BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!
No sooner had Lucifer noticed Abaddon's arrival that a giant drill made of ice came crashing through the ceiling.
The ice made a direct beeline for Lucifer as if it were a homing missile, but the sin of pride remained largely unconcerned.
Holding up two glowing fingers, Lucifer cleanly sliced the ice in one swift movement.
The ice was neatly split right down the middle, and it embedded itself in the walls on either side of his throne.
Through the hole in the ceiling, Lucifer could see the culprit behind this unprovoked attack.
An enormous black dragon with four heads and multiple huge wings with eyes embedded within the membranes.
After becoming a true dragon, Abaddon's body had seen a rather noticeable boost in size and he was now 95 meters.
However, the sin of pride was not intimidated by his size in the slightest.
"This is rather rude of you." Lucifer said. "Even Satan had the decency to atleast kick in my front door."
Abaddon did not have the luxury of being polite.
As dishonorable as it was, Lucifer was just too powerful of an opponent for something like that.
For Abaddon to have even the slightest chance of victory, he had to use everything he had without stopping to think about what was right.
Abaddon opened all four of his mouths and let out an earth shaking roar that travelled for miles.
The temperature in the air dropped drastically, and giant pillars of ice ripped through the ground and pierced through Lucifer's castle, reducing it to icy rubble.
Abaddon watched the once glorious structure come down on top of his enemy, he knew that he couldn't wait for him to recover.
Opening all four mouths, Abaddon began to build up a terrible heat within his lungs and esophagus.
Four individual streams of white and purple flames flew out of the mouths of Abaddon and converged into a single enormous ball of fire that fell on top of the ruined castle.
BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!
Following up with a stream of attacks, Abaddon generated a giant black hole that was no smaller than the miniature sun he'd just unleashed, and he allowed it to swallow up the entirety of the now molten rubble.
The dragon did not dispel his attack for several seconds, as he wanted to be absolutely sure that Lucifer was dead.
When he finally dismissed the black hole, he peered down to see if he had been successful.
As he looked down at the empty crater that contained no ethereal sphere, he knew that he had failed in his assault.
'Damn it...'
"I am certain that this is your first time visiting, so why does it seem like you harbor such a grudge against my castle?"
"!"
Somehow, the sin of pride had not only escaped from the castle rubble without Abaddon's notice, but he had also appeared in the sky above him without revealing his presence.
Lucifer looked just as immaculate as always as his bleached blonde hair billowed in the wind.
Apparently, Abaddon had not even managed to dirty his opponent's armor, much less kill him.
"Who are you to be in the sky above me?" Pride said annoyedly. "Get back onto the ground where you belong."
BOOM!
A huge construct made of solidified light in the form of a fist fell onto the body of Abaddon, knocking him out of the sky with no difficulty.
The dragon's body hit the ground with an explosive thud, and Lucifer was once again in his rightful position above all.
He analyzed Abaddon carefully, and shook his head when he realized that all six sins were now swimming around inside of his body.
"Sloth, wrath, greed, and even envy... did you kill all of my siblings for their sins? Do you intend to kill me for mine as well?" Lucifer asked as he descended slowly from the sky.
Despite knowing that his siblings had been killed, he seemed to show no signs of grief over their deaths.
It was as if he was speaking about some random passerby instead of his own family.
"Belphegor and Leviathan are alive..." Abaddon replied as he removed himself from the rubble. "They handed me their sins of their own accord and thus continue breathing. As for whether or not I intend to kill you for yours... I do not believe that you will give me any other option."
"You're clever. I would think that you had the smarts not to make a decision as unwise as provoking me, but it seems as though your intelligence only goes so far."
If Pride was honest, his only real concern now was what exactly he should do with Abaddon.
By killing him, he would severely weaken himself.
And when things with the humans were showing signs of escalation, he couldn't afford to be off his game for even a second.
'I'll have to subdue him for now... and then I will find more suitable demons to hold the sins afterwards...'
The thought of losing to the dragon had never occurred to him for even a moment.
He carried the name of one of the most powerful beings in existence.
There was only one who was fit to make him bow his head, and anyone else was beneath his feet.
Even his own siblings were not exempt from this line of thinking, and one of the greatest irritants of his life was having to pretend that he was somehow on equal grounds with them.
'I nearly want to thank him for their deaths...'
No sooner had he had the thought that an eerily familiar construct of solidified green light struck him hard in the back.
BOOM!
In the blink of an eye, Lucifer had been knocked into the ground opposite Abaddon, and he was finally showing some degree of irritation.
"How dare you..."
What Abaddon had just used was use the main ability of the sin of envy.
Every time he was dealt a magical attack that was greater than his own capabilities, he had a chance to steal it and make it his own.
And it would be no less powerful than the original.
Lucifer quickly got up from one knee, and held out his hand to call his weapon from the rubble.
