My Wives are Beautiful Demons-Chapter 688: Desperate Strategy

Vergil chuckles softly behind her.

Not mocking.

Not cruel.

Almost… indulgent.

"Relax," he says, loosening his grip just enough for Athena to feel the difference. "She's not weak."

Athena stiffens.

Vergil's presence remains split—one behind her, one still seated far away—both perfectly real, neither fading, neither collapsing. The contradiction presses against her perception like a splinter in the mind.

"She's nervous," he continues calmly. "Overloaded. Too many unresolved vectors pulling at the same time. Trauma, rage, expectation." His tone is casual, analytical, as if discussing weather patterns. "That's why she isn't fighting with everything she has."

Medusa hears it.

Even through the ringing in her ears.

Even through the pain screaming in her nerves.

Her eyes widen slightly.

Her face heats.

"…I—" she tries to speak, but the words tangle somewhere between indignation and something far more embarrassing.

Vergil glances toward her without turning his head.

"And yes," he adds mildly, "you heard that."

Medusa's cheeks darken beneath cracked scales, a faint hiss escaping her throat in reflexive protest. "I'm not—!"

"I know," Vergil cuts in gently. "You're trying too hard."

He finally releases Athena's wrists and steps forward, placing himself squarely between goddess and Gorgon, hands slipping into his coat pockets like this is a mild inconvenience rather than a battlefield littered with shattered concepts.

"Athena broke your rhythm," he continues, addressing Medusa now, though his words carry just as clearly to the gods watching above. "Not because she's stronger. Because she forced you to care about the outcome."

Medusa clenches her fists.

"That's… that's not—"

"That's exactly it," Vergil says, turning fully to face her now. His eyes soften—not with pity, but with recognition. "The moment you started fighting to prove something, you stopped fighting freely."

Silence ripples outward.

Athena straightens behind him, regaining composure, though unease crawls beneath her calm exterior.

"You presume a great deal," she says coolly.

Vergil tilts his head slightly.

"Do I?" He smiles faintly. "Because from where I'm standing, she's holding herself back out of fear."

Medusa flinches.

Vergil raises a finger before she can protest.

"Not fear of dying," he clarifies. "Fear of losing control."

Her jaw tightens.

Vergil nods once, satisfied.

"Thought so."

He exhales slowly, gaze lifting briefly toward the sky—toward the unseen weight of gods, contracts, and eyes that have always judged from above.

"I get it," he continues quietly. "I really do."

His voice drops a register.

"If I were you—devoted, betrayed, punished for someone else's crime, erased, rewritten, dragged back into a system that never apologized—"

His smile fades.

"—I'd go insane too."

Medusa's breath catches.

Not because of the words.

Because of the understanding behind them.

Vergil looks back at Athena.

"That's why," he says evenly, "I'm not letting this contract fail."

Athena narrows her eyes.

"Contract?" she repeats. "This was never—"

Vergil moves.

No warning.

No build-up.

One moment he is standing casually between them—

—and the next, his hand connects with Athena's face.

The sound is not thunderous.

It's sharp.

A flat, brutal crack that snaps through the air like a broken rule.

Athena doesn't have time to react.

She doesn't raise the Aegis.

She doesn't teleport.

She doesn't calculate.

She flies.

Her body is launched backward as if struck by a god-sized projectile, tearing across the arena in a blur of gold and white before smashing through three layers of stone and crashing into the far wall with a concussive boom that rattles the entire coliseum.

The impact sends shockwaves through the field.

Debris rains down.

The gods above erupt into chaos.

"What—?!"

"That force—!"

"Impossible—!"

Medusa stares.

Her mouth is slightly open.

Her breath caught halfway between shock and something else entirely.

She had seen Vergil strike Athena's apostle before.

She had felt his power in proximity.

But this—

This was different.

He didn't overflow with energy.

He didn't flare.

He didn't even look like he tried.

Vergil shakes his hand once, as if loosening a stiff joint.

"Hm," he mutters. "Still rusty."

Medusa swallows.

"…Why," she manages, voice unsteady, "why are you stronger?"

Vergil glances at her over his shoulder.

And smiles.

Not smug.

Not proud.

Just… honest.

"Because," he says simply, "you're not the only one who stopped holding back."

The air shifts.

Athena emerges from the rubble.

Slowly.

Her armor cracked.

Blood—divine, luminous—trickling from the corner of her mouth.

Her eyes are wide.

Not with rage.

With disbelief.

"That blow…" she breathes. "That wasn't demonic amplification."

Vergil turns fully toward her now.

"No," he agrees. "It wasn't."

He takes a step forward.

Then another.

Each footfall feels heavier than the last, not because of force—but because of certainty.

"You've been watching me fight this entire tournament," he continues calmly. "Measuring. Categorizing. Deciding where I fit."

Athena steadies herself, summoning the Aegis instinctively.

Vergil raises a hand.

The shield freezes mid-materialization.

Not blocked.

Paused.

"…But you never asked the right question," he says.

Her breath hitches.

"And what question would that be?" she demands.

Vergil's eyes narrow slightly.

"Why I bother pretending to be measurable at all."

The pressure hits.

Not like gravity.

Like authority collapsing.

Athena stumbles back a step, forced to brace herself as the conceptual framework she relies on—classification, hierarchy, defined limits—begins to buckle under something fundamentally incompatible.

Vergil gestures vaguely toward Medusa.

"She's unstable because she's trying to exist inside a system that already condemned her," he says. "You analyzed her as a combatant."

He points at Athena.

"That was your mistake."

He lowers his hand.

"And now," he continues softly, "I'm correcting your error."

Athena bares her teeth.

