Overlord of biblical proportions: The new Three-Sided War (3) (Patreon)

The battle with Lucifer could not even be called a battle. It was not like an exchange of blows and tactical maneuvers, even if one opponent was much stronger than the other. The only thing one could call such was the word ‘massacre’.

Azazel never let false arrogance cloud his mind, among the hundreds of religions, pantheons, and mythologies, there were a thousand opponents far superior to Azazel. Not only in terms of brute strength, but also in terms of understanding magic or as an artificer. His Pops, for example, displayed all three aspects to its utmost, too bad He’s dead.

But, even while retaining an understanding of such things, Azazel couldn't help but be the least bit proud of himself.

After all, even if there were gods and dragons far more powerful than him, he was still the Governor General of Grigori, the most powerful among all the Fallen Angels. A person with a magnitude of historical proportions, capable of single-handedly destroying nations and changing all of human history. Even if he is not at the peak of power, available only to a few at all times, he was still not at the bottom of the hierarchical ladder either, but stood quite high, above many. An unattainable peak for almost all those initiated into the mysteries of this world, whether they were Fallen, mages or anyone else.

In other words, Azazel couldn't be completely powerless, could he? It was, in other words, a simple delusion.

A delusion that had existed in his mind for millennia, yet could not hold on for even a second during his encounter with Sirzechs.

The combat form of Azazel's artificial [Sacred Gear], which should have given him combat abilities superior to any Cadre, might as well be paper mache for the Lucifer. Who, in a matter of seconds, dismantled Azazel's sublime and repeatedly modified personal defenses, tearing apart one piece of armor after another.

Fortified as Azazel's personal bunker, his office was reduced to rubble in moments, and the dozens of scurrying occupants of his office were reduced to nothing before they could even notice Lucifer's arrival in the territory of the Fallen. And if he were just as immobile, it would’ve been a fate shared by him.

All of Azazel's fighting skills and abilities, all of his artifacts that were designed to exploit the weaknesses of potential opponents, to approach from an unexpected angle, to inflict maximum damage on his enemy, proved useless. Lucifer, maddened with rage and pain, didn't even notice the clever traps and skillful artifacts that were simply brushed off before they could even activate and attack the Crimson Satan.

Kokabiel, demonstrating his strength and combat experience, held up quite well, as in, he isn’t dead yet, not that he’s actually doing any damage.

Kokabiel's attacks barely reached the rippling and churning [Form of Destruction] in front of him. And even when they did, to call it even a ‘scratch’ would be to pay a huge compliment to Kokabiel.

Complimenting Kokabiel, however, was something Azazel didn't want to do at the moment. In fact, if they were to survive this, if there’s even any Fallen left, Azazel would make sure that Kokabiel died horribly.

Lucifer's [Sphere of Destruction], thrown as if on cue, sheared off one of Kokabiel's arms. And the maniac, rather than crying out in pain, simply smiled, as if losing an arm was the best drug. Perhaps it was out of adrenaline, but Kokabiel fought even harder after losing his arm, but Azazel didn't give a damn about Kokabiel's fate or whether or not he liked the current situation.

He has more things to worry about. Like the red beam of death currently heading his way, and his defenses just got ripped apart.

The [Beam of Destruction] ate through Azazel's body, tearing out a chunk of his flesh and slicing off another part of his artificial [Sacred Gear]. Fafnir's howl of pain echoed in Azazel's head, but Azazel was simply happy that he survived, as he dodged the worst of it.

The maddening energy of destruction didn’t stop even with its target no longer in the way, continuing on to devastate whatever it is behind Azazel’s back. Buildings, alleys, plants, and people, all were erased from existence.

A siren sounded somewhere, screams erupted somewhere else, and Fallen Angels gave and received orders in panic desperate to survive even another second, but Azazel paid absolutely no attention to it. Every moment now might be his last, death could come at any moment, and every moment he still breathes was a small miracle that Azazel would remember for the rest of his life.

It probably won’t be that hard, since Azazel didn’t foresee any way for him to love longer than ten seconds more in this battle.

There were no thoughts of the dead, of giving orders, or controlling anything else in his mind. At the moment, the powerful mind of a scientist accustomed to analyzing hundreds of parameters in an instant was using every bit of its power on surviving the ongoing battle.

