Chapter 6: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
A Contract was a two-way street; its terms bound all who signed. When Lavinia agreed to become my Contracted Magician, she hadn't just requested for my protection and the prestige of my name, she had also pledged her unique research and formulas to me.
Naturally, I'd stretched the definition of "sharing research" to include attending exclusive magical summits with her. It was a way to become closer to her as well as an experience worth skipping school for, a sentiment Azazel shared. Meeting the world's premier magicians was far more educational than sitting through a Friday lecture at school.
To me, mathematics was the skeletal structure of reality—elegant, cold, and absolute. It was especially beautiful when the world functioned on n=4!.
"Good morning, Lavi! I packed us some pasta salad," I greeted her in the dorm lounge, pulling her into a hug. "It beats the grease they'll serve at the venue."
If not for the existence of high-grade health potions her foster mother had provided, I was convinced her diet would have caught up to her years ago. It was the only good thing Glenda did for her, in my eyes.
"Thank you, Vali. You're an hour early," Lavinia said, returning the embrace with a soft hum. "Where is Lord Azazel? I thought he was joining us?"
"He's heading there on his own," I replied smoothly. He might be my adoptive father, but I had no intention of letting that old man be a third wheeler and turn our research trip into a rowdy family outing.
"So, you're here to pick me up?" Lavinia's smile was radiant, catching the morning light in a way that made the mundane lounge feel a bit more ethereal.
"I am. But I also wanted your thoughts on this," I said, handing her a thick folder of notes. "It's my preliminary study on Photonic Quantum Computing."
I was under no illusions. Compared to the transcendent intellects of Azazel or Ajuka, my mind was subpar. To bridge that gap, I needed tools. By using my Demonic Power to treat the photons emitted by my own body as qubits, I could effectively turn my own photonic energy signature into a massive, distributed Calculation Assistance Device. It was more than just a supercomputer; it was the essential foundation for the Devil Trigger and True Form I intended to achieve.
After all, a being of Light required light-speed thinking to match its form. For the moment, however, translating the Speed of Thought into completing objectives at the Speed of Light was a bottleneck, a compromise my current limitations forced me to accept.
Lavinia flipped through the notes, the silence in the lounge thickening as she began to realize the sheer scale of the research I was proposing.
"Vali, what are you trying to solve?" She turned to me, her curiosity sharpened by a hint of professional dread. "What do you need such immense computational power for?"
"Instantaneous Mass-Energy Conversion and Manipulation," I answered, the grin tugging at the corner of my mouth. "I want to use Photonic Quantum Computing as a compiler, leveraging photons to command the deconstruction and reassembly of fundamental particles at the speed of a thought."
Lavinia didn't look up from the folder. Her finger traced a particularly aggressive equation, her brow furrowing. "You're hiding your intent behind technical jargon, Vali. 'Instantaneous Mass-energy Conversion and Manipulation' is a polite way of saying you want to rewrite the Laws of the Universe on a whim." She finally looked up, her gaze piercing. "You aren't building a calculator. You're trying to warp reality, aren't you?"
I didn't flinch at her accusation. Instead, I let the grin widen. "Reality Warping is such a chaotic term, Lavi. I prefer to think of it as a methodology for... optimizing our lives, for making it better."
I had reached this conclusion long before showing her these notes. My previous discussions with Satanael and Ophis had forced me to look past the surface of things; it had made me think. What was it about Light that made it the ultimate prize for the Devils of the Seventy-Two Pillars? It wasn't just about brightness or heat; those were surface-level attributes.
I had combed through my memories of old-world lore and modern fiction until a single image had flickered to life in my mind.
Lucifer Morningstar.
Not the caricature from recent modern tales, but the Will-Made-Manifest from the DC Sandman mythos. His gift wasn't the crude, warriorlike ability to fire beams of energy; it was the absolute, architectural authority of the Lightbringer. He held the power to take the raw, existing clay of the cosmos—matter, energy, and even abstract concepts—and shape them into whatever his Will dictated.
A fragment of an old physics lecture had then echoed in my mind like a prophecy: Photons have an infinite lifetime. They are exempt from the decay of Entropy.
The realization had been a kinetic shock. Light was more than a fundamental building block; it was the only thing in the universe that refused to die. While the rest of existence marched toward a cold, dark end, Light remained eternal.
In that moment, the path forward had become blindingly clear.
To be a being of Light wasn't to be just another powerful conceptual entity, it was to be a Child of Infinity. By ruling over photons, I wouldn't just be part of reality, I would be the one writing its Laws. I would hold the leash of Cause and Effect. Nobody could pose a threat to my happiness ever again.
"Look at my palm, Lavi," I called for her attention, my voice dropping to a low, resonant tone. "Marvel at the Lightbringer, the Language of Creation."
Photons had an infinite lifetime, but finite energy output. Ophis' Snake neatly solved that limitation, providing the limitless fuel for Matter-Energy Conversion and Manipulation. Through my Demonic Power, I treated the local photons as a high-speed qubit lattice. I then fed a single, dense algorithmic prompt into the air, designating my Will as the root command. The photons acted as a compiler, parsing my intent to reconfigure local matter into a mimicry of Ophis' Snake. When I overlaid the conceptual power of Boost, I wasn't the one increasing the energy; I was simply observing as the photons executed the exponential spike with the frictionless efficiency of a supercomputer.
The air hissed as the laws of magic and physics screamed in protest. In an instant, with a flicker of silver light, the terrifying energy condensed into the delicate, fluttering wings of a silver butterfly—vibrant, translucent, and impossibly detailed. It circled my hand—a living paradox born from a mathematical decree and sheer imagination, a lifeform conjured from systematic Retro-Causality.
"What have you done, Vali?" Lavinia whispered, her magical senses reeling from the quick diagnostic she had just attempted. She wasn't looking at the butterfly anymore. She was looking at me, her eyes wide with a cold, hollow terror. "That... that isn't a Golem, a Homunculus, or an Artificial Spirit. There's no magic core, no tether to your mana; there's nothing holding it together but itself."
