Bakuzan clenched his fists, his eyes burning with an almost fierce determination.
He stared at his father as if trying to engrave his face in his memory.
— Whatever happens, Azazel... we are coming. Father, you will live again. And we have... so many things to settle.
A warm breath, almost paternal, passed through the air.
Niyus gave him a gentle smile, almost nostalgic.
— I know you will succeed, my son. I have never ceased to have faith in you...
Erasa crossed her arms, tilting her head slightly.
— The good side of all this is that thanks to me, Azazel will never be able to play with them again. The Sources of Niyus and Adam that he stole... useless now. My authority crushes his.
She paused, her gaze hardening.
— But the problem... is what he still possesses. A multitude of corpses. And from what I observed confronting Adam's body, Azazel can use these dead as interfaces. He can slip into them, wear them as living masks, make them avatars.
She paused.
— It is... deeply dangerous.
Adam tensed, fists clenched, his golden mask vibrating slightly under restrained anger.
— If it had been Satan manipulating me this way, I wouldn't be surprised... But Azazel? What is he really seeking?
Niyus slowly turned to him, his eyes shining with a mix of astonishment and emotion.
— Wait... You are Adam? The primordial human? The real one?
Adam scrutinized him, raising his head with a natural, almost royal pride.
— Of course I am.
His voice vibrated like an ancient echo.
— I am your father all. The first human. The father of humanity.
Bakuzan and Niyus exchanged a look. A suspended second, heavy with history and respect.
Then Niyus stepped toward Adam, a slow smile stretching his lips.
— What an honor to see you in the flesh... or rather in flesh and corpse, haha... he said letting out a discreet, almost nervous laugh.
Adam slightly tilted his head.
— You are Niyus. The most powerful of the Deviants of your time... once. But times are no longer times. They have been broken, torn... then replaced by others.
Niyus crossed his arms, intrigued.
— Yet I thought you were the most powerful of the Deviants?
Adam nodded calmly.
— That is correct. But I was never counted... not in the strict sense. My existence surpasses the scale on which others are measured.
Bakuzan stepped forward then, hesitant but respectful.
— Excuse me, primordial father... May I ask why you wear that golden mask?
Adam remained still for a moment, then answered softly:
— The day I died, I wept for humanity. And I laid upon my descendants new possibilities... opportunities to rise.
He raised a hand to his face.
With a slow, almost ceremonial gesture, he removed the mask.
Bakuzan and Niyus widened their eyes.
Adam's eyelids were closed... sealed by trails of blood tears, frozen like ancient scars. His face seemed both majestic, broken... and sacred.
Adam resumed, a voice vibrating with a thousand echoes:
— My death could not be in vain.
I offered my eyes... and my mythical knowledge... so that my descendants could one day catch up with the gods.
The path would be harsh, almost impossible, but that was the price.
He touched the dry mark on his cheek.
— It was a celestial pact. I lost sight, my eyes... and even my will, which dispersed into you like a legend carried by the wind.
Niyus and Bakuzan remained silent, as if Adam's words had suspended time itself.
There was something sacred in what had just been revealed... an ancient wound, yet carrying indestructible pride.
Adam gently put his golden mask back on.
At the moment it closed on his face, the two bodies — Adam's and Niyus' — began to crumble, as if their flesh had been nothing but a cloak of dust clinging to a breath.
Bakuzan took a step:
— What is happening?
Erasa, in her mask, answered in a muffled voice:
— Without their essences, they cannot hold any longer.
And now that Azazel has lost all authority over them, he cannot let these bodies wander freely.
He recalls them... or rather, he ceases to sustain them.
Niyus lowered his eyes to his own hand disintegrating like golden sand.
A gentle smile returned to him, and he raised his gaze to his son.
— Bakuzan... my son...
Bakuzan turned to him, lips pressed tight.
Niyus continued, a nearly nostalgic smile on his lips:
— To see you like this... so great, so strong...
I would have liked to see the others too... Sakolomeh, Bakuran, Salomeh...
