chapter 276

Chapter 276:

–???–

Elsewhere in the multiverse, a group of men were having a conversation after observing ‘the anomaly’ in her latest battle.

“Ajuka Beelzebub complained about humans being useless, and yet he was defeated almost immediately. How pathetic…”

“Did we even manage to obtain the relevant data? That couldn’t have been the extent of that abomination’s full abilities…”

“We got some data, but not enough… This was, unfortunately, a failure.”

“Damn it! I’ve lost my entire reputation because of her! Everything I’ve worked for!”

“Don’t worry, brother. This is just the beginning of your vengeance. Everything that has been taken from you will be reclaimed. No one should ever dare stand against superior beings like us.”

“You’re right. After meeting you all, I finally understand my true importance. We are the only ones worthy to guide the multiverse!”

“Should we dispose of Ajuka while he’s only guarded by that strange Captain America? We’ll not get a better opportunity.”

“…No. That might tip the anomaly off to our involvement. She can interrogate Ajuka all she wants, he won’t dare expose us.”

“You’re correct. No one in the multiverse is foolish enough to willingly double-cross us…”

…

–Layla–

“It was a group of human men who all looked identical! They each claimed to be the same man—a man named Reed Richards!” Ajuka had been surprisingly cooperative once he regained consciousness. He didn’t hesitate to sell out the ones who provided him information about my former enemies and where to find them.

[He spilled his beans before you even started torturing him…]

“The Council of Reeds…” I muttered to myself. “They showed up quicker than I expected…”

“The Council of what?” Steve asked. The others looked just as confused as well.

“You certainly have a lot of colorful enemies, Layla,” Frank pointed out.

“They're all just jealous of how hot she is!” Isane defended me.

I gave them a rough explanation of everything I knew about them—or rather him. An entire multiversal organization composed of a single man from hundreds of different realities. The only common thread was that this man arrogantly believed he was the smartest being in the universe in each of those realities.

Steve could only look at me in disbelief when I finished my explanation. He then started muttering about how he missed the 1940s when “villains weren’t so complicated.”

[Just wait until he finds out the Red Skull is now some kind of wraith stuck eternally watching over a magic space rock that controls people’s souls…]

“An entire organization filled with one man and a bunch of his clones. That honestly sounds like something you would have come up with, Ajuka,” Serafall said to our prisoner.

Ajuka growled as he looked up at her in annoyance. “I tried cloning myself once, thinking it would improve the productivity of my workshop. It didn’t work out as intended. The problem with giving the clones my superior intellect was that they immediately tried to kill me and take over my position in the underworld,” he spat out. “Can you imagine the audacity?”

I gave our prisoner a teasing smirk. “How do you know they didn’t succeed?”

“What…?”

“What if you’re just a clone? One who replaced the real Ajuka Beelzebub?” I said with a straight face.

Ajuka scoffed. “What a pointless question! I would know if I were a clone.”

He winced as the black chains tightened around him even further. I had made it so the chains would tighten every time he tried to escape. Since he’d woken up, this was already his fifth attempt. If nothing else, the Maou was persistent. That’s why we were all here for this interrogation at once—to make sure eyes were on him at all times so he couldn’t escape.

“What if you purposely erased your own memories so no one would ever find out you were a clone…” I pointed out, just to irritate him.

Serafall smirked evilly next to me and decided to join in. “Layla has a point, Beel-tan! You wouldn’t know if you were actually a clone! In fact, it’s more likely that you are a clone. It’s like 70% more likely!” she said, nodding her head sagely. I was sure she just randomly pulled that number out of her cute little ass.

“Ugh, my brain hurts, girls, please stop!” Isane whined, rubbing her head. “He’s an evil clone now? This is too confusing to keep up with…”

“I’m not a clone!” Ajuka spat out. “Stop trying to trick me with your pointless drivel!” The problem with being so intelligent was that you could end up having an existential crisis by overthinking scenarios like this. I could see it on his face—he was actually running through mental scenarios because of our teasing.

“Do you think those clones of the Winter Soldier I killed knew they were clones?” Frank asked curiously. “I didn’t really think about it at the time…”

[I’m surprised Steve hasn’t mentioned anything about them yet.]

“Aaargh! Stop talking about clones!” Ajuka groaned.

“Fine,” I said, holding up my hand to stop everyone’s snickering. “Let’s just finish this interrogation. Tell us what we want to know. What kind of traps did you place on the evil pieces in the Slytherin students?” I couldn’t safely extract them without knowing.

Well, I could, but the kids might end up spontaneously combusting or something!

Who knows what kind of evil shit Ajuka comes up with in his spare time…

“So we’re finally getting to it, then?” Ajuka said, looking smug. “I’m afraid that information won’t be given up so easily. I didn’t mind telling you about Reed Richards, but I can’t give away all my bargaining chips for free.”

