"So if you are good enough, you may try your luck with the Trimurti, and perhaps, in a few decades, you can stretch your wings high in the sky."
Yhwach casually stated as he motioned for Valiana to follow him. When they reached the initial agreement, it was decided that she would go with Yhwach back to the Divine Realm of the Hindu Pantheon, where she would be safe from the Old Satan Faction.
Right now, they were near the ruins of the Lucifaad. This place was not really safe because it was swarming with Demonic Beasts, and as Lucifaad was close to the territories of the Old Satan Faction, the danger was increased severely.
Due to that, they needed to get out of there as soon as possible.
Considering the possibility of her being actively pursued by the Old Satan Faction, it was the best course of action right now. Just as he was talking about it, he frowned deeply, because he could sense several tens of signatures appearing in the distance.
Most of them were weak, though...
"It seems that they have caught up... this should be one of their scouting teams."
The Old Satan Faction was formed during the Devil Civil War, when a group of Devils decided to continue the Great War in order to fulfill the Original Satan's ambition of world domination, while another group of Devils was against it, resulting in a Civil War among Devils.
In Yhwach's opinion, the goals of the descendants of the Original Satans were utter garbage; the descendants of the Original Satans were barely Level 5 High Ultimate-Class Devils as their talents were okey, but they were weak.
And here, there was a bunch of delusional fools who were thinking that they could conquer the entire world. One attack from his father or Indra would reduce all of them to ash, most probably minus Rizevim, as the man was even Level 7 Super-Devil Class during that time.
It wasn't any surprise that the winner of the Devil Civil War was the New Satan Faction, which had 2 Level 7 Super-Devil Classes and 2 Level 6 Satan-Class Devils at the time, and Zekram Bael, whose strength was one big unknown, though his father remarked that the old bat was already True Form Super Devil during that time.
But it seemed that, for some reason, he was bound not to act personally against the descendants of Lucifer.
After the Devil Civil War, with the New Satan Faction creating a new government together with most of the Extra Devil Houses and some of the Old Satan Factions that actually surrendered to the New Satan Faction, the remnants of the Old Satan Factions scattered to the ends of the Underworld.
All of them got into the hiding and from there on, they were hiding from the watchful eyes of the New Satan Faction. However, according to what was known, even after being defeated by the New Satan Faction, the Old Satan Faction remained active and continued to cause trouble on the Devil's side.
In the end, even among the newly restructualized Ars Goetia and Extra Devil Hosues, there was a fair share of radical pure-blooded traditionalists that sympathized with the ideals of the Old Satan Faction or were just resisting the efforts of the New Satan Faction.
"Thirty-seven Devils, thirty of them are at the peak Level 1, six at Level 2, and one Level 3."
Most of them were only Low-Class Devils, with six Middle-Class Devils and one very weak High-Class Devil who was apparently the leader of their scouting team.
He then looked at Valiana and noticed that her Demonic Energy Reserves were around peak Level 2, making her stand at the limit of the Middle-Class Devil; coupled with the Longinus-Tier Sacred Gear Divine Dividing, he was confident that she could give a good fight to even proper High-Class Devils.
Still, this was rather a big set-up of Devils, something that even Valiana would have a very hard time fighting against, unless she got extremely lucky and managed to overpower the High-Class Devil right from the start.
In a split second, several orbs of crackling purplish energy appeared around Yhwach as they instantly shot toward the group of devils with lightning speed. In a mere moment, a wave of Destruction Aura exploded and obliterated everything from existence.
The [Divine Authority of Destruction] was something that had extremely high destructive prowess, far higher than the Power of Destruction of the House of Bael of the Ars Goetia, because it contained Divine Authority itself.
While Yhwach was a bit tired from using it on such a large scale, it wasn't anything very challenging. As he caused unprecedented death and destruction to the Old Satan Faction and their goons, Valiana was observing him with stars in her eyes.
"Come..."
Now that the first scouting team from the Old Satan Faction was properly disposed of, he started flying in the distance, with Valiana soon enough following after him with equal speed.
