NGJ Chapter 102: {Stranded Garden of Death} (Patreon)

The demonic-looking figure that gave off a primal sense of fear on any who laid their gaze on it looked around its body, seemingly inspecting a body foreign to itself.

Kokabiel glared at the creature in front of him that towered over even him, making the creature lift its gaze, the heavy stare of the underworld falling onto his own eyes.

"Well. Isn't it quite rude to feign ignorance? Kokabiel. Especially to the face of the man you just killed." a deep, heavy, baritone voice rang out. Sending shivers down the spine of everyone there.

"A-Akira?" Rias' voice rang out with trepidation, clinging onto a small, fragile hope that Akira was alive despite the being that crawled out of his shell. And her hope was answered with.

"!"

The figure that put the fear of death into them just by existing subtly turned to her and winked before giving her a thumbs up, killing all of the intimidation of it in her eyes before facing Kokabiel once more.

"Hah! What is this? Your new trick?" In response to Kokabiel's taunt, the figure simply looked at him and shook its head.

"Well, if you take something of this level as a simple trick then I suppose I should regard your existence a mere prank. But please give me a moment before I allow you to continue ignorant statements. The rabble you have brought seem to quite enjoy harassing my friends. Well, it seems like this will work." The figure's voice never shook, just calmly and politely addressing Kokabiel who looked at him with unconcealed malice.

The being raised his right hand up, before simply snapping his fingers.

'Hmm, using it to its full extent may be a bad idea. I want to get rid of Kokabiel's minions after all. Not a solid quarter of Japan. Limiting the range to 250 meters should work.'

*Snap!*

"Extinction."

A barely visible force extended from where its fingers snapped, a wave of pale sickly yellow light.

But all of a sudden.

A Cerberus keeled over, turning to dust in moments, and all of the summons that Kokabiel brought followed suit, nothing remained of them other than literal dust. All trees, all grass, all birds, every living cell, had all vitality sapped out of them, reducing all of them to nothing more than dust.

Even Kokabiel stumbled a bit and clenched his heart.

"What the hell did you do!?"

Yet no one else had been harmed, making them look on incredulously. The figure of death taken shape shaking its head with a tsk tsk.

"What a poor question Kokabiel. What you should be asking me isn't what I did. It's what I am about to do to you." The being turned briefly to everyone else, unlike what anyone expected, it had a smirk on its face, a completely unbefitting image.

"<< Leave >> I am afraid you can't stay here, while I would much like to humiliate Kokabiel in front of all of you. My domain may prove to be intolerable." As if a command from God himself had compelled them everyone was forced to leave with all they had. Baffled and even a little scared they left with everything they could, Kokabiel making no move to chase after them.

"Now then, will you still allow me to use my strongest move or will try to, I emphasize try, to stop me expanding my domain? Sadly for you, neither option will make your demise any more pleasant." Kokabiel grinned madly, going right up to the disaster's face and staring him down.

"Now I have to see it. I want to see this trump card and crush it so thoroughly that you can never think of ever clinging onto that miserable life of yours."

"Then I suppose I shall the largest mercy I can offer and not target your genitals extensively. But be grateful, for you shall witness death beyond any compare." At this exact moment, dozens of giant skeletal burst from behind him, making elaborate ritualistic signs as they bloomed from behind like flowers. All in various positions of prayer.

"I lay beyond the boundary set by gods."

"I am the Calamity all beings fear."

"I shall become the Eclipse of All Creation."

"Lay down your life and bear witness."

"Burial of God."

"Domain Expansion: Stranded Garden of Death"

Within the blink of an eye, the domain expanded, swallowing the earth around them whole. And asserted itself on reality.

In a moment Kokabiel went from staring at Akira to his view shifting, the world around him suddenly turned into an endless landscape, a desolate world, the ground was charred black, as far as the eye could see sharp jagged crosses of light were stabbed into the ground, countless skeletons scattered across the landscape.

