章 2351: Peeling Back the Veil
Sensing the power of Azi, seemingly encompassing the entirety of the former Little Garden, Siddhartha, Madara, and Kurma, the latter two in their dragon forms, momentarily ceased battling.
Staring in the direction Azi's power was emanating, Madara's draconic visage formed into a smile, prompting Kurma to exclaim, "Don't do it! Now that things have developed to this extent, we should retreat and ally with other powerful Players...!"
"You and Mr. Hands are free to do exactly that," replied Madara, turning to Kurma as she added, "I'm no coward."
Without waiting for Kurma's response, Madara's colossal figure abruptly contracted on itself, disappearing nigh-instantaneously. This was despite Siddhartha having placed a seal on the surrounding space, compelling the three-eyed, multi-armed Buddha to cross his arms and remark, "That one is full of tricks..."
Exhaling a profound sigh, causing her surroundings to distort in response to the space around her expanding, Kurma directed her gaze toward the horizon. There, Madara had just unleashed a laser-like breath attack that caused her surroundings to be consumed by abyssal black flames.
Though she didn't believe Madara could defeat Azi, Kurma decided to trust that she could at least stall the great evil, turning to Siddhartha to ask, "Can you use the remnant energy of the Gods to prepare a Six Paths, Heaven-Sealing Array?"
"It's not impossible," replied Siddhartha. "However, even if I were to do so, it wouldn't be able to hold Azi Dahaka for long. Without the power of Authority, there isn't much we can do but delay him."
Reverting to her human form, Kurma's expression formed into a pout as she considered appealing for an Adjudication, temporarily suspending the Pandemonium Gift Game. Things were quickly getting out of hand, and if the companions of the Sage Dragon Emperor refused to cooperate, they had little hope of reclaiming the Reality Axis, much less defeating Azi.
Furrowing her brows grimly, Kurma briefly considered the possibility that Vahn had betrayed them. The odds were exceptionally slim, but it was the only thing that explained why his subordinates were so uncooperative...
Interrupting Kurma's increasingly negative chain of thoughts, Siddhartha said, "You should retreat first. The energy of this region and the influence of Azi Dahaka has started to affect and erode your mind. Return once you have grounded yourself."
"Ah..."
Though she didn't believe Azi's influence could affect her so easily, Kurma took Siddhartha's words at face value. The alternative was accepting that Vahn had somehow hoodwinked Shiroyasha, Indra, and countless others, herself included. She didn't want to believe that someone referred to as the 'Dawn' was capable of such deception. Thus, after one final glimpse in the direction of Madara and Azi, Kurma turned away and flew off in search of allies, leaving Siddhartha to ready the 'Six Paths, Heaven-Sealing Array' on his own...
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Emerging from the remnants of the mountain Azi had thrown her into, Eve gazed at the seemingly endless sea of black flames produced by Madara, habitually analyzing their structure before turning her carmine gaze to the shimmering black and white sun dominating the horizon.
Exhibiting a hint of emotion, Eve's eyes glossed over and wavered as she muttered, "I failed..." in a dispirited tone. Now that Azi had consumed the power of the Ouroboros Cycle, the odds of succeeding in her mission and fulfilling her purpose had decreased to 0.00000000000000000000147%. Not impossible, but various 'miracles' would need to transpire to create an opportunity for her to succeed.
With few options, Eve got on her knees and brought her hands together in prayer. As she did, pure white light gathered at her back and above her head, forming a set of angelic wings and a halo as the vibrant blue hue of her hair transitioned to chestnut brown. At the same time, her fair, nearly translucent white skin became a healthy shade of brown as she said, "Oh Heavenly Father, I come to you in this moment of weakness and despair, entreating your mercy. The odds of success are stacked against me, but I know that with you, all things are possible..."
Opening her eyes to reveal distinctive aquamarine irises, Eve added, "As I kneel before you, I ask that you grant me the strength to persevere in the face of evil. May your radiant light shine upon me and guide me on my journey, and may your love fill my heart with courage and determination..."
In response to Eve's prayer, beams of light began piercing through the dark clouds that had formed overhead, drastically weakening the intensity of Madara's flames.
