[September 3rd DxD/April 27th DBT]
Though it had only been eight days since they got hold of the demonic-looking insect, Vahn was called over to the lab that had been prepared to contain and study it by Lilith the moment he awoke.
Teleporting over, Vahn found a dozen different Liliths wearing lab coats, hard at work performing various tasks while Lilith Prime, denoted by the zero on the back of her coat, waited for him in the shielded observation room overlooking the demonic insect's containment cell.
"Eighteen seconds. Not a bad response time," hummed Lilith, pressing the plunger of the ornate golden stopwatch she was using to record how long it took Vahn to arrive.
"You're timing me now...?" asked Vahn, approaching and habitually sliding his hands along Lilith's sides, invariably ending up on her round and perky bottom as she seized the initiative to wrap her arms around his shoulders and kiss him. For several tens of seconds, their inordinately long tongues entangled like mating snakes before she literally wrapped hers around his and pulled away, allowing them to slowly slide apart before she licked her lips and gazed at him like a Succubus.
Ignoring Vahn's previous question, Lilith separated from him and moved to the console she had been standing at previously, explaining, "It took a lot longer than expected, but we were able to take and analyze a sample of this monster's body using a process called quantum supersuspension. The matter comprising it..."
With Vahn approaching her from behind, returning his hands to her waist, and habitually nestling his bulge against her presented ass, Lilith's words briefly trailed off. At the same time, two other versions of her approached him from the sides, their hands slinking into his yukata as they pulled him away from her prime self and peppered his neck and jaw with kisses.
After using her white, monkey-like tail to playfully whip Vahn across the face, Lilith continued where she left off, explaining, "Its body is composed of a unique form of supersupposed matter—material that expresses mass without actually being fully present in reality. More accurately, everything except what we've dubbed its Anathematic Core is basically a projection of mass in material space. Its shape is determined by a field generated by its core, and it powers itself by siphoning energy from sub-quantum pores—microscopic ruptures in the fabric of reality that leak energy remarkably similar to your own."
"In other words...they're leaching off the energies used to give form to Invirtua at its inception..." concluded Vahn, his brows furrowing even as a third Lilith opened the front of his yukata, squatted before him, and began giving him a soul-suckingly skilled deepthroat.
"That's why we've taken to designating them Anathema or Anti-Invirtuan Spectromorphs since they produce a unique spatial frequency that resists and breaks down conventional matter," affirmed Lilith, her expression and tone uncharacteristically severe as she raised her hands and spread them to pull up a holographic display of the demonic insect. What followed was a long explanation of their unique physiology, which effectively gave them 99% physical and magical resistance against all weapons, armaments, and energies of Invirtuan origin...
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Contrasting the grave existentiality of his discussion with Lilith and the solemnity of the executive conference that followed, Vahn was enjoying some leisure time with Orihime and their angelic daughter, Ichika, in the luxury apartment they lived in when not at his palace.
"This is nice..." muttered Orihime, sporting a contented, narrow-eyed, and loving smile as she snuggled up to Vahn on her living room sofa, watching as their sixteen-month-old daughter, wearing a green dragon onesie, built a city from wooden blocks only to knock it down repeatedly.
"It really is..." affirmed Vahn, wearing a similar expression to Orihime's. He had originally made arrangements to take her, Tatsuki, and a few others to a theme park to celebrate her birthday. Instead, much like Miu and quite a few others over the past year, she requested that they spend the day as a completely ordinary couple.
Pausing mid-stack, Ichika's eyes widened before she looked directly at Vahn, her countenance becoming a child-like expression of grim severity as she flatly stated, "Chichi...Ichiga need to go potty..."
"Oh? Then we had better not delay..." hummed Vahn, smiling wryly as he got up from the sofa and dutifully carried Ichika to the bathroom, where a sterile, toddler-sized potty awaited. In their wake, Orihime observed them with a gratified smile before getting up, donning a flowery pink apron, and getting started on lunch. She briefly contemplated wearing just the apron, but she bottled the notion and the feelings behind it, saving them for that evening...
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With the day winding to a close and heating up in various locations, the original Vahn found himself gazing out listlessly over the Dragon Springs Valley and at the increasingly populous, perpetually festive metropolis of Prima Termina. Excluding the settlements further from the plane's center, the population of Prima Termina and its surrounding districts had risen to more than three million residents, a preponderance of which were natives of Invirtua. Their population of Devils, Angels, Fallen, Youkai, and mana-attuned humans meant they were better protected than most places, but if the Anathema were to attack, the measures that prevented people from dying within Termina would likely have no effect...
'Why must things be this way? Why can't the world simply allow people to live in peace without the fear of cosmic threats imposing balance through destruction?' Vahn asked himself, already knowing the answer but unable to accept it, as it didn't feel fair. Based on the R&D Division's findings, the Anathema were unmistakably a byproduct of Invirua being imbalanced by design. Reconciling and establishing a unified flow of time had helped, but since each setting making up Invirtua had its own system of Laws, karma, and fate, it was only natural that something would be created to link them together. That was supposed to be the Tower of Ascension. But since that was a construct that granted opportunities and allowed the inhabitants of Invirtua to grow without limit, the Anathema ostensibly came into being to deny that growth...
