My Wives are Beautiful Demons-Chapter 690: Real Fight
The image returns to the arena at the exact moment something goes wrong.
Not an explosion.
Not a scream.
Not a visible mistake.
But a sound.
Crack.
Athena feels it before she hears it.
The Aegis vibrates in her left arm, an impossible resonance coursing through the shield as if something were arguing with the very concept of "indestructible."
Her eyes widen.
"...No."
Vergil stands before her, too relaxed. Shoulders slumped. Posture almost nonchalant. No weapons in hand. Only clenched fists, enveloped in a blackish-red miasma that pulses like something alive, breathing along with him.
He smiles.
It's not a cruel smile.
It's worse.
It's bored.
"This here?" he says, raising his fist slowly before taking another step forward. "I always heard it was absolute."
The punch comes. Athena reflexively raises the Aegis.
BOOM.
The impact doesn't throw her back.
It doesn't tear the air.
It doesn't create shockwaves.
It sinks.
Vergil's fist collides with the shield and remains there for a fraction of a second longer than it should, as if pressing on something that should give way… but can't.
The Aegis creaks.
A thin, golden line appears on the shield's perfect surface.
A crack.
Athena freezes.
"...This is impossible."
Vergil tilts his head, curious.
"Is it?"
He throws another punch.
Harder.
CRACK.
The crack expands.
Athena feels something she hasn't felt in ages.
Panic.
"No… no, no, no…!" She forces more divine energy into the Aegis, ancient symbols rekindling, concepts of absolute protection reaffirming themselves. "You can't! The Aegis isn't matter, it isn't energy, it isn't—"
"—It's an idea." Vergil finishes calmly. "And ideas break all the time."
He advances.
A punch.
Another.
Another.
Each impact comes heavy, brutal, without refined technique, but laden with something deeper: a demonic conceptual pressure that doesn't try to destroy the Aegis.
It tries to contradict it.
Medusa watches from afar, seated on a broken rock formation, her serpentine body relaxed, the Yamato resting beside her. Her eyes gleam with an almost indecent satisfaction.
She laughs softly.
"How beautiful…" she murmurs. "He's not even trying yet."
Athena hears.
And that hurts more than the blows.
Vergil continues.
Fists shrouded in miasma strike against the shield like hammers against divine glass. Each blow leaves more marks. Microfractures. Lines branching out like webs.
Athena no longer tries to counterattack.
She only blocks. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂
Always.
"What are you?!" she screams, forcing the Aegis upwards in yet another desperate defense. "No demon should—!"
"—Should?" Vergil interrupts, his eyes gleaming with something dangerous. "You still think this is about rules?"
He appears in front of her in a blur and delivers a direct punch.
The Aegis blocks.
But this time…
CRACK—CRASH.
A golden fragment breaks loose.
It falls to the ground.
The sound echoes through the arena.
Athena looks.
Her divine heart skips a beat.
"...The Aegis... is breaking...?" Vergil observes the fragment on the ground with casual interest.
"Huh." He looks back at her. "So this is what it sounds like when a goddess loses her certainty."
Athena grits her teeth.
She recoils, for the first time.
Not strategically.
Out of fear.
"This isn't a game!" she shouts. "You're humiliating an Olympian goddess!"
Vergil shrugs.
"You summoned a demon to solve a problem." He raises his fists again. "Don't complain about the method."
He advances again.
But this time…
Athena stops.
The Aegis throbs violently in her hand, as if about to implode. The cracks spread faster now, reacting to the mere fact that Vergil exists before her.
She closes her eyes.
She breathes.
And then she decides.
"Enough."
The energy around her shifts.
The air compresses. Ancient symbols dissolve and are replaced by something more raw, more primal. The Aegis crumbles into golden particles before Vergil can strike it again.
Medusa leans forward.
"Oh?"
Vergil stops.
For the first time.
Athena raises her face.
Her eyes are no longer just golden. They burn with white light, pure, too intense to look directly at. Her armor dissolves and reconstructs itself into something new, more aggressive, less symbolic.
She ceases to be merely the goddess of wisdom.
She becomes the goddess of total war.
"If you want strength…" she says, her voice echoing with multiple layers. "Then I will stop holding back."
Divine energy explodes around her, forming waves that crack the arena floor. Her presence becomes overwhelming, oppressive, ancient.
Vergil watches in silence.
Then he smiles.
"Ah." He cracks his neck. "That's what I was waiting for."
Athena advances.
There is no more analysis.
There is no more defense.
She attacks with everything she has.
