She collapsed like a rotten bird, the mental trauma and shame too much to endure.
Albedo was caught by two bloodied and burnt Aura and Mare, who used magic to fly and pick her up. The fright was not any less, but at least they knew if they didn't take action, they wouldn't be able to survive.
It was a horrible mistake... one they would never be able to recover from.
"Why did it come to this… how is she so powerful!?" Aura and Mare grieved; they never wanted this... they were against the agenda Demiurge and Albedo were trying to push forward and the result was way worse than their worst nightmare.
For his part, Demiurge popped up two wings and flew alongside them, landing at the edge of the burning pit resembling an entrance to hell. He was silent, no words could express the grief he was filling, he couldn't even begin to imagine how Ains Ooal Gown, their master, was going to react when he saw this.
"Aura, Mare… take Albedo and the Pleiades away, I'm counting on you. Find Ains-sama in E-Rantel and regroup. Demiurge and I will buy you time and save as many of us as we can, this can't be the end of us, I won't allow it" Cocytus wielded his halberd and spoke, deep inside he felt raw anger towards Albedo and Demiurge, but he knew now was not the time for pettiness.
He immediately took leadership in moments of peril for the Great Tomb, and no one objected.
Demiurge groaned, he knew what it meant, they wouldn't live past this. But the same he felt deep inside was so humongous that he'd rather die here than face their master with accountability, for such... he pitied Albedo. He knew he had to bear the responsibility of his greed.
His figure changed into that of a demon that resembled a frog, ready to fight until the very end to allow as many of them to survive as possible.
The fox started crawling towards them, so slowly... so ominously. The dungeon was created to trap adventurers and serve as a dead hole from which they couldn't escape. Never in their wildest dreams would they imagine that Yasaka's body would start to expand, destroying everything in its path until she became a two-hundred-metre blazing golden fox that destroyed the dungeon from the inside.
Even then the strength of the dungeon had to be appreciated, Yasaka's plan didn't go as expected and she got caged inside the dungeon upon reaching the third floor. In order to finish it, Ray intervened.
He had single-handedly blasted a hole through the two last floors with an explosion that resembled a supernova, burning everything in its path, scattering ashes and gushing out magma. Allowing Yasaka's body to continue to grow until it was freed, shattering the whole of Nazarick, the control centres, the magical arrays and everything in the way.
Albedo and Demiurge thought they had them trapped inside, but they only built up their own swift destruction.
It was not a fight against adventurers; they were fighting the very Gods.
...
Thousands of monsters crawled out of the pit, of all types and mostly undead, but they burned and wailed in that golden flame that burned not only the body but also the soul. And yet, they were still willing to fight with their lives in the line to protect what remained of Nazarick.
Ray watched these happenings with his golden star eyes. He glared at those peak energy readings that activated ever so slowly. Deep inside, he felt a bit of grief... he had never caused this much destruction and death before, and although the desire for Chaos Points had compelled him, he still restrained himself until the end, just like he had done with Amaterasu's siblings, a little wisp of humanity in the flesh of a Sun God.
Sadly, they didn't appreciate it.
'They gave me a reason, I'm not to be blamed'.
"Master, what are your orders?" Kuu asked, thrilled and feeling more love for her master than ever before. She had never thought he could be this merciless. It was mostly curiosity that triggered her senses, wanting to know what was he going through that he didn't tell them... for him to change this much.
"Kill them all and put their bodies before me. Azrael, I want you to go down there and look for the treasury, take everything in it... kill everyone within, any strong opponents you face, leave their bodies for me".
"I understand, my lord".
Azrael's scythe swung up, ready to carry out her orders happily, especially if the orders involved killing and bringing death, which made her even happier.
The Pleiades shot out, grunting and carrying each other. They glared at the gigantic fox with vengeance and wrath. It wasn't how it was supposed to be. But even amidst the despair… there was still hope.
*RUMBLE!!*
An energy reading so devastating that even those without energy records could still be able to feel it –raw and unadulterated dark mana that resembled black flames fighting those golden flames for dominance.
Yasaka growled slightly; it was a higher power level than hers before her evolution. It made Ray and his group stand on guard, and it made Cocytus and his group... cower a little.
It erupted from the collapsed pit and condensed into one red silhouette that landed at the edge of the pit. It was a woman to whom the word 'odd' did a disservice. If Ray had to describe it, it would be something along the lines of 'Gorgeously Terrifying'.
She was pretty... but she was even scarier.
"R-Rubedo!?" Demiurge and Cocytus screamed simultaneously.
"Yasaka, wait…" Ray made Yasaka stop, the energy that woman was letting out was no joke.
The woman rose up like a broken doll as her movements grew in fluidity, her eyes opened, shining in a bright red, like a blood moon.
"Protect, Nazarick..."
Her voice was cute and robotic, like an automaton. She locked eyes with Ray from far away, as if there was no distance at all between them. The gaze of a killing machine looking at its objective.
"Eliminate..."
*RUMBLE!*
[Super-Tier Magic: Natural Pigmentation].
An aura enveloped her whole body, scattering dust around her as a crystal-like haze manifested. Nothing else happened to the naked eye but not to Ray's eyes. She stood up in position and extended her hands forward, where two gigantic gauntlets appeared.
[Triple Maximize Magic: Dark Haze].
*WHOOSH!*
It took but a second. Ray, Kuu and Azrael gasped… the latter extended her scythe forward, but not fast enough. The gauntlet approached Ray's face as if in slow motion. The distance between them had been at least eight hundred metres… but she didn't give a fart.
The woman technically teleported in front of Ray and delivered a vicious strike. Azrael's scythe was not fast enough, but Ray had already seen the trail of energy that travelled across space like a thunderbolt, faster than the eye could see.
*BOOOOMMMM!!!*
Much to the woman's shock. The impact shook space itself and created an explosion of gusts of wind, but Ray didn't move a millimetre. He blocked it completely, smiled, grabbed Rubedo by the neck and punched forward.
[Sun Explosion!]
It was the same fist that shattered Nazarick. Rubedo, the crazy woman, gasped and felt a star crush her ribs, still… she was expecting this much. Rubedo's body exploded into millions of crystal-like fragments that flew in the atmosphere like dust, moving each of their own volition and crowding Ray's surroundings like annoying insects.
!!!
'W-What-'
The energy readings told him she was far from dead; instead, each crystal piece was like an anchor of her true self. Ray even breathed in those fragments and then felt them.
*COUGH!*
"Master!?" Kuu yelled when she saw him spit blood on top of Yasaka's fur. Pain, like never before, clouded his mind, like chainsaws were splitting his body from the inside out.
That was Rubedo's ultimate technique, natural pigmentation, a super-tier magic that made her, without question, the most dangerous existence in Nazarick. An entity that was supposed to slumber, waking up for the sake of revenge.