My Wives are Beautiful Demons-Chapter 691: Because... you are weak.

Vergil takes another step forward, and then another, not hastily, not with explicit threat, but with the tranquility of someone who has finally found the kind of silence that precedes something serious. The storm around the forest slowly approaches, the sky darkening in leaden tones, the wind gaining weight, carrying the scent of wet earth and electricity. Tall trees creak, leaves fall, and the tournament circle begins to close like an inevitable sentence.

Athena plants her feet firmly on the uneven ground, crushing ancient roots beneath her divine sandals. Her body still emanates energy, but now she contains it, not out of prudence, but out of focus. Her eyes follow Vergil’s every micro-movement, every shift in weight, every adjustment of posture. There are no more shields. No more absolute concepts. Just two bodies about to collide.

Vergil raises his hands.

There is no miasma.

There is no demonic aura.

Nothing but defined muscles, perfect posture, and an absurdly stable center of gravity.

"Then let’s do this right," he says, almost casually. "No excuses."

Athena replies without a word.

She steps forward first.

The ground explodes under her momentum, earth and leaves flying backward as her fist comes straight at Vergil’s face, charged not with divine energy, but with pure intent. Vergil tilts his torso by a hair’s breadth, the blow passing close to his face, and immediately responds with a low, spinning kick aimed at her ankle.

Athena leaps, Vergil’s foot sweeping the void, and in mid-air she twists her body, descending with a downward kick that would shatter a wall. Vergil crosses his arms and blocks.

The impact is brutal.

The sound echoes through the forest like dry thunder, nearby trees trembling, trunks cracking with the shockwave. Vergil sinks a few inches into the ground, but doesn’t fall. He slides backward, carving a deep furrow in the earth, and grins slightly.

"Good base," he comments.

Athena doesn’t respond. She’s already moving again.

She spins her body and unleashes a sequence of short, precise blows, punches and elbows that don’t seek maximum force, but rather a break in rhythm. Vergil takes a step back, then two, blocking some blows, dodging others by millimeters, feeling the impact vibrate in his bones. A punch passes through his guard and grazes his rib, eliciting a low grunt.

He responds with an explosive knee strike.

Athena crosses her forearms at the last instant, but the impact still throws her against a colossal tree. The trunk splits in two when she collides, wood shattering, branches falling like rain. Before she can recover, Vergil is already there.

He doesn’t give her time.

A straight punch.

Another.

A hook that comes from below.

Athena blocks the first blow, accepts the second on her shoulder, and twists her body to lessen the impact of the third, feeling the air escape her lungs. She responds with a short, brutal headbutt that hits Vergil’s nose and sends him stumbling back half a step.

Blood.

Red.

Vergil touches his nose, observes the blood on his fingers, and lets out a short laugh. "Ah... it’s been a while."

Athena seizes the moment and advances, using the fallen tree trunk as momentum. She runs along the slanted wood and leaps, spinning in the air with a double kick that forces Vergil to defend with his forearms. The impact throws him against another tree, which bends dangerously before collapsing.

They fall together.

Rolls on the ground.

Dirt, leaves, roots.

Vergil gets up first, but Athena is already in front of him, attacking with a sequence of quick kicks, alternating heights, forcing him to move sideways. One kick lands on her thigh, another on her flank, the third he narrowly blocks.

He responds with a full body spin, using his own momentum to deliver a roundhouse kick that catches Athena in the face. The impact sends her spinning in the air before she falls to her knees, creating a shallow crater.

She spits golden blood.

She smiles.

"So this is how you fight without power," she says, rising slowly. "Raw. Direct."

Vergil tilts his head. "That’s enough."

The storm roars louder now. A lightning bolt cuts across the sky, illuminating the forest in white for an instant. The wind howls through the broken trees, and the pressure of the circle is felt, as if the world itself were pushing them closer.

They advance at the same time.

Fist against fist.

The impact is dry, heavy, almost intimate. Neither of them recoils. Athena swings her arm and attempts a throw, using her hip to break Vergil’s balance, but he anticipates the movement, plants his foot on the ground, and responds with a downward elbow strike that hits her back.

She falls forward, rolls, and rises in a single movement, responding with a sweep that knocks Vergil down. Before he touches the ground, she leaps and attempts to crush him with a downward kick.

Vergil rolls to the side.

Athena’s blow hits the ground and causes it to explode, opening a deep crater, exposed roots snapping like wires. Vergil rises from the dust and advances with a sequence of quick, almost invisible blows, striking his abdomen, ribs, and shoulder.

Athena feels every impact.

There is no cushioning.

There is no shield.

She screams, not from pain, but from exertion, and responds with a straight punch that catches Vergil in the jaw. The crack echoes. He spins his head, spits blood, but doesn’t fall.

They exchange blows at an increasing pace, ever closer, ever more violent. Trees are uprooted by bodies hurled against them. Rocks emerge and shatter. The forest floor ceases to exist as terrain and becomes a field of craters and debris.

Athena leaps, using a leaning tree trunk for support, and descends with a flurry of kicks that forces Vergil to retreat clearly for the first time. He blocks two; the third hits him in the chest and throws him against a rock formation, which shatters into pieces.

He slowly rises, breathing more heavily now.

"You learn fast," he says, wiping the blood from his chin.

