For a few long seconds, silence ruled the battlefield.

High-ranked Awakeners on the ground, soldiers, nobles in the distant palace, even the operators aboard the Ashford warships—all watched in stunned quiet.

Queen Eliana Cael Ashford stood in the flagship’s command room, eyes fixed on the live feed of the crater.

"It seems Yuna has already surpassed her master," she murmured under her breath. "What a monster."

Her gaze followed the arcs of lightning still flickering around the pink-haired woman.

"Her talent, Stormbreaker... being able to manipulate lightning like that—it really does fit her fiery personality."

—

Down in the crater, Astaroth was on his hands and knees.

There wasn’t a single part of his body that Yuna had not mercilessly pounded. His face was swollen and bloodied, his suit shredded, flesh burned and bruised. Only one black wing remained; the other was nothing but torn flesh and dripping blood.

Still, his body was trying to regenerate.

Slowly, painfully, the gashes along his arms and torso began to close, black flames licking over the wounds as they knitted back together inch by inch.

He spat a mouthful of blood onto the broken ground.

"Impossible..." he growled. "How could this be... I am losing to a human..."

He clenched his fists, trembling.

"Even if I’m not at full strength right now..." he muttered. "Would it have made any difference...?"

Questions spiraled through his mind.

Every exchange in that fight replayed itself in brutal clarity. He hadn’t been able to touch her—not once. Not a single clean hit. She had beaten him into the ground as if he were nothing more than a training dummy.

’Would my full power have mattered...?’ he wondered, for the first time doubting the answer.

Then he felt it.

A gaze, looking down on him as if he were an insect, something small and pitiful clinging to life at someone else’s mercy.

He turned his head.

For the first time in his long life, something close to fear stirred inside him.

He met a pair of gray eyes that looked almost bored.

"Is that all you’ve got," Yuna asked, voice cold and relentless, "after bragging so much about your heights of power?"

She clicked her tongue.

"Tch. For a moment I thought this was going to be fun."

Her lip curled.

"But you were nothing special. Demon Lord, my ass."

Astaroth’s jaw tightened.

His teeth ground together so hard he almost broke a few of them.

His remaining wing flared with black fire, stretching out behind him.

"I will remember this humiliation, wom—" He stopped, then corrected himself, voice low and venomous. "No... Yuna Akatsuki."

He glared up at her.

"Your name is now engraved in my mind. I swear I’ll make you feel the same humiliation... and die a painf—"

A fist smashed into his face.

His head snapped to the side, blood spraying from his mouth.

"First, worry about getting out of here alive," Yuna said flatly.

She grabbed him by the neck with one hand and hauled him up as if he weighed nothing, his feet dangling above the ground.

Astaroth coughed and then started laughing.

"You think it’s that easy to kill me?" he rasped. "But first... save that boy. He seemed pretty special to you."

As he spoke, the black miasma creatures still rampaging through the city suddenly paused.

Then, one by one, they began to move—not toward random civilians, but toward a single direction.

Arthur’s direction.

The monsters melted into liquid shadow and began flowing together.

On an empty avenue, they gathered in a writhing mass, merging into something huge.

In a matter of seconds, a colossal, humanoid monstrosity rose from the darkness. It stood as tall as several buildings put together, its body made of thick, roiling miasma, two massive arms dragging on the ground. It had two heads, each with a gaping maw and rows of jagged teeth, and four glowing red eyes that scanned the city with mindless malice.

It let out a roar that shook windows and sent dust raining from cracked walls.

The Ashford warships immediately opened fire.

Mana cannons lit the sky, beams of concentrated energy slamming into the giant’s body.

The blasts went straight through.

They punched gaping holes into the miasma, but the gaps simply closed again, the dark mist flowing back into place as if nothing had happened.

On the rooftop, Yuna watched the giant begin to move, each step shaking nearby buildings.

Her gaze darkened.

In her grasp, Astaroth wheezed, but his eyes gleamed with spite.

"You can either focus on me," he said, voice strained but mocking, "or go save that disciple of yours. I’ve already instructed it... to kill that boy specifically."

Yuna’s fingers tightened slightly around his throat.

She had a choice to make and make it fast.

Suddely White lightning suddenly ran through Astaroth’s body.

It crackled beneath his skin like a swarm of electric serpents, then burst outward in blinding flashes that wrapped around him from the inside out. His flesh began to melt—not just his flesh, but something deeper.

The demon’s eyes widened.

He recognized the feeling.

She wasn’t just damaging his body.

She was attacking his soul.

Unimaginable pain tore through him, worse than anything he had felt on any battlefield.

’Damn it...’ he thought. ’She can even hurt my soul from the inside... just how strong is this freak of a woman...’

Yuna clicked her tongue.

"Damn it, this is taking too long," she muttered.

Down below, the giant miasma monster rampaged through the capital, smashing buildings apart with its enormous arms as it searched for something.

Someone.

"Arthur’s in danger," she said.

Astaroth started laughing, even as lightning ate away at him.

"By the time you finish me off..." he coughed, "that bastard will already be dead..."

Yuna slammed him into the ground.

His body cratered the earth again, and a groan of pain escaped him.

Lightning bindings formed around him in the next second—chains and sigils made of pure electricity, wrapping his limbs and torso, pinning him in place. The power in them was so dense he couldn’t even twitch a finger.

"It’s not over yet," Yuna said, looking down at him. "Just wait till I come back."

In the blink of an eye, she vanished, leaving Astaroth trapped at the bottom of the crater.

However, they weren’t alone. Someone else was watching their fight closely... and he had finally gotten his chance.