"Transform me, oh Lord. May I be revitalized and empowered with the Wings of Providence. Help me glimpse the path ahead clearly so I might walk in the footsteps of your divine plan..."
As the power encompassing Eve's body began to spread outward like a domain, the side of the waning black sun abruptly exploded, followed by Azi emerging from within, his leftmost head screaming, "I don't fucking think so, you bitch...!"
Instead of attempting to evade Azi's meteoric blow, Eve closed her eyes in resolution, whispering, "I put my faith and trust in you, as I know you will not abandon me in my time of need..."
Punching at Eve's head, all three Azi's expressions darkened as their fist impacted a thin but seemingly indestructible barrier. The force of their blow instantaneously disintegrated the surrounding mountain, but Eve's hair barely rustled as she opened her eyes to stare directly at them.
"Impossible..." said Azi's rightmost head, a fierce glimmer emanating from his eerie pink eyes as he remarked, "This is not the power of the God you serve..."
Though she ordinarily would have refuted Azi's words, Eve knew better than the three-headed Demon Dragon God that the power enveloping her was different from usual. It felt familiar, as if it was the same as usual, but as a weapon designed to destroy the current order, she could sense when changes had occurred to its structure.
Reaching the same conclusion as Eve, shadowy, light-absorbing blood began to leak from the voids surrounding Azi's eyes as the central head grimly remarked, "It would seem a Poet even more powerful than Canaria has emerged..."
Before the leftmost head could unleash a scream of profanities, a black blade of energy attempted to slice through the central head but shattered like glass on contact, prompting the trio to look back at Madara, staring down at them in her Six Paths Sage Mode.
Clicking her tongue, Madara crossed her arms and remarked, "You're one tough bastard..."
Seemingly ignoring Madara, the three heads returned their attention to Eve, causing the white-haired Uchiha's brow to twitch. Her attacks might not be effective against the Ouroboros-empowered Azi, but she refused to be ignored...
Earning Azi's attention, Madara's mane of colorless hair transitioned from raven black to a dark shade of purple, starting from its roots. At the same time, a black monkey-like tail protruded from her lower back while the predominately white, black-trimmed robes enveloping her body dissolved, substituted by an Egyptian-themed halter top and baggy white pants.
Forming a Ram Seal with her hands, Madara manifested her Susanoo in the form of a dark purple giant with six arms and three heads. Each set of hands formed a different seal, but neither Azi nor Eve paid much attention as they raised their gazes high in the sky, staring at the colossal objects that had veiled their surroundings in shadow.
Though she doubted it would have much of an effect on the current Azi, Madara accepted that she would be disqualified, summoning seventeen Authority-empowered meteors, each more than ten kilometers across and infused with the Law of Destruction. Their speed wasn't very impressive, but Madara preempted Azi's potential escape by encircling him with several clones, each using Shinra Tensei(Almighty Push) to restrain him.
As if the Shinra Tensei had little to no effect on him, Azi reached up with his left hand, grabbing the end of the stake impaled through his chin and emerging from his bone-white snout. He ordinarily wouldn't have been able to remove it, but after absorbing his Master's power and blood, his existence and Authority had been strengthened considerably.
Tearing the stake from his maw, causing cracks to develop across his head and down the length of his serpentine neck, Azi surprised Madara by effortlessly breaking free from her clones and barreling toward her with 'reality-defining' momentum. His movements were such that even a perfectly ordinary child could perceive them, but Madara barely had time to widen her eyes before Azi pierced the center of her chest with the stake, sealing her power and preventing her from being ejected from the Game Board.
Grabbing Madara's neck with his right hand, Azi opened his toothy maw to reveal a black void. Then, without a moment's delay, he bit down on her head, ripping it from her torso, chewing it, and slurping up her inordinately long hair as he directed his gaze to the meteors above.
While drawing Madara's remains into his chest, Azi used the shadowy tendrils that formed his wings to grab the stakes piercing his other heads, tearing them free. The moment he did so, the two heads opened their fractured maws, unleashing shadowy beams of energy that sliced through the meteors, leaving an eerie black substance that rapidly consumed the cataclysmic constructs of Destruction before they had a chance to impact the devastated terrain below...
