But still:
“So you’re finally coming out. Well, sorry, but we’re sick of spinning our wheels down here!”
“You picked a funny time to pop up, you bastards. What the hell’re you thinking…? It’s freaking me out.”
Emilia was all but welcoming this army, appearing out of nowhere after they’d destroyed the ten shrines. To Maou, however, something wasn’t right.
“Hey, Ashiya, can you keep ’em occupied without killing them?”
“Yes, my liege. You wish to keep them alive?”
Ashiya, given his orders, fiendishly smiled.
“Gabriel, take me to where Ignora is. This is giving me the willies. We gotta whip ’em all and put an end to this.”
“Got it. I bet my Regiment’s with her. Now’s no time to kick back. You sure we’re good leaving things to Ashiya here?”
“Don’t treat this like Tokyo Tower part two. It’s time to show people in heaven what a Great Demon General with all his force back can do.”
Before he could even finish speaking, Ashiya transformed into Alciel, the merciless Demon General.
“Whoa, whoa! Your clothes!”
Not only did he transform—Shirou Ashiya tore through all his clothes, without a moment’s hesitation.
“A necessary expense, my liege!”
The black shell of the Iron Scorpion shone as he flew up like a shooting star.
“Let’s go while Ashiya’s stopping them! Gabriel! Where’s Ignora’s home base?”
“Follow me! It’s not far from here if we fly!”
“Gabe! I’ll stay here! I really can’t leave Sephirot alone like this!”
“Roger that, Amane! And don’t worry! I’m not gonna double-cross Mikitty!”
Demonic and holy force clashed violently in the skies behind them as they soared away.
“Watch out! We don’t know when Camael may strike!”
“With this many people, we’d definitely spot him! How far away is it?!”
“A bit over ten minutes at this speed!”
“That’s crazy close! Why the hell did they just let us destroy their shrines? I don’t get it! Laila! Is Ignora that stupid? Is she a science savant and really slow with everything else, or what?”
“No, she couldn’t be! It was her strategy that defeated Satanael…”
“Right! This makes no sense at all! But if we’re still just seeing Camael’s Regiment after all this, it must mean the enemy’s got nothin’ left to hide! They already exhausted all their forces on us!”
“Yeah, that’d be real nice, huh? But I think they got a lot of Regiment soldiers in reserve!”
Maou looked up. Several streaks of red light were visible in the skies ahead.
“Okay, I’ll take these! Acieth! Waste ’em in one shot!”
“Ready! Time for the death by a thousand butts!!”
“Wait! Actually, let me handle it! Also, it’s ‘cuts,’ not ‘butts’!”
Whenever Maou started fighting with Acieth’s holy sword, this is what she always did. This was a girl, after all, who overwhelmed Camael in a one-on-one fight. If she went that hard on the Regiment coming up to them, death was a pretty likely outcome.
“Aww, why?! Let me cut ’em!”
Acieth was starting to sound like a serial killer in a TV show. Maou hid the sword behind his back, focusing his force in his legs and fists. This was neither holy nor demonic force—just like the battle at Sasahata North High, it was pure, coercive power.
“Maou! Let me cut them!!”
“…This happens to her whenever I do this. I know it can’t be good…for her!”
Maou’s hooves sliced through the air with a loud roar. He suddenly disappeared—and then the streaks began to fall, one by one.
“So fast…!”
By the time Emilia and the others reached him, all the hapless Regiment soldiers were sprawled out on the ground.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” he said, sounding like he was making excuses.
“Did I say anything?” Emilia gave him a dour look. “You know, I don’t think I’ve been whining all that much at you lately.”
“Well,” the even more perturbed Maou replied, “it shows all the trust we’ve cultivated, doesn’t it?”
Emilia gritted her teeth at that remark, but they knew now wasn’t the time for infighting. So they flew alongside Gabriel, now finally caught up, and headed for their target.
“Judging from that, I bet Ashiya will be back with us soon. Are we there yet, Gabriel?”
“Yeah, there it is. Can’t you see it?”
On the horizon, past Gabriel’s pointer finger, was a large, broad, dignified-looking structure. It didn’t clear Maou’s or Emilia’s doubts at all.
“Man. It hasn’t changed at all. Most of the joint’s dead.”
Urushihara spoke up before they could put voice to those doubts.
“Even in my memories, it was pretty much like that. The lights are out in over half of the place.”
A large, abandoned, dilapidated flying saucer—that was the first impression it gave. Just a large, misshapen, Adamski-style UFO half-buried in the ground, covered in a dull metallic sheen. And who knew? Maybe it really did wash up on this planet after wandering around the vast reaches of space for years and years.
And Maou recognized that metallic shine.
“So I’ve been playing Devil King in the hands of these guys my whole life? Pathetic.”
It was a dead ringer for the stronghold of the ancient Devil Overlord, the place once called Satanas Arc. The domain of the Silverarms, the final enemy in his unification of the demon realms, was the very base Satanael used after breaking from heaven.
“I get it, Maou. It’s even harder for me. It’s time for me to go independent from my parents.”
Urushihara, reaching the same memory, snorted derisively.
“Let’s rip it apart before Ashiya arrives.”
“He’s serious, dude,” Copyhara added.
“And that’s a sign of the trust we’ve built. No doubting it now. Let’s go! Laila! I’m worried about you the most! Don’t freeze up when we need you!”
“N-no! Wait a minute!”
Only Laila demonstrated any alarm at Urushihara’s eagerness to kill his own parents. All anyone else in the group thought about was storming this crumbling, half-abandoned enemy base in front of them.
“If you don’t wanna die, get out of there! ’Cause we ain’t gonna stop until we crush all your boss’s plans at the root!”
Maou’s shout echoed across the skies of heaven.
“Hey, Gabriel! Laila! What do they call this town?”
“Town? We never really saw it that way. It was a research base at first. So we named it something you’ll probably find pretty ironic.”
“It was the last bastion of mankind,” Laila said. “A place of hope and dreams, built to combat the disease that took our home planet…”
The name was, indeed, fairly ironic.
“‘All a Lijeh,’ we call it. In your language, it means ‘Ship of Hope.’”
It wasn’t Gabriel or Laila who said it.
Instantly, everyone circled Laila, their noncombatant, and readied for battle. The man in the red armor who gave the answer floated above, looking down at them.
“Finally, some of the main brass? You know who you’re aiming for this time, right?”
It was the archangel Camael, nothing but sheer black behind his armor and full-face helmet. His aims were nothing short of inscrutable.