A [Wave of Destruction] erupted from the Satan, forcing Azazel to use his reserves of strength to try to defend himself against imminent doom once again. But it was just barely enough. It was as if he had taken a bath in lava, his whole body hissing in a hundred places all at once, as if his body was being consumed by acid. Fafnir's furious howls filled Azazel's ears once again as his [Sacred Gear] started to melt in places.

His mind worked at a furious pace, to try to find a way to survive, but it was all to no avail. Azazel saw no chance of victory. For that would be the only parameter for victory, survival, and Azazel sees no way to achieve that.

No matter how much his mind tried to analyze one option after another, it was all useless. All the avenues of attack and retreat that Azazel saw were made moot by the insane power and fury of the Lucifer, who wanted nothing more than to make the Fallen a thing of the past.

Nothing would do for the Lucifer, other than the total genocide of the Fallen. Today, the three Biblical Factions would become two.

Another attack flashed, something akin to a roaring, bubbling torrent. It passed over Azazel's head, making his flesh foam with pain, but Azazel could not afford the petty need to scream in pain, no levity to distract himself from his enemy even for a second. Every second was a precious miracle, losing an eye to gain it was a bargain.

Kokabiel would clearly have laughed at him if he could, but the Lucifer had already stripped his opponent of half his wings and both arms. Just one step away from ending the cause of the death of all the Fallen. Azazel might even have congratulated Lucifer for such an action…  If not, after the death of Kokabiel, Lucifer wouldn’t turn his attention to Azazel and the rest of the Fallen. The ones that are left anyway.

It burned his pride that the Fallen were brought to such a brink of annihilation from the careless strikes of the Lucifer, not even aimed at them. But now was not the time to worry about that.

The cogs of his mind were grinding against each other, desperately trying to find a chance, a straw for Azazel to grasp at, but they brought only understanding in return. Lucifer could not be stopped in any way, the Fallen were doomed…

“[Divide]!” A colorless wave of light seemed to travel through space itself, passing by the fighting Cadres, heading towards the Lucifer, the target of the attack.

Azazel's mind instantly deduced the identity of the attacker, without even needing to turn, Azazel was well aware of exactly who had appeared at the darkest moment of the entire Fallen faction's existence. Not that there were many bearers of the [Divine Dividing] in the world at all.

Vali, his adopted son, who had just broken Azazel's order to stay away and out of the sight of the Fallen, not because he wanted to hide him per se. But simply because his adopted son was just as much of a battle nut as Kokabiel, Vali loved to pick fights. Even so, he remained Azazel's trump card for the darkest occasion… Which has now arrived, so perhaps he wouldn’t chide Vali too badly.

Had Azazel been able to, he would have sent a distress signal to Vali, but Lucifer's attacks had happened too fast, leaving Azazel no way to contact his adopted son. Fortunately, this time Vali's stubbornness and disregard for orders played into Azazel's hands. Seeing the destruction wrought by the Lucifer's power caused by his appearance, Vali headed into the thick of the battle, oblivious to Azazel's own thoughts.

But even the appearance of a [Longinus] wielder at this moment did not guarantee Azazel jack shit.

The draconic wings behind Vali's back, his [Sacred Gear’s] armament, instantly glowed with the brightest light, so much so that the blue tinge of those wings was no longer visible. The armor covering his body flared with scalding fire for a brief moment before beginning to be covered in a widening web of cracks. The first words that escaped from Vali's throat as he emerged were not his usual boastful mockery, but a strangled croak of pain and confusion.

Vali's [Divine Dividing], one of the [Longinuses], could be considered the trump card of trump cards. An ability that could halve the strength of any opponent with a single action and transfer the absorbed strength to Vali himself, strengthening his own abilities.

Given Vali's own power, that meant that most enemies would fall before they could do anything, losing all their power before being struck down by the empowered Vali.

But the Lucifer was nowhere close to being compared to ‘most’.

Having lost half of his incredible power, Lucifer looked up at Vali, not at all looking weakened. Or at least that's how Azazel interpreted the next actions of the seething figure woven from torrents of destruction and demonic power. Throwing another wave of Destruction in all directions, which Azazel barely defended himself against by sacrificing a pair of his wings.

