"Welcome back~
... ~Evil Dragon."
The moment Rizevim's whisper faded, the golden light of the Grail was swallowed by a tide of oily, purple miasma.
The unconscious vampire host in the center of the room did not merely die. His skin began to bubble and distort in a grotesque, fluid motion, stretching beyond the limits of biological possibility.
A muffled, wet sound filled the room as the host's body exploded from within. It was not a spray of blood, but a violent eruption of dark golden energy that expanded with the force of a collapsing star.
The floor of the Queen's Chamber shattered instantly, sending tremors through the very foundation of the Carmilla's main castle.
Rizevim threw his arms wide, his laughter piercing through the roar of the transformation.
"Kukuku! Hold on tight, everyone! The show is just beginning!"
From the center of the detonation, a massive silhouette unfurled. It grew with a predatory speed, its mass multiplying by the second. The vaulted stone ceiling, which had stood for centuries, groaned and then disintegrated as the creature's spinal ridges tore through it.
The high walls of the chamber collapsed outward, falling in heaps of rubble and dust, suddenly exposing the entire interior to the gloomy, clouded morning sky of Romania.
RARGHHHHH!
The air in the mountain pass vibrated and it felt as though it had been set on fire.
Three massive, serpentine heads emerged from the dust, each one crowning a neck thick with dark obsidian, violet-purple scales. Six colossal wings, spanning wider than the fortress itself snapped open with a sound like a thunderclap, clearing the remaining smoke with a single beat.
Queen Carmilla fell back, her eyes wide with a rare naked terror. She stared at the monstrosity that now towered where her castle once stood.
"A... Dragon?" she whispered, her voice barely audible over the settling debris.
Gabriel, hovering in the air, felt a cold shiver of recognition.
The aura was not just draconic, it was a concentrated essence of malice and ancient sins.
It felt like a stain on the very fabric of the world, a presence that the light of the Seraphs was meant to extinguish, yet it was so vast it threatened to swallow her radiance whole.
"That dragon... I know this feeling," Gabriel muttered, her wings fluttering erratically. "This ancient suffocating pressure."
It was Michael who answered.
His emerald eyes were fixed on the central head of the beast, his expression darker than it had been since the Great War.
He gripped the hilts of his twin swords of light so tightly that the blades hummed with a frantic energy.
"It is the Zoroastrian evil dragon," Michael said, his voice hard as iron. "The one who was defeated by the hero, Θraētaona of the Kingdom of Varena thousands of years ago."
Rizevim stepped forward, standing near the massive claws of the beast as if it were a common pet. He raised his hand toward the sky, his face lit with a sadistic glee.
"Diabolism Thousand Dragon!" Rizevim screamed, his voice carrying across the entire battlefield.
"Azi Dahaka!"
The three-headed dragon lowered its gaze toward the Seraphs. Its six eyes, glowing with a baleful intelligent light, seemed to calculate the weight of their souls.
The air began to taste of sulfur and ashes.
"What is this?"
A raspy, beastly voice vibrated through the air, vibrating the very marrow in Michael's bones.
It came from the central head of a creature that defied the logic of the natural world.
"It smells like shit," another head spoke, its voice a low, grinding hiss that sounded like tectonic plates shifting.
"Must be those birdies from heaven."
Rizevim threw his arms wide, his face twisted in a look of hysteric, almost religious ecstasy.
"Kukuku! Fabulous! Simply fabulous! Welcome back to this world, Evil Dragon!"
The central head of the beast lowered itself, its slitted, primal reptilian eyes locking onto the silver-haired Devil.
"Hmm. And who are you, little pygmy? You smell like a bat's leavings. Are you the one who called me from the dark?"
"My name is Rizevim Livan Lucifer," the Super Devil replied, his voice brimming with arrogance and excitement. "And I have called you to help me conquer another world. What do you think of that, Diabolus Thousand Dragon?"
Azi Dahaka froze for a split second, the silence stretching taut across the ruins of the castle. Then, the ground began to shake not from an earthquake, but from the dragon's laughter.
