Bro, I'm not an Undead!-Chapter 1626: Stars Align

(A/N: Warning. The following Chapter contains a rapid flurry of events. I hope you can keep up.)

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"What can you even do?" said Rias.

Aurolio wasn’t quite sure himself. Pherdanta, Kintar and Elita’s defeats bore down on him hard, but if those three could do something, why couldn’t he?

Uyuniya was similarly driven. She had in her hand Clusterfunk’s "empty" wheel, her face hidden under the Bare Guise igniting with resolve.

It was now or never.

However...

Rias flicked his fingers and the Egg of the Future Dawn rained down judgement.

An impossibly fast, impossible slash crossed Aurolio’s neck and sent his head flying. It was over in less than a blink. The rest of the Void User kept going, kept running, but quickly fell onto the sands, blood, flesh and all.

Uyuniya’s eyes bulged, shaken.

...But so did Aurolio’s.

’FUCK! DEAD OR ALIVE, I’LL AMOUNT TO THIS MUCH!’ were his last words deep within his fading consciousness. He prompted something into action.

Uyuniya acted accordingly. She might have felt the intensity of Aurolio’s desire. Mustering the raw, invisible force of her Broader Existence, she cocked back her arm, the Clusterfunk gripped tight, and flung it with all her might. Her guttural roar might have helped her siphon additional physical might into the throw with her Broader Existence. The Clusterfunk blasted so fast towards Rias that it seemed to melt into the air.

...But the unmasked man’s slashes were faster.

The Clusterfunk had barely left Uyuniya’s fingers when her head was dissected laterally.

As for the projectile, Rias was unbothered. He could easily twist the Egg and evade it, especially now that all his enemies were defeated, and his attention was undivided.

...But he didn’t get to do so.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

The sharp lethal ring came after the attack bore down.

...!

It was an impossible slash even more lethal than what the Egg was currently capable of. It was no ally to the unmasked man.

It was fast.

It was death.

It was...

’THAT WOMAN!’ Rias thought as the air parted around him. A lacerating violation had pushed it all away before cleaving him through from head to groin. ’THAT WOMAN!’ His eyes raced maniacally, searching, but they didn’t see her. Not immediately.

The stars might have aligned right then.

Uyuniya’s will was alive.

The Clusterfunk found its target right as he scrambled in a panic. In a blink, it clutched Rias on the waist, forcing him to wear it like a hoop.

...!

Aurolio’s will was alive.

All the longswords that had been expelled from the Clusterfunk’s wheel (all of them orbiting in the sky)...were warped back towards it. Each of them slotted into the wheel, their ends first, and stabbed into the unmasked man before he could move.

"NGGGRRRRRGHHHH!" Rias ground his teeth so hard they cracked.

It wasn’t the pain from the swords pinning into his flesh from all directions that caused such a reaction. No. It was the baleful Voided Death Essence they injected into him, once again forcing him into a Parallel Essence tug-of-war!

His freedom was sealed again... temporarily.

As he struggled, it was only then when Rias finally managed a view of the woman he’d thought he’d killed – the only one he considered a threat.

Funny enough, everyone else did as well. The ring of that damned sword had attracted everyone’s attention, especially that of the Stark Troops.

Gerriey and the others turned to the dust storm yonder, where Pherdanta had detonated. They beamed.

Of course, the Commander was alive!

A silhouette inched out of obscurity, pelted by the sand.

It was... disgusting.

A woman she was, alive, but not well.

Missing an arm, plenty of the flesh of her chest, her side, her skull and leg, Pherdanta looked like seven Hells wrapped in the rotting carcass of a skinwalker. She was black, she was blue, she was red. She couldn’t even stand. She was moving with her knees.

But even while like this, she kept a good grip on her sword, her one good eye – opened wide – on the unmasked man.

How in the world are you still alive?! was the sentiment all around.

How indeed.

The unmasked man wanted to know. He had felt her life thin and fade! There had been no mistaking that!

He couldn’t have anticipated that the Infinite Sword God could learn to cut her presence away from the senses of others in a pinch.

He couldn’t have anticipated that Pherdanta could cut away the force of an explosion from the rest of her body, even if the result wasn’t satisfactory.

He couldn’t have anticipated the depth of Pherdanta’s prowess.

...But there was something else that Rias didn’t anticipate. Not immediately, at least.

"NOW, ASHEMA!"

It was the Carvens’ turn.

The stars had aligned indeed.