The green and red stars hanging above him gave off a sense of ominousness. They hung in the middle of a void, there was no end to the world inside of the domain as far as the eye could see.

"Welcome to my world. Don't worry, I am not so rude as to not give a kind greeting to you. {Corpse Explosion}"

*BOOOM!!!*

Before Kokabiel could even react, several explosions manifested on his location, and unlike before he felt the explosions on his body like hard punches that burnt his skin. He felt sick, pained, but instantly after several metal stakes manifested, having already hit him, carrying him into the sky as they pierced into him, he broke them apart, but then was hit by several hundreds of arrows stronger than missiles. He swept apart the explosions and looked forward with rage, seeing hundreds, no, thousands of undead staring back at him. No, it wasn't quite right to call them undead.

Like how Akira had evolved, so had his undead. They were true undead now, all eclipses of life. Walking contradictions, death given life. An unkillable army with their weapons aimed at him for their lord.

"Fine then! You want to play like that!? Let's play like that!" Kokabiel spread his arms wide creating over a thousand light lances, and shooting down to obliterate his army but Akira remained unphased.

"You'll have to forgive me if I seem like I am a bit sloppy. I am just getting a hang of my new technique after all. {Negative Energy Flood}"  Akira swept his arm out and released a gigantic torrent of negative energy that swept out like an actual tsunami, fusing along with the hundreds of spells and arrows of his undead and meeting the wave of spears head-on,  creating a giant clash of energy enough to create a giant storm, eventually both attacks crumbled against each other.

'How did he get this strong!?' Kokabiel could not understand how Akira had suddenly become this stronger in such a shorter period of time but he decided to not care.

He instead plummeted down, his landing causing a magnitude 8 earthquake around and crushing some soldiers before he created a powerful light sword in his hand. He clearly stopped holding back.

Kokabiel shot forward, breaking the sound barrier dozens of times over, ripping through the hundreds of wraiths in his way and arrived before Akira but before his sword struck.

{Quicksilver}

{Apostilization: Cursed Energy Burst}

Ungodly amounts of verdant cursed energy rolled off of Akira's combat body as he summoned Excalibur Morgan into his hand and met Kokabiel's sword head-on. Their clash ripped apart all of the undead in the vicinity. Locking blades they both pushed each other for dominance.

How was Akira able to keep up with Kokabiel?

That was simple.

In his domain, Akira had access to Alpha's cursed technique too, at 80% capacity, however.

Akira's own cursed energy output was already well above 200% allowing him to match even Kokabiel briefly in a contest of strength.

But Akira wasn't such a noble soul that would take an equal clash of abilities.

{Corpse Explosion}

The explosions impacting his face staggered him, allowing Akira to de-summon Morgan before clenching his and driving it into Kokabiel's gut. Causing bolts of black lightning to scatter.

"{Black Flash}!"

Kokabiel spat copious amounts of blood as he was sent flying like a railgun, flying for kilometres before skidding to a stop and.

"{Dismantle}!"

Dozens of slashing attacks rained down on him, like razors being dragged across his skin. But Kokabiel kept his head rational and sent dozens of large spears capable of mincing mountains toward Akira, who promptly dodged them with quicksilver.

"{Grave Buster}!"

Dozens of giant skeletal hands the size of buildings rained down on Kokabiel hammering him dozens of meters into the ground, but suddenly Kokabiel broke out of them and arrived before Akira and stabbed him in the shoulder, bisecting the entire shoulder and turning it into ash before Akira retaliated by raising his hand against Kokabiel's stomach.

"{Corpse Explosion}" Dozens of explosions crackled in Akira's palm before detonating, hitting Kokabeil with the combined force of all of them, nearly disembowelling him and sending him flying again.

Kokabiel regained his balance and wiped the blood from his mouth before sneering.

"Hah! You are already down an arm, what can you hope to achieve!?"

