Hey hope yall enjoy also I have decided to rename tesstarossa to stella. It fits Varions theme more and is a lot easier.
Chapter 86: white Answer
As Varion floated in the air, he saw thousands of souls just floating slowly out of the bodies. They rose from the field in glowing whip-like orbs. They did not scatter instead they began being pulled towards him.
As they were being absorbed, Great Sage began keeping count and that number kept climbing higher and higher. They did not physically affect him but they put a sort of weight in his chest that got heavier with each one absorbed.
Then the counter passed the needed threshold.
[[Confirmed. Soul intake has exceeded ten thousand. Conditions for evolution have been met.]]
The Voice of the World did not ask him if he wanted this; it was forced on him the instant the threshold was met.
[[Harvest Festival will now begin. Individual Varion Nava. Evolution into a True Demon Lord initiated.]]
His wings missed a beat. He caught himself on instinct, then dropped ten feet, then another ten, before long he was standing on the blood soaked ground. Sleep hit him like someone trying to drown him. It kept piling on trying to force him into unconsciousness.
But he wouldn't allow it, that man was still trapped in the prison he made. If he passed out it wouldn't last, the man would escape and that was something he wouldn't allow to happen.
He glared at the box until his vision blurred and swayed.
[Master Varion. The Festival sleep cannot be postponed. A surviving high-value target remains restrained. Recommendation: summon a demon to deal with the target and withdraw.]
"Do it," he said.
Great Sage did not wait, A circle burned into the ground around him, wide enough that the nearest corpses were already inside it. The bodies were the payment. There were enough of them that the air over the circle went wrong, thick and dark, like the field itself had agreed to be spent.
"Offerings to satisfy hunger. It's time to feast," Great Sage said through him due to his mind fogging up. "Come forth, Daemons. Serve me."
Three figures emerged from the glowing circle.
The one in front was a tall, voluptuous woman with flowing white hair and a face that was flawlessly beautiful yet lethal. The two companions with her remained a half-step behind, flanking her in absolute silence. The circle had been fed a small army's worth of souls, yet it had only manifested three demons.
Varion's knees buckled, sending him crashing down. His hands dug into the dirt, gripping the blood-soaked earth just to stay upright. His head remained raised only by sheer force of will, his gaze locked onto the man still contained within the box. The evolutionary sleep was crashing over him like a tidal wave, making his arms tremble violently under his own weight.
"That one." His voice was raw, stripped of all courtesy. It was a pure command. "He does not escape. If he tries to, you stop him. I don't care how—I just want him alive. I will deal with him later, personally." As he spoke, his hatred and draconic aura leaked into the air, radiating outward in heavy waves of oppressive haki.
The white-haired woman smiled. It was a small, subtle curve of her lips, born from pure intrigue rather than loyalty or a duty to obey. She looked from his fury-filled face to the box, and then back again, looking as if she had just been offered a rare vintage wine and was eager to savor the taste.
With a casual wave of her hand, she signaled the subordinate to her left. He moved without a word or sound, instantly taking a guarding position by the box, ready to restrain the target.
She glided over to Varion, kneeling into the bloody dirt without a shred of concern for her appearance. Her arms wrapped around his torso with an elegant, subtly seductive grace, pressing her chest against his side as if testing for a reaction—or searching for something deeper within his soul.
"He will go nowhere, my lord," she murmured, her voice close and utterly calm. "You have my word. Sleep. I will handle the rest."
He locked his glowing red eyes with hers. For a split second, he tried to resist the slumber on sheer principle, but the battle was already lost. His strength evaporated, and he sagged completely into her arms.
[Take him to Tempest. Coordinates follow. Do not deviate.]
Great Sage put the path in her head without asking. She accepted the information casually. She stood with him picking him up and holding him against herself, then turned and flew the direction she was given. With Varion dead asleep in her arms.
Tempest was already waiting. The plaza had been cleared and then carefully arranged, not with the living first but with the dead. They were laid out in rows near the foot of a magisteel throne that was set up for them beforehand. Shuna's preservation magic was on the bodies still keeping them clean and in pristine condition.
Prinz was among them.
Benimaru stood at the front of the living with his hand on his sword, but did not draw it, which was the only reason the square had not already become another battlefield. Souei was on a roof. Hakurou had not sat down. Geld's people lined the edges. Rigurd looked like he had aged years in a single night. Gabil had his men in a perimeter.
Rimuri was already on the seat.
She was deep in the Festival sleep. Her Human form slack against the back of the chair, blue hair spread neatly around her. The air around her was thick enough that even the more powerful subordinates dared not to touch her.
Noir was at the foot of the throne waiting patiently. He had arrived first, Of course he had. The smile he wore was pleasant, and his two servants were waiting behind him.
Blanc lowered herself into the plaza carrying Varion.
Every weapon in the square moved an inch. At the new unknown arrival holding their lord. Benimaru's voice came out low but guarded "That is Lord Varion. Put him down. Slowly."
Blanc did not look at him. She looked at Noir who looked right back at her.
For a moment the plaza, the dead, the waiting kijin, none of it existed to them. The two ancient beings recognized each other instantly.
"White," Noir said. Delight sat under the courtesy. "You answered someone's call, that's rare these days. I was beginning to think you had grown boring after all this time."
Blanc's smile sharpened by a degree. "Black. Still obsessing over that mask are you. Some habits don't change."
"I arrived when I was summoned," he said. "As did you, apparently. Though you seem to have brought your own lord. How greedy."
"He paid quite a nice price; it would have been rude to ignore such an offering." she said. "And he was even still standing when I arrived. I had to convince him to let the evolution sleep take him. I like that kind of resilience." Her eyes flicked to Rimuri, then back. "Yours is already asleep. Yours must not compare very well to mine. Do try not to look so pleased with yourself."
"I am always pleased," Noir said. "You are only noticing now because you have someone to compare him to."
Benimaru had heard enough. "I said put him down."
Blanc glanced at the red-haired kijin as if noticing him for the first time. Then she walked right past him ignoring his existence. She set Varion on the stone beside Rimuri, close enough that their shoulders touched, and arranged him like she was placing something expensive where it would not be jostled.
When she was done, the air changed. It wasn't from anything Blanc had done, but from the raw, overlapping energy rolling off the two on the throne.
A heavy, absolute silence fell over the square, pressing down through the barrier and suffocating every living being present. The air grew so dense with magicules that it became hard to breathe.
Then, a faint, localized resonance hummed from the throne, an omnipresent chime that vibrated directly into the minds of those standing in the plaza.
[[Report. Individuals: Rimuri Tempest and Varion Nava. Dual Harvest Festivals confirmed. Soul reconstruction and evolutionary reconfigurations have commenced.]]
Everyone below a certain level of strength flinched as one under the sheer weight of the invisible pressure.
Benimaru took a half-step toward the seat but froze; both sovereigns on the throne were still breathing, yet neither was reachable, encased in a dense cocoon of swirling silver and pitch-black energy.
For now, the plaza could only watch in breathless awe.
Noir's perpetual smile thinned into something genuinely serious. "Two at once," he murmured, his eyes locked on the throne. "White... we may have actually found something worth the trip out of the underworld."
Blanc stood beside him, her gaze tracking the unique, flickering starlight aura rising from her lord. She didn't answer Noir immediately. Her focus had gone distant, completely captivated by the rich, complex flavor of the pressure radiating from the man she had carried.
"Yes, Black, I think we have, we found something magnificent." she said at last, her voice quiet but absolute.