Witnessing the horrific scene, Eve's eyes began to waver until one of the remaining Madara's abruptly picked her up, shouldering her like a sack of potatoes before taking off as the version consumed by Azi exploded in a massive cloud of rainbow-hued energy...
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Observing the battle between Madara and Azi from a distance, a serious expression marred Yuri's face. She had doubts about her ability to provide backup to the proud Uchiha, but seeing how quickly Madara had lost, she doubted even Ureko could trade more than a handful of blows with the monstrous Demon Dragon God. At least not with the power they currently possessed...
Borrowing a page from Eve, Yuri brought her hands together, directing her gaze to the sky as she cheekily appealed, "Yo, Vahn, give me the power to fuck this guy up."
In response to Yuri's appeal, the world around her appeared to undergo a slide transition as incredible power surged from within her. Only a handful of powerful entities could perceive it, but as one of the people Vahn cared about, Yuri was at least vaguely aware of each time he effectively rewrote reality. In this instance, he had made it so that the two of them had spent nearly a hundred additional years training in the Tower, allowing her to be the one to defeat a far more powerful version of her father, Zahard.
Punching her right fist into the palm of her left hand, a battle-hungry grin developed across Yuri's face as a crimson aura erupted from her body like an explosive tide. At the same time, her two Companions, Mirage and Veil, enveloped her body in a predominately white, pink-tinged outfit with fins and feathery protrusions. Mirage was a holdover from the previous reality, but Veil, a pale-pink, phoenix-like Companion, was brand new, something Yuri had experienced fighting alongside for centuries despite having been created specifically to allow her to contend against Azi...
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(A/N: Alternate Titles: 'Kurma is very easily bullied...','Eve discovers the Path toward Salvation...','A power far beyond that of a Poet OwO...')
章 2352: Endless Tide
Though he was several hundred meters above the ground, the three heads of Azi had to look up to see the crest of a peculiar pink wave that dominated one side of the horizon.
Having absorbed numerous prophets and even a handful of Gods of Wisdom, Azi immediately recognized the origin of the power within the wave, the centermost head remarking, "A resident of the Tower made it to the Divine Realm? How peculiar..."
Spotting Yuri standing atop the wave, the leftmost head bellowed, "Does it matter!? Let's slaughter this bitch...!" before opening his maw to unleash a laser-like beam of purple-black energy that burst into a veritable wall of flames the moment it made contact with the wave.
Seeing the wave endure the destructive beam of energy, the rightmost head blinked in surprise, causing several bone-white fragments to flake away from his face. Their flames were powerful enough to burn stars and subsume Solar Deities. The colossal wave should have been annihilated the moment their attack struck it, yet the complete opposite happened, a loud hissing sound emanating for hundreds of kilometers as their purple-black flames were swallowed up and extinguished.
Without needing to be told what to do, the centermost Azi activated one of its many trump cards, manifesting a distinctive, y-shaped halo formed of golden energy. The moment it appeared, all water and plantlife within tens of thousands of kilometers instantaneously shriveled and evaporated as the temperature across the battlefield increased to more than 5,000°C at the periphery. Near the center, where Azi and Yuri were positioned, the ground and surrounding mountains liquefied, creating toxic fumes as even elements like tungsten were vaporized.
Seeing the tidal wall endure in the face of the most powerful incarnation of Purgatorial Flames, infused with the Laws of Flame and Lightning, the rightmost Azi stroked his chin and muttered, "I see...I almost forgot that, within the Tower, the energy known as Shinsu could even be infused with the power of Yang. But how could an Authority outside the bounds of Zoroastrianism counteract the power of Khvarenah(Halo of the Supreme Ruler)?"
"I don't know..." replied the central head, reaching up to claw away the right side of its face as it added, "The most logical conclusion is that she's drawing power from the same Poet that protected that doll..."
As Azi's talon tore through the fractured, bone-like material comprising much of his body, a tremendous volume of shadowy black blood poured forth. Even his eye came free, seemingly melting as the fragmenting of his body continued to exacerbate.
