As Cocytus flew sidelong through the cavern, using all the power he had just to stay conscious, he heard the innumerable Ice pillars that he moved through shattering, reducing those inside to mist of crystalised blood that stained his ethereal-blue realm red.

He didn’t understand, he should have been passing through them. He wondered if perhaps Carl had sealed his divinity, just as he had stolen it the last time they met, but then he realised they were shattering only after he passed through them and it was actually the air pressure that followed doing the damage.

‘How did he get so strong? Wait… That form… Forced evolution? How? What happened? Why now? Is the king dead? No, I still feel his presence, but that is definitely the form of a royal demon… Lillim, it must be her. Did he defeat her? Was this boy the hero all this time?’

As everything slowly pieced together, the air pressure that had kept him aloft faded and he fell through the floor.

He was relieved, at least within the walls of the ice he could recuperate and try to warn his king of the danger, of the threat that had clearly announced its intent to storm the palace and seize control of Hell.

Then the ice around him was excavated in an instant as Carl stood at the edge laughing. “If all you wish to do is warn him before we go, by all means, I would prefer my victory be unmarred by the excuses of the vanquished anyway.”

The words struck Cocytus as almost nostalgic, all of the crowns had been there to witness Samael in the days of war against the Angelic host of the heavens, the conceit Carl was showing was but a window to the past that allowed them to see the terrifying likeness the two shared.

Cocytus wasn’t a fool either, that demonstration of effortless victory had been Samael’s calling card. The modern vision of hell was without doubt, waging a war with its own past.

“Heal me then, heal me and I’ll inform Samael so that he might prepare himself and remove any doubt about who the rightful victor was.”

“Good Lizard.” Carl healed Cocytus’ broken body and pet his head like a dog deserving praise, it was demeaning, infuriating, but objection meant oblivion and his king had to be warned.

Even with his body healed, it took a few moments to reinforce his mental-form to be able to communicate telepathically again and even then it left his head throbbing.

“Father, you have a challenger, one who bested me in a single blow.”

‘One that strong? Truly? The hero perhaps?’

“I can’t be sure. However, I think he may have defeated Lillim before me.”

‘Delightful, lead him through the front entrance, I’ll be ready by the time you arrive.’

Cocytus did as told and opened a portal to the front gates of hells capital, Eden. The realm was once a place where God had cherry-picked what he perceived as the greatest among men and also forced Lillim to be his wife until she rebelled and joined Samael.

After that, he tried in vain to create his own human, but after countless failures resorted to pulling one of Adam’s ribs which he simply healed and modified into her replacement, Eve.

When Samael finally went on to corrupt her, God abandoned the realm in fury, which Samael then claimed and named his capital to salt the wound he had inflicted upon his greatest enemy.

Contrary to the idea Cal had formed in his head of what Hell’s seat of power would look like, Samael seemed to have opted in favour of preserving Eden’s natural beauty.

A large island amongst a sea of clouds, it was truly a breathtaking sight, one that made Carl’s head sting as he gazed upon the immense palace it housed. The structure could only be described as flawless, from materials to design, it must have been since it stood so high a single flaw would have made it crumble to dust.

“Were all these stairs necessary? No wonder the king likes you, he likes putting the things everywhere to.”

The words Lillim said when she first went with them to Lugaria echoed through his head, the cracks that had formed in his new mentality as a result of Klaire’s and Kyubi’s attempts to bring him back spreading as he remembered her words and the revelation that Samael was the one who had sent Lillim to ensure the potential hero was well protected until he matured.

Carl wanted to hold his head, but he couldn’t. To do so would appear that he was making excuses in preparation for a loss.

Suddenly the front doors to the palace swung open and Eckro ran out before coming to a grinding halt at the sight of Cocytus and Carl. “Cocytus? What are you doing? The crowns are needed to defend the realms, we’re under siege!”

“I know and their leader follows m-” Carl suddenly planted Eckro into the floor, staining the land with intolerable imperfection.

“Eckro, don’t bar my path again.” Carl spoke as he held Eckro’s head against the floor with a foot, crushing just enough to make sure the message sunk in.

When Eckro caught sight of him out the corner of his eye, there seemed to be genuine sadness in his look, a cutting pity that cracked his psyche even more and made Carl step off him and back.

“Whatever led to this change must have been torturous indeed. I suppose you are taking him to challenge the king.”

“No, I brought him here to admire the garden.”

“Stop wasting my time with idle amble and take me to him.”

Cocytus continued on the way, walking past Eckro with no further acknowledgement on the outside.

‘Eckro, what does the future hold?’

‘Infinity itself refuses to intrude on his life, Father will finally get a challenge worthy of him.’

The words held no secret meaning between them, all the crowns knew that the one thing Samael had longed for, is an opponent strong enough to kill him. It wasn’t to release him from life though, no.