"You think striking me proves dominance?"

Vergil stops.

Looks at her.

And laughs.

"No," he says. "It proves relevance."

He turns slightly, addressing the entire arena now.

"This contract will be fulfilled," he declares. "Medusa will not be discarded. Not as a lesson. Not as a warning. Not as collateral for divine comfort."

Medusa's chest tightens.

Vergil glances back at her.

"And you," he adds, tone gentler, "are going to learn control."

She stiffens.

"…You're going to teach me?" she asks quietly.

Vergil smirks.

"Someone has to," he replies. "Before you tear yourself apart trying to scare gods who've never been afraid a day in their existence."

She looks away.

Flustered.

Angry.

But… relieved.

Vergil faces Athena one last time.

"You're done analyzing," he says flatly. "From here on out, you react."

Athena lifts herself fully upright, fury and caution warping her expression.

"You've crossed a line," she says.

Vergil tilts his head.

"Which one?" he asks lightly. "The one you drew… or the one you assumed I wouldn't step over?"

The field trembles.

Medusa feels it.

Not escalation.

Not chaos.

Resolution.

Vergil cracks his neck once.

"Now," he says, voice calm, deadly steady, "let's finish this properly."

The first thing Athena realizes is that… there is no time.

There is no interval between thought and consequence.

There is no room for hypotheses, simulations, strategic ramifications.

There is no before.

There is only impact.

Vergil appears before her like a glitch in the world, space bending for an instant—and then the fist comes. It is not adorned with visible energy, it carries no symbols or divine authority. It is a bare, direct blow, heavy enough to make the surrounding reality groan.

Athena raises the Aegis reflexively.

The impact explodes against the shield with a dry rumble, so violent that her arms recoil involuntarily, her feet tearing furrows in the ground as she is pushed several meters back. The vibration rises through her bones, crosses her divine body, and for an instant—just one—she feels something she hasn't felt in ages.

Pain.

Not symbolic.

Not ritual.

Physical.

Vergil doesn't follow through.

He's already there. Another punch.

The Aegis reappears, materialized with instinctive perfection. The blow hits her before Athena can even regain her previous stance. The sound is different now—not of collision, but of something being forced beyond what it should withstand. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Athena grits her teeth.

She tries to move sideways.

Vergil follows.

He doesn't anticipate—he follows.

She tries to gain distance.

He advances without accelerating, and yet he arrives first.

Athena abandons any attempt to dodge.

Not because she doesn't want to.

But because she can't.

Every time she tries to get out of the direct line, the world simply… doesn't allow it. The space closes. The angle disappears. The decision becomes useless before it's even made.

So she does the only thing possible.

She blocks.

Always.

The Aegis becomes constant, almost permanent, an absolute wall between her and something that insists on crossing.

Vergil attacks without pause. Fist after fist.

Each blow isn't faster—it's heavier. As if each impact carried an extra layer of reality, as if the world were being piled against the shield.

Athena feels her arms begin to give way.

Not break.

Give way.

"Impossible…" she murmurs through her teeth.

Vergil doesn't answer.

He doesn't taunt.

He doesn't explain.

He just continues.

Then—

Something changes.

Athena blocks another blow…

and realizes it came from the wrong angle.

She reacts too late.

The impact hits the Aegis, but not in the center—on the edge. The shield vibrates unevenly, the force being distributed imperfectly. Athena is thrown to the side, rolling, the ground cracking beneath her body.

She rises quickly.

And freezes.

Vergil is in front of her.

And also…

to her left.

And to her right.

And behind.

One.

Two.

Four.

Athena feels her divine heart race.

"Clones…" she begins to analyze, desperately trying to reconstruct the logic. "No—they are projections—temporal reflections—"

She doesn't finish the thought.

The punches come.

All of them.

At the same time.

The Aegis emerges in multiple layers, fragments, overlaps, tries to keep up—but now the blows don't come in sequence. They come in convergence.

Athena blocks one.

Another crosses the space she didn't foresee.

She blocks two.

A third hits her from the side, throwing her against a column.

Four Vergils become eight.

Eight become sixteen.

There is no more pattern.

There is no more center.

Athena spins, trying to maintain spatial awareness, trying to decide which is the real one—and then realizes the fundamental mistake.

They are all real.

Each Vergil has weight.

Each fist generates impact.

Each presence bends the world in the same way.

She raises the Aegis again, almost in despair now, creating a complete defensive dome.

The blows fall like rain.

Not violent in the chaotic sense—methodical. Precise. Calculated not to break everything at once, but to crush little by little.

Athena feels the pressure increase.

Feels the shield vibrate incorrectly.

Feels something crack.

Not physically.

Conceptually.

"No…" she whispers, her eyes wide.

She tries to speak.

To try to assert authority.

To try to remind the world who she is.

But the voice won't come out.

Because, for the first time, Athena is not being confronted as a goddess.

She is being treated as an obstacle.

The blows intensify.

The ground sinks.

The dome of the Aegis begins to collapse inward, not breaking, but being compressed, reduced, forced to occupy less space than it should.

Athena feels the panic rising.

Real.

Raw.

She realizes there is no time to analyze.

No time to adapt.

No time to think.

Only to resist.

And resisting…

is becoming impossible.

Back there, Medusa watches in absolute silence.

She doesn't smile.

She doesn't celebrate.

She just understands.

Vergil is not fighting to defeat Athena.

He is taking away her right to decide how to fight.

And when Athena finally realizes this, when the weight becomes unbearable, when the Aegis groans under the pressure of sixteen identical wills…

She does something she hasn't done since before she was called a goddess.

She panics.

And Vergil…

smiles.