Chapter 1082: Scheming-Ass Demon Lords
In heaven, Loki had barely even finished giving his testimony.
“So then I said: I need to take a bath or something. And this kid gives me a bucket and dish soap while saying: Let me watch-”
“Mmph!!” The accused bucked fiercely against his chains as if he couldn’t stand such blatant character assassination.
“Okay, okay, fine. I never asked to take a bath. That was just my way of checking who was still listening.”
Asherah was starting to think that maybe next time she should just call for the heads of every faction instead of all the individuals themselves.
As she had this thought, everything went to hell in a handbasket.
She and everyone else first noticed it when the sky suddenly turned red.
And then there was the heat.
A pillar of fire rose into the sky and turned the temperature to hell in just a few seconds.
The entire colosseum started to collapse and crumble, with the pillar of all-consuming fire becoming more and more intolerable.
But just as it started to get dangerous for everyone else, the heat was suddenly redirected and focused.
The demons were sweating like pigs in the summertime.
For demons who were already used to extreme temperatures, this heat was like nothing they’d ever felt before.
“Asssault! W-We’re being assaulted!” Beelzebub wailed in an attempt to get Asherah’s attention. “Punish him like you threatened us!”
“Quiet!” Asherah flicked her finger and suddenly Beelzebub’s head sank inside of his torso.
She turned to Abaddon and found him pulling a strange spear out of the gem on his chest.
Compared to the aura he was putting out, his movements were frigid and perfectly composed.
Or at least, that was how it seemed on the surface. His pupils visibly trembled with an otherworldly resentment.
“Abaddon, quell yourself!”
Truthfully, Abaddon could barely hear Asherah. It sounded like he was listening to her from underwater.
“He’s… in my house.”
Abaddon’s words barely qualified as a whisper. Over the roar of his flames, even Asherah did not hear him. But his family did.
As he hefted the spear above his head, he started to exude an otherworldly pressure that distorted the fabric of heaven.
So naturally, a response was in order.
The Ophanim appeared in four blazes of light. They floated in Abaddon’s line of sight, as if warning him not to proceed further.
Their swords were already drawn.
At the sight of them, Asherah became panicked.
“No! I do not give you permission to act!”
The Ophanim hesitated for a second, but it was already too late.
Abaddon hurled the spear in his grip with his accuracy perfectly trained on Percival- obstacles be damned.
And he probably would have hit him too, had his aim not been interrupted by Lailah throwing her body into him at the last moment.
The spear flew, but not towards it’s intended target. The pointed tip cut through not just the air, but the already distorted fabric of heaven itself.
With it’s trajectory altered, the spear went not towards Percival, but one of the Ophanim instead.
The angel readied it’s sword and lashed out to stop the attack before it caused any further harm.
The sound of the collision was deafening, but it was the aftereffects that were even worse.
Against the expectations of everyone present, cracks spread along the sword of the Ophanim.
The cracks didn’t just stop there. They spread up the arm, torso and limbs of the ophanim until there wasn’t a spot that wasn’t covered.
For less than a second, there was complete, dead calm.
And then the Ophanim exploded in a ray of golden light, engulfing the entire colosseum in the blast.
– A few minutes before the explosion…
In Tehom, things at home were only slightly less apocalyptic.
“Get out of my brother, right now!”
Behemoth held Percival by the collar of Ziz’s robe and shook him hard enough to send his glasses flying.
The bird blinked a few times as he seemingly disregarded all of Behemoth’s words and displays of force.
“‘Brother’ is a real funny term to hear you use. You didn’t really believe in such ostentations before you came to this house, did you? Or at least bird-guy didn’t seem to think so.”
Behemoth raised her fist. “I will not ask you again!”
“Fuck, no wonder all of the dinosaurs got wiped out. If they were all as smart as you, they never had a chance.”
Behemoth swung her fist and nearly knocked Percival’s head clean off.
It took Helios’ intervention to separate the two, but the dragon didn’t go away without a fight.
Sei put the barrier back up that Behemoth had irresponsibly torn through.
This left Percival sitting on the rug by himself, dusting off the clothes of the man he was borrowing.
He strained his neck to look over his shoulder at the man floating above him.
“Women are always so emotional, huh? Even muscle-bound dykes like her, I guess.”
“…”
Abaddon was a vision of dread.
