Chương 283: chapter 283
Chapter 283:
–The Underworld, Earth DxD–
"The Final War…" A Devil with crimson red hair stood before a large audience of the most powerful people in the Underworld—after himself, of course. He was the new de facto leader of the Underworld, ever since the Fallen Angels had vanished over two years ago, along with the mysterious death of his former best friend, Ajuka. "Do any of you truly know what I mean by that phrase? What the consequences could mean for us and the world at large?" His voice echoed loudly.
He stood in the center of an amphitheater with Serafall by his side. The stands were filled with hundreds of Noble Devils from all the remaining pillar clans. It didn't matter whether they were lowly Barons or Grand Dukes. An emergency meeting had been called among them all.
"It means we get to finally inherit the Earth after we win the war at long last! It's our birthright, ever since Lord Lucifer and Lady Lilith created our race!" one of the more fanatical Noble Devils cried out.
His voice was soon joined by others. "Yes! We will finally have our revenge! We can feast on as many souls as we want!"
"Let's slaughter all the filthy crows and doves! Without them, we can finally rule over the humans openly. It's time those weak slaves learn who their true masters are." Cheers rang out in the amphitheater as more and more Noble Devils called for the continuation of the Great War.
Sirzechs let out a sigh as he exchanged glances with Serafall. She looked nervous, but they didn't have any better options at this point. He had spent centuries cultivating his stance on peace with the other factions, and soon that was all about to be thrown away.
The Final War was inevitable at this point…
The Devils were in a very bad place, they were facing the prospect of the true extinction of their race. The repercussions of Ajuka's death had far worse consequences than any other faction was currently aware of. Without Ajuka Beelzebub, there was no one left in the Underworld to properly manage the Evil Piece System—because that was apparently a thing. A thing he had failed to ever mention to anyone else…
For centuries, people had wondered how Ajuka had done it, how he had devised a way to reincarnate other races into Devils. The answer was… they still didn't really know. But what they had figured out was that it wasn't as entirely stable as they had been led to believe.
It started happening around a year after Ajuka's death. Reincarnated Devils all across the Underworld began mutating at random. It was as if they were all becoming Strays, but none of them had abandoned their Masters.
Mutated Devils were popping up left and right, most of them out of their minds, attacking and eating anyone in sight! This was happening by the millions.
A full year later, there wasn't a single reincarnated Devil in the entire Underworld that hadn't been turned into a mutated Stray Devil. The majority had been put down, either by their masters or by each other. It was an absolute disaster. Two-thirds of the Devils' population was essentially wiped out.
They couldn't refill those ranks either. Every single Evil Piece was now corrupted. The vast majority of the remaining Mutated Devils in the Underworld were rounded up and placed in a concentration camp under strict guard. Only a select few Mutated Devils were exempt from this. The mutated Devils would be sent out as fodder on suicide missions to collect information about the original Earth.
Yes, they knew about that now…
Ajuka had been conducting some very interesting research before he vanished and died. He had found a way to pass through the dimensional gap and return to the original Earth, the one connected to the wider Universe. Sirzechs wasn't old enough to remember the old Earth from 1,000 years ago, but both of his parents were. According to them, the world used to be much more massive. It was filled with magic, and powerful beings could be found waging war against each other almost everywhere. Most humans lived in fear, knowing they were nothing but prey.
The ancient Devils must have considered that Earth to be an absolute paradise—a paradise that was taken from them when the biblical God ripped the world in two and sealed them all away inside the dimensional gap.
And that world was returning soon. Sirzechs and Serafall had both poured over Ajuka's leftover journals and research notes. It took them over a year to properly decipher, but once they did, they were shocked to learn that the two Earths were about to merge again.
In any other circumstance, that might have been a good thing. Double the human population meant double the number of potential slaves—er, servants—they could have acquired. It would also have been much easier to collect human souls during the inevitable territory and resource wars that were bound to spring up when the two separated Earths merged back together.
Now, though, this was a disaster in the making. The remaining Devils in the Underworld had never had lower numbers. They had never been more vulnerable, and the secret that they were still consuming human souls wasn't kept as quiet as they would have liked.
It didn't take a genius like Ajuka to figure out where this was going. They were going to be overwhelmed and wiped out once the worlds merged. They simply didn't have the manpower to rule over so many humans and supernatural beings anymore. They needed to cull the numbers while they still had the chance…
Sirzechs wasn't going to let that happen. He would protect the livelihood of his precious son and imouto with all his power. Family was still everything to him, especially since his darling imouto Rias had just given birth to her first child with her husband, Riser. His happy family was only growing at this point, and he wouldn't let them down!
