"So what if I did?"
Abaddon was fully aware of the massive difference in power between the himself and Samyaza.
But after hearing such an infuriating taunt disguised as an answer, he could not remember why he was holding back in the first place.
However before he could react, Samyaza quickly reminded him of the reason.
"Now, now, you know that this won't go the way you want it to, don't you? Besides, I'm not really interested in fighting with you, I actually quite like you."
Suddenly, Abaddon's wives made furious expressions and surrounded Samyaza like they were going to jump him.
Knowing that he could transform into a beautiful woman put all of them on edge.
"Ah, not like that... well..." Samyaza looked Abaddon up and down once as if he had yet to come to a decision.
Bekka: "You fucker!"
"Kidding, kidding! And you shouldn't use such foul language in front of the children, you know?"
Almost as if to prove his point, Mira opened her mouth to unleash a string of cute little obscenities that would make even a sailor blush.
Valerie had never had a favorite child before today.
"...Wow." Samyaza muttered.
"A-Anyway, I don't see why we can't just enjoy the war for just a little while longer. The humans need something to do while I search for a suitable one among them and it isn't as if your demons don't want to keep up the fight either.
So why don't we do this? We'll continue to seem like we're locked in a 'stalemate' and then within a few hundred years, I will have my nephilim and the plague that the both of us are facing will be erased."
"You're serious..."
"You actually want to waste the lives of millions just so that you can resurrect a dead race...?"
"Do you care nothing for the people under your leadership?"
The normally calm and cheerful face of Samyaza became a hard scowl.
"No, I do not. Whether it is their tendency to think that they are the center of everything, or that even those who are the same as them are somehow inferior, they disgust me the most.
Their only purpose is to bring forth the nephilim. Even if there are a few shining stars among them, that is not enough for me to overlook the fact that they are largely-"
Bang!
"Father!"
"What's the matter??"
Suddenly, Thea, Apophis, and the phoenix sisters stormed into the room, clearly alarmed by their father's irritated pressure and looking for the source.
When Samyaza sensed Thea enter the room, he temporarily lost his train of thought.
"An affinity for the divine..."
He appeared in front of the eldest princess in a flash of light, startling the young girl and causing her to take a step back.
"You are just like her...although you also seem to be a bit more as well..."
Bang!
Boom!
The sound of two explosive clashes cracked the glass window on the other side of the room, but Abaddon and Apophis had their attacks caught with ease.
The archangel didn't even need to turn his head when he stopped the blow of the demonic emperor with a single finger.
"Who the hell are you? Get away from my sister."
"I don't care what you are. If you come near my daughter again I will risk everything that I have to leave you with a wound that you will never forget."
Again, Samyaza seemed to take no insult from the surprise assault and instead he smiled as if there was no assault committed.
"Oh come now, there is no need for this. The sight of the young lady merely filled me with a sense of the warmest nostalgia."
The first woman that he ever fell in love with was a human with divine grace as well, and she was the one to bear the first of the nephilim.
He would have considered trying to lay with Thea as well, but he could sense oddities within her body confirming that she was not 100% human.
And only a true angel and a true human could give birth to a nephilim.
"Seems like I've finally overstayed my welcome." He said with a shrug.
Again, he flashed out of existence and reappeared at the buffet table a few feet away.
Pilfering a few more muffins, he acted as if he were an invited guest who had every right to take home a few goodies.
"I hope that you seriously take my proposal to heart, as it will no doubt be the best thing for both of us. Besides, it's not like you really have a choice, is it?"
His words were not posed with any sort of malicious intent or belittlement, but that did not make them any less infuriating to hear.
"I wish there was another way to do this but you know how humans are... if I don't give them some villain to fight against they will become restless and undoubtedly turn on themselves and fall into further corruption, making it even more difficult for me to bring my true children back to life."
Samyaza's body began to break apart into fragments of light, and he finally opened his eyes to reveal beautiful rainbow colored sclera that were nothing short of breathtaking.
"I bid farewell to the Scarlet Emperor, and to you, the wives and children of the great demon. Let's not meet again soon."
-
Night had finally fallen over Luxuria, and the festive mood still seemed to be burning just as bright as before, if not even more so.
But the royal family themselves had retired to their home after the unexpected visit from the ruler of the humans, and they were all dealing with it in their own ways.
It is a humiliating and humbling feeling to know that an enemy could come and find you at any time or place and there was absolutely nothing you could do about it.
Today was a loud and blaring reminder that even though the family were powerful and had some recent successes, none of those things were of any real concern to beings with true power.
If things had went badly today, everything that they hold dear would have gone up in smoke.
In the training room, Bekka, Audrina, and Seras were all working on different things.
The two vampires were embroiled in a rather heated spar, while Bekka was practicing making better use of her void element.
How much could she delete? How better could she apply her powers? and how could she use it for longer periods of time without feeling utterly exhausted.
