As Savast's mental energy had spiked inside his head, Baddan had remembered Skullius' words from right before he and the others began the Impossible Task.

Kill at least 1,000, and I will honour you as an equal. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

(A/N: Refer to Ch.1334.)

Savast hadn't been there when Skullius made the declaration. He hadn't lived and fought for Skullius like the Sky Watcher had and thus couldn't understand the weight of those words. To Baddan, they meant everything. For a beast like him, lost and stranded, to be acknowledged by someone of Skullius' caliber, and to even be named an equal…

That inspired more than just raw determination inside Baddan. He had completed the Impossible Task with flying colors. That meant that he was indeed Skullius' equal, right? Equal didn't need to mean strength. No, it could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

…And thus, while on death's door, ripped to pieces, he attempted something absurd.

What exactly limited the scope of his technique when he had already discovered – through the Impossible Task – that it could be broadened?

The answer was clear: nothing.

Seconds ago, when the slashes had begun to rain, whipping about like targeted, malevolent winds, he had withdrawn all the beasts he had summoned using his technique – both the main and Sub Exigencies.

…And then when he was barely a chunk of living flesh, he had activated the technique again. The output from Grim's Paradon Parody when he decided to take on the form of the King of Unforgiving Impermanence had raised the output of his Class (now turned mutation), and with his firing neurons, he improvised.

The great disks from his technique appeared over his head and churned. They didn't summon beasts, however. They selected two Exigencies and fused their properties with Baddan's!

Lipptis and the Cluster General stolen from the new series of Cluster earlier, melded into the Sky Watcher, however imperfectly. He screamed in agony as ugly appendages, furs, and depressions appeared all over his body.

…And he began healing using Lipptis' Null Life Essence, as he shared her physical qualities!

The second disk over his head granted him the gift of Complication, heightening his abilities when it came to all things Null Life!

And just like that, many possibilities were unsealed – perhaps an unlimited number of them – but Baddan couldn't have exploited them all as he pleased; he felt his genetics, the Cluster General's, and Lipptis' fiercely reject each other. He wouldn't last long, but he would make it count.

Thus, when Grim forced Rias to the ground, he acted. It must have been instinct. Whipping a bent, unsightly arm out, Baddan manifested a foggy grey prong with a dull glow; like a static laser. At the same time, he summoned the rest of the beasts that had been orbiting the Cluster General before only to slaughter and extract their Null Life Essence. At the same time, he focused Lipptis' reserves of Null Life Essence and forged a Null Life Aura around himself.

[You have learned 'Null Life Aura'!]

The limited boundary reinforced the user and sharpened their skill with any Null Life ability.

'One chance, probably,' Baddan thought, and he cocked back his arm and gritted his teeth.

The Cluster General he'd fused with was called the Progeny of Infinity, and its racial ability involved exploiting the concept of infinity. When it moved in a pattern that resembled a chain, it was able to store slivers of infinity and apply them in one of two ways: to create projectiles that, when stabbed into any enemy, saturated them with an infinite volume of any substance the General had seen; or to render it (the Cluster General) immune to all forms of attacks as long as it kept moving in the chain-like pattern.

'One chance!'

Baddan wasn't sure the technique could replicate Null Life Essence, thus, he harnessed all the Null Life Essence extracted from the Cluster beasts and…

'Unbound!'

…But it wasn't actually the skill [Unbound]. It was a cheap imitation that almost completely altered the properties of the prong of infinity in his grip. Tiny arrays layered the prong's interior, saturated with terrible volumes of Null Life Essence… and then Baddan flung the whole thing at Rias.

The ghost of Actuass didn't even see it before it impaled his chest, startling him.

…But Yuyui and Grim were prepared. The former grabbed the end of the prong and pushed it deeper into Rias, forcing him to the ground while the King of Unforgiving Impermanence raised his front paws and stomped down on the necromancer with death-livid legs!

Rias' roar of agony was smothered by Grim's Chrona Aggrante and the sudden eruption of Null Life Essence that bounded from within his body, inflating him like a balloon and then blasting portions of his body off!

Neither ceased: the Chrona Aggrante nor the blast of Null Life Essence.

The arrays Baddan had made rode the prong's ability to saturate an enemy with an infinite amount of any substance. First, the genuine Null Life Essence blasted Rias, and then a cheap imitation did – an unlimited amount of it. Both completely severed Rias' grip over his Undeath energy.

Grim's Chrona Aggrante stripped him of all of his augments.

…And Savast smashed his neurons apart, turning him brain-dead.

This was it!

They had him!

Only three seconds passed before Rias' body became limp, yet still the fake Null Life Essence continued to fire out of him as his body rapidly disintegrated under the Aggrante.

This was it!

Everyone's heart was beating.

They kept their guard close to the heavens, but slowly, relief began washing over them.

Baddan let go, releasing his amalgamous state.

Grim hissed from the exhaustion creeping into his body, turning him cold. He could feel the death he had been abusing turning on him.

Yuyui's Eye of Moving was bloodshot. You could hardly see the pupil and iris, and it was smoking. She held on because she needed to see Rias' soul crumble to pieces as well. Only then would she believe that he was done for.

…And she saw it. It was the only thing that remained in the aftermath. Cracked and superheated. It could hardly be distinguished from Rias' physical body, sprawled in a great pit left behind by the absurd attacks and dazed.

Or not.

"I knew it," said Rias, and he eyed Grim. "You're a poser."

…!

The words sent shivers running down both Grim and Yuyui.

…But before they could react, something fell from the sky. The Egg was almost completely sealed, and the gap that remained was what allowed Aimon to drop something towards his master.

The original body.

A terrifying attraction drew Rias' soul and real body towards each other, and in a nanosecond, they were reunited, making him a genuine Divine being once more.

"Nothing of yours refutes me!" he cried as he descended. "I'm a true student of death!"