章 5: I-4: ...And the Start of Another, Part 1

A week had passed since Zekram had come to Zeoticus, Venelana and their two children Sirzechs and Raylix, asking for their support against a growing faction of Devils who wished to continue the Great War, which were steadily beginning to be known around the Underworld as the 'Royals'. Three weeks since Ddraig and Albion's defeat at the hands of the united force of the Christian Pantheon's most powerful fighters, a transportation-circle opened up in Boall, one of the largest cities in the Devils' territory of the Underworld, and THE largest in territory formerly ruled by the Pillar Bael, and now ruled over by Zekram.

Zeoticus, Venelana, Sirzechs and Raylix popped out of the transportation-circle in question, and as advised by one of Zekram's subordinates, who had come to them about the meeting that they were now travelling to, walked forward towards a small-looking house, on the corner of an ordinary-looking street. At first blush, no Devil would've looked twice at the house that Zeoticus, Venelana, Sirzechs and Raylix walked into, but they (and everyone else that had walked, was currently walking and would walk into that house today) knew that this wasn't any ordinary house. At least, it wasn't now.

Once the four Devils were in the house, a young-looking Devil dressed in black and purple armour directed them through a small door, that led to a downwards-spiralling staircase. Zeoticus led the way, with Sirzechs going next, Venelana going third and Raylix bringing up the rear. In his head, Raylix counted at least 50 steps before the spiralling staircase finally came to an end, opening out into a vast underground space in which many Devils already seemed to be gathered, talking quietly amongst each other. From his position in the room, Raylix could see Ruvella, the woman who'd helped heal his hands during the battle against Ddraig and Albion, chatting with Serafall. Almost instantly upon their arrival, Ajuka seemed to spot Sirzechs, and walked over to him, calling out something that Raylix didn't pick up on because he wasn't listening to his brother, or said brother's best friend.

Raylix could only silently stick to Zeoticus' side as he and Venelana moved further into the room, making way for more Devils that came down the staircase that they had just come down. Looking back at said staircase, Raylix recognised Hurinar, great-grandson of the Pillar Murmur, and Hurinar's father Tratihr, just coming through the door, and now that he scanned around, he saw descendants of many Pillar Devils. In fact, if Raylix wasn't mistaken, all the remaining descendants of the original 72 Pillar Devils were currently standing in the room with them.

Well, all the descendants that hadn't been killed during the Great War, that is. Descendants of Bael, Agares, Vassago, Gamigin, Amon, Barbatos, Paimon, Sitri, Beleth, Zepar, Sallos, Purson, Ipos, Marax, Naberius, Glasya-Labolas, Berith, Astaroth, Forneus, Asmoday, Furfur, Stolas, Phenex, Shax, Uvall, Furcas, Balam, Murmur, Gremory (...duh), Oriax, Vapula, Valac, Andrealphus, Amduscias, Belial, Decarabia, Seere and Dantalion were in the room, with Zekram raising a small platform for himself and flying up onto it. Everyone in the room automatically seemed to quieten down at this, seemingly expecting the oldest and most prestigious Devil amongst them (as well as the guy who was, for all intents and purposes, their ruler now) to talk. And talk he most certainly did.

"Thank you for coming, all of you." he began. "I'm glad that everyone I spoke to about this matter chose to indulge this old man and convene here at his location. I would hold this meeting at my home castle, under normal circumstances, but the current situation is... far from normal."

There were murmurs among the crowd of gathered Devils for a couple of seconds- Raylix counted at least a hundred- before Zekram held a hand up in a call for silence. A call for silence that, once they saw it, every Devil obeyed instantly.

"You were already informed of the present situation when I spoke to everyone in this room approximately a week ago." he continued. "But the situation has changed, and not for the better. The forces that the Satan children, Bidleid Bashalun Beelzebub, Damaidosu Zereikel Asmodeus and Tsufaame Tereaku Leviathan, have been gathering since I stepped up to lead the Devils... has fully gathered. You heard me right, the Royals Faction has fully gathered up their forces, and are preparing to move against the Underworld that we're just beginning to rebuild after the horrors of the last sixty-two years!"

He let out a sigh as more, slightly louder, murmurings broke out among the Devils in the room. Raylix had a slight feeling that Zekram's sigh was done more for dramatic effect than any urge to sigh, but he kept his mouth shut as his grandfather raised his hand again, calling for silence.

"Ever since Lilith and I agreed on the Lilim's seperation from the Devils, I have tried to sort things out in a diplomatic fashion with Bidleid, Damaidosu and Tsufaame." Zekram continued. "But they have made it quite clear that they do not seek a diplomatic solution to this problem that the Underworld faces. Rather, they wish for nothing more than the same absolute power that their parents had up until their deaths, which they will doubtlessly use to continue the war, and definitely bring Devilkind even closer to extinction than it already is. That is, unless... they're stopped."

"Are you suggesting we stop them by force?" One Devil, situated behind Raylix, called out. "Wouldn't that mean civil war?"

"Better a civil war than a continuation of the Great War!" Zekram called out in reply. "If Bidleid, Damaidosu and Tsufaame and their armies have their way, they'll shatter the relative peace that us, the Lilim, the Fallen Angels and the Angels have all begun to live under again! Meaning that those other three factions will all destroy us without hesitation, in order to preserve it! Nigh-certain extinction from all sides sounds a lot worse than a civil war, don't you think?"

A roar of approval broke out among the Devils in the room, with some cheers being heard amongst the noise. Rather than call for silence for a third time, Zekram simply used magic to amplify his voice, and spoke out again, his single voice rising above the hundred-strong cheers.

"Then join me!" Zekram's voice rang out. "Pledge your allegiance now, and we can stop the Royals! Join me now, and we can work to create a better Underworld, for all of us!"

The cheers and roars increased in volume, as the first few Devils stepped forward to make their pledges, on behalf of themselves and their families. Raylix recognised Rika, Ruvella's mother, and Sylox, Serafall's father, among the first to step forward. Zeoticus himself walked forward and made his pledge, as did other Devils, making their pledges on behalf of all remaining descendants of Vassago, Naberius, Berith, Forneus, Stolas and Decarabia. Seemingly emboldened by the actions of the first nine to do so, everyone else began to come forward with their pledges of allegiance to Zekram. Descendants of Gamigin, Beleth, Ipos, Seere- before Raylix knew it, every Pillar descendant in the room had either pledged or been pledged for.

