There wasn't an ounce of hesitation or regret in T-3's voice when he gave the order. He had known the moment he chose to charge the heretics, to stand between them and the people behind him... that death was inevitable.
But it was a necessary sacrifice.
A sacrifice for what he believed in.
For his angels.
For everyone he had sworn to protect.
And so, he charged.
He surged forward with the rest of the infantry as gunfire erupted around him, the sharp cracks of weapons echoing across the battlefield.
The heretic cavalry fell one after another, bodies collapsing beneath concentrated fire, but their numbers barely thinned. A few million soldiers facing a million heretics was never a winnable war.
RUMBLE…
A low tremor rolled through the ground beneath their feet.
Then the earth split.
From the ruptured soil emerged the massive head of a white dragon, its eyes pitch black and hollow. With a single, horrifying bite, it devoured a swath of the advancing infantry. Others were flung aside as its colossal body surged upward, bones snapping and bodies scattering as it took to the sky.
The screams of the humans were swallowed whole.
Their desperate attempts to claw free from its jaws failed miserably as their bodies crushed within its mouth like meat ground between unyielding teeth.
The gunners reacted quickly, but their shots barely struck the dragon, let alone caused any real damage, as it surged into the air.
"Take care of the heretics, I have got him!" Tom shouted.
The blood mist around him condensed violently, compressing into a single, razor-sharp lance of crimson ice before launching skyward toward the dragon.
The blood lance lacked the sheer momentum of the massive creature, but it had enough force to catch up with the dragon.
Suddenly, a burst of wind slammed into him at terrifying speed.
His form was torn apart mid-flight, the ice shards scattering violently before he was forced to reconstitute himself once again in his mist form.
In that brief moment of disruption, the dragon vanished, slipping silently into the clouds and disappearing from sight.
"You really picked the wrong place to hide," Tom said calmly as he spread his consciousness through every particle within the clouds, seizing control of them one by one. "This is my dominion."
"So is it mine," the dragon replied.
Something stirred within the clouds.
The blood-red sky split apart as the clouds were torn into two separate hurricanes, spiraling in opposite directions. Their massive, spherical bodies collided again and again, each impact sending waves of annihilating force outward.
Where the hurricanes met, nothing survived.
Both armies were slaughtered the moment they strayed too close, bodies shredded and erased by the colliding storms.
"Fall back! Stay away from the hurricanes!" T-3 shouted as his forces retreated toward the base, the gunners laying down cover fire from behind.
It would be a really good time to show up, Raymond... Tom thought as he tried to break through the spherical sheild on the dragon.
When Tom glanced back, he saw that the butterfly barrier was still intact, which suggested that the battle there wasn't over yet.
But that assumption couldn't have been further from the truth.
Moriarty had killed the demon vessel long ago.
"Come on…" Moriarty muttered as he struggled to control the mana circulating within the necklace.
"Creating an augment-type relic in the middle of a battle isn't the best idea," Ryuk remarked, watching as curse mana congealed into a thick, viscous substance around the necklace. "And a luck enhancer at that… I wouldn't risk losing something like that if I were you."
"Shut up…" Moriarty snapped, barely keeping the demon soul trapped inside the necklace from breaking free. "Wally… throw in the sacrifice."
Wally reverted to his spider form, retrieved a photograph from his subspace, and dropped it into the bubbling mass.
A blinding flash of purple light flooded the interior of the butterfly barrier as a shrill, agonized screech tore out from within the substance.
"So that was why you took pictures of the Weeping, because their images count as living objects as well…" Ryuk began, realization dawning in his voice.
"I can use them many times before one finally breaks out of a photograph," Moriarty continued, finishing the thought himself. "And even if it does, since it would already be burning, it would die the instant it steps out of the picture. Making it completely harmless… and a long-lasting resource."
What descended after the blinding flash, however, was not something Moriarty had expected.
Lying on the ground was only the necklace, and even that had been charred black.
There was no trace of the demon soul or the photograph.
"It failed…" Moriarty exhaled softly, staring at the scorched ground. "Perhaps a catalyst is necessary, after all."
"You think?" Ryuk smirked.
We knew we couldn't save this world. It was a fixed point in time, one that would not benefit us even if we altered it. So instead, we resolved to take what we could from this moment and make the best of it.
"Killing a knight demon is already a significant achievement. Leave this for now, we should assist the soldiers. They're expending every bit of ammunition they've stockpiled for this very battle. We can't let them die in vain," I said from within the mind realm.
BOOM!
Without warning, a violent quake tore through the ground beneath our feet. The barrier finally opened, revealing Tom locked in combat with a massive white dragon.
"Well… talk about a bad day," Moriarty muttered, staring at the colossal creature. "That demon was possessing a dragon?"
He glanced back at the headless corpse behind him.
"…Wait... Was that one a dragon too?" Moriarty paused, then exhaled. "Good thing I killed him before he transformed..."
Moriarty glanced back at the dragon once more, then slowly turned his gaze to the headless corpse behind him.
"…Hm... Better to be careful anyway," he muttered.
At his command, the blackened butterflies that had once formed the barrier surged forward. One after another, they descended upon the corpse, erupting in a chain of violent explosions. Flesh, bone, and lingering traces of mana were reduced to nothing, erased thoroughly.
BOOM BOOM BOOM!
Only when he was certain that not even a fragment remained did Moriarty turn away and walk off.