POV: Meruem
[Pocket Dimension]
6:20 PM
"I'm surprised you didn't try to interfere while I was recruiting your friends," Meruem said to the blonde witch of Grauzauberer while they walked through the lush landscape of the pocket dimension.
"I didn't do it for free," Lavinia Reni stated neutrally, keeping her eyes fixed on the road ahead. "We had an agreement, remember?"
"Still, you only needed to avoid actively hindering me," Meruem replied, glancing at the blonde witch with a faint smile. "You didn't need to help me. But you did anyway."
"Oh?" Lavinia asked, meeting his gaze with a sly little grin. "How exactly did I help you?"
"Well, for one thing, you didn't have to reveal that the Utsusemi Agency was using Azazel's research on Sacred Gears," Meruem said with a casual shrug. "You knew perfectly well that information would emotionally provoke Tobio and the others and make them far more likely to accept my offer. I thought you were working together with Azazel."
"That doesn't mean I have to like him," Lavinia replied lightly. "Our agreement with Azazel was one of mutual benefit because joining forces gave us a better chance of dealing with the Agency. But I'm not particularly attached to the Grigori, especially when you were offering me something far more valuable."
That had been a genuine surprise. Meruem had expected Lavinia to be less willing to sell out Azazel, given that in the original timeline she had eventually joined a special elite force under the Grigori. Of course, the sequence of events leading to that future had already changed due to his interference, so expecting the same loyalties to form under different conditions would have been foolish.
Besides, the witch before him was far more cunning than the airheaded blonde beauty he remembered from the original timeline. Her soft manner and charming appearance could easily make others underestimate her, though Meruem had already learned better.
"Will Mr. Pheles be pleased that you abandoned the Grigori's side so easily?" Meruem asked, probing carefully in the hope of learning more about the elusive devil and the inner workings of Grauzauberer.
"Probably not," Lavinia admitted without visible concern. "But I made my conditions for participating in this mission extremely clear from the beginning, so he can hardly complain afterward. It's not my fault that he deliberately refused to explain exactly what exactly he was planning with Azazel beyond giving me vague hints and half-finished explanations."
"I wonder what they're planning," Meruem said aloud.
The Grigori was fundamentally different from both Heaven and the Underworld in terms of internal politics.
Unlike the devils or angels, who generally functioned as relatively unified political entities despite occasional disagreements, the Fallen Angels operated more like a collection of powerful individuals temporarily forced into coexistence through circumstance. Most Fallen Angels had fallen for entirely personal reasons and therefore pursued wildly different goals afterward. As a result, the Grigori constantly suffered from internal friction, ideological disputes, and power struggles between competing factions.
The primary power bloc was led by Azazel, first among the fallen, who generally attracted those more interested in research, personal obsessions, and ending the cold war between the Three Factions before it consumed what remained of them. His faction was hardly benevolent, but its members tended to prefer survival, experimentation, and political stabilization over open war.
The opposing faction gathered around Satanael, First of the Fallen, whose ideology leaned far more aggressively toward militarism and confrontation. For one reason or another, many among his followers favored a more aggressive posture toward Heaven, the devils, and even the existing leadership of the Grigori itself. Satanael in particular was said to hate Heaven deeply, and Michael most of all.
The political balance between both factions is also delicate largely because Azazel and Satanael were the only two twelve-winged Fallen Angels currently active within the Grigori. Their equal power created an environment overflowing with hidden schemes, internal sabotage, and political maneuvering between their respective camps.
Meruem strongly suspected the entire affair involving the Utsusemi Agency was just another front in that hidden conflict. Which naturally made him wonder what exactly Mephistopheles hoped to gain by involving himself in the situation.
"With those two scheming together, almost anything is possible," Lavinia replied quietly before suddenly stopping in place.
Meruem and Valerie halted immediately as well.
"What's wrong?" Meruem asked, raising an eyebrow despite knowing he would have sensed danger before Lavinia if something hostile had entered the area.
"I know our agreement was for you to tell me information about my master after this situation was resolved," Lavinia began slowly, her voice carrying a strangely vulnerable edge. "Still, I went out of my way to help you recruit Tobio and the others when I didn't have to, as you said. Can you at least confirm one thing for me before then?"
Meruem studied her carefully. "What do you want to know?"
"Is Master Glenda alive?" Lavinia asked quietly while avoiding his gaze altogether.
Meruem looked at the girl before him in silence. Lavinia Reni had spent years obsessively searching for traces of the Witch of the South, desperately clinging to the hope that her beloved master still lived somewhere out there waiting to be found. She had no idea that the woman she idolized so completely had willingly abandoned her long ago.
Meruem wondered briefly how Lavinia would react once she eventually learned the truth. The tragedy of it all was that Glenda had never seen her as a daughter or even a proper disciple. To her Lavinia had simply been a useful resource, a talented Sacred Gear wielder possessing one of the Longinus. That was all. The moment Glenda extracted enough value from her, she discarded the girl without hesitation and vanished.
Then again, that kind of behavior was completely normal among the witches belonging to the Wizards of Oz. Most of them pursued power and forbidden knowledge with obsessive selfishness regardless of the human cost involved. Loyalty, affection, and morality rarely held meaningful value within their circles.
Unfortunately for Lavinia, she never realized that reality because Glenda carefully manipulated her from childhood onward, positioning herself as both savior and mother figure while gradually shaping Lavinia's entire emotional world around dependence upon her.
"She is alive," Meruem confirmed.
Her eyes widened before tears instantly gathered within them despite her obvious attempts to remain composed. Relief flooded across her entire face so powerfully that it almost looked painful, years of uncertainty and desperate searching momentarily dissolving beneath the simple reassurance that her master still existed somewhere. It was honestly tragic to watch.
Meruem could tell her the full truth immediately if he wished. There simply was no benefit in doing so yet.
"Thank you!" Lavinia whispered shakily before repeating herself several more times. "Thank you! Thank you so much!"
