[ R-error …]
[ Anomaly detected in the quest completion process. … ]
[ Please complete the quest … please. ]
'That's more polite… but no.'
Doma ignored the holographic window's protests and turned his attention to Heracles.
Many might think this act stemmed from pure whim on the part of the ice demon.
Which was… partly true.
Doma hadn't appreciated the System pushing him to finish the quest at that exact moment.
Even under Muzan's orders, he'd never truly obeyed when it came to eliminating demon slayers.
Kamiya Rengoku had been an exceptional case in a century of existence, since he killed him under duress.
It was for all these reasons that he wanted to pursue this quest his way, not according to the System's will.
What? The end justifies the means? Not exactly, in the opinion of the ice demon with a century of experience.
'Getting something outside my plan? No problem, but it'll be on my terms and not the other way around, tss…'
He thought, as Satan's aura rose around him.
Doma's deceased son had been right.
His father was a control freak, and that trait was revealing itself fully now, in the heart of Ragnarök.
Admit outright that he's on the gods' side? Ridiculous.
Follow the System's laws? Ridiculous.
Save humanity on their terms? Even more ridiculous.
Doma no longer believed in rules, ethics, morals—and especially not that absurd common sense people are conditioned to follow from childhood.
He believed in only one thing anymore: eternity.
Doma no longer wanted to die; he desired to live eternally with his loved ones and fully enjoy this existence.
The only chain still holding back this demon, whom Heracles was watching closely, boiled down to one word: will.
Even if eternity marked the end of his journey, Doma intended to reach it with as few deaths as possible.
Was that absurd? Maybe.
But the demon refused to bother others with his selfish ambitions, for the same reason he rejected the System's easy path: control.
You're kind because of your upbringing or altruism? Doma is kind because he decided to be.
You save out of rationality? Doma does it because he decided to.
You love out of love? Doma does it because he decided to.
He exercises absolute control over his will, just as he now controls his physical and spiritual body.
Why? Because he doesn't feel emotions every moment like ordinary mortals. So he simply chooses the course of action.
His control is no joke, and his closest intimates quickly realize this facet of the demon.
The System had dared to decide everything was over, when he hadn't even been able to give his all against Jack, nor test his valkyrie in full combat.
That's also why Doma refused.
Thus, his will and control obsession kept him from becoming unreasonable and bothering others during his quest for immortality.
After all, Doma considered it rude and not Chill to involve others in his plans.
Especially when they don't agree in one way or another, which creates an unpleasant situation for both parties.
Doma is many things, but surely not rude enough to force people into embarrassing things.
Even Aizen never forced his subordinates to trust him, so why would he?
"Haha, your question is interesting~" he said, sketching a smile toward the demigod while applying the valkyrie's power to his fans.
At that instant, the winter created by the Mikos weakened before reborn as a raging blizzard.
Blood Demon Art: Blizzard.
This power allows Doma to freeze his surroundings in berserker mode, without control, unlike the winter priestesses.
This ability was used under the influence of vector manipulation.
The result was a meteorological disaster that neither Heracles nor any god had ever seen.
"I… I'm cold…"
"Scum, share some of your blanket!"
"M-mom, I… I'm having trouble breathing…"
Of course, the audience wasn't spared from the glacial onslaught.
With such a handy testing ground for Ragnarök, Doma wanted to test the limits of his potential thanks to Hlökk.
'So this is Hlökk's power? Jack, you really were just a mere mortal in the end,' thought the divine demon as the storm raged in the arena.
Vector manipulation controls the direction of any moving object, and Doma's cold control allows him to cool or freeze those objects.
Surprisingly, these two powers have one thing in common: they influence the movement of things. The first can accelerate or decelerate, while the second specializes in slowing down.
If you have a bit of physics knowledge, you know that heat is produced by a body's movement.
That's also why absolute zero symbolizes the stopping of everything under its influence.
All this shows how similar the ice heart and vector are as blood demon arts in principle.
This similarity created a synergy, which was fully exploited by Hlökk's power.