The reason Samael wanted such a challenge, was to see if such a challenge might help him undergo the same process that forged the very challenger he had been waiting for.

Whilst Carl was being led into the bowels of the sprawling palace, his friends, family and allies were in the midst of all out war with the demon-horde.

It was a level of warfare none had seen since the game had settled into a lasting stalemate on all fronts.

Lillim, Leanna and her daughters had taken the field against the Succubi of the realm known as Huldra. A realm of dense forests and cave-hollowed mountains endlessly buffeted by hurricane winds and dry storms.

It was a place the daughters visited quite frequently and were likely only beaten in terms of their knowledge of the area by those who called it home, they were cousins of a sort so it was hardly painless, but what made it harder was that their matriarchs were daughters of Lillim who simply grew in a different direction.

It was for that reason that they took it upon themselves to face them, not to make it painless or to try and negotiate, but to prevent any grudges from forming. Diplomacy wasn’t an option, leaving them was too dangerous, conflict was the only option.

It was a blitzkrieg that left caverns blocked by rubble, wildfires burning rampantly as the hurricane winds stoked them and drove them across the realm.

The stench of lustful desires being sated that was usually spread across the realm had been burnt out of the air, then replaced by the stench of blood, death and inhuman violence that left thousands dead in minutes.

Lillim moved alone, snuffing out entire covens in instants, Leanna was barred from being separated since her death would make Carl’s recovery a distant hope built on impossible wishes.

The only reason Lillim even allowed her to go was because as a leader of the new human society, she needed to have the ability to keep the variants honest should the need arise.

It was a brutal assault, one the daughters would have usually taken great pleasure in, but as much bad blood as Leanna had with her family they were still impressed with how well she controlled her baser instincts.

Seeing her overcome with grief over Sis’ and now Carl’s situations, watching her give in to those usually tightly shackled instincts and tear apart succubi like scrap paper was an awful sight to behold, one that made them wonder if they were cursed to their way of life rather than willingly revel in it.

It was the first time in history that the daughters of Lillim unanimously found themselves sick of bloodshed, but what was more, Lillim herself found her hands trembling slightly beneath the weight of her sins.

The playground of demons no longer felt like home.

Gillian, Blanc, Sophie, Alysse, Illerion and a contingent of her Chaos-Elves had been given the task of dealing with the realms of violence. It was a tough call, since they were exceptionally dangerous, but in the end Lydia suggested it was the best place to send them to avoid severe psychological trauma.

The rules were clear, the demons were brutish and bestial, it bore little difference to slaughtering The Carrion.

Of course some degree of psychological trauma was expected, but despite Leanna’s, Lydia’s and Danielle’s stubborn opposition, Gillian’s effortless resistance let them run out the clock.

The demons ranged from biped creatures standing twenty metres tall with wings of fire and weapons of bone, to quadrupedal wolves with eagle-like wings and a snake growing like a tail.

The moment they arrived Illerion sent her forces to wipe out the smaller prey, then in a rather Kitsunoko-like manner, donned the role and posture of a military commander.

“Okay, troops! We’re here to slaughter demons and to stop you kids having nightmares and other nonsense, we find ourselves fighting the biggest, baddest demons the hells have to offer…” She took a small moment to perform a celabratory dance before continuing.

“…However, I have been charged with making sure you live long enough to reach therapy, so to that end I need to know what you can do. Now let’s see… There! The big guys with the scythe, the mace and the hammer, pick one, hit it as hard as you can then get back to this barrier!”

As they all lunged forward, she told them to wait and then counted down to “go!”.

Gillian aimed for the monster carrying the scythe, using his gluttonous shifter and only the fastest of his summons he cleared the distance in seconds, caught of guard when the massive creature had been able to acknowledge and track him well enough to time a swing.

Thanks to his gluttonous shifter though, he was able to take on the hardness of some “junk” alloy Alysse had created accidentally that was “too hard to be useful”. He could see what she meant, since the moment he changed it was impossibly solid and he couldn’t move his body , but then the tip of the scythe struck and force behind the swing caused it to shatter upon contact.

When the force had dissipated he instantly changed back to a lighter material, then charged up the creature until he reached the top of the demon’s head and leapt as high as he could before changing taking on the bladed arms of his mantis drake and rotating horizontally before changing himself to adamantine.

The result was a spinning blade that slice through from the top of its head to the consequences that Gillian hadn’t thought ahead enough to consider and refused to talk about for the rest of his life.

Blanc demonstrated his mastery of mass possession, by controlling an entire legion of automatons that he had figured he could control like his own body, including shifting them into a spiritual flame-form that made most attacks pass through them.

He was still only able to control so many if they had a unified objective and target, which limited his potential as a one man army, but it proved effective for dealing with individuals.