"I have created Life," I revealed, the smugness in my chest blooming into strange, paternal pride. "I even gave it a Soul, the spark of Volatility. Remember that day in the ramen shop? I told you: I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High."
Samael, the Fallen Angel, had attempted to play Demiurge and failed. He could never create a soul because he feared Free Will; he sought orderly enslavement, a perfect, solved equation with no remainder. But I had succeeded because I embraced the beauty of the glitch. I understood the necessity of chaos, the irrationality of a heart that chose to do something 'stupid' against all logic.
Unlike the Blindness of God, I had succeeded because I was Human, and I understood the illogical beauty of the soul.
Lavinia took a step back, her boots scuffing against the lounge floor. The distance between us suddenly felt like light-years. "Why are you willingly sharing this with me, Vali? Why show me this... heresy?"
"Because I want to share this gift with you, Lavi!" I kept the frustrated frown hidden beneath a radiant smile, though my eyes remained fixed on her, deciphering her micro-expressions: the dilated pupils, the shaking hands. "You are my confidant. The Reversal Magic was just the prologue, the first few notes of the symphony I'm writing."
Lovecraft was right: the most merciful thing in the world was the mind's inability to correlate all its contents. But I had bridged that gap because I was Him. By anchoring the logic of Reversal to the iron structure of Cause and Effect, I had found the seam in the universe. By feeding Einstein's Mass-Energy Equivalence with the limitless fuel of Ophis' Snake and the lightspeed processing of Photonic Quantum Computing, I had moved beyond magic. I understood the calculus of 'Let there be Light'.
I was the Shining One, and reality was finally starting to resemble a negotiation rather than a law.
"This is not a power meant for anyone, Vali. Not even for you." Her voice trembled, but her gaze was firm. "This is the Tower of Babel. It is the one story every Magician is taught to fear, the moment we stop being seekers of Truth and start trying to replace it."
Lavinia didn't hesitate. She didn't argue. She simply raised her hand, and a gout of conjured flame consumed my research papers.
As the ashes drifted between us, I realized she wasn't just burning ink and parchment. She was trying to burn the future I had already seen. I wasn't upset about the loss of the data, I had backup copies in my storage space. I was saddened by the rejection.
Every action had an equal and opposite reaction. To reach for the Infinite was to leave the Finite behind. To be the Strongest was, by definition, to be the Loneliest—for the Absolute had no peers.
"Let's head to the research meeting," Lavinia said, her voice trembling as she tried to force the world back into a shape she recognized. "Let's... let's just see what magic the others have to present."
"Of course," I replied smoothly. "After you, Lavi."
I followed her, the silver butterfly continuing its impossible, vibrant flight around my shoulder—my first masterpiece of creation that she refused to acknowledge.
I had offered her the keys to the kingdom, seeking a bond built on honesty, and she had chosen to throw them into the fire. Our relationship had shifted; the bridge between us had cracked. I could feel the temptation, the qubits around me ready to simulate a Path to Victory. My photonic compilers could calculate the exact words, gestures, and manipulations needed to repair our relations. I could solve her like an equation until she was back by my side, smiling the way I wanted her to.
But I suppressed the urge and restrained myself.
I forced the processors to halt. If I calculated her heart, she would cease to be Lavinia and become just another variable in my design. Life was meant to be a joy experienced, not a problem to be solved.
Instead of a perfect, calculated reconciliation, I chose the messy, irrational, but honest, road of the heart. I would let her be wary. I would let her be afraid. Because if I stripped away her Free Will to keep her close, I wouldn't be a Creator—I would just be a Warden.
And I had no interest in ruling a prison of my own making.
-x-x-x-
Pretending to be something you were not was exhausting labor, a tax on the soul that I refused to pay. I had always found it simpler to stay True, to let my nature be the constant around which the world revolved.
For Lavinia, however, the truth was currently a winter she was trying to outrun. No matter how brightly she smiled, her subconscious betrayed her. Every time the silver butterfly circled my shoulder, her movements hitched—a desynchronized twitch that made our conversation feel like an unrehearsed play.
"Hey, Lavi. I'm going to go find Azazel," I said, keeping my tone light. I could see the tension in her shoulders, and I knew she needed the one thing my presence couldn't provide: distance. "I'll be back so we can have that pasta salad together at lunch. Don't let the vendors talk you into buying anything too ridiculous."
"Sure. I'll be at the Grauzauberer booth," Lavinia replied, her cheerful facade flickering with a momentary, guilty relief. "I wanted to check the flight-stability equations on their new broom line anyway."
I gave her a small nod and stepped out into the main avenue of the summit. The venue was a sprawling labyrinth of high-tier enchantments and eccentric academics, but it didn't take long for me to find my adoptive father. Among the sea of robed magicians and somber researchers, Azazel's black hair and signature golden bangs acted like a beacon of irreverence.
He was leaning against a wall, deep in animated conversation with a man who looked like an ancient pillar of the magical world. The elderly stranger wore a gold-rimmed monocle and robes of white and blue that shimmered with latent power. His hat was a complex, sectioned affair of black and gold, studded with blue orbs at the cardinal points that seemed to pulse with the rhythm of the room.
"Hey, Pops," I called out, weaving through the crowd. "What have you been looking at?"
"Vali!" Azazel grinned, pulling me into a one-armed hug and ruthlessly messing with my silver hair. "Come here; let me introduce you to a fellow troublemaker. This is Odin."
"Pleased to meet you, Lord Odin." My eyes widened. I hadn't expected to meet the Allfather here. "I am Vali Vespera."
"Vespera. Eveningstar," Odin chuckled, stroking his beard as his single eye locked onto mine. "How adorable. A little Lucifer playing at being a scholar of Latin."
I shot a look at Azazel, a spike of cold shock hitting my chest. "You told him?"
