Chapter 939: When the Sun Comes Calling

The corridors of Genesis Castle remained exactly where Lilith and Sepphirothy remembered them, but practically everything else had changed.

The absence of any living presence had transformed the citadel into an enormous dead structure, overtaken by dust, ancient webs, and remnants of demonic energy that accumulated in the corners like a dark mist.

Every step the two women took echoed through corridors far too wide for only two people, carrying them past open doors, empty halls, and ancient preparation areas that had once held hundreds of demons at the same time.

Sepphirothy let her fingers trail along the side of a wall as she walked.

The accumulated dust was so thick that her hand left behind a perfectly clean streak, revealing the black stone and ancient demonic symbols engraved beneath it.

Even though she had lived in that castle for only a few years, she still remembered almost every one of those paths clearly.

"It’s strange walking through these corridors like this."

Sepphirothy looked at an old suit of demonic armor collapsed beside a doorway, so deteriorated that part of the metal had already fused with the floor.

"I remember demons constantly walking back and forth through here. This place was never quiet."

Lilith followed her daughter’s gaze and recognized the corridor as well.

Back then, dozens of soldiers crossed it every day, carrying weapons, armor, and supplies to different parts of the castle while officers shouted orders and messengers brought information from the battlefields.

"They were preparing for war."

Sepphirothy continued walking, passing a partially destroyed old table.

"Every time I left our chambers, I would find someone running with a sword, carrying messages, or arguing about the angels’ movements. Even when I was little, I could tell something enormous was happening."

Lilith remained silent for several seconds before letting out a sigh.

For Sepphirothy, those memories belonged to childhood.

For her, they were memories from a time that now felt so distant from the woman she had become that she sometimes struggled to recognize herself within them.

"Back then, I was living inside an illusion of happiness."

Lilith looked through one of the broken windows and saw only the endless darkness of that primordial world.

"When I think about the woman I was here, sometimes I genuinely wonder whether Lucifer was controlling my mind somehow."

Sepphirothy glanced sideways at her mother, but detected no humor in the statement.

Lilith seemed to be genuinely considering the possibility, especially after everything she had learned about Lucifer and the way he had used her existence during the earliest years of the demonic race.

"I accepted things that I now consider absurd."

Lilith passed through an enormous door torn from its hinges and continued without slowing down.

"I loved him, believed we were building something together, and thought that entire war served some greater purpose."

"Now I look back and can only think about how na?ve I was."

Sepphirothy didn’t try to comfort her with some simple response.

She knew her mother well enough to understand that Lilith didn’t need that.

The two simply continued through the castle, following a path their bodies seemed to remember even after so much time.

The closer they came to the central region, the greater the signs of the final battle became.

Cuts crossed entire walls.

Craters destroyed sections of the floor.

Several columns had been melted by some source of heat so intense that the stone still possessed a glass-like appearance.

Ancient weapons remained scattered everywhere, many of them belonging to species that no longer even existed.

Eventually, they reached the doors of the throne room.

One was still partially attached to the wall.

The other lay on the floor.

Lilith passed through the opening without hesitation, and Sepphirothy entered right behind her.

The hall was enormous.

Rows of broken pillars led toward an elevated platform at the opposite end, while ancient demonic banners hung in ruins from the walls.

Large openings created during the battle scarred the ceiling, allowing the darkness of the outside world to be seen through them.

And at the center of the platform, the throne was still occupied.

Lilith stopped.

"It’s funny seeing how he ended up."

There was no sadness in her voice as her eyes remained fixed on the figure seated before her.

Lucifer was still on the throne.

Or what remained of him.

Millennia had erased every trace of flesh.

All that remained was a partially charred skeleton covered in fragments of ancient clothing that had melted and fused with the bones.

The position in which he had died had only been preserved because his body was literally pinned to the throne.

Swords pierced his chest.

Spears impaled his abdomen, shoulders, and legs.

Fragments of other weapons remained buried between his ribs, while a broken blade had pierced part of his skull.

Some were angelic weapons.

Others were demonic.

Several carried completely different energy signatures, making it obvious that many sides had participated in that final assault.

Sepphirothy slowly walked toward the base of the platform.

There was no positive emotion on her face.

Lilith climbed the steps and stopped before her former husband.

For several seconds, she simply stared at the skull tilted against the back of the throne before raising one hand.

Demonic energy surrounded Lucifer’s head.

She lifted it slightly, forcing the skeleton to face her.

"And to think this idiot still managed to divide his own soul into several pieces and scatter them throughout the Human World after all of this."

Lilith moved her fingers, making the skull follow the gesture while the rest of the body remained pinned by the weapons.

"You started a war that killed billions of angels, demons, and Fallen Angels, died sitting on your own throne, and still somehow found a way to keep causing trouble after death."

The skeleton’s jaw remained slightly open.

Its only answer was the silence that had ruled Genesis for ages.

Lilith released the head.

The skull fell back against the throne.

Sepphirothy climbed the steps and stopped beside her mother.

She observed her father for several seconds, but there was no longing in her gaze.

Only an old mixture of resentment and indifference toward someone whose shadow had continued affecting her family long after his death.

