If they really did possess power on par with Kreyd the Flame Dragon, they most definitely posed a threat to Kojou and the others even as they had become. Small wonder Ren was triumphant.
“It’s more trouble cleaning up after them than with Beast Vassal Warheads so I hadn’t wanted to use them, but the responsibility lies with you and your continued useless resistance. Now choke on your regrets…ha…haha…!!”
Deploying his pitch-black aura, Ren walked toward Kojou and the others. The next moment, Ren was halted by an unexpected voice. It hailed from Kreyd, back to dragon-man form after being shot down by Kojou’s Beast Vassal.
“Shahryar Ren…damn…you…!”
Kreyd glared at Ren with eyes brimming with anger.
Ren looked back at the wounded dragon-man and laughed with frigid scorn.
“What’s wrong, Kreyd? Surely, you are not irate at my turning the corpses of your comrades into zombies? If so, how sentimental of you…for a filthy demon beast…”
“You…!”
Practically dragging his tattered body along, Kreyd launched an attack toward Ren. The dragon-man was struck by Ren’s invisible slashes. Countless gashes were carved all over the dragon-man’s body. Blood the color of magma frothed from them.
Ren seemed blood-drunk as a cruel smile came over him. That instant—
“…Nanda…Bannanda!”
“What?!”
Ren’s smiling face froze over when, without warning, the skies were filled by flames.
One of the Dragon Zombies exploded. Yet another was split all over its body, turning it into fragments of scorched flesh. The flames dyed the night sky red, as silvery, glimmering lights streaked through it like comets.
“What…what is this…?!”
Shaken, Ren cried out.
Swimming in the sea of clouds was a gargantuan Beast Vassal over thirty meters in length. It was a serpent, its entire body covered in flames and swords—no, this was a vampire beast vassal in the form of an oriental dragon.
“A Beast Vassal…?! That’s absurd! Why is a vampiric Beast Vassal besides the Fourth Primogenitor’s in Nod?!”
Ren was quite naturally beside himself.
Beast Vassals couldn’t be used inside Nod since it floated in outer space. The singular exception was the Star Beast Vassals of the Fourth Primogenitor designed from their inception to be used in space—that is what Ren had believed for millennia.
Kojou, however, was not all that surprised. If anything, he’d had a feeling this was coming.
Of course, a man who loved combat with powerful opponents more than anything would show interest in monsters as rare as Dragon Zombies.
“Heya, Kojou. As usual, you’ve become involved in a most amusing-looking battle, haven’t you—?”
Enveloped by golden mist, a tall vampire appeared atop the wrecked control tower.
He appeared along with Jagan and Kira—his two young vampire aristocrat allies.
Even if they noticed the sleeping Avrora, neither batted an eye. In other words, they’d been watching the battle from the very beginning, including the moment Kojou had lost his power and dissipated, and the instant he had been resurrected as the Fourth Primogenitor.
“Dimitrie Vattler…?! Why are you alive…?! Why can you use your Beast Vassals in Nod…?!”
Shahryar Ren shook his head in what seemed like anguish, but Vattler did not reply to his question. He utterly ignored Ren as he summoned a new Beast Vassal, as if to say, You are not worthy to face me.
A serpentine Beast Vassal enveloped by a crimson radiance assaulted the Dragon Zombies one after another. Kojou knew the true nature of the radiance Vattler had unleashed.
“The Cleansing, huh…well, he was all pumped up about going to Nod to begin with…”
A wilted expression came over Kojou as he recalled their fight during the War of the Primogenitors.
Obtaining the power of The Cleansing with Asagi’s help, Vattler had picked a fight with the Holy Grounds Treaty Organization like it was a good thing, causing Kojou and company no small amount of trouble in the process.
“Yes. He of all people must have modified his own body and Beast Vassals beforehand so they can operate in Nod just fine.”
Yukina murmured with a weary expression mirroring Kojou’s. When he thought about it, Dimitrie Vattler always had a poignant obsession with the existence known as the Fourth Primogenitor. He was probably trying to research the Fourth Primogenitor’s Beast Vassals to find a way to wield power in Nod.
“Absurd…this is absurd, absurd, such an absurdity cannot…!”
Shahryar Ren’s entire body shuddered, as if utterly unable to accept the fact that the Dragon Zombies, his trump cards, were being downed in a one-sided slaughter.
Ren turned his back on Vattler’s combat with the Dragon Zombies and began to flee.
However, his legs came to a halt after no more than a few paces, for Kojou had circled around him to impede his path…
“Where do you think you’re going, Shahryar Ren? I’m your opponent, y’know?”
Kojou said calmly.
His anger toward Ren had already vanished. The only emotion remaining was pity.
He pitied the man, treading water for thousands of years, clinging to his empty pride at having been born a Deva, flung to and fro by the meaningless ambition known as “ruling mankind.”
“Kojou Akatsuki…! Do you not yet understand the likes of you cannot face me…?!”
Kojou fired a demonic energy cannonball, only for Ren to block it with his pitch-black aura. Then he unleashed countless invisible slashes toward Kojou.
Yet Ren’s divine energy blades all dissipated without so much as touching Kojou.
Kiriha Kisaki’s Ricercare had protected Kojou with a pseudo-spatial severing bulwark.
“You’re the one who doesn’t understand. Himeragi isn’t his only Blood Servant.”
Following the girl in the old-fashioned sailor suit’s lead, Kojou ferociously curled up the corners of his lips.
The next instant, a beam of light rent the skies.
The beam became a spear of light, piercing through the pitch-black defensive membrane and Shahryar Ren’s own body. The light spear bored a meter-wide hole, ripping off his right arm and right flank without so much as a sound.
“Wh…at…?”
Dazed, Ren shifted his eyes toward the source of the light spear.
He saw Shio and Yuiri poising a silver-colored crossbow. Freikugel Plus, Armbrust Mode—this was a ritual spell artillery attack that shaved away space itself. It was the pair’s ultimate ritual, able to pierce anything that existed. Even Ren’s “Encroachment” could not defend against that attack.
“I, Maiden of the Lion, Sword Shaman of the High God, beseech thee—”
When Ren stopped moving, Yukina took advantage of the momentary opening, leaping in to attack. With movements reminiscent of an elegant dance, she chanted as she thrust her silvery spear forward.
“O purifying light, O divine wolf of the snowdrift, by your steel divine will, strike down the devils before me!”
“This…cannot be…!”
Enveloped by the Divine Oscillation Effect, Yukina’s spear thrust right through the tear Shio and Yuiri had made in the aurora, impaling Shahryar Ren through his shoulder.
Ren desperately tried to operate his sorcerous device to redeploy the aura, but the interference of the spear impaling him left him unable to completely close the aura again.
As Ren’s face twisted in haste, he beheld Kojou raising his right arm aloft.
Fear hovered in Ren’s eyes.
“C’mon over, Regulus Aurum—!”
The deep crimson bloody mist scattering from Kojou changed into an enormous beast—a lightning lion enveloped by a golden glow. Kojou imbued his fist with the Beast Vassal’s demonic energy that was lightning incarnate, swinging it downward.
—Straight toward the metallic shaft of the spear impaling Ren’s shoulder—
“It’s over, old man! Try not to die on me, King of the Devas!”
A thunderous roar made the night sky of Nod shudder.
Remnants of a sorcerous device scattered everywhere as the man calling himself King of the Devas was sent flying.