Chapter 37: Satan Spreads His Wings

Valend Eligos sat with a glass of wine in hand, smug as he could be. And why shouldn’t he be? He had secretly returned to his ancestral homelands and had built a hidden city where he housed an army of Devils numbering in the hundreds of thousands!

True Devils, at that!

Loyal to the old ways of their kind. Loyal to the rightful scions and overlords of their race. Not the pretenders that sat in their cities, preaching tolerance and acceptance and cooperation. The pretender Satans were no better than Angels! What with their love for all things foreign, alien to the Devils’ way of life, it was revolting.

The thought alone made him sick.

Year by year, decade by decade, more and more foreigners made their way into the Underworld. Humans and beasts and even Fallen; all granted the precious glory of demonic power by way of Ajuka Astaroth’s abominations.

Curse the madness of that usurper’s fell mind!

Once the rightful Lords of the Underworld were restored, they would purge all the filthy reincarnated Devils, sullying the Pillar’s ancient legacy with their filthy, foreign blood. The Underworld was a place for pure-blooded Devils and pure-blooded Devils alone!

As he looked out the window, and beheld his great city, the beginnings of the restored capital of House Eligos. Soon, he would be a Pillar Lord, as was his birth right! And all the foul traitors who had sided with the false Satans would be cast down, and it would be their Houses that would be declared extinct!

Valend couldn’t help but shake in anticipation.

However, a frown quickly marred his lips as he beheld the decorations on the wall shake as well. And the wine in his cup. And the windows.

…eh?

Had he become so powerful that a minor tremble of excitement from him was enough to shake his entire palace?

And then it slammed into him.

A titanic malevolent force threatened to crush him in place. And an all-consuming primal fear gripped Valend, causing his tremors of enthusiasm to become those of abject terror.  

The goblet of wine slipped from his fingers, shattering on the ground below and spilling red liquid that began to bubble and evaporate. An invisible and wretched weight pressed down upon his shoulders, crushing him against his throne. His back and knees screamed in protest as he forced his body upright, but he tumbled forward and fell against a large window. And instantly he let out a scream as the unbelievable heat from the glass seared against his face. He stumbled back from the window, eyes wide, the air blistering hot in his lungs.

What in the blazes…?

Then came the sound, not a roar or a crash, but a silence so loud it forced his ears to pop, filling them with a high-pitched whine that rattled his teeth. All around him, the lights began to stutter. Shadows, once fixed and harmless, began to twitch violently across the walls and floors. Some dragged themselves upward, limbs forming where there were none, clinging to the pillars and vaulted ceilings like tortured souls come alive. The crystal lights mounted across the chamber dimmed, then flared a fiery orange with a scorching light, burning without fire and casting warped silhouettes that seemed to writhe in agony.

A low hum rattled through the floor as the glass panes in his windows began to bubble and sag, warping like wax near open flame. Steel beams in the distant towers groaned loud before keeling over, liquefying and dripping down the facades of the city’s skyscrapers in a molten flow. And the sky - the sky - Valend had to blink to make sense of it. No longer violet, it had become a grotesque melding of crimson and yellow, a cacophony of horrid and burnt colors blending together like churning oil, unable to decide on hue or form.

Reality was weeping.

He tried to summon his magic, but his spell circles shattered the moment they formed, their lines distorting and recoiling as if reality itself had begun to reject the very idea of order and form. The very air tasted wrong: thick and sulfuric, brimming with choking ash.

Something had come. Something that did not belong in this world. Something that did not belong in any world.

Oh.

Oh.

He had heard the rumors. The fledgling who had dared to sit in Wrath’s seat. The once human boy who had the audacity to take for himself the title of Crown Prince. How he walked with Hell itself in his veins. But he had dismissed the rumors as more nonsense from the usurpers’ camp. A child barely two decades old sitting on the Throne of one of the Seven Deadly Sins? Impossible.

But he had been wrong. He had been so, terribly, terribly wrong.

Satan had come.

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Rias Gremory paused mid step, her heart skipping a beat. From deep within her soul, she felt dread like bile rise up, leaving an ashen taste in her mouth. She looked down and saw her hand twitching. Her legs trembled beneath her skirt, and her eyes began to water as black spots began to appear in her vision.

Breath caught in her throat, she turned towards Akeno, noting her Queen looking as disturbed and afraid as she was. However, as their eyes met, Rias immediately recognized the fear in Akeno’s eyes. It was one all too familiar to her.

The Lord Wrath.