If he had to bathe the planet in oceans of blood to make that happen, then he would. He'd massacred his own people during the Civil War, he wouldn't have any problem doing it to other races.
Sirzechs raised his hand in the air to grab everyone's attention. All chattering ceased as the auditorium fell completely silent. "Very well then, it seems we are all in agreement. We must strike hard and fast. The other pantheons cannot be given the opportunity to retaliate in time! If we wipe out the majority of their followers, they will be drastically weakened and powerless to stand against our might!" Sirzechs declared, with seemingly more confidence than he was actually feeling.
The logistics of the attack would be worked out by the three remaining Maou over the next few days. Falbium was already getting the army up to snuff.
Sirzechs and Serafall teleported out of the auditorium and arrived in a private meeting room.
Serafall let out a deep sigh. "I'm sad it's come to this. I wanted Sona to grow up without war. Even if we win, this will be devastating. And this will be just the beginning. We'll have to fight again once the world's merge together."
"I know, and yet we can't avoid this. Striking preemptively is our only option," Sirzechs replied before pausing for a moment. "...We should at least be able to keep our siblings off the front lines. Rias just had a child, and I'm sure you can find some kind of excuse to keep Sona out of the fighting. How has she been, by the way?" he asked Serafall.
"Not that great," Serafall clicked her tongue in irritation. "She cared more for her slaves than I was led to believe. When they all had to be put down, she was practically catatonic for a week straight. I almost considered using mind magic on her to erase all the memories of her peerage, but she was with them for years. I'd essentially be reverting her to a 14-year-old child in the body of a grown woman."
"Maybe that could be for the best," Sirzechs said. "If nothing else, that would keep Sona off the battlefield. Rias was also devastated when she lost Kiba, Koneko, and Gasper. On the upside, at least she has Riser all to herself now that his own peerage is also gone. I understand that some male Devils need a few extra women to keep them satisfied, but I never appreciated how he always flaunted his harem in front of Rias." Sirzechs was glad that wasn't going to happen any longer, he was close to killing the blond bastard himself.
"And what about your peerage, Sirzechs? How many are left in control of their faculties?" Serafall asked although she already knew the answer.
"Only Surtr…" Sirzechs admitted bitterly. He had spent so much time and effort selecting the candidates of his peerage to defeat Rizevim, and now all that was for naught. He was down to a single sane peerage member. "Surtr was already a monster before I reincarnated him, so the mutations didn't affect him that much. Not like it affected the former humans, at least." The non-human reincarnated Devils still became Mutated Strays, but they at least kept their mental faculties for the most part.
Serafall nodded. "It's the same with my Queen, Behemoth. She's become a lot more aggressive… and hungry, but otherwise, she's still mostly herself…"
"For now" was left unsaid between the two of them. Neither of them knew how long the non-human reincarnates would be able to stay sane. For all either of them knew, Behemoth or Surtr could go insane at any time. That's why Sirzechs was planning on sending Surtr on a suicide mission to distract the Norse when the Devils carried out their planned attack on the wider world. Serafall was planning on doing something similar with Behemoth.
"I'm glad the Fallen Angels ran away two years ago. It would have been a nightmare having to deal with Azazel without Ajuka here to outsmart him," Serafall pointed out. "We still never did find out why the Fallen Angels left, though."
Sirzechs was aware of that. They had searched Ajuka's notes for an explanation for the Fallen Angels' disappearance but had yet to find one. It had happened so suddenly. One day, they were sharing the Underworld with their ancient enemies, and the next, they were completely alone. Not a single Fallen Angel had been spotted in this half of the world ever since. Occasionally, they received reports that Yasaka, the leader of the Yokai, was secretly dating a female Fallen Angel, but Sirzechs and Serafall both dismissed those reports as nothing but perverted rumors. Especially considering the reported Fallen Angel possessed 14 wings. That was obviously impossible! A being like that would have been on par with the biblical God himself, they would be doomed if it was true…
Sirzechs shook his head. That was obviously some kind of Yokai illusion meant to scare the Devils. That rumor could have been started by the Queen of the Yokai herself. Yasaka was known to be tricky like that. She would need to be dealt with in the first attack wave. Not just because her control over the Kyoto Ley Lines made her dangerous, but because she had also shamed the Gremory Clan by kicking them out of Kuoh Town.
"...If you haven't decided where to send Behemoth yet, could I make a suggestion?" Sirzechs asked his fellow Maou.
