My Wives are Beautiful Demons-Chapter 683: Demonic Contract.

The next blow had no recognizable form.

It wasn't a punch, nor a kick, nor a defined impact that could be analyzed as a common physical attack.

It was as if Vergil had decided that her existence at that point in space was too inconvenient to remain untouched.

The force surged through the air before the movement even finished, crushing the space around her body and launching her upwards with enough violence to distort her very perception of up and down.

That small world inside the coliseum spun, the sky merged with the ground, and then came the fall—brutal, chaotic, definitive.

She crashed into the ground like a meteor without glory, opening an irregular crater, the impact shattering rock, earth, and remnants of ancient enchantments.

The sound echoed across the field like a dry thunderclap.

Her body lay partially buried, limbs at awkward angles, her shield thrown far away, rolling uselessly until it stopped several meters away. The air left her lungs in a single, silent spasm.

Before she could even try to move, Vergil was already there.

To her, again, he simply appeared.

His hand closed around her ankle, and without any effort, he lifted her off the ground like someone pulling a disposable object.

Her body was dragged through the air and then hurled against a nearby rock formation.

The impact pulverized the stone, but her body absorbed almost all of it. Bones shattered with dry cracks, her left arm twisted unnaturally, ribs buckled under the absurd compression.

She tried to scream.

No sound came out.

Vergil walked towards her with absolute calm, observing the state he had left her in like an artisan assessing a poorly finished piece.

He crouched down, cupped her face in one hand, squeezing hard enough to make her world shrink into a tunnel of pain, and then slammed her head against the floor once, twice, three times, each impact drawing more blood, more consciousness, more resistance.

When he released her, her body fell inert for a full second.

Dead.

Or almost.

The blood splattered around her began to move.

As if responding to a silent command, the pools trembled, gathered, returned to her body.

Vergil stood as veins lit up beneath her skin, bones realigned with grotesque cracks, muscles forcibly rebuilt themselves.

The process wasn't gentle, nor quick enough to avoid the pain when consciousness violently returned.

She gasped.

The first sigh came with a hoarse, involuntary scream, as her newly restored body tried to understand why it was still there.

"No," she murmured, more to herself than to him, trying to crawl away, trying to reach the fallen shield.

Vergil stepped on her back.

Not with full force.

Just enough to keep her on the ground.

"Not yet," he replied calmly.

His foot pressed harder.

Her spine gave way.

The sound was low, horrible.

She screamed this time.

Vergil withdrew his foot and, before her body could die again, the blood responded once more. Vertebrae rearranged, nerves reconnected, pain exploded in all directions as forced healing restored function to something that should have remained broken. She rolled on the ground, trembling, her face pressed against the earth, involuntary tears mixed with blood.

Vergil grabbed her by the hair and lifted her again.

"Flame," he said, without raising his voice.

She didn't answer.

He sighed, slightly disappointed.

Then the real massacre began.

The next minute stretched like a fragmented eternity. Vergil didn't use complex sequences or elaborate techniques; he simply destroyed her repeatedly, exploring every physical and conceptual limit of her body. A punch pierced her abdomen, opening an irregular hole that caused her to collapse instantly. Before her body cooled, the blood returned, stitching together viscera, reconstructing organs under muffled screams.

He threw her against the ground so many times that the landscape began to lose shape, craters overlapping, the field becoming unrecognizable. He broke her legs, then her arms, then her neck—and every time death tried to take hold, he pulled back, like someone refusing to let a toy break completely.

At one point, he pierced her chest with two fingers, ripped out her still-beating heart, observed it for a second with clinical curiosity, and then pushed it back inside her body, forcing the blood to seal everything while she screamed until her voice failed.

In another, he crushed her skull against her own shield, cracking the Aegis along with the bone, as if to prove that not even ancient symbols escaped unscathed. Still, he healed her afterward, leaving the shield lying aside, useless, while she writhed on the ground, her whole body trembling.

The purple gas approached dangerously, but avoided Vergil like an animal recognizing a superior predator. The entire field seemed to exist only for that spectacle of one-sided violence.

She began to lose track of time.

The deaths mingled.

The healings became indistinguishable from the pain.

Each time she opened her eyes, he was there. Sometimes smiling. Sometimes just observing. Never tired. Never rushed.

"You're resilient," he commented at one point, lifting her by the neck, his fingers digging into the newly regenerated flesh. "For someone who still insists on calling herself a champion."

She tried to speak.

Only blood came out.

He let go of her, let her body fall and break once more before pulling her back from the brink of death with a lazy gesture of his hand.

When consciousness returned, she didn't scream.

She just breathed.

Gasping.

Trembling.

Her eyes lost for a moment too long.

Vergil tilted his head, observing the change.

"You're beginning to understand," he said. "There's no victory here. Only duration."

He approached, crouching in front of her, at her eye level. The field reflected in his blue eyes as something distant, irrelevant.

