With Kaiser's current power, even casting a Hadō in the thirties carried terrifying force. Even without chanting, though weaker than a fully intoned spell, his Sōkatsui still erupted like a colossal fireball exploding midair, azure flames flooding outward into a sea of fire.
The blast wave tore across the plaza, shattering windows of the Keystone Gate, uprooting decorative trees, and flattening everything in sight. It looked less like magic and more like a nuclear detonation hanging in the sky.
Iblisveil, struck head-on, barely managed to shield himself with his overwhelming magic. It kept him from being incinerated instantly, but his body was left charred, clothes in tatters, skin cracked and festering like rotting flesh.
"Damn it...!"
His wings of magic collapsed, and he plummeted to the ground, tumbling across the plaza in a disgraceful heap. For someone with his pride, it was a humiliation he could not swallow.
Kaiser extended his hand again, lightning beginning to gather at his fingertips as he prepared to finish him with Hadō #4, Byakurai.
"Raaaah!"
A roar came from behind him. Through the smoke, Aradahl surged forward. Though battered and barely held together by the sword-armor encasing his body, he had broken free of Kaiser's beasts and came barreling in.
He swung a fist covered in blades straight at Kaiser, the speed like a hurricane.
"Boom!"
The collision shook the plaza, tearing up the stone floor to expose the rock beneath. Kaiser turned, meeting the strike with his own fist. Their blows collided, sparking as violent magic flared outward like lightning and fire.
"You blocked my Familiar's strike with your bare body?" Aradahl muttered, cold sweat sliding down his temple, his forced smile strained. "What kind of monster are you?"
Familiars were pure condensed magic. Unless countered with equal force, physical attacks meant nothing to them. Worse, their destructive power was immense. Even the Familiars of Old Generation Vampires could raze villages, and Aradahl's, one step below the Progenitors, could wipe out cities or islands. Meeting such an attack head-on should have left nothing—not even a scrap of flesh.
And yet Kaiser had stopped it with his body alone.
Aradahl had no way of knowing: if not for the physical element in that strike, Kaiser wouldn't have needed to block at all. His Curse Power Resistance—honed from devouring countless Heretic Gods—let him shrug off even Progenitor-class Familiars. Only pure physical attacks could threaten him.
Even then, they had to be of the caliber of the Koukarin, or Aradahl's Pride—attacks that could sever space itself. Anything less couldn't even pierce his skin. His flesh was like a weapon forged by the Authority of Steel, harder than anything short of space-cutting power.
Compared to him, the so-called physical might of beastmen was laughable.
Kaiser struck back. His second punch landed squarely on Aradahl's chest, detonating like a mortar shell.
"Gah!"
The armor shattered, and Aradahl vomited blood as he was hurled across the plaza, smashing into a distant building.
"Haaah!"
Before the dust settled, Iblisveil appeared, fury burning in his crimson eyes. He poured magic into his fist and swung it with a roar.
"Boom!"
The blow slammed against Kaiser's guard, driving him back and gouging the ground beneath his feet. But before Iblisveil could press forward, Kaiser vanished.
He reappeared instantly before Iblisveil, faster than the eye could follow, and drove his fist into the vampire's stomach.
"Urgh!"
Iblisveil's body folded as he coughed blood, sent flying like Aradahl. He smashed through a fountain, shattered ornamental statues, and finally crumpled against a stone pillar, snapping it in two.
In a blink, both nobles—giants of the Warlord's Domain and the Extinction Dynasty, men who stood just beneath the Progenitors themselves—were crushed. Kaiser stood alone, calm and expressionless, as if he'd only brushed aside criminals on Yuuma Tokoyogi's level.
Their Familiars fared no better. Under the onslaught of Kaiser's Divine Beasts, they were torn apart and dissolved into wild streams of magic.
The night sky was bright. Moonlight poured over Itogami Island, filling Kaiser's Eye of Horus with lunar power and magnifying the authority of the King of Beasts several times over.
Each Divine Beast he summoned carried unique traits—invulnerable hides, lethal venom, divine origins. Now, bolstered by moonlight, they dwarfed the Familiars of vampires who weren't even true Progenitors.