She wanted to understand all of these things in the hope that she could better protect her beloved family.
Memories of the nauseating amount of anger she felt seemed to plague her endlessly, and she made a vow not to relax until she was strong enough to bite that pigeon's head off.
Beneath the manor, Lailah was buried in a stack of spell books, with her mother only a short distance away.
'The hell is wrong with her...? She hasn't said a word ever since she brought me out of that damn cell.'
While Lailah and Sei did not have the kind of warm motherly relationship that she had with Yara, Sei had become noticeably more respectful after spending so much time observing her.
Lailah was incredibly sharp and clever, and she displayed a talent for magic that left her mother extremely perplexed and regretful.
How she had missed such potential when it was right under her nose for over ten years was truly a mystery.
'No, maybe I just did not want to see... because she reminded me so much of that man...'
Valerie was in her workshop in the backyard, a heap of clunky molten metal in front of her and a strong drink in her hand.
Traditionally, whenever she wanted to relax on her own, she would come in here to create.
But for some reason her mind felt blocked off and none of her thoughts could be transmitted to the forge.
'Damn it... I am so fucking pathetic...'
Valerie wasn't an exceptional fighter like her husband or some of her sisters.
Nor was she a magical prodigy like Lailah or Eris.
She defined herself by her ability to create.
It was the only thing she had ever known and the only thing she had ever truly been good at, and it hurts unbearably when you feel like your one talent has left you behind in the dust.
She had begun to wonder if she no longer posed any value to her family.
Bit by bit, the fear that they would one day walk away from her, and find a less crude, more feminine, and more talented blacksmith began to creep into her heart.
She finally splashed some cold water on her macerated project and collapsed to her knees with her hands covering her face.
"I have to do better... they can't leave me, they just can't..."
Valerie hated crying, and she was a firm believer that the only place for such a thing was when she was being impaled by her loving husband.
Seeing her in this state would shock anyone who knew her for longer than five minutes.
As she kneeled on the ground, distraught and overwhelmed, she missed the moment when a dull white light enveloped her body.
Lisa was not actually in the manor at the moment.
She was not even in Luxuria.
As of now, she was nestled inside of her eldest daughter's inner realm, sitting crosslegged in a garden of broken swords while surrounded by a harrowing storm and bright green flames.
She, just like all of her sisters, felt guilty for her inability to act earlier today.
As such, she was currently subjecting herself to harsh punishment disguised as training.
The simultaneous use of two delicate and destructive powers like the soul searing flame and weather manipulation was a daunting task, and only someone with precise control over both could hope to balance the two without breeding disastrous results.
But somehow, Lisa was accomplishing this daunting task splendidly, despite her mana dropping rapidly and her nerves screaming with pain.
'My darling, I am so sorry... You have given me so much and made me so strong and I have allowed you to shoulder too much responsibility.
Even if I have to threaten you with a vow of abstinence, I will never allow you to do such a thing ever again. No one will ever decide our fate for us ever again.'
Like Lisa, Eris wasn't actually in the manor either.
She was out in the city, seated underneath the bright red willow leaves of the qlipoth tree.
"Are you sure that this will work...? I do not want anything like today to ever occur again."
As always, the only sound that was emitted by the tree was that of wind whistling through it's branches and leaves, and yet the gentle dark elf seemed to understand it perfectly.
"Alright...I will give it a try... please be with me, my family..."
Eris took a deep breath as she placed both of her hands on the ominous demonic tree.
Both herself and the qlipoth began to glow with a mix of red and green energy, and a wave of power flooded into Eris' body.
Unlike the rest of the wives, Lillian was looking for Abaddon.
She had given him his space to process everything and be alone with his own feelings, but after several hours of waiting she had become increasingly worried and finally went to find him.
She had searched inside of their bedroom, the training room, the dungeon, his study, and even the kids' rooms.
After an exhaustive search, she ended up outside the front door of their home, sitting on the steps with her head in her hands.
"This would be so much easier if I were connected to him like my sisters were, huh?" She muttered with a dry laugh.
She contemplated going around to ask one of them for help but... she was not someone who was oblivious to the emotions of everyone present.
She knew just how much turmoil all of them were in, but she was utterly lacking in the words needed to pull them out of it.
She wasn't even sure if she could say anything useful to Abaddon when she found him, she was just hoping that her heart would speak for her in the moment.
"It doesn't seem like I'm going to find him anytime soon though..." She muttered.
Suddenly, another gust of cold wind passed through her fiery orange hair, and she prepared to head inside.
"I don't have enough fur for this kind of... Oh?"
Lillian suddenly sniffed the air as she smelled a familiar scent and turned her head upwards towards the sky.
A helpless smiled formed on her face and she realized that she had been looking in the wrong places all along.
"My husband, what were you doing there?" She whispered.
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