"What are you smiling about?" Rias asked the Immoral. He had been a little taken aback by the sudden change in Fulgardt's expression. Hadn't he been depressed just now?
"Nothing you'd understand," replied Fulgardt. "In any case, my labyrinth isn't an option indeed. I designed it too competently. Even ti travel will not reverse the solid grip that Null Life brat has on it. Curse my brilliance."
"I see," said Rias and he went back to relaxing – as much as one could when resting their back against the trunk of a tree. "That ti limit you imposed on him to bar him from doing anything to that thing in your labyrinth has already passed, hasn't it? Aren't you afraid that he is going to rush into the labyrinth and do as he pleases? It is your weakness, right?"
Fulgardt was silent for a few monts.
"He may, but I'm quite sure he won't. Even if he can damage it, he won't spare the ti. I suspect that by now, he knows that Boron plans to make Aigas a battleground for his duel against Quintess and Listafelle. He will be preparing to deal with that," he said with certainty. "The brat fought – well, my WILLS – to prove that his bonds and connections are important."
The Immoral turned to Rias and grinned.
"He wanted to prove that he was different from you. You cut him deep. He would have exerted the sa self-righteous energy he did against if he had gotten a proper one-on-one against you. Sickening. He will want to save Aigas and its denizens. He just doesn't realize yet how reality works. What it takes to thrive in the harsh darkness above."
Shockingly, Rias had a differing view.
"That might not be the case. He grows quickly. I rember him being a nobody I could have crushed with a wave of my hand the day I revived and subdued Rayn's soul. A few days later, he was a match for ," he said while drawing a little mask on the dirt. "I know they weren't the sa being, but still. What is that if not a sign from Direction itself that your opponent is formidable."
Fulgardt scoffed.
"You have a lot of faith in him. Is it because you died to him in the end?" he mocked.
Rias donned his first smile.
"Like you, I refused to et death like that. The agony from being haunted by the souls of those I killed was certainly harrowing, but who cares? I'm fresh in the flesh. I won't be dying again so embarrassingly."
Fulgardt considered him.
"That really is your sole purpose for existing isn't it? Honouring death by living a long life. What a pitiful motivation. I would have called it passable if it wasn't born from your hypocrite of a mother."
"Curse her all you want. I could care less," said Rias calmly. "Just rember, you said she'd be my kill."
Fulgardt threw his head back and laughed.
"Of course. I have no use for AKHASHA's units. You can have them all," he said as he rose. "I finally have sothing better to work with."
Perhaps to confirm that it was real and not a dud – for the fifth ti – Fulgardt produced this 'sothing better' from a spatial storage. Its purple gleam pleased him. It reflected so vividly within his eyes and gave him more than a little reassurance for what he desired.
He wasn't quite as one-note as Rias. The fact that this place – a previous version of Aigas – hadn't been his first stop since stealing the Null Life brat's kill earlier – was telling of the fact.
Fulgardt had several goals and they required strength that most feared. Anomalous strength. He had found part of this elusive power.
Rias caught a glimpse of the thing Fulgardt held in his hand before he stowed it back.
"Are you sure you still don't want to pair that power with a weapon?" he asked and switched to lazing on the ground. "It will be a while before I can make a proper weapon capable of cutting the Broader Existence directly, but I can make sothing close to that in the anti. Just like you wanted."
"I changed my mind. For now, I'll settle for my Mantle. Unfortunately, even back in my ti, I had already sealed it in the labyrinth. But the brat has it," replied Fulgardt as he spied so horrific Undead creature falling from the sky and onto so city close by.
This version of Fulgardt had co from one of the two drapes of ti Festos had created with his unlimited slashing technique - the one connected to the ti of the Second Grand War.
He was indeed Divine and had already begun to cross worlds, earning strength through AKHASHA's thodium. But he was at the point where dissatisfaction was beginning to grip him because of AKHASHA and the Prival Deities' ideals.
Quite like his older self, he had been in the process of creating the labyrinth as a failsafe in case his plan to rescind AKHASHA's Contract fell through, hence why he had already safely stowed away his Mantle in the labyrinth back in his ti.
But indeed, all this had been true for this Fulgardt, until he t Skullius in Maqi.
He had inherited the WILLS from his older self because of Skullius earlier, and they had told him a great many things.
The WILLS didn't tell Skullius too much while they were possessing him, but they told this version of Fulgardt everything. It must have been because they had a greater connection to him. So of the information missing from the WILLS even ended up finding its way into the younger Immoral anyway.
Thus, the Immoral of the past had beco the Immoral of the future just like that. He had realised everything that was done to him – how he failed, and what he did after he failed – and it completed him.
"The brat can't open the chest I stowed my Mantle in. He'll probably try to hide it from . Unfortunately, that won't work," Fulgardt said with a chuckle. "If I were you, I'd make every possible weapon I could for myself instead of worrying over another. I already told you what the brat will likely do once we return, didn't I?"
Rias didn't answer for a little while. When he did, one of his fingers was burning with an odd, black fla. A part of him couldn't wait to see Skullius' reaction to it. The Null Lifeform and Rias both couldn't forget the nature of this fla if they tried.
"I'm done with my preparations. Unless, I have to fight a Deity head-on, I won't be losing."
Fulgardt gave a grin, but then it vanished, and he donned a curious look as he swung back.
Rias did the sa. They had a visitor. No, visitors. Soone was able to see them despite the cloak of darkness shielding them from everything in the world?
The chaos behind the two n had died. All the warring creatures, Undead, and living alike had been obliterated. Amidst their remains was a group of powerful individuals – by mortal standards. Each of them was cloaked in a passive Territory, a sign that they were intruding from a different drape of ti.
All of them were won, curiously enough. The one leading them was strangely graceful despite not being particularly pretty. She had small, sharp eyes and straight, back hair that fell in curtains on both sides of her thin, long face. As kind and saintly as this woman appeared, Rias and Fulgardt saw through her imdiately.
She couldn't see them. She looked left, right, up, and down before sighing helplessly.
"Are you sure he is here?" she asked one of the won behind her.
"As far as my eye can see," answered a particularly tall one with feathers in her curly hair. "Can you bla if it can't track soone of such a caliber?" She shrugged. "Maybe he's already left."
Nigerra narrowed her eyes.
"Maybe. Or…" she said before smiling and raising her voice. "Co now, Fulgardt. We saw you co here. We have a proposal for you. If it isn't to your liking, you're welco to kill us. We will fight back though."
The won behind her looked around them vigilantly. So of them had peculiar eyes.
"What proposal could you possibly have to entice ?" a voice suddenly said to them all.
They all turned to its source and to their surprise, the individual they were looking for was right in front of them. He might have been conjured by the world in that instance.
Nigerra's smile grew wider.
"It's just an exchange of goods and services. At the very least," she said, and suddenly turned wary when Fulgardt's arm was coated with a blade of darkness, "you owe it to us to listen."
Fulgardt's brows rose.
"I owe it to you?" he asked, baffled. "Are you out of your mind?"
A vibration coursed outward from Nigerra's body and what might have been a broken shadow inched its way out of her outline.
"Yes. You owe every one of us. After all, you're responsible for enabling our whims."
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