Ryu's aura rose like a blazing sun, his Great Swordstaffs spreading outward and his confidence piercing the skies as though it had a tangible form of its own.
One Sky God. Two. Three. More… It didn't matter.
His Great Swordstaff pointed toward True Sky God Arcus in the distance, even as his second Swordstaff swung downward, levying another attack toward the Human Beast Sky God.
Today, he would slaughter them all.
Ryu roared into the skies, his gaze focused and silvery irises flickering back and forth between dull grey and radiant blue.
His skin exploded forth with violet scales, twin horns that pierced toward the veil of heaven growing out from his forehead as his pupils slit and were invaded by a deep royal purple.
At that moment, the lake of lightning he had formed shot upward as bat-like wings sprung from his back. It rose into the skies, fusing with Ryu's tempest of flames and forming a Gate that rose into the skies.
If one had sharp eyes, they would have nothing that Ryu used his Lightning God Talent as a foundation. Fusing his lightning with his flames extended the ability of his Talent, allowing him to manipulate them with the same sort of ease and giving him the ability to warp their bodies into complex Runes and Formations.
As for what these Runes and Formations were for…
He thought it was about time he unleash hell on earth.
BANG!
Winds kicked up, flattening mountains in the distance as the doors of the Gates swung open.
An enormous skeletal foot appeared, pushing through the gates.
As it manifested itself, it was coated by Ryu's violet lightning-flame, giving itself a pseudo skin and flesh as it crashed to the ground.
It stood at over a hundred meters tall, the bones that made it up reflecting an ash black while a tall crown of black bones rested on its head.
The highest grade of the Demon. The Skeleton King.
However, as though that wasn't enough, another stepped out from the gate, gaining the same wreath of violet lightning-flames.
It was easily ten times as tall as the Skeleton King, its skin a blazing red and rings of Fire surrounding its ankles, wrists, neck, and even hanging in a halo above its head.
The highest grade of Demon. The Fire Giant.
A hand as delicate as clouds and beautiful as a blooming white flower grabbed onto the side of the gate, pulling her body out. She was the shortest, and yet was still over ten meters tall, her body wrapped in shards of ice.
The highest grade of Demon. The Ice Queen.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
What looked like a Dragon formed of bones crashed to the ground, but it lacked the horns, its snaking body winding about for tens of kilometers.
A horse crashed down from the skies, its hooves rising into the skies, coated in blue flames. A shadowy figure, billowing with black fog, sat on its back, rattling chains falling from its body.
BANG! BOOM!
A howl shook the darkened skies. A lizard creature stood to its hind legs, its spine dotted with bone spikes and nine pairs of horns adorning its skull. Black scales covered it from head to toe, reflecting the violet lightning-flames that now covered it.
On the ground, a hidden blackness moved about, impossible to spot and deadly to the greatest extent.
The Gate quaked for a final time, an enormous tree pulling itself out slowly but surely.
It rose into the skies, fusing with Ryu's Immortal Sakura. Its black trunk became a dull dark gold, its roots and branches spreading out for hundreds of kilometers until it felt like Ryu had suddenly changed the battlefield into his own backyard.
Bone Serpent. Wraith Knight. Horned Devil. Shadow. Ash Treant…
In just a few moments, Ryu had summoned eight Demon Kings, each with an aura just as oppressive as the last.
The skies overturned, the earth trembling.
The Fire Giant beat its chest, the Ice Queen spread her arms, and the Horned Devil roared.
A beam of red, a wave of blue, a tempest of black.
Three Demon Kings that would have never even considered working together in the past suddenly attacked simultaneously.
"RUN!"
Spectators, Martial Gods, traitors, Ryu didn't care. They could all die.
Fire clashed with ice, darkness enveloped them all. The violence and carnage was simply on another level entirely.
In the skies, the Ash Treant turned a purely defensive Visualization into an offensive knight. Spurs of wood crashed down from the skies, turning the winter wonderland into a bloodied forest of dark gold trees and drained corpses.
Ryu stood as the Emperor of it all, his demonic horns sparking with an ever growing lightning-flame. The violet ball grew explosively in size, pulsing again and again.
The surging ball of violet, arcing lightning and flickering flames doubled its size again, growing larger than even Ryu's body. Then, it doubled again.
The slaughter was devastating. The Sky Gods that had been battling Ryu couldn't even approach him any longer. How could they now that he was surrounded by eight Twelfth Order Demon Kings? They could only obediently sit there, watching as Ryu's rage grew.
The ball of violet doubled in size once again. By this point, it looked no different from a raging sun, its oppressive might pulsing with strength that could level an entire plane.
Ryu's head only tilted forward the slightest bit, and the sun of lightning-flames shot forward, suddenly erupting with a speed that didn't match his effort in the slightest.
The eyes of those that had yet to get out of range just yet widened, despair coloring their hearts.
The star landed, rotating into the ground and suddenly concentrating into a tiny and infinitesimally small dot, leaving an enormous crater in its wake.
And then…
It exploded.
The sound seemed to wipe all noise from the world. Everything went white, and then the wall of wind hit.
Those that had been lucky enough to survive the initial explosion were immediately incinerated by the wall of heat, the flesh ripping from their bones and their bones eventually whittling to ash.
In the midst of it all, a beauty wrapped in a diamond pink dress appeared. She was neither Elena, nor was she Mistress Holy Wing. Her armor made her look like a Valkyrie, a singular spear in her hand as she stood within the blast.
And yet, all it seemed to do was whip her hair back a small measure…
The Valkyrie raised her spear like a javelin, taking a light step forward, she threw it.
It shot through the skies, appearing before Ryu's Horned Devil in the blink of an eye.
BANG!
An entire half of its face imploded as the spear snaked back through the skies, snapping back into the Valkyrie's palm.
By her side, a half dozen more women dressed exactly like her appeared.