"You're not looking so hot," said Yuri, her voice carrying several hundreds of meters without issue. She was originally looking forward to a climactic battle with the three-headed Demon Dragon God, but now that she saw him up close, it looked as though he was about to kick the bucket without her.
Before Azi could respond, the leftmost head that had unleashed the beam of black flames abruptly slumped forward, melting in much the same way as the central head's eye. However, instead of falling into the sea of lava below, it stopped around the halfway point before forming a cacoon-like sphere.
More to himself than Yuri, the rightmost head noted, "It appears our body cannot contain the power of our Master. We're beginning to separate into our original selves..."
"Then let's speed things up," said the central head, surprising the right head by grabbing its neck, violently tearing and tossing the slackjawed appendage away without hesitation. He then grasped his own face, but before he could do whatever it was he intended to do, a crimson meteor impacted the top of his head, creating a massive explosion as Yuri's heel slammed into the center of his crown.
Contrasting Yuri's expectations, Azi wasn't sent crashing into the sea of lava by her attack. Despite looking like he was about to fall to pieces, her attack only managed to force Azi to look down slightly. At the same time, he used the stakes he pulled from his other heads to try and stab Yuri in the chest, nearly succeeding if not for voids opening within her body, the interior of which was colored the same pink hue as the static wave behind her.
Before Azi could comment on Yuri's amorphous body, the raven-haired Ha exploded, enveloping the stoic Dragon God in a manner reminiscent of the Templated Rimuru using [Gluttony].
Unperturbed by Yuri's attempt to devour him with her slime-like body, Azi opened his mouth, forming several additional maws across his body as he attempted to consume her in turn. The shadowy substance comprising his body was capable of breaking down virtually anything into usable energy, much like the void in Fenrir's stomach. However, unless his power and Authority were much greater than his prey's, the conversion took time. He still hadn't fully absorbed the power of his Master, so when Yuri began to invade him willfully, Azi's singular eye widened as she spread through him like an artificial cardiovascular system.
As if he still had three heads, Azi's right arm, wielding the stake that had formerly pierced his right head, abruptly stabbed at his face. He managed to stop it just as the tip pierced his snout, creating even more cracks, but he was temporarily rendered immobile as Yuri tried to puppeteer him with her slime-like body.
"You look like you're having trouble," said a teasing voice from behind Azi, compelling him to strain his neck and body to see who had spoken. When he did, a disconcerting smile developed across his face despite hundreds of copies of Yuri emerging from the pink wave, revealing its true nature.
Raising her brows, the Yuri that had previously spoken asked, "What are you getting excited for? You should realize by now that you have no hope of devouring me like you did Madara's clone..."
Adopting a cheeky smile, Yuri added, "You're struggling with just one of my offshoots, and there are literally trillions more of me. Soon enough, I will spread to cover the entirety of this battlefield, subsuming everything within. That includes you."
Seemingly amused by Yuri's remark, Azi opened his draconic maw and started to laugh, his voice producing powerful shockwaves that caused the pink liquid surrounding him to ripple, vibrate, and dissolve. Yuri was able to regenerate faster than he could destroy her, but that didn't seem to bother Azi as he adopted a vicious grin and said, "Go ahead. Feel free to consume me. As an embodiment of eschatology, I will be resurrected no matter how often I'm eaten, slain, or sealed away. All your actions will accomplish is providing me with a new, more powerful host."
As if to accelerate the rate Yuri devoured him, Azi overpowered her attempts to restrain him with God-like strength, clawing away at his face and body while laughing raucously. His actions caused the growing number of Yuri(s) to scowl, but that didn't stop them from devouring him. After all, even if Azi succeeded in infesting her body, there was absolutely no way Vahn would allow the crazed Dragon to turn her into a vessel or possess the body of their future children...
Before Azi could finish tearing himself apart, the cacoon formed from his leftmost head began to bloom, revealing golden light and a flesh-covered interior. From within, a distinctly humanoid figure slowly emerged from a membrane resembling an embryonic sac, its body comprised entirely of bone, glistening red muscle, and white sinew. It appeared to lack eyes, but its most notable features were the skull-shaped protrusions covering its shoulders like pauldrons, the burning halo hovering atop its head, and the flaming shortsword in its right hand.
