Everything around Asta was nothing but withered dead nature and the red sky the land crawling with millions of lifeless bodies and water replaced with fresh red blood.
Watching while every devil took every sign of life away one by one slowly torturing them to insanity.
For Asta this was the worst type of torture he had to face in his entire life, even more merciless than seeing the death of his friends and family die when they were literally in his grasp.
All he could do was lie helplessly on the ground waiting for lucifero to end it all, his face lost all its emotion and his body going numb.
Liebe on the other hand lied down right beside him his body filled with holes ,and even injuries far too impossible to heal.
They both were clearly nearing at deaths door.
"Don't you see? No matter how hard you try I always prevail! You and your pesky plans are useless once the door to hell opens. You do realize all of those efforts would've worked if you perhaps..
Saved your precious captain before he died"
Lucifero let's out a loud laughter of rejoicement as both of them could only twitch their hands in response clearly struggling to take a stand once again.
Liebe had one last ability before lucifero would end it all, and that was he still had the ability to talk to Asta in his thoughts.
He closed his eyes and entered astas mind seeing him at the most desperate state he has seen him over the years he was grabbing the strands of his hair blaming himself over and over again for all the bad things happening now. These thoughts overwhelmed liebe they as were too noisy and the negative pressure continously rises as he struggled to reach astas consciousness.
His thoughts were the only thing liebe does not have control over.
"HEY ASTA"
Was he wrong tho? It was clearly his fault.
"ASTA! "
Everyone's death could have been avoided
"DO YOU HEAR ME?!"
If he tried a little harder-
"ASTA YOU DUMBASS WAKE UP"
Liebe finally grabs ahold of his shoulder and spins him around facing him.
"QUIT IT WITH THOSE THOUGHTS WILL YOU IM STRUGGLING HERE"
Hearing those words Asta's negative thoughts honed down and so did the pressure but it did not mean everything was over completely.
"DON'T TELL ME YA FORGOT OUR GOAL YA DIPSHIT"
"What else do you have in mind exactly? We're stuck here helpless it's all us now, can't we just wait for the heavens to collect our soul? I'm not even sure you'd be there but-"
"You dumbass you said we were gonna atleast stab him one more time or die trying" liebe stated tightening his grip on his shoulder.
Asta suddenly remembered when they promised to take him down. Atop a dead mountain after witnessing their very last friend die again even being within their protection.
Asta looked sincerely at his step-brother face to face, his eyes gleamed with a tiny light of hope at his brother's words as the rest of the pressure seem to die down.
He gulped down his throat and slapped his own face multiple times turning his cheeks red.
"You're right liebe, let's surpass our limits one more time for everyone, everyone who died, for us. " He said softly gripping his fist tightly looking at liebe giving him one last determined grin.
Liebe responded with a smirk, soon leaving their little mind world and returning back to reality.
Compared to their own imagination world however, the real world treated their body much more harshly.
"I... Only.... Have... Enough.... For... 10 seconds..."
Liebe struggled out as he continously coughed out blood through his mouth,
"Th-then after that.. We'll both die, either because we couldn't handle the form any longer or lucifero got us" he wheezed out as best as he could to Asta.
"D-dont bother... That should be-" he coughed "enough". A trail of blood left his mouth.
"It's either hit him just atleast once again or die trying" Asta declared whilst slowly standing up again despite the excruciatingly painful feeling he felt all throughout his body making him shake on spot, he gave out a wide brave smile out to the huge devil in front of them.
Lucifero gave them a scornful look on his face as he held out his hands summoning another batch of attacks his way
"Fine then, I see you're similar to those humans like before... Show me your puny attacks and false quotes of hope and I'll return you a hundred fold of the damage you've done to me"
"Liebe do it now!"
Liebe quickly went into his chibi form zooming right next to Asta activating his devil union mode with only time for 10 seconds left to gain a win over lucifero.
Asta launched himself towards luciferos side aiming for his nape
"BLACK DIVIDER" He yelled as his demon slayer sword significantly grew in size almost reaching the surface of his nape.
"It's useless on trying that hard to reach me when you're only that of a human" With a snap of two fingers lucfero sent a large tsunami of gravity magic towards Asta who only slashed it with ease.
Over the years of constant war, he had learnt how to take natural pure magic, this however was different.
Lucifero tsked, his anti magic has taken a toll on him most of his natural large scale attacks failed to reach the peasants body almost close to wanting to call over his favored servant astaroth to help him deal the annoyingly so called brat.
Until he had a grim idea in mind.