A large golden greatsword flew into his hand, and Abaddon was immediately able to feel an instinctive sense of danger.
"Just as insolent as Leviathan. You lack the power to accomplish things on your own so you must steal it from others like some sort of filthy street urchin. I am no longer amused."
Abaddon quickly made his irritation worse as he soared into the sky once again, and his entire body began to course with red electricity.
The sky overhead quickly became an ominous black color and a moment later enormous bolts of lightning fell down like they were an act of god.
Each lightning bolt seemingly traveled directly for Lucifer, and the sin of pride snorted in contempt as he tightened the grip on his sword.
"A foolish dragon, true or otherwise. I will show you clearly why pride stands above all."
-
A little under a mile away, the wives and Lillian were watching Abaddon's fight with bated breath.
They had found a hill with a descent view of the battle, and where all sitting atop the grassy surface, with their legs crossed together and their arms interlocked with each other.
Lillian was floating a short distance away, rather unsure of which spectacle she should comment on first.
"I-I know that this is an important moment, my queens but-"
"No." Audrina shot down Lillian's words without even looking away from the battle, and maintained a serious yet worried expression.
"E-Eh?"
Eris: "If husband has already said that you aren't allowed to be formal with him, then you aren't allowed to do so with us either."
Lisa: "You're free to speak to us comfortably. We've told you our names already, so don't tell me that you've forgotten them."
"N-No but calling you by your names is still a bit...." Lillian had been raised as a servant all her life, so this sudden closeness with royal figures was raking more than a bit of getting used to.
"I just... need a bit of time, I suppose."
Valerie: "We understand."
Bekka: "That's why we're going to give you a whole thirty minutes to get over it."
Once again, the wives displayed their strong friendship as they nodded in unison, showing that all of their feelings on this matter were the same.
"T-Thirty minutes?"
Lailah: "Twenty nine now."
"I... okay." Lillian muttered, finally accepting her defeat.
She still didn't know if she could call Abaddon by his first name, but some of his wives were rather scary so she was a bit terrified to disobey their orders.
"But if I may ask... why are all of you sitting like that?"
All seven women had taken their seats and interlocked their arms together without saying a word, as if they had done this a thousand times before.
Leaving the ghostly sword equally confused and amused.
"We're sitting like this so that we can hold each other back from interfering in husband's fight." Lisa explained.
"Some of us are more clearheaded than others sometimes, so sitting like this is often necessary, as odd as it may seem." Lailah said casually.
Inadvertently, the eyes of the wives drifted to Valerie, Seras, and Audrina.
They were the ones with the worst tempers, as well as the ones who had already begun to show signs of needing to be restrained.
In response, the girls merely shrugged their shoulders or rolled their eyes and continued to watch the battle.
"I see..." Lillian said slowly.
As she watched the scene of these seven equally beautiful and charming women sitting together, she could not help but comment on the uniqueness of their relationship.
"It is touching to see that you all take such good care of each other. Even when the pri... I mean your husband is not present, you all treat each other like family. Your relationship is rather astounding."
Truthfully, none of the wives really knew what to say.
Their relationship wasn't something that they ever worked on or that they intentionally tried to form.
It was something of a pleasant miracle that had come about simply because they were all kind women who loved Abaddon with all of their heart.
And while they usually abhorred the idea of sharing him, when they thought about an alternate reality where they had him all to themselves they couldn't help but feel like something was missing.
For some reason, they loved to see each other happy just as much as they enjoyed experiencing that same happiness for themselves.
If even one of them were missing, their family would not be nearly as complete.
Lailah: "Seras... you're sweating a lot."
One by one, all of the girls turned towards the center of the group, where the hybrid woman could be seen with a thin sheen of sweat covering her face.
"Am I...? I was so worried that I hadn't really noticed." She said as she wiped her brow. "I guess it's sort of hot today, huh?"
Bekka: "...It's wintertime..."
"Right... then I'm not sure why I'm..."
Suddenly, her hand went directly for her inflated stomach and she made an uncomfortable expression.
"Seras..." Lisa asked worriedly. "What is going on...?"
"I think this little one is just a little rowdy... maybe the baby is worried like the rest of us."
Unfortunately, Seras' words were completely unconvincing and now all six of her sisters plus a large sword were looking at her with expressions of concern.
"D-Don't look at me like that! I told you I'm fi- Agh!"
A stabbing pain in her uterus ruined all of her claims and by now everyone had some inkling of what was happening.
Valerie and Eris immediately worked in tandem, manipulating the earth underneath Seras to create a bed-like surface lined with the softest grass imaginable.
"This can't be happening... it's still too early." Seras said with small tears in her eyes.
For some reason, it seemed like her baby was desperate to come into the world a bit sooner than anticipated.
And it would be born on the day of one of the most difficult battles of it's fathers life.
Whether or not Abaddon would live to meet his child, or even witness it's birth, was entirely uncertain.
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