They continued walking for some time after that, with Lavinia quieter than before and Valerie occasionally glancing at her with gentle concern. Eventually, the trees began thinning, and the picturesque forest gave way to their destination.
Multiple towering structures rose from the ground like a vast magical military industrial complex embedded into the heart of the artificial dimension. Tall concrete buildings, reinforced laboratories, storage towers, and barracks formed an enormous compound surrounded by layered walls and watchtowers. Magical barriers glowed across the perimeter in overlapping geometric patterns, while a massive protective barrier shimmered faintly over the entire facility like a translucent dome of distorted glass.
An intricate barrier system surrounded the entire compound. Layer after layer of defensive formations overlapped together into a colossal protective dome that distorted the surrounding air itself with immense magical pressure. Countless magical cannons, observation towers, and anti-teleportation arrays were integrated seamlessly throughout the structure while squads of armed personnel patrolled continuously across every visible entrance.
So this is where the Agency stationed its main fighting force, Meruem thought calmly.
It was considerably larger than he originally expected. Meruem could sense roughly ten thousand individuals scattered throughout the facility, although not all of them were actual combatants. Many signatures belonged to researchers, technicians, and robed cultists almost certainly affiliated with the Cult of Mikaboshi.
At first, Meruem had found it strange that the Agency kept the bulk of its combat forces so far away from the research headquarters responsible for reproducing Independent Avatar type Sacred Gears. It seemed inefficient and strategically vacuous. Doumon's explanation had clarified the matter. Apparently this facility contained [Subject Zero], the oldest surviving experiment and the single most important component within the entire Utsusemi research project.
Unfortunately, Doumon himself had not known who or what [Subject Zero] truly was. He only knew the entity was immensely powerful, dangerous enough that the Agency stationed the majority of its forces here specifically to prevent its escape.
That had immediately caught Meruem's interest. He was, by nature, a curious person. A mysterious entity powerful enough to justify the presence of an entire private army, a cult detachment, and layered dimensional defenses was not something he could simply ignore.
Rossweisse and Kuroka were capable enough to handle the rescue operation at the research headquarters without him hovering over their shoulders. Therefore, Meruem had naturally chosen to investigate the more interesting mystery himself.
He expanded his senses outward, flooding them with demonic energy while carefully searching for any clue regarding the location of [Subject Zero]. His ordinary sensory abilities failed to locate anything significant, though that outcome hardly surprised him. An organization as paranoid and secretive as the Utsusemi Agency would naturally conceal its most valuable subject beneath countless layers of concealment and anti-detection barriers.
Still, Meruem was not someone easily deceived. His gaze could always pierce through lies, illusions, and hidden truths alike. So he extended his senses farther.
His awareness spread throughout the entire complex like an invisible tide washing through every corridor, laboratory, and hidden passage. Thousands of magical signatures entered his perception simultaneously while he carefully dissected the structure piece by piece. And then he found something interesting.
Far beneath the visible facility, hidden deep underground, existed an enormous cave system extending downward at least ten thousand feet below the surface. The lower he traced the complex, the denser the magical concealments became until entire sections of the underground vanished from normal perception entirely.
Meruem pushed harder. His senses sharpened further as demonic energy surged through his nervous system, refining his perception to monstrous levels. And then, all at once, he saw everything. Everything except for a single location, a perfect void amidst the countless magical signatures and structures surrounding it. The blank spot stood out so obviously that it may as well have announced openly that something important was hidden there.
Found it, Meruem thought calmly. He immediately created a flawless vantage point within his mind before preparing a teleportation route toward it. Normally, teleporting toward locations one had never personally visited was extremely difficult. Precise visualization is one of the fundamental principles behind spatial magic, and inaccurate coordinates often resulted in catastrophic failure.
Fortunately, Meruem's mastery over magic was simply put absurd. Combined with his sensory capabilities, he could effectively map the entire destination directly inside his mind before teleporting. He looked toward his companions once the process was complete.
"I found my target," he said casually. "I will bring Valerie with me since she has the same magical crest as I do. As for you, Lavinia, stay here and wait for my signal before beginning your attack."
"How exactly will I know what your signal is?" Lavinia asked calmly, sounding entirely unconcerned despite being left alone before a heavily fortified military complex.
"Oh, trust me," Meruem replied with a grin. "It will be extremely obvious."
The next instant, he and Valerie vanished through teleportation magic. They materialized deep underground before an enormous spiraling door unlike anything Meruem had ever seen before.
The door looked like a gigantic vortex frozen into solid form. The spiral began along the outer edges before twisting inward endlessly toward a tiny central point, giving the unsettling impression that the entire doorway was slowly dragging reality itself into its center. Strange runes pulsed faintly across its dark metallic surface while ancient holy symbols were engraved between the spiraling patterns in ways that felt both sacred and deeply disturbing simultaneously.
The door stood roughly forty feet high and nearly half as wide, clearly designed to contain something vastly larger than ordinary humans. Meruem and Valerie stared at it in silence. The thing possessed a strangely hypnotic quality that made prolonged observation deeply uncomfortable. More importantly, it rested at the absolute lowest point within the underground complex.
"There is someone crying," Valerie suddenly whispered while trembling violently beside him. "No… she is screaming for somebody to save her." Her voice shook further as tears gathered within her eyes. "Master… she has suffered for an unbelievably long time. My Sacred Gear is reacting so strongly that it hurts. It feels...It feels like it is grieving for her like a mother grieving for her own child." Valerie pressed both hands tightly against her chest. "Who is she?"
Meruem raised an eyebrow slightly. Even he had not realized the presence beyond the door belonged to a woman specifically.
Interesting…
It seems the principle of life contained within [Sephiroth Graal] was instinctively reaching toward whatever existence waited behind the barrier. Which only deepened his curiosity further.