Whether Kokabiel had survived such an attack, Azazel didn't know, and he didn't care.

But the scream, so different from Vali's usual confident voice that almost sounded like a panicked shriek, cut into Azazel's heart. Under normal circumstances, half of the opponent's strength absorbed by the [Divine Dividing] would ensure Vali's almost one hundred percent, complete victory.

But the strength of those that stand as the strongest, defies all expectations.

Attempting to absorb half of Lucifer's power, Vali had bitten more than he could chew, he had tried to absorb too much. He was quickly punished for it as his armor began to crack, with a tortuous amount of pain being sent to Vali. It was not because his [Longinus] couldn't absorb that much power, but because Vali’s body couldn't handle that level, couldn't hold even half of Lucifer's power within it.

And to credit his stubbornness, even when faced with such pain, Vali tried to hold on by ejecting the excess power through his wings. Sadly, such an action simply painted a larger target on Vali, especially when the Lucifer, in his bestial rage, discovered the fact that half of his reserves of power had vanished into nothing. And Vali, the reason for such a thing, froze for a moment, an unforgivable sin for a warrior in a battlefield. But then, when facing the enraged Lucifer, Vali had gained more than he bargained for.

Vali didn’t even have time to scream in pain before the Lucifer was upon him.

Lucifer's blow instantly tore the armor of the [Divine Dividing] on Vali's body, completely overpowering ‘Albion's best host for the last thousand years’. The blow threw him away like a tattered rag, and even Azazel's mind could not determine Vali's condition after the blow.

Vali's intervention was not fruitless, however. Lucifer had lost half of his strength.

Was it now possible to defeat Lucifer?

No. Absolutely not. Not even close.

But Vali's intervention had given Azazel an opportunity, an opportunity to throw off the maddened Lucifer and escape. If successful, it would allow him to take control of the remnants of the Fallen, and the Fallen needed him the most now. They had turned from a respectable faction with a society of their own, into a hunted game, who would be extinct without strong leadership. If not by the Lucifer, then by the other Devils that would soon follow in his wake.

Gritting his teeth, Azazel once again cursed Kokabiel as he glanced at the Lucifer, then felt the sprouts of determination break through his torn flesh, fatigue, and mangled armor.

Whatever it took… He would not let the fallen die without a fight!

***

It didn't take long to mop up the main group of Fallen within the Gremory lands, not for the top class Devils who could wipe out an entire army of them in a couple of skirmishes. Of course, after the whole-scale slaughter of the larger groups of Fallen, what remained needed to be taken care of more carefully. Even if they are easy to kill, the fact is, large-scale attacks were a poor weapon when used where a large population of Devil civilians resided.

The process has become much more precise and, by consequence, slow. The eradication of the rest of the scattered Fallen will take a few more days at least. But, that was a trivial matter, lone Fallen Angels did not represent a significant problem for the local self-defense forces.

It was not a matter of concern to the gathered highest echelons of the Devils, gathered for an emergency war council.

The outcome of the fallen attack was painful for the Gremory Manor, but nothing more. The Fallen took full advantage of a surprise attack, using their strongest member to break through the defenses of the Gremory Manor. The guards and defenses, significantly relaxed by the years of peace, had been cut down by the attack. But, due to the fact that the attackers were focused on breaching the Gremory Manor, the damage done to the civilians was quite modest.

Well modest when taken in the grand sense of things, to the normal populace a four hundred casualty would still be horrifying. To the veterans of the Great War however, when compared to the number of Fallen that died in the attack, with a Cadre leading the attack, four hundred dead was not too impressive a figure. Which, however, did not at all detract from the raging anger of the Devils gathered for the war council.

The worst of the casualties however was the death of Zeoticus Gremory.

Zeoticus was one of the most senior Devils, not to mention a very influential Devil in his own right. With hundreds of years of experience and skill under his belt, an excellent administrator possessing widespread political influence among the Devils. The loss of such a figure would have a significant impact on the entire Devil community, not to mention in the Gremory's territories.

But more importantly, Zeoticus was Sirzechs’ father.

