Lah's eyes were locked on the placard above the only intact coffin in the room. It only had three words, but that was more than enough.
Opening the coffin, she noted that it lacked an inhabitant. A trait shared with all of the other coffins that had been sliced asunder…but this one was different.
Lowering her nose as she sniffed, her nose wrinkled as a thick, rich demonic energy assaulted her sinuses.
"…Balir. Can you open that door?"
"I'm sorry."
"That isn't what I asked~? Silly man."
Balir's eyelid twitched as the horn insignia shone. Dark green radiance flowed from his gaze at it pressed against the door, and he even materialized amber threads to aid the effort. But the doors would not heave, not one bit.
"…Lah should try it." Bie's voice wafted from the shadows as he entered the room, his eyes aglow and the Cassius Eyes activated. He sensed a kind of frequency that the stone was emitting in the form of tiny ripples, noticing that Lah had ripples that were sort of similar to the door's.
A moment later, Hugo's large frame entered the cleared doorway as well. Passing Bie, who was leaning against the wall while looking at the fragments of the coffins, he nodded as he brought the octahedron above his hand up to the door.
"Lah, come here. If you stand at this door, I can match the energy it releases with the demonic energy inside you, therefore cracking the seal."
"…Does it really have to be her?"
"You have integrated with the grace, so your demonic energy is completely undesirable to this Gantrian Night Jade and the seal resting upon it."
"But-"
"It's fine." Lah grimly stepped before the door, allowing Hugo to place his empty palm on her shoulder as the focus began to rotate. Bie's cold smile became even more frigid as he took in the scope of the damage about the room, looking at the open coffin lid and the pristine placard on the wall.
Although he felt some beckoning from the fragments, he respectfully stayed in his place. Watching the ripples from the door and Lah slowly meet and then oscillate together, his wing ears enlarged as they formed a veil over his eyes.
The doors parted, and black, dense fog surged from the elongating gap. Scrawled ancient text leaked out from the murky shadow, sticky and ominous sensations leaking from them.
Lah stepped forward without hesitation, followed by Balir who shoved past Hugo. Finally, the Red Angel and he stood alone in the room, the prior sending a glance towards the light baby blue skinned boy before entering the dark.
Two sword handles entered his hands, the greatsword's blades threatening to make an indent in the walls as he withdrew them from his duffel bag. Though he wanted to ruminate on his nature a bit more, though he felt unsure of what to do, he pushed all of those thoughts to the side.
Fight and get stronger. In the end, that really was all there was to it. Bie decided to abandon his worries as he looked forward to amassing knowledge and gaining strength. Fighting was a necessity to him, and he figured that the answers he would need would follow his strife.
In the end, it all came down to making Amitha proud. To show his gratitude, he vowed that he would stand above all others. Anything he couldn't do now, he would become comfortable with later.
Name Eater nodded from within the confines of the formless darkness in Bie's Inner World, his face mimicking the spreading cruel smile on Bie's face. Soon, the world went black.
And then the only light that entered his eyes from that point on was tinged with green.
—
Von Friede seamlessly slipped through the door, the pattern he appeared as now roaming on the floor. Lanterns lit along the wall as light green flames flickered as they moved along the expansive hallway of the room. When they stood in the center of the four pillars, the only thing left cloaked in shadow was the furthest end of the room was, where the throne lied.
Von Friede walked out from the shadows, a smirk on his handsome countenance. A crisp snap rang in the air as the pulsating seeds intensified in their rhythm, and the man fluttered his sleeves as he began clapping.
The sound of flesh hitting against metal resounded, his right hand falling down crisply onto his clawed left.
"Von Friede. It seems that you yet live." Hugo's solemn voice interrupted the claps, speaking over the sharp sounds as the demon's hands stilled.
"Coming back has always been a talent of mine, Iberrfal." The man's smile was like that of a fox, his eyes taunting most of the onlookers as his gaze drifted around.
"That ends today." Exuberant gushes of red energy seeped out of his skin, a footstep placing him at the forefront of the quad. Von Friede laughed at this, his steely left arm the shade of idocrase level to his shoulders as it his palm faced towards the ceiling.
"Of course, that is a possibility. But if you were mistaken, that would be a tragedy…" A gnarled, intricate visage of the trumpet appeared above his left hand, and he quickly shifted it to the left as he brought the mouthpiece up to his lips. Fingers indented on the buttons as a ferocious aura was released from both he and the instrument in hand!
The brunt of the aura released a gust that pushed back at the four, but each used their own methods to stand firm and unfaltering. Lah advanced forwards, her wings elongating towards the sky as her hair drifted upwards, and a red haze mixed with dark lime green light and mottled amber wisps burgeoned with each step.
"Did you have a nice chat? Since you haven't blown yet, I have a question to ask. Isalde…what have you done with her?"
A pair of light green eyes curved into crescents, and a solemn tune began to play. Lah nodded to herself, seemingly composed as her wings folded inwards, the ends covering her face as if they were hands.
"Right…what did I expect. Silly me." Peeking through the gaps offered by her folding feathers, she stopped dead in her tracks. A sad smile lingered on her face, the trumpet carrying the feelings she had as it blared a melody reminiscent of a funeral song.
"I will bury you in the ground as atonement for my failure." The rage boiled over and froze, like magma erupting under glacial water. Her wings flapped as gust of wind tussled everyone's hair, yet Von Friede's emanated mist spread like a film:
Figures with shifting faces and shriveled noses rose from the ground, emerging from patterns covered in mist. Spiritual threads circled the five fingers of his empty palm, four figures controlled by each digit.
"You are welcome to try." Stepping back within the mist, the threads spread out in an omnidirectional motion, descending from the ceiling.
Lunging forward with two blackened hands, thin, black blades peaked out from within the condensed lump of rusty amber energy that enveloped her hand. The mist was parted, fog roiling off as sword markings were engraved on the gaseous substances.
Bie, Balir, and Hugo began confronting the demon puppets, while Lah roared in frustration when she realized that Von Friede had hidden from sight. Mottled light flared from her eyes as she slowly rotated her neck, an angry grin formed by a wolfishly toothed maw.