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[POV – Indra]
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
The clock in the hall of the gods made no sound—just my head keeping time by itself, like a muffled war drum. I stared into the void above the Himalayas, where the border between realms shimmers like oil on water. The wind cut—shhhhhh—and still the air felt heavy. Not just weather: an omen.
My plan was simple. Cynical, but simple: push the celestial faction against Shiva, wear both down, reap the leftovers. Chess politics; move pawns while kings yawn. Only, yeah, the new piece that dropped on the board broke the rules.
The "current Biblical god."
Not Yahweh, that stubborn craftsman who molded worlds and fussed over clay and laws. No. Another one. The kid from Sainan with a supernova's presence tucked behind a student's smile. He didn't just dodge my gaze—he threw it back. And when he decided to show up in our domain, he came without invitation, passport, or permission. Vrooom—a slit in reality, one foot in, one foot out, and boom: my entire force projection turned into a house of cards in a gale.
I'd seen plenty. Armies fall, dragons eat the sky like cotton candy, rishis bend mountains with mantras. But watching a "human" bump archangels up a tier like shedding skins, watching Gabriel smile and space smile back… that eclipsed more than a war spreadsheet. It eclipsed conviction.
"So, do we play the Infinite Dragon?" I thought, snapping my fingers—tlic. Ophis hovered at the edge of my reasoning like cold moonlight, indifferent to everything. Calling her is always like rolling dice blindfolded. Might be a six. Might be nothing. Might be silence—and silence, sometimes, is the worst of all.
My messenger came back pale. No words needed; the scent of an ultimatum clung to his skin.
"If you move the wrong piece, you vanish from the board," he said, his voice cracking on "vanish."
Plonk. My metal mug touched the table. I felt the question in my throat, but it arrived as a fact: Lord Astaroth evaporated, like chalk in rain. No trace, no dust, no epitaph. A clean, cruel, and… didactic demonstration.
"Understood," I answered the warning with no sender. The message wasn't just for me. It was for everyone who plays chess thinking the board's made of paper. It wasn't. It was living skin, it had an owner, and the owner had woken up in an unpredictable mood.
The worst part? No bluster. No trumpet. Just nothing where an important name used to be. Nothing weighs.
I shook my head, adjusting my crown as if metal could organize ideas. I wove alternatives: indirect alliances, smoke pacts, trading shadow for shadow. But the old intuition tapped—tok-tok—at my temple: "Don't test the edge, Indra. Not today."
I drew a long breath. The ozone smell turned sharper.
"Postpone Ophis," I ordered, curt. "Observe. Listen. And… hush."
My council looked at me like they were waiting for lightning. Instead, I offered prudence. Fine irony: the thunder god preferring silence. Lightning that falls without thinking becomes news. The kind that strikes at the right moment becomes history.
Bottom line, the move now was to accept the lesson: whoever makes an Astaroth vanish with a sigh doesn't need a speech. Just patience. And the patient ones tend to win.
Even so, I jotted a stubborn, almost childish wish in my mind: to see how far the "boy's" power went. Curiosity is a close cousin of recklessness. I only prayed—an ugly word in my mouth—that when the dice hit the felt again, I'd be the one to blow first.
Rrrumble. The sky growled in the distance, like a dog guarding the property line. The house wasn't mine.
Right. No Ophis. For now.
And no mistakes.
[POV – Zekram Bael]
BAM! The cane striking the mosaic rang through the council hall as if the stone itself disapproved. I like stone—it doesn't lie, doesn't laugh, doesn't bargain. It just sits there, cold, eternal, and listens. Unlike half these nobles.
"Unacceptable!" an old-guard devil spat the word like a pit.
The four Satans had thrown the proposal on the table with all the delicacy of a trident into a pond: a tactical alliance against the Khaos Brigade. Terms, clauses, promises. Very pretty on parchment. In the air, though, a different ink hung: fear.
Ajuka was the first to speak like an adult. He always looks like he's doing math while he talks—and maybe he is.
"The situation has changed," he said, glasses dropping a millimeter. "The celestial faction, at this moment, could handle everyone, devils and fallen angels, and still come out on top. Not rhetoric. Numbers. And… 'quality.'"
The word spun—qual-i-ty—under the vaulted ceiling. I saw one or two old foxes swallow hard.
"New Super Angels created in optimized series…" Ajuka went on, clinical. "And the old guard—Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael, Michael—unlocking stages we honestly thought out of reach. They've already hit the 'super' tier and are iterating."
Iterating. These people talk fancy to say: "they got stronger." I accepted it. I like clarity, but mathematical precision helps break stubbornness sometimes.
Silence. The kind where you can hear dust fall—pss. Even Sirzechs, usually the maestro of niceties, measured his words before laying them down.
"I know it's bitter," he said calmly, open hand, palm down, asking for ground, "but it's also… opportunity. Cooperating now isn't kneeling. It's surviving so we can choose how to live later. There's a new path for our kind. Less cold war, fewer orphans, more… future."
I let the phrases settle like wine in a glass. Only then did I rap the cane again.
Tok.
"The future is built with a backbone, not posters," I said. "And a spine bends easy at the first shove. Let's talk about the shove everyone's pretending not to see: Lord Astaroth."
The name dropped like a loose cork—plop—into a walled lake of stares. Suddenly, much interest in the ceiling, much concern for ring polish, much desire to be invisible. Yeah… nobody likes to face a fresh ghost.