Meruem stepped toward the gigantic door before placing his hands against it and pushing using pure physical strength. The door barely moved under his effort, its sheer weight bordering on the absurd, easily sixty tons or perhaps even more. Even for an Ultimate-Class devil possessing monstrous physical power, forcing the door open required genuine effort. Meruem increased his strength further while simultaneously pouring vast amounts of demonic energy through his body until the spiraling mechanism finally began shifting slowly with a deafening metallic groan echoing throughout the underground. Eventually, the door opened completely.
"Who goeth there?" A thunderous feminine voice echoed from within the darkness beyond. It rang throughout the chamber like the heavens themselves speaking directly into mortal ears.
"Thy scent does not match the others who usually come here," the voice continued cautiously. "What are you? Thou art neither a Fallen Angel nor human." The voice paused briefly. "No… I recognize the air surrounding thee now. Thou art one of my brother's creations." The voice sharpened suddenly. "Thou art a devil!"
Meruem stepped fully into the chamber. Then immediately he froze by what he beheld. Even he, a devil, found himself disturbed by what stood before him.
A pale emaciated woman hung chained against a towering vertical structure positioned at the center of the chamber like some grotesque mockery of a crucifixion altar. Her body looked horrifyingly frail, as though centuries of suffering had slowly stripped away everything except the agony.
Long black hair cascaded messily around her frail body while metallic coverings had been fused grotesquely over the ruined bleeding sockets where her eyes used to be. Fresh blood still dripped steadily beneath the restraints despite however many centuries must have passed since the mutilation occurred. Her face was gaunt and hollow with exhaustion. Her skin was covered in countless scars, scratches, burn marks, surgical incisions, and strange dark stains layered over one another endlessly like geological strata recording centuries of torture across flesh instead of stone.
Parts of her body were literally rotting. Her abdomen had been split open grotesquely while sections of her intestines spilled partially outward from the wound. Small bloated rodents fed lazily upon the exposed flesh without fear while dried blood covered the floor beneath her in ancient layers. Yet none of that was the most horrifying part.
Holy power flooded the chamber endlessly from her body. Meruem felt as though he stood before an ocean composed entirely of divine energy. The pressure pouring from the broken woman was overwhelming beyond belief even in her ruined state.
Behind her extended twelve magnificent white wings. Or rather, what remained of them. Six wings stretched from each side of her back, though they had been utterly destroyed through unimaginable abuse. Blood stained the once pristine feathers dark crimson while countless plumes drifted weakly toward the floor like dying snowflakes. Entire sections of the wings had rotted away completely, leaving only exposed hollow bone where divine feathers once shone brilliantly.
Massive rust colored enchanted chains wrapped across her body tightly. They bound her neck, arms, torso, legs, and wings while forcing her arms outward into a crucified position. Every chain radiated suppressive enchantments specifically designed to torture holy beings continuously.
Meruem had never witnessed so much beauty and horror existing simultaneously within a single being.
My eyes hurt simply from looking at her, Meruem thought distantly. Never in his wildest expectations had he imagined [Subject Zero] would turn out to be a pure unfallen Seraph of Heaven.
The idea sounded impossible. Capturing a being of that caliber alone bordered upon insanity, much less imprisoning and experimenting upon one for over a thousand years. Heaven possessed only ten active Seraphs and four Great Seraphs in the modern era, and as far as Meruem knew, none of them were missing.
Then again, Heaven once possessed many more Seraphs during the era of the Great War before countless angels died throughout the conflict. The Underworld contained extensive historical records documenting their deaths in obsessive detail, usually written triumphantly by devil historians celebrating the destruction of Heaven's strongest warriors. So who exactly was the woman before him?
"You are a Seraph," Meruem said slowly, genuine shock entering his voice for perhaps the first time in years. "How is this possible?!.. Who are you?"
"I am the Seraph Azrael," the woman answered weakly. "The Angel of Death, little devil."
Meruem stared at her silently. The Angel of Death…
The being who once descended upon Egypt beneath divine command and slaughtered the firstborn children of an entire kingdom in a single night while even the gods of Egypt stood powerless before her passage. God sent her when the heavens finally wearied of Pharaoh's defiance. For Egypt in those days stood swollen with wealth and blasphemous certainty, with the Pharaohs proclaiming themselves divine before crowds kneeling in gold dust and incense smoke while the old gods of the Nile feasted upon worship offered from kingdoms stretching farther than any mortal army could march in a season, and their temples rose immense beside the river with obelisks plated in electrum and statues so colossal that slaves died by the hundreds dragging the stones into place beneath whips and burning sun.
The Egyptian gods mocked Heaven openly then. Their priests laughed at Moses before the royal court and spoke of the God of Abraham as some wandering desert spirit jealous of true divinity, and the Pharaoh hardened his heart while plague after plague descended upon the kingdom with rivers clotting red and livestock rotting in the fields and storms of fire consuming harvests entire, because pride had already rooted itself too deeply in Egypt's soul for ordinary suffering to uproot it.
So at last Azrael descended upon Egypt clothed in black linen that moved like smoke across still water and crowned with wings vast enough to swallow moonlight from the streets below, and wherever her shadow passed the torches dimmed and the household gods of Egypt fell silent in their alcoves while dogs whimpered and pressed themselves trembling against the earth.
That was the being hanging broken before him now.
Meruem remembered reading about her supposed death within an old Underworld text titled On "The Shameful And Deserved Deaths Of The Seraphs" written by a historian from House Agares. According to those records, Azrael was supposedly outmaneuvered and slain by Satanael during the Great War.
The text described her death with absolute certainty. There was no mention whatsoever regarding imprisonment or capture. No mention that the Angel of Death had been secretly chained beneath the earth for over a millennium while the world believed her dead. Meruem doubted Heaven itself knew the truth, they would not let this be otherwise. There was no longer any doubt that Satanael was directly involved. Still Meruem could not understand the reason.
Why?
Why hand over a living Seraph to human researchers? Surely Sacred Gear research alone could not possibly justify keeping something this valuable imprisoned for over a millennium. So what exactly was Satanael planning?
"How did you end up like this?" Meruem finally asked quietly.