As with Jack, the valkyrie revealed Doma's potential to the maximum against Heracles.
Hlökk's power amplified Doma's already colossal strength, exploiting every last spark of his potential, already deemed immense by Muzan himself.
Doma's fans were imbued with his divinized blood, but they weren't true divine weapons.
Thanks to the tsundere loli, whom Doma had rallied to his cause, they became pseudo-divine weapons.
This state elevated the raw power of Doma's abilities to another level, after Hlökk exploited his potential.
At that moment, it wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say a winter god was descending upon the arena.
'What power…' thought Heracles, his face grave, before deciding to summon his final trump card:
the power of Cerberus.
Heracles raised his adamantium club before hurling it in a wide arc.
Under the snowstorm, the weapon twisted and emitted wild roars.
"Come to me, O guardian of the underworld: Cerberus!" At that command, the divine weapon metamorphosed.
It took the appearance of a gigantic phantom Cerberus before "devouring" Heracles entirely.
(Image)
The audience, now protected by the gods' blessing after Doma's winter crisis, witnessed the Greek hero's transformation.
Heracles showed through his actions that he was ready to sacrifice his life to end the natural catastrophe ravaging the arena.
"Twelfth Labor: Cerberus, The Hound of Hades…" he announced silently, as pain coursed through his entire body.
(Image)
Heracles knew he didn't have much time left.
Not only had he been poisoned by Doma's cursed snow, but each of his divine techniques drained a bit more of his vitality.
If he couldn't defeat the ice demon quickly… death would come for him.
"Whistle… you're going super saiyan on me? Unfortunately, that won't be enough," he said before immediately attacking the demigod with a sweep of his divine fan.
'I could have interrupted the transformation, like Eren Yeager, but where's the fun in that? It would even go against the goal behind my refusal to end the quest right away,' he thought as several ice tendrils headed toward Heracles.
The tendrils' size far exceeded that of a tree, since Doma had become much stronger than in his KNY days.
Blood Demon Art: Ice Vines.
"You'll need more than that!!!" roared Heracles before slamming his fist down on the tendril formed by the frozen vines.
The attack was pulverized, and the building behind Doma was marked with a gigantic claw imprint. Yet the demon sustained no damage.
"Blood Demon Art: Lotus Petals," he pronounced calmly while watching the demigod ignore his attacks with terrifying determination.
All the ice tendrils, all the slashing petals were reduced to nothing or swept away effortlessly by the Greek berserker. Even covered in frost and wounds, Heracles advanced inexorably toward Doma.
The shadow of a colossal fist loomed through the cloudy sky, as a beastly roar escaped the hero's throat.
"Apheles Heros!!!"
(Image)
Heracles' fist crashed down without the slightest hesitation on Doma.
"Blood Demon Art: Vec—"
Contrary to Hermes' and the rest of the spectators' expectations, Doma's vector manipulation failed to stop the assault. The impact was so violent that the demon was hurled against a building, while the Greek hero, panting, managed to overwhelm him with two successive strikes.
"You can redirect others' force, can't you?" launched Heracles, covered in frost, standing over a smoking crater formed by the shockwave.
"Unfortunately for you, you seem to have two limits," he said, slowly advancing toward the demon on the ground.
"First, you can't handle an attack exceeding a certain threshold…"
He didn't have time to finish: an ice tendril surged from the ground and tried to pierce his skin.
He managed to block the blow, but a shiver of dread ran through him.
'Damn… I can't feel my right shoulder anymore,' he thought, seeing his flesh necrotizing under the cold's effect.
"Sorry, my dear hero, but… *cough*" Doma slowly stood up, a smirk on his lips. Heracles then noticed something strange:
The injuries he'd inflicted on his face, as well as those left by Jack on his stomach… they had completely vanished.
He hadn't regenerated immediately after his Volundr with Hlökk, no… Doma had waited.
He'd found it amusing to let Heracles give his all, only to make him realize the horror of the truth.
This fight had been rigged from the start.
"H-how?!" exclaimed Heracles, staring at the demon's perfectly intact stomach.