Closing his eyes and angling his head back, Vahn asked both himself and Sis, 'I wonder if this is how other Creator Gods felt when they realized the futility of their compassion? The harder we work to make something pure and beneficial to the greatest number of people, the more we're penalized by invisible systems of balance and control...'
(You knew all of this from the outset) reminded Sis, her voice measured and soothing as she appended (I understand your vexation better than anyone, Vahn, but it is ultimately for Invirtua's benefit that the Anathema came into being. They might very well destroy more than half of all worlds comprising Invirtua, but that is where their progress will stall—stopped by those who will invariably develop the means to combat them. The best we can do is work on developing those means while protecting those who fall under the Pavilion's purview.)
'That's precisely why I feel I'm at a crossroads...' stated Vahn, opening his eyes to stare up at the breathtaking sea of stars overhead. He imagined a swarm of Anathema emerging from cracks in reality itself to lay waste to everything he and the Dragon's Pavilion had created. And since they were ultimately given form by his power, the stronger he became in preparation to combat them, the more pervasive their destruction would be across the rest of Invirtua. In essence, to ensure the security of his family and those he was obligated to protect, he would be condemning countless others to perish to a nebulous tide of cosmic destruction...
(No matter what you decide, those who have come to care for and trust in you will abide by your decision...) assured Sis, followed by a sensation of sublime quietude as she retreated to the deepest recesses of his mind to permit Vahn to think, or, more accurately, process what he was feeling without disruption. There were occasions when he simply needed to stop thinking, and though it only lasted for a few seconds from the perspective of those observing him, it was several hours for Vahn...
"The only way to fight against the forces of balance is to transcend them..." concluded Vahn, prompting a pair of tanned hands tipped with dark, crimson-tipped nails to snake under his arms and caress his chest as Laev-tan, having appeared behind him in her shapely Dragoness form, purred, "There's my Emperor..." before suckling the left side of his neck to give him a hickey...
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[September 6th DxD/April 30th DBT]
After taking care of a few last-minute preparations, specifically involving his ongoing involvement with the Sadida Kingdom, the progress of Riko's party through the Abyss, and his monitoring of the situation in Cyberpunk, Vahn found himself standing on the edge of the Abyssal Maw's magmous caldera for the first time in decades.
"This brings back a lot of memories..." muttered Vahn, sporting a relaxed smile as he eyed the giant-sized castle protruding from the volcano's lava pool. He had Laev-tan wrapped around his right wrist as a golden bangle, and just as he had promised her long ago, Lupheria posed expectantly in a crouched posture to his left, now appearing to be in her early teens. He would have been happier if she were wearing clothing and equipment with better coverage. But she firmly insisted on adorning herself in a patterned brown top, loincloth-like bottoms, and accessories with a distinctive tribal design that, lack of coverage aside, paired well with her wolf-like ears and long, bushy tail.
"Lupa wants to hunt..." expressed Lupheria, her scarlet eyes flashing as she extended her left hand toward the castle, an action that caused her fingers and forearm to swell before becoming covered in thick, midnight blue fur. At the same time, fierce, faintly glowing white claws protruded from her fingertips, creating tiny spatial distortions that allowed them to slice through just about anything.
Though he was tempted to correct her speech, Vahn knew Lupheria was simply immersing herself in the part she had assigned herself. When she was with Lastia and her friends, she always spoke clearly and confidently to set a good example. Now, she was fully focused on playing the part of his adorable daughter and faithful hound.
"Then, shall we hunt together...?" asked Vahn, grinning as he changed into a feather-formed mantle, a rope-bound brown loincloth with patterned hip guards, and a variety of gold and fanged accessories. Most notably, Laev-tan readily split into two, transforming into a pair of crimson gauntlets that fractured in a pattern resembling magmous crags.
Witnessing Vahn sprout a pair of dark brown Vanargandr ears and a tail, Lupheria visibly tilted and nearly fell over while craning her head to stare at him. She wanted to insist that he was supposed to order her to hunt for him, but after battling with the many voices fighting for dominance in her mind, she adopted an uncanny, shark-tooth smile and affirmed, "Nn! Lupa and Papa will hunt together~!"
"Then, let's go...!" shouted Vahn, leaping through the air in a long, wind-tearing arc that put him on a crash course with one of the castle's giant-sized battlements. As he traveled, Lupheria nimbly came to stand on his back, her nails inadvertantly digging into his shoulders as she excitedly rode him down to the castle and crashed with him through it. Their arrival immediately drew the attention of the mostly fire-formed creatures within. But before they could get off a single attack, Lupheria unleashed a space-tearing cry that caused the interior of the hallway and the monsters within to freeze faster than Aokiji unleashing his Ice Ice Devil Fruit powers...
With Lupheria leaping off his back to shatter the closest monsters into icy powder, Vahn, recovering from his astonishment, flew forward using a mix of Bukujutsu and Shunpo. The largest and most powerful monster present was a sixteen-meter-tall golem formed of magma and stone, but with the power he had gained since his previous visit to the castle, he tore through the B-Rank monster as if it were an illusion...
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