Damon watched the horde of Fallen Angels for a few seconds before letting out a tired sigh. "Perfect," he murmured. "Just what I needed." His blue eyes began to glow, but before he could move a single hand, a feminine and far too familiar voice sounded behind him.
"Looks like you need help, darling."
A warm golden light began spreading among the black clouds, slowly parting the darkness and tinting the rain with brilliant reflections. The temperature rose rapidly as a feminine figure descended calmly from the sky. Damon's eyes widened slightly, genuinely surprised to see her there.
"Amaterasu…"
The goddess smiled as the golden light intensified around her body. "I hope I haven't arrived late."
In that same instant, time seemed to stop around them both. Damon let out a small laugh and shook his head. "Depends on what you consider late. Kokabiel is already dead, though I have to say things aren't exactly what they seem." He briefly shifted his gaze toward the destroyed base. "Maybe it was my fault for not finishing everything faster, but the fact is I now have the Lucifer brat with Albion on top of me and he's probably already coming back down."
Amaterasu simply nodded, not seeming too interested in that problem. Her attention quickly returned to the redhead. "And Kunou?"
At the question, Damon straightened up a little. "She's fine. A clone of mine already found her and got her out of the base. She's asleep, but she has no serious injuries."
Amaterasu's shoulders relaxed. She closed her eyes for a second and let out a sigh of relief. "Good." When she opened them again, a warm smile appeared on her lips. "I knew I could trust you."
"Yeah, well… what did you expect? Who was it that brought peace to the Elemental Nations?" Damon responded, rolling his eyes. Of course he appreciated the goddess's trust, but he didn't see the need for her to say it. After all, he had managed to bring peace to his home dimension; rescuing a girl wasn't exactly something he needed further trust demonstrated for. "Although… I had to put her to sleep because she was terrified and didn't trust me. So maybe she'll be a little wary when she wakes up."
Amaterasu let out a small laugh. "Nothing the great Damon can't fix, right?" she replied with obvious mockery.
Damon rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to respond, but in that instant time resumed its advance. At the same moment, several light spears pierced through the clouds heading toward them both. Amaterasu didn't even turn her body fully. Her smile disappeared and all the warmth she had shown toward Damon vanished from her face almost instantly.
"Let's leave this conversation for another time. Let's deal with this first," the goddess murmured firmly, loud enough for Damon to catch the message clearly.
The first line of Fallen Angels was already close enough to attack. Raynare remained at the front, gripping a light spear between both hands while dozens of Fallen Angels advanced behind her. Magic circles appeared around the formation and a rain of holy projectiles shot out toward the two gods.
Amaterasu watched the attacks approaching with evident distaste. "How annoying."
With a simple thought, the golden light around the goddess surged. Damon even had to pull back slightly at the sudden increase in intensity, as several flashes cut through the black clouds he himself had created.
Amaterasu raised one hand and spread her fingers.
An immense expanse of pure sunlight was born before her and covered an enormous section of the sky. It was nothing like the weapons of light used by the Fallen Angels. It was like having a piece of the Sun itself descending upon the battlefield.
The projectiles advancing toward Amaterasu didn't even manage to touch her. The moment they entered her light, they began to lose their form and ended up disintegrating completely.
As the goddess of the Sun, Amaterasu mastered sunlight and everything it could represent, from the energy capable of feeding life to the radiation sufficient to destroy it. It wasn't a force exactly like Damon's power of Destruction. But it was capable of burning, decomposing, and reducing to ashes even the most resistant body thanks to ultraviolet light.
Both powers were different; even so, that didn't make Amaterasu any less terrifying.
Faced with the ease with which their attacks disappeared, Raynare and the Fallen Angels following her were left completely stunned. "W-What…?"
Amaterasu fixed her gaze on Raynare with evident disdain. She only needed to observe her for a few seconds to reach a rather simple conclusion… The woman was a first-rate idiot.
"So you were the ones who thought kidnapping Yasaka's daughter was a good idea."
Raynare was startled by the accusation, but quickly clenched her teeth. "It was Lord Kokabiel who—!"
"I don't give a damn about whatever excuse a Fallen Angel as weak as you has for me." Amaterasu raised her open palm in her direction. "Go away."
And with that, the light surrounding the Fallen Angels shifted immediately from gold to a blinding white.
Raynare barely had time to look at her own hands before the skin began to burn from the instant change in temperature. The heat pierced through her natural defenses as a supernatural being with such ease that, for an instant, her body reacted like that of a simple human exposed directly to a solar furnace.
"AAAAAAAH!"
Golden flames covered her arms and began spreading across the rest of her body. The Fallen Angels flying behind her tried to flee, it was completely useless.
Amaterasu moved her palm slightly to one side and a wave of solar fire swept through the entire first line of the formation. Raynare and the others suffered the same fate, being consumed so quickly that several of their screams were cut off midway.
When the radiance finally diminished, only small amounts of black ash began to fall from the sky. The Fallen Angels who had managed to stop further back were left completely frozen.
Amaterasu contemplated for a few seconds the empty space where the first line of the formation had been and slowly lowered her hand. "How disappointing." The goddess tilted her head slightly. "I thought Elohim's crows would be more resilient."
Damon couldn't help an amused grimace at the irony. After all, a group of Fallen Angels ending up reduced to ashes by divine light had a certain twisted sense to it.
