My Wives are Beautiful Demons-Chapter 676: Fase 1. Battle Royale V

That night was nothing but a bloody feast. Yamato's cut left no visible marks at first.

There was no explosion, no flash. Just an unnatural silence, as if the world had swallowed its own breath.

Then the consequences arrived.

The magical projectiles that had been "repositioned" simply returned—not to their owners, but to the concepts that sustained them. Lightning bolts bent back on themselves, blades of energy lost their coherence, divine seals collapsed into runic paradoxes.

Two competitors fell immediately.

One had his body bent at an impossible angle, as if space had decided he no longer needed to exist in three dimensions. The other was pierced by the spell itself, now devoid of intention, just brute force returning to its point of origin.

The rest recoiled in panic.

"What… what was that?!" one of them cried, stumbling.

Vergil did not advance.

He stood still, Yamato still extended ahead, as if drawing an invisible line in the air. "Enough," he said.

The word wasn't loud… But the effect was immediate.

The air stabilized. The distortions ceased. The survivors realized, too late, that he was holding back.

Vergil tilted his head slightly, observing them like someone assessing the wrong pieces on a board they didn't ask to play on.

"You," he said calmly. "Who are you?"

No one answered immediately.

The man in the divine armor fell to his knees, breathing heavily. The electrical energy around him flickered erratically, like a flame about to go out. "I… I serve—"

Vergil moved.

He didn't attack.

He simply appeared before him.

Vergil's hand landed on the man's cracked helmet. There was no force. There was no grip.

Still, the competitor froze.

"I didn't ask whom you serve," Vergil said coldly, politely. "I asked who you are."

He withdrew his hand.

The man fell backward, unconscious, but alive.

The others' eyes widened.

"You're… sparing them?" murmured the woman with the runes, in shock.

Vergil turned to her.

"It depends," he replied. "Are you relevant?"

She swallowed hard, but maintained her composure. "We… are minor champions. Sent by secondary pantheons. No… we're not from Olympus."

That caught his attention.

Vergil slowly raised his gaze. "Then Athena isn't among you."

It wasn't a question.

It was a statement of fact.

"N-no," she replied quickly. "No. None of us."

Vergil closed his eyes for a brief moment.

When he opened them, something in his expression had changed.

Absolute disinterest.

"Then you shouldn't be here," he said.

The ground trembled. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

The space around them began to compress, not like a violent crushing, but like an existential pressure, pushing them out of that specific point in the world.

"Wait!" shouted one of the remaining competitors. "You're hunting Athena, aren't you?!"

Vergil stopped and turned slowly. "Continue."

The man breathed heavily, but forced the words out.

"Olympus… they know. They're watching you. Athena is in the box. If you continue like this, they will—"

Vergil took a step forward.

The man stopped speaking.

Not because he was silenced.

But because he understood.

"I know," said Vergil. "That's exactly why I'm walking."

He sheathed Yamato with a soft click.

"Now, listen carefully." The pressure increased. "I have no interest in you. I don't know which lesser gods you belong to, nor do I care what promises were made to you to be here."

He raised his hand.

The air began to heat up. "But every second you remain between me and Athena… is a strategic mistake."

The remaining competitors felt something break inside them.

Not bones.

Willpower.

They retreated desperately, some falling, others almost trampling each other to escape.

Vergil watched for a moment.

Then he snapped his fingers.

An arc of blue fire cut through the path behind them, not to kill them—but to expel them from that route.

The forest parted, forcing them to run in another direction.

"Get out of here," he said. "And if you're smart, give up on this tournament right away."

Silence returned.

Vergil was alone again.

The night seemed denser now, as if the world were watching his next steps too closely.

He took a deep breath.

"Athena…" he murmured. "Where do you hide when you know someone is coming?"

He started walking again.

But something had changed.

The forest wasn't just receding.

It was guiding.

Involuntarily, the paths began to align. The distances seemed shorter. The divine presence he sought became clearer, more defined.

Vergil narrowed his eyes.

"Good," he said, almost satisfied. "Finally."

The transmission captured the exact moment when, in the distance, a new aura ignited.

The chaos of the forest gave way to a devastated battlefield, trees broken like shattered spears, the ground marked by circular craters and traces of divine energy still sparkling in the air.

At the center of it all was Angelo.

His armor defied simple classification: it wasn't exactly metal, nor flesh, nor pure magic.

It seemed like a body assembled, piece by piece, as if Yama had decided to build a champion with cold logic and absolute execution.

Black and violet plates fitted over a refined skeletal structure, with lines too angular for something organic.

In his chest, a core pulsed in deep purple light, like an artificial heart beating at a steady, emotionless rhythm.

The helmet completely concealed his face. No visible opening. No possible expression.

Angelo didn't breathe.

He processed.

Before him, twirling the golden staff with almost casual ease, was Wu Tian.

Unlike the knight, Wu Tian was sweating, breathing heavily, had scratches on his arms and blood trickling from the corner of his mouth—and yet, he smiled through clenched teeth, his eyes gleaming with excitement and absolute focus.