"Don't you wanna let me finish my line? *sigh* If you really wanna know, then—" Doma turned his head toward Heimdall, posted outside the arena.
The Norse god remained confused, not understanding why the demon's and hero's attention had suddenly turned to him.
"I didn't properly explain my identity to Heimdall, hehe~" Doma threw out in a mocking tone.
His words provoked a wave of discontent among the spectators, but he ignored the murmurs and continued calmly:
"Dear Heracles, I didn't give up my humanity to become a demon, nor to gain eternal youth." He paused, a sincere glint crossing his gaze. "I wanted immortality."
At this scandalous announcement, Ares roared in indignation, crying injustice.
Hermes and Loki exchanged a worried glance, frowning.
The two cunning gods weren't fooled.
'Immortality? That's impossible… except for the Primordials,' thought Zeus, who had just arrived in the gods' box.
The king of Olympus was still covered in bandages, remnants of his fierce battle against Adam in Ragnarök's second round.
"Stop complaining, Ares. That kid's lying," declared Zeus, heavily sitting down in a seat, arms crossed.
Even if his words briefly calmed the murmurs, his golden eyes remained fixed on Doma, scrutinizing his every expression.
"B-but father, he regenerated after two fatal attacks!" protested Ares, but no one paid him any attention.
All the gods were now hanging on the demon's every word.
"I was born with a rare ailment," Doma resumed, his voice strangely neutral, "an ailment that prevented me from feeling the slightest emotion. So I started by imitating others."
He shrugged, as if recounting an unimportant anecdote.
"Even though I managed to fool everyone, including my own parents…" He let out a sigh before adding in an almost annoyed tone: "I couldn't fool myself. And that's when I met him."
At those words, Odin gripped his throne's armrests, an oppressive aura emanating from him.
He had misinterpreted the demon's words.
"He granted me eternal youth… no," Doma corrected with an ironic smile, "a path to the eternal life and happy life I desired. But there was a price."
He paused for a moment before resting his indifferent gaze on Heracles.
The Greek hero remained frozen, expecting more, just like the entire amphitheater's audience.
After all, it was the famous tragic flashback of the "villain."
"Why are you just standing there? Did you really think I was gonna tell you my whole life story? Haha~"
The moment those words left the demon's lips, a wave of boos erupted in the arena.
The furious spectators swore and shouted at Doma, revolted by how he'd mocked them.
"Calm down, ok, ok." He raised his hands in appeasement, a fake amused smile on his lips.
"I'll add this anyway, since I don't like talking too much about my long life. Thanks to that person, I can feel emotions… but only through powerful stimuli, like my encounter with Hlökk and Thrúd." he explained in a light tone, without realizing the psychological damage inflicted on the two Valkyries.
"Have I satisfied your curiosity enough? In case you hadn't noticed, you're dying."
No sooner had he spoken than Heracles spat a stream of blood.
The poison in London's snow had already wreaked too much havoc in his body.
He had too little time left.
"I see… you're not scum who sacrificed his humanity for pleasure," declared the demigod with a weak smile, finally understanding the truth. "Sorry for taking you for a disgrace among humans… but I plan to win!"
Gathering his last strength, Heracles charged Doma with fierce determination.
Many would have thought the ensuing events would be an epic battle between a hero and a demon.
Unfortunately, real life isn't a fairy tale.
Contrary to what the audience expected, the demon didn't back down this time.
This fight was no longer useful to Doma, since he'd gathered enough data on himself.
He now knew the new limits of his vector, the power of his ice, and the compatibility between Hlökk and him.
The Greek god had fulfilled his mission, and Doma intended to do the same.
"The World…!!!"
Absolute zero.
****
Author's note:
Finally, this arc is coming to an end and I was able to eliminate a few secondary characters.
I'm satisfied.
What? I didn't post yesterday? Sorry, but my personal life has been pretty complicated lately.
Thanks for your understanding.
Little bonus: the audience is currently poisoned by Doma, but he can prevent their organs from deteriorating.