Ashema, while standing between the remaining Generals, was flaring like a firefly. His finger was pointed into the distance, webs of a muted neon green running through his charred skin. Something was moving through his body, channeled towards his finger, ready to fire.

It was an Exotic Parlous Nature – a Realm Rank Exotic Parlous Nature. One of the Generals was producing it while another safely funnelled it through Ashema. If fired from a weaker enemy, they had all hoped it would catch the unmasked man off guard. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

And indeed, Ashema fired it.

’Here goes!’

A stream of green flame soared high and fast after incinerating his arm. Its properties were rather unusual, but it did the job well. It caught the target off-guard with its astounding speed.

The great deer head caught fire at once!

...!!

Rias watched furiously, eyes shining. Undeath flared from him like a storm. His Andori was the target!

The fire didn’t burn. It pulled the skin on the deer head’s face along with the furs and bone and turned them into some disgusting waxy sludge. In but a moment, the entity already looked unrecognizable. It silently swayed and churned in despair, waiting for its master to rescue it.

That would be a hard thing to accomplish. Realm Rank Parlous Natures tended to be stronger than Andori of the same rank and hard to dispel.

...But the unmasked man wasn’t to be underestimated.

"You think this is enough?!" Rias shouted. The Clusterfunk burst away from him with the surge of his Undeath energy. "You’ll ALL die as many times as it takes!"

At his will, a healing light shone from his deer head and began restoring it. No. It was fighting off the green fire, winning and losing rapidly each second. This was the Egg’s interpretation of Kintar’s magic.

Pherdanta vomited blood and struggled to one foot.

Rias was far from done.

Elita, Aurolio, Uyuniya and Kintar had fallen, but were still not enough.

In the end, it was as the obnoxious former Mage had said. Only Pherdanta could kill that monster.

But...

VWOOOOOOSH!

The monster was growing stronger.

Rias sacrificed some of the Undeath energy he had gathered for the Egg. Using his own body as a secondary conduit, he invoked the Imagining Technique and a certain formula known to Liches.

...!!!!

A blaze of greenish-black twisted in front of him... and a new Death Knight appeared.

The creature’s Divine power was unmistakable.

It sent all the survivors within the Egg trembling for fear.

"You are all a part of the Future Dawn. This thing will make doubly sure of that," Rias said, his eyes growing colder.

This was checkmate, indeed.

None of the survivors had power enough to match against the Death Knight without giving up their lives in exchange. Not even Pherdanta.

The swordswoman watched the creature as it took its first step.

What would she do? Was Kintar’s plan still viable?

These questions quickly became irrelevant, however.

Three things happened in rapid succession. The stars had aligned.

First, the sky abruptly darkened and shards of it burst like ceramic across the sky. Something had invaded the Egg from the outside. It was more than a match for Elita’s speed from earlier. After all, Rias didn’t perceive it... until it flattened his Death Knight in a single blow!

Its great wings and hard shell were immediately shunned by the presence of Undeath in both the Egg and Rias himself.

It was a fearsome thing, indeed.

It was Sila.

But almost simultaneously, some other surprise ensued, baffling everyone around.

Rias’ deer head tipped up to the sky and screeched horrifically. A voice it had never owned ruptured from its throat. It was monstrous in one instance, human in the next, and feminine at last. As the creature’s mouth opened wide, two women quickly crawled out of it, pushing against its lips and standing on its snout. They were both stained in blood and wounds so ghastly you would have wondered if they were even human.

One of them looked to be close to the death, but the other was enjoying a thrill like no other.

The deer head she was riding shuddered lightly... and then bits of it began changing, looking more feline than deer.

Rias’ face fell. He met eyes with Vali, who grinned like a fiend.

’She’s trying to tak—’ Rias didn’t get to finish the thought.

There was yet another thing vying for attention, something even more baffling than what Vali and Maxim were doing.

More than one battle was frothing on Aigas, after all. The other one was much grander.

Nothing could have conveyed that better than what followed.

Some graceful light pierced through the Egg and shone over everyone, good or evil or neutral. It was pure, golden and pristine.

The light hailed from the future. It crossed through time, peeking into the past just as well as the present.

Along with its coming, also came a voice from the future. It cried jubilantly:

"PRAISE THE SUN!"

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[Author’s Note]

Aaaand we are going back to the meat of the Saga. Things are about to turn... stupid, to say the least.

Be sure to share your thoughts on this part of the battle. What did you think about it? Who was your favourite performer? Who was your least favourite? Any theories for what’s going to happen next?