Sending an even larger attack even larger than 2 kingdoms terraformed the ground to thin pieces of sharp spikes heading for Asta. Too late to respond Asta barely managed to dodge the sudden rise of attacks even with ki on his side to guide him.
When the Terraforming stopped he quickly headed once again for his head.
"DEMON DWELLER" he yelled out for his sword once again flying towards his hand.
Flying past his neck lucifero then releases an attack for defense pushing Asta back in front of him making him let go of his demon dweller sword and his demon slayer sword.
"How amusing Peasant boy, but" his eyes drooped down on him
"But I am simply superior"
Asta darted at his right shocked to see his own grimoire was blasted with a hole through it, the pages were torn and it slowly started to fade on its own without its master.
There was only 3 seconds left.
He gritted his teeth mumbling out cursing himself before looking up to lucifero.
"Then if you are superior"
2..
"I just simply need to drag you back down with me"
1..
With the last second remaining, 2 swords pierced through vital parts of lucifero's body.
His plan actually worked.
As it turns out the demon slayer and the demon dweller Asta dropped 3 seconds ago was staged to be planted at the back of his head enlarging the demon slayer sword during the few seconds left to its full potential peircing through luciferos chest and with the demon dweller plunged to his head making him unable to use his gravity magic to remove or heal anything. But this move came at a large sacrifice.
"YOU FOOLISH PAIR DONT KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO DESTROY THE BALANCE OF THE UNIVERSE? TO DESTROY EVIL ITSELF?"
"Yeah, it means this world shall disappear. But what use is this world to me if everything in it has already died?"
"I'M FULLY AWARE OF THAT...WELL THEN, HUMAN. FAREWELL"
Lucifero realeases a loud high pitched cry that made every being bleed from their ears, every demon at his service fall at the command at his cry.
The devils all around the continent slowly followed soon after, releasing a shriek of their own. Even liebe was hit with the damage, but he refused to scream in pain like the other devils, he refused to participate.
Gradually, everything slowly started to fade away. Although they both failed to save the world they still avenged their dead comrades that died for their sake, and that was what important to Asta in mind
"This is it Asta, one last look at the world before you join your friends" liebe said slowly disentigrating in mid air staring off at the last bloody sunset they'll ever have to see in their lives.
"I just hope you'd be there too liebe, too bad you're a demon" Asta chuckled weakly.
As his breathing slowly got harder and harder
"Who knows? We might find a way to let you in the gates of heaven" he said glancing at liebe who was almost close to disappearing.
"I hope you will, I'm glad we still have each other" said liebe who was 1/2 away from disappearing.
"That surprisingly cheesy coming from the likes of you"
"Asta I'm actually serious about it here, I'm genuinely glad I didn't have to die alone"
"Well I admit I'm quite thankful for that too, although I expected I'd die of old age as wizard King" joked Asta.
"Thats ironic, you died watching the world died with you as well" said liebe
The two of them ignored their pain and fear and continued to talk to each other, babbling about the things they don't want to be taken to their graves, secrets, bold admitions, etc...
"So, I guess this is a goodbye?" wondered asta
"Yeah, it's a goodbye, unless you still you're promise of bringing me to heaven too"
"How are you still sure heaven exists? Everything in the universe is dead after all" muttered asta
"I don't know just incase" replied liebe
And with that set in stone, Asta and Liebe let out their last vision and last breath. Their world ended with them side by side seeing the stars going out watching everything slowly disappear, and a mysterious bright light enveloping their once so called home.
.
.
.
.
The gods in their thrones stared at the scene unraveling in front of them with either fear, anger, or pity. They felt as though their ends were incomplete and too rushed of sorts. They weren't satisfied with them dead, until one demi-god spoke up suggesting they give them another chance of saving their own world. Despite the common disagreements between demi-gods and gods they all agreed.
With one snap of their fingers, a letter was sent to the timekeeper and adventure will soon unravel right in front of their eyes.
A/n
Hey guys this is my first story published on this account it would be helpful to receive some feedback from how this chapter is going whether I should continue or not because this was simply an idea that crossed in my mind.
(If I knew how the real lucifero acted like I would have done better but for now I'm just basing his personality to be similar to Dante but with a more sadistic attitude)
Also this was inspired by another book I read called "Another chance" by @ThahamsdThaks you should also check out their book too!
I still have a lot of story ideas in mind so please if you have any good ones do not be hesitant to tell me in the comments :)
Anyways with that said I shall now take my leave bye everyone! ☺️