The whole process had barely taken five minutes, after which Zekram was grinning from ear to ear, and had stepped down from the platform that he had previously been standing on. As he walked through the hall, everyone parted to make room for him, their new leader in the conflict that they all knew was sure to come.

"Thank you, thank you all!" Zekram spoke, holding his arms out wide in an attempt to make himself seen better. "Now that I've secured all your allegiances, I'm certain that if we work as one, this new Anti-Royals Faction will be able to work to prevent disaster and death from falling upon all of Devilkind. As its leader, I propose that our first order of business should be to prepare a strike against the Royals to knock out as many of their forces as possible as quickly as possible. With this, I'm certain that we can stop the Royals before too much destruction is brought to our Underworld-"

It happened too fast for anyone in the room, on the high brought on by Zekram's speech and the general good feeling of the newly-formed Anti-Royals Faction, to sense coming. A colossal explosion sounded right above all approximately-one hundred Devils, caving in the ceiling and bringing debris and rubble crashing down around them. Almost instantly in reaction to the sound, every Devil in the room (while letting out respective cries and shouts of surprise at the sudden explosion) had some kind of shield conjured up to prevent the bigger bits of debris from falling down onto them and injuring them. Shields that worked for the debris, which didn't have very far to fall before hitting the shields and therefore posed little threat, but not so for the volleys of demonic energy that came flying down amongst them a couple of seconds later.

Raylix let out a cry of pain as, not even a second after his conjured shield was broken by a volley of demonic bullets, another volley came down and scored direct hits all over his body. His arms and upper chest took the brunt of the volley that came in his direction, though his lower chest and legs didn't come out unscathed either. He was knocked on his backside by the sudden attack, and only had the time to get up thanks to a much stronger and larger shield forming over the entire room, blocking any further volleys of demonic energy from being fired down upon the gathered Devils like fish in a barrel.

A couple of seconds later, the familiar warmth of healing magic, cast by Venelana from a couple of steps away, began to spread through Raylix's whole body, and the wounds formed by the demonic bullets fired upon him began to close, while several other Devils rose through the formed barrier, most likely to give chase to whoever had attacked them.

It had been a quick attack by a group of Devils that, it was later found out, were sent by the Royals Faction to kill all the remaining descendants of the Pillar Devils, in an attempt to stop any kind of internal Devil conflict before it started. But ultimately, the attempt at a pre-emptive end to a civil war only succeeded in rendering the bloodlines of two Pillar Devils (Ipos and Murmur) extinct. Apart from the remaining familia of those two Pillars, there were no other deaths: a few injuries (some more major than others, to be sure), but nothing that anyone who was at least decently well-versed in the art of healing magic couldn't fix up.

After relocating to the courtyard of Zekram's castle, the remaining founding members of the Anti-Royals Faction stood in a semi-circle around their leader, who had a rather ugly look on his face.

Words weren't exactly needed, given what had just happened just over three hundred words ago. In their attempt to stop an internal conflict before it had started, the Royals had just started one against all the remaining survivors of the 36 Pillars that still had living descendants... and in the most cowardly way possible. Had the Royals not just attacked everyone at once, they might have actually gotten some of the remaining Pillars on their side. Maybe even enough to sway things to the point that they would have more troops at their command than the Anti-Royals Faction.

But now, with all the remaining Pillar descendants, and all the forces of the Devil military that remained under their command, firmly against the Royals Faction now, they had cemented themselves as being outnumbered at least 2-to-1.

So, it was EXTREMELY safe to say that the Royals weren't going to have the best time during the next... not even a year.

----- ----- ----- -----

"So you see Raylix, if you infuse a thaumatium crystal with a specific type of magic, you can create various combinations of attack right from your sword, without the need to draw out Amalgamation." Ajuka explained, pulling out a crystal similar to the one inside Raylix's sword right now and infusing it with fire magic on the spot, which turned it a brilliant orange colour.

It had been six months since what was now called the Devil Civil War had begun, and in the minutes before Raylix, as well as his battalion of Devil soldiers, were dispatched to territory that had formerly been occupied by Pillar Gusion, Ajuka had finally seemingly made time to meet with his best friend's younger brother regarding his sword, its inner workings and any possibilities of upgrading it.

"Alright..." Raylix nodded, following along as best he could with what Ajuka had said and demonstrated. "Hey, think you could put that crystal into this?" he held up the hilt of his sword, with a hopeful look on his face. Ajuka looked calmly at Raylix for a second, then at the hilt that he was holding up, then shrugged.

"Sure, why not?" he replied. "It's not like you're being deployed right now, just in the next few minutes. I've got time." He remarked, holding out his hand. Getting what he was asking for without the need for words, Raylix handed over the hilt to Ajuka. After taking a couple of seconds to, as he'd done when he first laid hands on it, appreciate the hilt in his hands, Ajuka opened up the hilt in the same way that Raylix had showed him, removed the crystal that already sat within the hilt (which was translucent and colourless, in comparison to the orange one that he'd just infused with fire-magic) and replaced it with the crystal that he'd just infused, closing up the hilt after the new crystal was fully set within its proper place.

"There, good as new." Ajuka remarked, handing the hilt over to Raylix, who re-attached it to his hip with a grin. "No need to thank me, Raylix. If anything you end up doing as a result of that new crystal in your sword-hilt ends up giving us any kind of advantage over the Royals, then that'll be thanks enough."

"Sure, I guess..." Raylix replied, standing up and inclining his head to Ajuka anyway, as a short form of thanks before walking off. Older brother's best friend or no, there was always something about Ajuka that seemed... off to him, even by Devils' standards. Raylix left the room that he and Ajuka had been in (Ajuka simply stood up and exited via transportation-circle), and had barely gone two more steps before Zeoticus came walking around a corner. Upon seeing his younger son, Zeoticus instantly made a beeline for him.

"Raylix! Thank Lilith I managed to find you before your deployment!" Zeoticus breathed a sigh of relief. "I wanted to give you something before you go."

"Oh, really?" Raylix blinked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he kept his eyes on his father. "What is it?"

