Descent

Though only a few minutes had passed since the invasion began, much of Termina's settlements had been reduced to ruins or set ablaze by an army of shadowy creatures infused with glowing red or purple gemstone cores. The only notable exception to this was the Intertwining Dragon's Palace, which was presently encircled by hundreds of robe-wearing Mages and a group of men and women wearing traditional Taoist garments, presently in the process of erecting four colossal gates and eight eight-sided obsidian pillars covered in complex golden runes.

"You guys have done it now. Our resident Dragon God will not be happy when he learns about this~" hummed Azazel, wielding a two-pronged spear of light and modeling his black, gold, and purple-gemmed Balance Breaker, the Downfall Dragon Another Armor.

"As if we care what that thing thinks..." retorted a man with handsome features and long, unkempt brown hair that extended past his waist and covered his right eye. His lean and muscular frame was garbed in black armor, spiked gauntlets, and two-toed greaves over a form-fitting purple bodysuit, and, as if to emphasize his status, a fur-lined cape adorned his shoulders with ten shadow-formed black wings protruding from the space between his shoulders.

Punctuating his statement, the man, Shalba Beelzebub, raised his right hand, outfitted with a special gauntlet reminiscent of the Boosted Gear but sporting a large, amethyst-hued gem. The Holy and Light Elements were meant to be incompatible with Demonic Power, but Shalba was able to use the gauntlet to produce a pale-green Magic Circle that expelled a broad column of golden light.

"That's an interesting toy you've gotten your hands on," remarked Azazel, casually evading the beam of light and slicing through it with his Downfall Dragon Spear, causing it to glow with an even brighter radiance before he asked, "But did you forget that I used to be one of the heavy hitters of the Sixth Heaven? There are probably only three to four people on this side of Creation with a greater affinity for the Light Element than me."

"That may be. But we both know that form of yours won't last forever," countered Shalba, slipping his right hand into his cape before spreading his arms wide, causing his cape to unfurl and innumerable shadow-hued bees to emerge and spread out as he declared, "I just need to stall and whittle you down, and this is my victory..."

Following Shalba's statement, tiny, amethyst-hued Magic Circles bearing the distinctive infinity-shaped crest of a draconic snake swallowing its tail appeared before the bees' mandibles.

"Well, that's not good..." remarked Azazel, a bead of sweat forming on his left cheek, veiled by his helmet. The crest exhibited by the bees was none other than Ophis', so even though he brandished his two-pronged spear in a broad arc, producing a sweeping crescent of golden energy, he failed to destroy more than a few dozen of the shadowy bees as three-quarters of the swarm focused on erecting barriers while the rest barraged him with a deluge of amethyst-hued lasers formed from Demonic Power.

'He's nearly as powerful as the original Beelzebub...' noted Azazel, having faced the infamous King of Flies numerous times during the war. However, unlike his predecessor, one of the Four Great Satans, Shalba's power was almost entirely borrowed. He was undoubtedly a High-Class Devil, but the bulk of his near Satan-level power was the byproduct of his armor and the result of Ophis lending hers...

'Unfortunately, that doesn't make him less of a threat...' thought Azazel, exhaling from his nose as he shifted from offense to defense, spreading his arms to protect himself with a luminous golden barrier formed from an intricate lattice of overlapping magical formula. Truthfully, he was curious to see if Shalba and his colleagues could pull off what they had planned, which appeared to be sealing Vahn away or preventing the return of every Ascendee presently in the Tower. But the reason he and the other faction leaders hadn't tried the former was because they concluded it would only accelerate the process the Khaos Brigade was presumably attempting to stop: Vahn's creations becoming real and their world becoming a small part of a much larger Order, one where the power and influence they had accumulated over millennia meant considerably less...

"It's not too late, you know..." stated Shalba, continuing his bombardment with a contempt-filled smile as he explained, "Your power and knowledge of Sacred Gears would prove useful in any organization. Serve me, and we can create a world free from the influence of Gods..."

"God, Dragon, Devil, Angel, Fallen...it doesn't matter what race someone belongs to or what title they hold..." contended Azazel, grinning beneath his visor as he asserted, "Those who seek to rule or dominate others are the problem. Because genuine authority is an expression of trust. It's not something you can assign yourself or seize through conquest. That's what we call tyranny. And we both know what happens to tyrants..."

"Then you can die with your so-called wis—" started Shalba, the pupils of his brown eyes narrowing as Azazel suddenly tore through his own barrier like glass, tanking several hits as he moved like a blur and swung his light-formed spear in a broad arc through his abdomen.

Despite sustaining numerous injuries, Azazel's smile broadened beneath his visor as he asserted, "They fall...!" before sending the critically injured Shalba crashing to the ground.

"You damnable relic...!" bellowed Shalba, erecting a pale green, dome-shaped barrier to protect himself from the column of light Azazel used to try and finish him. An ordinary Devil might have had their soul destroyed after sustaining such a serious blow from a light-based weapon, but since his body had been modified, his sloughing intestines reversed course and retracted into his abdomen before the wound sealed itself, leaving behind a vicious, throbbing scar.

Interrupting Azazel's assault, many of the bees serving Shalba congealed into a much larger and distorted version with a grotesque face, six spindly arms, and a bulbous abdomen that produced a sickly green and amethyst Magic Circle promptly unleashed a nearly five-meter-wide helical beam of Demonic and Draconic Power.

"Well, that's new...!" shouted Azazel, erecting a multi-layered, eight-sided defensive barrier between himself and the helical beam. Doing so allowed him to avoid injury, but the force behind the beam pushed him back while the scattered energy devastated everything it impacted, producing large, green-and-purple explosions.

