"The offer is simple- You *points at Asta* Your magic is wierd but I can sense it destroying other mana types. You can help me control the Devils. In return you can get whatever you want. "
The Angel then turns to Conrad, " -And you, my previous wizard king. You can just destroy the war hungry and greedy nobles with my support and get your revenge... Think about it you two, your heavy burden will be much lighter with my help,No?"
...
Angel glides forward, expecting a positive reply. She floats right to Asta, intently staring into his face, waiting for his answer.
Then–
"I refuse!" Asta yells into Angel's face. He rejects the offer after even hearing the full deal.
.... A second passes as Asta's words settles down.
Angel frowns, staring in annoyance as Asta turns his back towards her and put his hand on Conrad's shoulder.
"Are you really gonna achieve your goal by becoming someone's servant?" Asta said as he locked his eyes with Conrad.
He then continues his words,"My dream isn't something that can be given. I won't trust anybody offering me a easy way, I never will."
Tap tap tap
The heavy steps as Asta walks towards the collapsed wall echoes throughout the chamber.
However just as he was about to pass it– *shing! *Angel appears with a shortsword in her hand.
"Who said you can go, kid?" Says Angel, her eyes narrowing, the glaidus sword in her hand pointed right at Asta's forehead.
But Asta wasn't phased one bit, instead he just stood there, narrowing his eyes as well.
The two engage in a stare-off, none of them saying anything or making any movements as the sound of their breaths sunk in the silence.
"You..," Angel finally spoke, "What exactly do you want?"
"I told you, didn't I? My freedom isn't for sale. *shoves the shortsword aside* I believe only in my own effort...and my friends."
The mention of "friends* confused Angel, making her ponder. She immediately froze in her place, her eyes changing colours like a flashing disco light for a second.
" I see... Asta. Status, a deceased Magic knight of Black bulls."
Asta watched as Angel begans mumbling his identity to herself. Nevertheless it meant nothing to his resolve to leav—
"What will you do? If, maybe. Just maybe... Your friends forgot your existence?"
The chilly voice was followed by darkness as the chamber lights shut off.
Asta turns back with red eyes, his blade already pointed at Angel's neck. The blade was already filled with half of his anti-magic, filled with enough quantity to destroy even a Devil's heart.
He looks at her back, his gaze as cold as it has been and spoke: "Are you threatening me?"
"Not at all... *smirks* I am just saying, it could happen if you don't comply."
"That's what threatening is. But, " Asta slowly smiles, "Do it."
"...Eh?"
The Unfazed tone Asta replied in left Angel in pure disbelief. His smile was a slap straight to her face, a slap she didn't knew anybody could deliver.
"You are fine with being forgotten!? They won't remember you! Not a single one of them!" Angel said in a Panicked voice.
... A moment of silence before Asta's deadbeat annoyed eyes brim up with uncontained Motivation, "Then they won't be remorseful, Will they?!"
The most selfless option choice, sacrificing your identity and relations for happiness of others he cared about.
Just the suggestion of such a choice was enough to fill Asta with such enthusiasm that he was barely containing himself.
He had returned from death, not to hog everything but to save everyone. If sacrificing everyone's trust was what he needed to ambush Lucius. He would gladly do so.
"Go ahead and remove them. Every single person's memories. If no one remembers me then I can kill that bastard Lucius bef—"
BOOOM
A explosion engulfs the area, launching Asta far away to the other side of the chamber as the halls erupted in bright yellow light.
He didn't finish his words before his breath left his lungs, a pair of hands grabbing his neck– Angel's hand.
"Lucius...?" Angel asked as leaned closer until her forehead touched Asta's, " He is back!? Alive!?"
"So what if he is? He will still die by my hands!" Asta replied in rage.
Then, His body was smashed into the ceiling and then to the floor before he could react.
All he saw in those flickering mini seconds was a eerie grin perched atop Angel's Statue like face, a grin so sadistic he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Kill him?? Do you expect me to believe you!? There is no way a worm like you could even touch him as long as I exist! " Said Angel.
The room was immediately flooded with absurd amounts of mana that silenced Conrad's mana control in its tracks. The anti-magic also couldn't keep up, eventually extinguishing under the sheer amount.
In those moments as the mana suppressed everything, Angel lowers her giant body and whispered a single sentence:
"Did you know what the name of my partner was?... It was Lucius."
It was at this time Asta finally realised, he wasn't in a ancient city. He was in the base of his enemy, facing their current strongest fighter in the middle, surrounded on all sides.
However just like most of his enemies before, Angel didn't finish Asta on the spot because she deemed him too weak to estimate as a threat.
She slowly pulled her metal hand away from his body, leaving him a crater as she turned and began floating away. " We Angels are beings made of concepts, of ideas. Even if we reincarnate, we will still persue our goals from previous lives."
Whoosh
" I am Osersia. The angel of foresight. However... I haven't been able to foresee the future since sixteenyearsago."
"... Sixteen years." Asta thought for a moment, " Isn't that the day I—"
The mention was focused on a seemingly random date, but it wasn't so random for Asta. He immediately understood the meaning behind Angel's words and replied in turn.
"My birth."
"-Exactly!" Angel clapped her hands, causing giant shockwaves, "You, a manaless person outside the domain of fate related to magic. You became the hurdle to my foresight!... However–"
The walls collapse, revealing the giant sphere behind Angel's throne in its entirety.
The sphere looked like a egg made of metal. Its surface riddled with hundreds of pipes and passages within which blue liquefied mana flowed.
It pulsed from time-to-time, like a living heart of a being. Each pulse sent mana throughout the walls and eventually into the city, lighting and powering it.
"The Engine already has it. The soul of Real Asta that is." Angel said, her eyes narrowing onto Asta, "Then it begs the question– Who might you be?"
Then with a swift turn, Angel moves her gaze to Asta with her hand extended only to see a black blade right in front of her face.
"Who said... That there can't be more than one?"
Asta slams his sword into Angel's head, splitting it done the middle. However there was no brain in it, even if there was, Asta was sure an Angel must be similar to a Devil in ways it could die.
Then just like he thought, Angel's severed head split away from her body, corroded away into broken manabit thanks to Anti-magic before the lower body moved to attack.
Crunch– SLAM!
Asta barely dodges a claw aiming to gouge his heart, kicking himself away from it in the process as he lands far away. The broken bones from the earlier injuries have almost healed by now.
Mid-way through the slide backwards, Asta looked at Conrad who was too suppressed by the absurd mana quantity to even move. Asta understood he was in this fight alone and braced himself for a tough fight.
Meanwhile Angel's body casted magic to recreate it's head, a subtle gesture that meant it lacked a Devil's type of regeneration, a gesture that gave Asta a little hope of victory.
The two of them lunged at each other, the Greatsword meeting the shortsword in a Contest of sparks. The two equally match in the middle, showing the disparity in their strength despite the difference in the weight class of weapons.