My Wives are Beautiful Demons
Chapter 413 - 413: The Beginning of a Fight.

The field was about to collapse.

Sparks of raw energy crackled in the air like shards of reality ready to cut anyone who dared to breathe deeply. Ice and fire dueled beneath the feet of those present, forming a fragile boundary between eras, between worlds—between ancient vendettas and new disasters.

But at the center of the storm, two figures remained steadfast.

Nivara, Empress of Ice, stood erect like an ancient spear, her eyes still without pupils, but filled with an opaque, piercing light, like crystals under pressure.

Crimsarya, Scarlet Empress, the flames of her hair dancing with calculated slowness, as if mocking the glacial stillness that surrounded her.

Both watched each other. Neither moved.

Until Nivara spoke—her voice cold as the shore of an eternal lake.

"You brought gods, Crimsarya?" Contempt dripped from every syllable, like ice melting and refreezing. "How disgusting. I expected more from you."

Crimsarya did not look away. She did not take a single step.

"Tsk, please," she replied, shaking her hand in a gesture of dramatic exhaustion. "I'm not with them. If it were up to me, none of these glorified demigods would even be allowed to breathe near this field."

She glanced briefly at Kali, Morrigan, and Susano'o, the three gods now watching from a distance, like living sculptures on the brink of a cataclysm.

"They came on their own," Crimsarya continued, turning her face back to Nivara. "Spies. Intruders. Well-dressed flies, that's all."

"Hey, hey, hey!" interrupted Wukong, swinging his staff over his shoulder as if preparing for a tavern brawl rather than an interplanar war. "Let's take it easy, ladies of fire and ice."

He spun his staff once, letting the wood clink against the air.

"No one here came to protect you. In fact, I think we just came to... challenge a little. You know? That basic thing: prevent the end of the world, play cosmic heroes for a few minutes..." He smiled broadly, as if the ruined scenery itself were a particularly good joke.

Crimsarya raised an eyebrow in boredom.

"No one called you, golden primate."

"Ah, but I'm a much sought-after presence, you know..." Wukong bowed theatrically, his tail swishing behind him like a rude fan.

Nivara finally turned to him. A slow movement, dragging the air around her as if time itself were hesitating to go along with it.

"You are... interesting," she said, as if examining insects dancing on a fireplace. "For beings of the new era, you are quite strong."

Wukong opened his arms, his eyes flashing.

"Why, my lady of the cosmic refrigerator, I'm flattered," he replied, puffing out his chest. "It's always a pleasure to be recognized by a failed legend..."

He didn't finish.

A crack echoed through the air, like glass breaking from the inside out.

Before anyone could react, a spear of ethereal ice suddenly emerged from the ground beneath Wukong's feet—fast, silent, and brutal. It crossed the field with the precision of a sharp thought and struck him from below, unceremoniously, without a chance to respond.

A sharp sound—and Wukong was launched into the sky like an inverted meteor.

His body described a grotesque arc in the air, spinning once, twice, three times before being swallowed by the crack that still burned in the broken sky of the demonic world. His laughter — or perhaps just a mental echo of it — lingered for a second.

Silence.

Crimsarya blinked, looking at the space left by the flying monkey.

"...I hate to admit it, but I missed this kind of drama," she murmured.

Vergil, standing next to Safira, narrowed his eyes. His lips twisted in a mixture of surprise and resigned respect.

"Did he survive?" he asked in a low voice.

"Probably," Sepphirothy replied behind him, without emotion. "But he'll complain about it for fifty years."

Nivara, her hand still suspended in the air from her last gesture, finally lowered it, like a judge closing a trial.

"A joke," she muttered, more to herself. "A passing joke."

She looked at the gods still present. Morrigan smiled more cautiously now. Kali was motionless as always. And Susano'o watched with an arched eyebrow.

"If this is the kind of 'alliance' you can form..." Nivara shook her head. "...then the war will be shorter than I expected."

Crimsarya let out a dry, warm laugh, but without joy. "Ah, make no mistake, Nivara. I didn't come here for alliances. I came here to bury you."

Nivara smiled—for the first time.

It wasn't a pretty smile.

"Then come."

The ground cracked between them. Ice expanded in a deadly spiral around Nivara, like the roots of a dead world. Fire thickened around Crimsarya, rising like the walls of a forgotten empire.