It was clear now that the entire scouting team from the Old Satan Faction had perished here; they would send more. Even if they didn't know what had killed this one, they would need to investigate the situation.
This was the typical approach of almost any faction.
"Where exactly are we going?"
Yhwach heard a girlish voice; this time, she was more respectful and quiet than before as she appeared next to him with two pairs of wings. When Valiana saw his power first hand, it seemed that her attitude towards him changed as well.
And he had to admit that the change was almost instantaneous.
This wasn't that surprising as she was the person who represented strength above everything else, though considering the environment where she grew up, it wasn't even a bit surprising.
"Somewhere far from the Lucifaad... this place would be soon enough swarming with devils from the Old Satan Faction, and perhaps even some from the New Satan Faction would appear here."
Hearing what Yhwach told her, she agreed on silently because she knew that while the New Satan Faction had abandoned Lucifaad and let the city become ruins, they were still keeping tabs on the place.
For sure, if battle broke here, sooner or later, they would register it. Compared to the forces of the New Satan Faction, the Old Satan Faction was just an ant, be it in size or power. Devils, right now, were far, far more powerful, and they had far more powerhouses.
Truthfully, he didn't really understand the forces of the Old Satan Faction that were playing on the toy soldiers; their chances of being something more significant than just minor annoyance were basically null and zero.
"You are pretty powerful..."
She muttered as they were flying, while looking down, noticing that the Magic Beasts already started swarming around the place. He saw there an entire pack of the Demonic Wolves, who were led by their Alpha, probably attracted here by the fight.
"It's nothing much, really... as they say, there is always heaven beyond heaven."
He heard this phrase in many cultivation novels and a few times from the Jade Emperor Okhwang himself when he met the man. It was a nice sentence, which meant that there was always room for improvement in strength.
[Even so, for someone of your age reaching High-Class is remarkable enough...]
Yhwach didn't want to sound prideful, but he could agree with it because he was only ten years old, and yet he reached the levels of power that was cap for most. For example, humans, no matter how talented they were, were limited to Level 3.
Those who broke past their limits in terms of raw power could be counted on one hand, though those were only the ones who were pure-blooded humans with no mixed heritage from other species.
"I just have a good starting point, resources, Lineage, Talent, and, of course... I work harder than anyone else."
When he said that, he meant it...
While his background was top-notch in terms of Draconic Deus, there was no way that his parents would let him just laze around and do nothing. He was trained in everything ranging from the Magic to Weapon Mastery...
And the training regimen that he was undergoing was extremely strict and thorough with everything; he had the best teachers possible. Due to being drilled for several years non-stop, to make use of his time and also his talent, he achieved the degree of power that he holds today.
So, it was no wonder that he reached such a level at such a young age.
However, even Valiana reaching the middle was remarkable. In fact... she was just ten years old and was already more powerful than most young devils up to their first century of life, as the majority of them didn't train at all.
Yhwach knew that the heavy majority of the younger generation of Devils wasn't actually really strong; most of them were only Level 2 Middle-Class in terms of their Demonic Power, and few of them could use their Clan Traits to be a threat to some weaker and not really strong Level 3 beings.
The majority of the Devils, especially from the Noble Houses of Ars Goetia and Extra Devil Houses, never really trained their powers and typically depended on aging to get stronger, so they were not particularly powerful.
Still, he had to admit that, within a few decades, the descendants of the Devil Aristocracy were able to reach Level 3 by just doing nothing. Those who actually trained and were doing something with themselves aside from killing time, would rather easily reach Level 4 Ultimate-Class and the more talented ones would even reach Level 5 High Ultimate-Class
Valiana, on top of that, also had great Demonic Energy Reserves, and her Demonic Energy was also incredibly potent; that is something that he had to admit the moment he sensed her Demonic Energy.
"Do you know where we are right now?"
Yhwach asked his newest companion about the place where they were right now because he wasn't most knowledgeable about the Underworld; he hadn't really taught much about the other Pantheon yet...