Azazel shrugged, looking entirely too amused. "I didn't. But he is known as the All-Knowing for a reason."
"In my youth, I sacrificed my left eye to Mimir's well and hung myself on the World Tree to gain Wisdom," Odin explained, his voice carrying the weight of centuries. "When you pay that price for knowledge, boy, the secrets of reality tend to whisper. They don't care for your privacy."
He leaned forward, his gaze piercing through my layers of concealment. "I see the way the light bends around you, boy. It's not a spell. It's an... edit. And I see that beautiful silver butterfly of yours… the one that shouldn't exist."
I froze. My mind stalled for a fraction of a second. The butterfly was perfectly normal; it shouldn't have triggered any alarms.
"How?" I asked, my voice losing its casual lilt.
"Because I know what it looks like when someone tries to steal the Fire of the gods," Odin said, a faint, knowing smile playing on his lips. "I did something similar, after all. I stole the Mead of Poetry; I snatched the Primordial Runes from the Void. I recognize a thief of the Absolute when I see one."
The One-Eyed God was exposing my secrets in public. I turned to check Azazel's reaction, only to find the world had frozen still. The crowd was a collection of statues; a dropped glass was suspended mid-shatter.
"Don't bother, young Morningstar. I've paused the clock," Odin reassured me, his tone turning dangerously fatherly. "No one is listening. Now... tell me. Why have you allowed that creature to remain?"
I blinked. "Beg your pardon?"
"You wouldn't have been caught by me if it hadn't been for her," Odin elaborated, gesturing to the fluttering masterpiece on my shoulder. "Deities have Clairvoyance, yes, but we mostly only find what we are looking for. Why didn't you erase the evidence? Why didn't you delete your sin?"
"Because Life is sacred," I answered, my voice resolute despite the heartbeat thundering in my chest. "Regardless of her unnatural origins, I brought her into existence. I won't murder my own creation just to hide from a god."
"Have you given her a name then?"
"What?"
The question hit me harder than a physical blow. I had expected a smiting, a battle between man and the divine, but this was the ultimate subversion—the last thing I'd anticipated from the Allfather.
Odin shook his head in genuine disappointment. "You brought that silver butterfly into this wonderful world, you even gave her a soul. By the Old Ways, that makes her your daughter... and you didn't even give her a name? For a boy who wants to rewrite the Laws, you're surprisingly poor at the most basic magic of all: Naming."
I paused. The King of the Aesir was right on every account. I was a molder of reality, yet I had left my first masterpiece, who was clinging onto me, a ghost. I was playing at being a Creator while acting like a deadbeat.
"A name…" I muttered. "Do you have any suggestions?"
"She is yours, not mine. I cannot help you there, boy," Odin answered, his single eye glinting with a mischievous ancient light. "But I can give you more time to think about it."
"Thank you." I bowed my head; names were important, and I didn't want to mess it up.
I looked at the silver butterfly, the vibrant, impossible flutter of her wings. I needed a name that carried the weight of her origin, born of light, math, and a 'glitch' in the natural order.
"Lampionaia," I whispered.
The Lamplighter. It was a nod to the Lightbringer, but smaller—closer to the earth. A Morningstar was a blazing, distant Herald of Dawn, but a Lamplighter brought warmth to the streets and made the dark navigable. It was also Italian, a secret bridge to Lavinia.
"Good. Very good," Odin clapped his hands, the sound echoing in the frozen time. "But a butterfly's life is a flickering candle, boy. One to four weeks, and she returns to dust. Will you let your daughter waste away?"
"No," I said, my voice dropping into a register of absolute certainty. "I will not let her fade."
The mask was off. There was no point in hiding my methodology from the All-Knowing. I reached into the air, my photonic compilers translating my Will into reality.
I didn't want a servant. I didn't want a tool. I wanted a legacy.
In a flash of blinding silver, a King Piece manifested in my palm, forged from condensed energy and the authority of the Lightbringer. It couldn't be used on someone who was already too strong or had a special ability as an overload may occur, which would endanger their lives. But Lampionaia was a clean slate, which made her compatible.
I pressed the glowing, crimson chess piece into the fluttering light of her chest. By making her a Reincarnated Devil, unbound by Peerage, I wasn't just giving her a life-support system; I was giving her Sovereignty.
The room shone. The silver fractals of her wings expanded, weaving together in a frantic, beautiful loom of light. I watched the mathematics of the Evil Piece become the biology of a girl. Demonic Power weaved into physical form; equations solidified into a pulse.
When the radiance died down, the butterfly was gone. In her place, a young girl with long, moon-silver hair and amber eyes, the color of a pilot light, dressed in a simple white dress, stood on the frozen floor. She looked up at me, her gaze holding the terrifying clarity of a newborn star.
"Papa?"
The word wasn't a question; it was a tether tucking at my heartstrings.
Odin let out a low, rough bark of a laugh, his single eye glinting with a new, dangerous respect. "By the Norns, boy... you've done it. You've finished your Tower of Babel. You didn't just climb; you built a Throne in the Light."
He gestured to the girl, his smile fading into something somber, the look of an old traveler warning a youth about a road he'd already walked. "But understand the consequence of your actions, young Lucifer. The Language of Creation is never spoken freely. You have given her life; now you must be responsible for her well-being."
"You have millennia of experience, Old Man," I said, my voice uncharacteristically quiet as Lampionaia tentatively reached out to touch my sleeve. "Do you have any counsel for a beginner?"
"Guide her to find her Purpose," Odin advised, his tone serious. "It doesn't need to be grand. It doesn't need to be the conquest of worlds or the rewriting of laws. A soul without a purpose is just a ghost waiting for a grave. Give her a reason to wake up when you are no longer there to wake her."
I looked down at Lampionaia. For the first time in my life, everything else felt secondary. The butterfly had become a girl, and the Morningstar had become a father.