Her breath hitched as memories of crimson eyes and accursed Hellfire consumed her mind.

“Oh, my.” Her mother’s voice came heavy, perturbed.

“Indeed,” her father said gravely. “T’would seem someone has provoked one of the Crown Princes. Poor fool.”

“Is-is everything okay?” Rias asked nervously.

Her father looked at her for a poignant second before answering. “Oh, I doubt this ire is related to you. Take it from me, my dear, when one of the Crown Princes is venting their anger, it’s best to ignore the fiasco and pretend you don’t notice a thing. It’s much healthier than risking an angry Sin’s attention. Especially considering I can sense this particular Sin is the one that embodies anger. Now come along, we mustn’t tarry.”

Rias followed behind her parents, but despite her father’s words she couldn’t let go of the primeval fear flickering within her soul.

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Far off, in a garden of gold and green and immortal lights, Amaterasu looked on with great sorrow. A lone tear forming in the corner of her eye as she mourned the son now so irredeemably drenched in vile sovereignty. It was heartbreaking, seeing one of her children whom she had watched so intently from birth, be so utterly beyond her Light and Grace now. That was one thread she could never undo nor divert, no matter how much she wished to do so. Alas, all that was left now was this grand cosmic gamble which would see them finally delivered to salvation or the complete and utter annihilation of her Garden. Even she could not see past Time’s end, after all.

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And Ichigo unfurled his wings.

Twelve black pinions of endless brutality, blotting out light and casting grasping shadows onto this meagre dimension.

In a rare moment of indulgence, Ichigo abandoned all semblance of restraint and allowed the full might of his demonic power to spread out from within the confines of his Soul. In his right hand, Zangetsu burned as Hellfire danced across its lethal edge, the sadistic Soul-Sword thrumming with anticipation for the oncoming harvest.

As he slowly glided towards the city, the ground beneath him and skies behind him melted into one primal ooze, as existence itself was burned away. Ichigo reached out with his demonic essence, tendrils of dark power like colossal serpents winding their way through the ebb and flow of this pocket dimension. With each pulse of his power, the laws of physics and magic crumbled, overthrown and replaced by the singular tyranny of his Will.

He locked the dimension in his iron-clad might. Ensuring that there would be no escape for those within.

Ichigo extended himself further, and Time and Space groaned in protest. Buildings cracked. Roads boiled. The air turned heavy with brimstone. And he felt them: the lowest of Valend’s legions, the weakest of the Low-class Devils that were no better than mere humans. Those who served as front line fodder for the army.

Tens of thousands of them snuffed out like candle flames beneath the crushing gravity of his presence. They had no time to flee, no moment’s notice to scream. His aura rolled through the city like a silent inferno, melting minds and igniting souls. Their wards and magical barriers shattered like glass beneath the hammer of his might, offering no resistance to the Crown Prince’s ire.

And still, Zangetsu remained motionless in his hands. There was no need for him to waste his sword on the remaining Devils who managed to survive his initial onslaught.

Out of the folds of space, Saviġuk walked into the air to his left. The giant wolf’s lips pulled back in a vicious snarl, exposing her blood red gums and long, ivory fangs.

But to his right, the fabric of space trembled and warped as a column of black wind expanded and tore its way into existence. From behind the dark gales, Ichigo could make out the murky shape of Humbaba, the ancient giant stood well over several hundred meters tall. Its huge eyes radiating a sinister crimson glow, and the tips of its huge horns that curved forward burned like molten iron.

Ichigo turned his sights back to the city, his lips curling as a cruel rage burned through him. He had been cursing his inaction and the inability to take out his heartache over Tiamat’s injuries from Rhongomyniad.

And then there was the great disturbance he had sensed earlier. It hadn’t taken him long to recognize that it could only have something to do with Amaterasu and Soul Society. He still didn’t fully understand what weaves of Fate she had woven to tie him so strongly to Soul Society. His obvious parentage aside, there was something more that tangled him with the Shinto Pantheon. Him and the Soul-Sword burning in his hand. Infuriatingly enough though, he could no longer sense anything from Soul Society. Before, he could get small snippets and whispered tells of undead power moving about. Now, it was completely blocked off.

He had even asked Tiamat to look, with her superior experience and knowledge of maneuvering through the ever-shifting currents of the future. Alas, even his beloved Dragon King had been left blinded.

He had surmised that it must have been Amaterasu working her power to blind others to the Shinto afterlife. Perhaps even the enigmatic Soul King himself. That Ichigo could sense something had gone wrong but then suddenly be left in the dark, it was maddening.

