His full-power move in the usual sense, Spiral Heat Ray, turned into a blazing white meteor and cut through the airtight darkness. The extreme heat and violent energy easily evaporated countless black waves and tore them apart with Rend. It poured straight into the depths of the endless Void, then erupted into a huge bright fireball, but without follow-up energy it was soon swallowed by the tide-like sticky darkness.
And instinct told Belial that the shot had missed. Had it failed to hit the opponent's true body?
"No…"
Belial beat his wings and cut apart the dense black tentacles reaching for him, shredding them into Shard. An ominous blood-red glow surged out, and in this scene even his massive body looked small.
"It's not that I didn't hit the real body. This place itself is the body."
He bared his teeth in something like a feral grin. The entire massive black vortex could very well be the opponent's true form, since nothing said these things had to appear as monsters or take a normal physical shape.
A creature made purely from condensed dark power was not that strange. Maybe it was not that Belial's damage was too weak, but that the opponent's size and area were simply too vast.
Even if he blasted away a small part, it was like a drop in the bucket. It was like a bullet with huge power that only knocked off a bit of dead skin.
This was completely different from most enemies he had faced before. The closest comparison was Biollante, where it was not about damage output or whether it could lose health, but about the sheer scale of its life area and coverage.
Facing this strange dark power that lacked a clear physical form, even old methods like Ecological Corrosion were hard to use. In the end, those still relied on energy or tangible reality as a base.
With the power of Diablo, he could still affect it to some extent. But once he actually tried, it became clear that the effect was not very good.
While Belial was thinking about a countermeasure, the second wave arrived. Unlike the last time when the Lord struck and shaved off the outer shell with purple light, this time it was continuous, overwhelming tides.
Countless masses of dark power and resentful souls, under the control of some existence, revealed fangs and claws. They manifested endless tentacles and bladed limbs, along with even more grotesque forms, surging toward the tiny Belial.
"Internal radiation."
White light burst out like a solar flare, destroying anything that dared to approach with extreme heat and violent energy. Even those grotesque things made of dark power were no exception.
Unfortunately, that instant wide-area burst only wiped out most of the attackers, and even more waves followed after. They kept coming without end, wrapping around and sealing off Belial's retreat, trying to trap this small prey in the darkness.
"Ugh…!"
Like a dull, lightless moon hanging above the black tides, faint sounds of limbs rubbing and strange cries sent out ripples. Even a tiny hint of it carried unimaginable consequences.
That was a curled, unhatched, incomplete infant form. With just a light flap of its wings, the storm it summoned was enough to sweep through this Dark Vortex and firmly lock onto Belial.
The raging dark storm carried an astonishing amount of terrifying resentment. It transformed into a more peculiar force that constantly wore down the outer layer of his scales.
It intended to slowly digest and eat this Black Dragon.
From the parts already worn away and consumed, it could vaguely sense that three neighboring presences had completely vanished without a trace. That did not matter.
They had simply died through infighting or mutual devouring. That was fine, since it planned to do the same once it was whole again, and someone had merely pushed the progress bar forward.
But since someone had intruded into its territory, they would be drowned.
The expanding electromagnetic field and internal radiation once again blasted apart and pushed back the endless dark tides around him. Before Belial could come up with a plan, he faintly saw blood-red lights flicker within the black surge.
"Roar…!" "Ugh… howl!"
Those lights were eyes, surface veins, and outlines of bodies. The familiar language of fangs and claws showed false yet real things possessing the darkness, revealing what kind of beings they were.
Anguirus, the sea dragon Manda, and the previously fallen three-headed dragon King Ghidorah twisted and regenerated in the dark tide in a strange form. They fixed their eyes on their former enemy.
"Damn…"
Belial froze for a moment. "That fast to win a revival match? You're kidding, right?"
"Roar!!!"
The leading King Ghidorah roared in fury and spewed a dark purple dragon lightning. Beside it, Anguirus started its familiar rolling ball routine, while Manda rapidly crawled through the chaotic space with its jaws open, ready to strike.
