Magdaran felt his brain running into an overdrive, assessing the situation, and it could basically be summed up in one word... Bad.
He recognized the figure who had appeared in front of him, and recognition did not help one bit, if anything, it heightened the feeling of danger he was feeling.
Rizevim Livan Lucifer... The figure standing in front of him.
To have the most deranged devil, who also happened to be one of the three that broke the limits of the devil race standing in front of him, was not a feeling he would like to experience.
Rizevim appeared with a relaxed smile, hands loosely clasped behind his back, white hair pristine, expression open and almost friendly.
His presence was not overwhelming at first. It did not crush or suffocate. It simply existed, vast and confident, like a predator who knew nothing here could threaten him.
"Well well," Rizevim said pleasantly. "You really are as neat as the rumors suggested."
Magdaran's eyes narrowed.
Another presence stepped out beside Rizevim, silent and cold. Euclid Lucifuge did not smile. He did not speak. Frost spread subtly beneath his feet, responding instinctively to his controlled aura. His gaze was sharp, calculating, already assessing angles, ranges, weaknesses.
More presences revealed themselves.
One by one, the space around Magdaran peeled open. Magicians emerged gradually, never all at once. Some appeared behind half formed spatial seams. Others stepped out of illusion. Each took a position with practiced coordination, forming a loose but inescapable perimeter.
Magdaran counted quickly.
Too many.
And none of them were amateurs.
Rizevim tilted his head slightly, observing him with open delight.
"Relax," Rizevim said. "If we wanted you dead, you would not be standing right now."
Magdaran did not answer.
His attention was split across space, pressure testing every boundary, every layer of the dimensional structure. The result was the same each time.
Locked.
Not absolute. Not permanent...
But absolute enough, enough that he would be skewered by holy light spears if he tried breaking it now.
Rizevim noticed the assessment and chuckled.
"Oh, you felt it already," he said. "Good. I would be disappointed if you had not."
He took a step forward. The dimension subtly leaned toward him, as if acknowledging authority.
"You know," Rizevim continued conversationally, "I like puppies like you. Young. Sharp. Still convinced the world is something you can carve with effort and principles."
His eyes glinted.
"And you have grown beautifully. Peak Satan class breathing down your neck at eighteen. Destruction refined instead of bloated. Space control polished instead of reckless."
He gestured vaguely. "Even the way you are standing right now tells me everything I need to know."
Magdaran felt a sense of wrath appearing inside of him.
The word puppy scraped against something raw.
Rizevim raised a hand, and a contract formed in the air between them. Infernal script crawled across its surface, glowing faintly with power that sank directly into the soul.
"Let us be clear," Rizevim said. "This is not a negotiation."
The contract pulsed once.
"Absolute obedience," Rizevim said calmly. "A soul-binding agreement. You follow my commands. You act when told. You do not ask questions unless permitted."
He smiled wider.
"In return, you live."
He said in a convincing tone, and continued,
"You keep your power. You gain more than just that- Resources, knowledge, Protection. Enemies stop hunting you because they know whose shadow you stand in."
Rizevim leaned in slightly.
"And most importantly, you stop being a future inconvenience."
Magdaran's fingers curled.
'Absolute obedience.'
'Soul-binding.'
'You live.'
The words echoed, stacking on top of each other.
Slave.
The realization hit him like a physical blow... Rizevim wanted him to become his slave.
Memories surged unbidden. Valerie bound to a chair. Kuroka hunted. Shirone cornered. People reduced to assets. Tools. Experiments.
Cages.
Submission enforced by power.
His breathing slowed, controlled, but the rage beneath it was violent, primal.
'Never,' he thought.
Rizevim watched the reaction with fascination.
"Oh," he said softly. "There it is."
Magdaran lifted his head.
"No," he said.
The word was quiet. Absolute.
Rizevim blinked once.
Then he laughed.
Not in mockery, but...
Genuine delight.
"Oh good," Rizevim said, clapping his hands lightly. "I was worried you might disappoint me. Still, I like that look, so I will give you one last chance."
