My Wives are Beautiful Demons-Chapter 692: End of Phase One

The word echoes louder than any previous impact.

"Weak." It doesn’t come laden with a scream. Nor with explicit anger. Vergil says it as a diagnosis... And that’s what breaks Athena.

For a second, there is no storm, no pain, no tournament. Only the sound of her own blood pulsing in her ears. The word repeats itself within her mind, colliding with everything she has built since she came into existence as a goddess.

Weak.

Athena’s jaw trembles. Her fingers close slowly, sinking into the mud like claws. Her entire body begins to vibrate, not in rhythm, not in control, but in rupture.

"No..." she murmurs first. Then louder. "No."

She rises at once. The ground explodes. Not metaphorically.

The earth is torn from the inside out, as if something were trying to escape beneath her feet. Nearby trees are uprooted, giant trunks being thrown into the air like toys. The rain evaporates upon touching her skin, transforming into hissing vapor. Divine energy begins to leak from her in chaotic waves, formless, uncontained, pure and immense.

Athena screams.

Not a war cry.

A cry of wounded identity.

"I AM NOT WEAK!"

She advances without a clear direction, each step destroying dozens of meters of forest. Rocks explode, the ground cracks into deep fissures, the sky seems to respond with even more violent thunder. The pressure of the tournament circle is pushed back forcefully, as if the very rule were being defied.

Vergil observes.

And for the first time since the beginning of that fight...

He sighs.

There is no tension in his body.

There is no excitement.

Only disappointment.

"It is..." he says, in a low, almost weary voice. "This only confirms it."

Athena stares at him, her eyes gleaming pure white, energy escaping her body like a conceptual hemorrhage.

"CONFIRM WHAT?!" she yells.

Vergil doesn’t raise his voice. "That Medusa was right."

He steps forward, completely ignoring the overwhelming pressure that would make any other entity kneel.

"You are not strong," he continues. "You are unstable."

Athena attacks.

Not with technique.

Not with clear intent.

She simply unleashes everything.

A colossal wave of divine energy sweeps through the forest, obliterating what remains of the trees, reducing rocks to dust, causing the ground to collapse into gigantic slabs that clash against each other. The world trembles as if on the verge of structural failure.

Vergil walks through the wave.

Walking.

His coat tears. His skin is scarred. But he doesn’t stop.

"You confuse power with identity," he says, cutting through the chaos like a constant blade. "And when someone touches that..."

He stops a few meters from her. "...you lose control."

Athena raises her arms, gathering enough energy to extinguish everything in front of her. The air compresses into a single point, a bright, unstable core that distorts even light.

"SHUT UP!"

Vergil closes his eyes for a moment... When he opens them, there is no patience left. "You’re trash," he says, without anger. "Not because you’re weak. But because you chose to be."

He prepares to advance.

And then— Something crosses the battlefield at high speed.

It’s not energy.

It’s not technique.

It’s a body.

It passes by Vergil like a projectile and violently strikes Athena in the flank, the impact so brutal that the energy accumulated within her scatters in all directions like broken glass. Athena is thrown dozens of meters, rolling across the destroyed ground until she stops amidst smoldering debris.

Silence.

Vergil slowly turns his face away.

His eyes narrow.

In front of him, standing with a posture too relaxed for that apocalyptic scene, is Shura.

Shiva’s son.

The smile on his face isn’t arrogant.

It’s excited.

Like someone who just arrived at an interesting party.

"Damn," Shura says, cracking his neck. "You guys really wrecked the place."

Vergil doesn’t respond immediately.

His gaze shifts to the body that had been thrown.

Lying a few meters ahead.

Angelo.

The body is broken in several places. Mechanical parts exposed. Wires dangling. One arm clearly unusable. Still, the core in his chest pulses with constant light.

Regenerating. The systems reboot with muffled metallic sounds.

Angelo stirs.

He rises.

Stiffly. Precisely. Robotically.

He looks first at Athena, still fallen, trying to compose herself, her gaze confused, her divine energy now too unstable to focus.

Then at Vergil.

Then at Shura.

Processing.

"Unit Angelo," he says, his metallic voice faltering for a split second. "Status: operational."

Athena forces her body to partially rise, her eyes wide.

"Who..." she tries to say, but her voice fails.

Vergil lets out a short, humorless laugh.

"So you’ve arrived," he says to Shura.

Shura walks over to him and, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, gives him a light pat on the shoulder.

"Am I late?" he asks, still smiling. "This guy is complicated. He adapts to everything, the guy took a Tandava in the mouth and he’s alive. That’s crazy! And this little brat over there? What happened?"

Vergil glances at Angelo, who remains motionless, analyzing the surroundings, and then returns his gaze to Shura.

"She lost control," Vergil says. "She was going to ruin everything. She’s acting like a child."

Shura observes Athena with genuine interest, tilting his head slightly.

"Yeah," he comments. "You can see that."