"I understand," I acknowledged. My own purpose was simple happiness, but I wouldn't enforce my vision onto her.
Odin nodded, and with a casual snap of his fingers, the clock resumed. The glass shattered. The crowd surged. The mundane noise of the summit rushed back in, but the world was fundamentally different.
"Hey, kid," Azazel blinked, looking down at the silver-haired girl suddenly standing between us. "Where'd the kid come from? Did you find a stray?"
I didn't look away from Lampionaia. "Long story short, Pops? You're a grandfather now."
Azazel's jaw dropped, but before he could voice further questions, Odin clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder.
"And your son is now my most promising student," the Allfather declared, his lone eye fixed on me with a challenge that promised both wisdom and exhaustion. "I will mentor him on the Art of Creation. It's about time someone taught this boy the Weight of the Throne he's forged."
-x-x-x-
Surprisingly, Azazel hadn't been furious. Once he was fully briefed within the privacy of another Time Freeze, he hadn't reached for a lecture. Instead, I felt the heavy, calloused palm of his hand land on my shoulder, a solid, silent acknowledgment of a feat he hadn't thought possible.
The deal was struck: my days at the Nephilim Institute were over. My education was now the personal project of the All-Knowing, starting today.
But for now, the future could wait. First memories were precious, and I intended to let Lampionaia explore the wonders of the world at her own pace. She didn't need a curriculum or a directive. Thanks to the King Piece humming in her, her natural lifespan now spanned into the infinite; she had all the time in the universe to simply be.
"Father, can I check that thing over there?" Lampionaia pointed toward the gold-trimmed pavilion of the Golden Dawn. A group of high-tier mages were performing a ritualistic demonstration of planetary alignment, looking far too solemn for their own good. "It looks... funny."
I watched the magicians sweating under heavy velvet, their brows furrowed in desperate concentration as they wrestled with celestial equations.
"It is very funny, Lampi," I agreed, a genuine, relaxed smile tugging at my lips. "Go ahead. Just don't break their focus. Magic that is stiff tends to shatter if you poke it."
"Okay!"
I followed her to the edge of the display. Lampionaia leaned over the velvet rope, her amber eyes wide with the raw curiosity of a child. Standing nearby were two girls who stood out from the crowd of dusty sorcerers, one with vibrant crimson hair and another with long blonde hair tipped with streaks of blue.
"Pardon me," I said, stepping up beside the redhead. "Do you have any idea what they're actually attempting? The syntax of their ritual seems... unnecessarily dense."
The girl turned, her striking blue eyes blinking in surprise. "I'm not entirely sure myself," she admitted with a self-deprecating tilt of her head. "But they mentioned something about the resonance of Venus."
"They claim Venus will experience a sudden ascendance this afternoon," the blonde girl interjected, her voice crisp and analytical. "Were you not paying attention at all, Rias? The orbital intersection is the entire point of this booth."
"I was... preoccupied, Latia," Rias blushed, her hand going to the back of her neck.
The names sparked a sequence of recognition in my mind. Rias Gremory, sister of Sirzechs. Latia Astaroth, niece of Ajuka. Relatives of the New Satans, and the next generation of the Seventy-Two Pillars.
"And why are the two of you so interested in the Morning Star?" I asked, curious.
Latia raised an eyebrow, scanning me with a look that was half-suspicious, half-dismissive. "You're a powerful Devil, and you don't know why we would be interested?"
"Latia! Don't be rude," Rias hissed, though she looked at me with similar curiosity.
"No worries, I appreciate the directness," I said, matching Latia's gaze. "I am aware you two are Ladies of the Pillars. I simply fail to see the relation between the second planet from the sun and your Houses."
Latia sighed, the sound of a top-student dealing with a dropout. "You must have slept through Demonology 101 then. Rias' brother carries the mantle of Lucifer, the Morning Star. And my House, Astaroth, has held ties to Venusian alignment since its inception. The planet is the fundamental basis of our two Houses' prestige."
I suppressed a laugh. It was a strange sensation, being lectured on the "Morning Star" by a girl who didn't realize she was standing next to the only person in the room who actually embodied the Lightbringer's Will. To them, Morning Star was a borrowed title or a family lesson; to me, it was an existential mandate.
I then looked at Lampionaia. She was currently staring at the ritual circle with an expression of pure, unadulterated focus, her silver hair shimmering in the artificial light like spun starlight.
"The girl you're with," Rias commented, stepping closer. Her voice had lost its formal edge, replaced by genuine curiosity. "She's striking, she reminds me of my sister-in-law, Grayfia. Her Demonic Power... It feels very strong for her age. Is she your sister? The resemblance is uncanny."
"Nah," I replied, the fatherly pride in my chest reaching a new peak. "She's my daughter."
The silence that followed was absolute. I watched the gears grind in Latia's brilliant brain as she tried to reconcile the biology of a young teenager having a six-year-old child. It was an amusing sight, to say the least, since I was only twelve.
"I'm sorry," Rias blinked, her mouth hanging open slightly. "Your what?"
"My kid," I affirmed, ruffling Lampionaia's moon-silver hair. "An unexpected breakthrough born from a high-intensity science experiment. Her name is Lampionaia." And I would never call her a mistake.
Latia suddenly lunged forward, grasping my hand with a grip like a vice. Her dismissive attitude vanished, replaced by a terrifying, scholarly hunger. "Then you must meet my uncle, the Satan Beelzebub. Creating a stable demonic lifeform with a soul... that is a feat unheard of since the Genesis of our race. You're either the greatest liar in the Three Factions, or you're the most exceptional mind at this summit."
I looked at Lampi, who was now mimicking the hand gestures of the sweating mages, though her movements were infinitely more fluid, as if she was dancing with the air. I could have hidden her. I could have called her a ward or a sister. It was the logical path. But I didn't want her to live a life of lies, even if the truth exposed me. With the power to rewrite reality at my fingertips, I could afford to take risks. I was ready for the world to see what I had built.