"Satanael hath wrought this ruin upon me," Azrael replied weakly. "Though I find myself more curious regarding thee. How did a devil reach this place? Satanael despises devils deeply. He would never willingly permit one near me."
"Oh, he didn't invite me," Meruem answered calmly while considering his options carefully. "I wasn't even aware a Seraph was being kept here. How long have you been imprisoned?"
"More than a thousand years," Azrael whispered softly. "Perhaps longer. Time became difficult to measure eventually. How strange…to think that a devil of all beings would become the first outsider to find me. Who art thou? What house do you belong to? And your companion… who is she? If you are not allied with Satanael, why come here at all?"
Meruem found her manner of speech strange, as though the angel herself could not decide which era she belonged to, speaking in an archaic manner one moment before slipping into modern phrasing the next.
"How rude of me," Meruem said politely while inclining his head slightly. "I am Meruem of House Beleth, and this is my Bishop, Valerie Tepes. I came here to destroy the organization currently operating this facility because they harmed people belonging to my household."
"Beleth…" Azrael repeated slowly. "Yes… I remember Beleth well. Proud and mighty." Her ruined expression twitched faintly. "And Tepes… yes, the vampire lineage. I remember them too." Her voice suddenly became disjointed. "Though something feels wrong… wrong wrong wrong…"
She tilted her head erratically toward Valerie. "So much vampire blood inside her veins… but also human blood… no no impossible impossible…" Her breathing quickened. "She is a devil too… but she carries Father's power inside her soul… a Sacred Gear… yes… but devils cannot possess Sacred Gears… that breaks the laws… unless… unless…" Her voice grew increasingly unstable. "No… no… reincarnation? Human soul converted into devil physiology while retaining a Sacred Gear? Impossible… impossible… Father never intended… impossible! impossible! impossible…"
The Seraph's voice slowly descended into fragmented rambling resembling someone standing dangerously close to insanity. Meruem observed her thoughtfully. Beside him, Valerie stared toward the broken angel with tears streaming down her face.
"Master," Valerie whispered softly. "May I heal her?"
"No!" Azrael screamed violently. The reaction startled even Valerie backward.
"No, no, no, no!" Azrael cried hysterically while thrashing weakly against the chains restraining her. "You cannot heal me! You must not heal me! Please!"
Terror flooded her voice completely. "If I heal then it begins again," she babbled desperately. "Satanael always heals me before he cuts me apart again. Always. Every single time. Needles in my wings. Hooks in my spine. Demonic poison in my veins while they write notes and measure how loudly I scream. Oh God… please no… no more…They peeled my skin away once just to watch it regenerate. They cut open my stomach and left animals feeding inside me while healing the wounds slowly so I could continue feeling everything. Satanael kept asking questions while smiling. Smiling…
"I lost count of how many times they opened my body. I lost count of how many organs they removed. Sometimes they took my wings apart feather by feather while healing them repeatedly. Sometimes they nailed my hands into the walls while forcing demonic relics into my throat. Sometimes they left me alone in darkness for years. Please… please do not heal me… if you heal me then it means all of it starts again… please…"
Even Meruem's cold heart felt a faint sting of sympathy watching the utterly broken state of the once-glorious Seraph. He observed her silently for several long moments while considering his options carefully.
I was going to destroy this entire place anyway, Meruem thought calmly. Perhaps I should simply take her with me and decide what to do afterward.
"I would ask you to explain your presence here," a loud and powerful voice suddenly interrupted from behind them, its tone overlapping upon itself like several beings speaking through the same throat at once. "But I'm afraid it speaks for itself."
Meruem's blood instantly turned cold. He turned toward the source of the voice with frightening speed, genuine alarm surging through him for the first time since arriving within the pocket dimension. He had sensed absolutely nothing approaching. And yet now there was suddenly someone standing behind him.
The intruder was enormous. A giant easily over twenty feet tall stood near the entrance of the chamber with a physique so monstrous that the underground structure itself seemed too small to properly contain him. The giant possessed four massive arms layered with dense muscles that resembled forged steel more than living flesh while half of his face had been permanently burned away by some ancient catastrophic injury, leaving blackened ruined flesh stretching from forehead to jaw. The intact half of his face possessed the kind of inhuman perfection ancient civilizations carved into statues of warrior gods and divine kings.
The most unsettling feature, however, were the wings. Ten enormous white wings stretched behind the giant's back like those of a high-ranking angel. The upper portions remained pristine and brilliant while the lower halves appeared decayed and skeletal, the feathers rotted away entirely until only exposed holy bone remained. The contradiction between divine beauty and grotesque corruption created something deeply unnatural to behold.
And above all else, the sheer presence radiating from the giant was overwhelming. The underground chamber itself seemed to groan beneath his existence.
"I see you have met our eternal prisoner," the giant stated matter-of-factly while slowly approaching them, every footstep making the earth tremble beneath his weight. "A pity. You must now die."
"You are a true Nephilim?!" Meruem let out in genuine shock while staring at the being before him. "How is that possible?! I thought your entire race was exterminated during the Flood!"
"Tales of my people's demise were greatly exaggerated, as you can see," the giant replied, approaching slowly as each step caused the floor to tremble beneath his immense weight. "That red eye of yours is the [King's Eye] of Beleth. I remember fighting your ancestor once. I wonder how you shall measure up to him."
He inclined his massive head slightly. "Though where are my manners? I am the one known as Nebuazad, War Prince of Babel."
Meruem could scarcely process the absurdity unfolding before him. First he discovered that the supposedly dead Seraph Azrael had actually been imprisoned and tortured for over a thousand years. Now, one of the true Nephilim stood before him, a member of the ancient race Heaven had once deemed so dangerous that God had ordered their destruction from the world.
Meruem could feel the pressure pouring from Nebuazad, and it easily dwarfed his own. Meruem himself stood comfortably at mid Ultimate-Class level, which already placed him among the absolute upper echelon of devils within the Underworld. Very few beings could genuinely overpower him. Nebuazad stood above even peak Ultimate class several times over, though he had not quite reached the true realm of Satan class, which was the only fact preventing the situation from becoming utterly impossible.
