Lucifer: Godless Reawakening-Chapter 269: Lucifer

"Haah... haah..." Carter panted, breath ragged and uneven. His left arm had been cleanly sliced off, blood streaming down as he dragged himself forward, searching for somewhere safe to recover.

He had been completely overpowered by the foes he encountered.

Not because they were stronger. If it were only a matter of strength and abilities, Carter knew he could have held his ground and returned safely.

But someone, or rather something, had destroyed his aether circuits.

He had never felt such pain. It was as if he had been killed twice and dragged back to life in the cruelest way possible.

His entire body trembled in agony, begging him to rest, to close his eyes just for a moment. But Carter understood. A dreadful realization had settled into his mind long ago.

If he closed his eyes now, he would not survive.

His body had already reached its limit. He was moving through sheer will alone, driven by the desperate refusal to die here. He had a family waiting at home. His wife. His children. His son.

He could not fall here.

Rustle.

Carter’s eyes widened as something shot out from the bushes and coiled around his ankle.

He crashed face first onto the ground, his body no longer responding to his commands.

He stretched out his hand, trying to grasp anything at all, but desperation alone was not enough.

He was dragged away, toward his inevitable end.

...

William regarded the small creature with an indifferent gaze.

His concern was not the pressure weighing down on the forest. It was Dennis.

If that fool had teleported back to base, Emma would already know something had gone wrong. And if she learned Dennis had abandoned him here, there was a real possibility the silly girl would kill the man herself.

"You... look disappointed?" the Devil asked, its grin stretching wider, smug and confident, as though the outcome had already been decided.

William shrugged lightly. "Didn’t expect to fight a shorty."

The Devil burst into laughter, the ominous sound resonating heavily, "Not only your face, your attitude matches that man as well!"

William’s expression stilled hearing those words.

"Which man?" he asked, voice flat. "Where is he now?"

The Devil’s button-like eyes darkened. It dragged its tongue slowly across its lips.

"What do you think?" it replied softly. "Do you see any flames around?"

William’s mind went blank for a fraction of a second.

"You..."

The Devil crossed its arms, grin widening in cruel satisfaction. "That’s right. He is dea—"

BOOOOOOOOM

The world split apart.

An explosion detonated at the heart of the island, a violent eruption that shook the forest, the shoreline, even the surrounding ocean. Shockwaves tore outward, uprooting trees and sending massive chunks of earth hurtling into the sky.

On the mainland, the blast was heard clearly. The ground trembled beneath the soldiers’ feet.

Flames devoured the center of the island. Soil turned black and charred. The air grew thick with raw, suffocating aether.

When the dust slowly settled, a towering silhouette emerged through the smoke.

A massive devil stood before William.

In one hand, it held the smaller red Devil, shielding it effortlessly.

The newcomer was grotesque. It had no head. Only a broad, towering body supported by long, disproportionate limbs that scraped against the scorched ground. Its skin was ash-grey, rough like cooled stone. Down the center of its chest ran a glowing red slit, pulsing faintly like a vertical eye that had yet to open.

The aura it emitted was immense.

And yet, strangely, that presence seemed partially concealed beneath the overwhelming, chaotic pressure radiating from the red Devil in its grasp.

The forest had fallen completely silent.

Only the crackle of lingering flames remained.

"Quite the rude one, you are," the red Devil snarled, its grin twitching at the edges.

William did not reply.

He simply raised his hand.

The air distorted.

A concentrated telekinetic wave shot forward, invisible yet crushing, aimed directly at the Devil’s body.

And then—

"Huh?"

William frowned.

The force dispersed on contact. Not deflected. Not resisted.

It simply failed to grasp anything.

A familiar sensation brushed against his senses. The same hollow resistance he had felt while fighting the Prism Ape. As if the target existed, yet did not. As if the space it occupied rejected interference.

His telekinesis had bounced off completely.

The Devil’s grin widened.

"I love that expression," it said, voice dripping with amusement. "Keep that face, and I will make your death easier."

William’s fist tightened at his side, knuckles whitening.

"Where is my father?"

The red Devil’s eyes narrowed. "Are you deaf? I told you. He is dead."

William’s gaze sharpened,

"No. He isn’t," he replied flatly. "You don’t have what it takes to kill him. You are way too weak for that guy."

Silence.

The Devil froze.

For a brief second, its grin faltered.

Then Nyx erupted outward in violent waves.

