—Mayura Evil Palace.
It was a stone structure fashioned entirely in violet. Across its walls, floors, and ceilings, ripple-like stains shifted and writhed as though they were living creatures. Upon a lavish, magnificent throne situated in the deepest recesses of the palace, Anra Mainyu, one of the Six Great Generals, was snacking on Soul Chips. These were confections created through Anra's ability to condense the souls of enemies he had vanquished in past wars and rebellions, subjecting them to Transmutation. By consuming them, Anra could usurp their original owners' physical strength, abilities, and everything else they possessed—an extraordinary power tantamount to cheating.
Suddenly, the great doors burst open, and a pale, frantic soldier came tumbling inside.
"I-I-It's an emergency!"
"Silence! Lord Anra is currently dining!"
Clad in purple robes and possessing a massive, brain-like head, the evil god Mānāf—one of Anra's aides—barked in reprimand. Yet, keeping his gaze fixed solely on Anra, the soldier pointed toward the Mayura Evil Palace's main gate.
"An enemy attack—!"
He blurted out the absurd claim.
"An enemy attack on this Mayura Evil Palace? What an amusing joke."
A slender evil god formed entirely of pitch-black darkness, Saur, glared at the soldier with his multiple eyes and spoke in an irritated rasp.
"I-It's the truth! The enemy is—the enemy is—"
Without showing the slightest flinch at Saur's menacing aura—which would normally have made anyone wet themselves—the soldier desperately tried to spit out information about the enemy through streaming tears.
"Spit it out already!"
Losing patience, Zarutch—a monstrosity composed of several faces and multiple arms—shrieked hysterically.
"T-The enemy, enemy, enemy, e-e-e-e-e-ene-my-y-y—"
Clutching at his throat again and again as he tried to scream, the soldier's eyes suddenly rolled back into his head. Then, flicking out an unnaturally long tongue and raising both arms, he began:
"Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Boo-boo, boo-boo, bub-bub♬"
Shouting bizarre words, he commenced a grotesque, undulating dance like some mollusk.
"Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Beelzebub-de-boo♪ Boo-boo-de-bub-de-boo♩ Gloomy, squirmy, and stinking to high heaven, the fly among flies, the King of Flies♬ That is Bub-oo♫"
—Squelch! Squish! Crack!
It was truly a danse macabre. His face twisted and warped, and his arms snapped and bent in impossible directions, pulverizing flesh, tearing sinew, and shattering bone. Slowly, the soldier transformed into a grotesque, fly-like beast.
"Scarier than Bub~♪ Crueler than Bub~♬ Stroooonger than Bub, that is none other than our Great One! Delivering words to the little dummy who displeased our lord, the evilest and wickedest in this whole wide world, so I am-chu♩"
Having morphed into a fly, the soldier shouted those words, abruptly stopped his dance, and leaned back slightly, thrusting his left arm toward Anra and the others.
"I am coming to kill you now. Having heard that quite a formidable fellow is here, I decided to do something uncharacteristic of myself and deliver what amounts to a declaration of war."
The voice that emerged from the fly-man's mouth belonged to an entirely different youth. The buoyant tone was brazen and utterly disrespectful—unthinkable words to direct toward Anra, an absolute ruler of this world, and the evil gods serving beneath him.
"Eliminate this repulsive filth!"
At Zarutch's command, orders were barked to the elites standing guard along the walls of the Mayura Evil Palace.
"Understood!"
The elites encircled the fly-soldier, leveling their weapons.
"The Great One-chama is currently speaking-chu!"
In stark contrast to the boy's voice just moments before, the fly-soldier shrieked in a chilling, grating tone as countless tentacles erupted from his mouth at blinding speed.
"Gwah?"
"Ghk!"
"Gack!"
Impaled clean through by the tentacles, every single one of the surrounding elites was instantly reduced to a mangled corpse.
"What?!"
"Tch!"
"What is this nonsense?!"
Zarutch, Mānāf, and Saur leaped backward, putting distance between themselves and the former soldier.
Then, the monstrous fly leaned back once more, aimed its right arm at Anra and his retinue, and resumed speaking in the youth's voice.
"For me, this is the first life-or-death struggle in quite some time. You over there, the strong one. Do not do something so tasteless as trying to flee. I have no intention of letting a single one of you leave this world alive. Therefore, your only means of survival is to kill me in battle."
The fly-soldier raised both arms toward the ceiling.
"Now, let us wage war! A blood-boiling clash where we stake our souls, our pride, and our stubborn wills to crush each other!"
The moment the declaration ended and the tension drained from its body, the fly-soldier rapidly ballooned, ruptured, and blew apart into smithereens. Countless flies burst from within the remains, buzzing violently through the air.
"Gugh!"
The swarm burrowed into the bodies of several elites in the hall, squelching as they began violently reshaping their flesh.
"Th-This is seriously bad news!"
Just as Saur shouted—
—Chomp!
A gaping maw sprouted from Anra's right arm, devouring and masticating the mutating elites whole.
"Lord Anra, we deeply apologize for troubling your hand."
The evil god Mānāf dropped to his knees and bowed his head low.
"Could it be him? No, that's absurd..."
Without sparing Mānāf a single glance, Anra muttered under his breath, crossing his restored arms in deep contemplation. Witnessing such a grim, menacing intensity from their master for the first time, the other three aides exchanged bewildered glances.
After a tense silence, Anra shifted his gaze toward the corner of the room.
"Contact Asura immediately! I have an extraordinarily bad feeling about this!"
He barked an undeniable command to one of the subordinates stationed there.
"Y-Yes, sir! Right away!"
The subordinate placed his right hand against a stone carved in the likeness of a monster to establish communication, only for his brow to furrow.
"Hurry it up!"
As Anra stomped the floor in irritation, raising his voice, the subordinate broke off the attempt, straightened his posture, and reported:
"The truth is... all external communication has been severed."
"Damn it! There's no mistake! There are only so many bastards capable of pulling such a ridiculous stunt against us. His seal must have been broken!"
He roared in fury, but then paused, struck by a sudden thought, and rested his chin in his right hand.
"Yet his words and behavior were far too strange for that. He sounded just like a servant. There is no way that walking mass of pride would ever act so subservient. If so, what does this mean?!"
Clutching his head in both hands, he began to groan.
"A dead ringer? Or perhaps—no, ridiculous! That's impossible! Regardless, whoever it is possesses the power to cut off our communications. In that case—"
Shaking his head, Anra rose to his feet.
"Dispatch the Six Great Demon Gods who are not present here to wipe them out."
He snapped the order to his subordinates.
"Understood."
The evil god Mānāf bowed low, placing his right index finger against his forehead to transmit the commands.
"That should inflict some damage. After that, we just deal with them here as usual. Everything will turn out fine."
Slumping back into his throne, Anra began to nervously gnaw on his fingernails.