As they clambered up the demon carrying the mace, they tore out chunks of flesh and burrowed in like ants, then in a beautifully ethereal glow they all took on the spiritual flame-form and burned the creatures divinity channels in a surgical strike.

The flailing and pained screams from the dying demon earning him bonus points in their judge’s eyes.

Alysse however had only taken a single step outside the barrier, then release a swarm of nanites before returning inside.

“Aww, don’t tell me you changed your mind.”

“Huh? No, just couldn’t be bothered to walk over there. three, two, one…” As her count trailed off a beam of violet light descended from somewhere too high to see, engulfed her target, hit the ground, caused a shockwave to leave everything on the ground dazed and flat, then faded away.

Where there once stood a monster that could have single-handedly laid waste to a continent had they been dispatched to Earth, remained only a smoking crater, every trace of the horror’s existence erased.

Illerion scratched her chin, then her head, then sat, then rolled forward and performed a handstand until she fell stopping her dress from revealing herself.

“I have no idea how to grade that. Good job, but maybe too flashy? It was cool, but no fun?”

“Omy told me she wanted me to come back the same as I left, so clinical efficiency only… Sorry.”

“I mean, I don’t want to complain, but… Ugh, just try to make it better…”

Alysse thought for a moment, then as the others neared, she counted down once again. Rather than a beam of insta-death light however a large automaton about half the size of the demons impacted the ground near another of the big ones.

Another shockwave was released that kicked up enough dust to obscure what she had made from sight, but that was soon cleared as a massive blast of skin melting steam was released specifically for that reason.

Before he had even properly looked, Gillian pulled out his slate and tapped a few buttons before it made a ringing noise for a few seconds.

“Gillian? Did you forget I can hear you?” The voice of Tiamutael caught them all by surprise.

“Tiamutael! Tiamutael! Tiamutael! She made a mech! She made a mech! She made a mech!”

Gillian then immediately hung up, cleared his throat and took in the sight in all its glory.

The sleek curvature of its frame was so elegant it looked like the body of a massive metallic ballet dancer, but the way denser armour plates on solid sections gave way to areas that looked like metallic muscle fibres at the joints made it look more like a female knight that hadn’t lost her femininity.

On its left hip, was a sheathed sword that was approximately seven metres long from point to pommel.

It remained in a half-crouched sword-draw stance as another one of the massive demons approached it, then when it finally got in range and swung its toothed greatsword, Alysse’s mecha drew its only blade.

Flaring into life, it glowed with a light the same violet as the beam and knocked the great sword to the left before it was pulled back and thrust through the monster’s gut and finally dragged up through its heart and shoulder.

“Wait! I know that move! The Mechangelina’s finisher from Mega-Mecha-Maids!”

“Yeah, I recently binge-watched the whole thing with Tiamutael and Raziel.”

“No idea what those words mean, but you just earned top marks.”

As Gillian nodded in agreement, Blanc wasted no time for an upgrade, which Alysse tried to politely refuse because she lacked the divinity to produce enough nanites.

Unfortunately, the newly crowned embodiment of Chaos was their chaperone and something about the massive sword-wielding death machine spoke to her, so so she started pumping divinity into Alysse before she could even finish letting Blanc down.

As Alysse resigned herself to becoming a mecha factory with a pulse, Illerion called back her now redundant troops and portaled them over to another realm they were to deal with.

Alysse then produced Blanc’s new toy in a more masculine form, ignoring Illerion’s crude comments that bordered on complaints about the distinct lack of cleavage, she made it bulkier and edgier to resemble the villain of the same show she had brought to life with the other.

It stood halfway between the first mech and the demons and rather than a sword it wielded a giant two-handed battle-axe, which when Blanc finally possessed the mech and drew it, glowed with flames to match that of his spiritual flame.

When Alysse turned around and saw Gillian pulling out his slate, she snatched it away and warned him against distracting him, but then Tiamutael and Omedra appeared at their location anyway.

“Don’t worry, Alysse. We weren’t exactly needed there anyway, I’ll be heading back to be better safe than sorry, but honestly my little sis’ doesn’t need us there.

Illerion, Tiamutael can handle this while he gawps at them, you go back up your entourage with Gillian since Scylla just joined them.”

“Of course, but is the little angel really doing so well? There are billions of demons in the realm of gluttony and I’m sure that that damn Beelzebub has arrived by now.”

Omedra went pale and Tiamutael suddenly started heaving at mention of the gluttonous crown, the memory of their brief encounter with him still far too fresh and the revolting conclusion of that meeting one they couldn’t wait to fade but doubted that it ever truly would.

Unfortunately that meant that neither were in the right mood to share what had happened and Omedra told Tiamutael to get them where they were going.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep