Life Hunter

Arima"s reflection reluctantly accepted his new name and started speaking "It"s quite simple actually. You two already are aware that it"s a process where the Life Hunter absorbs his parallel versions from other planes. So, the real question is, how will this unfold?" He said and snapped his fingers.

Around them, in the thick darkness, small lights lit up and circled the three of them. Then, more lights appeared behind these. And it continued indefinitely until everything around the three Arima was completely lightened by those lights.

Triens waved his hand and two of the lights flew to his hands. He caught them and showed them to Arima and Malum. As they were looking at it, the small lights slowly turned into fine spheres and emanated certain aura "Those spheres are your other versions" Triens declared and Arima frowned.

"As I said, the Life Judgment is quite simple" Triens smiled "On the surface at least. Try it" He added and threw one sphere to both Arima and Malum.

The two looked at each other with the small b.a.l.l.s in their hands and glared at Triens "What? You just have to absorb it as if you were you gathering mana in your pool. Try it" The latter smiled and said once more.

Arima clicked his tongue and closed his eyes, the sphere dissolved into some strange liquid that penetrated his skin and poured into his entire body. It was the same for Malum as the liquid entered his bones.

Just a second after consuming the thing, Arima"s heart pumped harder and he fell on his knees. Memories, varied emotions, and knowledge were invading his mind along with great pain. Meanwhile, Malum"s bones made a strange sound and he gritted his teeth as he suffered the same kind of experience.

When it finally ended, both of them were quite tired mentally but Arima was in a worse condition than his counterpart "That"s how you will fuse with your different versions" Triens stated "There are exactly 174,685,928 "lives" to absorb in this place" He casually said.

"What?" Arima"s eyes widened and Malum grunted. The former stood up and rubbed his temples "Then this guy has an advantage" He uttered while pointing at Malum "His entire being is something created from my darkness, his mind is a lot more suited than mine to withstand all of this"

"It"s not my problem" Triens shrugged and retorted "I"m just a copy of you created by an Owl. I will fade away after the Life Judgement. Whoever will take over the other is not my problem. My only job is to give you guidance for this ritual" He explained.

Arima clicked his tongue "Of course" He muttered and Malum snickered.

"Looks like I may win this after all" The skeleton smirked and cracked his fingers. Arima glanced at him and scowled.

"You shouldn"t drop your guard" Triens chuckled and commented "Anyway, you have some work to do. I wish you good luck" He clapped his hands and his figure disappeared. Just after, all of the small light that had appeared earlier became neat spheres.

Malum sneered and glanced at Arima before rushing inside the sea of "lives" "{What will you do? I"m sure you noticed that I can"t connect my soul or spirit to yours since we entered his place. I can"t help you}" Night suddenly asked and Arima didn"t even respond as he also dashed in the opposite direction of Malum and started ama.s.sing the spheres.

"{What can we do?}" Karma solicited Night.

"{I don"t know. We can only wait for him and talk to him if he needs company}" Night solemnly answered.

"{Company?}" Karma was intrigued by his word choice.

"{I think you"ll understand soon enough}" Night responded and fell silent.

Each time Arima grabbed one sphere, he would immediately absorb it and everything that was inside. Completely ignoring the pain and, sometimes, the hard to take memories, he would force himself to continue. And even for him, after the tenth sphere, he was already exhausted.

His mind had been invaded by some many things already. Those things were everything contained in the lives of his parallel versions. Each one possessing a unique past with families, friends, lovers and their own abilities, experience, and knowledge.

All of this was too much for a single individual to bear. And even if the number could be halved thanks to Malum, when Arima thought about all of the spheres remaining, he couldn"t help but wonder how long.

How long would it take to a.s.similate with every timeline?

**********************************************

Back in h.e.l.l, Michael blocked Lucifer"s wave of energy with only one hand and blocked Satan"s sword with his spear at the same time "Well, your teamwork is improving" The archangel commented and pushed Satan away with a kick before thrusting his spear at him.

But Lucifer came and parried the spear with his own. The fallen angel then gathered his magic and made it explode in a powerful combination of light and darkness magic.

Michael"s wings glowed with a bright light and folded to form something like a coc.o.o.n protecting him from the explosion. He went away from the range of explosion and raised his spear toward the sky.

"[Heaven"s Volley]" A hole appeared in the dense a.s.sembly of clouds and a bright light illuminated a small part of h.e.l.l through it.

In the illuminated area, anything touched by the light started producing the same shine on its own. And, as if it was a portal, arrows made of light emerged from the affected materials.

That ma.s.sive barrage of arrows made its way toward Satan and Lucifer who had withdrawn. The latter nodded to Satan and flapped his dark wings before flying away to somewhere else.

Michael frowned and was about to chase him when Satan howled like an enraged animal. His body expanded in a strange way and the armor he wore was torn apart. His skin turned red and two pairs of horns grew on his head. His teeth turned into fangs and his silhouette easily reached ten meters in height.