Still, the difference was huge. The ancient myths describing the Nephilim suddenly felt far less exaggerated than they once seemed. Long ago, the Nephilim declared themselves rulers of the earth and openly challenged gods and pantheons alike to dispute their supremacy. According to surviving records, surprisingly few divine beings willingly answered those challenges.
Looking at Nebuazad now, Meruem finally understood why. He activated the [Alpha Stigma] fully and examined the giant carefully. And he immediately disliked what he saw.
Nebuazad's body was a biological masterpiece engineered solely for war. Meruem could see through flesh and bone directly into the giant's internal anatomy, and everything about him had been sculpted specifically for slaughter. He possessed two hearts beating simultaneously like twin war drums beneath his chest. Four separate sets of lungs continuously circulated enormous quantities of oxygen and magical energy throughout his body. Six eyes provided layered visual perception from multiple angles simultaneously while four arms granted impossible offensive versatility.
The giant stood twenty feet tall though his movements contained none of the sluggishness normally associated with massive creatures. Every muscle fiber looked perfectly balanced between explosive strength and terrifying speed. Meruem had genuinely never seen a body more perfectly suited for combat.
It reminded him vaguely of certain descriptions regarding high-ranking Hindu gods and Asuras. Many ancient Hindu deities were depicted possessing multiple arms because additional limbs symbolized transcendent martial perfection beyond ordinary human limitation. Four arms in particular represented overwhelming superiority in combat because such beings could attack, defend, cast techniques, and wield multiple divine weapons simultaneously without sacrificing efficiency. The warrior gods of Hindu mythology often embodied the concept of total martial transcendence where the body itself evolved into the ultimate weapon unrestricted by normal mortal anatomy.
Nebuazad resembled those ancient depictions disturbingly well. Except unlike mythological symbolism standing safely far away, the being before him was horrifyingly real. Meruem's instincts screamed at him to run.
"How did a true Nephilim manage to escape the Flood?" Meruem asked with a wary smile, his body slowly filling with demonic power. "I thought the bloody thing was done solely to wash you and your kind from creation."
"The gods are not omnipotent or omniscient," Nebuazad replied stoically. "Though they may claim otherwise, even they can be fooled. All it takes is the right magic trick, as the humans say."
"Not many of you could have survived," Meruem said casually while measuring the distance between them. "If nothing else can be said of the gods, they are very thorough when committing ethnic genocide. You've been hiding for the last couple of millennia like a rat, I take it. It must have stung deeply to do so after you once believed yourselves suzerains of the earth, after you believed yourselves invincible."
Nebuazad's expression did not change, though something old and distant moved through his eyes.
"People are nothing if not adaptable," the giant said wistfully. "It was difficult at first, watching my brothers and sisters burn beneath divine wrath and drown beneath waters sent from Heaven. We once numbered in the thousands, my kin and I, and we laughed in defiance against the world while believing we would remake it in our image. One moment I held the key to the earth in my hand, and in the next breath the walls of the age closed around me. I discovered then that my castles had stood upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand. Now here I remain, one of the last heirs of a people who once believed even the sky would bow."
"Is that why you're doing this?" Meruem asked curiously. "Torturing an angel of the Lord… Funding experiments meant to recreate divine miracles. Did Satanael promise you vengeance for what the gods did to your kind?"
"No," Nebuazad replied. "He promised me justice."
The word had barely left his mouth before Nebuazad vanished.
Meruem saw the movement only because of the [Alpha Stigma] ability to follow every movement in detail. The world slowed into a field of frozen details. A single flex of Nebuazad's left calf shattered the stone beneath his foot. His four lungs expanded. His upper right arm extended forward while the lower left prepared to seize. His wings tightened against his back to reduce drag.
It was strange, seeing something so big move so quickly…
Even seeing it, Meruem barely reacted in time. Nebuazad's massive hand closed around his face first. The impact drove the back of Meruem's skull against the air hard enough to create a shockwave. The giant's grip tightened like a steel trap, and the next instant space folded violently around them as Nebuazad dragged him through a portal by the head.
The world twisted and the underground chamber disappeared.
Meruem was hurled out into open air above a vast stretch of empty wilderness filled with forests, mountains, valleys, and rivers gleaming beneath the artificial sky of the pocket dimension. He twisted violently in the giant's grasp, fire exploding from his shoulders and back as he tried to break free, though Nebuazad drove him downward like a meteor before releasing him.
Meruem crashed through a mountainside. The impact carved a trench through the earth for hundreds of feets, tearing trees from their roots and splitting stone beneath him. Fire burst from his back at the final moment, a roaring crimson plume that slowed his momentum enough to prevent his body from being buried beneath the plain. He rolled, twisted, and landed upright amid burning grass.
Nebuazad descended from the sky a moment later, his ten wings folding behind him as he landed gently upon the ruined earth.
"We shall fight here," the War Prince of Babel said calmly. "I prefer not to damage the prisoner or the facility."
Meruem rose from the crater, blood sliding down his face from where the giant's fingers had nearly crushed his skull.
"How considerate," Meruem said, his heart beating loudly by the adrenaline.
Then he attacked. Flames burst beneath his feet, propelling him forward like a cannon shell. He crossed the distance at a blink of an eye, one fist wrapped in compressed fire as he swung toward Nebuazad's ribs with enough force to turn a mountain into dust.
The giant caught his wrist with one hand. Meruem's second fist followed, fire blasting from his elbow to accelerate the punch. Nebuazad blocked it with another hand. Meruem twisted, formed a blade of flame along his leg, and kicked toward the giant's throat. Nebuazad's third hand caught his ankle.
The fourth hand punched him in the stomach. The blow folded Meruem around the fist and the shockwave alone blew the surrounding forest flat.
Meruem coughed blood, yet he detonated fire from his captured wrist and ankle simultaneously, forcing Nebuazad's grip to loosen by turning the air between their bodies into a burst of white hot plasma. He spun free, used fire from his back to redirect himself midair, and formed twenty arrows of condensed crimson flame behind him. The arrows tore forward at blinding speed.
