The pain was brutal; nothing he had ever experimented with until now could compare to it.
"B-Bitch!" Ray cursed out loud as the blood rained out his lips; his first reaction was to kick both Kuu and Azrael away before they inhaled that vicious dust.
*BAANG!*
"Master! / My Lord!".
Ray realised then that this woman was way more than met the eyes. No, her powers were downright evil. A part of her body manifested outside after the crystals re-assembled, she wrapped herself around Ray like a hideous snake and took a bite out of his neck.
*CLANG!*
Sadly for her, it was like biting steel. His skin could be bent but hardly pierced. Her fangs just didn't go in. Azrael, who had been shot out, groaned and flapped her wings; closing back up, she saw the situation and struck forward towards Ray with precision, slicing the snake without doing so much as scratching her lord's garments.
But it was all for nough; that snake would just split into nanometric crystals without a hitch; they weren't doing any damage at all!
"Don't be reckless, Azrael!".
Ray screamed, grasped one of her wings and blasted her away once more when he saw the pigments of Rubedo's body fly towards Azrael. He was confident he could survive this, but if either Kuu or Azrael inhaled that dust, they would be goners.
*COUGH!*
The chainsaws continued to tear his body apart from the inside while half of Rubedo's body reformed on the outside. Yasaka started to worry as well but then felt as if ants were crawling up her feet. Thousands of undead were on the move, clawing at her fur.
The war had already started.
"Ray-sama-"
"Yasaka *cough!* I-I'll leave them up to you, I'll deal with this bitch. Kill as many as you can; I want all their bodies, and more importantly, I want those treasures they have stored down there, you understand me? Those mythical items!".
"Understood, Ray-sama!"
There was only one ability that he considered useful in this situation.
[Radiation!]
*BOOOOMMMM!!!*
Rubedo gasped when the temperature increased several folds all of a sudden; Ray had to fly away instantly as Yasaka's fur set up ablaze just by how close he was to it. Radiation turned his body into a literal sun for a period of time.
"Tch!-"
Rubedo's pigmentated body separated from him, making some distance and scorching up, slowly regenerating into a single main body; she frowned and watched Ray's body that shone like the sun.
[-1 Chaos Points].
The curse of the Sarcophagus activated, and Ray's body was spotless, but his insides could serve as more than a bit of material for horror movies. Still, they regenerated instantly.
Not as fast as teleportation but quite akin to a ray of light, he flashed past her, grasped Rubedo by the neck, crushing it mercilessly in the process as she struggled and groaned; just his hand touching her was enough to start melting her face.
Radiation was a technique that didn't distinguish friends or foes. Ray couldn't use it near his girls, or they'd be affected too and burned to a crisp, and so he headed to his own battlefield against the strongest being of Nazarick, leaving the frontal end to his loyal servants.
...
Yasaka groaned in disgust and waved her paw, leaving destruction and exploding debris whenever it passed, shattering the pitiful lives of those undead. It was then that a gigantic golem-like being started to come out of the pit; he was coated in magma but didn't seem to care about it one bit.
This golem was gigantic, at least half of Yasaka's size. She saw him coming out and groaned.
"LET'S GO, NAZARICK! IT IS NOT OVER YET! SHOW THE PRESTIGE AND POWER OF OUR SUPREME BEINGS!"
Cocytus charged forward together with Demiurge and thousands of undead vampires and all sorts of creatures.
"Do your job, Azrael!" Hasshaku-sama, imbued in darkness, rushed on her own to deal with both Cocytus and Demiurge, her claws protruded to meet Cocytus' halberd, she wrongly believed she was going to be able to take on both of them.
*BAAANGG!!*
He felt like a mountain, and Kuu realised she had severely underestimated Nazarick. Yasaka and Ray made it look too easy, which meant... she was the weak one.
"No!"
Still, she was reluctant to believe that. Having lived for thousands of years, there was no way she would perish at the hand of an icy fellow. Her body grew up in size as Cocytus groaned and exhaled breaths of ice.
He looked from the periphery of his vision and saw Azrael fly straight into the pit, heading down to the ninth floor, where the treasury resided.
"Stop her, Demiurge! The treasury must not be touched!"
...
Azrael recalled her task; she watched how her lord was already engaged in a battle, and he more than likely wouldn't need help. So she went into the action and flapped her wings to fly into the pit and look for the treasures. As she did so, a demon appeared in front of her.
*CLAANGG!!*
Her scythe sparkled up; she frowned and received the head-on strike of a pair of claws burning in black flames.
"I won't let you!"
Azrael flapped her wings; in an aerial battle, her ten wings had the absolute advantage over Demiurge's pair; she evaded swiftly and kicked the demon straight into his ribcage. Demiurge spat out but swiftly evaded her scythe coming for his neck, in doing so he exposed his wing that got sliced, making him lose balance and collapse down the skies.
"Ugh!"
Azrael took that chance, grasped his head with one hand and with the other, created a massive light spear.
"Ha!"
The spear impaled Demiurge, who shot down the pit and landed on the edge of the fourth floor with an explosion, coughing blood and grasping the spear in a futile intent to pluck it out his chest.
"I-I have to... p-protect-"
*WHOOSH!*
A spear mercilessly pierced his skull; ten more pierced his chest, legs, the last wing and finally... his heart.
*BOOOOMMM!!!*
*BOOOOMMM!!!*
*BOOOOMMM!!!*
...
Those spears then exploded one by one in blinding light, and just like that, without so much effort from Azrael, an old demon perished with enough regrets and shame to last several reincarnations.
With her obstacle gone, Azrael continued with her task; she saw a lot of undead that seemed to be making a protective flesh wall that served as a net to stop her from keeping down.
She sensed danger and swiftly ducked down a fist coming her way. It was Yuri Alpha and the rest of the Pleiades who surrounded her on the fifth floor. Together with them was a young girl who hadn't introduced herself prior.
She was a maid... and a spider... and a miko... a weird mix of all wearing a headband and looking regal yet ominous. Her hands waved, and thin sharp strings became apparent around Azrael, who frowned immediately.
Compared to her, the rest of the Pleiades were like little kids.
"I'm Aureole Omega... and you will pay for this, invader. We, as the Pleiades, would be ashamed to flee when our home is undergoing relentless invasion. Even at the cost of our lives, we won't let you through!".
Azrael smiled, recalling this was the reason she left the Seventh Heaven in the first place, to experience a different type of thrill. To become useful again.
"I'll bring you true death and present your fresh corpses for my lord to delight on, be ready".
Looks of disgust towards Ray marked the beginning of a lifelong misunderstanding.