"You haven't seen anything yet!" bellowed Shalba, rising from the ground with tremendous force, producing a deep crater and spiderweb cracks as he ascended toward the eldritch mass of shadows. In response, the bee-like monstrosity distorted, its nebulous mass intertwining around Shalba's body before solidifying into bulky, vaguely bee-themed black and purple armor, granting him enormous pauldrons, a visored helmet, and four long, chitinous appendages, each tipped with a pair of scythe-like claws. Then, spreading his six arms wide, Shalba produced a massive, intricate, pale green Magic Circle with a hexagram. Its size was easily fifteen meters in diameter, and from its center, a veritable deluge of shadowy bees poured out like water from an open sluice gate.

"Goodness gracious. You're really working the rust out of this relic. The invoice I send to the Dragon's Pavilion is going to be massive..." hummed Azazel, spreading his twelve jet-black wings and brandishing his spear of light with determination in his violet eyes. He had no obligation to fend off Shalba, but since Vahn was the type to repay debts, he didn't mind risking his life to ensure future benefits.

FWOOM

Just as Azazel was preparing to engage Shalba's swarm, a shimmering golden pulse reminiscent of an EMP from a movie or video game radiated from the Intertwining Dragon's Pavilion. It didn't appear to spread quickly at first, but as they turned their heads and registered its existence, Azazel and Shalba experienced the pulse passing through them faster than they could react.

'Was that a domain...?' Azazel wondered, various possibilities crossing his mind as luminous golden clouds rapidly formed overhead like a precursor to Divine Retribution. At the same time, beams of bluish, nearly-white light shot up from the pillars erected by the Taoist Mages, creating a prominent spatial distortion that caused everything beyond the colossal stone gates they had placed at the four cardinal directions to gradually dissolve.

"So that's your plan...those artifacts must be related to the Bā Zhù Wú Yán Dào(Eight Pillars of the Silent Dao)..." remarked Azazel, his eyes narrowing in recognition as he extrapolated, "By employing a reality anchor within an imaginary space...you're attempting to sever the connection between this reality and the outside..."

"The Intertwining Dragon God decided this for himself when he chose to distance himself from our world to create a new one..." contended Shalba, tension filling his body as, from within the luminous clouds filling the sky, a predominately white, Long-style Dragon with fiery golden fur, antler-like horns, and seven pairs of wings descended, its body nearly six-kilometers in length, and its wings approximately two across.

"Well, this world might not be real, but that most certainly is..." remarked Azazel, experiencing awe on par with the day he was given life and dread comparable to the day he rebelled against his Creator...

"I will give you this one opportunity to leave and never return..." said the colossal Dragon, Vahn, his mouth unmoving but his voice carrying several kilometers, reverberating in the minds of everyone who heard him. At the same time, a second pulse of shimmering golden energy erupted from his body, weakening but ultimately passing through the Bā Zhù Wú Yán Dào's containment field.

"Aagh! What is this...!?" exclaimed Shalba, reaching up to cup his forehead as Vahn's seven-winged crest appeared, sizzling with golden energy that imprinted him to the bone. Unlike the standard crest, however, the version branded into him had a diagonal cross through it.

With similar brands appearing on the foreheads or bodies of the Mages and shadowy beasts scattered throughout Termina, Azazel took it upon himself to remark, "I believe this is Vahn's way of saying you are no longer welcome here."

"As if we'll be chased away so easily...!" shouted Shalba, his expression one of unbridled fury as he swept his open left hand and appendages in the direction of Vahn, asserting, "Our world is not yours to do with as you please! Go play God elsewhere...!"

"Hmm...?"

Feeling a sense of foreboding, Vahn raised his gaze to the sky as a giant, golden, eight-sided Magic Circle bearing the Eight Trigrams and a Taiji in the center materialized, encompassing the sky above the Bā Zhù Wú Yán Dào's containment field. He was aware that Shalba and his coconspirators intended to seal him, but his eyes widened to their limits when his view of the sky was abruptly obstructed by an ivory-white mountain with veins of gold coursing through it...

(It's the Five Elements Suppressing Seal once used by the Buddha to suppress Sun Wukong for five hundred years...) remarked Sis, her usually calm voice filled with apprehension as, despite his immense size and god-like status, Vahn ultimately possessed a Mortal Soul. He had been on the verge of upgrading to a Heroic Soul for some time, but the jade and gold mountain about to be dropped onto him was designed to suppress beings two full Soul Tiers higher...

'Can you teleport it away?' asked Vahn, simultaneously unleashing a thick stream of golden flames toward one of the pillars. The Mages and Taoists surrounding it erected a multi-layered barrier to protect it, but as Sairaorg and Kaido could attest, there was no defense, magical or even divine, that could completely mitigate the damage from his attacks.

(The mountain isn't so much a physical object with measurable spatial coordinates as it is the representation of a domain) explained Sis, quickly adding (You should be able to resist or shatter it outright using your SSS-Rank domain, but the strain it places on your Ego will be tremendous. You will invariably recover, but—)

'I'll be fine...' reassured Vahn, discontinuing his assault on the pillar and the burning Mages to charge at the slowly descending mountain. Based on the knowledge Sis provided with her explanation, he knew its descent wouldn't harm anyone within the palace, but he wasn't going to sit still as he and everyone he cared about were sealed away. Fortunately, though the individuals branded by it might disagree, the mark he placed on them was derived from Minato's Flying Raijin Jutsu. They might be able to heal or conceal the physical signs of the brand, but like a curse engraved onto their souls, it would remain so long as he didn't remove it...

THOOM

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