Belial raised a light-reflecting shield to block them, and in the first instant of the clash he realized that these so-called revived old friends were clearly weaker than their true originals. The difference was obvious as soon as they touched.
"That scared me. Just as expected, they're fakes."
Relieved, Belial fired a Space Blast Punch and smashed Manda's head into Shard when it tried to bite his tail. He grabbed the corpse and used it like a whip, flinging away the rolling Anguirus.
With a roar, the sweeping ultra-vibration wave interrupted King Ghidorah's dragon lightning and tore apart the sharp surface scales with Shard. Before it could recover, Belial had already closed in and viciously grabbed one of its necks.
"I've always wanted to do this. Let me recreate it… ah!"
The action was simple. Open his mouth wide and bite down.
"Crack…" "Ughhh!!!"
Enduring the Lightning Magic attacks from the other two heads, he bit down hard. The sound of bones breaking with Rend mixed with screams as Belial used his ultra-vibration-enhanced teeth to gnaw off one head by force.
Then he grabbed the remaining two and showed a nasty grin. "Honestly, whether in shows before or now, I've always wanted to do this. I just never had the chance."
Now the chance was perfect. He was stronger, and the opponent was just a weak knockoff, so his hands moved without mercy despite King Ghidorah's cries.
"Yeah, that feels good. Dream fulfilled."
Looking refreshed, he grabbed the knotted necks of King Ghidorah and flung it away, then smacked the rolling Anguirus aside with his tail. Finally, a satisfying fused Spiral Heat Ray finished them all.
There was nothing to say about their strength. They were pure knockoff weaklings, far inferior to the originals, and Belial was more than twice as strong as the last time he fought King Ghidorah. Beating these things was easy.
Their only use was as substitute snacks and toys.
"Again? You really love playing with the controller, huh? Why don't you come down and fight me yourself."
From the sticky swamp of darkness, three familiar figures crawled out again. Belial grinned, and by the way, he had already found a brilliant idea to deal with the opponent.
"Roar… ugh!" "Howl!" "Hiss…"
They were knocked down again in no time. This time Belial did not simply crush them to dust, but used Gravity Manipulation along with Energy Field to lock their bodies in a domain, then familiarly opened his mouth wide.
In an instant, nearly half his body expanded outward, forming a massive Black Dragon body that was also black but distinct from the surrounding darkness. It swallowed the ant-like corpse of King Ghidorah whole.
The dark power and enormous resentment that made up the body were easily absorbed by him. Even when they struggled inside, a couple of punches made them behave.
This almost permanently removed that portion from the opponent, preventing regeneration. That did not really matter though, since it could command not only the dark power in the vortex, but also the dark power across the entire Abyss, along with countless resentful souls.
Even if Belial ate some of it, it was just a drop in the sea. As for those King Ghidorah monsters being beaten to death, it had no reaction at all. If they died, they died, since they could revive anytime, and at worst it would just drag things out.
It had plenty of time and territory, so what was there to fear. If it were not incomplete and unhatched, it would have gone up and smashed him directly.
That was what it thought. Sooner or later, the opponent would be trapped in the vortex, with nowhere to escape, and become nourishment.
That thought began to crumble about twenty-four hours after Belial started eating. Because this guy was not just passively destroying the dispatched King Ghidorah monsters.
He even started actively sucking things in like the Lord.
"I eat, I eat, I eat eat eat!"
"Living is for eating, sleeping, and playing. Eating has so many rules and tricks, all that fake social nonsense. I just eat. Anguirus, get lost. I jump straight onto King Ghidorah, hug the neck and tail and bite at the same time, then pounce on Manda and bite it over. Anguirus, don't even think about running. I'll eat them all. I eat eat eat!"
Transforming into the most massive Black Mist Dragon form, he sucked in like a whale drawing water. Unimaginably vast resentment and dark power poured into Belial's body, then spread outward and expanded him even further.