The Inner Sanctuary of the Five Principal Clan estate had become a hellscape of clashing ideologies and elemental fury. While the purple flame of Jay's Incinerate Anthem clashed with Susanoo heavenly dark blue storms within the barrier, the surrounding forest was a theater of high-speed supernatural warfare.
Lavinia Reni moved with the practiced grace of a master magician, her face a mask of cool concentration. Above her, the Ice Doll of Absolute Demise loomed like a spectral sentinel. Its four crystalline arms swung in massive, sweeping arcs as it trailing freezing mist that turned the humid air into falling snow.
Suzaku Himejima met the frost with the roar of the Vermilion Bird. Her crimson flames lashed out in hungry whips, clashing against the ice in a hiss of steam that obscured the battlefield. Beside her, the Shinra heir, Byakko moved with a whitish aura of the White Tiger, his claws extended, attempting to find a gap in Lavinia's defense.
"Suzaku-san, please!" Natsume Minagawa shouted, her Griffon diving to intercept a volley of explosive talismans launched by the Genbu heir. "You know this is wrong! We aren't your enemies!"
Suzaku's eyes were brimming with rejection, her face contorted in a grimace of spiritual agony. "I know, Natsume! But the blood... it burns! When the Forefather speaks, our bodies aren't our own! Move, or I will burn you!"
"Then we'll just have to freeze that fire of yours," Lavinia said softly. With a flick of her wand, the Ice Doll's hands clapped together. A wave of Absolute Zero energy rippled outward.
Seiryuu Kushihashi with bluish Azure Dragon's aura engulfing his body, slammed his palms into the dirt, conjuring massive wooden roots to shield his allies, but the wood shattered like glass the moment Lavinia's frost touched it. The disparity in magical depth was staggering. Lavinia wasn't just a magician; she was a wielder of a Longinus, and she was beginning to press the four heirs into a corner where even their Sacred Beasts could not protect them.
Nearby, the earth groaned under the weight of the young Nakiri clan head. Ouryuu Nakiri was a golden juggernaut, his Yellow Dragon aura manifesting as a draconic mantle that pulverized everything it touched.
"Is this the best the 'Black Dog' can do?" Ouryuu roared, his voice amplified by divine mana. "To hide behind a Fallen Angel and a Magician?"
Tobio Ikuse didn't answer with words. Jin, the shadow beast had shifted. In its mouth, the creature gripped a manifestation of Ame-no-Ohabari, a black blade etched with red glowing Shinto runes. Each swing of the dog's head sent slashes of blackish-crimson flames carving through the golden dragon's scales.
"Jin, now!" Tobio commanded.
Jin lunged, his form blurring into a shadow that bypassed Ouryuu's front guard. At the same time, Samejima stepped in from the flank, his Sacred Gear-avatar Byakusa in the form of white tiger lunged towards Ouryuu.
"Don't forget about me, you cocky bastard!" Samejima grunted, as Byakusa unleashing its fang to pierce Ouryuu's body, forced him to cross his arms in defense.
"Bastard!" Ouryuu grunted.
The impact sent a tremor through the sanctuary. Natsume's Griffon circled above, diving periodically to disrupt Ouryuu's vision with gusts of wind and feathers. The coordination was desperate but effective as the young Nakiri head was being pressed back, his pride wounded more than his body.
Meanwhile, Azazel and Barakiel stood amidst a sea of unconscious elders. The senior members of the clans, despite their decades of experience, had been no match for two of the strongest entities in the Grigori. Barakiel moved like a ghost of violet-yellow lightning, his touch enough to short-circuit the nervous systems of the Shinto priests without a drop of blood being spilled.
"Those two swords..." Azazel muttered, now focused on maintaining the barrier from collapsing as his eyes locked on the shimmering barrier where Jay and Susanoo were fighting. "Ame-no-Murakumo and Ame-no-Habakiri. What an ominous aura."
He looked at Jay's silhouette through the golden-violet film of the barrier. The boy stood with unwavering conviction, his hazel eyes not flinching even as the space around him vibrated with the threat of heavenly armaments.
'Are you sure you can handle this, brat?' Azazel thought, a rare pang of anxiety tightening his chest. The young man who had been found dead somewhere in Romania just a few months ago was now standing on equal ground with one of Japan's strongest entities.
A human on top of that too.
Inside the barrier, the duel had reached a fever pitch. Jay had reactivated his Domain of His Own, but the space felt fragile. Every time Susanoo swung Ame-no-Habakiri, the very fabric of space Jay used to teleport was being shredded into pieces like a thin papers.
Jay flickered across the clearing, appearing and disappearing in micro-second intervals. Behind him, the air groaned as black slashes from the Heaven-Severing Sword tore through his previous positions, leaving jagged scars in reality that took seconds to heal.
"KUHAHAHA! What happened? Why are you only running!" Susanoo bellowed, his laughter echoing like thunder. "Come on, Zayyn-boy! Show me that arrogance from before!"