The forest bent under the pressure. The ground cracked. The air itself seemed to darken as oppressive energy spilled from the creature in surging bursts.

"You call me a weakling, eh?" it hissed.

It rose to its feet, standing atop the massive grey Devil’s palm, small frame silhouetted against the scorched sky.

Despite its size, the aura it released distorted the space around it, warping the air in visible ripples.

The towering, headless Devil remained unmoving beneath it, silent and steady, like a monument of stone.

William inhaled once.

And prepared.

The red Devil launched.

It shot forward like a living projectile, the air cracking in its wake as it aimed straight for William’s chest.

William leapt back, boots carving into the scorched soil as he swung his arm in sharp arcs.

Several Cleave slashes tore through the air, jagged distortions meant to disrupt the Devil’s trajectory.

None of them landed.

Each strike passed through empty resistance, dispersing as though the creature existed outside the laws they obeyed.

William slid to a halt, boots grinding against the earth. The Devil was still mid-air.

Still charging.

"Tch."

He raised a finger.

A Droplet formed above it, condensing rapidly. It grew denser, darker, pressure spiraling inward as he prepared to hurl it—

"Huh?"

The devil vanished.

Gone.

And beneath his chin, close enough to feel the heat of it, a single crimson finger was extended toward his chest.

The Devil’s grin stretched wide.

"Now... try retaining that smirk."

A pulse.

Aether scattered violently. The half-formed Droplet fizzled into nothing as a crushing force detonated at point-blank range.

William staggered back, boots digging trenches across the ground. His vision blurred red for a second.

Veins bulged along his neck as he clenched his teeth.

His mana circuit.

It had been struck directly.

He could feel the fracture, sharp and invasive, like a blade lodged within his core.

The Devil landed lightly on the ground and immediately clutched its stomach, bursting into hysterical laughter.

"Bahahaha! I love smug humans like you who think the world lies beneath their feet!" It shook its head, wiping an imaginary tear. "Breaking ones like you is the sweetest— hmm?"

It paused.

Something brushed against its senses.

The Devil raised its head slowly.

William was standing straight again.

His breathing was uneven. Strained. But he had clearly just activated a spell.

The Devil’s eyes narrowed.

’How is this possible...’

Normally, a human shattered under circuit damage. The pain alone crippled them. Their control collapsed. They lost access to aether and fled in panic.

But this one—

The Devil’s perception sharpened. It forced its awareness deeper, prying past flesh and bone, descending into the core of the human body to see what had resisted its interference.

And then—

"...!"

Its eyes flew wide.

The grin vanished completely.

The Devil staggered back, genuine fear carving across its face.

Not one.

Not ten.

Not a hundred.

Thousands.

Thousands of aether circuits intertwined within William’s body, an impossibly dense network regulating both aether and nyx in terrifying harmony.

The Devil slowly lifted its gaze.

Its voice, once dripping with mockery, now trembled.

"W-W-What are you?"

William understood.

It had seen something it was never meant to see.

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then his feet left the ground.

He began to ascend, rising steadily into the air. The scorched earth beneath him trembled, cracks racing outward in jagged patterns.

A deep rumble spread across the island.

Massive chunks of land tore free from the surface, ripped upward by invisible force. Boulders the size of buildings broke loose and hovered behind him, suspended in the sky like fragments of a shattered world.

The forest bent under the pressure. The ocean around the island rippled in response.

William’s presence shifted.

The corruption that had filled the air earlier did not vanish. It thickened. It grew heavier, denser, suffocating. A vile weight pressed down on everything, as if the atmosphere itself had turned hostile.

His eyes locked onto the Devil.

"You shouldn’t have touched my father."

.....

Not far from the battlefield, deep within a region where even light hesitated to linger, a being slowly opened its eyes.

It had felt it.

A presence it had not anticipated.

The subtle distortion of space. The suffocating shift in the air. The tremor that did not belong to land or sea.

The Devil sensed it all.

It rose from its seat with silent calm. Darkness clung to its entire body like living fabric, swallowing its outline. Only its eyes were visible, glowing a deep, blood-red that cut through the shadows.

For a long moment, it stared toward the distant epicenter of chaos.

The air around it quivered faintly.

"I have been awaiting you... for a long time," it muttered, voice low and heavy with restrained emotion.

Its fist tightened slowly at its side. The ground beneath its feet cracked in thin lines as hatred bled into the atmosphere.

Its eyes darkened further as its lips moved to voice a name:

"Lucifer."