Right now, most of his education is focused on mastering Magic and Combat, especially learning how to control his own Divine Authority, which has proven extremely troublesome.
The [Divine Authority of Destruction] wasn't something that anyone could learn because it could very well be dangerous even for the user as well.
"I overheard them talking about House Nebiros having here some kind of base... we should perhaps fly faster..."
With the Great Sage, Yhwach passed through his Eidetic Memory, remembering almost all things from his past life, sans the memories that didn't really survive the transmigration process because some of them were lost.
Apparently, it was happening a lot.
It was not like it was any kind of loss because the most crucial type of knowledge was the meta-knowledge that he possessed, and as long as that one was safe, then the rest of the things were relatively inconsequential.
He needed only the meta-knowledge because it certainly had some use. Even though he couldn't depend on the meta-knowledge at 100%, it was still better than nothing at all. At least with the presence of meta-knowledge, he could prepare for certain situations and specific people or some events that would probably happen in the future.
He knew that the Nebiros Clan was one of the Extra Devil Clans that was part of the Six Houses of Lucifer, that served the Lucifer Clan for generations. The Nebiros Clan itself was noted to excel at scientific research, being the leading clan in the Underworld on a variety of specialized research subjects.
It was one of their vassal Clans, the Naberius Clan, who was experimenting on the Super Devil Project, which led them to experiment on various species, including Nekomatas and Nekoshous.
Which in turn led to Kuroka Tojou...
Super Devils were rather touchy subjects from the devils.
His father once told him that to reach the Super-Devil Class required a lot of luck and talent, and because of some specifics, especially due to the native of the Yahweh's machinations, only a few individuals could reach the Super-Devil Class and each one reached it in a very specific and individual way.
Right now, Yhwach pondered the situation a bit, and while part of him wanted to try his luck, he knew that rushing into the Devil House would spell his doom. While he was strong, he was nowhere near strong enough to handle several proper High-Class Devils who were proficient in combat and using their powers.
Sure, if he were to face ones that never properly trained or some who didn't really know how to use their powers, then Yhwach was rather confident in dealing with them, but it seemed that this was not this kind of situation.
Not to mention, they were still pursued by the members of the Old Satan Faction, and they could sense various powerful Demonic Energy signatures in the far distance, which wasn't really a good sign.
"More and more scouting teams of the Old Satan Factions are right now appearing... we should hurry."
For most of their trip, Valiana remained silent because she was observing Yhwach for the time being while also conversing with Albion in her mindscape. Yhwach, on the other hand, was using his Magic to navigate to a place, from where they could summon Vritra without causing too big a commotion...
But it seemed that it would be suddenly cut short because more and more scouting teams from the Old Satan Faction started appearing, and the worst thing about that was the presence of more than thirty High-Class Devils that he sensed.
There was even one Level 4 being, an Ultimate-Class Devil, has appeared...
It was then that Yhwach lost his patience and stopped aminds flying, with Valiana almost crashing into him.
"I am summoning Vritra; we were found and identified. There is an Ultimate-Class Devil from the Old Satan Faction before us."
Yhwach immediately said, and while Valiana was deep inside disturbed, she nodded her head and attempted to look tough.
He didn't waste any time and instantly summoned his Familiar into the Underworld when he sensed that several hundreds of Devils of the Old Satan Faction were closing in. The sky instantly darkened, as if it wasn't dark enough previously, and the familiar silhouette of the Prison Dragon King descended down.
He was formerly allied with the Asura Gods, as he helped them fight Heavenly Emperor Indra, until Indra killed him, as his soul was sealed in the Vritra-type Sacred Gears.
Vritra has the appearance of a large black Eastern Dragon with violet eyes and a third eye on his forehead. He possessed seven light purple tentacles growing at the back of his body, which was a manifestation of his own Darkness Manipulation.
When Yhwach noticed Vritra, he realized that he already reached the peak of Level 4, so dealing with even a few Ultimate-Class Devils should be no problem for him. In fact, he was rather confident in Vritra's ability to deal even with Level 5 High Ultimate-Class Devil, because the former Dragon King was still very strong for a dragon of Level 4.