His hair was like a burning red cloud- his eyes glowing with so much light that he could have lit up the whole of the abyss.
Blood leaked from his palms as he dug his claws into his hands. It was the only thing still keeping him from doing something he shouldn’t.
His only outlet so far was getting to blow off the roof. And that wasn’t nearly enough.
He was still holding Karliah with one arm. Something neither of them had seemed to realize just yet.
“What’s going on!?”
The family that was at the colosseum started appearing in the living room one after the other.
When they heard Percival was here, they each made duplicate bodies and sent them home.
One of the first groups to break through the crowd was the twins. Yemaja freaked at the sight of Ziz in the magiical equivalent of a glass jar.
“What are you guys doing!? Let him out!”
At the sight of her, ‘Ziz’ became desperate. He started to bang against the magical surface ensnaring him while weeping profusely.
“Yem, help me! I don’t know what’s going on here, but your family is-”
“Quiet!” Sei clapped her hands together.
Ziz was suddenly smushed so hard against the glass that he couldn’t move or talk. Yemaja let out another shriek.
“What are you doing, let him ou-”
“That’s not your boyfriend, Lassie!” Darius interjected. “That antichrist bastard has gotten a real good hold of him somehow!”
“What?! That’s not possible, it’s…” It wasn’t long before Yemaja realized that it was extremely possible.
Ziz was old and slightly special, but he was just a regular phoenix.
Without the standard nevi’im protections, he could indeed be taken over by a strong enough opposing force.
With the metaphorical cat out of the bag, Percival no longer saw the point of keeping up appearances.
“Ah, fuck… I thought I could make something a little more exciting happen, but it seems like there’s no dice. Maybe I should have listened to Paimon’s ideas a bit more before deciding on this course of action…”
Yemaja felt her face burning.
She ran up to the barrier and smashed her fists against it.
“Get out of him right now, you disgusting piece of garbage! Do it and maybe you’ll get a merciful death!”
“Well, your dad already promised me a trillion of those, so… I’m sure there’s gotta be a merciful one in there somewhere, right??”
“Don’t fuck with me-”
“You guys are such bad hosts. I would have thought you’d like having someone new hanging around after all this time to spice things up a bit. I mean, how long can you guys have barbecues and houseparties before you get sick of seeing each other, right?”
Percival looked down at his feet and saw that his enclosure was starting to fill with water. And rather quickly at that.
“Easy there, slutty twin. You came a bit too late to the explanation, but whatever you try to do to me, I’m just going to make sure the birdy feels it instead. He is still in here, you know.”
The water stopped rising immediately. Yemaja was pulled away from the wall by her grandfathers.
With no one else in his face, Percival sighed and went back to looking around the room of disgruntled faces.
“You want me to go? I can go.” He acquiesced. “But I think we should be talking about equivalent exchanges first. You took something from me, so shouldn’t you give me something to replace it? I think that’s fair.”
Sei’s brow furrowed. “You’re doing all of this over Dagon, you incorrigible wretch…?”
“Who?” Percival would have scratched his head if he could. “Oh, vampire deadbeat. No, keep him, I don’t care. I lost some things a bit dearer to my heart than that.”
It was at that moment, Sei noticed some new faces out of the corner of her eye.
Her grandchildren were carrying unconscious women with mangled bodies, covered in simple sheets or hastily removed robes.
“Luckily, you have a whole lot of nice things here.” Percival’s eyes scanned over every woman in the room, even stopping to view Shin’s daughters with a scrutinizing gaze.
But ultimately, his eyes consistently settled on Karliah.
“I know they’re second-hand, but you’re getting three for the price of one. I think this’ll be a real deal in your favor if you…”
Even though Percival was talking, it became impossible to hear his voice.
Everyone in the room looked towards Ayaana, whose state was only slightly less volatile than Abaddon’s.
She raised her hand, and shadows engulfed Percival’s enclosure to keep him out of sight.
Finally, she completely stopped the passage of time in the room, giving her entire family more time to stop and think before acting next.
In real time, they were paused at the moment Abaddon started to pull the spear out of his chest.
When she spoke, it was Lailah’s voice that came out, not their combined sound.
“Everyone… I know we’re all upset, but I implore you to listen to me for just a moment, because I know in my bones that we’re missing something..!”
Have you ever ragebaited yourself with your own imagination? That’s how I felt writing this.