By late September, the Northern Hemisphere had entered early autumn. At dusk, the sky was unusually clear—no clouds, just the twinkling of stars, with the larger ones fading away.
After being offline for a long while, the orange-red sunset finally outshone the extraordinary radiance brought about by countless supernatural spells. The massive network of rifts in the sky stitched itself together, and the thick, inky darkness retreated...
Golden afterglow now illuminated the battered cathedral fortress of the floating Star of Bethlehem. The four rampaging elents, stirred up by the fortress’s magic, cald almost instantly, showing no trace of their earlier explosive fury.
It felt as if the splendid sea of stars was right within reach. Selene hovered in the endless sky, a vast stretch of sparkling constellations above her head. One especially bright object caught her gaze. It was a beautiful, peaceful day... or so she thought—yeah, right!
She had opened the conversation, waiting for Aleister to respond in kind. That was how they usually interacted. But now... Selene’s arm was getting sore from this "toasting the moon" routine.
Nearby, a smug "society dog" puffed on a Cuban cigar.
"..."
Awkwardly clearing her throat, Selene lowered her raised right hand and clasped it behind her waist.
What was going on? Dropping the ball at a ti like this?!
After braving countless trials, the century-long plan had finally succeeded. Wasn’t that guy supposed to be overco with emotion, delivering so touching, impromptu speech?
She had the recording equipnt ready, the lines to feed him prepared...
This was the perfect mont—the instant a lifelong wish is fulfilled and one can’t help but pour out every pent-up feeling.
If she recorded it, she could go live worldwide with the "World War III Victory Declaration of Justice and Freedom" and ride the wave to its peak.
But Aleister? Not even a peep.
The longer the delay, the more that pure joy and madness would fade... and later, it would never match the raw emotion of that first mont.
Well... her excitent was gone.
Too bad. Such a wasted opportunity.
Thankfully, she hadn’t yet ordered the live broadcast of the "Victory Declaration."
If it had started without Aleister there, it would have been painfully awkward. She’d have to make sothing up—say Aleister had beco paralyzed or died for justice...
Wait a second!
A thought struck her. Selene shot a sharp glance at the golden retriever beside her (Kihara Noukan).
Could it be that Aleister now saw her as a potential Magic God rival—or the most qualified mortal to beco one? With no great enemy left, was he planning to betray her and strike first?!
Selene’s expression darkened.
If that was the case, she’d have no choice but to act preemptively.
She had no idea that nearby, soone was spiraling into paranoid delusions.
From the cracked cockpit armor, a furry head poked out—Kihara Noukan.
"Phew..."
The golden retriever panted silently, savoring the mont as if making up for the lifespan he’d just lost fighting for his life.
Where was Aleister?
Good question.
As Aleister’s constant companion in the darkness, Kihara Noukan might look like a pet dog, but in truth, it served as ssenger, assassin, and assistant. It was also the safety valve Aleister had placed upon Ladylee Tangleroad, Fräulein Kreutune, and "Dragon."
Aleister trusted it more than any other mber of the Kihara clan. He shared all intelligence on the Magic Gods with it, even entrusted it with the trump card against them—the Anti-Art Attachnt.
Kihara Noukan also knew Aleister’s contradictory nature: a master of magic who despised it, one who harbored an unshakable hatred for magic, Magic Gods, and the sparks of clashing phases. It knew the unparalleled satisfaction Aleister must feel now that the Magic Gods were gone.
But... did this guy have no sense of exhaustion? Was he planning to imdiately sink the AIM diffusion field blanketing the entire world and wipe out the magic side in one stroke?
Selene’s teasing—"What if Aleister’s dead?"—was not sothing Kihara Noukan intended to answer. As soone who understood him, Aleister’s absence pointed to only one possibility.
After all, Aleister’s survival thods were beyond imagination. As long as even a fraction of the billion-plus "Crowley’s Hazard" avatars still existed, he wouldn’t just keel over.
