It had never been a simple plan, and Vali had foreseen all the challenges she’d have to circumvent way before the idea had even budded inside her head.

How exactly did the plan come to be?

Pherdanta’s show of dominance was one thing. Vali couldn’t stand just how far above her the noble swordswoman was, but she could respect it. What she couldn’t stand was Kintar’s obnoxious arrogance.

You were keen on fighting in an echelon of power far above you, so stay and fight, the Mage had said condescendingly to her and Maxim. The gall!

That was when Vali thought about the gamble and explained it to Maxim. A simple plan it was to understand, but Maxim had turned ashen at the details.

I acquired my version of the Imagining Technique from Rias during the Premium Age Royale. It’s inferior because I extracted it from a severed arm of his, Vali had said. In essence, his and my technique are one and the same. The only difference is the scale and depth. If I play my cards right, I might be able to seize control of his technique. It’s a big if, I know.

Indeed, it was a big if, but what scared Maxim the most from Vali’s plan, was the part where she suggested that the move that would give her a better chance of seizing Rias’ technique, was going inside Aimon – the deer head.

Vali had proceeded with that part of her gamble at once. With her own conduit, a lion made of lilac flames, she imagined a gateway into Aimon’s body. If it worked, that would give her plan plenty of credence, and if it failed, well...

Then that’s as far as we go, she had said to Maxim.

The two women had dived into the lion’s maw then... and emerged inside a nebulous space filled with horrifying Divine and Undeath energies tussling at points and cooperating at others. It seemed boundless and all-powerful, livid with potential for practically anything. It might have been a parody of the great void and all its uniquely fabricated chaos – lethal and beautiful in equal measure.

The lethal part was more daunting, however.

The boundless space inside Aimon had begun grinding Vali and Maxim at once. If the former hadn’t expelled her Territory, they would have been finished in an instant.

Yet, of course, it wasn’t a real Territory that Vali expelled, but a false one, which she had learned to create while battling the Carven in the Under.

(A/N: Refer to Ch.1507.)

It was eaten through in less than a second, but that had been enough time for Maxim to play her part.

Since receiving the [Soul Talisman]’s benefits, Maxim had expanded the application of her Planate High technique, but for a Master Stage expert like her, the benefits wouldn’t last forever. They had already begun to fade away by the time Vali was explaining her plan. There was a way for her to extend the duration of those heightened powers, though.

Planate High allowed Maxim to freeze inanimate and animate objects in flat, glass-like plates. For all intents and purposes, it was a glorified preservation technique; it could even preserve explosions for later use. Maxim figured that she could preserve, or rather, freeze her soul, or at least aspects of it using her technique to maintain the benefits she’d received with [Soul Talisman].

It took Herculean effort, but she managed, however clumsily. Funny enough, it only worked so well because Ferex’s [Soul Talisman] had allowed her to interact with her soul and become more familiar with it than the average person.

Inside Aimon, Maxim used Planate High to preserve herself and Vali for as long as possible. It was easy to channel their defenses around themselves when they were flat, glass-like plates (super-enhanced) with smaller surface areas. It bought them time, as Vali tried to establish a connection between Aimon and her own Imagining Technique.

...But there was too great of a difference in power between her and Rias. It wouldn’t work. Not like this. There was a missing component. Before Vali could understand what that was, she and Maxim were being battered by the violent essences inside Aimon.

They would have perished just like that – inconsequentially.

...But that was when the stars aligned!

Aurolio had pierced Rias with his Clusterfunk, temporarily tampering with the necromancer’s ability to use Undeath.

And Pherdanta had landed a critical slash on Rias, further disrupting his abilities.

And then Ashema and the remaining Carven in the Egg of the Future Dawn had attacked Aimon, dealing decent damage.

And then Sila had fallen from the sky, flattened the Death Knight Rias had made to support himself, and instantly gone on the offensive, landing damaging blows that further interrupted the necromancer.

...And indeed, all this disrupted Aimon as well. Whenever it took damage, its powers were foiled, if only temporarily. Suddenly, Vali could see its mouth from the inside, and she pulled herself and Maxim up towards it.

There they were.

’I can do it!’ Vali thought, overjoyed.

Maxim was battered and near death beside her, but it was alright. She would live.

Vali felt for the loose, invisible authority to Aimon right then. She was channeling her own Imagining Technique to grab hold of Aimon. It would work if Rias or Aimon or both took lethal doses of damage.

Soon, she had it. Whenever Sila landed a blow, she felt her control over Aimon grow. At times, the unmasked ghost of Actuass pulled the authority away from her completely, but soon, it was back in Vali’s possession again – a tug of war.

But all wasn’t well.

Vali could feel herself slipping. No mortal was supposed to play on a stage with a Divine like this, especially a mortal who hadn’t even reached the Incandescent Stage. She couldn’t take much more of this, however much it benefited everyone involved.

Indeed, she was saving everyone from trouble.

As long as she had control of Aimon, the Egg of the Future Dawn wouldn’t restrict everyone else’s powers, as it had done with the Stages and skills, and the Granted Armament of the Stark Troops.

Indeed, this was why Grim and Yuyui retained their powers upon dropping into the Egg.

Vali was glad to see them.

Against the monstrous necromancer, all allies were welcome.

’But to take him down, we might have to approach this differently,’ she thought and spared a moment to look behind her, beyond Aimon’s mouth and into the nebulous space from which it conjured everything Rias desired.

Vali hated the idea that came to her. She had to give up her spite. This wasn’t the time to be looking to solve petty grudges with hostility. Perhaps the best way to defeat Rias was...