“All right, guess it’s time to get serious…”
“At any rate, how about we take down the fiends in order, starting with the ones that’ve been weakened the most?”
Alone, they wouldn’t have been very difficult opponents to defeat, but that wasn’t the case with the amount they were facing now. Mira knew better than anyone that there was strength in numbers.
Therefore, the pair collected themselves and began the final battle against the fiends.
“These techniques and this power… It must be you…”
Meanwhile, Barbatos was holding off the rampaging dark demon by himself. While doing so, he’d picked up on several peculiar aspects regarding his foe. In fact, he’d realized just who the dark demon he was up against was.
The dark demon’s name was Rayafraeben. He was an old friend of Barbatos, with whom he’d once engaged in silly hijinks and joked around with.
“I never would’ve imagined we’d meet again like this.”
They’d been reunited as enemies. At the same time as he was lamenting this unfortunate reality deep down, Barbatos hesitated on the verge of making up his mind.
Because Rayafraeben had gone berserk, his newly increased physical capabilities meant he was now fast enough that Barbatos couldn’t afford to let his guard down. And though his wild attacks were easily telegraphed, he was fast enough that several of his attacks breached Barbatos’s defenses.
While intercepting waves of these attacks, Barbatos tried simply avoiding any direct hits as he looked for an opening.
“I suppose this too is fate.”
In the midst of his battle with Rayafraeben, Barbatos realized an unfortunate fact.
It had to do with the dark demon before him.
Demonic power swirled about inside of him. Having grown to an unbelievable degree, it had become distorted. And so, Barbatos realized that Rayafraeben’s own power had been so corrupted that it could no longer be returned to its original form.
Wallenstein and his comrades could seal the power that turned demons into dark demons, but they couldn’t regenerate one’s power. In other words, now that he’d gone berserk, there was no longer any way of turning Rayafraeben back into a light demon.
Right now, he was just a seething mass of demonic power.
But if he told Wallenstein that, he’d no doubt keep putting himself in harm’s way in an attempt to somehow find a way to help.
And the more he did so, the more danger he’d be in. What’s more, the now-berserk dark demon’s power was so great that it was sure to overwhelm anyone who slipped up even a little.
“I guess I’ll have to do this myself,” Barbatos said with a bitter smile. He hadn’t known Wallenstein for very long, but when it came to such things, it was quite easy to predict what he’d do. And so, he stiffened the resolve he had deep down.
There was something which Barbatos felt very keenly.
While he’d been turned back to a light demon, he couldn’t possibly atone for all of his sins. This was something he grappled with on a daily basis.
And so, Wallenstein, who shared the burden of these sins alongside them, was like a dazzling ray of hope to the light demons that were now his friends.
Barbatos couldn’t very well allow such a person to put himself in danger. He couldn’t let him suffer some horrific injury just to search for some way to help Rayafraeben when there very well might not be. This was what ran through Barbatos’s mind.
But, most of all, Barbatos felt that he couldn’t let Wallenstein, who was a source of hope to all of them, sully his hands.
“The same situation may very well come up in the future. In which case, we’ll need to…” he began.
Having found himself in such a hopeless situation, they would have to eliminate his former friend. And so, Barbatos had firmly resolved that he’d take personal responsibility for doing so.
More than anything, Wallenstein wanted them to hold onto their hope.
“Time to fight fire with fire. Though I no longer use demonic power, this is a technique from when I was still a Duke-rank dark demon. So, Rayafraeben…will you be able to see through this?”
He attacked like a merciless tempest. Unleashing a flurry of masterful blows, Barbatos fought at a certain distance from his foe.
However, more so than when he’d been steeling his resolve, Barbatos was now moving much more offensively.
Even when facing down a barrage of demonic missiles, he hurtled forward without hesitation. And, though he got hit by several of them in the process, he closed the distance.
A vicious blow then plunged into Barbatos’s shoulder. But he’d resolved that it was fine so long as he evaded any direct blows, and so he took a step forward, not stopping for a moment.
“…!”
He was hit with another strike, and then two more. Ignoring his growing number of injuries, Barbatos kept moving forward. And, despite the damage he was sustaining over his entire body, he then took one final step.
As he did, Rayafraeben struck with his fist, as if he’d been waiting for that very maneuver. It was a perfectly executed counter, which one might use against an approaching foe. It was a flawless strike, taking advantage of the moment when retreat was no longer an option.
“Jeez, some things never change,” Barbatos said.
With the fastest and smallest possible movement, Barbatos grabbed ahold of Rayafraeben’s arm, thereby completely nullifying his counter. He’d guessed that Rayafraeben would unleash that very blow as soon as he took that last step forward.
Even though he’d gone completely berserk, Rayafraeben’s strikes still closely resembled those he’d used in the past, which meant Barbatos had been able to see his counter coming.
By stopping the counter, Barbatos had created the perfect opening. And, with that final step he’d taken, he was now at the right distance to land his finishing blow.
Then, focusing demonic power in the palm of his hand, he created a single thin needle from the swirling vortex of power.
“Now, be at peace,” he said, his voice filled with unwavering determination. Then, inside this slight opening that’d been created, he used the needle to pierce Rayafraeben’s breast.
Barbatos had aimed for the part of Rayafraeben’s body where his demonic power was densest. It was in this exact point, the very part which was now so out of control, that he pierced Rayafraeben with the needle of concentrated demonic power.
Normally, Barbatos would then release the demonic power within the needle and destroy this area from within. But next, he did something different.
Continuing to manipulate the needle, he stirred the demonic power raging within Rayafraeben before withdrawing it. He was hoping that, at the very least, he might get an idea as to what had happened to Rayafraeben.
“Ngh…!”
That said, it wasn’t easy for Barbatos to maintain control of this power. In fact, it might very well have been impossible for just about anyone. And so, as he pulled out the baleful-looking, now-distorted needle, an incredible blast of power erupted out of Rayafraeben and shot forth.
Barbatos was thrown back by the impact, but he somehow managed to regain control of himself. Landing on his feet, he looked toward Rayafraeben.
The dark demon’s body, which had been launched back much like his own, had been reduced to a pile of smoldering ash. All the demonic power that’d been holding his body together had suddenly escaped, and so the pile of ash was all that remained of him.
While he stared at the ashes dancing on the wind, Barbatos murmured, “I’m sorry, friend. May we cross paths again someday,” as if whispering a prayer.
✦ ✦ ✦
