Kurumi Tokisaki walked to the position the girls had left open for her. Without making any obvious movement, she simply stood there for a moment. Suddenly, a vortex appeared behind her, followed by a deep, powerful voice: "You who have betrayed the contract, offer up your soul..."
A gigantic purple-skinned hand reached out from the vortex, about to seize Kurumi Tokisaki. Yet in the next instant, the girl's figure vanished without warning, causing the hand to pause as though its owner were contemplating something.
"You designed an ambush for me? How naive. With only two Heaven Rank fighters, you think you can pose a threat to me?" The Devil Archduke instantly detected the strength of everyone present. If he descended, aside from Yaya and Kurumi Tokisaki posing some degree of threat, the others were merely people he could kill with a wave of his hand.
"Then why don't you come out?" Chu Lian set Kurumi Tokisaki down from her arms and gave the vortex a cold smile. She had just used Teleport to bring the girl to her side. As for why she had caught her in an embrace, Chu Lian herself did not know. Perhaps she had simply wanted to find out exactly how slender Kurumi Tokisaki's waist was.
"Provocation is useless against me." The Devil Archduke spread his spiritual power throughout the surroundings at full strength, searching everywhere. In the end, he discovered that there truly were no enemies besides the girls before him.
Yet he still refused to emerge, because he knew there had to be something wrong here. He simply had not found it yet. Since these girls had dared to encourage Kurumi Tokisaki to betray the contract, they must have known his strength.
What exactly gave them the confidence to remain here instead of fleeing? He needed to find the reason.
"Only the weak make excuses." Inori had already closed her eyes, preparing to awaken Eve. Yaya stood nearby in an attacking stance, while everyone else retreated several steps. Only Chu Lian and Kurumi Tokisaki remained at the front.
It was essentially impossible for the Devil Archduke to discover anyone else, because Li Mingxue had completely concealed every aura in the area. Unless the Devil Archduke was stronger than her, there was absolutely no chance he could detect the others. Even when it came to the people themselves, all he could see were several girls who seemed no different from ordinary humans hiding downstairs.
"We're leaving..." Seeing that the Devil Archduke still refused to appear, Chu Lian frowned and spoke to the girls beside her. Her steps slowly moved backward, making it seem as though she genuinely intended to leave.
Of course, even if they wanted to leave, the Devil Archduke could not possibly allow them to do so. After all, he had come here by relying on the power of the contract. If he wished to leave, he likewise had to reclaim that power first.
And the contract's power was intertwined with Kurumi Tokisaki's soul. Unless he recovered Kurumi Tokisaki's soul, or unless he was defeated, there was no way he could leave so easily.
His arrival had been made possible by the contract, so the world's consciousness would not attack him. But if he simply left like this, then he could expect the world's consciousness to dispatch its subordinates to hunt him down the moment he departed.
The inevitable result would be the destruction of his clone, while a portion of his soul would be trapped here. That would nearly damage his very origin, something he absolutely could not allow.
And so, he attacked. A blue sphere of light appeared in his hand, after which countless small waves of energy shot toward Chu Lian and the others.
Yet against Chu Lian, who had been prepared from the beginning, his attack was destined to fail. The instant he struck, Yaya opened a red barrier and stood before everyone. All the damage was diverted to either side without harming Chu Lian or the others in the slightest.
Rumble... The ground thundered beneath the energy explosions, yet remained completely undamaged. Not only was the Devil Archduke stunned, even Chu Lian breathed a sigh of relief.
It seemed that asking Mom to reinforce the rooftop earlier had indeed been the right decision. With such a sturdy platform, it could completely serve as a battlefield.
"Now." If the Devil Archduke had refrained from attacking, he could still have withdrawn. But the moment he attacked, it was equivalent to declaring war on this world. The world's consciousness instantly severed his path of retreat, leaving him unable to escape.
If he wanted to leave safely now, he had no choice but to kill Kurumi Tokisaki.
Since that was the case, there was no longer any need for him to conceal himself.
He stretched out his other hand and widened the vortex. A figure nearly ten meters tall emerged onto the rooftop. An enormous head crowned with bull-like horns glared at Chu Lian with wide eyes as he roared, "I don't know what you're relying on, but the difference in strength between us is something you can never overcome. Give me your lives!"
As the Devil Archduke spoke, he raised his right hand halfway toward the sky. Countless streams of energy gathered in his palm, and streaks of blue flame plunged from the heavens like meteors, exploding around Chu Lian and the others.