Jay remained silent. He was calculating. His Domain was being torn to pieces and he couldn't maintain a stable spatial path to close the distance with Susanoo for a physical strike. He was trapped in a defensive loop, blinking everywhere using Voidwalker just to stay in one piece.
Susanoo suddenly came to a halt. He planted his feet and charged his swing as he raised his left hand and the black blade of Ame-no-Habakiri glowing with a terrifying light-devouring aura.
The darkness surged upward, erupting into the sky itself.
"The World Shall Bear Witness," Susanoo whispered, his voice suddenly cold. "Tenkai Danzai [ Heavenly Judgement ]!"
SHIING
Time seemed to stutter as suddenly a massive, horizontal black slash erupted from the blade and expanding at a speed that bypassed the concept of velocity around Susanoo. An area-wide severance, as suddenly-
BOOM
The sound that followed was not an explosion, but the unmistakable crack of space itself breaking. Every tree, every stone, every blade of grass within the barrier was split with surgical precision, cleanly bifurcated as if reality had been drawn along a single, merciless line.
Sensing the catastrophic overflow, Azazel forced every remaining drop of mana into the barrier, reinforcing it at the brink of collapse to prevent the slash from bleeding outward and erasing everyone within the Inner Sanctuary.
Dust and spatial debris choked the air. From the outside, it looked as if everything inside the dome had been pulverized into a flat plane of nothingness. Trees were cut down like grass in a single clean sweep of Ame-no-Habakiri.
Jay's figure vanished.
"KUHAHAHA!" Susanoo laughed, still gripping both swords, before letting his left arm drop as he took in the devastation he had wrought, a wide grin spreading across his face.
"Even if you are the strongest human I have ever faced, you must understand this. Your kind cannot be compared to a god no matter how much power that pagan gods gave you. That is-"
His words were cut off, his eyes widening as he felt a ripple of mana stir behind him.
From the ground directly behind Susanoo, a figure rose like a ghost. Jay had not been caught in the slash.
'How!' Susanoo's mind raced. 'Did he use the split second I activated the strike to lower his Space Domain thing to knee-level? He hid beneath the plane of the slash! '
Before Susanoo could react, a tower of purple embers erupted from the ground and surged upward. The flames climbed like a living pillar, swallowing his legs in an instant. The pain was immediate and violent as the purple flame searing through divine flesh as the air itself warped from the heat.
Susanoo roared and forced his power downward, hurling himself into the air to break free. The burning column collapsed beneath him, scattering embers that faded before they could touch the ground. He steadied himself midair and hovering above the ruined forest.
For a brief moment, silence followed. The god felt it then. Not pain, but humiliation.
Ame-no-Habakiri ultimate strike, a technique meant to erase battlefields and his enemies in a single strike had been rendered meaningless. It had not been raw strength that defied him, nor some divine artifact.
Only timing, observation, and a single precise decision made in the smallest window of opportunity. The human standing before him was not strong through raw power alone. It was his prowess, his control, and his mastery over that power that made him truly dangerous and unbearably irritating.
Realizing this, Susanoo clenched his jaw. The thought burned deeper than the flames ever could.
But as he deep in his thought, Jay was already behind him.
Susanoo felt it instantly.
His instincts screamed as he twisted his body mid-air, thunder snarling along his limbs as he forced himself around with brute force alone. His face contorted into a feral grin, half rage and half pride, as his eyes locked onto the human hovering behind him.
"Trying to catch me off guard!?" he barked, storm clouds boiling around his form. "In your dreams!"
The air cracked as lightning flared, and the clash was inevitable.
In his haste, Susanoo swung Ame-no-Murakumo with his right hand. The silver blade crackled with lightning and aimed to cleave Jay in two. But Jay didn't dodge. The blade passed right through him.
Susanoo's heart skipped a beat. In his fury, he had forgotten one fatal detail.
Phantasmagoria's intangibility.
'Oh Izana-'
Jay's hand reached out, hovering near Susanoo's head.
'He's going to use that Space Rupture!' Susanoo's instincts screamed. He desperately tried to swing his left hand which the one holding the Heaven-Severing sword.
Susanoo wrenched his body, forcing his left arm up, the Heaven-Severing sword screaming through the air in a desperate arc. But the motion was wrong. The angle was flawed. And worse, the strike was late. Even his divine speed could not overtake an action that had already begun.
Jay's hazel eyes were calm as it stare to Susanoo's soul. Empty of malice. Certain.
His lips barely parted, the word escaping as a breath rather than a shout.
"…Rupture."
A jagged tear in space manifested exactly at Susanoo's left elbow.
"RAGHHHHH!"
The scream of agony that ripped from Susanoo's throat was unlike anything the sanctuary had ever heard. It was the sound of a god realizing his own mortality. His left forearm, still clutching Ame-no-Habakiri was severed.