Granted, killing "Zombie" with a surprise attack had forced them to face the combined wrath of three Magic Gods. In the delaying actions that followed, Aleister had borne the brunt, tanking nearly a billion deaths while Kihara Noukan and the rest played support. But there was no way all his avatars were gone.
Kihara Noukan was certain of that.
In the Windowless Building in Academy City’s 7th District, Aleister’s initial traits remained stored. As long as the core of his consciousness remained intact, there was no real problem.
Beep beep—
"Oh, here it cos."
Hearing the phone ring from his pack, the golden retriever exhaled a cloud of rich, sweet smoke and glanced at Selene, who was smiling faintly yet curling her fist.
What’s with you? Sulking because Aleister stood you up? ...Eh, whatever. Won are complicated creatures. His student, Kihara Yuiitsu, was the sa—one bad mood and she’d snap.
Beep!
From the backpack extended a slender chanical arm holding a flip phone. Kihara Noukan opened it and set it to speaker mode for Selene.
"Here, it’s Aleister."
"Let’s see if he’s calling to dump now. Is it ti to make a move?"
"What’s this about dumping you?"
As Selene crossed her legs and lifted him from the cockpit to sit nearby, running her fingers through his fur, Kihara Noukan couldn’t help but think... she was petting a bit too hard.
Before either could make sense of the conversation, a clear, bell-like voice rang from the phone.
"Selene, help —!"
What?
Selene froze. That wasn’t Aleister. The voice was crisp, pleasant, lively, and soft—tinged with hoarse urgency but obviously belonging to a young teenage girl.
And this tone? Sorry—who the hell are you to call like that?
Following the signal, Selene saw a silver-haired girl sitting on the ground like a startled duck, delicate and adorable.
Her eye twitched. Sothing was definitely off.
"Hmm?!"
...
Not long before, Tokyo, Academy City, 7th District.
Crack!
In the dim, enclosed space, accompanied by the sound of shattering glass, a man with an androgynous beauty and the peculiar charm of an eccentric collapsed backward, a massive blade suddenly and rcilessly driven through his left chest.
A red, weakly alkaline culture fluid spilled across the floor, mixing with blood. In the faint light of the sealed chamber, bodies of various victims lay scattered, filling the air with the tallic tang of blood.
"You... are...?"
With his chest pierced through, blood-flecked foam bubbling from his mouth, Aleister lowered his eyes and voiced pure confusion.
Dozens of stored avatars in this chamber served as his life insurance. Within the Windowless Building were a dozen such rooms storing his duplicates.
No one should have known...
As far as he knew, the only one capable of this after the Magic Gods’ fall was Selene.
Crackle!
In answer, from behind the life-support device that seed close yet impossibly far, ca a bone-chilling sound.
"Hmm~ hmm~ hmm~ hm-hm~"
Apparently delighted at finding her target, a figure appeared, humming so nonsensical tune.
She had an absurdly long mane of golden hair trailing on the floor.
Her face was delicate and beautiful, her skin flawless, her blue eyes crystal clear. She wore a pale pink habit.
It was none other than Laura Stuart, Supre Archbishop of the Anglican Church.
"This is the last one, isn’t it? Perfect... Your actions—rebelling against Heaven itself, killing gods—impressive. If the Magic Gods hadn’t drained your strength, keeping your attack dogs and that woman tied up, I might never have fulfilled the contract before you died of old age."
Her arms folded under the habit’s generous curves, Laura looked down at the fallen Aleister with a smile she could barely contain, trying for elegance but unable to stop laughing.
"Aleister... no, to be precise—Edward Alexander Crowley. You hide well."
"You..."
Hearing the na, seeing Laura with her absurdly long hair—and the black mist rising behind her, coalescing into the twisted face of a massive demon—Aleister’s eyes went wide.
"No... impossible..."
"Finally recognize ? Nothing’s impossible..."
She wagged a slender finger. "You were my summoner, after all—one of them. Though truthfully, I was summoned long before that."