"Something... pretty important to me." Zeoticus replied, opening a magic-circle with a wave of his hand and reaching into it. "Since it's your first deployment of the Civil War, and you've more than earned the right to use it."

Raylix, who had had an eyebrow raised at what Zeoticus could be talking about, suddenly widened his eyes at what his father pulled out of the magic-circle that he'd just reached into. It was the same double-edged straight sword that Raylix had seen Zeoticus wielding himself in battle many times over the course of the Great War: a glowing, double-edged crimson blade as long as one of Raylix's arms (slightly shorter than the blade that came from the projected sword that Raylix himself used), it was definitely a surprise for the young Devil to see the blade again, doubly so given the sword's history.

Entitled 'Gaeneron' by Pillar Gremory, the Devil that the sword was supposedly made specifically for, it had seen many battles before its owner fell in another one of many campaigns launched against the Fallen Angels and Angels during the course of the Great War. After being recovered, and it being discovered that Gremory's blood-descendants could use the sword in the same way that the deceased Pillar could, the sword was passed onto Gremory's daughter Alcina, who then passed it onto Zeoticus.

"You're giving Gaeneron to me?" Raylix asked, blinking as he stared at the sword, which continued to glow a radiant crimson.

"For the time being, yes." Zeoticus replied. "It's undeniable that you've surpassed me in terms of swordsmanship thanks to the war, so you've definitely earned the right to use this sword in battle. Doubly so when using it to defend the Underworld that my grandfather, your great-grandfather, gave everything for, so try to keep that at least in the back of your mind when fighting the Royals, okay? You know, in case you DO end up fighting any today."

"Got it..." Raylix replied. Zeoticus held Gaeneron out to Raylix, who accepted the sword into his hand with a continued look of dumb surprise on his face. His father stepped back at Raylix weighed the sword in his hand, and gave the sword a couple of experimental swings. It was far, far heavier than the projected blade that he'd been used to for the past three decades of his life, and yet it still felt as natural in his hand as the projected blade's hilt did when he'd first picked it up, that day around thirty-two years ago.

Holding Gaeneron in his right hand, Raylix unfastened his projection-hilt from his hip and held it in his dominant left hand, and weighed the hilt against the sword. After a few seconds of weighing the items against each other, Raylix re-fastened the projection-hilt back to his hip and transferred Gaeneron to his left hand, where he held it far more securely.

Come to think of it, Gaeneron in his hand felt like the same kind of upgrade from the projectable blade that he'd been used to for the past approximate three decades, as the projectable blade did from the kind of weightless swords that most Devils created out of demonic power, swords that Raylix himself remembered creating back when he was a young child, before he even got the projectionable blade-hilt in the first place.

Figuring that walking around with a whole-ass sword attached to his hip would be far less convenient than just a hilt, Raylix made like Zeoticus had done a couple of moments ago and opened a magic-circle, depositing Gaeneron into it for future use.

"Thanks very much for the sword, Father." Raylix spoke, a smile coming to his face as he looked up at Zeoticus. "I won't let you down."

"I know you won't." Zeoticus replied, smiling back at Raylix and stepping forward, giving his younger son a brief- yet obviously and definitely passionate- hug. "Now," he continued, as he released Raylix. "I think you should go and prepare to greet your brigade, they'll probably be here soon."

"Oh yeah, right." Raylix nodded, turning around and walking towards where he knew the nearest exit to the building that he and Zeoticus had been in was. He had only taken a few steps before what Zeoticus had said really sunk in, and he turned around. "Wait... did you say brigade?"

"Did I not tell you?" Zeoticus remarked, turning around himself to look back at Raylix. "Oh, well, I guess now's as good a time as any to tell you. Zekram's decided to upgrade you again, so you'll have a whole brigade of 5,000 soldiers under your command, for your first real campaign in this war. Make sure to use them well, yeah?"

"Y-yeah..." Raylix replied, feeling himself sweatdropping slightly as he turned around again and continued his journey towards the building's exit. The highest number of soldiers he'd ever commanded at one time was around 1,700- during the Sixth Battle of Heaven-, yet today (and presumably at future times, if he didn't die during the coming battle that he and his brigade would be engaging in) he would be commanding a force around three times that size.

How would he even go about something like that, even if he had Sabemka and Tomosei to help him out? Would he manage to command the respect of so many Devil soldiers at once? Would he be able to do so in a quick enough timeframe that they'd be able to trust in him as their commander during THIS campaign, never mind any possible future ones that he (and presumably they, as well) would partake in? Would he screw up spectacularly, die a horrific and pointless death, and be remembered as a failure by the rest of Devil society?

Raylix's internal musings were interrupted as he stepped through the exit of the building he had spent the morning in- an Anti-Royals base in the mountains of Eligos territory- and looked out over the area. He was just about to sit down on one particularly comfortable-looking rock and relax for the few minutes he figured he had left before everyone arrived, but the appearance of one very familiar-looking transportation-circle appearing a few paces away from where he was currently stood dissuaded him from that. His face broke out into another smile at the sight of the two Devils, dressed in new combat-gear, that appeared out of said transportation-circle.

"Oh, are we the first here?" Tomosei remarked, stretching as she stepped out of the circle. "Shit, it's cold up here." she added, casting a warming spell over herself on pure instinct, when the cold temperature of the mountains hit her. "Why did they think it was a good idea to put the base up in these mountains, anyway?"

"No clue." Raylix replied. "But I doubt we'll be waiting long. We just have to brief the few thousand Devil soldiers on what we'll be doing when we get there."

"Huh, few thousand?" Sabemka asked, looking over at his commander and friend while scratching an itch that had formed on the back of his head. "You get upgraded from your usual one-or-two thousand soldier-battalion this time, Ray?"

"Sure did, Emka." Raylix replied, nodding and sitting down on the rock that he'd been eying before his two friends came. "About 5,000 or so soldiers. Lucky me..."

"Well, I'm sure you'll be used to it soon enough." Tomosei remarked. "I mean, I remember you being pretty nervous at the prospect of commanding just 1,000 soldiers a decade ago, and you're fine with it now."

"True enough..." Raylix nodded, stretching himself. "Though jumping from a maximum of, what, seventeen hundred soldiers at my command to nearly three times that amount, half of the number of soldiers that Sirzechs has under his thumb... doesn't that seem a bit sudden?"

