"Alright! The stage is officially all yours now," Lucifer Morningstar chuckled, brushing an invisible speck of dust from his sleeve. "I'm off to enjoy the finer pleasures of life in the human world. Amuse me... whether you turn out to be Gods of Death or demons!"
Having delivered his casual parting decree, Lucifer Morningstar vanished into thin air without leaving a single trace of spatial disruption behind.
In his place, six terrifying figures materialized simultaneously in mid-air.
Azazel, Remiel, Dagon, Asmodeus, Abaddon, and Cain.
The Princes of Hell and the legendary Knights of Hell under Lucifer's direct command had all emerged onto the battlefield.
To a sovereign being like Lucifer, these purified Holy Souls were merely convenient tools to punch through the planetary barrier of the Sorcerer Supreme. But to the Princes and Knights of Hell—as well as the high-ranking Captains of the Gotei 13—the intrinsic value of the Holy Souls was infinitely greater than a simple key.
By using the divine energy of these souls to permanently erode a massive territory of the Human World and linking it directly to any layer of Hell, a demon could forcibly crown themselves a new Lord of Hell.
Every true Lord of Hell was the equivalent of a sovereign Dimensional Demon God. The physical scale and spiritual density of their domain directly correlated to the absolute limit of their cosmic power. No demon in existence could ever resist the sheer, intoxicating temptation of such a massive advancement in hierarchy.
"Yo. Hello there," Azazel stepped forward from the demon vanguard, a crooked smile on his face. "Shall we have a civilized chat?"
The five figures standing behind him did not look particularly pleased with his posturing. However, Azazel was the very first human soul that Lucifer had corrupted and transformed, making him the nominal Commander of the demonic legions. Under these conditions, it was indeed most appropriate for him to act as the primary spokesperson.
On the side of the Gotei 13, every single Captain turned their gaze toward the stoic figure of Captain-Commander Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni.
"Captain Kyōraku," Yamamoto's deep voice boomed slightly. "You shall represent the Soul Society in this negotiation."
"Understood, Old Man Yama," Kyōraku Shunsui replied, pressing down on the brim of his straw hat. He accepted the task with his usual frivolous smirk, utilizing a gentle Shunpo to step into the open air between the two armies.
Less than three feet separated Kyōraku Shunsui and Azazel.
The two commanders looked each other dead in the eye, both wearing relaxed, polite smiles. On the surface, there was not a single trace of open hostility between them.
"Your Seireitei's presence in Hell was born only a very short time ago," Azazel began, his yellow eyes narrowing slightly. "There are still countless dimensional opportunities waiting for your kind. But we are different."
Azazel leaned in, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. "Do you have any idea how long we have waited for this exact alignment? Thousands of years! We will never, under any circumstances, yield this territory to anyone."
Although a pleasant smile remained plastered on Azazel's face, the vicious threat behind his words was not hidden in the slightest. What he said was absolute, unvarnished truth. Not just for him, but for his brothers and sisters standing behind him as well. None of them would ever let this historical opportunity slip through their claws.
In truth, Azazel knew that even though he was acting as the representative at this moment... the second the true fighting broke out, he couldn't be sure how many of those chaotic monsters behind him would actually follow his orders. He wasn't even certain if he could control himself.
"Ah, Senior," Kyōraku Shunsui sighed, tipping his hat back with a finger. "You've already waited thousands of years for this opportunity... so waiting another few thousand years shouldn't really be much of a problem, right?"
Lazy, frivolous, and utterly indifferent—this was Kyōraku Shunsui's exact posture.
Both of them knew that diplomatic negotiations at this point were completely useless. The two opposing factions would inevitably have to bleed and kill to decide who claimed the Holy Souls. Why waste breath on empty pleasantries?
The look Kyōraku gave Azazel was almost pitiful—as if he were looking at an idiot who didn't understand how the universe worked.
"Tch. What a pain in the ass," Azazel scoffed, his smile instantly vanishing. "As expected, it has to be settled by a slaughter."
Azazel had read the absolute, unyielding stance of the Gods of Death in Shunsui's nonchalant eyes.
War!
There was simply zero room for compromise in this matter. The concentrated power of the Holy Souls was indispensable to both sides. If they missed this single alignment, whether there would ever be a next time was an open question.
"In that case..." Azazel's expression turned vicious, his yellow eyes flaring with Hellfire. "...let the war begin!"
SHUUN.
In a fraction of a millisecond, Azazel's figure flashed back to the demon vanguard. Kyōraku Shunsui executed a simultaneous Shunpo, returning smoothly to the line of Captains.
"Is war really the only path forward?" Jūshirō Ukitake asked softly, his hand resting on Sōgyo no Kotowari. "Is there truly no room for a peaceful settlement?"
"Who on either side wouldn't want a prize like this, Jūshirō?" Shunsui replied dryly, adjusting his pink floral kimono. "Don't go soft-hearted on me now."
"I know," Ukitake murmured, looking toward the demonic aura gathering across the void as his knuckles whitened around his hilt.