His two swords burned and heated up before also getting bigger to match their wielder. The newly created monster roared and cast a giant wall of fire which blocked all of Michael"s arrows. That fire also went to the sky and covered the hole created by Michael earlier.

"Bothersome" Michael nagged and flapped his wings. A circle of light remained behind as his figure vanished and reappeared in front of the huge demon. He put his spear away and placed his palm on Satan"s abdomen "[Sacred Palm]" He chanted and his mana flowed through his arm.

A white mark drew itself on Satan and the latter became unable to move. Michael took his spear back and bashed Satan with it before sending him flying away with an explosion of light energy.

While Satan was flying with his huge body, the mark on his body glowed and the clouds opened again. A giant palm descended from the sky and crushed Satan on the ground with a tremendous force.

The earth shook and a huge amount of dust raised. When the palm dispersed into particles, there was a crater on the ground with the shape of a hand.

Michael sighed and suddenly narrowed his eyes. He wasn"t the only one as Gabriel also reacted and immediately teleported beside her comrade "That aura, is that him?" She asked.

"I think so" Michael wryly smiled and answered. Thousands of miles away from them, the biggest volcano in this plane"s h.e.l.l erupted with a powerful vibration that even reached the two archangels. Close to the volcano, Lucifer was grinning while looking at the mountain spitting lava. He only stayed there for few seconds before leaving.

A minute after the eruption, a huge shadow arose from the lava and ashes around the volcano and instantly became a giant fire cone which made its way toward the battlefield at very-high-speed.

"Gabriel, get away" Michael said and gripped his spear with both hands. He closed his eyes and inhaled. Gabriel silently complied and moved back.

"[Lord, give me your protection]" He chanted and a sort of projection materialized behind him. Depicting something like a really imposing statue of a G.o.d. The arms of the statue moved in front of Michael to protect him.

In just half a minute, the unknown fire cone reached the angel and clashed against the statue. Michael gasped and he almost lost control over his protective magic because of the shock.

At the same time, the flames that struck him burned stronger and took the shape of a twenty-meter-tall monster. It only took an instant and the flames commenced to extinguish starting from the legs. As the flames died down, the actual body under it was revealed.

Sharp claws, dark skin, red fur and even magma flowing down the body. The horned beast that revealed itself there looked down at Michael with its crimson eyes. The archangel gritted his teeth under the pressure.

Hades who was fighting against Poseidon also trembled for half a second because of it. Even Baphomet among everyone else also reacted badly to this pressure.

"Seriously, I almost forgot about him, why did he have to come out too?" Chulainn complained and swiped his paw at Utain.

"Who is that?" Lanya flapped her wings and closed the Lawless Tome which she was using in its weaker form to fight continuously.

"Ifrit" Lilis answered her question "In the legends, he may not be described to be that strong. But they"re utterly wrong. The truth is that his legend is one of the strongest out there. Although his name is almost known to everyone it isn"t as much as Kerberos or other famed figures, there"s one thing that makes Ifrit special" She explained with a darkened expression.

"In the first place, Ifrits are not supposed to be a single individual but just a cla.s.s of infernal djinn. But people began to think of him as a powerful fire beast. That incongruity created something unique. The Ifrits that were once multiple ent.i.ties became one. And the thing that allowed all of this to happen was Ifrit"s connection to the death spirits"

"When his legend became twisted, he was supposed to die. But he instead was revived in h.e.l.l as an anomaly because of his power to drain the life force of peculiar people, in certain circ.u.mstances. Everyone considered Ifrit as the creature the closest to Life Hunters" Lilis finished her explanation and sighed strongly.

"To be honest, we hoped that he won"t join this war. He was sleeping for thousands of years now. He is not good nor evil. We don"t know what he will do" Lilis added and stared at Ifrit from afar "Nowadays, Ifrit is most likely the strongest creature in this plane. His choice will most likely determine the winning side. I"m not even sure if Arima could do anything to him even after the Judgement" She declared with a heavy tone and Lanya"s eyes widened.

Meanwhile, Ifrit calmly reached for the arms of the statue created by Michael and broke the already weakened magic with a single hand. The archangel grunted and retreated as fast as he could.

"What is going on?" Ifrit muttered a bit confused and looked around "A war? For what?" He had slept for a long time now and he absolutely had no idea of what was happening. He couldn"t even consider Karez"s involvement since the incident of him fleeing h.e.l.l also happened while he was asleep.

"Furthermore, there"s a Life Hunter…no, a Death Hunter going through his trial up there" The more he a.n.a.lyzed the situation, the more confused he became "Hey, Gabriel. Explain"

"What do you mean "Explain"!? I"m not your su-mmm!!" The archangel snapped at him but Michael covered her mouth before she could continue.

"Sorry about that" He calmly apologized in her stead. He couldn"t afford to have the strongest being in the plane against them too "I will tell you everything myself" He said and Ifrit and focused on him.