Zeoticus' resurrection was not impossible in theory, there were miracles too far outside the conventional understanding of ‘possible’ to deny such an option, but none of the options the Devils could imagine could bring him back to life. [Evil Pieces] could not be used on Devils, [Phoenix Tears] required their target to still be alive, even if in the broadest interpretation of the word. And perhaps only Mephistopheles could know something about the appropriate magic, but to get to him at the moment was not possible in short order, the old recluse was too unsociable.

Which in turn meant that Zeoticus was dead for good.

Grayfia had refused to participate in the war council, and Ajuka didn't blame her at all for that, right now she was off as emotional support for Venelana and Milicas with Sirzechs busy venting his anger. If it wasn't for her family needing her, Grayfia would have already followed Sirzechs into the territory of the Fallen, if that was still around. Ajuka knows full well just how scary his best friend could get.

The situation right now was nothing short of absolute chaos.

Right now, Sirzechs was destroying the Fallen, Ajuka had no doubt that he was doing so successfully and without much resistance in his way. A decision that was completely understandable to Ajuka. Sirzechs had always been close to his entire family, and the death of his father was one of the few things that could instantly tear away his mask of smiling good-naturedness, revealing the incarnation of Destruction beneath.

The only question that remained, was what exactly Ajuka, and all the Devils, were supposed to do with that fact.

Ajuka's gaze traveled instantly to Serafall, who was now without her usual expression of goofiness, returning to herself from the Great War. Falbium, to anyone who knew of the lazy Demon Lord, they would be surprised with just how active and serious the war master was taking the situation. Right now, he was tensely exchanging glances with the others at the meeting at the moment, hesitant to voice the topic that right now was clearly occupying their minds.

‘What to do next?’

Right now Sirzechs was destroying the Fallen, that was without question, but the three other Satans didn't know exactly how they were supposed to respond. The attack on the Gremory’s had been conducted by Kokabiel, according to Serafall's reports. Kokabiel was one of the leaders of Grigori's inner faction, a Cadre, the most fanatical, insane, and militaristic of them.

Considering, however, that Azazel was clearly eager to sign a peace treaty between the Three Factions, it didn't take a genius to put two and two together, the attack was orchestrated in spite of Azazel’s intent. The only problem was that the situation absolutely did not lend itself to a simple solution like ‘talk and explain any misunderstandings’.

Four hundred dead Devils, including Sirzechs’ father, a head of the 41 Pillar clans, makes any negotiations moot. If not for that, what Sirzechs was probably doing right now, would make any negotiations impossible. Possibly because there aren’t any more Fallen to negotiate with, and quite possibly because Sirzechs had started his rampage with Azazel himself, completely disregarding Grigori's internal intrigues.

And so… Should the other Satans interfere? And even if so, for which side?

Well, that was perhaps the wrong thing to ask, Sirzechs absolutely did not need the help of the other Satans to destroy all the Fallen. The help of the other Satans however, would limit any unexpected factor from interfering and make sure that nothing happens, even if it was Sirzechs they were talking about. The question would be whether they should help the Fallen.

The stupidity of Kokabiel’s aside, they’re tentative allies from any outside factions, having the Fallen around should any outside faction attack the Devils could prove to be helpful. Especially now that they’re at the brink of extinction, the Devils could reap a great reward should they lend a helping hand now. But of course, that would mean stopping Sirzechs.

In a normal circumstance, the normally gentle Devil would be easy to convince, but, in addition, to his normally gentle nature, Sirzechs’ wrath is something to fear. A lesson many Devils learned when the Old Stan faction accidentally killed one of his students and drew him into the Devil Civil War.

Perhaps if Ajuka used all of his strength and intelligence, his [Kankara Formula], and enlisted Falbium, Serafall, Grayfia, and a couple of other powerful Devils like Tannin and Diehauser Belial, they might stand a chance. But of course, the first thing to do if Ajuka planned on that course of action, was to convince the other Devils in the first place.

After all, the Fallen had attacked Sirzechs’ family and his holdings. Even if it was not ordered by Azazel, the attack could not simply be ignored without any retaliation or blood being repaid. No Devil would forgive the signing of a peace treaty between the Devils and the Fallen Angels, after such an event, without so.