"Anyway, let’s do what we came here to do."

Sepphirothy looked away from the corpse and turned her attention to the room, searching for the ancient mechanisms and seals that should still exist somewhere within the castle.

Lilith nodded and descended the first step.

Her interest in Lucifer had ended almost the same moment she entered the hall.

"A castle isolated in the depths of the Demon Realm is absolutely useless."

Lilith spread her arms and looked at the immense structure surrounding them.

"Well, let’s take this thing to Vergil’s territory."

Sepphirothy stopped in the middle of her movement.

She looked at her mother.

Then at the enormous hall.

Then back at Lilith.

"When you say ’this thing,’ you mean the entire castle, don’t you?"

Sepphirothy asked, though her expression made it obvious that she already knew the answer.

Lilith smiled.

"Naturally."

She began walking toward the ancient lower chambers of Genesis, where the cores responsible for keeping the citadel suspended should still be located.

"I didn’t cross the entire Demon Realm just to pick up furniture."

Sepphirothy let out a sigh and followed her mother.

Somehow, she should have expected that.

In the Storm World, Vergil’s training had quickly evolved into exactly the kind of situation Tsukuyomi had expected.

Vergil and Susanoo crossed the enormous courtyard at speeds that made their bodies completely disappear from conventional perception.

Yamato met Totsuka in a sequence of violent impacts, but neither blade remained in contact long enough for the confrontation to become a contest of strength.

Every attack was followed by an immediate change of position.

A different angle.

Another attempt to strike the opponent.

Susanoo appeared on Vergil’s left side and unleashed a horizontal slash.

Vergil leaned backward.

Totsuka passed mere centimeters from his face.

Yamato immediately rose.

Susanoo dodged.

The slash didn’t hit the goddess.

Reality behind her, however, split from one end to the other.

A black fissure crossed the courtyard and, for several moments, revealed a completely different region of the Storm World before space began repairing itself.

"You still rely too much on Yamato’s ability."

Susanoo reappeared behind him the next instant, bringing Totsuka down in a descending slash carrying enough electricity to illuminate the entire castle.

Vergil rotated Yamato and blocked.

"You say that while using a sword that seals anything it pierces."

Vergil pushed Totsuka aside and answered with a diagonal slash, forcing Susanoo to disappear within a burst of lightning.

"That is why I’m not piercing you."

Susanoo appeared several meters above him and descended with Totsuka ready, concentrating all of her strength into a single attack.

Vergil smiled.

"Fair."

The two swords met.

The impact didn’t produce an explosion.

It produced a rupture.

An enormous section of space-time around them simply shattered, creating dozens of fissures that spread across the sky of the Storm World.

Some disappeared almost immediately.

Others remained open, revealing distant regions of that same dimension.

Tsukuyomi remained seated in the air with her legs crossed, having watched the training for several minutes.

At first, she had seemed genuinely entertained.

After the fifth dimensional tear, however, her smile began to fade.

When Vergil tried to strike Susanoo again and she responded with another slash capable of splitting space, Tsukuyomi finally raised one hand.

"Could the two of you stop doing that before someone shows up complaining that you’re destroying the fabric of reality?"

The Moon Goddess watched a fissure pass only a few meters away from her and leaned aside without even abandoning her floating position.

Vergil and Susanoo didn’t stop.

Yamato and Totsuka collided again.

Another rupture tore across the sky.

Tsukuyomi closed her eyes.

"I’m serious. If you keep cutting through dimensional boundaries like this, someone responsible for maintaining these structures is going to notice and—"

The Moon Goddess stopped mid-sentence when a golden light began appearing in the center of the courtyard.

Vergil pulled Yamato away from Totsuka and retreated several meters.

Susanoo did the same.

The light rapidly intensified, but carried no hostility.

It was warm and powerful, resembling direct sunlight, although controlled enough not to burn anything around it.

Within that radiance, a feminine silhouette began to take shape.

"Please reduce the pace of this spatial destruction."

The woman’s voice appeared even before the glow faded, carrying a polite weariness that made it clear she already knew exactly who was responsible.

"I don’t have so much power to spare that I can keep rebuilding the fabric of reality every time the two of you decide to test which sword can cut through more dimensions."

Susanoo remained motionless.

Tsukuyomi immediately smiled.

Vergil lowered Yamato but didn’t sheath her.

The golden light finally diminished.

A woman stood at its center, surrounded by luminous particles that slowly vanished like tiny solar flames.

Her presence was completely different from Susanoo’s aggressive storm or Tsukuyomi’s lunar serenity.

There was something warm, majestic, and overwhelming within that energy.

As though a fraction of the Sun itself had just assumed human form before them.

Susanoo let out a tired sigh.

"Sister."

The way she said the word made it obvious that this was exactly the kind of visit she had been trying to avoid when she built an entire world surrounded by storms.

Tsukuyomi calmly waved at the newcomer.

"You took your time."

The Moon Goddess seemed far more pleased by that presence’s arrival than Susanoo did.

Vergil looked between the three women and immediately understood.

That was Amaterasu.