How fortunate for him then, that the Old Satan Faction made themselves available to be the outlet for his building ire.

A surge of demonic power rippled through the city, pulling Ichigo from his thoughts. They were like thousands of little flames flickering before the Sun's inferno that was a Satan. By Ichigo’s senses, he could count over two-hundred thousand strong remaining. He could have killed them all, in the initial onslaught. But that much of a release of demonic power would have risked killing the Eligos scion or wounding him to the point he would no longer prove to be a valuable prisoner.

Besides, he had promised his two Pieces some fun.

“Leave the strongest one to me, kill the rest,” he said coldly.

Saviġuk exploded from her spot, her swift legs crossing the distance between them and the city in less than a second. And already he could begin to hear the screams. Humbaba let out a deep guttural roar, causing the ground to crack and up end with the force of a monstrous earthquake as the giant lumbered forward.

Ichigo stayed motionless, taking in the slaughter, though he had kept Valend’s presence pinned in his mind’s eye.

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Saviġuk crashed into the streets like a hurricane of fur and fang, her colossal paws shattering stone and sending up geysers of blood as she beheaded dozens of Devils with a single swipe. They scattered before her, shrieking in panic, unleashing spells and desperate curses that broke against her pelt like dry twigs hurled at a glacier. She barely noticed them. A single jab of her claws, colder than the highest, frozen peaks of Infernity, cut through their formations like paper. Bodies rending and folding in on themselves as she cleaved through rows of soldiers in a single breath.

She tore through barricades and battle wards with bestial rage, her fangs pulverizing magicked-steel and bone with equal ease. There was no elegance in her movements, no carefuly laid out tactics, only raw, destructive instinct honed by centuries of predatory supremacy. Her muzzle dripped crimson as she bit down on a panicked High-class Devil, her jaw crushing his ribcage in a sickening crunch. The soul fled the body, but Saviġuk’s golden eyes flashed, and the ghostly echo of his essence was yanked back into her jaws and swallowed whole.

And still she hungered.

Another squadron rushed her from the flank, foolish enough to think coordination mattered in the presence of a Wrath’s Apex Predator. One of them raised a ebony staff and chanted a spell that ignited the air around her in demonic flame. For a moment, Saviġuk vanished behind the roaring blaze, until she leapt through it with a ferocious growl, completely untouched. Her icy breath extinguishing the flame mid-air.

She landed on the assorted Devils like a comet.

The staff-wielder died first, impaled on a claw that lifted him high before slamming him into the pavement with enough force to crater the street. She ripped out the spine of another with her teeth, then used his corpse as a bludgeon to crush three more. Blood sprayed in thick arcs across the white fur of her chest, staining her a gory red.

Magic missiles and binding chains laced with holy silver coiled toward her, she let them strike. It made no difference to her. Her master had given her leave to fill her belly with souls; she would indulge in full. The spells fizzled and warped the moment they touched her body, unable to bind her, clad as she was in her master’s dark blessings. Her presence was antithetical to order itself, a beast ice from ice and shadow; Wrath’s will made manifest through raw demonic savagery.

Saviġuk’s tail lashed out, cracking open the façade of a nearby skyscraper. It groaned and collapsed, crushing thousands beneath the tidal wave of glass and molten rebar that. But she was already gone, bounding through the concrete streets with terrifying speed, leaving death in her wake. She crashed through a barrier dome erected by a desperate group of Mid-class Devils and tore through them like an avalanche of white frost and screaming snow. One tried to run.

And she even let him.

He made it twenty feet before her breath struck him from behind, a chill so cold it crystallized the magic in the air, freezing his blood mid-pulse. The Devil collapsed and shattered, his soul freed from its flesh.

Saviġuk devoured it quick.

She relished it in brutal delight. And yet, her soul-eating was not an act of gluttony, but a showcase of dominance. She consumed not merely to destroy, but to subjugate them to her master’s will. That they may know torment in the Eternity of his Flames.

A shrieking High-class tried to rally a final defense line with heavy units and warding specialists. They formed a fortress around a high spire and funneled their power into a singular, massive hex-circle that pulsed with anti-life enchantments. Saviġuk stared at them from across the broken boulevard, then slowly began to stalk.

Her steps were light and mute. Her head held low to the ground, even as blood fell in gallons from her front.