"You have gotten into many problems..."
The first thing that the Prison Dragon King said was when he was summoned by his master into the Underworld, a place that he hadn't visited for a long time already. Even during his life, before Vritra was sealed into the Sacred Gear, he never really paid attention to the Underworld, not like it was any important place for the Dragons in the great scheme of things.
However, now, that changed because the sizeable population of the Dragons lived within the Underworld under the Meteor Dragon King Tannin in the Dragon Mountains or Chaos Karma Dragon Tiamat made her nest within the Familiar Forest of the Underworld.
Due to the presence of a few strong Dragons that called the Underworld their home, many of the Dragons started migrating to the Underworld and claiming their territories in this place until the Underworld had a big dragon population.
"Yeah, yeah... Vritra, we are getting into a bit of a problem right now, as you can see. So before we teleport back home, you can give them a nice greeting gift."
As soon as he said that, the Prison Dragon King flew high into the sky as he noticed every single Devil that was in the vicinity, and in a mere moment, he breathed an entire tsunami of purple flames on all of the Devils of the Old Satan Faction.
In just one moment, probably a few hundred of Devils from the Old Satan Faction were killed, among them even more than twenty High-Class Devils that were unlucky to be unprepared, while the rest suffered grievous injuries.
Everything that came into direct contact with the purple flames was immediately reduced to nothing but ash, and some lucky ones that survived had entirely different sets of problems from the aftermath.
Surviving Vritra's flames was probably even worse than dying, in Yhwach's opinion, because the aftermath could be rather surprisingly nasty.
Yhwach recognized these flames as the Darkness Flame, which was a combination of his own Dragon's Breath Fire and Vritra's innate Darkness Manipulation combined into one, rather fearsome combination that was one of the most destructive dragon abilities out there.
Together, they created unprecedentedly dangerous and powerful abilities with even though Vritra wasn't as powerful as Crom Cruach, Tiamat, or Tannin, he was able to compete against them rather easily.
They had no way to defend against the might of something like this, and even the one Ultimate-Class Devil that appeared was seriously injured just by being hit by Vritra's Darkness Flames.
When Vritra was previously alive, before being sealed into four separate Sacred Gears, he wasn't really the strongest of the Dragon Kings around and even among the other Level 6 Beings, he was rather lower ranking.
Dragons ranging from Level 5 to Level 7 were all classified as Ultimate-Class Dragons, and the Dragon King was nothing more than a title that was awarded to the strongest Ultimate-Class Dragon under the Heavenly Dragon Level, which was Level 8.
From what Yhwach knew about the Dragon Kings, not only the Dragon were they required to reach the absolute limits of Level 7 in terms of raw power to qualify for the title of the Dragon King, but they needed to develop some unique abilities by themselves that would distinguish them from other dragons.
Vritra was rather good at developing such abilities because, compared to the other Dragon Kings, he was rather lacking the raw brute power that the other Dragon Kings had, though it was mainly attributed to his sub-species of Darkness Dragon.
So, to combat the weakness in the lack of raw power, he created several extremely troublesome abilities that were a total pain in the ass to deal with. One of them was obviously the Darkness Flame because while it had tremendous destructive power, it was also very arduous to extinguish...
One could say that it was almost impossible to extinguish without either overwhelming it directly with power or using some special means.
"Some surviving... most surprising and humiliating at that..."
Seeing that his Darkness Flames didn't manage to kill every single devil of the Old Satan Faction was something that brought a certain degree of humiliation to the Prison Dragon King.
If it was him at his peak, then the Ultimate-Class Devil would be turned to ash the moment he was hit by the Darkness Flames. The only possibility of survival was that the enemy had some sort of resistance or means of defense, but it seemed that it was not like that today.
So, for the Prison Dragon King, this was a rather humiliating instance because it show how far he has fallen. The dragons were very prideful creatures, and something like this, being weakened greatly and losing much of his previous power, was very humiliating for the Prison Dragon King.