However Nebuazad moved only one arm without a hurry and a great sword appeared in his hand.
"Astarl Blade Manifestation!" the giant declared simply.
Then the blade seemed to dissolve. Thousands of tiny slender blades scattered from the hilt like metallic petals reflecting the light, beautiful and lethal as they filled the space before him. Meruem's eye tracked every single one. To ordinary sight, they would have appeared like a storm of cherry blossoms. Through the [Alpha Stigma], he saw what they truly were, countless illusory astral blades sharper than real steel and faster than most devils could perceive.
The fire arrows struck the wall of petals, and exploded on impact. Nebuazad emerged through the fire unharmed, his blades having formed a rotating barrier that shredded the heat and scattered the blasts before they could touch him.
Astral Blade Manifestation, Meruem thought. It must be his special technique. He can control these tiny swords through the great sword's handle. Tiny blades, they're individually nothing lethal, but numerous enough to create offense and defense simultaneously. How annoying!
Nebuazad swung the remaining hilt and the petals surged.
Meruem threw himself aside, fire exploding from his left side to alter his trajectory instantly. The blades carved through the space he had occupied and continued into the mountain behind him, slicing the stone into thousands of thin segments that collapsed like cut paper.
Meruem raised [Sovereign Pressure]. An invisible wall of dominance slammed outward from him, crushing trees, boulders, and soil into the ground. The force struck the swarm of blades and scattered them briefly, though Nebuazad guided them with his hand and reformed their structure into three huge conic drills that punched through the telekinetic wave.
Meruem saw the attack in slow motion. Three cones, each rotating in opposite directions. The left aimed for his chest. The right curved toward his spine, while a third descended from above. He thrust both hands outward and ignited the air.
Heat expanded violently, creating a mirage across the battlefield. Dozens of Meruem's afterimages appeared across the burning air, each formed by carefully bent light and thermal distortion. The blade cones hesitated for a fraction of a second as Nebuazad's sight was divided.
Meruem used that fraction to launch himself upward, fire bursting beneath his feet and from the palms of his hands, his speed tripling in an instant. He raised [Sovereign Pressure] and seized the broken mountain behind Nebuazad, ripping thousands of tons of stone into the air before hurling it down upon the giant like the fist of a god.
Nebuazad did not even bother to look back. The [astral blades] formed a dome around him. The mountain struck the dome and disintegrated into gravel. Meruem came through the gravel cloud from above, both fists wreathed in blue white fire. He struck Nebuazad across the face with everything he had. The impact produced a thunderclap that tore the clouds apart overhead.
Nebuazad's head turned slightly. The giant's upper left hand seized Meruem by the throat. The lower right struck his ribs. The upper right drove into his shoulder. The lower left caught his wrist before he could counter. He had not imagined that Four arms would give one such an overwhelming advantage in combat.
Meruem could read every movement, that was not the problem. He could see the muscle contractions before the blows came. He could even predict the trajectory, the intended pressure points, and the next three transitions. It did not matter enough. He possessed only two arms. Nebuazad possessed four. Even if Meruem blocked two attacks perfectly, two more remained to strike him. Even if he moved away from one line of force, the giant's reach allowed him to close another path immediately.
Due to having four arms and standing almost twenty feet tall while I possess a comparatively ordinary humanoid frame, hand to hand to combat would be suicide, Meruem analyzed coldly while blood filled his mouth. I must create distance and make this into a long ranged battle.
A third hand struck Meruem across the chest and the blow sent him flying through the forest. He smashed through one tree, then another, then ten more, before arresting his fall with a bloom of flame erupting from his back and shoulders. His boots tore furrows through the ground as he landed.
Meruem snarled and unleashed fire from his entire body, transforming himself into a burning pillar that punched into the sky. Nebuazad stepped back as the ground around them became molten glass, and Meruem used the moment to ascend, drawing heat from every flame he had created.
"Firefield - Domain of the Flame Sovereign."
A firefield bloomed across the battlefield. A dome of crimson flame expanded outward for miles, swallowing forest, valley, and mountain slope alike. Within its boundary, every spark answered Meruem's will. Flames coiled and turned like living serpents around his body.
Inside the firefield, he was master of flames and everything about him was enhanced as it was his place of power, akin to a shark in the ocean.
His wounds cauterized instantly as the rising heat within his body acted as a catalyst, accelerating his healing factor. His muscles strengthened as demonic energy flooded through them. His speed increased as controlled bursts ignited beneath his feet with every step, turning each movement into a chained explosion. His durability rose as layers of heat distortion wrapped around him like armor, bending incoming force and dispersing kinetic transfer through thermal expansion.
Nebuazad looked around at the burning world. "Now this is something worthy of Beleth," he said.
Meruem smiled through bloody teeth, and the firefield collapsed inward responding to his will.
A typhoon of flame formed around Nebuazad, rotating at impossible speed as it shredded the surrounding landscape at the molecular level. Trees ceased to burn because they were reduced to particles too quickly for ordinary combustion. The electromagnetic field around the area inverted, then dispersed, causing every enchanted detection array nearby to go blind.
Nebuazad raised his sword. The [astral blades] gathered around him in a sphere, layering themselves thousands upon thousands deep. The fire typhoon struck the defense and screamed against it, heat and invisible force colliding with astral steel in a sound like the world being sharpened.
Meruem thrust his hand forward. [Sovereign Pressure] compressed the firefield into a spear of invisible force wrapped in white flame. It struck the blade sphere and drove Nebuazad backward for the first time, carving a trench through the valley beneath his feet.
Meruem did not allow him to recover. He created a thousand fire arrows across the dome. Each arrow formed from compressed heat, each one containing enough explosive force to devastate a city, and each moved faster than the eyes can perceive. He launched them all simultaneously from every direction.