"Maybe." Sabemka replied, getting into a fighting stance for a couple of seconds before throwing a couple of punches and kicks at an imaginary opponent in front of him, before disengaging and relaxing into a more casual pose. "But eh, what can you do?"

"Probably split them into more manageable groups." Raylix replied, standing up. "Would make them easier to manage, and we'd be able to complete our mission faster. You're okay with leading one each of those groups on your own, right?"

"Sure am." Sabemka replied, grinning. Tomosei simply nodded as the three of them saw a collection of transportation-circles forming around the same area that Sabemka and Tomosei's transport-circle was situated at, and many Devils- all dressed in similar combat gear to his two friends- appearing out of them. A hundred, two hundred, five hundred, a thousand, two thousand, about five thousand Devils- give or take a few hundred- had warped into the area just outside the Anti-Royals' HQ within a matter of seconds, and looked at the Devil that had been assigned to lead them with expectant expressions on their faces. Taking a breath to calm himself at the sudden feeling of so many eyes on him, Raylix spoke up.

"Alright, listen up." he spoke, using magic to enhance his voice. "This is a really important mission for us of the Anti-Royals. We'll be securing the former capital town of territory that was occupied by Pillar Gusion, before she and her descendants all died during the Great War."

All the soldiers that had just warped in, who were quietly talking amongst themselves, instantly shut up once Raylix started talking, and looked up when he conjured up a map of the territory.

"There are three designated areas that need securing." Raylix explained, waving his hand at the map he had created. Three dots, marking out the locations in question, appeared on the map. "The castle town where Gusion herself and her descendants all used to live, Gusoyn Field, and the mountains on the border between it and Barbatos' territory. I'm guessing the higher-ups will want to build a base there, like they've done here." he gestured to the expansive building behind him, before looking back at the soldiers that now made up his brigade.

"You'll be split up into three groups for this mission, with one group working to secure each location. The group with Sabemka," Sabemka raised a hand from his position on Raylix's right, and nodded to the crowd in front of him," will be securing the Gusion/Barbatos mountains, while the group with Tomosei," Tomosei did the same as Sabemka, from her position on Raylix's left, "will be securing the Gusoyn fields, and the group with me will be securing the castle town. There's no need to sort yourselves into groups, that'll be taken care of now."

Raylix nodded to Tomosei, who summoned her staff into one hand and swung it in a slow, wide arc across her field of vision, across all the soldiers in front of her, Raylix and Sabemka. After doing so, she snapped her fingers with her other hand, sending all of the soldiers through transportation-circles and depositing them into three large, approximately-equal groups. She nodded back at Raylix and stepped down, moving towards the leftmost group of Devils that she had formed, while Sabemka stepped towards the rightmost group. Raylix then moved towards the centre group.

"Alright, all of you!" he called, summoning Gaeneron into his hand and raising it up into the air, while casting three large transportation-circles with his free hand, one in front of each formed group. "Stay on task, stay alert for any Royals that might be around the locations we'll be securing, and most importantly... stay alive. For Hell."

"FOR HELL!" Every single Devil soldier among the three groups that Raylix had formed yelled, as one, as they rushed forward, either on the ground or in the air, into the transport-circles in front of them, led by either Sabemka, Tomosei or Raylix, and right out the other side to one of the three designated locations.

The town that Raylix and his group came out in front of was, to be blunt, in quite a sorry state. For every one building that had, by some demonic miracle, survived the conflict and stood relatively undamaged by the (over) half a century of total war, there were around nine that had taken such heavy damage that the idea of anyone living there in the foreseeable future was entirely out of the question, and another ten that had been entirely, unsalvageably, destroyed. You'd be forgiven for thinking that such buildings had never been built in the first place, judging by what was (or wasn't, in some cases) left of them.

The castle that Gusion and her descendants had occupied as their home upon Gusion's ascension to Pillarhood wasn't faring much better, judging by the view that Raylix and his group of soldiers currently had of it. What used to be a grand building, deserving of the presence of one of Lucifer's 72 chosen Devils to oversee a portion of the Underworld in his and the other Satans' place, was now a half-destroyed wreck of a building. Every tower had at least one large chunk of it blown out by a punch, spell or other such attack, the walkway and footbridge that led up to the castle's main entrance was completely gone, the outer wall that connected the outer towers had essentially been erased, and the inner wall had many major holes in it. Raylix wouldn't be surprised if the inner wall didn't collapse at any second.

All in all, the castle town was, in two words, absolutely wrecked. But Raylix and his group of soldiers weren't here to sightsee, or even to rebuild: they were here to secure the town, so other- more qualified- Devils (preferably those from the Anti-Royals Faction) could do whatever the hell they wanted with it. Rebuild, tear it down, pretend to station a bunch of soldiers in the area in an attempt to bait attacks by the Royals: Raylix didn't know, he didn't care, and he didn't have to know or care. Unless he was directly involved in this town's future, of course, but that was another matter entirely.

"Let's move!" Raylix called down to his group. "The quicker we secure this town, the quicker we can leave and head home! Come on, people!"

Those who hadn't already spread their wings and raised into the air did so, as everyone (with Raylix leading) flew forwards and into the wrecked town. It was deathly quiet: the kind of quiet that seemed to enhance the volume of any small sound that met one's ears by a thousandfold, and the kind of quiet that no Devil dared break while flying over. Not until Raylix himself- turning around in mid-air- spoke up, once everyone had made it into the town and was flying over it.

"Alright, you hundred to the right." Raylix addressed about a hundred Devils, pointing and gesturing with his hand to the seemingly-tightly-knit group. "Secure a perimeter around the castle town. You hundred on the left," he addressed another group of a hundred. "Come with me, we'll check out the castle. Everyone else, patrol and fortify the town itself. I'm a call away if anything happens."

"Yes, sir!" every Devil in front of Raylix replied, practically in unison, as they headed off to their delegated tasks. Raylix turned around in mid-air and flew off, towards the ruined castle, with the hundred or so Devils that he'd called following him.