Setting those thoughts aside for a moment, Damon directed his gaze toward Amaterasu. "Don't say later that I exaggerate," the god joked sarcastically.
Amaterasu turned her face toward him. Her expression of distaste disappeared immediately, replaced by an almost sweet smile. "What do you mean? I was kind enough to give them a quick death, purifying them properly."
Damon blinked before wisely deciding that arguing with her would get him absolutely nowhere. "If you say so, Ama."
Amaterasu winked at him before returning all her attention to the Fallen Angels who were beginning to retreat. She had no intention of allowing them to reorganize after being stupid enough to attack her.
The goddess slowly raised one hand and, over the center of her palm, a small golden sphere appeared, no larger than a marble. It quickly went from the size of a ball to that of a person in a matter of seconds and kept expanding.
The golden light became so intense that several Fallen Angels had to cover their eyes, while others simply stared at the attack with completely pale faces. Finally, the sphere stopped when it reached a size comparable to an enormous Ōdama Rasengan, floating over Amaterasu's palm like a small sun surrounded by white and golden fire. Even Damon raised an eyebrow slightly, feeling the heat it radiated.
Amaterasu observed the enemy formation with a small smile. "Let's see what they're made of." She moved her arm forward and the small sun shot out.
The sphere tore through the air, evaporating all the rain in its path and leaving behind a long trail of steam as the temperature of the sky rose with each passing second.
Shemazai didn't need to ask himself twice if the attack was dangerous. Even before Amaterasu finished forming it, he could already feel the enormous amount of power concentrated inside it.
"DEFENSES, NOW!" the white-haired man shouted with gravity.
Shemazai moved quickly to the front of the formation of thousands of Fallen Angels alongside Penemue. Both extended their hands at the same time and enormous magic circles of light unfolded before them, forming multiple barriers that covered practically the entire front of the army.
Baraqiel landed to the side of them both and watched the small sun approaching. He quickly reached the conclusion that, even with the combined defenses of Shemazai and Penemue, he wasn't at all convinced they would be enough.
And he had no intention of waiting to find out.
Golden lightning began coursing through his entire body. Baraqiel raised both hands and compressed his Holy Lightning between his palms until he formed a sphere of electricity that grew rapidly to several meters in diameter. His arms began to tremble under the enormous amount of accumulated energy.
"Get out of the way!" Baraqiel shouted, launching the sphere.
The attack shot directly toward Amaterasu's small sun. Immediately afterward, the Cadre positioned himself alongside Shemazai and Penemue and extended both hands to begin feeding the barriers with his own power.
Several high-ranking Fallen Angels understood immediately what was happening. Those who possessed multiple pairs of wings advanced and began transferring their energy toward the defenses. Dozens of magic circles appeared around the entire formation until they formed a gigantic wall of holy light, reinforced by hundreds of soldiers.
At the moment the sun and Baraqiel's sphere of lightning collided, Baraqiel's power began to be absorbed by the immense mass of solar energy. Even so, the reaction caused by the contact was instantaneous.
An enormous sphere of golden light erupted over Grigori's territory, expanding on a massive scale across the sky. For a few seconds, it was as if the Sun itself had descended upon the Underworld. The shockwave struck the surface with monstrous force, tearing away tons of rock, destroying the few remains that still lingered from the base, and hurling enormous amounts of earth into the air.
In the middle of all the destruction, the body of a certain brown-haired man known as Georg was ripped from among the rubble. He was barely visible for a fraction of a second before being caught by the expansion of energy and disappearing completely inside the explosion.
The multiple barriers raised by Shemazai and Penemue began to deform under the pressure. Several layers shattered one after another, bursting like enormous panels of glass while the following ones absorbed all the remaining force.
Shemazai clenched his teeth. "DON'T STOP FEEDING THEM!" he roared as the light around his arms intensified.
Baraqiel let out a growl and released even more energy toward the defenses. Penemue kept both hands extended without taking her eyes off the enormous golden mass in front of them, while the Fallen Angels behind the three leaders continued pouring out power. Some were already trembling from the effort and others were beginning to lose altitude from exhaustion, but none could stop.
Finally, after several seconds that seemed eternal, the expansion began to diminish.
By then, however, the light produced by the clash had already crossed an enormous portion of the Underworld's sky.
---
Lilith City
The reconstruction of the demonic capital continued after the recent events. Devils, workers, and numerous mages were spread among the damaged structures when an intense golden light appeared suddenly over the horizon.
For several seconds, the entire city was illuminated as if it were broad daylight in the human world. The workers dropped their tools, the Devils walking through the streets raised their heads, and several alarms began to ring throughout the city due to the enormous increase in energy detected in the distance.
Inside one of the government buildings, Sirzechs rose from his seat at the very instant the windows were completely covered by the golden radiance. Falbium, who moments before seemed half asleep, straightened up immediately and directed all his attention outside.
"What the hell is that?" Sirzechs asked, slightly alarmed and confused by the enormous energy being released.
Serafall, on the other hand, remained staring at the golden light on the horizon. Unlike the others, she didn't need to ask herself where that power came from or who it belonged to. "Please, no…" she murmured, bringing a hand to her face.
Sirzechs and Falbium directed their gaze toward her.
Serafall let out a long sigh before looking out the window again. "Tell me that woman isn't doing what I think she's doing."
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