A sense of relief finally caught up to Rias. He took a relaxed breath, and made the deer conduit swallow what it had been about to release mid flight.
Rias held the deer's antlers and spun to stand over deer's sacred looking head. He then sat down, and ordered it to soar higher, and higher into the clear sky above, close to the pillar of green and black flame.
The young Game Master drew more crows to glide around him, and then sent one of them down. The crow found itself staring down the original Vali, and the woman stared at it for a moment before looking up at Rias.
"You see pretty relaxed," Vali said.
Skullius and Gabel flashed to Vali's side just in time to hear the crow flying before her speak with Rias' voice.
"Why shouldn't I?" it said, presumably projecting Rias' thoughts. "After all, try as you might, it's all over. Even if you somehow manage to kill me."
"What?" Skullius asked with a rough look, however, he was quickly distracted by his misty, fiery Aura burning away, returning to its normal blackish blue hue, and resuming its state as a general coat around him. This was caused by the effect of [Swordmaster's Quiescence] ending, but Skullius clung on to the feeling of it desperately. Without it, he would be useless in this.
"The game ended. You all denied the chance I gave you to head to the GOAL. I suppose only one was smart enough, in the end, unlike you. Now, your chances to live may as well be done," Rias replied, though his face showed a rather irritated look when the second sentence sounded from the crow.
...!
Only one?
The trio looked up past the gap in the clouds which Rias had made, and saw that surely, the glowing gateway – the GOAL – was gone!
"You would have been better off killing each for Units, but, well... I hope you enjoyed the prospect of changing absolutely NOTHING," the young Game Master said through the crow, and from above, he showed a very small sadistic smile. His eyes turned to Skullius. "But like I said, there are liberties in your way. As long as you still have the Control Seal, the rules are still relevant, and the Units may prove useful."
Vali looked at Rias dangerously.
What he said gave her a really bad feeling. While struggling through the raging mana, most of the excess which she had managed to spill out to her clones, she wondered.
Had this all truly been for nothing? No way. After all...
A loud crash garnered their attention, representing the final stacks of glass plates guarding the flame getting smashed apart! The texture of the tower of flame was made apparent once more, and a heat which somehow bypassed the area around them to burn everything a bit further away, was released.
Vali's clones looked at the flame with a deep set apprehension.
Rias looked at the group with a mocking gaze.
"Not so simple, is it? To get to what's inside, you need to brave through the fire. Do you have the gall to taste just how much it burns?" he said.
One of the Valis, at his words, jumped into the fire, followed by the rest, all bathed in thick, bulbous magenta Auras.
Howls of agony were heard as they stepped in and began to rush through, their bodies depicted as dark shadows within the blazing green and black heat. Rather frighteningly, most of the clones only managed to take six steps before dissolving within the fire!
Aura and all!
...!
The others looked on, appalled.
Skullius in particular was disturbed. While everyone here had noticed that there was a thick stretch of Undeath in that glaring flame, he had realised – after a while – that the flame... wasn't actually a flame. It was just a malicious expression of Undeath energy.
For it to be this destructive, judging by how it looked, it had to be extremely condensed. Even Vali's inflated Aura couldn't do anything about it, and was eaten away instantly.
For a moment, the trio was stunned, not knowing what to do.
Gabel narrowed his dark eyes at Rias, and he seemed intent on killing him, however he would do it.
He looked to be about to conjure his trident from Perfect Aura, when a thunderous noise from the sky above distracted him.
A gaping, dark portal emerged over where the tower of Undeath energy ended.
Everyone eyed it cautiously.
In the next moment, there was a disturbing cacophony of wails.
They called from the dark portal, and in their chorus, a stream of large, orb-like objects, a light glow around each, began to fall.
They slid down into the towering pillar of undeath energy, their soft light visible even from the depth of the brilliant mass.
Vali, Gabel, Skullius, Grutus, and Maxim couldn't believe their eyes. They needed no exposition to know what these things were.
Souls... these were souls!
Where did they come from?!
Their sheer quantity was only appreciated when a few seconds passed, the gaping opening above the flame growing larger to facilitate the expulsion of double the amount of souls as before!
Some of these souls, as the five contenders noticed, wailed loudly, and did not conform to the same orb-like shape that the rest were forced into. Distinct faces popped up from them as they cried, and each of the five realised immediately... that these wailing souls belonged to all the contenders who had died during Premium Age Royale.
"What the..!" Skullius exclaimed, and another realisation screeched through his mind. If these were the souls of contenders... then, were the rest the souls of the witnesses?!
Was every witness in the stadium...dead?!
The thought crossed the others' mind, and Skullius saw that they were also flabbergasted at such a possibility.
All these souls... all dropping into the towering Undeath energy as if it were gullet leading to the stomach, the engraving on the ground, which, at this moment, started to flicker vibrantly, showing all its contours, and runic ends...
Skullius dropped his sword.
He hadn't thought Guissepo, the Green Neolists and the EverSword would be so bold as to kill millions so quickly, and use their souls like this!
What were they trying to do?!
Were they summoning something?!
Above that, Skullius' body shuddered...
'Theurien... ' he thought. 'Are Terese and Daggs... alright?'
He remembered that they were the only ones from the Bryne Family left attending the Premium Age Royale, and the thought that they could be... that they could be among these souls being fed to... whatever was under here....
Skullius found himself dashing towards the flame, a pale look on his face.
He watched more closely with Crude Vision, his head conjuring the image of Terese, Theurien's daughter, burning through the violent Undeath energy.
If Theurien were to lose his youngest child too...