Raylix and the small group he'd called to come with him had barely crossed the ruined outer wall of Gusion's castle when he heard screams of pain sounding from behind him. He would've turned around to try and see what was going on, but three powerful shots of demonic energy flying directly at him forced him to pull out Gaeneron and swing it, deflecting the shots away from him. A second later, three Devil soldiers, dressed in combat armour emblazoned with the Leviathan family crest (what looked like a sea serpant crossing over with the letter 'L') appeared seemingly out of thin air- in reality, they were probably always there, but under camouflaging spells of some kind- followed by several hundred more within the next few seconds. After that, more and more of them seemed to appear.

At that moment, a magical barrier seemed to come down around the town, trapping Raylix and his soldiers inside along with the Royals soldiers, who seemed to have gotten here first, and outnumbered them around one-and-a-half to one, by Raylix's estimate.

A particularly daring Royals soldier dived down towards Raylix, seemingly with hopes that he could kill the younger brother of Sirzechs Gremory, one of the two biggest threats to the Royals' victory. However, said soldier didn't seem to account for the sword in Raylix's left hand, which he bisected the soldier with as soon as he got close enough. "GET READY TO FIGHT, EVERYONE!" Raylix yelled, magically enhancing his yell to make absolutely sure that all of his soldiers could hear him. "AND SOMEONE, GET A MESSAGE OFF TO HQ, WE'RE GOING TO NEED REINFORCEMENTS HERE!"

Raylix deflected another shot of energy that came too close for his liking, and flew straight up into the air, away from both his soldiers and those of the enemy. He placed a hand to his ear and opened up a comms-circle close by it, calling both Tomosei and Sabemka in hopes that they'd be able to make their way over here, and help out with the battle that had rapidly begun below.

"Raylix?" Tomosei's voice came through first. To Raylix's horror, he could hear the sounds of battle through her end of the call. "We got here fine, but we've been ambushed! They put up some kind of anti-teleportation barrier, we can't get out!"

"We've been ambushed, Raylix!" Sabemka's voice came through right afterwards. "Those Royals bastards just came out of nowhere and started attacking! We can't get out of here!"

"Hold tight, both of you!" Raylix called back, rolling over in mid-air to dodge a beam of energy fired at him from below, and opening an Amalgamation-hole to catch a shot of ice-magic fired at him, combined it with his Power of Destruction, powered the resulting Ice/Destruction combo up with his own demonic power, and fired the result back down at a crowd of Royals soldiers, simultaneously freezing and blowing the lot of them up. "And call for reinforcements from the Anti-Royals HQ, I've got someone doing that on my end just now! Shit, shit, shit, this is all my fault..." he muttered. "If I hadn't split us up into three groups, we could be taking these Royals twats on togeth-"

"This is NOT your fault, Raylix!" Sabemka shouted back into the comms-circle. "You couldn't have known that these- AHHH!- Royals p-pricks were here! We'll hold as well as we can!"

"Same here!" Tomosei called back. "Raylix, don't blame yourself for this, fight! Do what you've always been best at!"

"Heh, will do." Raylix replied, taking a breath. "Stay alive, Emka, Tomo... please..."

The comms-circle beside Raylix's ear disappeared without Raylix having to dispel it, indicating that Sabemka and Tomosei had both hung up on him. While definitely considered rude in any other context, they could hardly be blamed for such an act now, given the situation that they were both in... as well as Raylix, which he remembered when a pair of Royals soldiers attempted to come at him at the same time, one on each side of him.

Gritting his teeth, Raylix raised Gaeneron with his left hand to clash with the first Royals soldier, and summoned his projected sword from its place on his hip to his right hand. Igniting it and taking an instant to admire the literal blade of fire that burst forth from it, he swung it at the Royals soldier coming at him from his right, sending a wave of fire at him that the Royals soldier had to raise a barrier in order to block, giving Raylix the vital seconds he needed to safely overpower the soldier he was currently clashing with, and remove his head from his body with a quick slice of Gaeneron.

Before the soldier who he'd just decapitated even began falling, Raylix turned around and flew forward, just as the remaining soldier had lowered their barrier. Said soldier didn't have the time to do anything else after lowering their barrier before Raylix was upon him, and impaling him through the stomach with both Gaeneron and the fiery blade of his projected sword, drawing out a scream of pain from the soldier in question.

However, in spite of being impaled twice over, the soldier raised his hand and pointed it directly at Raylix's face, charging up a powerful point-blank blast of energy in an attempt to take Raylix with him. But just as the attack was being fired off, Raylix swung both of the swords he was holding onto upward, cutting through the soldier's head and killing him instantly before he could fire his attack.

"Raylix, sir!" the sound of one of his soldiers came into one of his ears as a comms-circle opened next to him. "I managed to get a message off to HQ! Reinforcements are on the w-" The comms circle disappeared, and the soldier's voice cut out. Raylix's relief at the news that was just delivered was dampened slightly by what he was certain had just happened to the soldier that had delivered the message.

Shaking Gaeneron so the blood of the Royals soldier he'd just killed flecked off of it, Raylix dived back down into the chaos of what was going on between his Anti-Royals group and the Royals soldiers, slicing through several more Royals soldiers with Gaeneron as he dived. Seeing three Royals soldiers ganging up on a single downed Anti-Royals soldier in a nearby street, he changed course and flew down said street, firing a beam of his Power of Destruction out of his free right hand that penetrated all three Royals soldiers, killing them all instantly.

"S-sir!" the soldier stammered, practically crying with relief as Raylix touched down beside him, dispassionately kicking the corpses of the Royals soldiers he'd just killed aside as he did so. "Thank you, thank you so-"

"It's alright." Raylix replied. "Can you...?" he looked down, and saw that the soldier's leg had essentially been blown off. The sight of that killed the question he was in the middle of asking. "Okay, can you fly?"

"I d-don't think so." the soldier replied, leaning back on the wall that he was closest to and holding his side with one hand, which was already stained red. "T-too painful to keep focused..." he swayed a little on his one free leg, and began to slide down the wall, but Raylix darted forward and caught him. After looking around for a couple of seconds, he moved towards a stable-looking house (abandoned, of course), kicked the door open, and laid the soldier down on a chair.

"Know anything about healing magic?" Raylix asked. The soldier nodded.

"A-a little."

"Alright, do what you can for yourself, and stay here." Raylix replied, resting a hand on the soldier's shoulder. "Reinforcements are on the way, and someone will come for you. I'm sure- ...I promise."

