"The Original Lucifer sought the Throne of Heaven," Algernon shouted, his voice echoing with historical weight. "He challenged God directly, believing that his pride and power were enough to claim ultimate victory."
He clenched his fist, the sound of his leather glove straining audible even across the vast distance.
"But he failed. He was consumed by his own pride, blinded by his hatred, unable to see beyond his personal vendetta. And when he fell, he dragged all of you with him. He condemned our entire race to the Abyss because he was too arrogant to build something better than what he sought to destroy."
Algernon straightened his back, spreading his arms wide in a gesture that encompassed not just the army, but the entire Underworld itself.
"But I do not intend to fail. I do not intend to repeat the mistakes of the past."
The statement hung in the air—blasphemous, arrogant, and utterly intoxicating.
"I will do what Lucifer failed to accomplish, and I will go beyond it. We will achieve something our ancestors couldn't even dream of in their most ambitious moments."
His voice rose, carrying a conviction that transcended mere confidence and approached absolute certainty.
"I will not just burn Heaven. I will not just rule the Underworld. I will not content myself with merely claiming the empty Throne of a dead God."
He clenched both fists, and the very air around him began to crack with spatial distortions.
"I will step over the corpses of the old gods and unite the entire world under one flag! Every pantheon, every faction, every scattered remnant of the old order—they will all kneel or they will burn!"
The army was trembling now, not with fear but with barely contained bloodlust and fanatical devotion.
"I don't need that used Throne, tainted by the failure of the one who once sat upon it. I will create my own Throne, forge my own Heaven, and take my rightful place as the King of a new Reality!"
The response wasn't a chant or a battle cry. It was a primal scream of fanaticism that tore from millions of throats simultaneously.
"AZEROTH! AZEROTH! AZEROTH!"
The combined aura of millions of Devils and Vampires exploded upward with such force that it physically tore the clouds apart, revealing the strange stars of the Underworld's sky. The sheer pressure of their accumulated bloodlust caused the ground to crack in spiderweb patterns, caused the air to shimmer with heat despite the cold of the Underworld, caused reality itself to groan under the weight of such concentrated killing intent.
Akeno had fallen to her knees at some point during the speech, unable to remain standing under the crushing pressure of millions of fanatics all focused in the same direction. Her breathing was ragged, her pupils dilated, her body trembling with a mixture of fear and something else—something darker, more primal.
She looked up at Algernon, silhouetted against the chaos he had created, and felt something fundamental shift in her understanding of power.
This was what a true Emperor looked like. Not someone who ruled through inherited authority or political maneuvering, but someone who commanded through sheer, overwhelming force of will. Someone who could look at millions of individuals and mold them into a single weapon pointed at the throat of reality itself.
The chanting continued, growing louder and more frenzied with each repetition. The army was no longer a collection of individuals. It had become something else—a gestalt entity, a hive mind of violence and devotion, all of it centered on the figure standing on the balcony.
And through it all, Algernon remained perfectly still, perfectly calm, his expression one of supreme satisfaction.
Then, as suddenly as it had begun, he raised a single hand. The gesture wasn't dramatic or forceful. It was almost casual.
But the effect was immediate. The chanting cut off as if someone had severed it with a blade. Millions of voices fell silent in an instant, the discipline so absolute that the sudden return to quiet was more unsettling than the roar had been.
Algernon lowered his hand and turned away from the balcony, walking back toward the castle entrance. The fire in his eyes dimmed back to his usual bored composure, as if the apocalyptic speech had been nothing more than a routine task to check off his list.
To him, the grand speech about God and Lucifer was merely a script—lines recited to motivate the masses. He didn't actually care about the empty Throne of Heaven; it was nothing compared to the throne the System envisioned. He didn't care about Lucifer's failed dream or the Biblical God's corpse. Those were just dusty relics of a past he had no interest in preserving.
What mattered was the present, and the future he would forge from it.
He walked past Akeno, who was still kneeling on the balcony, her entire body trembling. The speech, the display of power, the sheer crushing weight of his dominance over millions—it had ignited the darkest parts of her nature, the parts that found pleasure in power and pain and the absolute certainty of overwhelming force.
"Come, Akeno," he said, his voice dropping to a casual, conversational tone that was almost jarring after the apocalyptic declarations he'd just made.
Akeno let out a shaky breath, a flush rising to her cheeks that had nothing to do with the cold wind of the Underworld. Her hands were still trembling as she forced herself to stand, her legs unsteady.
"Ara..." she purred, her voice trembling with barely controlled ecstasy. "Yes... my Dear."
She fell into step behind him, her gaze fixed on his back with the devotion of a fanatic who had just witnessed their god manifest in physical form. Every cell in her body was screaming at her to submit, to worship, to offer everything she had to this being who wielded power as casually as others breathed.
Grigori Headquarters - War Room - Present Time
The obsidian round table of the Grigori's central war room hummed with the ambient magic of defensive wards, ancient protections that had stood for millennia without fail. Holographic displays floated in the air like ethereal ghosts, showing real-time data feeds from surveillance outposts scattered across the dimensional boundaries that protected their headquarters.
It should have been reassuring. The technology was state-of-the-art, the defenses were legendary, and the leadership gathered around the table represented thousands of years of accumulated wisdom and combat experience.
But somehow, despite all of that, the atmosphere in the room was tense.
Azazel, Governor General of the Grigori and one of the original leaders of the Fallen Angels, leaned back in his chair with his twelve jet-black wings folded loosely behind him. He stared at the ceiling with the expression of a man who had just discovered his favorite research project had been derailed by bureaucratic nonsense—annoyed, frustrated, but not yet truly worried.