And in the distance, the distortion in the sky began to reconstitute itself. But it still vibrated. It still creaked like the teeth of an angry god.

Sapphire moved, trying to stand up once and for all.

"Vergil..." she said, breathing unevenly. "They're going to destroy everything..."

Vergil clenched his fists, looking at the titans ready to collide. "No..." he replied. "They will destroy each other. Our job is to survive."

Sepphirothy just stared.

From above, one last distant laugh from Wukong echoed like inverted thunder: "I'LL BE BACK, YOU BITCHES—!"

Silence.

Crimsarya lifted her chin. "He's going to die."

The silence that followed Wukong's distant laughter was thick as frozen smoke.

For a brief moment, everything seemed suspended—even time hesitated in the face of the tension between the two titans staring each other down at the center of the demonic world. The flames and ice around them were not just manifestations of power: they were manifestations of conflicting eras, of incompatible philosophies. Of old wounds that never healed.

Crimsarya took half a step forward, her eyes burning with liquid amber. But before she could say a word, Nivara moved her hand. A minimal gesture. Almost polite.

The world reacted violently.

A burst of compacted ice erupted from the ground, so dense that the very air was sucked from the surrounding space. It was as if reality had been sucked into a vacuum before being spat out in fragments. The blow struck Crimsarya with the force of an ancient sentence.

She was thrown backward like a crimson comet. The impact reverberated for miles, cracking the foundations of the demonic ground, shaking ancient structures that had survived wars between worlds. Her body passed through a formation of black rock and ricocheted off the wall of a nearby mountain, which cracked under the collision.

The dust slowly settled.

And from it emerged Crimsarya. Unscathed. Not even her red armor was scratched.

But something was different.

She stopped, slowly, and shook the dust from her shoulders as if shaking off a memory. Her eyes no longer burned—they glowed with a silent and dangerous light. Her head turned calmly toward Nivara, and the expression on her face was like the prelude to a volcano.

"Do you really want to start this here, Nivara?" she said, her voice lower than before. Less theatrical. Much more real.

Nivara did not respond immediately. She took two steps forward, the sound of her footsteps muffled by the crust of ice spreading beneath her feet. The air around her crackled, breaking particles of energy as if rewriting the laws of space.

"Why are you hesitating?" she finally asked, tilting her head slightly. "You know as well as I do... this world was not made to contain both of us."

Crimsarya stared at her for a long moment, her fists clenched but still steady.

"We are no longer in the Age of the Ancients, Nivara," she replied, with an unexpected note of regret. "The world... has changed."

Nivara laughed dryly, the sound like crystal goblets shattering in a winter hall.

"You've gone soft, Crimsarya."

The Scarlet Empress did not respond immediately. She merely sighed—and the world reacted.

The air around her shimmered.

A red glow began to form beneath her feet, like embers igniting beneath the skin of the world. The flames that had once curled like serpents now rose like pillars of judgment. A muffled roar echoed through the depths, as if the very core of the demonic plane sensed the ancient heat returning.

"You'll see," she said, her tone so calm it sounded like a threat. "Things have changed. And I've changed with them."

And then, the world exploded.

Scarlet flames rose as if hell had been turned upside down, spilling upward into the fragmented sky. The black vegetation around them was incinerated in seconds. Dark crystals cracked and melted. Even the ashes tried to flee the heat.

Nivara did not move. She watched, serene, as if it were just the breeze before a real storm.

At the edge of the field, Vergil watched the scene with half-closed eyes. The swords at his waist vibrated slightly—as if afraid of being drawn by instinct.

At his side, Sapphire staggered as she leaned on a rock. She coughed up blood, but did not take her eyes off the titanic duel.

Vergil ran his hand through his hair, already covered in soot and moisture.

"Can I ask you something?" he said finally.

Sepphirothy, standing beside him, didn't answer. He just glanced at him sideways.

"Is it too late to... go home?"

Silence.

Sepphirothy crossed his arms and replied with the coldness of someone who had seen many apocalypses: "No. But it's too early to stop watching."

Vergil sighed deeply. "Great."

Sapphire laughed, even though she was in pain. "Aren't you guys even a little worried?"

"It's not the first time these two have broken a world," Sepphirothy muttered. "But maybe it'll be the last... breaking this one."