I looked at my palm and grinned. With the speed of a thought, my Will parsed through the photonic compilers, executing the Function: Generation of Ophis' Snake, Matter-Energy Conversion and Manipulation.
In a flash of silver, two red roses, vibrant and velvet-soft, manifested in my hand. I handed them to Rias and Latia with a slight bow.
"I'll let you decide which one I am, Lady Astaroth, Lady Gremory."
"This… this isn't Projection, it isn't a construct of magical energy," Latia mumbled, her fingers gingerly tracing the curve of a petal. "But it isn't Alchemy either. There was no Equivalent Exchange. The mass... it simply exists." She looked up at me, her voice a hushed whisper of equal parts awe and existential dread. "What did you do? You didn't pay the price for this."
"I simply Willed it," I whispered with a wink, offering no further explanation.
"Latia, stop being such a nerd!" Rias gushed, clutching the rose close to her chest as she jolted her friend's shoulder with a dreamy sigh. "He just conjured a flower out of thin air for us! That was the most romantic thing I've ever experienced!"
"Rias, you don't understand!" Latia's voice rose an octave, her eyes never leaving the rose. "You don't see the significance! He didn't just cast a spell, he committed a crime against the Laws of the Universe. There has to be a trick... the world doesn't just give you something for nothing! That's not how Magic and Physics work!"
"A magician never reveals his secrets," I said mischievously, placing a finger to my lips. "But we have to go now. We have lunch with a friend, and then I have lessons with Lord Odin this afternoon."
"Wait! Before you go; who are you?" Latia called out frantically as I began to walk away, Lampionaia skipping at my side.
I blinked, realizing I'd accidentally skipped introductions—the most basic social grace. "Vali Vespera," I called over my shoulder. "The White Dragon Emperor."
The air in the pavilion seemed to flash-freeze. The playful atmosphere evaporated, replaced by the crushing weight of the Vanishing Dragon's legacy.
"Remember to ask for your date's number!" Rias teased, she was the first to recover her composure.
"I don't like him! I don't even know him!" Latia shrieked back, her face turning as red as the rose in her hand.
I simply laughed and flicked two business cards toward them. They cut through the air with mathematical precision, landing perfectly in Rias and Latia's startled palms at the exact same moment.
"Call me tonight if you're curious. I'm told I'm an excellent mystery to solve."
-x-x-x-
"Vali, who is this?" Lavinia asked. Her voice was cautious, her eyes tracking the girl with a look of profound, haunting recognition. "She feels… familiar. Like someone I've met before, but can't quite name."
I paused. How do you explain to a girl that the research she had just branded as heresy has manifested into a person?
Before I could find the right words, Lampionaia tilted her head. She looked at Lavinia's vibrant blonde hair, then at the warmth in her sapphire eyes, and a connection—perhaps born from a primal imprintment—snapped into place.
"Mama?"
The word hung in the air like a static charge. My breath hitched, and Lavinia froze, her face turning a shade of pale that rivaled my own hair. The silence between us was no longer light-years; it was a physical weight.
"Her name is Lampionaia," I said, deciding that in the face of a miracle, honesty was the best policy. "She was the silver butterfly, Lavi. I couldn't let her return to dust after a few weeks, so I… I gave her an Evil Piece. I made her a Reincarnated Devil."
I kept the truth of the King Piece a secret. That was a burden for another day.
Lavinia didn't move for a long moment. She looked from me to the girl, her gaze trembling with a volatile cocktail of scientific horror and a sudden, sharp maternal instinct. Her hand reached out, hovering inches from Lampionaia's silver hair, trembling as if she were touching a live wire.
"You didn't just play with Life, Vali," she whispered, her voice breaking. "You birthed a Miracle and invited her to lunch, and now she's calling us family. You've tied my soul to your heresy."
"I know."
Previously, I might have been content to let the butterfly flicker and die, a beautiful experiment with a tragic expiration date. But Odin's intervention had stripped away my excuses. He had shown me that a Creator who refused to claim his creation was just a coward with a clever mind. And I was far too selfish to let Time Decay claim a life I had breathed into existence.
If I was to be the Lightbringer, then my shadow must be long enough to protect what was mine.
I watched as Lampionaia leaned into Lavinia's hesitant touch, seeking the warmth of her palm with a quiet, trusting hum. I wasn't going to be a ghost in my own daughter's story.
"So," I said, my voice dropping to a softer, gentler tone. "Do you want shared custody, Lavi? Or do I have to learn how to braid hair on my own, with help from Penemue?"
I wasn't forcing Lavinia, I was offering a bridge for the sake of Lampionaia. If she walked away, I'd understand. But as she finally let her fingers sink into Lampi's soft hair, the tension in her shoulders broke. I knew the answer before she even spoke.
"Yes," Lavinia breathed, a tear finally escaping and tracing a path down her cheek. "I'll be this girl's 'Mama'."
I bowed my head, a genuine weight lifting from my chest. "Thank you, Lavi. Truly."
"Lampionaia is innocent," Lavinia said, her voice regaining its firmness as she pulled the girl into a protective embrace. "She didn't ask to be born of your Light, Vali. Someone has to make sure she grows up with more than just magic in her head."
I started to protest, but the sight of Lampionaia mimicking a distant mage's serious scowl made me stop. Lavinia was right. I had brought a newborn into a room full of people who only saw spells and sorcery.
"I'll be honest," I admitted, the smugness finally replaced by a dawning realization of the task ahead. "I have no idea what I'm doing. I can impose my will onto the world, but I'm not ready for this at all."
"Me neither," Lavinia agreed, looking down at the girl with a mixture of fear and wonder. "I can barely take care of myself. My diet is 60% health potions."
I looked at my daughter, then at the girl who had agreed to share my sin. "Well," I grinned, "at least we have Azazel for a babysitter. It's a start."