Jay didn't waste the opening. He snatched the falling severed hand out of the air, gripping the hilt of the black sword while the hand was still attached to it.
He prepared to use Rupture again to finish The Storm God, but Susanoo's survival instincts kicked in. A massive discharge of lightning from Ame-no-Murakumo exploded from the god's body.
Jay, realizing Rupture was too slow to deploy against the discharge, pivoted and delivered a brutal magic-enhanced kick to Susanoo's chest, launching him downward.
BOOM
Susanoo hit the ground with the force of a starfall. As he struggled to find his breath, he looked up and saw Jay descending like an angel of death as his body flickered with purple flame, but before his figure disappeared.
"Purgatory," Jay whispered.
The entire ground within the barrier erupted. It wasn't just small purple flame, it was a sea of violet incineration that burned instantly. Susanoo screamed as the flames licked at his wounds.
Suddenly, a massive shockwave of dark blue energy blew the flames back. A thick, grey storm cloud enveloped Susanoo as he forced himself to stand.
"YOU ANNOYING BASTARD!!"
Jay appeared again seventy meters away in a flicker of purple flame.
He tore the severed, already-cold hand of the god from the hilt of Ame-no-Habakiri and cast the scrap of flesh aside like worthless junk. The black sword remained in his right hand, its dark edge humming faintly with power, while his gaze stayed cold and unwavering.
Seeing that, the one-armed Susanoo's blood boiled.
"YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR, BOY!" he roared, divine fury shaking the air itself. "You have crossed the final line and awakened my wrath!"
Jay ignored the screaming Storm God. The moment his fingers closed around the hilt of Ame-no-Habakiri, a sensation of absolute serenity washed over him. It was the same feeling he had experienced when he first held Durandal.
Almost as if the Heaven-Severing sword embraced him in it's divine energy.
Suddenly, Jay's internal mana circuits flared. His reserves didn't just refill, they expanded. He felt his capacity surge to three times its normal limit. His physical body felt reinforced, his senses sharpening until he could hear the heartbeat of everyone behind him.
"This is..." Jay gripped the void-black blade, feeling the spatial distortions humming in harmony with his own magic.
But there was no time for wonder.
Susanoo's aura had turned into something monstrous. A scary, dark blue energy laced with black lightning swirled around him, collapsing the very air.
"IT HAS BEEN HUNDREDS OF YEARS SINCE SOMEONE PUSHED ME THIS FAR!" Susanoo roared. "I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU! EVERY SINGLE ONE! ESPECIALLY YOU!"
The sky over Inner Sanctuary responded. The barrier of that Azazel formed already weakened, shattered under the pressure of a country-scale storm. Dozens of lightning bolts struck the earth simultaneously, turning the sanctuary into a forest of white and blue light.
Jay tried to attack Susanoo's figure with a wave of purple flames, but the sheer destructive power of Susanoo's current state simply pulverized the fire before it could reach him.
Susanoo began to transform. His skin turned a brilliant light-blue, emitting a terrifying energy. An armor made of condensed storm clouds and dark divinity formed around his torso, and his eyes became two burning pits of blue lightning. He ascended into the sky, his presence so heavy that the battle between the clans and the Grigori stopped entirely.
"What the fuck!" Azazel cursed, shielding his eyes. "He's going into his True Divine Form!"
"Are we going to die here?" one of the elders whimpered as he fell to his knees, his voice trembling beneath the crushing pressure of divine power.
Susanoo's voice rolled down from the heavens, vast and merciless, as though the world itself had found words.
"Witness my wrath and be reduced to ashes by Heavenly Lightning. Perish, mortals."
He raised his remaining arm, the Cloud-Gathering Sword clenched tightly in his right hand. The sky answered his call. Dark clouds spiraled inward, collapsing into a massive vortex that swallowed the stars. Thunder howled like a living thing. From within the storm, two colossal forms emerged.
A Lightning Qilin stepped forth first, its body forged from crackling arcs of white and violet light, every movement sending thunder crashing across the sky.
Beside it coiled a Storm Dragon, its serpentine form vast beyond measure, its scales formed from roiling storm clouds threaded with veins of living lightning. Together, they eclipsed the moon, their immense silhouettes looming over the Inner Sanctuary like harbingers of annihilation, towering above everyone below as though all life were nothing more than ants beneath their gaze.
"Oh shit," Azazel muttered, his hands moving frantically as the teleportation circle he formed to transport everyone from here only finished halfway. "We aren't going to make it."
"Tenrairyu!"
Susanoo commanded, and the lightning beasts began their descent to erase the mountain from the map.
But in the center of the destruction, Jay stood his ground. He held the black sword of the heavens in one hand and his own purple flames in the other. He closed his eyes, his mana resonating with the Longinus within him.
The purple flame vanished.
A whisper cut through the roar of the storm.
"Balance Breaker..."
"True Cross."