"This." Akira's arm regrew in a single second in a pointing forward motion. His eyes shone red.

"{Malice}."

____________________________

[You have created the Technique: Malice]

[Malice]

Cost: 10,000 - 250,000CE

Allows the user to curse their targets in various ways, reducing their abilities and inflicting status according to the user's abilities.

____________________________

'Curses!?'

The moment the words rang out Kokabiel felt several sensations hit him, vertigo, nausea, feebleness, fever, and slowness, but due to his experience he was able to endure and minimize the effects, internally he cursed Akira's seemingly endless abilities.

Kokabiel reinforced his body with magical energy before rushing toward Akira, who responded by manifesting several hundred-meter-tall skeletal limbs in his way, while Kokabiel was busy tearing through them Akira flew up high, doing dozens of hand signs in rapid succession as a restriction to further amplify his next attack.

He pointed both of his hands down.

The fear of nuclear death made manifest.

"{Corpse Explosion, Supreme Art: Nuclear Explosion}!"

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*

Any scream Kokabiel could have let out was drowned by the green sun that emerged from his location, the heaven and earth shook, all noise was overpowered, over dozens and dozens of kilometres of land was ripped out of the domain as a towering green mushroom cloud of desolation made out of wailing skulls emerged.

A nuclear explosion that was far, far worse than any normal bomb was unleashed. Were it to be unleashed on the human world its effects would linger for over a hundred years, the cloud of rot, disease, decay, and harm it leaves behind was more devastating than any other.

This was why a restriction was placed on this Supreme Art for it to be only used inside of the domain, which further boosted the power of it leading to the mass destruction equal a hundred corpse explosions stacked on top of one and another.

"*Huff* *Huff* That took more out of me than I would have liked. That was a solid 7th of my cursed energy. Hopefully, he has learned to stay down." Although he acted nonchalantly this battle was considerably challenging for Akira, not only was he figuring out his abilities but the amount of energy Kokabiel needed to hurt Akira was far far less than what Akira needed to hurt Kokabiel.

*WHOOOOSH!*

"!"

Suddenly, a spear of light the size of a skyscraper pierced through the clouds aimed straight at Akira, if that hit that would be guaranteed elimination with no second chances.

"I guess I have to use that." Akira held out both hands and channelled the cursed technique he had no idea how fully functioned.

____________________________

[Ranchor Lv. 1/100]

Cost: 10000CE/s

The world scorching flames of hatred. Uncontrollable instrument of destruction made of pure malice manifested in the form of flames made to burn away all life.

____________________________

"RANCHOR!"

Translucent purple, pink and red flames emerged from his palms, it felt untrollable, unimaginably dense and concentrated cursed energy given the shape of flames it absorbed from the disaster flames. In truth, they weren't flames, they held no heat, they were something beyond that.

Even though they resembled a mere speck in front of Kokabiel's spear the stream flames of Ranchor clashed against the gigantic spear, and somehow the flames started tearing apart the spear until it all was dispersed, after successfully destroying Kokabiel's attack, Akira's shoulders heaved in exertion, his arms torn apart from using Ranchor. As he healed his mangled arms he looked at the figure that now stood in the middle of the dispersed mushroom cloud.

Burns, lacerations, and rotting patches of skin as well as bruises littered his body but Kokabiel held a fiery stare in his eyes as he glared at Akira who in turn looked back at him.

'My cursed energy reserves aren't high enough to pull out more showstoppers, that Ranchor took a lot out of me. But the same should go for Kokabiel.'

They both stared each other down. Neither breaking their gaze.

This meant that it was time to finish this battle the old-fashioned way.

____________________________

CHANGELOG: Changed {Ultimate Technique} to {Supreme Art}

____________________________

A/N: Akira has just evolved and is still figuring out his own abilities, but it's clear that his new form is far far stronger than he previously was. What do you think of his new abilities and race? I would love to know. Especially his new domain expansion.