"You can keep taking it," he continued, "or you can call her now and spare your body from further… adjustments."

She slowly raised her gaze.

Her face was covered in fresh, dried blood, her armor shattered in several places, her breathing uneven. Yet, there was something there. Something that wouldn't give way.

"Lady… Athena…" she whispered, the word almost inaudible.

Vergil didn't respond to the whisper immediately.

For a moment, he simply observed her face, smeared with blood and dirt, her eyes still ablaze with a loyalty he considered almost admirable.

Then, without warning, he grabbed her by the shoulder and hurled her against the ground again, not with the crushing force of before, but with enough precision to leave her sprawled out, the impact eliciting a low groan as her body still recovered from the last forced healings. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Before she could move, Vergil was already on his feet, walking a few steps to one of Hephaestus' drones floating near the field, its metallic casing vibrating nervously in his presence. With one hand, he grasped it in mid-air, his fingers sinking into the enchanted metal as if it were clay, sparking and causing the divine symbols on the casing to flicker in despair.

He returned to her, holding the drone as if it were an ordinary flashlight, and leaned forward, pointing the lens directly at the fallen competitor's face, forcing her to stare at her own distorted reflection in the polished surface of the camera.

The hum of the artifact echoed low, transmitting everything to the entire coliseum, to the gods, to the spectators who watched in heavy silence.

"Repeat it," Vergil said, his voice firm, impatient, as he brought the lens even closer, capturing every involuntary tremor, every faltering breath. "Say her name again."

She swallowed hard. Her whole body ached, but something inside her understood that this pain was no longer the worst that could happen. Her lips moved with difficulty, and then her voice came out, clearer than before, echoing across the field and the coliseum.

"How unbearable," she said, now audible, now undeniable.

The air responded.

Not with light, nor with thunder, but with presence. Something ancient and heavy slid into the field, compressing the space around the competitor's body. Vergil smiled slowly, lowering the drone just enough to observe the change.

"Ah… there you are," he said, raising his gaze to the void, as if facing someone invisible just ahead. "You know, I expected more resilience. A goddess of strategy allowing her champion to be ground down like this? What a disappointment."

The aura surrounding the body on the ground intensified, and the blood that still stained the skin began to move again, but this time not under Vergil's control.

The wounds closed with unnatural gentleness, bones aligning without cracking, muscles restoring themselves without pain.

In a few seconds, her body was whole, intact, as if nothing had happened. When she opened her eyes, something in them had changed. The exhaustion was still there, but behind it was a cold clarity, too ancient to belong to that flesh.

She stood up slowly, unhurriedly, her movements controlled, her gaze now fixed on Vergil. When she spoke, her voice was no longer just hers. There was another cadence, another authority vibrating in each syllable.

"Why do you want to hurt me so badly?" she questioned, not in anger, but analytically, like someone dismantling a logical problem.

Vergil inclined his head, genuinely satisfied.

"Ah, it's personal and it isn't, it's complicated," he replied calmly.

"I'm just fulfilling a contract." He took a few steps back, giving her space, allowing her to stand fully, as if it were a courtesy.

"And before you ask…", he continued, noticing the intention in her gaze, "…who would hire a Demon King to provoke a goddess?"

His smile widened. "My familiar spirit."

He clapped his hands.

The sound echoed out of sorts, distorted, and immediately a gigantic circle of demonic magic formed beneath the champion's feet.

Infernal runes intertwined with ancient arcane symbols, layers upon layers of sealing activating simultaneously, trapping not only her body, but something much deeper.

The presence that had descended at that instant tried to retreat—too late.

Athena's soul was pulled into the servant's body like an anchor being forcibly driven in, sealed, compressed, isolated from her own divine body.

Vergil watched everything with almost reverent attention.

"Now," he said, circling her, "your soul is physically outside your divine body. Vulnerable. Limited." He stopped in front of her, his blue eyes gleaming with expectation. "Exactly as requested."

With a fluid movement, he drew Yamato. The blade cut through the air, and with a single precise strike, Vergil opened a portal before them, the fissure revealing a dark, viscous space teeming with petrified serpents and ancient whispers.

He stepped aside and made a casual gesture with his hand, as if presenting something to a guest.

"She is all yours."

From the portal, something moved.

A figure emerged slowly, scales gleaming in shades of deep green and black, serpentine hair writhing with hungry expectation.

Golden eyes immediately fixed on the sealed body before her, and a slow, cruel smile formed on its lips.

Athena froze.

"It's been a while. Divine trash." Medusa said smiling, while lightly embracing Vergil's arm. "Thank you, darling." she said and kissed his cheek.

Vergil just smiled and playfully rubbed the snakes on her head against his cheek, then created a throne and sat down. "Summoning Familiars isn't forbidden, right?" He said, smiling at the Drone.

"I'll just relax and let her deal with Athena." Vergil said and crossed his legs, "The first phase is over anyway." He smiled.