[Last Episode: not yet, Zuvarage, I will send armies in three days time... The Alpharus..Thier power is totally useless against me, I rule reality, so every move you try just gets deleted instantly across every timeline and with the vessel of the Hyper gods Ivaraj and Starix... I become more power than them in my presence and my existence...]
Chapter 140, Episode 140
『The Chamber — Escalation』
[Vraxus, still smarting from having buckled to his knees moments earlier, straightened and turned toward the assembled ranks of Supreme Demons lining the chamber's edges]
Vraxus: Charge him. All of you. Prove that stunt was a fluke.
[Dozens of Supreme Demons surged forward at once, dark energy gathering around claws and blades, the chamber's floor cracking under the sheer combined weight of their approach.]
Laxcarseel: My Lord, permission to—
Leo: Let me.
[He said it lightly, almost casually, already stepping forward.]
Laxcarseel: You sure?
Leo: They asked for proof. Might as well give it to them properly.
[He didn't draw Shatter Nebula. He simply raised one hand, palm open, and the entire charging wave of Supreme Demons — dozens of them, each individually capable of leveling a small kingdom — simply stopped mid-motion and dropped, unconscious, the ground shuddering under the sudden collective weight of their fall]
[The chamber went silent]
[Just an entire assault force, ended in the space between one breath and the next]
Leo: There's your proof.
Moros: What the—
[Michael's composure had begun, visibly, to fray]
Michael: Enough.
[He rose from his seat, and the chamber's shadow-veined walls responded instantly, darkness thickening around him, the ambient pressure in the room climbing several orders of magnitude in a single heartbeat.]
Leo — Aura, Unrestrained Further.
[He answered in kind, and the chamber's floating structure groaned under the combined weight of two forces neither of which had any intention of holding back further]
[Several of the seated Demon Kings, who had remained composed through everything up to this point, found themselves forced upright, driven from their thrones by pressure alone]
[Nyxareth, staggering]
Nyxareth: This isn't— this can't be a mortal bloodline—
[The Manipulator, quiet, watching it all unfold with the specific satisfaction of someone whose prior warnings had finally, thoroughly been vindicated]
The Manipulator: I did tell you.
[Michael stepped down from the dais, and Leo met him in the open space between the thrones, the two of them facing each other across a chamber that had gone completely, breathlessly still]
Michael: The Founder.
Leo: The Creator.
[Michael's expression carried the specific, thin smile of someone who still, despite everything he'd just witnessed, believed he held the advantage.]
Michael: You've grown since your original era. I'll grant you that. But growth has limits, boy, and I have had ages longer than you've existed to refine what I am.
Leo: You keep saying things like that like it's supposed to worry me.
Michael: It should.
[He moved.]
[The strike came fast, void-dark energy compressed into a single, precise blow, and Leo met it head-on, bare-handed, the impact sending a shockwave rippling outward through the chamber's floor]
[Neither of them gave ground]
Michael: You're stronger than the last report I received.
Leo: Reports get outdated.
[He pushed back, and Michael staggered — just slightly, just enough that the assembled Demon Kings noticed, the first genuine sign that the fight wasn't unfolding the way Michael had assumed it would.]
[The exchange accelerated]
[Michael cycled through technique after technique — void constructs, shadow-woven blades, layered curses drawn from ages of cultivated cruelty — and Leo answered each one, matching pace, matching force, the gap between them narrowing with every passing second]
[Michael, internally, his composure cracking further with every exchange]
Micheal: This isn't possible. I accounted for growth. I accounted for the war against Voriath changing him. I did not account for THIS... his power is extremely overwhelming
[Externally, he kept his voice level, though the strain was beginning to show.]
Michael: You're matching me.
Leo: Little more than matching, honestly.
[He pressed the advantage, and for the first time, Michael was forced to give real ground — a full step back, something that hadn't happened to him in longer than most of the beings in this chamber had existed.]
[The remaining Demon Kings, watching Michael retreat, finally broke their stunned stillness]
Vraxus: He's pushing the Creator back—
Nyxareth: This is unacceptable—
[They surged forward, several of them at once, clearly intending to overwhelm Leo through sheer numbers where Michael alone was failing.]
[Michael raised a hand without turning, voice carrying flat, absolute warning]
Michael: I wouldn't barge in if I were you.
