"Such vile magic!"
Sebas' words were not an understatement. The attack that had been launched at them was from an unknown spell but its power was tethering somewhere between a 7th tier and an 8th tier destruction type spell. No adventurer or hero or sorcerer from the human world could survive this kind of attack and would be reduced to ash by the divine stream or would corrode into a pile of bones if attacked by the negative stream of power.
But despite this.
As the two streams of energy faded and the enemy's attack ended, the two still stood their ground, their appearance looking slightly more disheveled, but their faces containing a dark gloom of intense killing intent. Whoever saw these expressions would normally freeze from sheer panic, but the one that these stares were directed at merely laughed unceremoniously as she saw that the two had survived her onslaught.
"Haaah, and here I thought I could kill you if I got the drop on you. Such a pity, really. On the other hand, it would be too boring if you ended up dying from just one of my serious blows."
The first grim and menacing Demiurge cracked another sly smile on his face upon hearing Zesshi's words. While it was true that her attack had done some damage to him and Sebas, it was far from being fatal. Spells below the ninth tier could do very little to affect them. Zesshi's spell attack, though inconceivably powerful for a human, was not an equal to even an eighth tier spell. If this was her full force, then she was still an opponent that the pair could handle.
As if reading her opponent's mind, Zesshi frowned. That last attack was her breaking the boundaries of full power that had been sealed for so long. From the moment of her birth, she had been capable of wielding both holy and unholy energy to use as she pleased. But there was one complication, a secret side effect to being born with these powers manifested itself the day that she truly became an 'awakened' godkin. That year, a bloody conflict erupted amongst the back then Six Archbishops who clashed with each other internally and even mobilized their secret scriptures against the other archbishops. And at the center of this conflict was none other than Zesshi, who back then, was only ten years old, but the carnage she witnessed was not something that even a veteran could handle without going insane.
Her very existence was a contradiction to everything that the religion of the Six Great Gods stood for. For centuries, the Slane Theocracy had preached the purity and supremacy of the human race and the cleanness of their gods who washed away the 'filthy' demi-humans from their lands and established the rumored first true human nation which over time had become the Slane Theocracy. The blood legacies that they had left behind were considered the inheritors and protectors of the gods' will to keep humanity 'pure'. But all this shattered and resulted in a conflict only a step away from a civil war as her existence came to light. The fifth legacy of the Six Gods.
Demiurge didn't notice at first. Perhaps the pain from the divine attack had momentarily dulled his perception, but now he could see it clearly as he stared with a sense of shock at his opponent. Zesshi no longer even compared to how she looked before; clearly she had broken some kind of seal on her as from her body radiated the power of both heaven and the netherworld as a mix of divine and negative energy swirled in maelstrom of grayish energy that caused even the two level one hundred warriors to be on guard. But this was still not the most surprising as from the back of her armour had seemingly burst open to allow what was trying to break out to escape. From Zesshi's back, three pairs of wings had sprung. With on one side three pure white wings as white as fresh snow that shone as bright as a full moon and on the other hand three wings as black as umber that radiated a foul and malignant dark aura.
"Impossible! A hybrid?!"
Demiurge let out a slight cry of surprise. How could he not think of this explanation as he had been trying to produce a creature like Zesshi for months now? Through trial and error in experimenting with different races of various types his research had yielded few concise results and one real conclusion. For whatever reason, the breeding of all but a few species to create a hybrid was impossible. Apart from certain races like elves whose blood and genes were very compatible with other races, it was almost impossible, if not completely impossible to create a hybrid that could possess mixed features from both races. But seeing Zesshi before him caused his entire hypothesis to be thrown out the window, which made his blood boil, but also caused joy in his heart as this meant that he could reopen the project with Zesshi as the key.
Looking a bit closer, it also became visible that though the white wings looked like something that belonged to an angelic being, the black wings looked like they belonged to a dead bird with most of the feathers mangled or stripped from the wing, and one of the three wings was even broken for half of its length with the stumped bone clearly in view. Evidently, someone had quite badly attacked Zesshi in the past and tried to cut off her black wings for whatever reason, but stopped, or perhaps was stopped after cutting off half of the first wing.
"Hoho, looks like someone didn't like those black feathers as much as the white ones. If Albedo saw this she might burst out in tears thinking what she would do if she couldn't show her beautiful wings off to Ainz-sama after they had been attacked like that."
Hearing the insensitive remark, Zesshi didn't move, although behind the slit of her helmet, a horrendous expression of rage appeared on her face as her white eye turned even brighter and began to shine with a slight radiant brilliance while her black iris seemed to turn into a dark vortex that kept swirling as if trying to suck the world in. The subject of her feathers was one that even Sylvan would not dare to tread upon as he would be courting death. The person who had done this to her she had taken revenge on to the extent that what was left of him could be buried with a teaspoon. In the entire world, not a single soul had dared to touch upon this matter and live to tell the tale and yet this demon actually verbally jabbed at her with it right away!
"There won't be enough to make a grave for you when I'm done with you, you fiend!"
Demiurge looked over his shoulder for a second. In this commotion, he had actually forgotten why he had lowered his guard in the first place. Behind him in the room where Ainz had gone, a power of unknown origin had exploded and possibly wounded or endangered Ainz. What they needed to do now was deal with this bug as fast as possible and rush over to their master immediately after that. But with her tough defenses and now surprising power up, not to mention the item that negated magic damage, the best way to achieve victory would have to be…
"Sebas, although it's wasteful, let's end this fight with our battle modes."
Sebas looked at Demiurge with surprise as he showed a genuine smile for the first time.
"How peculiar, for once we are of the same mind. I was just about to suggest the same exact course of action."
Although it irked Demiurge that he and Sebas came up with the exact same idea, from another point of view, it was good that another NPC could think and analyze situations and make the same decisions as him who had the highest intellect. This was a promising sign for the future of Nazarick after all.
"Heeeh, you're telling me you weren't actually being serious until now? Give me a break! The two of you could go toe to toe with a dragon lord from where I'm standing and yet you're still holding back? There's a limit to how strong you can be in this world!"