"No way!" Lavinia rejected immediately, hugging Lampionaia tighter as if shielding her from a plague. "I'm not letting a mad scientist anywhere near our child! Look at how you turned out, Vali!"
I winced. It was unfair to let Azazel be the Scapegoat for my personality, but he wasn't the current priority; he could take the hit, he'd survived worse.
"What about Odin then?" I suggested, shamelessly throwing my new mentor under the bus. "The Allfather offered to teach me. He could be a... very overqualified godfather. Let's not trouble your mother, Glenda."
I wouldn't let Lavinia's adoptive parent, a woman who saw her as a test subject, anywhere near Lampionaia.
"A one-eyed god of war and wisdom?" Lavinia sighed, though a small, tired smile finally touched her lips. "Fine. At least he probably knows how to tell a decent bedtime story."
Suddenly, the heavy atmosphere was interrupted by a distinct, rhythmic rumbling.
"Papa, Mama... I'm hungry."
"Don't worry. I packed extra pasta salad in the lunchboxes," I reassured them. "It'll be enough for all three of us."
Lampionaia was a butterfly before she was a Devil. She should love her carbs and veggies, right?
-x-x-x-
"Exhausted, aren't you?" Odin smirked, his single eye glinting with a malicious kind of empathy as we arrived in the gilded halls of Asgard. "Creation is a wonder, boy, but parenthood is a persistent tax on the spirit."
I didn't argue. I couldn't. I simply nodded, feeling a fatigue I was now beginning to understand. Feeding Lampionaia had been a success, she'd devoured the meal with terrifying delight and efficiency, but the aftermath had been a tactical disaster.
The moment I'd mentioned leaving for my lessons, the "glitch" in the soul I had so proudly engineered turned into a localized rainstorm.
"I'm so sorry, Lord Odin," Lavinia apologized, her hand never leaving Lampionaia's head. She looked nearly as frayed as I did. "But this little one is... persistent. She refuses to let go of her papa's coat."
Lampionaia wasn't screaming; it was worse. She was vibrating with a silent, silver-tinted sorrow, her small hands locked onto my sleeve with the grip of a dying star.
The Lesson: With great power comes great responsibility. Never toy with Life unless you are prepared to care for it.
"You can command reality, yet you are defeated by a pint-sized attachment fix," Odin chuckled, the sound echoing like rolling thunder. He stepped forward, Gungnir leaning casually against his throne. "Do you see now, Vali? A soul isn't just a spark of volatility; it's something precious to be treasured."
"I understand," I muttered, though my voice lacked its usual smugness. "Do you have any tips to fix this, Old Man?"
"You cannot 'fix' a heart, you fool," Odin said, his tone softening just a fraction. He reached into a fold of his heavy robes and pulled out a small, intricately carved wooden bird. With a breath of ancient magic, the wood chirped and took flight, circling Lampionaia's head.
The silver-haired girl blinked, her sobbing hitching as her amber eyes tracked the bird. The grip on my sleeve loosened by a fraction of a millimeter.
"Follow the bird, little one. Go with Lady Lavinia," Odin commanded gently. "Your father and I have to discuss how to keep the world from breaking under his feet. If you're good, I might show you the wolves later. They like silver things."
Lampionaia looked at me, then at the bird, and finally at Lavinia. With a final, dramatic sniffle that pierced my chest more than any spear, she let go.
As Lavinia led her away, casting a look back at me that was equal parts pity and a silent promise that we-need-to-talk, I slumped against a nearby pillar.
"Don't look so pathetic," Odin remarked, his amusement sharpening into the gaze of a predator-mentor. "You've learned the First Law of the Maker today: The Creator is always the first servant of the Created. Now, stand straight. Tell me how you intend to climb the rest of your Tower."
I obeyed, I laid it all bare. I detailed the refinement of my body. I spoke of the Devil Trigger, the transitional state I intended to use to unlock the genetically dormant Demonic Brilliance of Evil Light. I then connected them to my ultimate objective: the True Form of Light. I even laid out the Artificial Sacred Gears I was beginning to develop with Azazel. I realized secrets were moot before the Allfather; to Odin's Clairvoyance, my mind was an open book since he was already searching for it.
Odin listened, nodding rhythmically. "For a boy bright enough to figure out how to hack reality, you're also surprisingly blind."
"What?" I blinked, surprised. "What's wrong with the progression?"
"You're trying to be Light by focusing on the 'material form', the mass," Odin elaborated, his voice patient yet piercing. "But Light is weightless, young Lucifer. You've achieved the conditions for your True Form the moment you mastered Transmutation, Mass-Energy Equivalence. You simply lacked the perspective to step through the door."
E = mc^(2)
The realization was akin to a lightbulb switching on. The bottleneck wasn't my body; it was my insistence on having one.
"Permission to test the theory, Teach?"
Odin inclined his head, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. "Go on then. Let the world witness the Second Coming of the Morningstar."
I closed my eyes and reached inward. I didn't just 'wield' Demonic Power; I willed my very existence to phase-shift and commanded my cells to become energy, taking inspiration from how Sirzechs could transform into the Power of Destruction itself.
Why bother with a body of flesh and blood at all when I could be a Human-Shaped Aura of Demonic Power?
The air in the hall began to hum, but I was far from done. I then pushed even further. I imagined my Demonic Power to mimic the Transmutation Nen from Hunter x Hunter, to mimic the conceptual properties of Infinity while anchoring it to the replicated physical attributes of Photons.
I shedded my mass. I rejected entropy.
In an instant, the boy named Vali vanished. In his place stood a silhouette of blinding, silver-white radiance—a being of frictionless energy with a limitless output. I wasn't just another Devil; I was a human-shaped aurora. I was the Dawn made manifest.
"Better," Odin's voice drifted through the brilliance, sounding profoundly satisfied. "Much better. You've stopped trying to climb the Tower, Vali. You've realized you are the Tower, the Demonic Brilliance of Evil Light itself."
