The two Unlimited Stars and the Troops fell from the sky gracefully. As it turned out, the cavity that had opened up in Suzamete’s sky domain expelled them onto a specific location, or rather, towards a specific battlefield. The group couldn’t have known that the initial plan Skullius had formulated had become obsolete. There were two battlefields now, and the one their master was participating in at the moment was too dangerous for them.

As such, Suzamete had dropped them onto something they could handle.

"What is that?" Grim said, scowling. His white hair was flying everywhere, taking to the rhythm of the chaotic winds as he fell.

"I don’t know," said Yuyui, and she readied for battle. "But I sense Undeath. Is it the masked man?"

A massive irregular sphere was sitting over the desolation. It was cracked at the top, its innards exposed. Yuyui and Grim could see what was going on within it, and at once, they were stricken with alarm. Yuyui used her Eye of Moving to warp them all directly into the sphere.

They landed on the expansive, rugged desert sands populated with cacti. The sun beat on them hard, and the pressure of Undeath, richer than they had expected, tried to constrict their powers. It failed in an odd sort of way, Yuyui noticed. So many things were strange about this place. Something was holding the powers of this sphere – of this egg – at bay. It was a fortunate thing, to be sure, but there was much misfortune to go around in turn.

...!!!

Yuyui and Grim shuddered at the same time.

"Pherdanta!" the green-haired girl cried, baffled.

The Commander of the Stark Troops looked as though she’d brushed against the physical incarnation of death. She was missing an arm, and her flesh was something akin to porridge, the weariness visible even from her closed eyes. Indeed, she was weary – alive but weary. She couldn’t even stand on her feet.

Gerriey, a scant number of other Stark Troops, Illyinni Wolverik, and Shura Desmonn were standing guard around Pherdanta. Attracted by Yuyui’s cry, they turned and beamed at the sight of the reinforcements. Yet, that joy didn’t last for long.

It unnerved Yuyui how Gerriey’s face turned sullen.

"Yuyui..." Grim said grimly.

Yuyui followed his gaze. Something warranted his dark tone, and it was every bit as horrible as Yuyui had feared it would be.

Elita was dead, her body cleaved from the midriff.

Uyuniya had also been cut down. She was dead. So was Aurolio.

There was also...

"No. Not even..." Yuyui whipped a hand over her mouth.

Kintar’s remains were emitting residuals of powerful Magecraft (or whatever it was now called, given her new state of existence). Indeed, she was also dead.

It was a hard blow. Yuyui and Grim had never quite been able to conceive the idea that Kintar could lose after the Impossible Task. She seemed so... infallible. The worst they could think of for her was a retreat. Surely, even in the most dire of circumstances, she could escape, right?

’Pherdanta and Kintar... lost?’

Grim finally looked up into the sky. It seemed the baking sun and its boundless canvas weren’t connected to the shell of this sphere. It stretched beyond what it should have, and within its bounds, two forces were clashing like stars, dousing the entire Egg with their essences.

***

’This isn’t going well!’ Rias thought, teeth gnashed.

Serenity’s Free Marauder, Sila, had broken into his Egg of the Future Dawn, flattened his newly formed Death Knight, and immediately begun pressing him in a close-quarters match!

The Egg of the Future Dawn was an inconceivable thing, even to Rias. Initially, it had been his plan against Fulgardt, in case the man decided he didn’t need him after all. But the result was baffling. Even Rias didn’t know what the ultimate form of the Egg was. It had become its own being after he’d brought it forth. Still, he could use it to strengthen himself – to battle his enemies.

...Yet he was losing now!

KCH! KCH! KCH! KCH!

A line of black and red streaked in circles around him and then sharply attacked from the right. Rias had no choice but to kick off the air, narrowly avoiding it.

...But he didn’t get to avoid the next blow. Several fists blasted into his side, sending him flying, but that wasn’t the worst of it.

...!!!

His Undeath faltered. Not just his Undeath energy, but his grasp over everything to do with that Existential Parallel power quaked from the blow. His ribs burst apart and sent shards of bone piercing his lungs and heart, but Rias was more concerned about his rapidly waning powers.

’How is he doing it?!’

How indeed.

Sila zipped around the sky at astonishing speed. After expending his Null EXP, he had become the Careless Juvenile Adamantine ’Prodigy’ Beetle. He was tall, with a reddish-black carapace and a large hard shell from which his long, beautiful wings sprouted, giving him flight. His eight eyes, plastered on a mostly human face, saw Rias’ moves before he made them, and better yet, with his newfound powers, he could counter and weaken Undeath of a certain calibre just with his body.

The Tower General had become the antithesis of Undeathly powers!

Rias bled from the mouth.

Indeed, he was restricted. Indeed, he was hard-countered, but there was something more – a greater thorn in his side.

He didn’t fear Sila alone. If he had full access to his powers, he wouldn’t have been struggling as much.

...But Aimon was no longer his and his alone.

Sneaking a look at the sands below him, Rias glared at his conduit for the Imagining Technique. The menacing deer head was struggling. Its haunting mouth was wide open, and two individuals – bloody and battered – could be seen standing on its tongue.

One of them had the gall to look up, grinning like a demon. She couldn’t see the ghost of Actuass directly, but she knew he would sense her daring mirth.

Rias would have snapped if that wouldn’t have cost him against Sila.

Ever since that sharp, golden light and the voice that cried, ’Praise the Sun!’ a minute earlier, everything had gone awry. It was even worse for Rias because his soul had been tempted by the light, and for a fraction of a nanosecond, he’d been teased into... innovating. Only he, as a Divine, could have managed that among everyone here. No mortal could have taken advantage of that light.

...But then Sila had punished him for it, dealing lethal blows, and as he did, Rias had lost control of Aimon.

No. Rather, he was forced into a tug-of-war over Aimon with that treacherous woman, Vali Kinn!