While it was true that Rias had indeed been caught off guard, and seized by an ability of the six tailed Retriever that focused more on forcefully driving the target away in exchange for dealing dismal levels of damage, the young Game Master had barely been carried far for long.
It was also unfortunate for the contenders that Rias had seen everything that had happened in his absence through the crows' eyes, and with this knowledge...
The young heir, now standing beside the pillar of green flames again, after reversing time on himself, raised his large sword – which now, unlike when it possessed the Sky Watchers' abilities, looked like a generic black hilted, and silver bladed saber – and pointed it where the damage to his stack of glass plates was.
The bulging white eyes on his sword shook, and as if nothing had happened to them at all, they stood firm, restored from the treacherous damage they had taken!
Before Vali and Gabel could notice this, on top of the young Game Master's return, Rias had stormed towards the great golden-white structure in the distance, his Incarnation receding to become a thick, green Perfect Aura around him.
Rias reached the teaming crusade around the Preeminent Attegoth in a breath, his presence masked by his numerous crows flying about.
'This power is quite handy,' he thought, as his saber shook, and erected a large murky bubble around the area where his eight foes stood, freezing them in time.
Skullius, Maxim, Liura, Grutus and the Valis. They all grew still, all focusing on the third arrow which had been about to fully form.
Rias realised that the power his Conjured Daydream – the saber – had emulated, when it came to stalling time, was much easier to use, allowing him a full three second's worth of usage, while reversing time was only allowed to one instance, one second back in time. The latter also carried with it a harsh cooldown, but he didn't know if this was because his sword couldn't fully incorporate what Gabel could do, or if the man suffered the same limitations.
In any case, whatever he was capable of right now was enough to kill off needless nuisances, such as these before him.
Rias stood amidst the eight, right next to Skullius and his clone of Vali, and summoned his conduit, the deer.
It opened its maw wide, wider than it had before, and manifested something... that already existed within the confines of the Cluster.
A large hand as thick as Rias was broad, was the first to emerge, then quickly followed by the rest of a humanoid mass which was bound by abnormally large chains that made an ungodly amount of noise with their rattling. They were still connected to the interior deer's maw as the creature stood on its two legs.
It had heavy silver furs, on its arms, legs and chest, and a smaller patch noticeable above its head. Its face looked almost human, and this sentiment was made more evident because of the baggy, white shirt it wore, riddled with tears and dirt, on its lower body similarly spacious pants. It stood at four and a half meters in height, its eyes white, almost devoid of emotion, or reason for that matter.
One would be surprised to know that the Imagining Technique had another aspect to it. If the user could imagine, down to the last minute detail, the image of anything that they had come into contact with, they could summon said anything through their conduit, especially if it no means to resist.
Such was what Rias was doing with the Cluster General he had bound when he conquered the Cluster. He summoned it from its place at the base of the mountain!
The creature that the Sky Watchers revered, hoping to become like it as they grew, was the young Game Master's slave.
Rias then gazed at it in this stalled time, and snapped his fingers. The chains binding the beast shook, and the Cluster General roared in what seemed like mad fury, and went into a frenzy.
As it just so happened, the three seconds of stalled time ended, and in real time, a blast wave of ferocious mana suddenly swept through the entire Cluster from the General!
Given how it was when the beast had been thousands of miles away, the sheer power, and obliterating force of the mana gushing from the creature, to Skullius, Vali, Liura, Vali, Maxim, Vali, Grutus and Vali... was unspeakable!
There was essentially no time to react, coming from the frozen time.
...!!!
This was it.
Skullius was shredded to pieces before his Super potion could fight against the rapid fragmentation of his existence.
He only managed to glimpse at the calm and apathetic face of Rias who stood firmly close to the emerged, frenzied Cluster General.
He couldn't even utter a word.
He couldn't activate anything it time.
He couldn't even bring himself to feel disappointed.
There was no mistaking it.
He, Liura, Maxim and Grutus... perished.
The land they had been standing in suffered a similar fate, unlike the mysterious forest in which the Cluster General had been chained in originally.
It was ploughed through casually.
When the storm of mana stopped its gush from the General seconds later, the area around was left clear and almost devoid of life like the vast swath of land to the side.
Rias looked on without a shift in emotion.
"Hmmm."
His gaze then fell on something squirming on the ground. Something had survived the calamity.
He looked at a wriggling arm of Vali's with mild surprise in his eyes, and even entertained leaving it to eventually form the full body of the copy to survive.
"You really are deserving of the praise as an elite healer," Rias remarked as the clone formed itself wholly, appearing to be lying on the ground, a furious look on its face.
Rias had sensed the real Vali whom he had left close to the pillar get blown away too, so this was quite surprising.
Even Vali's doubles didn't die easy.
Speaking of the ambitious woman...
Vali had done all she could to stop herself from being swept too far.
She had been caught off guard by how the damage she was celebrating to have been done to the shield around the pillar of green flame, had suddenly been undone, and how a fierce, almost irresistible flood of wildly raging mana had pushed her away while attempting to raze her body to atoms.