I collapsed back into physical form, but the world felt different. Twelve bat-like wings unfurled from my back; my Demonic Power now exerted a pressure ten times greater than Azazel's Light, the unmistakable mark of a Super Devil. I didn't need to train; my photonic compilers simply rewrote my DNA to accommodate the evolution.
I looked at my hands, feeling the difference in pulse. "Thanks for the enlightenment, Old Man."
Odin's lone eye widened before he sighed—a long, weary sound of a man watching a catastrophe in slow motion. "Boy, why'd you do that? Why'd you kick the beehive with both feet?"
I raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean? I succeeded."
Odin summoned Gungnir and whacked me over the head with its shaft. "You had your True Form! You didn't need to evolve the physical vessel into a Super Devil; an Ultimate-Class shell would have sufficed. You just painted a neon target on your own back."
He waved a hand, manifesting a shimmering magical interface: the Top 10 Strongest Beings Ranking, a cosmic leaderboard maintained by Heaven's Systems.
My name and appearance wasn't just on it; it was an insult and provocation to the status quo.
Ranked Tenth: Vali Lucifer, the Herald of Dawn. I, a twelve-year-old Half-Devil, was sitting among Ophis and the Great Gods.
"Do you know how annoying it is to get off that list, boy?" Odin grumbled. "It took me a millennium to scrub my name and another to fool the world into thinking I was just a weak, perverted old man. You? You just kicked the door down, set the house on fire, and sat in the biggest chair in the room."
[That's an impressive feat, Vali,] Albion praised telepathically, his voice sounding distant. [Breaking into the Top Ten at such an age... it is unheard of.]
'You were oddly silent today, partner,' I noted. 'What's wrong?'
[What need do you have for Divine Dividing anymore?] Albion's tone was one of hollow resignation. [You bend reality to your whim. I cannot even lend you the Principle of Supremacy when I've forgotten all about it. I have become a vestigial limb.]
'It isn't about utility, Albion,' I countered, feeling his frustration. 'You were with me from the beginning. We escaped Rizevim together, we went through life and death together. If a Sacred Gear can lend strength to its partner; then the reverse can also be true: a partner can lend strength to his Sacred Gear.'
I was Vali Lucifer, the Man who worked Miracles.
I called upon my Lightbringer power and fed the command into my compilers. Release Albion. Grant him freedom.
I pushed, but there was no reaction. The silver light flickered and died. I tried again, straining against the very fabric of reality. Nothing.
"Stop, boy," Odin said, shaking his head. "I see what you're trying to do. But trust me, it won't work. If it had been that easy, an Anti-Magic device would have been enough."
"Why?" I hissed, my breath hitching. "I can rewrite the world. Why can't I break him out?"
"Because his cage is made of Dream and Infinity," Odin explained, his gaze somber. "Your photons are brilliant, Vali; but they do not dream, they only simulate. You can calculate the universe, but you cannot calculate the soul of a Dragon trapped in a Paradox."
"Then there's a simple solution."
I shifted into my True Form of Limitless Light once more. My consciousness expanded into a Photonic Quantum Computer, and I focused my processing power on a single, impossible directive: The Emancipation of Albion. I began dreaming in code, hacking the Sacred Gear System across infinite concurrent simulations.
The reality of Asgard warped around me, the gilded halls fraying at the edges until I materialized within a pristine white void. Above me, an ancient, solitary figure was locked in a conceptual struggle against four monstrous avatars: a Morningstar, a Sea Serpent, a Fly, and a Puppet.
"Hello there," a seductive voice chirped, cutting through the metaphysical tension.
A short, buxom woman with cascading silver hair and piercing emerald eyes stood there, incongruously dressed in a modern black hoodie. She greeted me with a playful, knowing grin.
"May I have your name, Miss?" I asked, maintaining a practiced, diplomatic smile. Even in my ascended state, I recognized I was in uncharted territory; every photon of my being signaled the need for extreme caution.
"My, my; you have all the charms of my dear Helel and Rizevim," she giggled. Her emerald eyes danced with a strange, iridescent light. "As expected of my great-grandson."
"Helel... the First Lucifer," I whispered, the silver radiance of my True Form flickering as I immediately processed the genealogy and reached the only logical conclusion. "Which makes you Lilith. The Mother of All Demons."
"In the flesh. Or the idea of it, anyway," Lilith tilted her head, her emerald eyes reflecting a version of me I hadn't yet realized existed. "Oh, you're much more interesting than Rizevim," she purred, stepping through the white void with a grace that ignored the laws of space-time. "He was all spite and petty mirrors. But you? You've eaten the Forbidden Fruit and used the seeds to build a home. How very... human of you."
I didn't drop my guard. "Why are you here, Great-Grandmother? This is the core of the Sacred Gear System." In the meantime, I attempted to breach the System's architecture once more to no avail; I was frustrated, my dreams of freeing Albion in the simulations still could not overwrite the primordial dream of the King of Heaven.
"We've taken the Almighty off the board by locking him in here with us," Lilith said smugly, gesturing to the stalemate above. "While Lucy Goosey and his buddies distract and stalemate the Tyrant, I'm here... causing glitches in Heaven's Systems."
My eyes widened. The realization hit with the force of a logic bomb. It explained Rizevim's inability to heal his beloved mother using the Sephiroth Graal. It explained the "Silence of God"—the reason the Sacred Gear System had become a buggy, decaying mess after the Great War. The Creator wasn't dead; he was occupied in a perpetual, internal war against his first and greatest rebels—the Original Four Great Satans and Lilith.
"Do you mind freeing Albion?" I requested. I had no desire to be recruited into an eternal rebellion. I wanted my partner freed, and I wanted to return to my family and friends: Azazel, Lavinia, Lampionaia, and more.
"No can do," Lilith shook her head, a strand of silver hair falling over her emerald eye.
"I'm willing to pay a price," I offered, my mind already calculating a billion potential trades.