"I'm listening," Serafall replied.
…
–Kyoto, Earth DxD–
A week later…
Yasaka was in a much better mood than when she had left. Seeing Layla alive and in person after so long had truly lifted her spirits. That, and the other things they all got up to over the past week, of course. There had been a lot of catching up to do. A lot of catching up that kept them up multiple nights and well into the mornings as well…
"Welcome back, Okaa-san!"
"Hello, Mother."
Yasaka's two daughters were both at her home to greet her as she returned from Earth Marvel. Having her own dimensional travel device so that she could regularly keep in contact with everyone else was nice. She had received the device courtesy of Penemue a couple of months after Layla's initial disappearance.
The truth is that Layla had no idea how close she was to losing almost a third of her harem. It was only Yasaka, coaching the girls through that troubled time based on her own experience with loss, that prevented the harem from falling apart. Despite the commonly held but misguided belief, absence did not make the heart grow fonder. Two years might not seem like much to women whose ages could be measured in centuries, but it was a long time for younger girls like Rias, Sona, and Natasha.
Yasaka herself had lost her original lover, and she didn't know if she would have been able to handle the loss of a second. Living in uncertainty for the past two years had been very difficult, but she had managed. Thankfully, she had her two lovely daughters to keep her partially distracted.
"How's Layla? Is she okay? We haven't seen her in practically forever," the younger Kunou said. "Did she get hurt? Did she get attacked by more evil aliens?" her tails were wagging behind her rapidly as she asked her questions.
"What happened to her?" Alter asked nervously. Alter was one of Layla's biggest fans and most fervent followers. Despite Layla's protests, Alter still vehemently prayed to the Goddess of Angels every single day—sometimes multiple times a day. Maybe that was a bit over the top, but Alter couldn't help it. Layla had saved Alter's life, avenged Alter's family, and given her a new home afterwards. No one else besides her own mother had ever been so generous to her.
Yasaka eased both of their worries and gave them the actual account of what had happened to Layla. "...She ended up getting caught in a black hole. She was only inside for a few seconds, but the time dilation was much different compared to us," Yasaka explained.
"Whoa!" Kunou's gaped, her eyes wide open. "A real black hole? That's crazy!"
"That honestly sounds like something that would happen to Layla," Alter said with a small sigh. "I've chosen a truly strange goddess to follow…"
Yasaka couldn't exactly argue with that. She had definitely picked a lover destined to live in interesting times. Hopefully, this would be the last time Layla mysteriously disappeared, though. Yasaka didn't think her heart could take something like that happening again. She knew that Layla's other lovers felt the same way.
"At least Layla ended up benefiting from her foolish escapade," Yasaka explained. "She now has 16 wings instead of 14. She still acts like the same lovable Layla, but she feels like… more." Yasaka paused, searching for the right words. It was honestly hard to describe. Layla had always grown in power shockingly fast, but now she felt like a nearly insurmountable being. 'And then Hela decided to give Layla another of those absurd Infinity Stones…' Yasaka thought to herself in almost disbelief. It was like strapping 1000 tons of C4 onto a Nuke…
Layla had told them about the spider-girl from 1,000 years in the future calling her a Supreme Goddess, someone who ruled over a Hundred Universes and counting. Yasaka didn't doubt that would be the case if her lover kept growing in power, but it was still an incredible concept to wrap her head around. She could barely comprehend how big a single Universe was, let alone over a hundred!
"Has anything happened while I've been gone?" Yasaka asked both of her daughters, though she was mostly asking Alter, who was now an adult and in charge whenever Yasaka was away. "Isane hasn't tried hitting on you again, has she?" That had unfortunately become a recurring issue since Alter turned 18. The Red Dragon Empress wanted a sexy fox girl to join her small but budding harem, and since she couldn't have Yasaka, she had been trying to win over Kunou Alter. Yasaka honestly didn't know how to feel about the situation. Isane might have been a pervert, but she was still Yasaka's apprentice, and Yasaka cared for her. On the other hand, Alter was her daughter—regardless of whether she came from an alternate universe or not.
Alter shook her head. "Nothing out of the ordinary, and Isane hasn't even stopped by. Everything has been pretty quiet. There weren't even any stray devil attacks either! There haven't been any strays sighted anywhere, actually," Alter reported. Two years had been more than enough time to establish communications and trade agreements with the other Pantheons across Earth DxD. It turned out that the Yokai and the other factions all had something in common—they all hated the shit out of the Devils.