He raised one finger.
"I will count to three," Rizevim said pleasantly. "After that, I stop asking."
Holy light began to gather around his hand, subtle at first, controlled, not yet unleashed.
"One."
Magdaran inhaled.
Crimson aura erupted outward, dense and suffocating, compressing rather than expanding. The ground beneath his feet cracked as destruction ignited, controlled and lethal. The air warped around him as power of destruction responded instinctively to his authority.
Destruction condensed into multiple spheres, small and impossibly dense, orbiting his body like restrained stars.
"Two."
Magdaran did not hesitate.
"No," he said again.
He moved.
A sphere of destruction launched forward, tearing through space with silent inevitability.
Rizevim reacted instantly, forming a spear of holy light with casual precision and throwing it without even shifting his stance.
They collided.
The dimension screamed.
A shockwave detonated outward, folding space in on itself. The ground fractured and inverted. The sky rippled like shattered glass. Several magicians were thrown back violently, barely stabilizing themselves before crashing into invisible barriers.
Euclid slid back a step.
Rizevim drifted backward through the air, coat fluttering, eyes wide with interest.
The destruction sphere detonated against the holy spear, consuming it entirely before dispersing into raw spatial distortion.
For a brief moment, silence returned.
Magdaran stood at the center, aura blazing, blood roaring in his ears.
Rizevim hovered a short distance away, then straightened, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve.
His laughter rang out, bright and unrestrained.
"Good," Rizevim said sincerely. "Very good."
His eyes gleamed.
"I was hoping you would say that."
The holy light around his hand intensified. Being a direct descendent of Lucifer, he could use holy light, despite being a devil... Therefore, I was not just outnumbered, I also had the attribute restraint.
Then the game truly began, attacks coming from all directions.
The first mistake Magdaran realized was assuming there would be a rhythm to the fight. There was none.
Rizevim did not rush him. He did not press with overwhelming force. He attacked intermittently, casually, like a man flicking stones into a river just to watch the ripples.
A flash of holy light appeared near Magdaran's blind spot.
He twisted instinctively, space folding just enough to carry him sideways as the spear passed through where his head had been an instant earlier. The air behind him screamed as the weapon detonated against the ground, carving a trench straight through the stone.
Before his feet even settled, ice surged.
Euclid raised one hand.
The ground beneath Magdaran froze instantly, crystalline structures erupting upward in jagged formations. Frost spread through the air, turning moisture into razor sharp shards that cut visibility and movement alike.
Magdaran snapped his fingers.
Wind compressed violently, detonating outward in a focused burst. The ice shattered into a storm of fragments, each piece redirected by precise air currents before they could reach him.
Lightning followed.
Crackling chains of electricity leapt from his hands, arcing through the battlefield, branching toward the magicians who had begun chanting in unison.
Several screamed as the lightning tore through their defensive barriers, flesh blackening, muscles spasming violently.
Fire erupted next.
A rotating inferno spiraled outward, forcing the magicians to scatter or burn. Those too slow were consumed, screams cut short as their bodies collapsed into charred husks.
There was no pause.
Darkness surged upward from Magdaran's shadow, forming binding tendrils that lashed out, seizing limbs, crushing ribs, snapping spines.
Earth answered his will next.
Stone erupted into layered shields around him, intercepting incoming spells. Spikes burst upward beneath enemy feet, impaling, skewering, pinning bodies in place.
Absolute spell control.
Every element moved as an extension of his intent, chained seamlessly into the next. There was no wasted motion, no hesitation. Offense and defense flowed together like a single continuous calculation.
And still it was not enough.
Ice surged again.
Euclid adjusted tactics instantly, freezing space itself rather than matter. Movement slowed as the temperature plummeted. Even Magdaran felt resistance in his joints, the cold gnawing at muscle and bone.
A holy blade clipped his shoulder.
Pain flared as light burned through flesh, cauterizing as it cut. Blood hissed as it met divine energy.