"You fell from Level 7 to Level 4, so it is understandable that you are right now not as strong as you were once in the past."
Yhwach said his words of condolence as he looked at the enormous Dragon King, who was right now pretty angry at the devils for refusing to die. He flapped his wings as he rushed at the remaining devils of the Old Satan Faction and started indiscriminately slaughtering the devils present.
With a single swing of his tail, he squashed several of them to meatpaste while using his claw to tear through the devils that attempted to cast some magic on the enormous Dragon.
For the dragons, every part of their body was a deadly weapon, while some of the younger dragons couldn't properly use their tails, as that was the hardest part of their body to use effectively as a weapon.
When they were not careful, their tails could be their weakness, but the old and experienced dragons like Prison Dragon King Vritra, he could use them as one of his most effective and deadly weapons.
When all of the High-Class Devils of the Old Satan Faction that managed to survive were killed by Vritra, he looked at the sole Ultimate-Class Devil who was in rather bad condition.
Releasing dragon roar shook the area as he charged at the Ultimate-Class Devil, who, in the last ditch effort, attempted to cast a teleportation circle and escape from the battlefield, only to be eaten by the Prison Dragon King in one go.
Looking at the enormous purple-black dragon who was right now happily munching on the corpse of the Ultimate-Class devil, Yhwach and Valiana looked at Vritra in wonder, while Valiana looked at the Dragon King in admiration for his strength and Albion from his Sacred Gear was looking at Vritra with no small amount of jealousy.
'Where was the last time, when I ate some of the Level 4 beings...'
Was all that he could think about when he observed Vritra enjoying himself.
Dragons could get stronger by consuming highly nutritious food, one could say, and for the dragons, the most nutritious food was naturally other beings that were relatively powerful, thus they were the favorite snacks of the mighty dragons.
For example, during his life, Albion consumed thousands upon thousands of devils, when he was alive, many among them were even Ultimate-Class ones, albeit only in the terms of the Demonic Energy...
Especially during the time when Albion and Ddraig crashed the three-way war between the Devils, Angels, and Fallen Angels, it was also a good opportunity for the dragons to grow stronger as everywhere around them were powerful specimens which was nothing more than treats in the eyes of the dragons.
Yet Yhwach wanted to laugh at the cruelty of fate because the beings that the two Heavenly Dragons looked like were ants or their food, in the end, ended up killing them, and Yahweh sealed their very own souls to the Sacred Gear, basically giving them into the eternal imprisonment.
It was clear that he envied Vritra for his newfound freedom, that he could stretch out his wings in the sky once again and make his enemies dread him.
This was something that every dragon immensely enjoyed, the feeling of the freedom that was right now denied to him due to being sealed within the Sacred Gear.
This made him once again curse Yahweh, but simultaneously, he was aware that this was also partially his own fault... not only his alone, but also that of Ddraig. If they didn't decide to fight on the battlefield between the Three Biblical Factions, then they wouldn't be ganged on and subsequently killed.
And now, this was a fate far worse than death because, for the dragon, being denied his freedom was equal to being denied his very own existence.
"We should return soon; more will arrive. Now that you killed several teams of the Old Satan Faction, their heavy hitters should arrive..."
Yhwach stated calmly when he noticed that Vritra had finished eating the corpses of the devils that remained in a relatively good state despite being burned by the Darkness Flames, squashed like bugs by his tail, or torn apart by his claws.
He didn't fear the three descendants of the Original Satans, as they were weak; he was confident that Vritra should be able to fight and at least defend them, as according to the reports that he read, all three of them were only Level 5 High Ultimate-Class.
Though his father told him when Creuserey Asmodeus tried to create a mess in the Immortal Realm of the Three Realms under the Celestial Court, while the man was fairly powerful, his combat techniques sucked.
In the end, he was fended off by some local Immortal Cultivators and escaped before they could kill him, which confirmed Yhwach's estimations that the trio of delusional idiots was only depending on the raw power.