Nebuazad's six hidden eyes opened. The giant moved both upper arms and swung the hilt in a perfect circle. The [astral blades] divided into countless rivers of blades, each river intercepting one stream of arrows. Explosions erupted across the sky in every direction, turning the battlefield into a storm of fire and steel. Meruem saw gaps in the defense. Tiny gaps. Openings lasting less than a tenth of a second.
He seized the chance like a predator launching at helpless prey.
Fire burst from his back, slowing and redirecting him just before a blade river cut through his previous path. He came low, close to the ground, [Sovereign Pressure] flattening the earth beneath him as he accelerated. His right hand became a lance of flame, and he thrust toward Nebuazad's lower heart.
Nebuazad's lower left hand caught the wrist.
But Meruem had expected it, and he detonated the arm. The explosion consumed his own flesh from wrist to elbow, turning bone black and tearing muscle apart, yet it forced Nebuazad's hand open. Meruem used [Sovereign Pressure] to grasp the giant's knee from the inside, twisting with invisible force while driving a second flame lance toward the joint.
The strike landed, and for the first time, Nebuazad bled. Golden red blood sprayed across the molten ground. Seeing it increased Meruem's confidence, it was one thing believing someone could be killed, it was another seeing proof of it.
The giant looked down at the wound, then back at Meruem.
"Well done," Nebuazad said as his knee drove upward.
Meruem crossed both arms and hardened the air before him with [Sovereign Pressure] in repose. The knee shattered the invisible defense and struck him anyway. His body flew upward through the firefield dome, broke through the outer flame boundary, and rose into the sky like a thrown stone.
The astral blades followed as they rose in a glittering storm.
Meruem twisted in the air, his crimson eyes tracking thousands of tiny trajectories at once. Every blade moved differently. Some flew straight while some curved behind him. Some vanished within reflected sunlight, trying to use his own firefield's brightness against him. He extended [Sovereign Pressure] in hundreds of threads, striking blade after blade aside while forming spiraling shields of flame around his body.
A dozen blades slipped through, and one opened his cheek while two pierced his thigh. Another severed three fingers from his left hand.
Meruem clenched his teeth and heated the air around the blades until their reflected light distorted. He could not melt them, since they were astral constructs rather than metal, yet he could warp the medium through which they moved. The slight distortion altered their paths just enough.
He dove, but Nebuazad leapt to meet him. The two collided above the battlefield as their fists met first. The shockwave split the firefield dome and flattened what remained of the forest beneath them. Meruem ignited flame from his elbows and shoulders, increasing the speed of his punches until they became a barrage of burning impacts. Nebuazad answered with four arms, each strike heavier, each movement perfectly economical.
Meruem ducked under one punch, parried a second with [Sovereign Pressure], blocked a third with his forearm, and then the fourth struck him across the jaw.
His vision flashed white. But he quickly recovered by detonating fire beneath his feet midair and slamming his forehead into Nebuazad's burned cheek. The giant's head snapped back slightly. Meruem used [Sovereign Pressure] to seize every loose boulder below and launched them upward, turning the battlefield into a reverse meteor shower.
Nebuazad's blades shredded them all with ease and dust filled the sky.
Meruem used the dust to his advantage. He heated each particle until the air became a field of false images. Hundreds of Meruems appeared, each moving differently, each wrapped in flame and pressure. Nebuazad's eyes tracked them all, yet even six eyes needed time to process too many possibilities.
Meruem attacked from behind. His fist struck Nebuazad's spine with concentrated [Sovereign Pressure] at the exact point where the wings connected to the back. The giant grunted. A crack spread through one skeletal wing.
Nebuazad's rearward lower arm caught Meruem by the hair. A hidden angle, Meruem realized too late. The giant threw him downward.
Meruem hit the earth so hard the valley floor collapsed into a basin. Before he could rise, Nebuazad's astral blades plunged into the ground around him and began digging. The earth beneath Meruem vanished as the blades carved a hole directly under his body, creating a sudden vertical shaft that tried to drop him into darkness.
He fired flames from his palms and boots, hovering above the collapsing ground. Nebuazad appeared above him and all four fists came down. Meruem crossed his arms, [Sovereign Pressure] forming a layered barrier overhead, firefield heat reinforcing his body from every direction. The impact broke through everything.
His right arm shattered first before Nebuazad's lower hand seized the ruined limb and ripped it away from the shoulder, sending agony exploding through Meruem's mind as blood sprayed into the molten air.
Meruem screamed, though the sound became a laugh halfway through.
"Is that all, War Prince?" he spat, forcing himself backward with fire from his remaining hand. "I expected more from the scourge of Babel."
Nebuazad held the severed arm briefly, then tossed it aside.
"You certainly have your ancestor pride," the giant said. "He also believed insolence could substitute for superiority."
This is the first time I have been so overwhelmed in a fight! Dimora was nothing compared to this monster…
Meruem raised his remaining hand and the entire firefield answered. Every flame within miles gathered upward, spiraling into an enormous shape above him. Wings of crimson and gold spread across the sky. A beak of white fire formed. Talons condensed from plasma and demonic power.
[Vermillion Phoenix inferno!]
The Fire Phoenix emerged, hundreds of meters wide, its body made of all the heat Meruem had mustered since the battle began. The sky darkened beneath the radiance as nuclear heat flooded the world, turning the ground beneath them into liquid while rivers boiled away instantly and mountainsides glowed red before slumping like melting wax.
Nebuazad looked up at the Phoenix without fear, grinning at Meruem. Meruem brought his hand down and the Phoenix descended upon the battlefield with the force of a small sun, turning the entire pocket dimension white for a single instant before the explosion consumed everything.
A mushrooming column of fire rose miles high while the surrounding mountains cracked beneath the pressure wave. The forest became vapor. The valley became glass. The shockwave raced outward and erased every cloud above.
Meruem hovered at the edge of the blast, panting, half his body burned by his own technique despite his mastery over flame. He stared into the expanding firestorm, his crimson gaze searching for Nebuazad's energy signature.