"Conquer... another world? HAHAHA"
Suddenly, hundreds of magical circles, glowing with an ominous obsidian light, erupted into existence in the air behind Azi Dahaka.
Within a heartbeat, hundreds of flaming meteorites, each the size of a carriage, lunged toward Rizevim.
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
The impact was deafening. Euclid Lucifuge had moved with blinding speed, manifesting a crimson-silver barrier of dense magical energy to shield himself and his master.
But the shockwave of the impact sent shards of stone flying like shrapnel.
"Hahaha! Are you fucking kidding me, brat?" Azi Dahaka roared, his middle head snapping forward. "Conquering another world? You speak as if you have even tasted this one!"
Rizevim's smile did not waver, even as the smoke from the dragon's attack curled around his shield. He stepped out from behind Euclid, his hazel eyes sparkling with madness.
"Don't you find this stagnant world to be a bit boring?" Rizevim asked, gesturing broadly at Michael, Gabriel, and Queen Carmilla.
"Look at these weaklings! The so-called rulers of the age. In the new world, after we kill The Great Red, there will be far stronger prey. Better fights. Someone who can make your blood run wild, someone who can make you feel the thrill of adrenaline and excitement again! Don't you want to find that world with me?"
Azi Dahaka scoffed, bringing one of his three heads so close to Rizevim that the heat from its nostrils singed the air.
The slitted reptilian eyes searched Rizevim's face, looking for a hint of a joke.
"You? Killing Great Red? ZEHAHAHAHAHA!"
FWUOHM!
Azi Dahaka unleashed a sudden point-blank burst of crimson flames. The heat was so intense it turned the stone floor to glass instantly. Euclid strained, pouring his mana into the crimson-silver shield to keep them from being vaporized.
"That's the funniest joke I've heard since they believed Aša could defeat Druj, But..." Azi Dahaka retracted his head, his massive body shifting as he turned toward the three figures standing in the ruins. Every step he took created a shockwave that made the air itself groan.
"Let's see what we have here. Two birdies and one bat. Why don't the three of you try to entertain me while I decide if this pygmy is worth eating?"
Michael didn't wait for the dragon to finish. He knew the legends of the Diabolus Thousand Dragon, the apocalyptic evil that Angra Mainyu created.
He knew this was a being that had once fought the armies of Zoroastrian Gods single-handedly.
"Gabriel! Queen Carmilla! Don't hold back!" Michael shouted.
Twelve golden wings of pure light flared to their maximum span.
Michael surged forward, a golden streak against the grey Romanian sky.
He unleashed the Heaven's Magic of Holy Light, manifesting thousands of holy spears that rained down like a golden curtain.
Simultaneously, Gabriel unleashed a wave of sonic holy energy, a song of destruction that resonated with the frequency of the divine as it feeding holy power to Michael in the sky.
Queen Carmilla vanished into the shadows, reappearing in a dozen places at once, her claws weaving a web of darkness that sought to bind the dragon's massive limbs.
Azi Dahaka merely watched them with an expression of bored curiosity.
"Is this the magic of the new age?" the dragon mocked. "How dissapointing."
As the thousands of holy spears descended, Azi Dahaka didn't move to dodge. He didn't even raise a physical claw.
Instead, a ripple of distorted air spread from his body. It was a forbidden technique, a manifestation of his legendary knowledge of one thousand magics.
The moment Michael's holy spears touched the ripple, they didn't explode as they simply dissolved. Their light was eaten, their holiness neutralized as if it had never existed.
"Anti-magic?" Michael gasped, his momentum faltering. "No... it's as if he understood the structure of my light and dismantled it mid-attack!"
"There is no magic that I do not know,boy!" Azi Dahaka rumbled, his three heads moving in perfect terrifying synchronization.
"I have tasted the spells of ancient gods long before your Father even whispered your names. Your magic has been written in Avesta since the creation of bread!"
With a casual flick of his tail, he shattered the shadow bindings Carmilla had placed on him.
FWUOOSH
The force of the movement was so great that the resulting wind pressure sent the Vampire Queen tumbling across the debris.
