Chapter 422: Lord of the Flies Beelzebub
As the black fire sphere continued to expand above Akazel, Klein took a deep breath. His white aura, which had been diffuse until then, suddenly became denser and brighter. It stopped floating around him to concentrate entirely on the blade of his katana.
< Art : Sundering Eclipse, third movement : New Moon >
He merged with the very essence of his sword, as if the iron and the flesh formed only one single vector of destruction. Then, without haste, he struck with a perfect vertical blow. The trajectory was clean, without any tremor.
A blade of pure energy, of a dazzling white, then burst from his weapon. It crossed the air crackling and flew straight toward the destructive sphere.
The two attacks collided at the exact center of the room. The impact was of such violence that the black stone pillars of the central hall groaned under the pressure. The two attacks collided in a deafening crash. A blinding detonation swept through the space, projecting shock waves that made the building tremble all the way to its basaltic foundations. The dust, mixed with particles of burned mana, saturated the air, making visibility almost null for long seconds.
As the smoke and debris finally began to fall, Klein used a slight pulse of aura to dissipate the cloud of dust in front of him. A few meters away, he spotted Akazel’s silhouette. The base director was standing, but his frail posture betrayed total exhaustion. His breath was short, ragged, and the purple demonic energy that once enveloped him had drastically decreased, leaving only a flickering veil around his shoulders.
Akazel wiped the blood flowing from his mouth, his black eyes injected with red filaments fixed on Klein with pure hatred. Yet, despite his condition, he sketched a rictus. His trembling fingers began to clench, seeking to draw from the last reserves of his corrupted heart to continue the fight.
However, fate decided otherwise.
Suddenly, without any sound announcing it, a hand emerged from the darkness behind him. The hand pierced Akazel’s chest through and through, coming out through the sternum in a wet sound of torn flesh. In its bloodied palm, it clutched a still palpitating organ: the director’s heart.
Not understanding what had just happened, Akazel lowered his eyes toward the gaping hole in his chest, then he slowly turned his head backward. His pupils dilated upon seeing the blurry face of a person who seemed to have blended into the shadows of the room. All he could distinguish before his sight darkened was the metallic reflection of multiple piercings adorning his attacker’s face.
This scene also took Klein by surprise. He was not expecting such an intrusion at all, even less so a brutal execution in the middle of their duel.
As the hand withdrew with atrocious casualness, Akazel’s body collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The person then began to fully emerge from the shadow, walking on the basalt with assurance.
It was a man. He had long hair of a deep black that cascaded down onto his shoulders. His eyes were of an absolute black, with pupils of a reptilian shape. From his body, red lightning bolts propelled themselves erratically, crackling in the air with a tearing sound. Everywhere these electric arcs touched the ground or surrounding objects, anything that possessed the slightest trace of mana was instantly destroyed, reduced to ashes or disintegrated.
The person was now completely visible, standing a few meters from Klein. Despite the aura he emitted, his expression was strangely serene.
"Nox..." pronounced Klein, his voice resonating in the silence of the hall.
He immediately recognized Nox Walpurgy, his comrade.
"Yo," greeted Nox in a somewhat casual tone.
He waved his hand still covered with Akazel’s blood nonchalantly. Klein wondered how he had ended up here.
Yet, a guttural rattle interrupted their exchange.
Against all expectations, Akazel was not yet completely dead. Carried by a fanatical will, he gathered all that remained of his vital force. On the brink of agony, his fingers began to move frenetically, tracing complex signs in the void while he spat out his last words.
"I summon you... Lord of the flies... Beelzebuth!" he screamed in a shrill cry that tore through the heavy air.
The cry forced the two men to turn abruptly toward the mutilated body. They then witnessed a phenomenal explosion of demonic mana. The energy was so dense, so corrupted, that it seemed to physically weigh on reality. Using their respective auras, Klein and Nox instinctively protected themselves against the surge, but they both felt that the situation had just shifted toward something much darker.
As the demonic mana poured out from Akazel’s wound, it began to transform. It was no longer fluid energy, but a swarming and buzzing mass. An incalculable number of black flies surged from the void, invading the hall in a few seconds. The buzzing of their wings became a deafening background noise that made any reflection difficult.
The swarm concentrated around Akazel’s body, making it levitate several meters above the ground. The flies enveloped it methodically, layer after layer, until forming a cocoon of chitin and dark energy. The structure pulsed to the rhythm of a monstrous heart before suddenly exploding in a shock wave that swept away everything in its path.
Floating in the air, at the place where Akazel had been, now stood a different entity. Although the carnal envelope was still that of the base director, its features were distorted. Its aura was no longer only demonic, it was princely, ancient and saturated with contempt.
Beelzebuth, or rather the manifestation of the Demonic Prince through Akazel’s corpse, looked at the two men below. Its eyes shone with absolute disdain for the mortal beings facing it.
A cruel smile stretched across its face. Then it raised its hand in the direction of Klein and Nox. Suddenly a demonic energy much denser than that used by Akazel rushed toward them before exploding.
After that, he lowered his hand. Then he finally opened his mouth, but his breath scraped his throat. Before uttering
"Disappear, wretched humans."