Ajuka thought about it for a moment, but Serafall, the Devil in charge of foreign policy and diplomacy, responded to his thought before he could even speak it. “Such an attack would cause not only anger at the Fallen, but would cause a huge militaristic shift in Devil society. The signing of a peace treaty with the angels at this point would be hard to accomplish, even if one made sure to destroy the Fallen.”

The genocide of an entire faction was already not a happy thought in the mind of Ajuka, who had come to power thanks to his confrontation with the Old Satans. The new Satans had risen to their position, promising to get rid of the old image of the Devils as a warlike evil creature and to establish a dialogue with the other factions. And here they are relegating the Fallen to a genocide, something that Ajuka disagreed with.

Not only is such a thing tasteless, it was also pointless.

Ajuka waited a few more seconds before looking at the other Devils around him, who had come to the same conclusion as he had, and shook his head. "Alright, I'll… I'll follow Sirzechs’ lead.”

Serafall and Falbium would have been happy to share Ajuka's burden, and follow him into battle. But Sirzechs possessed an incredible level of power, and in the frenzy of rage that consumed him at the moment, would be completely oblivious to his surroundings. No one but Ajuka would be able to withstand his wrath.

Rising from his seat in an atmosphere that had not been that cheerful in the first place, and after his decision had turned more somber than a funeral, Ajuka exhaled before leaving the room in a steady, forceful stride.

The attack, the madness of Sirzechs, the death of the Fallen, the death of the truce…

It all danced through Ajuka's mind, and a terrible feeling suffused his being. It was dread.

Perhaps it was simply his mind trying to occupy itself and conjuring dark images as Ajuka marched to do something he found distasteful, but his instincts were screaming a warning at him. It would not end here.

No, someone was behind the attack, and it was neither Kokabiel nor Azazel.

Sighing, Ajuka shook his head, clearing his head of these thoughts before focusing on his own magic, preparing to create a portal.

But if this was indeed a part of someone's sinister plot…  Then Ajuka would give anything to reach his own hands around this puppeteer, and break his neck.

***

Momonga silently rubbed his neck, as he prepared his next spell, like he has been doing for the past hour. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, he hasn’t found any problem with his spells, there were simply too many of them, and he’s supposed to test all of them, all seven hundred and eighteen of them.

Just trying to remember which spell he had used and which one he hadn’t, since there’s no longer a UI that would tell him, would give anyone a stiff neck. Especially when he has an audience that he doesn't want to disappoint.

At least this time it’s not about acting that he had some great plan or something, it still felt uncomfortable though.

Momonga couldn't help but cast a surreptitious glance at the four pairs of eyes watching him at once, only to see them pick the slightest bit of his attention immediately. They perked up, and their eyes lit up with happiness, as their attention seemed to drill at him with their devoted gaze, as if wordlessly begging him to give them orders.

Momonga, however, was forced to look away immediately when confronted with such passionate gazes, pretending that he was immersed in his own important thoughts right now and had no intention of giving orders to his watchers.

Momonga's plan of action was simple and clear after the aborted negotiations with the Demons. If he could not help his subordinates directly in any way, then the least he could do was not interfere with their activities. And the best that he could right now was to provide them with information that could not be wrong. If this information turned out to be useful, even a little, then Momonga would consider his mission a hundred percent accomplished.

So Momonga decided to gather information in the easiest way he could, a personal test of his own spells and abilities. And given that Momonga had no other major testing ground besides Nazarick, he naturally returned to the Great Tomb for that test. Given, however, that he needed targets, and for some magic, those targets had to be living, be a specific material, and other special characteristics. Momonga turned to the Floor Guardians to find those suitable targets from among Nazarick's ever-generating POP-monsters of level thirty and below.

With Shalltear and Demiurge busy on Earth at the moment, Momonga chose the Sixth Floor for his experiments, especially since both he and the Demiurge had already used it for experiments before. So when Momonga arrived at the floor and met Aura and Mare, he instantly had all the help he required in the form of two Dragonkins, who were now busy bringing in new monsters and cleaning up the viscera.