"Darkness magic against me?" the left head screamed. "Let me drown you in the darkness that predates gods!"
A black, jagged whirlwind erupted from the dragon's maw. It wasn't made of air, but of condensed pure darkness energy.
Gabriel tried to manifest a barrier of light, but the cyclone shredded through it like paper. She was thrown backward, her golden radiance flickering as the curses began to gnaw at her grace.
Michael roared in frustration, closing the distance to engage in melee. His swords of light carved arcs through the air, striking Azi Dahaka's purple scales.
CLANG
CLANG
The sound was like a hammer hitting an anvil. Michael's swords, capable of cleaving through even the strongest metal barely left white marks on the dragon's hide.
Azi Dahaka's durability was monstrous, enhanced by the power of the Holy Grail that Rizevim had used to anchor him to the world.
"My turn now!" Azi Dahaka said.
One of his heads snapped forward with a speed that defied his massive size. His fangs, razor-sharp and dripping with dark mana, lunged for Michael.
The Seraph barely dodged, but the dragon's jaw strength was so immense that the mere snapping of his teeth created a vacuum that pulled Michael toward him.
Suddenly, Azi Dahaka's body blurred.
"Time stop!"
The world turned a sickening shade of grey.
For a fraction of a second, time itself came to a grinding halt. Michael, Gabriel, and Carmilla were frozen like statues in mid-air.
Azi Dahaka moved with leisurely grace during that frozen moment, his three heads preparing a simultaneous elemental barrage.
When time resumed, the impact was instantaneous.
BOOM
BOOM
BOOM
A blast of compressed light, a jet-black lightning bolt, and a spear of absolute zero ice slammed into the three of them. The explosion was so vast it leveled what was left of the fortress walls.
Michael crashed into the earth, his armor cracked and his golden wings scorched. Gabriel was slumped against a pillar, her holy blood staining her white robes. Carmilla lay in a crater as her regal composure utterly destroyed.
Azi Dahaka loomed over them, his six wings casting a shadow that seemed to cover the entire horizon.
"You are weak," the dragon stated, his voice a hammer blow of disappointment. "Is this all the 'Strongest' have to offer? Let us end this farce. I shall see if your ashes are more interesting than your lives."
Azi Dahaka began to chant, a low, guttural sound that made the very molecules of the air vibrate.
Above the fortress, a gigantic meteorite began to form. Not of stone, but of condensed dark-crimson flames and forbidden demonic energy, twisting in on itself like a newborn star of damnation.
Rizevim watched the phenomenon take shape out of thin air and burst into laughter, disbelief and ecstasy mixing in his voice.
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" he roared with manic delight as his silver hair fluttering in the blizzard of wind pressure.
"That energy… that's the purest demonic power I've felt since my father!" His eyes burned with madness. "This is the best day of my life! KUKUKUHAHAHAHA!"
It was a city-ending spell, designed to incinerate the entire Carmilla territory in a single strike.
"Let's test your defensive magic one last time!" Azi Dahaka mocked, his three mouths glowing with the light of the impending disaster.
"Die with the knowledge that you were not even a worthy snack!"
The meteorite began its descent, the heat of its approach turning the morning clouds to steam. Michael looked up, his vision blurring, trying to summon the strength to raise one last shield.
Gabriel reached out a hand, her lips moving in a silent prayer.
But then, a shadow flickered across the ground.
Three figures appeared from the smoke and debris, standing directly behind the fallen Seraphs and the Vampire Queen. One was a woman with frozen blonde hair, another a boy with church vestments, and the third...
The third was a man whose presence was a cold absolute void.
He didn't look at the dragon. He didn't look at the falling star of dark crimson fire. He simply stood there as his dark hazel eyes fixed on the ancient beast that had claim the sky.
A whisper, cold as the deepest reaches of the abyss, echoed across the battlefield, cutting through the roar of the dragon's magic.
"Balance Breaker..."
His voice was devoid of emotion, a sharp contrast to the dragon's heat. At his side, the obsidian chalice flared with an eternal serene black flame.
And as the air slowly evaporated by the demonic crimson flame, he whispered.
"True Cross."