Yasaka wondered if that last bit Alter reported was good or bad news. She knew that the devils in the Underworld were up to something suspicious, especially with all the stray devil attacks that had been occurring on Earth Marvel, but was she simply overthinking things? She hated having to wait and see, but there was nothing else anyone could do. All access to the Underworld had been completely cut off a little over a year ago. The Devilnet was also completely shut down. The Devils had gone completely dark, and no one knew why.
Despite her worries, Yasaka smiled at both of her daughters. "You two have done a fine job managing things in Kyoto while I was away. Why don't we have a meal together, and you can fill me in on what else I've missed?" she suggested. She found it adorable when 18 tails started excitedly wagging at her suggestion.
Yasaka could admit she wasn't an expert cook, despite her many years on this planet, but that didn't mean she was terrible either. She could handle making a basic meal like ramen at the very least. She was sitting at the dinner table with her two daughters as they chatted and ate. Her youngest was telling Yasaka about her schoolwork and the mischief she'd gotten up to with some of her classmates.
"Be careful not to get caught if you're going to pull pranks, Kunou. I might be the leader of our faction, but I'm not going to get you out of detention," Yasaka teased her daughter. She didn't discourage Kunou from pulling pranks, though. They were all Kitsune, after all, it was in their natures to be a bit mischievous.
"I know that, Mom!" Kunou whined playfully. "It was only a couple of buckets of paint. I'm sure it will wash out of my Sensei's fur… eventually." Everyone at the table laughed.
Yasaka turned her attention back to Alter. "Have you been making any—WHAT!?" Yasaka was abruptly cut off when the tatami flooring underneath them started violently shaking. The walls around them rattled so intensely that Yasaka worried the house would collapse. Thankfully, such a thing was impossible; all Yokai buildings were warded to be much more durable than human buildings. As the Queen of her people, Yasaka's home was borderline indestructible.
"Is this an earthquake? I don't like it!" Kunou's ears went flat on her head as she curled up into a ball.
"It will pass soon, Kunou. Don't worry," Alter said reassuringly. However, despite her reassurance, the earthquake did not pass. If anything, the rumbling seemed to intensify.
"What's going on? Aftershocks aren't supposed to be stronger than the actual earthquake!" Yasaka exclaimed. She was about to throw open the door to her backyard to take a look at what was happening when a flash of light in the room caught her attention. "Lady Amaterasu? Do you know what's happening?"
Amaterasu looked more disheveled than usual. She wasn't wearing any makeup at all, and her kimono looked like it had been hastily thrown on. She also had a look of sheer panic and terror on her face—something Yasaka had never seen before in all of her years as the priestess to the Japanese Sun Goddess.
"You need to call your lover over here right the fuck now!" Amaterasu ordered crassly. "We're under attack! Kuoh Town has been wiped off the map! Serafall's Queen, the 150-meter-tall Behemoth, is marching her way towards Kyoto. Every single one of her footsteps is shaking the entire island!"
Yasaka's eyes widened in shock. That explained the earthquakes! An entire town had been wiped off the map? Yasaka could hardly believe it. Hundreds of thousands of humans lived in Kuoh Town! "The Devils are attacking us? I'll get Layla here as soon as possible, but can we contact our allies in the meantime?" Yasaka wanted to curse. The device that allowed her to travel past the dimensional gap couldn't be used in rapid succession. It needed at least another full hour to properly recharge!
Amaterasu bit her lip as tears formed in her eyes. "I don't think anyone else is going to be able to help us. The redhead Lucifer just nuked half of India. The Hindu pantheon lost half their followers and are probably doing everything in their power to hold the line. I also tried contacting the old Norse Pervert and got no response from anyone. I have a feeling they're also under attack. As for the Angels in Europe, they're doing everything they can to hold the line against the Devil's main army being led by Falbium and Serafall. Smaller Devil forces are attacking the Americas, but the Angels don't have anyone left to defend either continent. This entire attack was coordinated, the Behemoth was sent to delay us from helping everyone else…"
Yasaka gulped at the implication and at the thought of the number of deaths that were going to occur today. She reached her arms out and hugged both of her daughters close to her bosom. No one had been expecting the Devils to lash out preemptively like this. They all thought they had more time before they would need to be dealt with. Unfortunately, time was up.
The Great War had restarted…
XXX
A/N: The Devils have chosen preemptive violence! In the bible, the Behemoth is described as a massive monster with bronze for bones and skin as tough as iron. It was created by God because…he felt like it I guess?
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