"So," Azazel drawled, his voice heavy with sarcasm that didn't quite mask his underlying irritation, "let me get this straight. Kokabiel, our resident warmonger and perpetual thorn in my side, decides—without authorization, without informing anyone, without even the basic courtesy of sending a memo—to attack the territory of not one, but two heiresses of the Underworld's most prominent houses."
He rubbed his face with both hands, the gesture of a man dealing with an incompetent subordinate rather than a potential existential crisis.
"He reveals God's death to the entire supernatural world, destabilizing the carefully maintained secret that every leader of the Biblical factions has been guarding for centuries. And to top off this spectacular display of stupidity, he gets his ass handed to him by the Red Dragon Emperor and is now rotting in a demon prison."
He let his hands drop, looking around at the assembled leadership.
"Can someone please explain to me how a multi-thousand-year-old Cadre, a veteran of the Great War, a being who has survived countless battles and political purges, managed to fuck up this spectacularly?"
Shemhazai, the Vice Governor, stood by the holographic tactical display with his arms crossed. His expression was troubled, but his voice remained calm and analytical.
"All available evidence suggests Kokabiel acted independently, Governor. There's no indication of conspiracy or coordination with any other faction. His communications logs show increasing frustration with our peace policies over the past decade, culminating in..."
"In him deciding to start a war single-handedly," Azazel finished, his tone dripping with disgust. "Brilliant. Just brilliant. And now we have to deal with the consequences of his idiocy."
Around the table, the other leaders of the Grigori were engaged in their own forms of damage control.
Penemue, the Chief Secretary and master of information networks, was typing furiously on a holographic keyboard, her multiple displays showing draft after draft of diplomatic correspondence.
"I've prepared three versions of the apology letter," she reported without looking up. "Version one is standard diplomatic language with an offer of monetary compensation. Version two includes territorial concessions in the neutral zones. Version three—"
"Version three better not include handing over research data," Tamiel interrupted sharply. As the Head of Business and Finance, he was already calculating the economic implications of various forms of reparation. "The economic implications alone would set us back decades. The Grigori's primary export is our technological and magical innovations. If we start giving that away as reparations—"
"We might not have a choice," Armaros cut in, his massive arms crossed over his barrel chest. "Pride doesn't pay the bills, Tamiel. If surrendering some outdated research prevents a full-scale war, it's a strategic win."
"Outdated?" Tamiel's voice rose slightly. "We're talking about potentially handing over—"
"Enough." Azazel's voice cracked like a whip, silencing the brewing argument. He stood up, walking to the central display that showed a three-dimensional map of the supernatural world's power distribution.
The map was color-coded: blue for the Fallen Angels' territories, red for the Devils, gold for Heaven, green for the various mythological pantheons, and gray for neutral zones.
"We're not at war," Azazel stated firmly, tracing his finger along the demonic territories that had recently unified under Algernon's rule. "The Devils declared war on us, yes. But that's political theater. They're posturing for leverage in negotiations."
Shemhazai nodded, pointing to specific locations on the map. "Our intelligence suggests the demon army is mobilizing, but that's standard protocol for a declaration of war. It's meant to intimidate us into agreeing to harsher terms during negotiations."
Azazel turned to face the council. "Here's what we're going to do. Penemue, send version one of the apology with an additional clause—we're willing to negotiate Kokabiel's release in exchange for a mutual non-aggression treaty renewal. Make it clear that we consider him a rogue element and that his actions don't represent Grigori policy."
"And if they refuse?" Sahariel asked quietly.
"They won't," Azazel said confidently. "Sirzechs Lucifer is many things, but he's not a warmonger. He understands the Three-Way Deadlock as well as we do. An actual war between Devils and Fallen would destabilize the entire supernatural world. The other pantheons would intervene, and nobody wants that."
Across the table, Vali Lucifer remained leaning against the wall, his arms crossed and his expression one of casual boredom. Internally, he was fighting the urge to smirk.
They have no idea, Vali thought, watching Azazel's confident gestures.
"Governor," Vali spoke up, his voice cutting through the strategic discussion. "What if you're wrong?"
The room went silent. Azazel turned to look at his protégé, one eyebrow raised.
"Elaborate."
Vali pushed off from the wall, walking slowly around the table. His silver hair caught the light from the holographic displays.
"You're assuming rational actors," Vali said, his tone carefully measured. "You're assuming that the new Demon Emperor thinks like Sirzechs. But from what I've seen of Algernon Azeroth..." He paused, meeting Azazel's eyes. "He doesn't follow the old rules."
Shemhazai frowned. "What are you suggesting?"
"I'm suggesting," Vali continued, "that we might be underestimating the threat. The intelligence reports show a unified demon force for the first time in history. The Ranking Games have been militarized. Their training regimen has been overhauled by Ajuka Beelzebub. The number of Satan-class combatants has more than doubled in a single year."
He gestured to the map. "And we're treating this like a standard diplomatic incident?"
Azazel studied Vali for a long moment, then shook his head. "You're letting your rivalry with the Red Dragon color your judgment, Vali. Yes, the Devils have gotten stronger. But starting an actual war would be suicide for them. The moment they commit to a full offensive, every other pantheon will see them as a threat and unite against them."
"The Governor is right," Armaros said gruffly. "No matter how strong they've become, the Devils can't fight the entire world. It's basic strategic calculus."
Vali fell silent, shrugging as if accepting the logic. Inside, he was counting down.
They'll understand soon enough, he thought. And by then, it will be far too late.
(END OF CHAPTER)
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