Chapter 35: Humility’s Corruption

Lucifer raised up his large purple angelic wing, flapping them toward the group, the group had to brace themselves. Kaiza pulled out a Contract Card, bringing it down to Hell's Access X and shouted.

"Henshin!"

Kaiza transformed into Zephyr Knight, he snapped his arms back, then launched them forward creating his own blast of wind, the two blasts pushed against each other, causing the sculptures around the area to shake, as some fell to the ground breaking apart and others collided with each other. The others each in turned transformed into their armored forms, Sora turned into Puppeteer, Akumu became Ripa and Gishiki Arch (Raphael), Puppeteer shifted into her Ice Phase, as she ran toward Diavolo, jumping up kicking off his shoulders, raising both her hands up, creating large shards of ice, launching them toward Lucifer. 

Noticing this, Lucifer raised both of his upper wings, blocking the upcoming attack, Diavolo quickly slipped Blazing Beast Contract Card into Hell's Access X, rushing forward Lucifer who was distracted by Puppeteer's attack, taking a hold of his second set of wings, jumping slamming the bottom of his feet into Lucifer's knees, pulling backwards onto his wings. Just as he did this, both Ripa and Arch were swinging their Death Scythe and Sanitatem Polearm, toward Lucifer's exposed abdomen, slicing through him, but what came next they didn't expect.

The four of them were blasted backwards, all were sent to different parts of the room, as Diavolo was slammed into a wall by Ryu and Malum who weren't helping in the fight.

"Um, hello a little help here." Diavolo said, getting to his feet.

"Hmm? Oh, congrats on landing an attack on Lucifer." Malum said, clapping his hands.

"God, you're an ass." Diavolo said.

"You are what you eat." Malum said.

Diavolo looked at him confused, as Malum realized something and spoke up.

"Hang on a second, that came out wrong."

"While it was a smart idea, for you all to attack Lucifer, but these Seven Princes are all on the same level as Lord of Madness and it was Lord Sinful who was the person to actually kill him, you guys were only able to wound him." Ryu explained. "So the best bet is to try and make a plan to defeat him, but you won't be able to tell anyone, in case he will be able to stop your plan."

"Oh thank god, I thought this fight would have been too easy, time to pull a spur of the moment attack plan or power up." Diavolo said, complaining.

Everyone turned their heads toward Kaiza, who was standing there with his hands on his hips.

"You know, I can be a complete dumbass at times." Diavolo said.

"Oh and you're just finding this out now." Ripa said.

"Hey, he is your boyfriend." Arch said.

"Yeah, I always think I have a sucking taste in men, but I can't help but love him." Puppeteer said.

Diavolo just sighed, pulling out the Elemental Chimera Contract Card into Hell's Access X, as he turned into Elemental Chimera, lightly cracking his bones, hopping around a little, then shot toward Lucifer, slamming his right fist into the creature's abdomen, knocking it backwards. Puppeteer created large slanted pillars of ice toward Lucifer, Ripa pressed his Conquest Apocalypse Ring into the Apocalyptic Driver, turning into his Seifuku Ripa form, running toward one of the slanted pillar of ice, holding his arms backwards, as a line of weapons formed along his hands.

Slashing his hands toward Lucifer, as the line of weapons collided with Lucifer, giving Lucifer no time to respond, Arch slid the Micheal Contract Card through Heaven's Schiff, turning into Arch (Michael) and slid the card through again.

"Scales of Judgement!" Heaven's Schiff chimed.

Two flame-like wing sprout from Arch's back, flying into the sky as a large weighing scale appeared behind him, Arch reached out his right hand, an energy rod appeared before him, grasping it as a long banner appeared behind him. Launching the pole through someone's chest, the banner changed into a black color. Launching downwards, slamming his foot into the end of the pole, sending holy energy through the pole, destroying the monster from the inside.

Lucifer's body snapped backwards, staying motionless, while the others looked toward it.

"Is this really it? That felt really easy." Arch said.

The body of Lucifer began shaking, as purple cracks began spreading out from the body.

"Uh guys, why do I hear boss music?" Diavolo asked.

Lucifer's body began lifting up from the ground, his head turned to look toward the group, the golden mask covering his face, was cracking and falling apart, until it fell off revealing a single unblinking eye. His robes fell off, as his body began to split open revealing several unblinking eyes, his demonic skin became large large fleshy wings, as the spider legs spread out over the body becoming large corrupted looking halos at the tip of the fleshy wings.

"Welp, I'll see this in my nightmares after this is done." Kaiza said.

Small purple rings started forming in front of the eyes, then a small purple dot began forming in the center.

"Hit the deck!" Ripa shouted.