Magdaran gritted his teeth and twisted, darkness wrapping the wound before more light could strike.
'They are strangely coordinating...' he realized.
Rizevim attacked only when Magdaran's attention was divided. Euclid shaped the battlefield, denying space, forcing movement. The magicians existed solely to exhaust him, to bleed him through a thousand small pressures.
No single attack was lethal.
Together, they were suffocating.
A fireball grazed his ribs, detonating prematurely as a magical barrier collapsed.
Another ice shard pierced his thigh.
Lightning backlash scorched his forearm.
Nothing fatal, his body was strong enough to defend against most of these without needed any magical shield.
His breathing remained controlled, but heavier now. His aura flickered once, barely perceptible.
Rizevim noticed.
"Oh?" Rizevim said lightly. "Already?"
Magdaran did not respond.
He launched forward, space folding under his step, fist wrapped in destruction as he aimed straight for Euclid.
Rizevim appeared between them instantly.
Holy light slammed into Magdaran's chest, throwing him backward through the air. He crashed into the ground, stone exploding beneath his body.
He rolled, came up on one knee, destruction flaring again.
'No space to think,' he told himself. 'No room to breathe.'
Rizevim floated lazily above the battlefield, watching with open amusement.
"You are very good," he said. "But even you cannot juggle everything forever."
Magdaran's vision sharpened.
He made a decision.
He stopped defending. In this situation, offence was the best defence.
The shift was immediate.
The magicians barely had time to react before space itself betrayed them.
Magdaran raised one hand.
Destruction threaded into his spells with surgical precision.
A wind blade passed through a chanting mage and erased him from the waist up. His legs collapsed a second later, hitting the ground without a sound.
A fire lance punched through three bodies in a line, cauterizing bone and flesh instantly. Two collapsed. The third disintegrated mid scream, ash scattering across the frozen ground.
Darkness bloomed beneath another group, swallowing them whole. There was no struggle. No noise. Just absence where bodies had been.
Earth spikes erupted directly inside ribcages, tearing outward. Blood sprayed briefly before gravity reclaimed it.
A lightning net snapped shut around a cluster of mages, electricity intensified by destruction. Their bodies convulsed once, then fell limp, eyes burned out, mouths frozen open.
No mercy was spared, as the power of destruction ceased them from existence.
The battlefield emptied rapidly.
Rizevim did not intervene.
He watched with interest, head tilted, eyes bright.
"Yes," he murmured. "There it is."
Euclid narrowed his gaze.
Ice surged higher, thicker, reinforcing his own position as the last of the magicians fell. The ground was slick with blood, ash, and fractured stone.
Silence descended.
Only three presences remained.
Magdaran stood amid the carnage, aura burning low but dense, blood dripping steadily from multiple small wounds.
Rizevim descended slowly, boots touching ground without sound.
Euclid shifted his stance, frost intensifying around him.
The battlefield was clear.
And the real fight was about to begin.
Rizevim was not fully serious until now. But now,
He stopped watching.
He moved instead, A super devil attacking, albeit the weakest one amongst the three.
There was no warning. No buildup of power that could be sensed or reacted to. One moment he stood several meters away, the next he was directly in front of Magdaran.
A spear of holy light formed instantly in his hand.
Magdaran felt it before he saw it. A pressure in his chest, a wrongness that made his instincts scream too late.
The spear drove forward.
It punched through his abdomen with terrifying ease.
Light erupted out of his back in a spray of incandescent blood and shattered flesh. The impact lifted him off his feet and hurled him backward, his body slamming into the ground hard enough to crack the stone beneath him.
He screamed.
The sound tore out of him raw and uncontrolled.
The pain was not sharp.
It was consuming, burning.
Holy energy burned through muscle and organ alike, searing nerves, cauterizing some tissue while corrupting the rest. His stomach felt like it was on fire from the inside out, as if molten metal had been poured directly into his core.
Blood poured from the wound in thick, steaming sheets.
Magdaran tried to rise.
His legs buckled immediately.