Summoner?
Old, sealed mories began to surface. Only one scene ca to mind.
A century ago, in the desert of his magical career, he had found an abyss so deep that even a Tarot pathway could not bridge it. He had summoned a demon to cross it. But when he realized his failure, he ordered the demon to leave.
In aning, that na rivaled—or even surpassed—his Holy Guardian Angel, Aiwass.
The Great Demon—
"...Coronzon!"
"My, my, you finally rembered . Such anger. Hmph, it’s easier dealing with smart n... Did you realize whose face this is?"
"Enough!"
"Heh-heh..." Seeing Aleister’s fear, the great demon’s manic laughter trembled with excitent. She continued her tale without pause.
"Think about it. The Hertic Order of the Golden Dawn. Your loathso colleague, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers—yes, he was my true summoner. His one order to ? Pretend you were the one who summoned ... and guide you to utter ruin."
"Because the contract didn’t vanish with his death, I’ve still been bound to it all this ti. I had to hide among mountains of papyrus, traveling from North Africa to England. Since my target was you, and I failed to take your body, I chose another dium tied to you."
"And that dium..."
Reveling in tearing away Aleister’s fear and denial piece by piece, delighting in his incredulous pain, the great demon sneered, her laughter dripping with mockery.
"Ahhh—poor Laura! The second daughter tied by the threads of fate to so mad, failed man."
Daughter.
The body the great demon had taken over was Aleister’s daughter!
For a man who had declared war on God over the death of his firstborn, nothing could cut deeper than this.
"You bastard—! I’ll kill you—!!" Aleister’s eyes bulged, his mouth opened to its limit, and he forced the howl through clenched teeth.
"Yes, yes, that’s it! Wonderful!"
The great demon shuddered obscenely in Aleister’s second daughter’s body—an image no father could bear. His daughter dead because of him, her body stolen.
"Ahem..." Laughing herself breathless, Coronzon coughed delicately in Laura’s voice, regaining her composure. Ti for business.
Squish, squish.
A wet, sticky sound echoed as she moved inside the pierced magician’s body. The great demon had claid a new dium.
"Heheheh! Hahaha... finally free of that bastard Mathers’ cursed contract!"
"At last, I no longer have to balance good and evil. Just as I wished, Aleister raised an interesting toy. Worth the wait."
She didn’t know how long she laughed. Aleister lay on his back, silver hair trembling in delight. The thrill of trampling a father’s dignity through his beloved daughter’s hands was intoxicating. But it wasn’t ti yet. She needed to leave no cracks.
She was practiced at this.
"Thanks to the Magic Gods, Aleister’s burned through all his main avatars. Convenient—how else would I swoop in? Once all his avatars are gone, Selene... hmm, complicated. Her relationship with him... But her parents are here, aren’t they?"
"Yes. Let’s build rapport—under Aleister’s na."
As the great demon envisioned her blissful new life—
Clang!
The tal door creaked. Slipping into Aleister’s role, Coronzon called out:
"Who?"
Her tone was flat, chanical. Convincing.
Two figures entered. The smaller, a silver-haired girl, dragged along a tall, elegant silver-haired woman. Like a street tough, the girl jabbed a finger at her and shouted:
"It’s this bastard!"
"Selene! Kill her! Kill her! The Chairman’s position, Academy City, the Kiharas, every science-side cooperative group I control—yours! Even this body—do whatever you want with it!"
Hand on her hip, the forrly timid girl now reeked of arrogance.
Holding the squirming girl with one hand and pushing her aside, Selene sighed. "Fine, call it kindness." She dropped her hand from her forehead and aid at the great demon in the center of the sealed room.
Vmmm—!
Violet-red light began to gather.
"Almost forgot about you, heretic. Want to play? I’ll send you sowhere nice. Don’t thank ."
—
—
40 Advanced Chapters Available on Patreon:
Patreon/DaoOfHeaven
User Comments
0 comments from readers