"A house leader was erased," I said, flat. "Not on the field. Not in a duel. Erased. No trial, no letter, no 'we regret to inform.' Doesn't that itch the back of your necks?"
Sirzechs clenched his jaw for a second; then relaxed. Ajuka, by contrast, didn't blink. He just moved an invisible pawn on a mental board.
"Fact," he said. "Lord Astaroth left the underworld, went to the human world, and tried to kill Yuuki Rito. The outcome… you know it. It was the result of his choice and his alone. If every time someone tries to snatch talent for a peerage and insists on touching what he doesn't understand and then falls, we'll be stuck in the last century. And dead."
Translation: the Astaroth clan "washed its hands." Ajuka himself, being the sanest Astaroth of the millennium, tied the ribbon: "Don't drag us to that wake." Pragmatism? Survival? Guilt? Mix in a glass, sip slowly.
"I don't mourn Astaroth," I replied, honest. "I mourn the precedent. Today it was one. Tomorrow it can be another. Who guarantees the hand that erases won't decide to… rearrange our chess out of whim?"
A murmur—brrbrr—ran through the room. Fear needs a translator. I translated for them.
"We're proposing alliance with someone showing power without counterweight. Where's the lever? If everything depends on a new god's mood, our 'future' becomes a one-day holiday."
Sirzechs leaned in, the red in his bluish eye flickering like a coal under ash.
"Zekram, you know me. I won't ask you to trust fairytales. Then ask for guarantees. Charter, rite, binding terms. I can get them. But remember the map: the Khaos Brigade planted bombs in the corners. We don't have the luxury of spectators."
Ajuka nodded, technical:
"We can codify a protocol of non-interference in internal house affairs, sealed in neutral dimension, with three-faction witnesses. The other side has already shown… a preference for restraint. The Astaroth case was a provoked exception. Social math points to stability with a pact, instability without."
Social math. Who'd have thought a Bael as old as I am would hear that in assembly and find it… sensible. The world changes. Or it falls.
I laced my fingers, felt the cool rings. Looked around. Saw nobles weighing memories and fear, one by one. Saw the four Satans with lemon-bitten faces—yeah, nobody likes being reminded they rule but don't govern destiny.
Clang. The smaller gate shut; a messenger bowed, whispered something in Grayfia's ear. She lifted her chin a millimeter. Bad news always has that perfume. The hall grew colder.
"Field report," she announced. "The Khaos Brigade tested another device on the eastern coast. It failed due to… external interference. Not ours."
Translation: some "someone" unplugged the bomb mid-air. No signature. No note.
I inhaled, slow. The cane didn't tremble. My voice did get rougher—like stone scraping.
"Take it from me," I said, aiming at the part of the room that treats politics like theater. "Not supporting the four Satans today is easy. Even popular. But confusing pettiness with strategy kills more than spears. The Khaos Brigade has no ideology; it has appetite. And appetite without a plate turns into a bite in a leg. Ours."
I looked at Sirzechs. He didn't smile. I respected that.
"I vote we proceed," I went on, "but with iron brakes. Clear clauses, penalties, mutual audits. Include in the pact an explicit ban on summary elimination of house leaders without an exceptional three-faction council. If the 'new god' is so sure of himself, he'll accept it. If he won't… we'll know the ground we're standing on."
Ajuka scratched his chin, already doing equations. Sirzechs tilted his head, agreeing in silence. A demon in the back grunted a "hm" that, translated, meant "maybe."
The noise seeped back—tok-tok-tok—fingers drumming, quills scraping parchment, coughs. The hall breathed. So did I.
I liked the uncomfortable feeling of walking a cliff edge with a short rein. That's how you cross an old bridge: test the plank, don't run, don't stare down too long.
"And what about the Astaroth clan?" someone finally asked, in the tone of a man who doesn't want the answer.
Ajuka didn't blink:
"No official support. No public mourning. We own the internal failure, we preserve the species. Anyone wanting to turn this into a personal crusade can sign their own sentence. I won't sign for anyone."
Pragmatism is ugly, but it pays the bills. Half the room made a face; the other half exhaled. I, as usual, kept the face of a man who orders chairs straightened while a meteor falls.
Dum-dum. The underworld's heart thumped in the foundations. Sometimes, you can hear it. When I do, I remember: our eternity is on loan.
"We adjourn," Sirzechs said, like a teacher collecting exams. "I'll bring back a draft of the pact and a reply. Until then, no one acts alone. I repeat: no one."
Chairs creaked—creak-creak. Cloaks dragged—schooo. Eyes crossed. Silent promises, veiled threats. Politics is string music played with blades.
I stayed for last. I like to leave when the echo dies. The cold floor stone told me the day's story without a word: fear tamed, wary hope, pragmatism like hard bread. Can you live with that? You can. Hungry, but you can.
At the door, I turned my head a notch. Saw Ajuka already sketching structures. Saw Sirzechs staring at no one, thinking of everyone. Saw, for a moment, the shadow of a boy from Sainan strolling through the room, like someone flicking the lights off and on just to remind us he can.
Tack. The cane touched the threshold.
"May the future find us seated," I muttered, half laughing, half praying, "but with a sword in hand."
Outside, the underworld smelled of wet stone. Plip-plop. Invisible drops fell from nowhere. And up above, where rock becomes a ceiling for stars that prefer the dark, I felt the board shift again.
The game didn't stop. It just went quiet. And silence, among monsters, is when it's decided who breathes first.