Everyone dove away, as the dots unleashed purple laser beams that pierced statues, the ground and anything the laser came in contact with. Arch wasn't as lucky to get out of the way, as one of the lasers had pierced through his right calf. He tumbled along the ground, holding onto his wound seething in pain, Diavolo went over pulling out a Contract Card, putting it against Hell's Access X.

"Heaven's Light!" Hell's Access X chimed, as a light started covering the wound, it slowly began to heal, only to form a purple wound.

"How does that feel?" Diavolo asked.

"I can barely feel my leg, it feels pretty numb." Arch said, slowly getting up to his feet. "I know my powers will be able to defeat him."

Without Arch seeing it, the purple wound began to slowly grow bigger.

"Let me try something out." Diavolo said.

"About time you did something." Arch said.

"Oh shut up." Diavolo said.

Diavolo smacked the top of Hell's Access X, as the wings that were connected to his hips started opening up, his head started moving back, then moved up to his shoulder blades and covered his head.

"What the fuck is going on?" Ripa asked.

The monster head on Diavolo's chest moved up becoming a large bird's head, his hands and feet changed into talons, becoming a humanoid Bird of Prey, swooping down toward Lucifer, slapping the top of Hell's Access X one more time.

"Claws of Fury." Hell's Access X chimed.

Small green orbs formed on the tips of every talon, as Diavolo started zipping around the room, slashing at the eyes of Lucifer, while dodging the purple beams from Lucifer. Diavolo landed on one of the walls, then thrusted toward Lucifer, becoming a flurry of green energized claws slashes. But the eyes that got slashed, would slowly regenerate, as the others had to jump and dodge out of the way from the incoming beams.

"God dammit Kaiza, you're moving too fast and we can't keep up with the dodging!" Ripa yelled.

Diavolo slammed into a wall hard, gasping for air, slumping down onto the ground.

"Kaiza!" Puppeteer yelled.

"Don't pay attention to me, focus on the fight in front of you." Diavolo said, slowly getting to his feet.

His body was covered in wounds, which slowly healed only leaving small purple wounds. 

Puppeteer phased into her Earth Phase, moving hands downwards, her palms pointing down, then turned them upward raising her hands.

"Arise Golems!" Puppeteer yelled.

As two large beings of earth raised from the stone, dust rolled off from them, while they had patches of grass, dirt and some of the toppled statues. They shuffled toward Lucifer, as the beams pierced through their inanimate bodies, which only stopped them for a second, as the wound would only seal up, leaving no purple wound behind.

They reached forward trying to grab a hold of Lucifer, only for them to lift higher into the air, the golems then crumbling away and sunk into the ground. A large stone hand shot out toward Lucifer, grabbing hold of him, as it was fast enough for him to not be able to respond in time, the hand moved back then slammed him into the ground.

Lucifer slowly moved up, as Diavolo appeared before him, slamming his right knee, right into Lucifer's large eye. Lucifer's head shot backwards, he began raising his wings, but Ripa appeared raising both his hands, spawning four Death Scythes, bringing his hands down, running the curved blades through Lucifer's wing and the ground pinning him in place.

The group jumped back, as the eyes covering Lucifer continued firing the purple beams, Ripa raised both his hands again, spawning an array of weapons, bringing them down upon Lucifer, but right before the weapons connected with the body, all the eyes looked toward them, creating a unified beam, knocking both the weapons and Ripa backwards. Lucifer started moving up, until his pinned wings kept him in place, he started ripping the fleshy wings apart, black blood seeped out of remaining wings, Lucifer looked toward the group, a long horizontal slit formed on the eye, opening up and forming a mouth with a roar of sharp teeth, roaring out.

The two wings on the top became large black blood wings, as the two lower wings created large skeletal-like arms created from the black blood. The creature lunged toward the group, slashing at them, everyone jumped back, using their weapons or in the case of Puppeteer she created a wall of earth to block the attack. Pride's claws cut through the wall so cleanly that it just slid apart, with a flourish Pride spun and slammed Gishiki into the ground, gasping for air, while Diavolo and Ripa were smacked across the room by the creature's wings.

"Hmm, so the Seven Princes are much stronger than their original forms." Malum said.

"So are they only able to have three forms, or do they have multiple forms?" Ryu asked.

Ryu and Malum watched from the sidelines, while the others got beaten to a pulp, as they did nothing to help them out. 

"You know you guys can help, instead of standing over there and just talking." Diavolo said, while being stuck to a wall.

He gripped the wall, pushing against the wall, then fell and hit the floor, laying there for a bit, slowly making his way to his feet. "That wasn't one of my smartest ideas."

Standing there panting for a bit, pulling a contract Card out, slamming it against Hell's Access X.

"Chimera X Slash!" Hell's Access X chimed.