The spellcaster’s voice rose to a fever pitch, veins bulging with effort as he poured his life into the binding ritual. The circle ignited in an uncanny purple light, yet the moment Saviġuk’s claws raked onto its radius, it collapsed like frost in the wind. The caster choked on his own breath as the power turned on him, rebounding and boiling the blood in his veins. He died mid-scream.

Then she was upon them.

This time, she did not kill swiftly.

She took the time to dismember them, to claw and tear and gnaw. A heavy soldier was ripped limb from limb, his torso thrown through a wall before his soul was snapped from the air and crushed between her fangs. Another she pinned beneath her paw and slowly pushed into the street until his armor gave way, and he popped like a grape.

Saviġuk paused, breath making rime in the foul air.

The city stank of death now. Of burning metal and melting magic. Dread and blood stained the city. Her snowy fur was drenched red, thick with clots and strings of meat. Her eyes glinted with cold purpose as her tongue lazily licked the gore from her lips.

In the distance, the ancient Giant moved. A tower of unrivaled fury and wind.

Good, she thought.

There was still more blood to spill.

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Even from dozens of miles away, Ichigo’s gaze picked out the white blur that was his Knight as she tore through wave after wave of enemies. And though his mind was currently seeped with his Sin, from the fringes of his soul, he could feel some form of happiness for his Knight, as she was allowed to run wild and unrestrained.

She was thoroughly enjoying herself. Given how he had essentially forbidden his Pieces from acting out in Infernity, Saviġuk was often left to entertain herself with the powerful beasts that roamed the wildlands. It was an all too rare occasion for her to be allowed to indulge in a full-blown slaughter like this.

And within the seconds his thoughts had mulled over his wolf, the white streak became a crimson band of ravaging death, of fanged jaws snapping and sharpened claws reaping. Saviġuk massacred thousands by the second.

Ichigo twirled Zangetsu in his hand, satisfied.  And then he turned his attention to the other half of the city, where Humbaba had begun his own assault on the doomed infantry of the Old Satan Faction.

The Oldest Foe’s power rocked the entire dimension, a casual wave of its arm causing miles upon miles of destruction. What had made Humbaba so dangerous, so mighty that even Gilgamesh had been helpless for it, was not it's immense size and physical power though. It had been the Seven Auras Enlil had granted to it in ancient times. Seven unique Authorities that had made it so overwhelmingly powerful that the giant had filled even Marduk himself with a terrible fright.

After Humbaba’s death, however, those Auras had been stripped from his corpse, reassigned by the Mesopotamian Triumvirate for their own ends. Sadly, after he had resurrected Humbaba, he and Tiamat had only been able to track down five of the seven Auras. But though diminished, Humbaba was still far more powerful than any other Rook in the Underworld, save for his former peerage fellow, Surtr Second.

Ichigo and Tiamat had both kept a watchful eye, looking out for the remaining two Auras, but stil, Humbaba was more than capable of cleaning up this army. A thousand, a million, it made no difference. They would all crumble before his Rook.

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The ground split beneath Humbaba’s lumbering tread, each footfall pounding like the drums of an ancient war. Towering over the city, his mountainous form eclipsed what little light remained in this twisted, unraveling dimension. His crimson eyes, burning coals fueled by the energies of the his dread master, swept over the teeming legions of the Old Satan Faction. They charged with spellblades and spears, wings unfurled, voices raised in incantation-

And then they saw him.

And the First Aura came.

The Aura of Dread bled from the giant’s flesh like ink on water. Its power seeped across the battlefield, a slow, creeping terror-like whispers in the wind. Whispers that hollowed courage and curdled pride. Those who met Humbaba’s gaze stopped mid-step, their limbs freezing as if they were turned to stone. Weapons clattered to the ground as hands quivered too violently to hold them. Eyes widened to the point of rupture.

And then came the screams.

Maddened. Broken. Screams.

Hardened veterans collapsed, sobbing and drooling as the primal, soul-stripping terror overtook them. Some fled in blind terror, tearing at their armor, trying to rip their own skin away. Others turned their weapons on comrades or on themselves, anything to silence the eldritch pressure cracking their minds open. Even the strongest among them - those few who had once stared down the armies of the Great War, they felt their thoughts slow, and grind to a painful halt. Their minds clouded by visions of ancient death, of inevitability, of futility.

The Aura of Dread did not sear flesh. It did not break bone. It simply whispered that all things must end, and that Humbaba had always been that end.

Then came the second terror.

The Third of the Seven Auras.

A windless pressure filled the air, and a suffocating silence fell like a shroud across the battlefield.