"I don't have administrator access, kiddo. Only Big G has it," Lilith admitted, her smirk turning a bit sharper, a bit more dangerous. "The most I can do is cause malfunctions, like the Balance Breaker. If I could free the imprisoned souls, I would have done it eons ago just to watch the Tyrant cry."
"You missed twelve years of my birthdays," I tried, testing the waters with a bit of tactical guilt-tripping. "Would you mind making up for it by giving me a gift?"
Lilith laughed, a sound like silver bells in a void. "Helel told me to expect your arrival when he felt you messing with the Light. He said you were a crafty one."
"Isn't he preoccupied with You-Know-Who?" I dug for information, gesturing toward the elderly figure above. I was curious as to how the original Lucifer foresaw my coming.
"He is the Concept of Light itself, like you are in your current state," Lilith explained dreamily. "He could feel every photon."
"So are you going to give me a gift, Great-Grandma?" I kept us on the main topic. I was not interested in her love life, but the implications of her words was stored in the back of my mind. "Could you glitch Divine Dividing the same way Regulus Nemea was glitched?"
If freeing Albion from the Sacred Gear System was impossible, I would ask for the next best thing: I would grant him control over his own prison by turning the White Dragon Emperor's Light Wings into an Independent Avatar Sacred Gear, unbound to any host.
"I can," Lilith replied with a Cheshire grin. "But there's a catch. I want you to usher in an Age of Devils, little Vali. An era where our kind dominates the world."
"ENOUGH."
The voice boomed from above, originating from the center of the stalemate. The Lord of Heaven was furious.
"You want to make a better offer, Great-Great-Grandpa?" I called out, my voice steady despite the divine pressure. "Or is it just 'Grandpa', since Azazel adopted me?"
"YOU ARE GOOD; YOUR WISH IS GRANTED. LEAVE."
In a flash of Absolute Authority, I was hurled back into the halls of Asgard. The last thing I heard was Lilith's enraged, indignant screech echoing through the closing rift.
"So, you met the Lord," Odin whistled, leaning on Gungnir. "How's he been doing in there? All cooped up? Still holding the line?"
I stared at the Allfather, my silver radiance as bright as before. "You knew. All this time, Heaven, the Grigori, the Devils... They thought he was dead. But you knew he was just trapped."
"Here's another lesson, boy: a god who doesn't resurrect ain't actually dead, because Faith nourishes us," Odin deadpanned. "The Sacred Gear System glitching the moment he 'fell'? The silence of the Throne for centuries despite the prayers of billions? It doesn't take a genius to connect the dots. It just takes someone who's wise enough to understand that the God of the Covenant doesn't go out quietly."
Before I could respond, a violent tremor shook my soul. The Light Wings on my back didn't just manifest; they began to unravel. The silver energy bled into the air, spinning into a massive, shimmering cocoon of white feathers and draconic scales.
The Lord of Heaven had granted my wish. From the heart of the radiance, a massive, clawed hand tore through the light and gripped the floor of Asgard.
"Thank you, Vali."
The voice didn't come from my mind this time. It vibrated through the very air.
As the light settled, the hall felt suddenly cramped. Standing before us was Albion. He was an enormous Western Dragon with a pure white body, blue eyes, and golden horns. Unlike his kin, his wings were feathered—a bridge between dragon and angel.
"How are you feeling, partner?" I looked up to meet his gaze. "Does the air of the skies feel refreshing?"
"It does," Albion said, his voice deep and resonant. "Despite my limitations—still bound to the mechanics of the Sacred Gear System, only able to use Divide and Half-Dimension once every ten seconds—I feel... liberated."
"Good to hear," I said, extending a fist.
In a gesture that defied his monstrous size, Albion reciprocated, gently bumping his massive fist against mine.
"Is this where our partnership ends?" His voice dropped into a low, somber rumble. "There is not much I can do for you anymore, Vali. You have surpassed the need for the Divine Dividing Scale Mail."
"You're wrong. This is where we truly become brothers-in-arms," I countered, my voice firm with an unbreakable resolve. "You've aided me on my path to becoming the Strongest. Now, it's my turn to repay the favor. I will help you reclaim your lost memories, Albion. I will help you remember what it truly means to be the White Dragon of Supremacy."
"Be my Familiar. Allow me to don the Armor of the Vanishing Dragon so that you can take over my body and indulge in the unrestricted exercise of your powers, letting the nostalgia remind you of what it means to be Supreme."
There was a moment of silence, but it was quickly shattered by a sudden chorus of laughter from the three of us present in the chamber.
"How preposterous, Vali Lucifer," Odin chuckled, clutching his midsection. "Truly preposterous. But what say you, Vanishing Dragon? Do you consent to becoming the Familiar of such a lunatical boy?"
"There is no doubt. He is my brother-in-arms," Albion grinned, his resonant voice vibrating through the hall. "We are the White Dragon Emperor."
A new pact was forged between us. It wasn't the predestined shackle of the Sacred Gear System, but a covenant of equals. Living life meant making compromises, and this was one I would wholeheartedly accept.
Venus was rising, shining bright in the afternoon skies mutually shared by Earth and Asgard. It was the beginning of a new journey.
-x-x-x-
Author's Note:
We've finally connected all the Concepts in the past few chapters together! Very neat, isn't it? Shout out to everyone who foresaw OG Lucy not being actually dead. We did a bunch of Trope Subversions here. I hope everyone enjoyed them! Also, DEVS, ban this kid, Vali! He too OP. Everyone be Aura Farming in this Chapter. And oh boy, the supernatural political ramifications will be fun! *Looks at Vali* *Looks at Rias and Latia*. Man our boy here was Speedrunning on Nightmare Mode since day one. Rias and Latia had it easy. *Looks at Vali and Albion*. Never forget, Bro Code is real! Lots of wholesome fluff moments with Lavi and Lampi too! We're cooking for real here!