Athena grits her teeth, trying to gather energy again, but the flow doesn’t respond. The excess fluid that leaked out left fissures. Her body trembles.

"You..." she growls. "You think you can—"

Vergil ignores her.

He stares at Shura.

"Did you come to intervene?" he asks.

Shura raises his hands defensively.

"Hey, hey. Not at all." He smiles wider. "I just saw you were having fun and I thought..."

He points with his thumb to himself.

"...can I join in?"

Vergil observes the smile.

He observes the relaxed posture.

He observes how Shura shows not a trace of fear, even in the face of someone who had just broken an Olympian goddess.

Then, Vergil smiles too.

A short smile.

Dangerous.

"Fight together?" he asks.

Shura nods, excited.

"Fight together," he confirms. "It’s been a while since I’ve hit something truly tough."

Angelo steps forward.

His joints creak.

"The protocol doesn’t call for cooperation," he says.

Vergil glances at him sideways.

"Then update the protocol."

Angelo is silent for a moment.

Then nods.

"Protocol updated."

Athena looks from one to the other, understanding finally crashing down like an icy blade.

It wasn’t a fight.

It never was.

She tries to stand fully.

She manages.

Staggering.

Wounded.

Her pride in tatters.

Vergil steps forward.

Shura steps forward, beside him.

Angelo positions himself behind, his systems humming as they complete regeneration.

Vergil looks at Athena.

"I told you I was going to end this," he says. "But I changed my mind." He clenches his fists. "We’re going to finish you off."

The storm rages.

The tournament circle closes completely.

Shura and Vergil don’t need to say anything more.

The understanding is immediate, almost automatic, like two veterans who have shared too many battlefields to need words. Shura cracks his fists, his smile too wide for the situation, while Vergil takes a half-step forward, his body relaxing in that dangerous state where everything becomes simple.

"Shall we go?" Shura asks, already leaning forward.

Vergil replies with a half-smile. "Let’s go."

They advance together.

Not in a straight line.

They separate at the last second.

Vergil disappears to the side, appearing low, fast, aiming at Athena before she can even reorganize the flow of divine energy. Shura goes high, propelling himself with brute force, descending like a human meteor, his fist clenched, the impact announced even before it happens. Athena reacts instinctively.

She raises her arm to block Vergil.

Mistake.

Shura strikes first.

His punch carries no refined technique, nor divine concept. It is pure condensed violence. The impact hits Athena’s shoulder and throws her to the side, the ground splitting again beneath her body.

Vergil is already there.

He enters the space opened by Shura’s blow and delivers a sharp kick to Athena’s abdomen, lifting her off the ground. Before she falls, Shura appears behind her, grabbing her arm and twisting his entire body to throw her against the ground with enough force to make the earth scream.

Athena bounces.

Once.

Twice.

She tries to stand, but Vergil steps beside her head, the ground cracking beneath his heel.

"Get up," he says coldly. "You haven’t been beaten enough to learn."

Athena growls, gathering what remains of her energy, the air around her beginning to vibrate again—

"Oh, no," Shura comments, appearing beside Vergil. "She’ll try to blow everything up again."

He raises his fist.

Vergil leans forward.

They attack simultaneously.

And then—

"EEEEEEEEEEEEE—"

The voice echoes.

It doesn’t come from the sky.

It doesn’t come from the arena.

It simply exists.

"ATTENTION, ATTENTION, CHAOTIC BEINGS, ILL-MANNERED DEITIES, AND IMPATIENT DEMONS!"

The world freezes.

Literally.

The impact that was about to happen never materializes.

The forest vanishes.

The storm evaporates.

The ground dissolves into light.

Vergil and Shura blink.

"Damn it," Vergil says.

"Damn it," Shura repeats at the same time.

"END OF THE FIRST PHASE OF THE TOURNAMENT!" Loki announces, too euphoric for someone who just saved a goddess from being torn to pieces. "Surviving participants will be relocated immediately!"

"FUCK YOU, LOKI!" Vergil shouts.

"FUCK YOU!" Shura echoes, pointing.

Reality bends one last time.

And then—

The Colosseum.

The stands reappear in the blink of an eye, teeming with gods, entities, and cosmic horrors too numerous to fit into any organized pantheon. The divine marble floor is intact, clean, as if nothing had happened.

Vergil stands in the center of the arena.

And Loki is right in front of him.

Too close.

Much too close.

Loki leans forward, hands clasped at his chest, making an exaggerated pout.

"Damn it," he says, his voice heavy with feigned hurt. "Why are you cursing me like that?"

Vergil closes his eyes for a second.

Opens them.

Stares at Loki.

"You took me out in the middle of the fight."

Loki brings his hand to his face, sniffing dramatically. Small, fake tears begin to trickle down.

"But you had a whole hour," he replies dramatically. "A whole hour! He could have just killed Athena, right? Quickly. Damn..."

He wipes away a non-existent tear.

"That hurts," he adds, pointing to his own heart. "It hurt."