He paused briefly.
— And your mother... Amu...
Bakuzan placed a firm, restrained hand on the shoulder that was already turning to dust.
His voice barely trembled:
— Father... you will see them again.
I swear it. I will do everything, absolutely everything, to make it possible.
Niyus breathed as if wanting to taste this presence one last time.
Then he smiled:
— I never doubted it... son.
His body cracked with a deep light.
He closed his eyes.
— So... see you next time.
And he dissipated entirely, at the same time as Adam, their ashes suspended in the air like two last mixed breaths.
Bakuzan remained motionless, his gaze lost in the trails of dust still floating.
A heavy melancholy, almost palpable, crossed his face — a pain too old to be shouted, too vivid to be ignored.
Erasa finally broke the moment, her voice returning like a reminder of reality:
— Shall we confront Azazel directly?
Bakuzan gave a brief nod toward her:
— I do not know. What do you think?
Erasa slowly removed her mask, revealing a face marked by the experience of Hell.
She spoke without hesitation:
— It's time, yes.
But not without preparation.
Hell is populated by countless creatures... and many are transcendental in their own territory.
She placed a hand on her chest.
— I have lived there... I know exactly what awaits us. We must first gather information.
Bakuzan stared at her for a moment, his expression cold and controlled again:
— So what do you suggest?
Erasa snapped her fingers.
The sky above them split with a brilliant glow, a light almost too pure for this place.
Bakuzan stepped back slightly:
— What is that?
Erasa smiled with a hint of apprehension:
— Mù Sunghiun.
The Angel of Light of Mü Thanatos.
The light condensed... and a silhouette began to descend.
The light suspended above them slowly took shape.
It condensed, tightened, then breathed.
In a few seconds, a female figure appeared: hair almost liquid white, radiant skin, four pairs of pure light wings, and two eyes of golden yellow, too intense to seem mortal.
She looked at the duo with a perfectly neutral expression, then spoke in a crystalline voice:
— To confront Azazel now... is not conceivable.
Bakuzan replied immediately, his tone sharp:
— What do you mean?
Mù Sunghiun turned to him.
Her gaze expressed neither fear nor emotion — only overwhelming understanding.
— If you defeat him in his current state... something infinitely worse will awaken.
Bakuzan frowned, almost incredulous:
— Worse... than him?
Erasa, watching Mù Sunghiun as if a veil was tearing in her memory, murmured:
— It's coming back to me now...
All eyes turned to her.
— My father, Lucifer... faced Azazel once. Only once.
Her voice deepened.
— And even he did not understand what he had confronted.
Bakuzan widened his eyes.
A memory suddenly assaulted him — one he had lived alongside Satan.
The scene overlapped in his mind with painful clarity:
--------
— Black Grief... listen carefully.
Satan's gaze was dark, almost worried.
— That Azazel pretends to be Kurohikari is no accident. Even I have been deceived by him...
Bakuzan remembered it: he had been surprised by this confidence.
Satan continued, a voice oscillating between nostalgia and warning:
— It's because of him that I pushed Eve to taste the forbidden fruit.
I don't know what he's really seeking...
But Kurohikari has the ability to twist the perception of reality itself.
She squinted.
— It is neither a lie nor a truth. It's... something in between.
Bakuzan, in the memory, had whispered:
— You mean that... in a way, Azazel...?
Satan had turned to him, her gaze shining like a blade of judgment:
— Azazel surely met him.
And that meeting... broke something in him.
Kurohikari distorts reality only to achieve a precise purpose.
But understanding this purpose... Black Grief... goes beyond all you can imagine.
----
Bakuzan came abruptly back to the present, breath short.
He turned to Erasa:
— What did your father face that day?
What happened between Lucifer and Azazel?
The question fell like a silent thunderclap.
The air itself seemed to freeze around them.
Erasa closed her eyes, and when she reopened them...
a heavy, almost painful glow shone behind her gaze.
— What my father saw...
She paused.
— ...should never have existed in a built world.