But unexpectedly for Momonga, Aura and Mare also followed after him and were sitting on the lower levels of the Amphitheater right now, watching his boring monotonous experiments with a mesmerized gaze. It was as if they had never seen anything more amazing in their lives, even though Momonga was currently using spells no higher than [Tier Five] in order to ration his mana for the most experiments possible.

‘I understand why the Dragonkins are here, after all Aura and Mare sent them to work as my servants, but why are Aura and Mare here!’ Momonga sighed in his head.

‘Okay, I can understand Aura, she is an active, precocious child, and she can surely get bored just sitting in Nazarick and there’s some measure of entertainment seeing things blow up, but even Mare’s here! He is usually more shy and withdrawn, why would he also come to watch me practicing weak spells, when he is a mage himself!? Aura, I can still somewhat understand, that even if these spells are weak, it's still some ability that she can't use and therefore something relatively new to her. Mare is a hundredth level druid, most of the spells I'm using at the moment are child's play to him. Why then is he watching me so intently, as if he's seeing something incredible! I can't take this stress!’

Momonga's suppression of his emotions worked like clockwork, relieving him of his excess stress, but sadly not all of them, it still allowed him to coldly reason to a simple conclusion. He should just keep using weak spells, and they would eventually get bored and leave.

‘Right, let them observe the experiments. I didn't ask them to follow, so there should be no problem if they want to leave, and so if they want to leave due to boredom, they are free to do so. Besides, children get easily bored, right? So this shouldn’t take long.’

Having come to this simple conclusion, Momonga turned back to his experiments, using spell after spell on training targets and low-level monsters, testing his magic spells.

Most of Momonga's spells remained the same, or changed so slightly that Momonga couldn't notice after being transported to the new world, but some spells did change, not so much in their effect, but in their implementation. For example, when he had tested [Grasp Heart] again just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating when he faced those dragons, it had indeed now created a copy of the target's heart in Momonga's hand. The spell effect would only take place after Momonga crushed the heart, rather than the almost instantaneous effect it had in YGGDRASIL.

After experimenting a bit with this fact, Momonga found that in addition to just crushing the opponent's heart, he could also squeeze it, causing the target to react. Gasping for breath if pressed lightly and in pain if pressed hard, he could then cancel the spell without performing its effect. He still needed to spend the required mana to activate it, though.

Another spell that surprised Momonga by its changed effect was [Create Greater Item]. In YGGDRASIL, the magic was usually used to create miscellaneous items like levers or torches, if the player needed them and didn't want to bother with the proper consumables. Its other, more often used, function was to create household items for a base.

It was generally considered a fairly useless spell, since items created in this way still required mana to maintain, which was a fairly inefficient expenditure for mages, it couldn't create consumables or create magic items. In other words, in YGGDRASIL, the magic was extremely niche, given that a game dedicated to battles and quests could only provide a limited number of uses for such magic without making it overpowered.

However, in the new world, with it changing Momonga's abilities and losing the limiting vision of the developers of Yggdrasil, the applications of this magic became virtually limitless. Momonga could use it to create any object, as long as it didn't have magic, is not living, not edible, or was made with a special material specific to YGGDRASIL.

On the other hand, the boundaries regarding the abilities of this spell were rather blurred.

For example, Momonga could create iron ore similarly to those that existed in YGGDRASIL, the lowest-level material suitable for creating objects. But the ore could not be made into anything else. Attempting to smelt the ore, it would first resist the high temperatures, beyond that of the melting point of Iron Ore, for a very long time, after which it would simply turn into mana.

The spell could only be used to create finished objects, and not as a source of infinite materials.

However, aside from those two spells and maybe a couple dozen others, the other spells behaved pretty much the same way as it did in YGGDRASIL, which was more of a positive result than not. Finding out that his magic had changed its way of working in the middle of a battle was not something any player in YGGDRASIL wanted to find out.

The only problem was that Momonga wasn’t sure if his spell was operating normally because they were indeed unchanged, or it was unchanged because he was using it on YGGDRASIL creatures. After all, it was logical to assume that beings of the new world with special abilities not found in YGGDRASIL and with races not found in Yggdrasil could interact with its magic differently.