Fists, kicks, blades of divine energy shaped in the air. Each blow carries centuries of wars, strategies, massacres. She does not seek to win.
Try to erase it.
Vergil blocks the first blow with his forearm.
The impact pushes him back several meters, dragging his feet on the ground.
Medusa's eyes widen.
"He moved."
Vergil looks at his arm, where the divine energy left a superficial mark.
He laughs.
"Good." His eyes gleam. "Now we're speaking the same language."
Athena attacks again.
Vergil responds.
Fist against fist.
Divine against demonic.
The collision now generates violent shockwaves, cracking the surrounding space. Each impact sounds like a muffled, heavy, persistent thunderclap.
But even so…
The Aegis is no longer there.
And Athena misses it.
She realizes too late.
Vergil wasn't just breaking the shield.
He was breaking her dependence on him.
He appears in front of her in the blink of an eye and delivers a direct punch to her abdomen.
Athena is thrown backward, crashing through pillars of divine stone before collapsing violently to the ground.
She tries to get up.
Her body trembles.
Her chest aches.
"What… what did you do to me…?" she asks, her voice faltering.
Vergil walks slowly towards her, his fists still enveloped in miasma.
"I took you out of your comfort zone." He crouches in front of her. "Now we'll see who you are without the certainty of winning."
Medusa smiles, satisfied.
Athena looks at him.
And for the first time since the beginning of the tournament…
She doesn't see a variable.
She sees an abyss.
And understands, too late, that perhaps she never had control of this fight.
Athena spits golden blood onto the ground and, instead of cautiously trying to rise, propels herself forward.
There is no calculation.
There is no waiting.
She attacks.
The first blow comes like a direct thunderbolt, her fist enveloped in divine energy condensed to the point of distorting space. Vergil raises his arm to block, but the impact pushes him several meters back, tearing the ground beneath his feet.
Medusa's eyes widen.
"She gave up protecting herself…"
Vergil slides to a stop, leaving a deep trail in the ground. He looks up, surprised—genuinely surprised—and then smiles again.
"Finally."
Athena gives him no time.
She surges above him, descending with a vertical kick charged with murderous intent. Vergil crosses his arms and blocks, but the impact generates an explosion of energy that tears through the air and opens a crater beneath them.
Athena is already moving before the dust settles.
She no longer uses defensive formations, creates no shields, does not retreat to gain space. Every movement is now an advance. Every decision is made to hurt, not to survive.
"You wanted me to drop the Aegis?" she screams, attacking with a brutal sequence of punches, each heavier than the last. "Then endure!"
Vergil blocks two.
The third grazes her and hits his shoulder.
The impact makes the miasma around him ripple.
Medusa holds her breath.
Vergil chuckles softly.
"That's it." He spins his body and responds with a direct hook to Athena's face.
She doesn't dodge.
She accepts the blow.
The impact sends her spinning in the air, but she recovers before touching the ground and responds with a violent knee to Vergil's abdomen, forcing him to retreat once more.
They stare at each other.
Both are breathing heavily now.
The energy around the arena becomes chaotic, divine and demonic colliding without hierarchy, without structure.
"You stopped thinking," Vergil observes, wiping the corner of his mouth with his thumb. "Interesting."
"Overthinking was my mistake," Athena replies, her voice firm despite the pain. "Wisdom without action is cowardice."
She advances again, now mixing ancient war techniques with pure brutality. Low blows, direct attacks to the center of mass, clear attempts to break Vergil's rhythm instead of keeping up with him.
Vergil begins to dodge.
Not block.
Not absorb.
Dodge.
His smile widens.
"So you know how to fight for real."
They exchange blows at increasing speed. Fist against fist. Elbow against ribs. Kick against partial block. Each collision echoes like continuous thunder, without pauses, without breath.
Athena lands.
Vergil lands.
Neither of them falls.
But something has changed.
Athena senses it.
She is no longer being crushed by an unreachable presence. She is fighting against it. Hurting it. Forcing responses.
Even without the Aegis.
Even without analysis.
Vergil notices this too.
"Good choice," he says, blocking a blow by inches. "Now you're not trying to beat me."
He responds with a heavy punch to her chest, sending her flying backward.
"You're trying to catch me."
Athena crawls on the ground, struggles to her feet—and smiles.
A wild smile.
"Then stop running."
She focuses all her remaining divine energy, not for defense, not for form, but for impact. The ground beneath her feet cracks as she lunges forward, each step a direct challenge to Vergil's existence.
Vergil stands firm.
The clones around him begin to dissipate, one by one.
"Now then," he says, raising his fists. "Show me who you are without the shield."