The giant still stood as the astral blades enclosed him completely. A cocoon of countless tiny blades surrounded Nebuazad, rotating so densely that even the Phoenix's cataclysmic impact had been dispersed across millions of cutting surfaces. The defense had cracked, bent, and nearly failed before the cocoon finally opened.
Nebuazad emerged burned, bleeding, and smiling faintly. "That would have slain lesser gods," he said.
Meruem's expression remained calm, though something inside him sank. What kind of monster is this?
Nebuazad lifted his great sword hilt. "I shall honor you by ending this properly."
The sword phased into the molten ground as though sinking into dark water. Ripples spread outward across the glassed battlefield. The surrounding landscape darkened abruptly, as though night itself had descended within the artificial dimension.
Then blades rose from the earth as two rows of a thousand giant swords emerged to the left and right of Nebuazad, each one towering over the battlefield like the remnants of an ancient war. Their edges reflected no light, and their sheer presence weighed upon reality with the suffocating heaviness of countless graves.
"[Astral Blades Ultimate Form]" Nebuazad said. "[Eternal Swords Mausoleum]."
The thousand giant swords shattered into a hundred thousand tiny blades that filled the world, and although Meruem's visual prowess perceived every single fragment in perfect detail, that knowledge brought him no relief.
He saw every path, every angle, and every line of death suspended around him in slow motion as his [Alpha Stigma] revealed a universe made of blades where offense and defense moved as one, with some swords guarding Nebuazad in layered walls while others formed spears, waves, and spiraling drills, and countless more circled Meruem at every altitude to cover every possible escape route.
There was no blind spot, Meruem realized. Nebuazad raised one hand and the storm descended while Meruem moved.
Fire erupted from beneath his feet, launching him sideways. [Sovereign Pressure] crushed the first thousand blades into the ground. Flames formed rotating rings around his body, deflecting hundreds more. He heated the air, created afterimages, inverted electromagnetic traces, and used invisible force to pull himself between openings thinner than a human hair.
The blades followed anyway as a wave crashed toward him from the left, forcing him to burn through it with white fire at the cost of half his remaining sleeve.
A cone of blades descended from above and Meruem repelled it with Sovereign Pressure only to feel his ribs crack from the recoil before a wall formed behind him, forcing him to blast backward through it with fire erupting from his spine as dozens of blades tore across his back while Nebuazad advanced calmly through the storm and Meruem struggled to reach him.
He gathered the remains of the firefield and compressed them into a narrow beam of absolute heat, then fired it toward the giant's head. Fifty layers of astral blades crossed its path and dispersed the beam into harmless radiance.
Meruem used the light as cover. He appeared beside Nebuazad's wounded knee and struck with [Sovereign Pressure] directly into the joint. The giant staggered half a step. Meruem ignited the molten ground beneath him, turning it into a geyser of fire that swallowed Nebuazad's lower body.
The giant's hand emerged through the flame and caught Meruem's left leg. Meruem tried to sever it himself with fire before the grip tightened, but he was too slow.
Nebuazad ripped the leg away at the knee, and Meruem's scream tore across the battlefield just as the blades came again.
He fell, one arm gone and one leg gone, suspended only by bursts of fire from his remaining hand and back. Blood poured from him in red streams that burned before reaching the ground. His vision swam, though the [Alpha Stigma] still worked, still showed him every approaching blade, every movement of the giant, every possible path.
There were even fewer paths for escape now, and Meruem could only laugh softly at the absurdity of it all because never in his life had he been so completely outclassed.
"I see why God needed a Flood," he said hoarsely.
Nebuazad's expression became solemn, but otherwise said nothing. Meruem gathered everything he had left, a desperate gamble of a man who realized he might truly die a dog's death here.
[Sovereign Pressure] collapsed inward, compressing the air around Nebuazad into a crushing sphere. The remaining flames of the battlefield surged toward the giant, forming a second Phoenix, smaller, unstable, far more desperate. Meruem poured his will into it, forcing heat, pressure, and demonic energy together until the attack screamed against its own containment.
Nebuazad guided the [Eternal Swords Mausoleum] with both hands. The fifty thousand blades divided once more as half formed a defensive shell around Nebuazad while the other half became a tide of petals flooding toward Meruem, who unleashed his final attack as the unstable Phoenix slammed into the defensive shell and detonated at the exact moment the blade tide reached him, his [Alpha Stigma] already showing him the outcome before it occurred.
He twisted away from the fatal cluster aimed at his head. He burned through the wave aimed at his heart. Then Nebuazad appeared before him through the explosion. The giant had crossed the distance from within his own defensive shell, using the blades to part the explosion just enough to move, and though his body was charred, one wing completely broken, and his burned cheek split open, his eyes remained perfectly clear.
Meruem tried to raise his remaining hand, but Nebuazad's upper right arm caught it while his upper left seized Meruem by the throat, his lower right gripped his shoulder, and his lower left drove straight into Meruem's chest.
The hand pierced through flesh, ribs, and demonic reinforcement as though all of it were wet paper. Meruem's body went still as Nebuazad's fingers closed around his heart, and for one final instant he saw everything with perfect clarity. He saw his own heart pulled from his chest. Nebuazad held it between his fingers, still beating once, twice, three times.
"You fought well, child of Beleth," the War Prince of Babel said quietly.
Meruem tried to answer, but blood filled his mouth instead before Nebuazad crushed the heart in his hand and the world went dark.
AN: And so ends the tale of Meruem Belial: a cautionary story about fucking around and finding out. Thank you all for staying with me until the end of this journey-
Just kidding. It would be pretty funny, though, if I just left Meruem for dead and never acknowledged it again. The last couple of chapters were mostly dialogue and setup, so this chapter ended up being almost pure action. It's a very long one, but unlike the previous chapters, this one is hopefully a lot more exciting.
Advanced chapters are available on my Patreon. If you want to read ahead, vote on which story gets updated each week, or simply support my writing so I can focus more on it, you can check it out here: /abeltargaryen?