After passing through the weird doors, the devils find themselves up in the clouds.
What’s even weirder than the door is…
Is this a…floor? Murzalla is baffled.
Under her feet is an enormous, white, circular plane with a grate pattern.
Poof! Another door appears and a figure clad entirely in black steps through it.
“What the hell? Teleportation magic? And you’re pulling it off with a device I’ve never seen before.”
Urim has been transported here, too. He rights himself in the air and glares at the man in black.
“So we’re somewhere new. What about it? You think you can take on the two of us alone? You really think you’re that good?!”
Yes. Yes, he does.
So good that he didn’t even bother to take advantage of the few seconds of confusion when the devils were being transported. Instead, he created a space where they can have a fair fight.
The Black Knight explains, “You see, there’s a special audience who’s looking forward to watching this battle,” and mutters under his breath, “Can’t pull any underhanded tricks…”
Murzalla catches it but she doesn’t know what he means. She knows she can’t just take it at face value.
It’s him. He’s the guy who defeated Orsay. We can’t beat him.
Orsay was the devil who was sent to search for Melcuemenes after she fell off the map.
He was specifically designed for assault and extermination. But the Black Knight had vanquished him without even giving the devil a chance to make a move.
On the other hand, Murzalla was tasked with only one mission from her creator.
Shiva, the Black Knight… I’ll reveal your powers and your face under the mask.
Both she and Urim had been created for the sole purpose of investigating Shiva’s identity and powers.
The she-devil doesn’t care if they die. In fact, Shiva’s more than welcome to end them right there and then if it means he’ll exhibit enough powers that could decimate two devils.
Murzalla extends all four of her elongated arms and focuses her mana into her palms. Black misty clouds appear above each hand and swirl around until they shapeshift into spheroids.
She swings her arms back and flings the dark energy balls with all her might.
The spheres howl through the air into Shiva.
“Hm, interesting. I’ve never played baseball before, but I will gladly hit your pitches!”
Shiva babbles nonsensically as he crouches. Out of nowhere, a wooden stick appears in his hands.
Ka-ting! An unexpected sound rings as soon as he swings. Impossible.
What’s even more impossible is that his piece of wood struck one of the balls and sent it flying.
“Keep ’em coming!”
The man quickly moves into the trajectory of one of the other black spheres. Once more, he sends the ball streaking across sky with a resounding ka-ting!
He’s muting the actual sound of the impact and playing another tone over it. And he’s enveloping my magic attacks with barriers so they won’t explode on contact.
Murzalla turns her attention to the wooden stick in his hands.
That’s made of a barrier, too. And so is this floor… But what’s the point of doing all this?!
She can’t fathom why the piece of wood needs to be rod-shaped. And what’s the point of the floor when they can all fly?
The four balls all disappear as they whirl off into the distance. The barriers that were encasing them had burst.
“Hmm. My memory is pretty vague, but I think that was a fairly good rendition. I hope.”
She watches Shiva carefully as he hoists the wooden stick over his shoulder.
What did he mean about his “special audience” and “can’t pull any underhanded tricks”?
Murzalla can only come up with one possible interpretation─but could it be?
“How ’bout this?!” Urim interrupts her thoughts and discharges thousands of black pellets.
“What’s this? You don’t expect me to hit all of those, do you?”
But Shiva doesn’t look worried in the least.
No way…
Behind Shiva appear thousands of glowing orbs of light.
Are those barriers too? But how…
The balls of light launch at once. As if possessed by wills of their own, each one homes in on a single black pellet, smashing it to dust with astounding precision.
“Whoops. I should’ve made those funnel shaped. Or maybe I could’ve whipped up a whole bunch of magic circles…”
He’s mumbling to himself again. But even when she manages to make out the words, they make utterly no sense.
Apparently, what Orsay told Lord Lucifyra as he drew his last breaths is true. Shiva can create and manipulate barriers without any restrictions.
Moreover, the fact that he can produce barriers in such astonishing quantities, capture the trajectory of the black pellets with accuracy, and blast them to pieces with perfect precision can only mean one thing:
His mana level is off the scale…
That’s all there is to it. And it’s on a level that cannot be measured. There’s no way of even knowing if his power is containable for a devil. She shudders.
“Dammit! What the hell’s going on?!” Even Urim is losing his will to fight.
“Hmm. You guys are just like─um, what was his name again? The dude who transformed into some kinda wolf or leopard or something.”