[Smart. He knows you plan to kill him once you free the students from his control.]

‘Of course I do. He’s far too slippery to leave alive!’ I replied to the system. He thought he could get out of this by bargaining, but he thought wrong. “Would everyone besides Serafall please leave the dungeons?” I asked, a slight shudder running through me. I wasn’t looking forward to what I was about to do.

Serafall gave me a puzzled look as the others complied. Isane, Frank, and Steve left the dungeons, shutting the thick doors behind them.

Ajuka was left in the cell with just me and Serafall. His smug expression faded, replaced by a nervous fidgeting. He knew whatever was about to happen wasn’t going to be good for him.

“I take no pleasure in what I’m about to do to you, Ajuka Beelzebub. This is one of my few abilities that I don’t advertise. Very few people know about it.” My eyes shifted into the Rinnegan as I spoke. I called upon the Human Path and placed my hand on the top of his head.

Ajuka let out a loud shriek as I began to PULL! A pitch-black soul started to seep from his skin, fighting desperately to sink back into its body, but I held firm. I yanked hard!

“Holy fucking shit!” Serafall cried out in alarm. “Is that his freaking soul!?”

“Yes,” I replied as Ajuka’s evil soul was ripped free from his body. This technique was completely lethal to the one it was used on. His body slumped lifelessly to the cold stone floor while I held his soul in my hands. Now that it was no longer anchored to a powerful body, it had become much weaker and could no longer put up a struggle. I focused on the Devil’s soul and began reading its most recent memories.

I immediately had to hold myself back from gagging.

Ajuka was truly an uncaring sociopath, and even his most recent crimes were atrocious. I discarded those memories and searched for only the relevant information. I found it soon enough: Ajuka had indeed set up a contingency plan in case I removed the evil pieces from the Slytherin students. Each of them was under an Imperius Curse powered by their own demonic magic. It would subtly linger in their minds even after their humanity was restored. A couple of keywords were all it would take for them to fall back under the Devil’s control.

Now that I knew what to search for, it wouldn’t be difficult to remove it from each of the students. I could leave a shadow clone behind to handle it for me.

“What did you do to him?” Serafall asked.

“I used an ability known as the Human Path,” I explained, giving her a rundown of what it was capable of.

“Wow… A lot of Devils don’t even believe we have souls. We’ve never been able to prove their existence, at least. I was under the impression that we didn’t have an afterlife.”

“That’s not true, Serafall Leviathan,” a voice called out from directly behind her.

Serafall let out an adorable yelp and shot a few feet into the air. “Who the hell are you? How did you sneak up on us?” she demanded as she landed back down.

“I am Lady Death. I can go anywhere my Champion is at any time. The soul she’s holding interests me. I came to personally collect it,” Lady Death said, smiling at me.

“Hi, Death!” I greeted her, walking over and hugging her with one arm while holding Ajuka’s soul in the other.

“Hello, my dearest Champion. I see you’re as busy as always,” she said, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“That’s just how my life goes. You came here for Ajuka’s soul?” I asked.

She nodded. “The Evil Pieces this man has created in every reality are a blasphemy against death. Immortality shouldn’t be handed out so easily,” she said, giving Serafall a small glare. Except a small glare coming from Lady Death tended to be absolutely terrifying to most beings.

Serafall gulped nervously now that she knew who she was talking to. “We needed the Evil Pieces to save our species from extinction,” she tried to explain.

“If that were truly the case, then natural-born devils would be mating with reincarnated devils to grow your numbers further. And yet, very few unions between natural devils and reincarnates have actually occurred.” Lady Death refuted Serafall’s words.

Lady Death made a fair point. Most male noble devils had entire harems full of reincarnated women, yet none of them ever got pregnant. Even in Earth DxD Canon, reincarnated devils were touted as the saviors of the devil race, but realistically, that wasn’t the case.

Lady Death continued, “If your race wishes to move to this Universe, then the Evil Pieces must be banned. Your race will take no more beings for its own,” she told Serafall, leaving no room for argument.

“…I’ll be sure to let the other Maou know,” Serafall said nervously. “I don’t see it as a real problem myself. I only have one peerage member, my Queen Behe-chan.”

Lady Death nodded curtly at Serafall before turning back to me. She took Ajuka’s black soul from my hands, and with a snap of her fingers, it was transported directly to her realm. I suspected he’d be receiving the Voldemort treatment for a very long time. “You always bring me the nicest gifts,” she said, leaning forward to gently kiss me.

I wrapped my arms around her back and returned the kiss. I could sense the jealous pout Serafall was giving us before we separated.

“I know you’ve been busy these past few days, but I’m afraid I have another assignment for you,” Lady Death said with a sigh. She had become much better at imitating human gestures and emotions over the past year.

