Idle Mage: Humanity's Strongest Backer

"WHO!!! WHO THE HELL CAUSED THIS!!"

A roar filled with unbridled rage echoed in the Chaotic Warzone. It came from an Angel which Ashton recognized as a Cherub.

Cherubim are Celestials that have wings with human, animal, or birdlike characteristics. This particular one had a Human head, its body was hidden behind one of the six pairs of wings it has — which is of course lined with crimson eyes bulging out of sheer fury, and its legs were that of a pig's...

"YOU FILTHY HYPOGEANS!!! IT'S YOU, ISN'T IT!? ADMIT IT OR ELSE I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU!"

"DO IT! I DARE YOU, YOU STUPID FUCKING PIGEON!"

One of the Demon Princes stepped forward and fearlessly met the angel with just as much fury and confidence. The rest of the Demon Princes behind him also stepped forward and prepared for a serious clash.

"Did you seriously think that it was us who did this? I know that you're a bird and all but I didn't know that brain of yours is similar to a bird as well! Seriously? How stupid can you fucking get? We were all fighting just now, when did we have enough time to do all of this? Huh?"

Another Demon Prince stepped up and berated the Cherub, who was fuming still...

"Oh? And is that your way of blaming us?" This time, a Throne stepped up to support the Cherub.

"Not really, but if the shoe fits..."

"Ho? Then you just admitted that you're also stupid." The Throne spat, "You said it yourself, we were all there, fighting our hearts out, and didn't have enough time to do any of this. If you practice your preach, then you'd know that if it's not you all then it isn't us either!"

The expression of Demons turned ugly at those words, the Angels didn't feel so good either. They were at an impasse, not knowing who to blame for this disaster.

As for the culprit himself, well he's sneering at the sheer stupidity he's witnessing. Since his trail had gone cold at this point, Ashton's extremely confident that none of these fools would trace this back to him at all. Therefore, he's just going to watch how these invaders will handle what he caused.

One of the Angels; an Archangel if Ashton's guesses were correct, flew down and surveyed the battlefield closely with a solemn expression.

Seeing dried-up corpses of both Angels and Demons, the Archangel's face turned increasingly ugly.

Smoke was still rising from the ground, and the foul smell of corpses and the blood-stained soil painted a horrible picture that neither the Demons nor the Angels here particularly liked.

The Archangel walked around and suddenly, he felt something grabbing him on his ankles. He looked down and saw one of his men hacking and using the last ounce of their strength to get his attention.

"My brother in arms, hang in there. I got you." The Archangel lowered his body and grabbed the arms of the death angel.

The angel shook his head and rasped: "I-I'm afraid that it's too late for me, Sire..."

"We can heal you! It doesn't have to end here!"

"I-I'm tired, Sire..." The angel shook his head again and smiled sadly, "I wanna go back to Paradiso. I miss the embrace of my loving wife, please let me go."

"..."

"None of us saw what happened, Sire." The angel coughed out blood as he kept getting weaker and weaker. "I didn't...notice anything strange...I just blink and all of a sudden...I'm dying..."

"I understand..." The Archangel nodded.

"Be...be careful, Sire...God be with you..."

"And also with you. Have a blessed journey back home, Brother." The Archangel recited a prayer as soon as the dying angel drew his last breath.

Ashton who had been paying attention to this, raised his brow and watched carefully.

He then saw a golden orb of light raising from the dying angel's body, as the Archangel finished his prayer, more golden orbs appeared from the corpses of the angels around him.

The archangel raised his hand and sent the golden orbs away with a tear-stricken face.

Meanwhile, on the demon's side, a Ram Demon was performing some sort of ritual dance. Unlike what happened to the angels, the corpses of demons were instead dragged by demonic hands that came out of the ground.

Ashton frowned upon seeing all of this. He wracked his brain, trying to understand what was happening...then he came to a conclusion.

'Ah, so they don't truly die in a sense. They just return from where they came from.'

And that is exactly what's happening here. The Angels, through the help of their comrades, can have their souls returned home — which is Paradiso if Ashton's guesses were correct.

As for Demons, it's basically the same thing, it just looks more sinister. Ashton doesn't think that the Demons are returning to the Qlipoth though. He has no idea what their 'home' is called but intuition told him that it isn't the Qlipoth since that's on the Blue Planet.

"We won't hear the end of this when we report it back to the Council." One of the Demon Prince stated.

His voice was loud enough to be heard by both Demon and Angels, causing Ashton to see how their faces warped in annoyance and irritation.

'Council, huh...' Ashton took note of that term.

"The trend was broken by an unknown variable." The same Archangel said in a flat tone. "As much as I would like nothing more than to blame you Demons, I'm afraid that I don't have enough evidence to support my claim."

Unexpectedly, the Demons had nothing to say to that, they remained quiet instead of rebuking the angel which made Ashton frown since that's somewhat out of character from what they displayed so far.

"We will report this as it is." The Archangel stated, "As much as I despise to say this, I hope that you all will do the same. I don't need to speak of the consequences should you've proven guilty of lying to your Council."

"Tch. No need to remind us." One of the Demon Prince sneered, "Do you fools think we want to be stuck here with you? Please..."

Ashton's brow furrowed even more upon hearing that.

After that brief exchange, both camps snorted at each other before retreating to their own sides. There seems to be an unspoken truce between them for now, but hell would freeze over first before either of them admits that.

Once they're tone, the Chaotic Warzone had some peace. Eerily, it doesn't seem to fit this place at all. But Ashton's actions this time were too huge to be ignored.

Ashton kept on observing though. After an hour and a half, he saw both camps releasing their patrolling groups, which made him a little bit confused.

He watched as they went on their usual routine until one group on each side came a little too close to each other.

This time though, no fight broke out.

The groups didn't even seem to see each other and just followed their routes, which was highly uncharacteristic from what Ashton observed so far.

This somewhat solidified his belief that was indeed an unspoken truce for now. And that he shouldn't be expecting any kind of clash happening within the next few days.

'Which works for me...' He mused to himself, 'I can use this time to do more preparations and organize the intel I received so far.'

Since there'd be no show to watch, Ashton withdrew his senses and started thinking.

He came out there originally to issue a slaughter. And slaughter, he certainly did. As it's shown by how his Bone Scythe still thrums with power due to how much blood it consumed a couple of minutes ago.

'So Celestials and Hypogeans don't die that easily. At least not in this place.' He mused to himself, 'So long as their superiors are with them, they could be brought back home — whatever that means, I guess...'

'...a little bit unfair, no? Do they have unlimited resurrections? That's cheating...'

'Though I can counter that...' Ashton smiled despite himself.

Judging by the expressions of the Demons and the Angels when they saw the dried-up corpses of his victims, he could easily tell that those won't be resurrected at all.

For some reason, the Blood-Drinking Seal neutralized their resurrection. He firmly believes this since when he was observing the prayer and ritual, no souls emerged from the corpses of his victims. The scythe didn't grow weaker either.

With this information, Ashton knew that his decision of staying here had merits. His presence is indeed needed here since there are things for him to learn and more victims for him to kill...

'There seems to be a deeper secret in this place.' Ashton kept musing to himself, 'There are secrets that I need to uncover first. I can't leave unless I learn that first. I also want to kill as many of the invaders as I could to make them regret ever coming here.'

All of this will take some time, but Ashton wasn't disheartened. He's prepared for a battle of attrition anyway.

He will come out on top of this. That, he swears...