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After having had his city taken away by the Church of the Goddess of Water, Charles has been seen his people suffering for way too long. Every year it only got worse. It was utterly insane how the church thought it was a good idea to ask for money to give people water, something that was always free and available to everyone in Sapphire Temple.
The Oasis gave endless amounts of water thanks to ancient magic, something many nobles knew, yet they choose to monopolize it anyways, an endless source of water monopolized by the greedy noble families that betrayed him, allying with the church.
They kidnaped his wife and his daughter, extorting him to sign a document giving away the ownership of the city to the church and make the Saintess Emilia as the supreme leader… He might have been given back his family safe and sound, but he was stripped away of everything else he owned.
It was out of pity that Emilia let him keep his house and whatever was in there, he often came to visit her, imploring her to reconsider, only getting kicked away and insulted by her, someone that seemed to hate the world, despite being someone know as a Saintess.
"Emilia… How many people must suffer for you to be satisfied?" He sighed, feeling hopeless and powerless in the face of such a huge organization as the Church of the Goddess of Water, directly connected to the Church of Light, the main church that spread across the entire continent of Midgard.
They had too much power, and he had no allies, something like a coup was just unthinkable. Filled with bitterness and frustration, he has been seeing his own city slowly die off, many commoners having already perished due to the unjust treatment.
"How can Emilia be so clueless to not realize commoners are the pillars of this city? Without their works, their production, and their jobs, this city will never flourish…" He sighed. "Is she planning to simply drain everyone dry and then go away? Why… But why?"
As he sighed and cried, he suddenly looked into the skies through the window of his manor, quickly noticing a strange disturbance in the clear skies.
A black dot was slowly growing larger and larger with each passing second, black lightning coming from it as the illusion of cracks appeared above the empty air of the skies.
It felt as if the skies themselves were a glass ceiling, slowly gaining more and more cracks, the black dot spreading and becoming bigger.
"W-What… is that?!"
This scene was seen by many people across the entire city. Those having their peaceful lives, those struggling, and those barely alive on the streets, all noticed the same thing.
"Mommy, what's the black thing over there?"
"I-I don't know… I've never seen something like that before."
"T-That's some sort of black monster? Or… wait is that lightning?!"
"Is a storm coming up today? That's very rare…"
"If it rains it means we'll get free water though!"
"We've already got plenty of free water!"
"Sshh! Don't just say that out loud, the Paladins are going to hear you!"
The people were slowly beginning to panic as they glanced into the skies, while within the Temple of the Church, Emilia glanced boringly at the people panicking, raising an eyebrow as she sipped some of her wine.
"What's wrong with the sheeple? Why are they all screaming and crying like the pathetic insects they are? Can't they shut up for once?" She sighed. "Huh?"
However, she quickly realized what was happening as she glanced into the skies just as them… Her eyes opening wide as she saw the black hole slowly expanding, black lightning and cracks in space spreading further with each passing second!
"W-What…?!" Emilia spit her wine. "What is that?! Wait, are these stupid Warlocks doing this?! But why?! Call Maleficus right this instant! What is the meaning of THIS?!"
She roared back at her Paladins, two of them nodding and running to seek the Warlocks Leader…
"T-This is… They were supposed to take them down stealthily! Why are they making a fuss in the skies out of nowhere?!" Emilia started biting her nails nervously.
Crackle…!
RUMBLE!
The skies kept growing darker, until the sun's light no longer reached the city completely. It felt as if an eclipse was descending upon the entire city.
The black hole was generating a strange tornado on the skies, its interior constantly swirling with Void and Chaotic energies.
Maria and her group were escaping from the endless expanding void, as Partner and Emeraldine had just arrived from the Domain they had been trapped on.
Bringing with them a powerful ancient magus that wasn't going to go down easily!
"YOU COWARDS… COME BACK! I'LL RIP YOU APART!"
His voice echoed across the entire dimension, countless red eyes emerging everywhere all at once. his tentacles rushing towards Maria and her group!
"What the hell is this?!" Lucifer muttered, grabbing everyone, and flying away as fast as he could.
FLAAASH!
"Uwaaah! It's getting all black! And there are eyes everywhere?!" Beery was panicking.
"T-This is not normal!" Spectra cried.
"It's the bastard of Belphegor! We defeated him for sure, but he somehow found a way to merge whatever was left from his soul into the Void Domain we were trapped in!" Said Partner. "Now he's expanding everywhere like a damn cancer!"
"We're sorry! We never thought he would do such a thing… No, that he was even capable of doing that to begin with!" Emeraldine apologized frantically.
"It's not your fault, don't worry." Maria sighed. "This isn't something you could even control…!"
Maria swung her hands, giant skeleton arms and claws clashed against all the tentacles, slashing them apart. Meanwhile, titanic branches and spear-like roots of black wood emerged as well, defending the entire group from Belphegor's endless attacks.
CLAASH! CLAASH! CLAASH! CLAASH!
"GRRHHHH…! YOU WON'T GET AWAY FROM HERE!"
Belphegor gave a loud roar, from the depths of the endless Void, the doppelganger of Halberoth and the Void Core it as protecting were consumed by the endless void, giving Belphegor even more power.
"GRAAAAAH!"
A gigantic, aberrant jaw opened in the middle of the void, slowly moving towards everyone!
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