He didn't really know what the Old Satan Faction wanted within the territory of the Celestial Court, as they typically had enough self-preservation to avoid territories of the Hindu, Takamagahara, Nordic, and practically anyone who was vastly more powerful than them.
No... the real problem lay with Euclid Lucifuge and Rizevim Livan Lucifer and some of their personal goons that his parents repeatedly told him to avoid at any cost because they were dangerous and powerful.
Rather problematic combination.
"Ts... I was waiting for more of these tasty bats to arrive... they are weak and rather delicious."
Not knowing why, perhaps in instinctive fear of Prison Dragon King's voice, Valiana took one step back, even though she attempted to put on the toughest and adorable expression at the same time.
Yhwach frowned a bit because he knew that the devils of the Old Satan Faction were not the most powerful around; they still had numbers.
Even though most of their devils were weaker on the combat prowess side, compared to their Demonic Energy Reserves, even Albion and Ddraig were brought down through sheer numbers of Devils, Fallen Angels, and Angels during the war between Three Biblical Factions.
He couldn't blame them, though...
The ideology of the Old Satan Faction was really appealing to the Devil Race, where their members are purely driven by greed for domination and power, so when someone was sporting nonsense about world domination, it was bound to attract attention and sympathy.
"Vritra, you know that if large legions of the Old Satan Faction arrive, we are fucked as hell... not to mention, even if Euclid shows himself here, we would be captured almost immediately."
Euclid Lucifuge was a criminal that was collectively sought by the Hindu Pantheon, Takamagahara, Nordic Pantheon, Celestial Court, Olympus, a few Magician Assassociations, some Werewolf Tribes, and some minor factions.
There was rather a huge bounty on his head, though nobody was really able to defeat him, much less being said about catching the man. He was recorded to be a Level 6 Satan-Class devil, extremely proficient in close combat, but his true expertise lay in Magic mastery.
One of the worst kinds of enemies to deal with.
In the end, Vritra relented to the Yhwach, as he then, rather reluctantly at that, teleported all of them back to Shiva's abode. He knew once he returned home, his parents would be pretty pissed, especially his mother, because she was vehemently against advanced experiments with Magic.
She didn't wish for her son to be playing with such dangerous things, and now, she would get the confirmation that she always wanted to get. His father was actually pretty much supportive of his experiments with Magic, and now it was highly possible that they would end.
His mother was always the one who was more responsible about things, and even if she relented to the enthusiasm about the research of the Magic and so on, she always insisted on proper surveillance.
Something that he wanted to avoid because this would mean that many of his projects would be halted, stopped, or discarded as they were rather dangerous. That would be mostly unfortunate because he had a lot of things in mind that he wanted to create.
Magic was full of infinite possibilities.
***
Underworld, Unknown Domain, Headquarters of the Old Satan Faction
"She managed to escape, My Lord."
The place where the Old Satan Faction was located was mostly empty because aside from some of the guards that were allowed here and high-ranking members of the Old Satan Faction, not many were actually present.
The man who was listening to the report had the appearance of a middle-aged man in his 40's with dark silver hair and hazel eyes. He had a silver-colored beard, in a fashion similar to his hair, that was perfectly trimmed, and he was around 176cm tall.
All around him was a creepy aura around his body, that was lingering over his body like some kind of leech. He wore something akin to a battle outfit, with plates over his shoulders, with his overall appearance radiating nobleness and power.
"I am already aware..."
There was no emotion in his voice, not even a bit of anger or anything, as if everything already happened as he predicted.
"Leave it be... it was only a matter of time until she escaped; in the end, she is just a half-breed, nothing important in the great scheme of things."
The man ordered as he waved his hand disinterestedly.
"We have more pressing matters on hand. Has the search for that Grimoire has been completed?"
He asked his most loyal subordinate after a short period of silence.
"Yes, My Lord."
The man smiled slightly, hearing the answer.
"Then immediately go and recover the Grimoire. We need it to start the ritual to release the Beast of the Apocalypse."
The acquisition of the Grimoire was paramount for his goal of releasing the Beast of 666.