[The Demon Kings hesitated, caught between obedience and their own rising fury, and in that hesitation, one of them — a broad, iron-plated figure named Kastrion — snapped and charged anyway, magic already gathering into a killing strike aimed squarely at Leo's back.]
[The Manipulator was there before it landed]
Absolute Immunity Protocol.
[The strike hit his outstretched palm and simply failed, the impossible-to-break constant absorbing the full force without so much as a flicker of effort]
The Manipulator: I did warn you.
Kastrion: You dare intervene—
The Manipulator: I dare protect a conversation from getting more chaotic than it needs to be. Different thing.
[Suddenly the dragons Arrive]
[The chamber's outer wall tore open —just decisively, a clean seam ripping through solidified shadow — and Tiamat and Karnak stepped through in their true, massive forms, the chamber's ceiling straining to accommodate their scale]
[Both of them dropped into a low, formal bow the instant they laid eyes on Leo]
Tiamat: My Lord.
Karnak: We felt the disturbance from across three realms. Apologies for the delay.
[The gathered Demon Kings stared, several of them visibly, genuinely stunned.]
Vraxus: Those are— those are Ancient Primordial Dragons. That bloodline was supposed to have gone extinct ages ago.
Nyxareth: How does a mortal founder command creatures at that tier?
[Leo, glancing back with an easy, unbothered shrug]
Leo: Beat them fair and square. They joined up after.
[Tiamat, rising from her bow, a faint, proud smile crossing her draconic features]
Tiamat: He makes it sound simple. It was not simple.
Karnak: We serve him for life. That decision was earned, not given.
[The Demon Kings' confidence, already badly shaken, cracked further at the sight of two beings that outranked most of their own personal power by a significant margin, bowing without hesitation to the person they'd spent the last several minutes mocking.]
[The Chamber Erupts]
[The tension finally broke entirely]
[Several Demon Kings, unwilling to simply watch their authority crumble in front of their own hierarchy, surged forward at once — some toward Laxcarseel and Pandorami, others toward the newly-arrived dragons, a handful more circling toward The Manipulator, who had positioned himself, almost lazily, between the chaos and the still-locked fight between Leo and Michael]
[Laxcarseel caught the first attacker's strike on a single raised palm, erasing the underlying magic on contact]
Laxcarseel: You'll have to do better.
[Pandorami, dealing with two simultaneous assailants at once, drained the life-force from both without visible effort]
Pandorami: This is barely a warmup.
[Tiamat and Karnak, still in their true forms, simply became the immediate answer to any demon foolish enough to approach — lightning and ice tearing through the chamber's outer ranks with the practiced, patient ease of beings who had survived wars this current generation of demons couldn't fully comprehend.]
[The Manipulator faced the largest cluster — a full contingent of Supreme Demons, easily two dozen strong, converging on him from every angle at once]
[He didn't draw the One Wonder Sword]
The Manipulator: Let's make this efficient.
Mercury Waltz.
[He existed, briefly, at every point in the surrounding space simultaneously —simply present at all of them, and the Supreme Demons' coordinated assault fell apart instantly, each one striking at a position he was no longer occupying by the time the blow landed]
[A horned demon named Ferrox lunged directly, blade raised]
[The Manipulator caught the wrist mid-swing, twisted it with clinical, unhurried precision, and used the demon's own momentum to send him crashing into three others behind him]
The Manipulator: You're all attacking as individuals. That's your first mistake.
[Ferrox, scrambling back up]
Ferrox: We don't need coordination against one being—
The Manipulator: You very much do. I could end this in a single motion if I wanted to. I'm choosing not to, because ending it that way teaches you nothing, and I'd rather you understand exactly how thoroughly outmatched you are before this is over.
[He moved again — not fast in the way that would have looked dramatic, simply correct, every motion landing exactly where it needed to, each Supreme Demon in turn finding themselves disarmed, redirected, or simply put down with the specific economy of someone who had solved this exact problem a thousand times before and found it, honestly, a little boring.]
Lies of Fate
[He declared three separate incoming attacks False in quick succession, watching them unravel before they landed, and pressed forward through the resulting confusion with calm, methodical patience]
[Ferrox, bloodied, staggering]
Ferrox: What ARE you—
The Manipulator: The First Demon King. Not that the title's ever meant much to me.
