Grim had been pleading all the while, appealing to Savast. Even as he and the other Unlimited Stars pressed Rias, when they stared up at Rias and Soizar, and when they readied for what the unmasked ghost of Actuass would do after gaining the support of an Arch-Lich, he continued reinforcing his thoughts.

He had known Savast was sensitive to the residuals of mental energy every living thing expelled; he was certain the former Cluster General could hear him.

"You can hear me, right, three-eyes?" Even when he didn’t receive a reply, he continued. "Don’t go dark on us now. If this is all it takes to put you down, then you’re only faking being one of us. Even Kintar would be disgusted. If she was in your position, she’d keep her head and mow down the enemy who’d slaughtered you. That’s how she’d honor your memory."

There hadn’t been a response.

"There’s more than one way to grieve a loss. Maybe it’s different for you beasts, but no living thing that exists in the real world would stand around, stunned in the face of an enemy. Is this all you amount to?"

"And what do you know of grief?" Grim heard the words, crisp as though Savast was speaking in his ear. There was an angry hiss in every syllable.

That was good.

Grim had been relieved. "I’m probably the only living creature on Aigas who can understand your grief. I’ve mourned for humans and beasts alike while being neither human nor beast, and both at the same time. I get it." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

...But that was when Rias soared, attacking Pherdanta. He had his hands on her neck in a blink. Grim panicked. His thoughts were faster than his actions.

"If you remain alive without honoring Kintar’s will, you might as well go back to being a clueless beast trapped in a fake world! Wake up, dammit!"

...

And Savast did. He didn’t know why. It couldn’t have just been because of Grim’s words alone. But all the same, his body disappeared in an instant, leaving his Granted Star Armament to fall, empty on the ground.

...!!!

Rias felt the agency in his hands, livid with murderous intent, stagger and cease to exist. He’d been a micro-instant from ripping Pherdanta’s head off her body... but then nothing. His brain was suddenly assaulted by a vicious, invisible blunt force. He might have been pounded on by a mystical hammer. Blood sprayed from his nose, eyes, and mouth, and Aimon growled. It was not excused. The crystalline guard it had erected around Rias faltered.

...Which gave the Unlimited Stars the chance to pounce.

Soizar snorted, annoyed. ’That attack again?’ He looked up at the sky directly above Savast’s armour. To think that creature had another ace up its sleeve.

The Unlimited Star was floating above ground as a kind of vapor – a cross between the air itself and the soul.

The Warpsing Fleshimon was a special kind of Cluster Beast that possessed the ability to sacrifice their flesh in order to bolster other aspects of their strength, even if only temporarily. Normally, the trigger for this ability wasn’t emotional trauma, but that only increased the potency of the result.

Savast’s mind, while in that unusual, gaseous form, was more free – unbound. It could stretch and extend as far as it pleased, given that his strength supported the range. In an instant, the Unlimited Star reached for Grim, Yuyui, Pherdanta, Sila, Baddan, Rias, Soizar, and every other living thing inside what remained of the Egg of Future Dawn!

...!

When he tasted the immediate thoughts of Yuyui, Pherdanta, Grim, and Gerriey, he shuddered. His sanity returned in an instant. He heard the plan.

’So that’s what it is!’ he thought, and Grim grinned. As long as Savast understood the immediate directive leading up to the plan, all was well. It was simple:

No matter what, don’t let anything happen to Pherdanta!

...And that was why the Unlimited Stars went crazy.

As Rias keeled over, bleeding, Grim pointed at Aimon and fired a Triplefold Ko Aggrante, which blasted the deer head point-blank and blew a third of it to high hell.

Yuyui reached Rias in the next instant, accelerating with the Eye of Moving, Baddan following behind her. All his notable beasts were outside, but they were already diving onto the Egg. Savast was pressing both Rias and Soizar with the enhanced version of his Mentalcraft. Even Soizar, who could counter it by strengthening his mind via tweaking his soul, felt that familiar stabbing pain in his mind. The output of Charged Stroke was much stronger than before.

...But all this wasn’t enough, Grim knew.

No. To win, they needed to bring Rias and the Arch-Lich to their knees. Making them bleed wasn’t enough. Making them grind their teeth wasn’t enough!

’Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die, don’t die!’ Grim told himself. He landed, after taking the freakish recoil of his Granted Star Armament, and immediately put Paradon Parody to work.

With Asthon’s help, he had isolated the creature, which was part of his Hidden Class transformation, and made it a separate entity he could summon. Paradon Parody originally gave him access to the forms and abilities of beasts he encountered, and it still could. But now, it could do something greater: seamlessly changing the properties of Classes into mutations and vice versa.

In Aigas, Classes offered greater refinement and precision when matched with mutations of a similar level. Mutations, on the other hand, offered higher firepower and output – which was perhaps why they were granted to beasts. Grim could seamlessly change the Class of any living being to a mutation and vice versa – a truly mindboggling feat. An extension quality he earned from this ability was that he could also alter the genetic build of any target to match the changes he made to their powers. That was how he had given Jiggorrhax a humanoid form when they were fighting Fiends.

...And now, Grim was doing it for all his allies.

The Pinnacle Occuluthon, Yuyui.

The Batty Mind Caster, Savast.

The Sky Watcher, Baddan.

He changed all these Classes into mutations while pouring all his strength into Paradon Parody.

’This much won’t kill me, I think,’ Grim thought, teeth gritted. ’Just as long as I don’t use that form again.’

He yearned to use it, to become the King of Unforgiving Impermanence once more, but he couldn’t risk it.

He and everyone else would kill these arrogant demigods who dared to pose as scholars of death for Skullius’ sake... and Allora’s.