He caught himself on one knee, one hand pressed against the ground, the other instinctively clamping over the hole in his abdomen.
It did nothing.
Holy light continued to eat at the wound, resisting closure. His regeneration flared desperately, Senjutsu and demonic vitality trying to knit flesh back together, only to be pushed back again and again by the holy energy embedded in the injury.
'So this is what it feels like,' he thought dimly. 'To be hurt in a way that sits in stark opposite to your attribute... Maybe this is why devils hesitate before fighting angels even with our stronger strength...'
His breathing turned ragged.
Each inhale sent knives of pain through his torso. Each exhale carried blood with it, splattering onto the fractured stone beneath him.
Rizevim stood a short distance away, spear dissolving back into light as if it had never existed.
"That," he said pleasantly, "was pleasurable."
Magdaran forced himself upright, teeth clenched so hard they creaked.
Crimson aura surged again, heavier now, thicker, dragging against his movements like wet cloth. He stepped forward, one foot at a time, refusing to fall.
Another holy blade formed and struck.
He twisted at the last moment. It carved across his side instead of piercing through, tearing open flesh and ribs. Blood sprayed sideways, pattering across the ice coated ground.
He retaliated immediately.
A sphere of destruction slammed into Rizevim's chest.
The energy detonated in a violent implosion, ripping stone upward, distorting space for a heartbeat.
When the smoke cleared, Rizevim was still standing.
His coat was torn. Blood ran in a thin line from the corner of his mouth.
His smile had not faded.
"Oh, do keep going," Rizevim said. "I want to see how long you last like this."
Magdaran staggered, nearly falling as another wave of pain rolled through him. His movements were slower now. Noticeably so.
The wound burned. Every attempt to heal it felt like tearing open fresh tissue again. His core strength was bleeding out with every heartbeat.
Still, he moved.
Still, he fought.
'Not kneeling,' he told himself. 'Not ever...'
Euclid chose that moment to advance.
He closed the distance with cold precision, frost exploding outward from his steps. Ice surged up Magdaran's legs, locking his joints, freezing muscle solid in seconds.
Magdaran snarled and tore himself free with brute force, his physical body dominating over the frost through pure strength.
Euclid did not stop.
He raised both hands.
The air temperature plummeted.
Ice did not form this time.
It compressed, trying to freeze everything into a small ball.
Space itself stiffened, movement becoming heavy, resistant. Magdaran felt like he was pushing through solid glass.
Another wave of ice spears formed around Euclid, dozens of them, all angled toward Magdaran's center mass.
Magdaran's vision had blurred from the injuries.
Blood loss was catching up.
His knees threatened to buckle again.
Euclid's voice was cold, devoid of malice or pleasure. "You are finished."
Magdaran laughed.
It came out wet and broken.
'One chance,' he thought. 'Everything.'
He stopped defending entirely.
Let the next volley hit.
Ice tore into his shoulder. Another spear grazed his side, ripping open muscle already weakened by holy energy.
He stepped into it.
Closed the distance in a single distorted motion as space folded violently around his body.
Euclid's eyes widened.
Magdaran drove his hand forward.
No spell.
No element.
Pure destruction.
It condensed into a focused point no larger than a fist and slammed into Euclid's outstretched arm.
There was no explosion.
The arm simply ceased to exist.
From shoulder to fingertips, Euclid's limb was erased completely, leaving nothing but a cauterized void where flesh and bone had been.
Euclid screamed.
The sound was sharp and furious, echoing across the battlefield as he staggered backward, clutching the empty space with his remaining hand.
Blood sprayed in an arc, freezing midair before shattering into red crystals as they hit the ground.
Euclid retreated instantly, ice surging defensively around him, expression twisted with rage and disbelief.
Magdaran dropped to one knee.
His chest heaved. Blood pooled beneath him.
Rizevim did not move to finish him.
He watched Euclid retreat.
Then he looked back at Magdaran.
The smile was gone.
Not replaced by anger.
By interest.