The injured soldier gave Raylix a thumbs-up with his trembling free hand before beginning to work on himself with healing magic (Raylix felt a pang of self-hatred in the pit of his stomach at the fact that he had never gotten the hang of learning healing magic, meaning that he couldn't do more for the soldier that he'd just left in the building), before pulling out Gaeneron and opening an Amalgamation-hole with its tip, catching a hail of bullets made up of dark energy that came at him from his right. Opening another hole with his right hand and pouring some fire-magic into it, combining the holes together and amplifying the resultant Darkness/Fire combination, Raylix swung his sword and sent out the two combined elements at the Devils that had fired the darkness at him in the first place, horizontally bisecting the three of them with the single wave of energy that he'd sent out.

When the bisected corpses of the three Royals Devils that Raylix had just killed fell to the ground, Raylix flew up above the street he had been standing in, looking around. He couldn't tell for absolute certain, but from a couple of glances, things seemed to be going well for his group. There were about as many of them still alive in the town as there were Royals soldiers, which was certainly a better situation than when the battle had just started, when he and his Anti-Royals group had been definitively outnumbered.

'Whatever Sabemka and Tomosei think, splitting us up was a stupid goddamn decision!' Raylix thought, as he flew over the town, killing any Royals soldier that got too close, either with Gaeneron or with his Power of Destruction. 'I could've concentrated all my troops I had available to me on this broken hellhole of a town, and we would've been in and out, easy! I'm so stupid, really fu-' "OW!"

Raylix was knocked out of his inner monologue, and out of the air, by a powerful bolt of lightning that seemed to hit him from above. Momentarily shocked from the fact that he'd been hit in the first place (and pretty damn hard, too), Raylix managed to right himself just before crashing into the ground, and whirled around as he rose again, looking for the Devil who'd gotten the first clean hit on him of this entire battle.

The Devil in question was a man of average height with grey eyes and shoulder-length white hair, which was swept away from his face. Rather than any kind of official-looking combat-gear, he wore black shoes, black pants and a tattered-looking white jacket as he hung in the air on his eight wings. One of his hands was outstretched towards Raylix, which he then lowered.

Shaking off the last jitters that he'd gotten from being struck by the bolt of demonic lightning, Raylix recognised the Devil floating in front of him instantly. He was the last surviving descendant of the Extra Demon Agaliarept, Voxnihr, and was most likely the one in charge of the Devil soldiers at this specific location, if not in indirect command of the other soldiers at Sabemka and Tomosei's respective locations.

Raylix shrugged off the momentary worry for his friend's safety that briefly crossed his mind, and flew towards Voxnihr, only taking a second to notice that the Underworld sky was looking a lot darker than usual. And were those... clouds, hanging above the battlefield?

Securing Gaeneron in his hand, Raylix upped the speed of which he flew towards Voxnihr, preparing to thrust the blade into his flesh and end the fight quickly. By way of reply, Voxnihr just raised one hand and, after forming a small barrier out of demonic energy in front of it in order to protect said hand, seemed to bat Gaeneron aside like he was swatting at a fly in front of him. Such a move caught Raylix very off-guard, almost to the point that he flew right into another lightning-bolt that came down from the sky. Rather than striking and hurting him, the bolt meant for him struck a nearby four-winged Royals Devil, killing them instantly.

"Good try." Voxnihr remarked, idly scratching at a random itch that seemed to have formed on his back for a second. "I'm sure our future leaders will forgive your treason, Raylix, should you surrender now."

"Not gonna happen." Raylix replied, dispelling Gaeneron and firing several shots of demonic energy at Voxnihr. The first ones to make their way to him were blocked by another barrier that he erected in front of him, but the ones after that circled around behind him and smacked him from behind, clearly dealing damage to both Voxnihr and his jacket.

"Aggh!" Voxnihr growled, looking behind him to see his jacket already partly-destroyed by Raylix's work. The almost-bored look on his face that had been there before was almost instantly replaced by a rather ugly look, followed by him opening his hand and firing a collection of bullet-like shots of demonic energy at Raylix, who pulled up his own barrier add floated calmly behind it, watching the demonic bullets bounce harmlessly off of it. As soon as Voxnihr looked like he was lowering his hand, Raylix burst forward through his own barrier, hands up and prepared to take Voxnihr down. When Voxnihr threw up both his hands to create a barrier, Raylix coated both of his hands in the Power of Destruction and punched the barrier, breaking it easily and grabbing Voxnihr by the neck, pulling him down to the ground and back towards the ruined Gusion castle.

After a couple of seconds of dragging Voxnihr along the ground, Raylix span around a few times to build up momentum and flung Voxnihr towards the castle, sending several more powerful shots of demonic energy towards him out of his hands as he did so. Voxnihr barely righted himself in mid-air before crashing into a relatively-intact part of the castle's inner wall and growled at Raylix, swinging both of his hands in a wide circle in front of him as he did so.

A second later, a powerful-looking tornado seemed to appear and begin to grow in front of Voxnihr, eventually growing to the size of the castle behind it and forming around Voxnihr as a sort of shield. As the tornado grew larger and larger, debris from the destroyed village and castle was caught up and flung around in it. A particularly large chunk of the castle's outer wall almost took the entire upper half of Raylix's body off as it came out of the tornado and crashed in the village, some distance away from him.

'Shielding himself like that?' Raylix thought to himself, as his eyes began to glow the same crimson red as the Power of Destruction. 'Coward.'

Looking at a chunk of debris that he knew for a fact had come from the village, Raylix let fly his new usage of the Power of Destruction: concentrated eye-lasers, intended for use on a specific target, or even a specific part of a specific target. As he intended, the piece of village that Raylix had been aiming at was instantly cut in half by his destructive eye-lasers, with the younger Gremory switching his focus to the castle's portcullis, which had come undone from the sheer power of Voxnihr's tornado and swung around towards Raylix. It was also sliced in half, with both halves falling out of harm's way as Raylix flew towards the tornado.

A heavy rain had begun to fall around the battlefield, soaking Raylix through almost instantly. Though a foreign concept to him personally, as it almost never rained in the Underworld, it was hardly enough to distract him from flying forward, rolling over and doing a couple of loop-the-loops as he flew towards the centre of the tornado, where he knew Voxnihr was. The small, fast-moving rain droplets being caught by the even faster-moving wind of the tornado and flung into his face were an annoyance, but hardly enough to deter Raylix from continuing to fly forward. If he could get their commander out of the fight, getting rid of the Royals Devils (in this area, at the very least) would be a lot easier.