“Am I being sent to another universe?” I asked. “I wanted to spend the next few days with my family before our guests returned home…” Serafall would only be here for a few more days, and after that, it could be months, possibly longer, before I saw her again. They were planning on moving a large portion of their population to Earth DxD, which would take a lot of time to organize and prepare.

“I apologize, but this matter requires urgency. Numerous universes are on the verge of being completely wiped out of existence. A few already have been. It’s extremely puzzling…” Lady Death said, furrowing her brows. She admitted that she wasn’t aware of the cause, only that each universe had something in common.

“What do they have in common?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you later tonight… in your dreams,” Lady Death replied. “You should spend the rest of the day with your family. Before I leave, I have one final gift for you. It might prove useful in your mission.”

She pressed the tip of her index finger against my forehead. I winced as a large amount of knowledge was suddenly dumped into my brain—a massive amount of scientific and magical information.

“I pulled all of this directly from Ajuka Beelzebub’s soul. It’s his total collective knowledge that I do not find blasphemous,” Lady Death told me before she faded away.

{Quest Completed! You have leveled up x 5!}

{You have received Ajuka Beelzebub’s collective knowledge!}

Once Lady Death was gone, Serafall let out a sigh of relief. “Damn… She was super hot but super intimidating. I can’t believe you regularly have sex with her, Layla,” Serafall said, a bit crassly.

I playfully smacked her on the shoulder. “You know she can probably still hear you,” I pointed out.

Serafall’s eyes widened, and I couldn’t help but giggle as she started frantically looking around to see if Lady Death was still there. “Don’t scare me like that, Layla!”

“Sorry,” I said, still laughing.

“So… can we just leave now? Ajuka’s dead, and I already miss my darling So-tan!” Serafall said boisterously.

I nodded in agreement. Some of those memories I absorbed with the Human Path were truly disturbing, and I needed to de-stress and spend time with my family as well, especially with another mission looming. I crossed my fingers and created a single Shadow Clone. I sent it off to go and save all the Slytherin students.

“Hm? What’s this?” Serafall leaned down and picked something up off the ground near Ajuka’s corpse. “Is this a King Piece? It feels much more powerful than the ones you pulled out of the Green Goblin and that Nazi guy earlier,” she said, inspecting the chess piece in her hand.

I reached over and took it from her. She was right—it was different from the other King Pieces I’d seen. I used Observe on it.

{Supreme King Piece: Created by the original Ajuka Beelzebub for the sole purpose of empowering his clones. This Supreme King Piece is the last one in existence after this clone slaughtered all the others and the original Ajuka Beelzebub. It has the ability to raise any Devil to Super Class.}

I snorted after reading the description. “Get the fuck out of here, Ajuka really was a clone,” I said, almost in disbelief. A clone that had killed the original and taken his place.

“Eeeehhh!” Serafall exclaimed. “What the hell!?”

I guess it doesn't really matter in the end since it replaced the original. Although, I wonder if your Universes Ajuka is a clone too?” I asked her honestly.

“EEEEEEHHHHH!?”

…

[Layla of the Fallen]

[Title: Fourteen Winged Angel, Goddess of Angels, Death’s Favored.]

[Level: 105]

[Sacred Gears: Purger of Darkness, Orb of Infinity]

[HP: 118,000]

[MP: 130,000]

[Faith Energy: 7,585,457]

[Vigor: 10,400]

[Strength: 5,643]

[Intelligence: 13,100]

[Luck: 2656]

[Available Free Stat Points: 500]

[Perks and Skills:]

-Goddess of Angels (10x Increase in all Stat Points. Access to all Angelic Abilities. Can turn other races into white or black winged Angels depending on the person's Karma.)

-Death’s Favored (Resurrect on Death after 24 hours. Can resurrect up to three people a day.)

-Daughter of Heaven's Will (Passive Skill: Ask and you shall receive! The universe bends to your whims and circumstances that you wish for are far more likely to occur!)

-Acting (Max: You are a master of the craft when you want to be.)

-Observe (Max: No one's level is hidden from your gaze. No one can detect you using Observe on them.)

-Light Manipulation (Max: All Light Abilities Cost 10x less MP to Cast.)

-Senjutsu (Max: Passively regenerate 1000 MP/Min.)

-Rinnegan (Max: All Rinnegan abilities cost 5x less MP.)

-Faith Pool (Can draw upon Faith Energy when MP runs out.)

-Cosmic Energy (Instead of air, you know breathe Cosmic Energy. All abilities are drastically improved along with access to Cosmic powers.)

-Lustful Queen (Active Skill: You can drain the energy of anyone you touch and convert it into any type of energy you desire. This ability is 100x more effective when performed during sexual intercourse. You will also receive random stat points after every “session.”)

XXX