"Ah," Rizevim said softly. "So you can still bite."
The air grew heavier.
For the first time since the fight began, Rizevim's presence sharpened.
And Magdaran felt it.
Whatever came next would not be pressure.
It would be judgment.
Rizevim sighed.
Not in annoyance. Not in frustration.
In disappointment.
"Well," he said calmly, brushing a fleck of frozen blood from his sleeve, "that was entertaining. But you have reached the end of what indulgence I allow."
Something changed.
It was not explosive. It was not loud. But his instincts begged to differ.
The holy light around Rizevim thickened, not flaring outward but collapsing inward, condensing until it became sharp enough to hurt just by existing. The air bent toward him. Space itself leaned away.
Magdaran felt it like a hand closing around his heart.
His crimson aura sputtered.
Not extinguished. Not broken.
Just… suppressed, by the holy nature of energy incoming towards him.
Rizevim took a single step forward.
He vanished.
Pain detonated in Magdaran's chest.
A spear of holy light had already passed through him by the time he realized Rizevim had moved. It punched clean through his sternum, shattering bone, tearing through lung and muscle before erupting out his back in a spray of blood and fragments.
Magdaran choked.
Blood flooded his mouth.
He tried to counter.
A destruction sphere formed instinctively, half complete before Rizevim's hand passed through it, dispersing the energy with contemptuous ease.
Another blow landed.
This one drove into his abdomen, slightly off center from the first wound. Holy light carved through flesh and organ, burning as it went, leaving a second gaping hole that refused to close.
His legs gave out.
He hit the ground hard enough to crater the stone beneath him.
Rizevim did not let him rest.
A third strike came from the side.
Ribs shattered. Bone fragments punctured muscle and lung. The impact twisted Magdaran's torso unnaturally, snapping cartilage and tearing ligaments.
The sound was wet.
Ugly.
Magdaran screamed again, voice cracking as his throat filled with blood.
He tried to stand but his body refused.
Absolute spell control had faltered as pain overloaded his focus. Fire spells misfired. Lightning dissipated before forming. Darkness spells collapsed inward uselessly.
Destruction flickered like a dying flame.
Rizevim finally stopped in front of him.
He looked down at Magdaran with genuine curiosity.
"You see the difference now?" Rizevim asked softly. "This is what it means to stop playing."
Magdaran forced his head up.
His vision was blurring. Red smeared the world. Blood pooled beneath him, spreading outward in slow, inevitable waves.
His chest barely rose.
Still, he glared.
Rizevim smiled.
Rizevim walked toward him slowly, boots crunching through shattered stone and frozen blood.
Each step was deliberate, sharp and...
Predatory.
"You have done exceptionally well," Rizevim said, tone almost affectionate. "Most Satan class devils would already be begging. Crying. Offering their souls just to make the pain stop."
He stopped directly in front of Magdaran.
"Do you know what I enjoy most?" Rizevim continued. "Breaking the ones who think they are different."
Magdaran tried to move.
His arms trembled uselessly.
His legs did not respond.
He was barely upright, propped on shattered bone and will alone.
Rizevim crouched slightly, bringing himself level with Magdaran's face.
"I could end this now," he said. "Or I could take you apart slowly. Teach you obedience piece by piece. You would survive. I promised that."
Magdaran laughed.
It was a terrible sound.
Blood spilled down his chin as he forced the words out.
"Kill me, I will never become your slave." he rasped.
Rizevim's eyes gleamed.
"Oh," he said softly, standing again. "We will see."
Darkness crept in at the edges of Magdaran's vision.
His body finally began to fail.
But even as the world dimmed, even as consciousness slipped, he did not kneel.
He did not bow.
He would die standing before he ever lost his freedom, because a life without freedom was worse than death in his view.
__________________________________________
So did you guys enjoy the fight? To stay tuned on what happens next, wait for a day, since I have an exam tomorrow, I will only write it after my exam, well, exam, then a good meal, and a sleep.
Still, I hope you guys enjoyed it, and please leave reviews on the story.