as urgently as possible to lend assistance to Kyubi as required.

It was a surprisingly short time as well, despite the initial impact and seemingly one-sided nature of the battle, Kyubi’s initially overwhelming agility and unpredictable ferocity had created a massive gap which Lillim’s combat intuition was closing very quickly.

In mere moments, the tide had turned from an unavoidable feral rampage which Lillim seemingly had no chance of blocking overcoming and into Lillim refining her entire being for the singular purpose of defeating the one she was fighting.

Her bulky form compressed into something human sized, her claws growing out so each one was the length of her forearm. “Oh? How delightful! It’s been millennia since I underwent a full evolution, I had been plateauing for so long I had feared I’d reached the end of my growth.”

As it happened, everyone around couldn’t help but stop and bare witness, the legendary mother of demons actually evolving into an even more powerful form was as awe-inspiring as it was terrifying.

“Did Grandma just get even stronger?”

“Carl, we surrender.” One of the daughters spoke on behalf of all those left.

“What? Isn’t this like the arrival of your massiah?”

“No, not at all, who do you think she trains her new forms with? Not to mention…”

“Carl, she will absolutely insist they reach that same level…” Leanna finished her sister’s thought and then sighed. “…They’re surrendering, but they are also now refugees.”

“Haha! Refugees to the faction I serve, disgraceful.”

“Ugh, I knew she was going to get like this, she turned super malicious the last time too…”

With every moment it was becoming clear that this wasn’t a simple act, not that Carl thought for a moment she would waste her time on that kind of farce. What it meant though, was that her ability to control her nature was not as absolute as it usually were.

“Okay, surrender accepted, now we need to back-up Kyubi. Just try not to get in Kyubi’s way, I’ll resort to a support role and simply channel divinity into all of you.”

As soon as he began, they could all immediately feel the difference and leapt into action, but even with Carl’s boost Kyubi was still barely able to avoid the far from friendly sparring Lillim had turned to.

She was dodging the thirty sword-like claws by a hair’s width where she was trying to create distance and when Raziel tried to disorient her, she even redirected her attacks to the source on instinct and forced Klaire to intervene.

As she howled and ripped Lillim’s soul free from her body though, things took an even more dangerous turn. Rather than the usual incapacitation it caused, all it had really achieved was doubling the amount of Lillims they had to face.

“Tiamutael! Get you and your sisters out of here! Kyubi! How much of her can I eat and she’ll still recover!?”

“She entered the tenth tier of demons. You could eat everything but her head and she’d likely be able to regenerate!”

“Well then, time for me to do the same I guess. Carl! Can you use the divinity holding her soul together to paralyse it long enough!?”

“No idea! I’ll try, but don’t trust it even if she stops moving!”

As Carl did as Klaire requested, the others refocused onto her physical body.

Try as he might and despite the fact that he had learned his origins, Carl hadn’t miraculously gained more power, just developed a much deeper understanding of the power he had at his disposal.

His attempts to restrain her only barely qualified as a success, she wasn’t immobile, but her movements were highly restricted and sluggish, but it was just enough to give Klaire an opening to tear the soul-form’s limbs free before ducking back and snacking with almost comical haste.

The boost each one awarded her was like five-thousand daughters of the the highest tier, of which there were only about five-hundred actually of that quality and she had only caught three.

As she finished gulping down the fourth ethereal arm, Klaire’s eyes glazed over and massive burst of aura exploded from her with a pitch-black mist that engulfed the entire realm before washing back to Klaire at the epicentre.

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