"Heh…" Wu Tian spat blood onto the ground, planting his feet firmly. "You fight like a spirit trapped in armor."

Angelo responded in the only way he knew how.

Advancing.

The impact between the two was brutal.

Wu Tian's staff collided with the serrated blade of purple energy forming on Angelo's arm. The shock generated a pressure wave that crushed surrounding trees, raising dust, leaves, and fragments of stone into the air.

Wu Tian spun the staff, using the elasticity of the copy to wrap around the knight's arm, pulling him forward and trying to break his balance.

Angelo simply anchored himself to the ground.

His boots embedded roots of dark energy into the soil, preventing any movement. Without hesitation, he spun his body at an angle impossible for a human, unleashing a direct kick to Wu Tian's chest.

Wu Tian blocked in time—but was thrown back nonetheless, dragging himself dozens of meters, breaking tree trunks until he managed to steady himself.

"Right…" Wu Tian murmured, twisting his neck. "That hurt."

He advanced again, this time multiplying the staff into three illusory copies, attacking from different angles, leaping between branches, disappearing and reappearing like a living reflection of Wukong himself.

Angelo reacted without delay.

Each blow was answered with mathematical precision. Where Wu Tian was instinct, adaptation, and improvisation, Angelo was calculation, perfect repetition, and a total absence of doubt. No wasted attack. No unnecessary movement.

The fight was… balanced.

Blow for blow. Advance for advance.

Hephaestus' drones captured everything in respectful silence.

"They're on the same level…" murmured someone in the divine audience.

Wu Tian leaped high, the staff expanding in the air as he descended with crushing force.

"LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN TAKE THIS!"

The blow descended like a celestial pillar.

Angelo crossed his arms.

The impact created a gigantic crater.

For a second, it seemed the knight had been buried.

Then… the ground exploded upwards.

Angelo slowly emerged from the dust.

And something changed.

The armor plates on his back opened with a deep metallic sound.

The wings were revealed.

They weren't feathers. Nor ordinary leather. They were organic blades, dark membranes crisscrossed by veins of purple energy, stretching out with an almost profane grandeur. Each beat made the air vibrate, as if space itself were being compressed.

Wu Tian's eyes widened.

— …ah.

Angelo rose a few meters off the ground, hovering unnaturally. The core in his chest glowed brighter.

Without warning.

Without a word.

He opened his wings completely.

A purple-black lightning bolt plummeted from the sky like a judgment.

Wu Tian tried to react, planting his staff into the ground, creating an improvised barrier—but the impact hit him squarely.

The explosion was absurd.

A line of destruction swept across the forest, vaporized trees, melted soil, the air ignited by the clash of opposing energies. Wu Tian was launched like a projectile, traversing the field, disappearing amidst debris and smoke.

As the dust began to settle…

Angelo landed slowly.

His wings retracted, closing like blades returning to their sheath.

He stood motionless, waiting.

Because, despite the devastating blow…

The combat was not yet over.

The camera shook slightly.

The dust had not yet settled when the ground shifted.

In the center of a deep crater—molten glass mixed with black earth—something rose with a dry creak.

First, a hand.

Then, the golden staff, embedded in the ground like an anchor.

Wu Tian pulled his own body out of the hole, coughing violently, spitting out dust and blood simultaneously. His clothes were torn, burned in several places, his skin marked with purple lines where Angelo's energy had pierced his defenses.

He knelt for a moment.

Breathing.

Heavily.

"Tch…" he clicked his tongue, leaning on his staff to stand. "That was… fucking powerful."

Wu Tian ran his hand over his chest, feeling the spot where the impact had hit him. There were no broken bones—barely—but the sensation was wrong. It wasn't ordinary pain. It was as if something had pierced his layers of defense and left a signature.

He frowned.

"There's… there's something wrong."

The staff in his hand vibrated slightly, reacting to his thought.

"I used everything," he continued, speaking more to himself than to the camera. "Redirection, absorption, elasticity, dissipation… all at once."

He looked up at Angelo, still standing in the distance, motionless as a funerary statue.

"Even so… it passed."

Wu Tian let out a short, humorless laugh.

"It wasn't brute force," he murmured. "It ignored the block. As if…" he made a vague gesture with his hand "…as if the attack wasn't interested in what I put in front of it."

His eyes narrowed.

"That's not ordinary technique. Nor divine. Nor demonic."

The wind swept through the crater, carrying ashes.

Wu Tian took a deep breath, straightening his stance. The fighter's smile slowly returned, but there was caution in it now.

"Heh… so that's how Yama plays."

He twirled the staff once, testing his body. He could still fight. He could still continue.

But the assessment had already been made.

Wu Tian glanced sideways at the darkened sky beyond the ravaged forest, where he knew other cameras captured other horrors.

"Vergil…" he murmured, almost casually. "You're going to have trouble with that guy."