Bakuzan closed his eyes and tilted his head slightly.
— Let go of Lucifer, he said in a grave voice.
— You can join us if you wish…
— Or simply go wherever you please and create a new life for yourself.
Ravena remained silent for a long moment.
Her gaze lost itself in the void, melancholic.
Everything was going too fast, too strong.
— And Neru then? she murmured finally.
Erasa's voice resonated from her mask.
— If he truly loves you, he must accept your freedom.
— Not keep you under the orders of my idiot father.
Erasa turned around, her tone acerbic.
— Anyway, if his loyalty is that blind, his days are numbered.
— My father… and everyone close to him… they're all going to die.
A crash suddenly tore the silence.
Kabooom!
An explosion shook the already ruined castle.
All eyes turned toward the point of impact.
A silhouette appeared in the smoke and debris.
Body almost broken, horns jutting from his skull, long hair floating around his face.
A carnivorous smile stretched his lips.
— Well, well… he said in a cutting voice, it's loud in here.
Erasa stepped back slightly, her eyes narrowing under her mask.
— Azazel?
Bakuzan frowned, incredulous.
— What…? Is that really him?
Ravena swallowed, unable to utter a word.
Azazel took a step forward, staggering slightly.
He seemed weakened, as if mistreated by the flames of hell itself.
— You left your hell all alone? Erasa asked, her voice cold.
— What are you doing here?
Azazel turned his head toward Ravena.
— I'd rather not be here, he murmured.
— But there's something in me… something that led me here.
— I suppose it's… the end.
He smiled, a smile that made one shiver.
Then, his voice became sharper:
— Everyone here is capable of seeing my true form!
Bakuzan frowned, lost.
— What exactly is he talking about? he asked, his voice sharp but tinged with incomprehension.
Erasa turned her eyes from the explosion to answer him calmly.
— Listen well, she said. Azazel is not a "normal" entity.
— What you see… what I see… is not what the other gods see.
Bakuzan narrowed his eyes.
— How so?
— Azazel is what we call an Instantaneous Multiform, Erasa explained.
— An instantaneous multiform. His appearance changes in real time, according to whoever is looking at him.
Bakuzan remained silent, incredulous.
— So you mean he… constantly transforms?
— Exactly. But it's not an illusion.
— Each observer sees him differently, according to their fear, their perception of cruelty, or even their imagination.
— If you're afraid of something, he will take that form.
— If you're afraid of nothing… then he will take the form your mind associates with cruelty itself.
— And if you ignore even the concept of cruelty… he will take the form you attribute to the devil.
Bakuzan frowned his golden eyebrows even more, unable to hide his stupéfaction.
— That's why no one can ever say what he really looks like…
— Everyone thinks they see the "true" form, but in reality, it changes with every gaze.
Erasa tilted her head slightly, gravely.
— That's why he's also called the demon of a thousand faces.
— No one can apprehend him as a single entity, and those who try… always fail.
She let a heavy silence fall, letting Bakuzan digest the information.
— Understand it well… she added.
— Azazel is not just dangerous.
— He is… a cosmic anomaly. A "bug" in reality.
— And what you see is only a fraction of what he truly is.
Bakuzan stayed frozen, silent, while the air around them still vibrated with the echoes of the explosion and the silhouette of a thousand faces.
Bakuzan frowned, his golden eyes fixed on Azazel's broken silhouette.
— And if we attack him…? he murmured.
— Does it work, with all these stories of forms and different perceptions?
Erasa sighed, casting a grave look at him.
— It's not that simple, she said.
— Azazel doesn't just change appearance. He manipulates the unfolding of events themselves.
Bakuzan narrowed his eyes.
— How so? You mean… we can't reach him?
— Exactly. He possesses a technique we've already seen in action in the past.
— It's called KONRAN, Erasa explained, her voice cold and steady.
— It's an Anomaly-type technique.
— It manipulates neither time nor space… but it resets a precise portion of an event.