'Come on...' Raylix thought, flapping his wings as an attempt to counter being blown about by the tornado's intense winds, and in order to barely dodge a large chunk of rock that came flying through the tornado at him, and nearly took out his entire lower half. 'Just a little further, come on...' "GOT HIM!" he yelled out, more to himself than anybody else as he reached the centre of the tornado, where Voxnihr floated with his arms stretched out, controlling it from the inside.

The sound that came out of Voxnihr's mouth as Raylix grabbed him by the neck was a gargled mixture of a yell of surprise and pain, and a gasp for air. With his focus on maintaining the protective tornado completely gone, it disappeared from around him and Raylix as the chestnut-haired Devil span around in mid-air as he descended, carrying the pair of them towards the ground. When they were down at the point that they were both about ten feet above the ground, Raylix span around a couple of times to build up momentum before bodily throwing Voxnihr into the ground.

Voxnihr was so dazed by being thrown so hard into the ground that he almost didn't notice as Raylix landed on top of him, trapping him in position as his eyes glowed red again. Letting out a guttural growl of defiance, Voxnihr raised a hand, in an attempt to call another powerful lightning strike from the sky that would hopefully fry the traitor sitting on top of him, but before he could even call on another one, Raylix focused his eyes towards Voxnihr's raised arm and unleashed his new destructive lasers, which sliced cleanly through clothing and flesh alike and cut off Voxnihr's arm.

Voxnihr let out a scream of pain, and could only let out panicked pants at the sight of his severed limb. He began to raise his other arm, hoping that he'd be able to still call down at least one lightning bolt, but he caught sight of Raylix's eyes, which were still glowing with his mother's power behind them. After his own grey eyes met Raylix's glowing crimson ones, which gave off an even better "I won't hesitate, bitch!" vibe than even if he'd spoken those words, Voxnihr lowered his arm (the one that wasn't now a stump).

"I'm sure the Anti-Royals will forgive you, Voxnihr, should you surrender now." Raylix remarked, his glowing-red eyes fading back to blue. "Or at least, let you live."

The only sounds that occupied the destroyed Gusion castle town for the next few seconds was the pitter-pattering of rain all around, and the distant sounds of battle, as the last of Raylix's group and the Royals commanded by Voxnihr fought to the death against one another. It was after that that Voxnihr nodded.

"Alright, then." Raylix remarked, standing up and pulling the one-armed Voxnihr with him, none too gently, as the rain stopped and the anti-teleportation barrier around the town went down (supposedly, Voxnihr himself had been the one to cast the barrier). It took less than a minute for several secure binding spells to be placed on him, and for him to be transported out of the town and back to HQ, where he would most likely be dealt with. Voxnihr's soldiers either surrendered or were cut down in short order soon after, leaving the town certainly more destroyed than it had been before the battle had begun, but the location was at the very least secured.

As those still left among Raylix's group of soldiers continued to secure the town, Raylix himself raised himself up and flew towards the castle, figuring that he should give it at least a once-over before reinforcements arrived to secure the location... whenever that would be. Lilith-damn it, he hoped it was soon.

Raylix made it over the destroyed outer and inner walls, making it into the castle grounds. His eyes glowed red again as he prepared to fire off his concentrated destruction-lasers at a second's notice, and re-summoned Gaeneron to his side so he could swing at anyone who got too close. He instantly made for the castle's main keep (which looked positively spotless, compared to the horrific state that the rest of the castle was in), certain that if any extra Royals forces that hadn't shown themselves yet were hiding anywhere in or around the town, they would be there.

Just as Raylix was a few seconds away from reaching the castle's main keep, where he planned on flying right in to begin looking for any other Royals Devils... he heard it less than a second before he felt it.

"What the-?" Raylix muttered, looking up as... something, flew towards him far faster than he could react to, and got him square in the face, sending him flying backwards and downwards into the ground far faster than he himself had dragged Voxnihr a minute or so earlier. Raylix bounced off of the cold, hard, unforgiving ground a couple of times before coming to a stop, after which he raised himself into the air again, slightly dazed.

"What... was that?" Raylix mumbled to himself, blinking a couple of times to get his vision back, and then looking all around to try and see what, or who, had sent him flying like that. He raised Gaeneron up, trying his hardest to ignore the uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. The kind of feeling that came to you when you knew that something awful was going to happen, and there was very little- if anything at all- that you could do about it.

That feeling only grew when he heard a dark giggle sounding from above him. Looking up revealed a single female Devil, who Raylix was almost certain had been the one to send him down to the ground a few seconds earlier. Raylix didn't get the best look at her from his position, but it was enough to tell that she was definitely a gorgeous woman: long purple hair, matching eyes, a tight-fitting regal-looking purple dress that seemed to both cover everything up and leave next to nothing to the imagination... and she was definitely one of the bustier women that Raylix had seen in his life. Hardly on Lilith's level, but still sufficiently voluptuous that it wouldn't be lying to call her an 'absolute knockout'.

Raylix's mind was pulled out of quickly-formed fantasies involving him and the busty woman floating above him on her TWELVE Devil wings as he heard two extremely loud splashes on either side of him. Looking to his left first purely on reflex, he gulped at the sight of a truly colossal wave of water crashing into the castle grounds, and heading right for him. A quick glance to the right told him that another, equally colossal, wave of water was crashing into the grounds from the other side, and also heading right for him.

'Alright, time to bail!' Raylix instantly thought, pointing one hand at the ground to cast a transportation-circle, ready to activate it as quickly as possible to he could leave the danger he was presently in. The feeling of being suddenly submerged in water, however, told him that the transportation-circle had- inexplicably- not worked. Raylix almost let out a gasp of surprise, but then remembered at the last instant that trying to breath underwater- even for a Devil- was a terrible goddamn idea.