Even though all the damage was diverted to either side by Yaya's barrier, the tremors caused by the explosions still made several of the girls struggle to remain standing.
"Begin the operation." The Devil Archduke was far more cautious than Chu Lian had imagined. It seemed these fellows were at least self-aware enough to understand that others might plot against them.
But now that he had come out, it was time to begin.
As her words fell, Kurosaki Satsuki instantly melted into the darkness and transformed into an assassin. Tina returned to her feline form, entering the battle state of the Thunderclap White Tiger.
Meanwhile, Hiyori dragged Xuanlong Xiaoyue behind her. The great blade scraped against the ground with a resounding clang-clang, making her resemble Guan Yu of old sweeping across the battlefield, advancing with his blade trailing behind him.
Behind Chu Chu, Lia's figure appeared. She spread her arms and embraced the girl's soft body. Thunder rolled through the sky as black clouds covered the moon, and one lightning spirit after another appeared around her like a guard formation, staring hungrily at the towering Devil Archduke.
"You think these alone are enough to harm me?" The Devil Archduke did not stop firing magical energy from his hands. Watching the changes before him, he smiled coldly.
"Of course not." Chu Lian shook her head. She knew perfectly well that even if there were ten times or a hundred times as many of them, it would still be a joke before such a vast disparity in strength.
But sometimes, the only thing separating a joke from a miracle was a single opportunity!
Inori vanished from Chu Lian's side and instantly appeared behind the Devil Archduke. At that moment, her aura surged all the way to the peak of Heaven Rank, matching the Devil Archduke's current level.
"Crystal Flower..." A faintly mocking voice sounded. Before the Devil Archduke could react at all, the flowers produced by Eve's Apocalypse Virus had already sealed his lower body. Crystal barbs pierced into his thighs one after another, injecting the energy of the Apocalypse Virus into him.
"Damn it!" This change shocked him more than anything else. He had considered the possibility that someone might have been concealing their strength, but he had never imagined that person would be Inori, who had remained quiet and unobtrusive all this time. Even more unexpectedly, the moment she erupted, her power reached the peak of Heaven Rank.
What stunned him even more was how impossible it had been to react to the transformation. He still could not understand how the girl's strength had risen to such a level within such a brief instant.
"Hehehe... Die with your questions unanswered, filthy creature." Just as higher life-forms looked down on lesser creatures, once humans became increasingly powerful, they would begin to feel disgust toward the beings they had once regarded as superior.
Eve was not human, but what she had fused with was the world's consciousness and human emotions. Moreover, she remained attached to Inori, who was gradually becoming more and more human. Subconsciously, Eve had already begun to regard herself as human.
Now that she had encountered the Devil Archduke, her disgust toward him immediately erupted.
Those words were like explosives detonating beside him, sending the Devil Archduke into a towering rage. "Lowly human!"
Unfortunately, that was about all he could do now. After being struck by Eve's Crystal Flower, neither spacetime magic nor displacement magic could be used at all.
Even moving normally was impossible. He could only remain imprisoned in place.
"Thirty seconds is all I have, but I guarantee you won't enjoy them!" He had merely been immobilized. His strength itself had not actually weakened. If they wanted to force his power down, then a fierce battle was unavoidable.
She reached toward her chest and drew out the Void Greatsword. Wearing a brilliant smile, she darted around the Devil Archduke, slashing again and again, leaving him unable to defend himself on many occasions.
After all, most devils were inclined toward spellcasting. Even if they possessed enormous bodies, that was merely a racial trait. Against a warrior of the same rank, without displacement skills, he was essentially incapable of resisting effectively.
Clang! The sound of metal striking metal rang out. The Void Greatsword hacked into his body, yet aside from the noise, it failed to inflict much actual damage.
However, as Void power continued pouring into him, resisting became increasingly difficult.
"Yaya!" During the opening stage, defense had been left to Yaya while Eve handled the offense. Even though the Devil Archduke possessed countless means of attack, he had been caught in their calculations and therefore had no opportunity to unleash them.
After all, Yaya, who had devoted all her energy to defense, was not someone who could be broken through so easily.
Now that Eve had successfully tied down the Devil Archduke, Yaya could join the offensive as well.
"Yes!" The instant Chu Lian finished speaking, Yaya had already finished gathering her strength. "Howling Rending Impact, Rowan Blade Shadow!"
Red energy enveloped her body. At that moment, Yaya's speed erupted past the speed of sound. Almost the instant she finished speaking, she had already shot through the Devil Archduke's body and appeared behind him.