— If something is unfavorable to him, whether an imminent defeat or the effect of an irreversible attack, KONRAN erases all consequences.
— Once activated, it's irreversible: it cannot be stopped, modified, or countered.
Ravena shivered slightly, her hand clenching the edge of her cape.
— When he uses it, Erasa continued, space-time becomes unstable and chaotic… like a glitched, psychedelic background.
— During that time, all attacks are automatically canceled, blurred, or suppressed.
— The damage he would have suffered… is erased as if it never existed.
— He "resets" the event to a previous state, free of all harm.
Ravena remained speechless, unable to tear her eyes from Azazel.
— But there's worse, Erasa said in a lower tone.
— Even though KONRAN is supposed to be absolute, there have been cases…
— Where the injuries inflicted on Azazel persisted.
— Where the very logic of the technique was disrupted.
— Mü Thanatos, for example, has already broken KONRAN's laws by striking Azazel… and yet, some wounds remained.
Bakuzan stepped back, eyebrows furrowed, his fighter instincts on maximum alert.
— So… even his most absolute technique can fail? he asked, incredulous.
Erasa nodded.
— Not "fail," she corrected.
— Let's say rather that certain beings… can disrupt its logic.
— That's why Azazel is an anomaly. An entity against which even absolute powers lose their meaning.
— It's not enough to strike or defend. You must understand… and accept the very nature of what you're facing.
Ravena, for her part, felt her breath catch.
She had just understood that what they had before them was not a simple enemy.
It was a living catastrophe, a walking paradox, capable of rendering all laws and techniques ineffective, even those they thought inviolable.
And in the midst of this chaos, Azazel's silhouette advanced slowly, a carnivorous smile still frozen on his thousand-formed face.
Azazel spoke, his voice resonating like a distant echo in the great ruined hall:
— Don't worry… today, it's not me you'll be dealing with, but the being who has made me his mask.
Erasa, Bakuzan, and Ravena frowned, surprised by his words.
Azazel raised part of his severed hand, and a shiver ran through the air.
— I was wounded by Mü Thanatos extremely long ago, he said.
— I could never regenerate those wounds… not because I was incapable, but because I no longer wanted to depend on the one who uses me as a mask… and who now wants to manifest.
The other three remained perplexed, unable to understand.
— I tried to collect souls to get closer to the Divine and free myself from this body… but alas…
— I fear that… he murmured, tilting his head, this is my end.
Erasa, surprised, frowned:
— Your end?
— Yes… Azazel added, in an icy tone.
— You, apostle of Mü Thanatos…
Azazel's body began to crack, letting out bursts of pure light. He smiled, a smile that chilled the blood:
— But know… that even you, even her… you couldn't face this thing!
A terrible explosion of light burst from him, blinding the three observers instantly.
Erasa, Bakuzan, and Ravena covered their eyes, trying to resist the glow that seemed to want to consume them.
Then, silence. The light disappeared.
When they lowered their arms and looked again… what they saw defied all logic.
The entity stood before them. A presence that seemed to defy space and time.
Physical appearance and armor:
Its humanoid silhouette, athletic and sculpted, seemed composed of a non-organic material, almost perfect.
Its skin was pure white, contrasting with purple veins or patterns running across its torso and limbs, like biomechanical armor.
Its face was entirely strange like a white mask, smooth, without mouth or nose, revealing only two slits for the eyes, giving it an impassive and judging air.
Its segmented silver armor covered the shoulders and hips, while midnight blue and purple drapes fell around it, evoking both a dignitary and an ancient mage.
In its hands, two imposing weapons: halberds, spears, or staffs, made of dark, twisted metal, ending in luminous tips and engraved with purple energetic symbols.
Ravena felt an icy shiver run down her spine.
Erasa and Bakuzan, motionless, knew they were facing something far greater than them, a force surpassing all their past experiences… and which had just manifested in all its horror.