“You mean Orsay?”
“That, probably. He was a super weak devil despite his looks. You’re just like that guy.”
The man in black doesn’t seem to be bluffing.
Orsay was Lucifyra’s most powerful servant. If Shiva judged him to be “super weak,” his powers must be akin to the highest-rate devils birthed by a Devil Lord.
“Done attacking already? Mind if I take a turn?”
Shiva’s wooden stick disappears. A pair of unusual-looking weapons appear, one in each hand.
From what I’ve heard, he’s got something called “magic guns.” Those must be it.
Haruto, the boy who seems closely connected to Shiva, was seen using such a weapon at his school. Beyond a doubt, the guns are Shiva’s creation and he’d lent it to the boy.
Shiva fires the magic guns wildly.
Murzalla scrambles to swat them away with her four hands, but there are just too many─a few of them strike her.
Before Urim could even react, he’s being bludgeoned by the cannonade of shots in midair.
No… We’re no match for him. Murzalla resigns herself. A slight smile rises to her lips.
Just…a bit longer…
Her defeat is certain─she’s not in denial of that. If she can hold out a bit longer, she’s sure she can decode the secret to Shiva’s powers and his true identity.
But it’ll take more than her life alone.
“Ngh… Dammit… Do you know…who I am? I’m a servant of Lord Lucifyra…” Urim drones in agony.
Murzalla looks at her partner. All he can do is blubber pathetically as he slowly slips out of consciousness.
“Hm? What are you doing?” ponders Shiva.
She knew he wouldn’t ignore her next move but she hadn’t expected him to fully cease his attack to stand back and watch.
Each of her four arms splits into two, then into four, and then into eight. They continue to splinter into long, thin branches. The dozens of limbs suddenly intertwine and bunch together. In the next instant, they unravel and sprawl out to form an umbrella and─
“H-Hey, Murzalla, what are you…”
─Chomp!
The huge “umbrella” swallows Urim and snaps shut like a snake gulping down prey. The lump travels down the tube into Murzalla’s body. When it finally reaches her chest, her body starts to swell…
“Graah…aah! Ahahaha!”
The devil girl’s figure radiates blazingly. Her silhouette contorts.
‘It’s a fusion!’ squeals a voice somewhere far away. Never mind that for now.
Murzalla’s body balloons bigger and bigger in size. Millions of cracks emerge on her skin and pieces of them start to flake off. The surface underneath reveals…
“A…tree?” Shiva says under his breath.
Murzalla lets out a harrowing cackle.
From the waist down, she takes the form of tree roots. The shoots writhe around like tentacles. Her arms have settled back into two limbs, but they look like masses of twigs twisted together. Her upper body looks the same as before, only her skin is now as coarse as a tree trunk.
She looms over thirty feet tall.
Finally, you’ve made yourself useful, Urim. This is what you were created for.
“It’s truly a nuisance, but I’m afraid the game isn’t over yet!” Murzalla bellows.
She bends her two trunk arms and cracks them like a whip. Byooom! The ends stretch out like rubber.
Her weaponized arms are so fast that they’re barely visible to the naked eye, and they’re several times swifter than her or Urim’s magic missiles.
For this brief moment, Murzalla’s power exceeds the strongest devil Orsay’s─much closer now to the Devil Lord’s.
This ought to do it!
Just as she whips her arms into Shiva’s head─
Thwok. “Huh?!”
─one of them is hacked off her body and continues to swing past him until it hits the floor with a forceful bounce.
“How…could this be…”
Before she could even think, her other arm, too, has been severed from her shoulder. She didn’t even feel the cut. And now that limb is nowhere to be found.
“You’re the same as Orsay. Even after transforming, you’re not really any better.”
Shiva raises his magic gun again.
He fires off a barrage of shots so unbelievably fast that she can’t follow them with her eyes, let alone dodge them.
The bullets pierce right through her.
In…conceivable…
Murzalla’s more than just speed. In her tree-like form, she’s as impenetrable as a castle wall. In theory, it’s impossible to inflict so much as a scratch.
He’s…beyond the scope…of a devil…
This is the realm of a god.
But Shiva can’t possibly be a Devil Lord. If he was, surely Lucifyra would’ve detected him. And the God Killer certainly wouldn’t tolerate his existence, even tacitly.
Which could only mean one thing. He must be a devil.
Creating a devil with powers comparable to a Devil Lord? Under normal circumstances, it’d be impossible.