The Aura of Breathless Wind surged from the giant’s core like a malignant tide. Around Humbaba, the very concept of air seemed to twist, thicken and go deathly still. Wings faltered in flight as the currents collapsed, and mid-air Devils dropped like stones, their own motion undone by invisible force

Worse still, their voices no longer obeyed them.

Mages who attempted to chant found their throats seized. Words came in dry gags, cries stuck behind clenched teeth. The air in their lungs was no longer theirs to command. Incantations died unsaid. Runes failed to activate. Fell songs of power dwindled into choking gasps.

For the Aura of Breathless Wind did not simply stifle air; it stole the agency of those unworthy to speak before the Oldest Foe. For this ancient behemoth now given life again, there was only one voice that deserved to be heard, and that was its master who burned the sky away.

One battalion commander, a female Devil who had been renowned for her command of fire, raised her hands and called for her magical flames.

But nothing came.

No spark. No ember. No ash, save for those that fell from winds beneath Satan’s wings.

Her lungs seized, and her own scream of desperate need echoed silently inside her skull as Humbaba’s steps drew closer. The buildings around her bent and twisted from his gravitational presence. The road beneath her boiled.

And as the giant’s heel came down, the crunch of her bones echoed through silent, though not empty streets.

Within the radius of the Breathless Wind, spellcasters dropped like puppets with cut strings. Choirs of magic dissolved into chaos. Strategic orders could not be shouted, and magical defenses failed to form.

The front lines crumbled.

Humbaba’s hands swept through one squadron with contemptuous ease, reducing elite warriors to a bloody mist. His massive limbs crushed towers. The tail end of a careless backhand sent skyscrapers crashing into a cataclysmic quake that ruptured miles of the city. Devils tried to regroup behind magical shields, only to watch those very barriers crumble in their hands.

One daring High-class Devil lunged with a demonic halberd, the head of the weapon glowing with various curses and vile enchantments.

Humbaba didn’t even notice.

The air around the weapon shimmered, thickened, and the spell frazzled out. The captain’s breath caught. His legs froze. The halberd dropped, and so did he. His mind already breaking from the full onslaught of the First Aura, as hope churned cold into despair.

And still Humbaba advanced.

And this was the ancient Giant’s declaration. A reminder. That some monsters predated the myths that named them. That some powers were too old to be measured with reason and logic. That dread and silence are weapons just as deadly as claw and fang.

And above all else, that his master’s will could not be denied.

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Valend Eligos sat slumped against the fractured base of a collapsed pillar, his limbs trembling, eyes wide with naked terror. The city disintegrated around him, red skies churned like boiling blood and screams drowned beneath the wailing of scorching wind. But all of it was background noise compared to the Dread Power descending from above.

He couldn’t see him clearly, not through the veil of pressure crushing his neck down towards the ground, but he felt him. Each pulse of the dark power as it came closer and brought more weight, more pain and agony.

Valend gasped as the bones in his right arm snapped with a sickening crunch. His mouth opened to scream, but only blood spilled forth. His ears rang, then burst, blood trickling hot down his neck.

Every inch of him screamed to run, to flee, but his body no longer obeyed. The sheer presence pressing down on him was like gravity weaponized. His lungs felt deflated. His spine audibly cracked as his bones gave way to the immensity of the mythic weight of a true Demon descending. The very space around him warped, bending toward the approaching entity as existence itself bowed in fear.

Eligos was grasped in a crushing grip of infernal might that blistered his skin, his broken body forced to its knees as he was made to stare up and behold Satan in all his fell glory. Fool that he was, he had thought himself mighty? That being a descendant of warlords and generals, an heir to a Pillar’s name made him worthy of a claim to power? Oh, he understood now. He understood far too well. Titles? Bloodlines? Domains? Meaningless. Completely and utterly meaningless before true Evil itself.

He had been a deluded fool. Her had been wrong. Lucifer, he had been so horrifically wrong.

Who was Creuserey? Who was Katerea?

This was a true Crown Prince of Hell!

He could feel his Devilish soul cry out in submission. The very fiber of his being aching to fall in prostration before this absolute horror. The primal dread elicited from his core was something he could never have imagined even in his most depraved nightmares. Tears and snot marring his face, Eligos mustered all his remaining strength to raise a single broken arm in desperate plea.

“P-please…please. Mercy,” he cried pathetically.

There was a flash of white, and he let loose a ferocious scream as his arm was sent flying and the cauterized stub above his elbow exploded in an excruciating pain.

Crimson eyes glared down at him balefully. “There is no mercy in Hell.”