"A dragon-type weapon!" He reached down and touched his abdomen, where Yaya had pierced a hole straight through him. The magic power throughout his body had offered almost no protection at all. Turning around, he stared coldly at Yaya and the white spear in her hands.
"Let's see how much your magic can really accomplish." Chu Lian retreated with Kurumi Tokisaki and hovered in the air. Looking at the Devil Archduke, who had already suffered one injury after another, she spoke calmly.
Unfortunately, her words did not frighten the Devil Archduke in the slightest. Under the restoration of his magic power, the wounds across his body healed completely within mere seconds. Dreaming of killing him with damage like this was simply absurd.
"This really is troublesome. What should we do?" Twenty seconds passed. Eve's Void Greatsword and Yaya's dragon-fang spear had already inflicted no fewer than thirty effective wounds on the Devil Archduke.
Yet no matter what kind of injury they inflicted, he could recover completely in a short period of time. Aside from consuming some of his energy, their attacks appeared to accomplish essentially nothing else.
At least, that was what the Devil Archduke believed. He had already noticed Eve's aura rapidly fading. In only a few more seconds, she would return to her previous state. At that point, the one who had violated the contract would be unable to act, while the other Heaven Rank fighter could not inflict much damage. Then he would be free to do whatever he wanted.
That was precisely why he had not mounted much of a counterattack during this period. He focused entirely on defense to endure their initial assault. Once the enemy's aura faded and their strength returned to normal, he would be free to do as he pleased.
Naive. Everything they had done earlier could hardly even be called a trap. It was more like an open scheme, used openly enough that the Devil Archduke had seen through it at a glance.
Yet all of it had served to conceal another fact—the energy from the Crystal Flower that Eve had injected into the Devil Archduke.
Perhaps because it had not yet activated, combined with the highly evolved Apocalypse Virus' extraordinary concealment, the Devil Archduke had failed to notice the virus already spreading throughout every part of his lower body.
Eve would revert shortly, but those viruses would not. At that moment, they would only erupt completely...
"Huff, huff... Yaya can't beat him." Yaya was naturally a hand-to-hand fighter. Chu Lian had given her the dragon-fang spear solely to deal with the Devil Archduke, and she found it extremely awkward to wield.
After circling him several times and expending a great deal of magic power, the damage she had managed to inflict on the Devil Archduke was essentially negligible. It left her somewhat discouraged.
"It's fine. Just wait a little longer..." Chu Lian did not mind. She and everyone else were preparing for that moment. Once the time came, no matter how furious the Devil Archduke became, it would be useless.
"My, my, you're certainly tough. Even after taking so much damage, we still can't truly injure you. You're exactly the kind of enemy I hate most." During the final few seconds, Eve simply stopped attacking. She floated in front of the Devil Archduke's face and sighed.
In truth, she understood perfectly well that this was because of the difference in their realms. Her strength had reached the peak of Heaven Rank, but she had never actually attained the Transcendence Realm. In terms of mystique, her fusion with the world's consciousness meant she had little to worry about, but the purity of her energy fell far short.
That was why attacking him had been so difficult. The damage she inflicted could only accumulate bit by bit, never becoming enough to overwhelm the Devil Archduke outright.
"Hahaha! That's why humans are so foolish. You always think something like this will be enough to hurt me..." Before the Devil Archduke could finish speaking, he suddenly realized that something was wrong.
Eve, floating before him, revealed a contemptuous smile. "Not necessarily, Mr. Filthy Devil..."
Her pale violet hair turned pink. Eve fell dormant, and Inori's body went limp as it dropped from the air. The Devil Archduke tried to reach out and kill her, only to discover that he could not move at all.
The next instant, Inori vanished and reappeared in Chu Lian's arms. Chu Lian tossed her to Kurumi Tokisaki so that she could protect Inori, then turned her head to look at him and smiled sweetly. "You're only noticing something's wrong now?"
"So that's what it was..." The Devil Archduke's aura deflated like a punctured balloon, rapidly falling from the peak of Heaven Rank to Intermediate Heaven Rank. It nearly dropped all the way to Beginner Heaven Rank before finally stabilizing at its current level.
The Crystal Flower around his lower body had now fully bloomed. Thorny vines wrapped around him, transforming his legs into crystal and leaving him unable to move.
Yet even in this situation, he remained calm. Looking at the girls, he revealed an emotionless smile and said, "It seems I underestimated you. But without her, can you still withstand me?"
"Forbidden Spell—Falling Starry Sky!" He raised both hands high. Violet-black radiance blossomed as the starry sky glittered overhead, and countless stars came crashing down...