[He caught the last standing demon's final desperate strike on two fingers, held it there a moment, and simply let go, the demon collapsing under the released pressure alone.]
[The Manipulator, surveying the wreckage of the entire contingent, entirely unbothered]
The Manipulator: That's better.
[Back at the Center]
[Leo and Michael remained locked in their own exchange, the chaos of the wider chamber rippling around them without touching either one]
Michael: You've orchestrated quite a lot of chaos for someone who claims not to want a throne.
Leo: I didn't orchestrate anything. Your Demon Kings decided this on their own.
Michael: And your subordinates simply happened to arrive at the perfect moment.
Leo: They're good at that.
[He pressed forward again, matching Michael blow for blow, the gap between them having narrowed to something close to genuine parity]
[Michael, watching his own composure fray further with each exchange, finally allowed himself a flicker of something that wasn't quite respect, but was closer to it than anything he'd shown since they'd entered the chamber.]
Michael: You've earned more caution from me than I initially extended.
Leo: I'll take it.
Michael: Don't get comfortable. Caution isn't concession.
Leo: Wasn't expecting it to be.
[The fight continued, the wider chamber settling gradually into the specific, one-sided quiet of a room that had just watched every Demon King and Supreme Demon within it get thoroughly, systematically outmatched — leaving only the Founder and the Creator still standing at its center, evenly matched, neither one yet willing to yield.]
[The Chamber — The Remaining Kings Join]
[While Laxcarseel, Pandorami, the dragons, and The Manipulator handled the Supreme Demons flooding the chamber's outer ranks, the surviving Demon Kings finally moved from their seats, unwilling to sit through their Creator's humiliation any longer]
[Moros, a gaunt, ash-grey figure whose presence carried the specific weight of decay itself, rose first]
Moros: The Creator falters and none of us act? Unacceptable.
[Ishtaria, sharp-eyed, wreathed in coiling violet flame, followed close behind]
Ishtaria: Agreed. A founder with no throne does not get to humble the being who built our entire empire.
[Malphasia, armored head to toe in something that looked like fused obsidian and bone, cracked her knuckles]
Malphasia: Let's see how well he holds against five of us instead of one.
[Belial, quiet, methodical, magic already gathering in slow, deliberate layers around him, said nothing at all — simply began preparing]
[And Shura — the Demon King Yuhwang had named weeks earlier as Michael's most trusted, most overpowered subordinate — stepped forward last, calm, unhurried, radiating a confidence the others didn't quite match]
Shura: I've heard about you, Founder. I was curious whether the stories held up.
[Leo, not looking away from Michael]
Leo: Give me a second. I'm a little busy.
Shura: Not for long, you won't be.
[Leo and Michael — Direct Exchange]
[Michael, sensing his own Kings mobilizing, pressed the advantage while he still had Leo's attention divided]
Void Collapse.
[He gathered a compressed sphere of absolute nothing between his palms and drove it forward — a technique built to erase whatever it touched down to the concept of having ever existed at all]
[Leo met it directly]
Void-Walkers Aura.
[The spirits gathered around him instantly, absorbing the Void Collapse's leading edge, the erasure finding nothing to erase because the aura itself had already declared the attack forgotten before it landed]
Michael: You're countering erasure with erasure.
Leo: Turns out that works pretty well.
[He answered in kind.]
True Reality Styx.
[He reached into the accumulated dead of ages past — fallen kings, ended empires, echoes of things that had once mattered and had long since stopped — and pulled a fraction of that army forward, spectral and vast, surrounding Michael on every side]
[Michael's composure cracked properly for the first time]
Michael: What... he can resurrect the dead??
Leo: I have the ability to revive the souls of the fallen comrades from death itself
[The echoes pressed inward, and Michael was forced to scatter his own void magic wide just to hold them back, buying himself half a second of space that Leo used immediately, closing the distance and driving a clean, direct strike into his chest that sent him skidding across the chamber floor.]
[Moros, Ishtaria, Malphasia, Belial, and Shura converged on Leo the instant Michael went down, all five releasing their full power simultaneously.