It didn't make her feel any better when she felt through her flesh copies which she had constructed after Rias' first large scale attack, to assemble the other contenders, that everyone who had been close to the young Game Master... was dead.
"Tsk!"
As Vali regenerated while rising from the pile of minced trees she had crashed into, she felt a deeply sour sensation racing through her.
The tall Cluster General in the distance still blew out a vicious energy, now caged within its powerful, humanoid body, spelling out an additional problem for Vali to deal with.
The air, and bland space was twisting where the creature stood, and Vali was somewhat intimidated.
Was it just her and Gabel left now?
That made everything much, much harder.
Speaking of the dark, greasy haired man... where was he?
Vali pondered all these things while streaking towards Rias, her eyes connecting to her flesh clone which had regenerated.
'Damn it!' she cursed in her mind.
Meanwhile...
*
All he could tell was that everything was brooding and empty.
He was surprisingly fully conscious, and with difficulty, he forced his eyes open, for in this state, he could see just fine.
The surroundings were mouldy textured, with a mix of black and grey about them.
He felt himself shooting up through this wide space, that featured nothing else, and no one else.
His body... it had grown very short, a luminous glow about it. Several misshapen patches of different, contrasting colours could be spotted over his torso, telling that his form had been broken and beaten thoroughly before.
Some could be healed, some could only be patched up.
The current circumstance could be solved by neither, however.
Because he was truly dead.
Skullius felt himself lose a bit of confidence.
'I really died...' he thought to himself.
He hadn't even managed to attempt to resist, or utter some finally words. While he hadn't been afraid, it certainly wasn't like he could grin happily when such an expected, and completely unremarkable death denied him any choice.
Rias.
Skullius was sure that regardless of what happened, he would certainly remember that young man.
'Tomato flinger!' Sila suddenly screamed, his voice coming from a large, coloured patch on Skullius' abdomen. 'Do it now! Before we are taken away!'
Right.
Skullius concurred.
Him streaking upwards right now, was a really bad sign.
He was probably being drawn to Somanda, as the Lich had told him would happen if he ever died.
He could almost hear the rough, clapping laugh of the Lich from above, and almost see a massive hand coming down to grasp at him.
Whatever corridor he was travelling through right now, started spotting hints of red and green, defying the hollow black and grey hues.
Indeed. If he didn't do it quickly, all would be lost.
'Right...' Skullius said dispiritedly.
This was one of the reasons he had saved Sila for, asides from his promise.
Energy from Skullius' soul began to funnel into Sila's own, which was significantly small in one second, and slightly bigger in the next.
Sharing soul energy had happened between these two before, and Skullius was familiar with its effect.
His intent as a trump card against falling into Somanda's hand, had been to sacrifice a significant portion of his soul, so that he and Sila would become conjoined; helping Sila grow stronger as they melded.
No sooner had Skullius begun feeding Sila, had he noticed his travel through the corridor slowing down little by little, the transition of the surroundings into red and green becoming less quick.
The results were already showing.
He been right.
This was feasible!
Unlike Skullius, Sila's soul didn't belong to Somanda. It belonged to Aigas, to the three governing Deities. As such, Skullius had figured that if Sila's soul was strong enough, it would be pulled back to Aigas, to wherever the souls of the dead went.
Most in Aigas believed there was a rewarding paradise and a treacherous hell that souls would traverse to according to their deeds, and few believed... or knew otherwise.
Skullius didn't know or care which was true. As long as he didn't end up in Somanda's hands...
A grave sense of defeat weighed on him.
'I guess Maxim too...' he thought sombrely.
Everyone around must have been destroyed instantly too.
'Grutus and Liura probably didn't even get to use their Revival Stars, if they had any.'
Just as when Skullius had been fighting, Sila chose not to disturb him. That was why he had been silent.
He felt himself grow stronger, and melding into Skullius, and observed.
'...Will I get to see what I did in the past? How my old life was...?' Skullius' thoughts reverberated through the Tower General's own.
Skullius then seemed to almost stand still within the silent corridor, by he didn't seem to notice it.
Where was he to go now?
Could be potentially escape... since this half of his soul should have ties to Insurgent Magnus and Null Life powers?
Could he truly die in the first place?
Skullius didn't know.
He didn't even know if he had the courage to brave through what was next.
Perhaps...
"You've died once before... haven't you?" a voice called to Skullius, but he felt so hollow he couldn't be surprised by its sudden appearance.
He turned to the source.
"You wouldn't be so calm after dying like that if that weren't the case. Or maybe... is it that you just don't fear dying...?"
What spoke, was the most beautiful woman Skullius had ever seen.
She appeared so vivid and so firm while floating above him, that he could have sworn that she was a living human being, but... it couldn't be.
"Who... are you?" Skullius asked softly.
The woman had been smiling at him, but then her expression shifted exaggeratedly, morphing into what was unmistakably... disappointment.
"You're too cruel to ask such. Hmmm. You resemble him a bit too much..." she said, her voice sounding quite cold.
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