A part of Skullius which he thought had been healed through the Super potion earlier, strangled him.
Skullius' hand stretched out, and he took a step closer to the Undeath energy.
"Don't," he heard someone say.
Behind him, was Maxim, whose face was deathly pale. She didn't look too good.
Her voice spanked logic through the Hybrid Luman.
What was he even trying to do here. Could he hold souls in his hands? He couldn't enter the Undeath energy pool, let alone scoop up souls with his hands. How would he even know which was Terese's or Daggs'?
Were they even among these souls?
Hadn't Theurien prepared something just in case?
Yet, even with all these thoughts, Skullius' hand, as if it didn't belong to him, pushed ahead once more, and his body too followed.
A powerful grip clutched at him, and a different voice spoke.
"Please, don't do it."
Skullius turned. It was Darwel.
In her hand, she was holding a half-moon shaped object that crumpled immediately. Beads of sweat could be seen on her forehead, as she panted slightly.
"I don't think there's anything we can do here."
Skullius frowned, and looked up.
The souls just kept coming, dipping themselves into the flame.
It really didn't look like they could do anything.
The young Game Master scoffed above. He looked a bit amused.
Things became even more interesting for him when he saw Grutus rush up to the pillar, drawn to it by a screaming soul that morphed itself to show a familiar face now and then. Skullius and the others recalled who it was too, and they were all surprised to see that she was a part of this.
She was dead?
How?
Liura, in a glowing form was pressed into the flame as well, and Grutus just shattered at the sight. He trudged towards her, his face sallow, devoid of what many could have called restrain .
"Liura!" he screamed, his hands rummaging over his body as if he didn't know that he had stored what he needed within his spatial storage.
He then pulled what he and his gang had called Faze String and clutched it tight. Without another thought, he then dove into the fiery Undeath before anyone could stop him.
To everyone's surprise, Grutus didn't get eviscerated like the Valis. Instead, a vaguely vivid shadow of his body could be seen walking the towering energy as he looked up, waiting for Liura's soul to reach him.
He had become something of an immaterial being permeable if that, a property afforded by the item he was holding. It was bundled up with six others when he had found it, and was thus easy to figure out its limits. But why it came in such a quantity was also significant.
Grutus face turned rigid.
When Liura's soul, screeching awfully, with a sad face came floating down directly to where he had positioned himself showed no signs of recognising him, or sanity in its call, Grutus broke.
He desperately swung his arms to catch Liura's, but she... fazed through his body, as if she was merely a figment of his imagination.
Grutus, in gnawing horror, looked on as Liura's soul drowned in the large, glowing array (if it could even be called such a demeaning name) beneath his feet, and added to it, and a fuse blew out in his brain!
He roared angrily, fumingly and punched into the engraving as his Aura exploded outwards.
He soon felt the nasty heat start to sing his body, and ruthless devour him, but he kept on punching the engraving to no effect, until he too, was eradicated, with the Faze String's limited duration of effect ending.
The other contenders watched on with dark expressions.
Darwel pulled back Skullius further away from the Undeath energy pillar, and looked straight at him.
She held something in her hand, that looked a little like a ring, and pressed on it tight, a look of desperation on her face.
"This is really looking bad, huh?" she said. "Thankfully we found each other."
"Yeah..." Skullius said, his senses focusing upward where the stream of souls continued to descend. The ones from contenders featuring here and there among them, in order of their time of death it seemed.
Vali walked closer to the two and looked into the flame-like energy indignantly.
"If that idiot had given that thing he just used to any one of us, perhaps we could have made a difference," she snarled. The voracious mana she had seemed to be getting closer and closer to dimming down, confirming what she had said before; that she was nowhere near capable of making permanent Conjured Daydreams like Rias, if she even could.
"Any ideas on what to do now?"
Darwel frowned, thinking.
"I don't know if there's anything WE can do, but him and I are hoping against hope for someone else to show up," she then said, the 'him' she was referring to being Skullius of course.
"Who?" asked Vali curiously.
"Let me not get our hopes up," the El Sif quickly said.
"You don't think they died too, do you?" Skullius turned to her and asked.
Darwel gave a wry smile before saying, "Imagining the look on my parents faces if that happens... it won't be great. But I'm sure they are alive."
"Are we not going to do anything about him?" Maxim asked while looking at Rias who rode his deer head, while hundreds of crows flocked around him.
"He's too high in the sky. Reversing time on him isn't going to work," Gabel chipped in. It was strange seeing him not being the scribbling oddball. He gave his neck a light scratch. "And if he's expecting to be attacked, he's already prepared more of the game's items to use against us. Unlike before, he isn't insisting on guarding that engraving, which means it's a lot harder to fight him."
"So no way for us to acquire Units to save our skins? If that is even true?" Vali asked, watching as the remainder of her clones restrained the Cluster General.
Gabel turned to Skullius, his dark eyes narrowing at the more than 12,000 Units he had.
Suddenly, a crack of wind exploded a short distance away, in front of the pillar of energy.
From it, a young lady with silver hair and grey eyes emerged, as well as an older one with a stiff face.
...!!!
[Primal Caution] screamed at Skullius, and the others also seemed to be jerked alert upon seeing the new arrivals, especially the man waking amid the two ladies.
With a half green and half white mask, and a bloody, black robe, he looked frightening, the pressure pushed out of him burning with a wicked, determined zeal.
Before any of the five contenders could do a thing, Actuass spoke.
"Don't move."
...!
This was all it took to make all five stand still as if frozen solid, in each of their eyes a rebellious, but awestricken look.
"Let's watch what remains in peace," Actuass said.
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