Long blades formed along Diavolo's forearms, a rainbow array of energy, he started running toward Pride, sliding under the creature's slash and under its body, hopping up and jumping onto a toppled pillar. The other three slammed their own items into their devices.

"Conquest Over the Horizon!" Apocalyptic Driver chimed.

"Heaven's Last Rite!" Heaven's Schiff chimed.

"Elemental Burst!" Hell's Access chimed.

Ripa created a peacock tail-like array of his weapons, two large rainbow energy wings and Puppeteer's right foot got covered in rainbow energy. Puppeteer ran forward, jumping onto a toppled statue, jumping toward Pride slamming her foot upwards into Pride's eye, launching it into the air. Gishiki shot into the air, spreading his wings, flipping around, pressing his feet into the ceiling, launching toward Pride, creating a large energy rainbow arrow.

Ripa swung his arms toward pride, cursing the array of weapons to shoot toward Pride, cutting through Pride, just as Gishiki's form pierced through Pride. Before Pride could fully respond, Diavolo appeared within its sight and yelled.

"Die!"

Slashing both his arms downwards creating a large rainbow energy X slash. The body of Pride exploded, causing Diavolo to get launched backwards, getting stuck further in the same wall that he was just stuck in a couple of minutes ago.

Pride fell to the ground with a thud, his body began to slowly fade away.

"That was a bit harder than I thought it would be and if this is the first one, then these fights will only get harder." Diavolo spoke out.

"Then let's hurry on along, we are on limited time." Puppeteer spoke up.

"Kaiza, get down!" Arch yelled, lunging forward, knocking him to the ground, as he was shot in the chest, by one of Pride's lasers.

Everyone turned to continue their fix with Pride, only to find Pride's body fully fading away. Ryu had knelt right next to Arch, checking if he was okay.

"He will live, it looks like it was a last ditch effort and there aren't any wounds on him. We should really hurry along now." Ryu said.

"Please wait a second, there is one thing I have to do before we continue." Diavolo said.

He walked over to Puppeteer, letting his armor fade away, pulling something out of his pocket, dropping to one knee, opening the small box and showing off a ring.

"Sora Ichidame, will you continue making me the happiest man…"

"Demon." Ripa spoke up.

"Happiest Demon, will you please marry me?" Kaiza asked.

"W-What!? Kaiza we are on limited time, you can't pull something like this right now!" Puppeteer said aloud.

"I don't care, something could happen to the two of us and I want to make sure we are married." Kaiza said. "I made you a promise all those years ago, I will make it come true. We can have a full wedding after all this is done. So will you please marry me?"

Puppeteer stood there in shock and silence, letting her armor fade away and smiled, nodding down at him, tears welling up in her eyes.

"Yes Kaiza you big idiot, yes I'll marry you!" Sora said aloud.

Kaiza had the biggest smile, standing up, putting a ring onto her ring finger kissing her, as they shared a kiss.

"Now let me bring the two of you together and marry you off." Ryu spoke up.

"Of course you can, what else can you not do?" Ripa questioned.

"Find a love interest." Malum spoke up.

Ryu walked over to Kaiza and Sora.

"In the power vested in me. I shall pronounce, Kaiza Akuma and Sora Ichidame to be married, now kiss the bride." Ryu said aloud.

Kaiza handed Sora an extra ring, as she put it onto his ring finger, the two shared another kiss. Kaiza leaned toward Sora's left ear and whispered.

"I'm sorry. Shattered Dimension."

The air behind Sora started to crack open making a hole to the human world, as Kaiza pushed her through. Sora's eyes were wide in shock, as she fell backwards, staring at Kaiza's saddened face as he forced a smile.

"You have to live." Kaiza said, as the hole sealed up before she could even react.

Sora screamed out, swiping her hands in the area that had just closed up, she broke down in tears.

"No, don't leave me again, we were supposed to do this together!" Sora screamed out.

"Kaiza are you doing okay?" Arch asked, slowly getting up.

Kaiza stayed quiet for a bit, nodding and wiped his eyes, then spun around and said aloud.

"From here on out, this will be a suicide mission, we can't waste our time, teaming up against the Seven Princes, one will have to stay behind to fight, if you have to risk your life, so be it as long as you kill the Seven Princes. Do I make myself clear!"

Everyone nodded, Kaiza turned around, turning into Elemental Chimera, as the group rushed toward the next door. With Ryu and Malum staying behind a bit.

"Looks like this will be it, our journey has finally reached its end." Ryu said.

Malum stayed quiet for a bit then spoke up.

"Not by a long shot, Draygo."

"Hmm? What did you say?" Ryu questioned.

"Nothing, don't worry about it." Malum said.

The two of them rushed after the others, as at the entrance to the floor a cloaked figure entered the room, then followed after the others.