As the vast majority of Yuri's clones turned their attention to the figure, disgust marring their expressions, the fleshy monstrosity's teeth began to clatter loudly as a ghastly, resonating chuckle emanated from its throat. Then, causing the pupils of nearly every Yuri to contract, the figure raised its flaming sword of its head and shouted, "Burn everything in the flames of War, Frashokereti...!"
Though it didn't kill any of them, nearly every Yuri was abruptly liquefied as a wave of spirit energy erupted from the grotesque, haloed entity like the eruption of a supernova. Even the massive wall of pink slime forming her true body was pushed back violently as the presumed Zanpakuto in the creature's hand turned into a blade of flames more than ten meters in length. At the same time, a series of twelve flesh-covered wings emerged from the monster's back like a grotesque parody of a Seraphim.
Swinging its inordinately long sword with such force that its arm tore and its entrails slipped from its gut, the monstrous figure cleaved the pink wall from one end of the horizon to the other. The space between the two halves was cleaved in two, creating a gravitational well comparable to a black hole, but Yuri's slime was largely unaffected, the upper half of the wave splitting into countless smaller chunks that formed a veritable legion of pissed-off clones.
Causing the expressions of the countless Yuri(s) to darken, the monstrous figure began to laugh as it spread its wings wide, producing innumerable feathers that quickly materialized into an equivalent number of clones. The leftmost head was the source of Azi's ability to replicate and create a functionally infinite number of clones and, as an escatology representing humanity's extinction as a result of war, its power grew in proportion to its opponent's.
Without a care for their 'allies,' the fleshy Seraphim began to swing their inordinately long swords with reckless abandon, slicing through each other and regenerating just as fast as the legion of Yuri. The pink wave surged forward and washed over the majority of the monstrous creatures, but even as their flesh dissolved, they continued to laugh and attack with unabated intensity, an aura of slaughter and madness descending upon the battlefield as the two forces merged like Creation's most grotesque iteration of meat jelly...
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Like many of the people observing the conflict between Yuri and Azi from the relative safety of the Little Garden, Mikoto, sitting atop Vahn's head in her Pikachu form, began to feel queasy as she noted, "This is too much..."
"Hmmm...perhaps you're right..." admitted Vahn, his expression fixed in a relaxed smile, wholly unperturbed by the grotesque sight. He had seen and experienced far worse during his conquest of the Ethereal Queen, so he didn't feel there was anything intrinsically wrong or disturbing with the scene playing out in front of him. Yuri seemed to be enjoying herself, and Azi's bastardization of the Verethraghna, the Zoroastrian God of War, was clearly having a lot of fun.
After a very brief moment of consideration, at least from an onlooker's perspective, Vahn removed his right hand from Fenrir's head, swiping at the central display they were using to observe the Pandemonium Gift Game. As he did so, the scene changed from a bloody, grotesque battle to a 3v3 fight between Yuri, Mirage, and Veil versus Azi, Verethraghna, and multi-armed, multi-legged female with fleshy brown skin forming her base color and a bone white carapace.
"Is that better...?" asked Vahn, prompting a wry smile to develop across Mikoto's face as she admitted, "It is." However, as she didn't agree with Vahn casually changing reality, especially due to something she said, she didn't fully approve of his actions. The old him would have never done such a thing, but ever since his battle against the Ethereal Queen, Vahn had been a lot less 'apprehensive' about using his power...
Sensing Mikoto's thoughts, Vahn's relaxed smile eased into a far more affectionate look as he retrieved the loveable ball of yellow fur from his head and hugged her gently in his embrace. Mikoto felt embarrassed by his actions, especially when everyone's gazes abruptly turned to her, but that didn't stop her from nestling into Vahn's embrace, enjoying his scent and warmth as all her apprehensions and anxieties melted away, replaced by a sense of comfort and unity...
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(A/N: Alternate Titles: 'Yuri has learned from the Great Masters, Mollang and Rimuru...','A very literal representation of the 'meat grinder' referred to in war dramas...','Cuddles make everything better o3o...')
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