But, sadly, such a test of information required an approach far more scientific and deliberate than Momonga could offer. As well as numerous test subjects and a long testing period, something Nazarick didn't have at the moment. Maybe, in the future, after Demiurge had gotten free time back in his hands, Momonga could pitch the idea to him.

But until then, all he could do was rely on the fact that the results he got wouldn't be too different from the results that Demiurge would later get. He could at least somewhat eliminate one factor that needed testing, by using his spells on the MOB.

“And yet without testing these abilities on creatures outside Nazarick, the results of such tests will be of little value…” Momonga spoke softly to himself, but the hearing of the hundred-level [Ranger], Aura, was not to be underestimated, and so she instantly responded to the perceived order with childlike enthusiasm.

"Lord Momonga, I am fully capable! Just say the word and I will bring you a thousand…  No, a hundred thousand captured prisoners from any world!”

Aura smiled and puffed out her chest, as she sensed an opportunity to be useful, but Momonga was quick to stop her before her actions could affect Nazarick in any unpredictable way. He, of course, did his best to calm himself after the immediate image of a coalition of hundredth level denizens of the New World, or even beyond that, marching on Nazarick.

"Not now, Aura. Our knowledge of the world around us is very limited, so kidnapping numerous people would be difficult to disguise, and Shalltear is already in the process of establishing control over the shadow world of Kyoto… One of the cities where we can gain access to many people for future experiments.”

“Shalltear, huh…” Hearing Shalltear’s name being spoken, Aura's face changed to a strange mixture of irritation and a slight note of worry. It was as if Aura had already foreseen Shalltear facing future problems, and, wanting to remark on her next failure, couldn't help but worry about her misguided colleague, at least a little.

Mare, sensing her sister's change of mood, decided to change the subject quickly, and hesitantly raised his voice, "Speaking of which… L-Lord Demiurge has already delivered one of those disgusting, vile traitors…” Mare’s usually shy voice suddenly turned biting, cold and vicious as he spoke the last word. It lost its usual uncertain tilt for a moment, turning into an angry, venomous remark, but when Aura glared at him with one raised eyebrow, he instantly corrected himself and returned to his usual manner of speaking,

"I m-mean, one of the fallen angels is in N-nazarick… L-Lord Momonga, do you want to use him for your experiments?”

“Demiurge did?” Momonga thought for a moment, one Fallen Angel from this world must be just a drop in the bucket. He had heard, or read somewhere, that it was a third of the Angels that had fallen with Lucifer, there must be a lot of them.

Momonga could at best use the Fallen for a couple of spells, but it was better than nothing at all…

However, even before making that decision, Momonga needed to make sure that his experiments would not interfere with the Demiurge's plan. “Mare, has the Demiurge told you what he plans to do with this fallen?”

“K-kill it later, L-Lord Momonga.” Mare answered honestly, as far as he knew of the plan that Demiurge was executing, planning to blame the disloyal fallen who had dared to reject Lord Momonga's mercy and run away. The plan was to make him a scapegoat for the Fallen Angel’s attacks on the demons, and the subsequent Demon retaliation on the Fallen. It was supposed to provide its head as a gesture of goodwill to the demons.

But there was nothing stopping one of those unnatural creatures who had rejected not only Lord Momonga's favor, but even his incredible kindness and forgiveness, from suffering a little before dying, for the sake of an experiment, right? At least that’s what Mare’s surprisingly angry inner voice told him.

‘Hmm, it is odd that Demiurge chose a Fallen to bring to Nazarick, however I don't think I should ponder that too much. It could very well be a random Fallen who crossed Demiurge's path. After all, he was right in the middle of controlling finances, it's logical that in that case he could have encountered serious opposition, including from paranormal beings, and it's logical that he chose to deal with it swiftly.’

Brought up and raised in the morals of humanity's distant dystopian future, Momonga didn't see any harm in the idea of the Demiurge ‘dealing’ with a business rival by making them ‘disappear’. It was a simple and common tactic, after all. So Momonga just nodded favorably,

"Well, Mare, I guess in that case we can take the chance and do a little experiment with a Fallen Angel!”

Momonga wondered for a moment what exactly the spells he could experiment with the Fallen. But he dispelled the thought.

This was just a small experiment with a Fallen Angel, could it lead to anything significant?