Even Vatler had to merge three Familiars into one to stand against a single Divine Beast. Aradahl and Iblisveil never stood a chance. Outnumbered, outclassed, crushed in both quality and quantity—the outcome had been decided from the start.
If Kaiser hadn't been holding back, worried about sinking the island with one careless strike, the battle would have ended even faster.
With the path cleared, Kaiser didn't spare the two nobles another glance. His form blurred as he vanished with Sonído, cutting through space toward the top of the Keystone Gate.
Behind him, his Divine Beasts roared triumphantly, fading one by one into the moonlight.
Aradahl and Iblisveil could only watch, powerless to stop him.
Or rather—
"Did he let us live?"
Half-buried in rubble, Aradahl gave a bitter smile, his body slowly knitting itself back together.
"If he didn't have something else to do, we'd be dead already."
His words earned a soft chuckle.
"Whether it's you or me, we were never a threat to him. That's the only reason we're still breathing."
Golden mist spread, and a blond man in a white suit stepped out, smiling.
"Vatler..."
Aradahl tried to rise, only to find his body too broken. Grimacing, he gave up and spoke through clenched teeth. "You were watching this whole time?"
"Of course. I witnessed your and Lord Iblisveil's reckless little challenge." Vatler laughed cheerfully, offering no courtesy. "Since the old man already assigned the task to you, I had no reason to waste my effort challenging him again."
Aradahl scowled. "Never thought I'd hear something so cowardly from you of all people. Is the sun rising in the west?"
"Harsh. Even I know which foes can be faced and which mustn't be challenged blindly. Otherwise, I'd have turned on the old man long ago." Vatler shoved his hands in his pockets, still smiling. "Besides, even if I had joined just now, nothing would have changed."
"He made it plain enough—he wasn't even trying."
"I honestly wonder if the three of us together could even entertain him."
"That's why I'll wait. Until I've gathered enough strength, until I see even a sliver of hope of victory, I won't raise my hand against him again. Perhaps that's why he revealed his power to me last time—to make me understand."
Despite the admission, there wasn't an ounce of frustration or resentment in Vatler's voice. Only joy.
"...He's a dangerous variable."
Aradahl, mostly regenerated, forced himself upright, his expression grim.
"He only awakened recently, yet he's a relic of the age before the Devas descended. In truth, even the Progenitors we serve came after him."
The Progenitors and the Devas belonged to the same era, but the age before their descent was beyond their reach.
"He's older than the Progenitors, shrouded in mystery. No one knows how many beasts from the mythic age he has sealed within him—or how terrifying they are."
Vatler shrugged. "At the very least, I can tell you this: what you saw just now weren't his trump cards."
"Don't forget—within him still sleeps the greatest beast in the world, missing since four years ago."
"And..."
His eyes gleamed.
"The hundred-headed giant that shattered my Ananta—the Primordial Serpent—with a single blow. He hasn't even called that one forth yet."
Aradahl's face darkened. He had nearly forgotten. The reason Kaiser bore the title of King of Beasts, the reason he was feared even more than the Progenitors, was that very being.
The Typhon.
He had seen recordings: that colossal shadow blotting out the sky, a hand stretching down to seize the towering Ananta, crushing it like an insect in its palm. The image was burned into his mind.
Even with the Eye of Horus, the Divine Beasts Kaiser summoned were impressive, but nothing the Progenitors would truly fear. Typhon, however, was different.
Leviathan alone was rated an X-class threat, requiring multiple Progenitor-class Familiars to subdue. But at the Garden of Whispers' roundtable, Typhon had been judged an even greater danger.
That was why many whispered Kaiser might stand above the Progenitors themselves.
Remembering that shadow, remembering how Kaiser hadn't even needed it to crush him and Iblisveil, Aradahl clenched his jaw. He had made up his mind.
"I'll report to the Warlord. I'll do everything I can to prevent him from clashing with the Beast King."
If he didn't, the Warlord's reckless nature might push him too far. And if that happened, the entire Warlord's Domain could be destroyed.
"Don't worry. The old man will listen. He founded the Sacred Treaty, after all. No one wants to maintain balance and peace more than him." Vatler smirked. "The Second Progenitor will stay quiet too—he's never liked leaving home."
"As for the Third..."
He looked up toward the top of the Keystone Gate, his smile widening.
"She'll get her turn to experience it firsthand."