"And you talk too much," Athena replies, advancing.

She changes her rhythm.

She stops attacking in long sequences and starts using single, precise blows, interspersed with feints. A feint, a real low kick, a sudden advance followed by an immediate retreat. Vergil frowns, adjusting his posture, forced to react for real.

A mistake.

A small one.

Athena sees it.

She enters the space and delivers a punch to his liver.

Vergil bends slightly, air escaping his lungs, and Athena seizes the opportunity to grab him by the shoulder and throw him with full force against the ground. The impact creates a shockwave that knocks down trees in a wide radius.

Before he can get up, she leaps and strikes him with a downward kick to the chest.

Vergil sinks even further into the ground.

Silence for half a second.

Then he laughs.

He rises from within the crater like someone emerging from a pool, his body scarred, dirty with earth, but his eyes gleaming with something alive, intense.

"That’s it," he says, serious now. "Now it’s a fight."

They advance again, and this time there is no conversation, no pauses. Just continuous impact. Fists break trunks. Kicks launch bodies through the air. The forest gives way, the terrain turns to ruin.

The storm finally reaches the center.

Heavy rain falls, mixing with blood and dirt, making the ground slippery. Lightning illuminates the two in violent, almost mythical silhouettes.

Athena slips, regains her balance, and still advances, hitting Vergil with a punch to the face that makes him spin. He responds with a knee to the abdomen, bending her in half, and finishes with a kick that throws her against what remains of a tree.

She gets up with difficulty.

He too.

Both are injured.

Both are smiling.

The storm closes the circle.

Vergil takes another step forward. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

This time, the ground doesn’t react.

There’s no explosion, no visible displacement, no display of power. Only the heavy sound of his foot sinking slightly into the rain-soaked mud. Still, Athena feels it.

Feels it even before she understands.

Something has changed.

The air around him seems denser, as if space were being compressed imperceptibly. It’s not energy. It’s not aura. It’s not power explicitly released. It’s weight. Presence. The unsettling feeling that, until now, she had been fighting an incomplete version.

Vergil cracks his neck slowly, his muscles adjusting beneath skin marked with cuts and bruises.

"You hold up well," he says, in an almost respectful tone. "Most would have given up already."

Athena wipes the golden blood trickling from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. Her arms tremble slightly, not from fear, but from accumulated exhaustion. Every muscle screams, every breath weighs heavily. Still, she maintains her posture.

"Don’t come praising me now," she replies. "Fight."

Vergil smiles.

But it’s not the smile from before.

There’s no more explicit amusement.

It’s a calm smile.

Controlled.

"I’m already fighting," he says. "I just wasn’t using everything."

Before Athena can respond, he lunges forward.

Not at absurd speed.

Not with a dramatic leap.

He simply... appears.

The first punch strikes Athena’s forearm before she even finishes raising her guard. The impact is unlike anything that came before. It doesn’t explode, it doesn’t throw, it doesn’t create visible waves. It enters.

The force pierces through.

Athena feels her bones vibrate, her entire arm being pushed back against her own body. She spins, loses her balance, barely manages to adjust her feet before a second blow comes, this time a short kick, straight to the side of her leg.

She falls to her knees in the mud.

"What...?" she murmurs, surprised.

Vergil gives her no space.

He hits her with a downward punch to the back, slamming her even further into the ground. Mud splatters, the impact echoes dull, and Athena feels the air ripped from her lungs. She rolls to the side by pure instinct, escaping a blow that would have crushed her head against the ground.

She struggles to her feet, attacking with a wide kick to push him away.

Vergil blocks with a single hand.

He catches it.

Her foot stops in mid-air.

Athena’s eyes widen.

Vergil clenches his fingers.

The pressure mounts, not like crushing, but like something testing structural limits. Athena feels her ankle protest, her knee threaten to give way.

He releases her and, in the same movement, delivers an open punch to her chest.

Athena is thrown several meters backward, sliding through the mud until she collides with a half-buried rock. The stone shatters. The impact reverberates through her body like a broken bell.

She tries to stand.

Her legs fail once.

Twice.

She takes a deep breath, forces her body to obey, and manages to stand, albeit unsteadily.

Vergil is already there.

Very close.

"You felt the difference," he says, in a neutral tone. "You did, didn’t you?"

Athena clenches her teeth.

"You..." She breathes heavily. "You were holding back."

"Yes."

The answer is too simple.

She attacks again, with everything she has left, a desperate sequence of quick, direct blows, trying to regain control of the fight. Vergil moves between them with disturbing ease. Not only dodging, but repositioning her body with touches, minimal pushes, angle adjustments that make her attacks miss by centimeters.

He guides her.

As if he were training.

Or playing.

Athena attempts a straight punch.

Vergil enters the strike, closes the distance, and hits her abdomen with a short, sharp blow that bends her body in half. Before she falls, he grabs her by the shoulder and throws her against the ground with enough force to open another crater.

She lies there for a second.

The world spins.

The rain hits her face.

She tries to breathe.

Vergil walks to the edge of the crater and looks down, calm.

"You fought with everything," he says. "I respected that."

Athena raises her head, her gaze burning with anger and disbelief.

"Then why...?" She swallows hard. "Why does it seem so... uneven now?"

Vergil tilts his head slightly. "Because you are weak."