He simply hated engaging in senseless, bloody destruction. But tonight, this war concerned the long-term survival of the entire Soul Society. Now that Lucifer had formally breached Earth's planetary barrier, the Seireitei's territory in Hell no longer possessed its isolated safety. If they failed to seize this high-density spiritual anchor tonight, they would be forced to face the endless, starving eyes of Hell's warlords without a secure base of operations.
The two groups of elite combatants slowly began advancing toward each other in mid-air, both sides tacitly steering clear of the central pillar of spiritual light to avoid disturbing the Holy Souls.
"The headcounts match up perfectly," Shunsui remarked, completely ignoring the suffocating pressure filling the sky. "How about it, Ukitake? Want to pick your opponent first?"
Before Jūshirō Ukitake could even answer, Azazel's voice boomed from the opposite side.
"Old man!" Azazel raised a clawed hand, pointing directly at the silent figure at the front of the Shinigami line. "You should be the absolute strongest among these Gods of Death. Why don't you step up and try fighting me?"
Now that he was operating in his true, physical demonic form rather than possessing a fragile mortal vessel, Azazel feared no physical challenge. As long as the entity standing across from him wasn't God Himself or Lucifer, he had the absolute arrogance to test his blade against them.
Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni's aged face lifted slightly, showing zero emotional variance. He offered no verbal response to the demon's taunt.
Instead, his stoic, slightly hunched back slowly straightened. Within his single open eye, a blinding, terrifying storm of pure, unadulterated killing intent flashed.
'Old Man Yama is genuinely pissed off,' Shunsui thought, a sweatdrop forming on his brow. 'You really have an incredible eye, demon... picking the single most horrifying opponent to provoke first.'
Kyōraku Shunsui turned his attention to the middle-aged man standing opposite him—a sharply dressed, immaculate figure with a meticulously groomed British beard.
"Hey there, gentleman," Shunsui called out warmly. "How about you and I step over to that quiet ridge and have some fun?"
Remiel, Prince of Hell, offered a polite nod and a sharp smile. In the next microsecond, both of their silhouettes vanished simultaneously into a blur of high-speed movement.
"I still prefer fighting handsome men," a sensual voice echoed.
Dagon, currently manifesting in the physical form of a stunning Asian woman, smiled warmly as she issued a direct invitation to the cold, pristine figure of Byakuya Kuchiki. Facing such a direct challenge, the noble Captain of the Sixth Division simply stepped forward, his thumb nudging the hilt of Senbonzakura.
Asmodeus, sporting long flowing hair and dressed in a pure white suit, immediately locked eyes with Jūshirō Ukitake. Their gazes met, and without exchanging a single word of communication, both vanished from the sky in silent agreement.
Of the remaining two, Cain, the Father of Murder, locked his cold eyes onto the narrow, smiling face of Ichimaru Gin. Meanwhile, Abaddon, Knight of Hell, fixed her predatory stare on the colorful, bizarre form of Mayuri Kurotsuchi.
SHUUN! SHUUN! SHUUN!
One after another, the elite duels scattered across the far reaches of the San Venganza sector, leaving the central airspace suddenly, terrifyingly silent.
Only the overwhelming, suffocating auras of Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni and Azazel remained locked in a motionless, violent confrontation at the epicenter.
"Do you need me to go easy on you... old man?"
Azazel's figure vanished from the air without a whisper of wind.
FLASH!
When he reappeared, he was hovering less than an inch behind Yamamoto Genryūsai Shigekuni's blind spot. In his right hand, a jagged, dark dagger covered in ancient, glowing runic bindings had materialized out of thin air.
Despite mockingly asking whether he should go easy on the elderly Captain-Commander, Azazel's execution didn't hesitate for a single microsecond. He drove the runic blade violently forward, aiming dead center for the back of Yamamoto's heart.
Despicable, shameless, and entirely without honor—that was the foundational motto of Hell's nobility. Azazel took immense pride in it rather than shame; survival and victory by any means necessary was the absolute law of the Pit.
THWACK!
The sharp, cursed blade cut through the air, but the exact microsecond the tip touched the white Captain's haori draped over Yamamoto's shoulders...
BOOM!
An apocalyptic, white-hot wall of pure, concentrated thermal energy violently exploded outward from the old man's body.
The blistering, sun-like heat instantaneously scorched the air, causing Azazel's physical skin to crack and smoke as his figure was violently repelled backward through the sky.
Azazel slid to a halt a hundred yards away, shaking his scorched right arm as the demonic Hellfire on his skin fought against the residual burns.
"Is this your primary power?" Azazel sneered, his yellow eyes narrowing as he adjusted his grip on the runic knife. "Fire? You Gods of Death really love your flashy, elemental tricks. Before this, I met a little girl from your group down in the city who used ice."
Azazel grinned, his sharp teeth glistening in the starlight. "Speaking of which... she seems to be stationed right down there on the ground maintenance team."
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Give me powerstones.
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