Moros's decay spread outward in a wave meant to rot anything it touched down to nothing. Ishtaria's violet flame roared into a wall of pure, consuming heat]
[Malphasia's obsidian armor extended into a dozen bladed limbs, each one independently lethal]
[Belial's slow, layered magic finally detonated into a compressed field of pressure meant to crush anything caught inside it. Shura simply moved, faster than the other four combined, aiming to end the fight before Leo could respond to the rest]
[All five attacks arrived at once]
[Laxcarseel, watching from across the chamber, started forward on instinct]
Laxcarseel: My Lord—
[The Manipulator's hand closed around his shoulder]
The Manipulator: Don't.
Laxcarseel: Five Demon Kings, all at once—
The Manipulator: Look at his eyes.
[Laxcarseel paused, and followed the direction of The Manipulator's gaze — toward Leo, still standing in the center of five converging, devastating attacks, expression calm, focused, and absolutely, unmistakably serious.]
The Manipulator: That's not the look of someone who needs help. That's the look of someone deciding exactly how much restraint he's still willing to show.
[Pandorami, watching the same thing, nodded slowly]
Pandorami: He's not overwhelmed. He's annoyed.
Karnak: Different things entirely.
Tiamat: We should probably watch, then.
[All four of them stopped moving, watching the center of the chamber with the specific, patient attention of people who had learned, across a long war, exactly what it looked like when Leo stopped holding back.]
Leo — Neutralization, Applied to All Five Simultaneously.
[He simply reached outward with the same quiet, absolute authority he'd used against the twenty billion soldiers in the Heart Star, and every single incoming attack — the decay, the flame, the blades, the crushing pressure, and Shura's blistering speed — simply stopped mid-arrival, the underlying power behind each one unraveling into nothing before it could complete]
[The chamber went dead silent]
[Moros, staring at his own dissolved decay]
Moros: That's not possible. Nothing neutralizes entropy itself.
[Ishtaria, her flame gone entirely]
Ishtaria: My fire has never simply stopped before. Not once. Not ever.
[Malphasia's blade-limbs retracted on their own, the obsidian cracking faintly along every edge]
Malphasia: What did you do to my body??
Leo: Told it to stop being a threat. It listened.
[Belial's crushing field, the last to fail, folded inward on itself and vanished entirely, leaving him standing in stunned, motionless silence.]
[Shura, who had arrived at what should have been point-blank range, found himself simply standing in front of Leo, having covered the distance and accomplished absolutely nothing with it]
Shura: I didn't even see you counter.
Leo: There wasn't a counter. There was just a decision, and I made it before any of you finished committing to yours.
[Michael, dragging himself back to his feet, watched all five of his Demon Kings stand frozen and disarmed in front of a single, unbothered founder, and felt the last of his earlier certainty finally, completely give way]
Michael: You've neutralized five Demon Kings simultaneously. Without a form. Without transforming into whatever greater state I assume you're still holding in reserve.
Leo: Didn't need it.
Michael: That's—
[He didn't finish the sentence. There wasn't a version of it that didn't sound like an admission.]
[Leo looked around the chamber — at the fallen Supreme Demons scattered across the floor, at Moros, Ishtaria, Malphasia, Belial, and Shura standing disarmed and silent, at Michael himself, bruised, breathing hard, clearly recalculating everything he'd believed walking into this conversation]
Leo: I didn't come here to take a throne. I didn't come here looking for a war, either. I came because you were looking for me, and I figured it was better to have this conversation on my own terms than to wait for you to find me on yours.
[He let the silence hold for a moment, the weight of everything that had just happened settling fully into the chamber.]
Leo: So. Are we done escalating, or does someone else want to try?
[Nobody moved.]
[Moros, quietly, the first to speak]
Moros: We're done.
[Ishtaria, just as quiet]
Ishtaria: Agreed.
[One by one, the remaining Demon Kings — Malphasia, Belial, Shura, and finally Michael himself — lowered themselves, not fully to their knees, but close enough, the specific, grudging posture of beings forced to acknowledge something they hadn't wanted to believe possible.]
[Michael, still standing, though visibly diminished from the confidence he'd carried into the conversation]
Micheal: This isn't over. I don't concede the bloodline simply because you've proven yourself stronger than I expected.
Leo: I know.
Michael: But I'll admit — the terms of this conversation have changed considerably.
Leo: Good. Let's talk about what the new terms actually look like, then.
[The Manipulator, watching from across the chamber, allowed himself a final, quiet, satisfied smile — the specific look of someone whose earlier warning had been, thoroughly and completely, proven correct.]
To be continued...