Charles grabbed one of the Demon King's rear appendages with one hand, heaved him up, and smashed him hard into the ground.
Ban charged in with the Sacred Staff Merlin had returned to him, laying dozens of ruthless strikes across the Demon King's body.
The Sacred Staff was a four-section staff, far trickier than the three-section one Ban used before. Coupled with its power to amplify focus, it let Ban maximize his strengths.
He hadn't gotten a chance to cross hands with the Demon King in Purgatory—now he could cut loose.
How could the Demon King endure such humiliation? After taking a crack across the face, an appendage whipped around and swatted Ban flying.
The appendage's talons snapped together, forming a lance that shot straight at the airborne Ban.
A fire dragon streaked across and bit down on the lance. Extending from Stella's Feilong Sinblade, it yanked as she swept her arm, hauling the Demon King with it and hurling him into the air.
Escanor hadn't even made his move yet when a figure darted up—none other than the Demon King's other dutiful son, Zeldris.
"Let Meliodas out. You're not the one I need!"
Zeldris set his stance midair to strike—oddly, the Demon King pivoted and flew straight at him.
But the moment he drew close, he was blasted back. The appendage Stella's flames had melted was severed clean.
His magic, \[Ominous Nebula]—a power Merlin described as savage.
In essence, Zeldris forcibly drags all magic-bearing beings toward himself with sheer magic.
Once they're within his range, it triggers his automatic response: the Demon Realm's fastest godspeed slash. Hence the nickname \[Full Reaction].
Caught off guard, the Demon King was taken aback by this "savage" ability—which only made his fury blaze hotter.
"Fools, all of you—including my sons—daring to defy a god!"
Even the heavens seemed to shift with his rage. A gale blasted everyone away, lightning slamming down again and again.
The severed appendage behind him regrew in a flash, then detached from his body.
Each appendage balled up and reshaped into puppet-like beings. One, ovoid like a human head, sported two bizarre mustaches beneath its "nose."
The other was an armless humanoid whose "hair" was a crown of spinning blades—a whirling ring of knives.
The Sighing Sage and the Hermit of the Moment—two dolls crafted by the Demon King—sprang into action the instant they formed.
The Sighing Sage soared high and opened its "mouth," loosing a beam of condensed magic.
Charles moved to intercept—only for the other doll to block him.
Its spinning blades carried such shearing force that even Charles was hacked from the air.
Escanor stepped forward then, pointing a finger skyward, his muscles swelling even further.
"Bad news for you—the sun is at its zenith."
He didn't use the Divine Axe Rhitta. He simply raised a hand-blade and traced it through the falling beam.
"Divine Sword Escanor!"
With the sun at its highest, Escanor entered that state of "Heaven and earth—only I am supreme." Even the Demon King couldn't help but take notice.
The flame-line rippling from Escanor's hand cleaved the colossal beam clean in two—and split the distant Sighing Sage as well.
On Charles's side, a single punch blasted the Hermit of the Moment apart. Both it and the bisected Sage crumbled into pallid stone and crashed to the ground.
The Demon King snorted, unimpressed, and two more appendages snaked out behind him, sweeping wide to block the charging Charles and Escanor.
Right then, two rocky fists erupted from the ground beneath him and uppercut him into the air.
The massive True Spirit Spear slammed down, hammering the Demon King into the earth.
But everyone saw that, as the spear fell, two appendages had already seized it—it hadn't truly struck the Demon King's body.
As the spear was flung aside, the Sighing Sage re-formed. This time it didn't charge up; it fired immediately.
In a heartbeat, every attack near the Demon King was blasted apart and everyone was forced back.
The ground split; even the cloud-darkened sky turned blood-red under the erupting magic.
Out of that hellish tableau, the Demon King strode forward.
"This is divine judgment. Your only duty is to accept it with gratitude."
At his side, the Sighing Sage gaped again, magic gathering in its maw.
Just then, a white lattice of light clamped around it. The rampant magic detonated, blowing the Sage to pieces instead.
The Demon King turned to Elizabeth, face dark. "You again—the disease afflicting my foolish son Meliodas."
Gowther had taken Elizabeth into Meliodas's mental world moments ago, but they were back now—apparently the fight there had swung in Meliodas's favor.
Elizabeth said firmly, "What you call a disease is exactly what makes Meliodas strong—and it's why he will defeat you."
The Demon King actually laughed. "And if you die here and now?"
Freshly grown appendages sharpened into spikes and stabbed straight for Elizabeth—only to strike Merlin's Perfect Cube instead.
The so-called absolute defense cube was pierced, but it still blunted the blow.
"Well? What are you waiting for?" Merlin said as she reinforced the spell.
At her words, Charles snapped his fingers.
It seemed to be a signal. A thumb-thick beam lanced from the Demon King's chest, and then four more followed.
For this final battle, Charles and the Seven Deadly Sins had made extensive preparations—this was a long-planted failsafe.
They were hexes he and Merlin had inscribed onto the Commandments. Fortresses are often best taken from within; as Meliodas fused the Commandments, the hexes would be absorbed into the body as well.
To keep the Demon King from noticing, they'd racked their brains, limiting the payload to a single effect: jamming the flow of magic.
Charles had gone overboard, inscribing all five Commandments in his possession. If time had allowed, he would've done the other five, too.
All five hexes ignited at once. Though they only obstructed magic, they still hacked the Demon King's power down sharply.
He staggered, feeling strength drain from his limbs and his magic suppressed even further.
Having traveled between worlds, Charles's greatest edge was pulling out tactics the enemy couldn't foresee.
Before the fusion, Meliodas had also drunk the suppression draught Charles once used himself—a potion compounded by the God of Medicine of another world.
Charles had pulled it from his stores on a "worth a try" hunch. Maybe it had aged too long, or maybe it was the Demon King's unique constitution, but at first it hadn't worked. Now, it clearly did.
That was the second failsafe. Layer by layer of counters, and the Demon King was at his weakest.
As he faltered outside, heavy hits landed in the mental world as well.
Meliodas, wielding the weapon Charles had given him, brought it down across his father without mercy.
In the mental world, the Demon King appeared in his original form. Although still colossal, he had somehow grown gaunt.
Most striking was the savage wound in his chest: a gaping hole torn through the armor, veins of something like throbbing roots crawling around it, with black ichor seeming to seep out.
Meliodas focused his blows there, stoking the Demon King's fury.
But Meliodas's spirit body was sheathed in magic; many of the Demon King's counters couldn't land.
Worst of all, Gowther had just brought Elizabeth in. A few words from her had sent Meliodas's fighting spirit surging, his blows growing heavier.
The external debuffs bled through here as well; Meliodas could feel his father's weakness.
He drew a long breath. "Father, this time we really end it."
He poured power into the weapon—and the weapon seemed to come alive.
He remembered what Charles had said when he handed it to him in Purgatory.
"For the final fight, nothing's better than this. It gets a bonus against a specific target."
Seeing Charles give him a thumbs-up had only left Meliodas more confused, but in the end he chose to trust him.
…
It was a strangely shaped battle-axe, and when Meliodas infused it with magic, a man's voice actually sounded.
"Ready to go."
Meliodas didn't know why a battle-axe would suit this fight, or why unleashing it would come with a voice—but suddenly, he really wanted to bury it in the Demon King's face.
Feeling the power building in the axe, he looked up. "It says… we're good to go!"
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/Mutter
For every 50 Power Stones, one extra chapter will be released on Saturday.