'Oh well.' Raylix thought. 'If I can't teleport out of here, then I'll swim.' And swim he did, forcing himself through the water while not noticing that he, and the water around him, were beginning to raise into the air. He only noticed that he wasn't close to the ground anymore when he felt light, but growing, pain from every angle. He looked around, and realised that the fathoms of water that he had been submerged in was now shaped like a rather large ball, large enough to fit at least fifteen of him inside, at the very least. However, from his position in the middle of the water-sphere, Raylix could see that it was beginning to... compress. The more it compressed, the more pain that Raylix felt on his... everywhere.

'Okay, this is bad.' Raylix thought, looking frantically around. 'Got to... get out of here!' Spreading his eight wings again, Raylix twisted himself around in the water and struck out, pushing himself towards the edge of the compressing water-sphere, hoping to get out as quickly as possible, so he could get away from whoever had stuck him in this predicament as quickly as possible. If their ability to send him bouncing across the ground wasn't any indicator of their power, then the fact that they possessed TWELVE Devil wings certainly would have.

Twelve wings, on either a Devil, Fallen Angel or Angel (the equivalent for a Lilim was six tails), was a level of power only known by a select few within the four races that made up the Christian Pantheon. That kind of twelve-winged power allowed one to stand even above many of those called 'Gods' by most humans, and even hold their own against the highest classes of Gods. With that power, you could wipe out a small country in the Human world, or an entire portion of the Underworld, without even breaking a sweat. And Raylix was apparently facing someone with that kind of power, ALL BY HIMSELF?

'Yup, separating my soldiers into groups was a really stupid idea!' Raylix thought to himself, for possibly the fiftieth time that day. 'And so was flying up here alone. But at least... Sabemka and Tomosei... aren't here. They'd definitely have died already...'

As Raylix made it to the edge of the water-sphere, his head inches of breaking the surface of the sphere, what felt like a hand made out of demonic power reached out, bodily grabbed Raylix and forced him back to the centre of the sphere. More of these hands seemed to emerge inside the sphere- everywhere Raylix looked, he could see at least ten of them- but as he looked around, they didn't move in to try and grab him. They just all sat there, seemingly taunting the younger eight-winged Devil.

'Shit, shit, shit.' Raylix thought to himself. Getting grabbed and forced back to the depths of the still-compressing water-sphere had done a serious number on Raylix's remaining lung capacity, and while he could ignore the everywhere-pain that came with being in the middle of such a predicament, he was now feeling a serious need to breathe. An idea suddenly struck him, and he put his hands together to focus a ball of the Power of Destruction into existence, inside the sphere. If he could just destroy some of the water that surrounded him and make some kind of air-pocket, even for less than a second, it would hopefully be enough to let him get another much-needed breath.

It would have to be a pretty large air-pocket that he'd need to make inside the sphere, else it would just doubtlessly be filled up by more water at too fast a speed for him to get his head into it and take a breath. As such, he continued to expand the size of the ball of his mother's power that he had formed in his hands. Right now, it was about the size of his head, but that wasn't even close to enough. The expansion continued, more and more, until it was more than twice the size of Raylix's own head. The pain of the compressing water-sphere (which could now only fit six or seven of Raylix inside it, by Raylix's own estimate) was almost agonizing, and Raylix was sure that he would've been crushed by the compression, had he been any weaker.

But he could endure it. He had to, if he were to have a chance of getting out of this alive. All he had to do was dispel the ball of his mother's power that he held in his hands, and stick his head into the air-pocket that would form. He had less than a second's window of getting this right, and only one shot at this, otherwise... it would more than likely be all over for him.

'Okay, here we go!' Raylix thought to himself, his eyes focused on the large ball of the Power of Destruction in his hands that he was about to dispel. 'Three... two...'

Raylix didn't even have the luxury of counting down to 'one' inside his head, as one of the many demonic-power-created hands that encircled the surface of the compressing water-sphere had reached at him from behind, and enclosed around his neck. The shock of being grabbed in that area from that position, with the circumstances that Raylix was in, made him momentarily forget that he was completely submerged in water in the first place, and he attempted to take a breath. Only a second later did he remember that he was, in fact, underwater, and that unwanted water entering your body- no matter what race you were- was pretty awful.

As soon as he felt water going down his throat rather than air, Raylix involuntarily attempted to take in another breath, but couldn't as there was nothing but water going down. He tried to cough, but found that he couldn't. Raylix was panicking now, and as he tried his damndest to not take in another breath- in spite of the almost-overwhelming need for him to do so, he tried to trigger another transport-circle while still inside the water-sphere, to get him out of it, to get him ANYWHERE other than still inside it. But... he couldn't.

Now becoming desperate, Raylix struck out in some random direction- at this point, he wasn't even sure which direction was up and which was down- and tried to claw his way through the hands that were now moving on him, grabbing all over him and pulling him back into the sphere, now securing him in place by his hands and feet. Raylix tried to break free, but at that point, he found that he didn't have the strength.

'This is it.' Was the only thought in Raylix's mind right now. He'd tried to play the best cards he could, and he'd been stopped before he could even play them. He'd been completely beaten, and this was how he was going to die. By a mixture of drowning and crushing, what a wonderful Lucifer-damn way to go. By this point, Raylix's vision was swimming, and slowly getting dark. 'Emka, Tomo, I'm sorry I was such a failure. Zechs, Mum, Dad... I love you...'

Suddenly, just as Raylix thought he was going to pass out, he felt the agonizing pain all over his body lessening. The water that had compressed so much around him was decompressing, and a second later, it was lifted off of him entirely. The instant he felt air on his skin instead of water, Raylix took in possibly the best breath of fresh Underworld air he'd ever had in his life. It was so good that he almost didn't realise that he was falling, and that there was next to no way that he'd be able to catch himself in mid-air.

Fortunately, judging by the fact that Raylix fell into (compared to the alternative) soft arms, with his head supported, he needn't have worried about crashing onto the hard ground and dying by a hard enough crack to the back of his head. That would've been a much more boring death than simultaneous drowning/crushing, he thought, slightly hysterically.

"Get... back... medical facility!" Raylix heard a slightly familiar voice calling to whoever was holding him from above. Given how long he'd been submerged, and his sudden resurfacing, he couldn't make out the rest of the words spoken. Nor, in his half-conscious state, could he put a mental finger on who had spoken. He was sure that he'd heard it somewhere, though...

But it hardly mattered at that point, as Raylix saw the familiar flash of a transportation-circle forming around him and whoever was holding him... and then saw no more, as he passed out.