My Wives are Beautiful Demons

Chapter 820: Vergil returned with the heads in his hand.

Itharine left Sapphire, Sepphirothy, War, and Conquest at the outer edge of the Abyss, far enough from the crater that the direct pressure from the depths would not crush their already weakened bodies, but close enough that they could still all feel the constant tremor coming from below. The spectral dragon landed on the black rock with controlled impact, slowly spreading its wings to shield the wounded from the current of demonic energy rising from the crater. The air around them still carried death, black fire, and a tension that no longer seemed to belong only to the Abyss, as if something within it had been permanently broken.Sepphirothy was the first to move with any real awareness. Her body was still weak, but her mind had returned enough to understand that they were outside the chamber of the Sins. Sapphire remained partially unconscious beside her, breathing with difficulty, while War and Conquest lay motionless like abandoned suits of armor on the ground. Their appearance was still that of metallic, empty figures, but the weak and irregular internal energy proved there were living beings inside those ruined forms. Itharine turned its head toward the crater, and the thousands of eyes across its body narrowed at the same time.

"I will return to my master," Itharine said, its voice echoing directly inside everyone’s minds, deep and ancient, as if it came from a creature born long before it had ever possessed a form.

Sepphirothy rose with difficulty, supporting herself with one hand against the rock to keep from falling. Her body still hurt, her energy was still unstable, but the mere thought of leaving Vergil alone down there made her clench her teeth. "I’m going with you," she said without hesitation.

Itharine did not move for a few seconds. Then one of its three larger pupils turned toward her, watching her with silent gravity. "No," the dragon replied. "It is better that you do not see what he is doing down there."

Sepphirothy frowned. There was exhaustion in her, pain and irritation, but also a fear she did not want to admit. "What do you mean by that?"

The dragon remained silent for too long before answering. The black flames around its wings diminished, and for an instant, its voice seemed less monstrous and more cautious. "I mean that you might look at him and think he is not your son."

Sepphirothy went quiet. The sentence did not strike her like an offense, but like something far worse: a possibility. She knew Vergil. She knew his coldness, his pride, and the way he turned pain into silence. But she also knew the son who hid care behind arrogance, who healed before complaining, who pulled away when he felt too much. The idea that something down there could make her fail to recognize him left her without an answer.

The silence was broken by a metallic cough.

War moved first, his entire body trembling inside the broken armor. The sound that escaped him seemed to come from someone dragged back to consciousness against his own will. Conquest awakened soon after, turning onto his side with difficulty as pale energy flickered through the cracks in his armor. Despite the appearance of empty shells, there were beings inside those forms, and both seemed to have been pushed to their limits.

War raised his head with effort. His voice came out rough, heavy with pain and urgency. "Tell the boy to get out of there."

Sepphirothy turned to him immediately. "Why?"

War tried to prop himself up on one arm, but failed almost at once. Even so, he forced the words out. "The Horseman of Famine is down there. If he finds—"

He did not finish.

Something came out of the crater.

Not flying. Not rising. It was thrown.

A body crashed before them with enough force to crack the rock around it. The figure rolled several meters before stopping, wrapped in destroyed pieces of ancient, dark armor. The metal was broken in several places, the internal energy completely irregular, and the presence that should once have been suffocating now seemed reduced to an unstable shadow. War stared at it, unable to speak. Conquest also froze, his gaze fixed on the ruined armor before them.

War recognized him first. "Famine..."

The word came out almost without air.

Before anyone could react, a new presence rose from the crater. It was not an explosion, nor a desperate escape. It was a controlled ascent. Vergil emerged from the depths of the Abyss flying, sustained by wings that did not belong to a single nature. On one side, pale feathers and divine energy shone in silence; on the other, demonic membranes and black flames spread shadow. The two forces did not cancel each other out. They coexisted within him as if contradiction itself had been forced to obey.

He landed before them without hurry.

The air immediately grew heavy.

Sapphire, still dazed, opened her eyes with difficulty. Sepphirothy said nothing. War, even wounded, seemed to forget his own pain for a moment.

In Vergil’s hand was a casing of compressed demonic energy, dark and pulsing, carrying the remnants of the Authorities torn from the Sins. Inside it were the heads of Greed, Envy, Gluttony, and Sloth, preserved only enough to make the end of each one clear. Lust was not there. Her absence said enough. There was no need to explain what had happened.

Vergil opened his hand.

The casing dissolved, and the heads fell to the ground, rolling until they stopped near War’s feet. The Horseman of the Apocalypse stared at them in absolute silence. There was no triumph in the scene. No spectacle. There was only result. Four Capital Sins reduced to proof that the old order had been broken in a single descent.

Then Vergil looked at Famine.

The ruined armor tried to move, but could manage no more than a weak tremor. The Horseman’s presence still existed, but it was unstable, crushed by a defeat that seemed to have happened too quickly to be understood.

"The only reason I won’t kill you," Vergil said, his voice cold, without the slightest change, "is because your God will grant you that blessing as soon as you leave Hell."

War went rigid when he heard that. Conquest lowered his head slightly, understanding the weight of the sentence. Vergil was not sparing Famine out of mercy. He was merely allowing another authority to finish what remained of him. That was almost worse.

After that, Vergil turned.

His gaze found Sapphire first. She was finally awake enough to recognize him, though she still seemed caught between pain, exhaustion, and confusion. Then he looked at Sepphirothy. His face, which until that moment had seemed made of stone, changed almost imperceptibly. The wrath was still there. Death still weighed around him. But something human returned to the surface for an instant.

He raised his hand and released sacred-demonic energy over the two of them.

The healing came quickly and precisely. Not like a gentle wave, but like an order given to injured bodies. Cuts disappeared, fractures adjusted, spiritual energy stabilized, and the marks left by the chains began to fade. Sapphire took a deep breath, as if she had been pulled out of drowning. Sepphirothy felt the pain diminish in layers, until only the weight of what had happened remained.

Vergil walked up to his mother.

For a moment, Sepphirothy thought he would say something harsh, make a cold comment, or merely confirm that she was alive before turning away. But he did none of that. He simply pulled her close and hugged her tightly.

Sepphirothy froze.

Vergil held her like someone who had spent far too long imagining the possibility of never doing so again. The wings behind him closed partially, and the miasma around him diminished. It did not disappear. There was still death in him, still Wrath, still something terrible that had not been erased. But within that embrace existed something else, something none of the Sins would ever have been able to understand.

"Sorry I took so long," he said quietly.

Sepphirothy took a while to answer. Then she closed her eyes and raised one hand, touching his back carefully. She could still feel the difference in his presence. She could still feel the shadow of Itharine’s warning. But this was Vergil. Even carrying death. Even covered in far too much power. Even frightening enough to make the Abyss tremble.

He was still her son.

"It’s all right," she replied, her voice tired but firm. "You arrived."

Vergil remained hugging Sepphirothy for a few seconds longer than anyone would have expected from him. There was no hurry in the gesture, despite the Abyss still trembling beneath their feet and despite Famine’s presence remaining collapsed only a few meters away. Sapphire watched in silence, still recovering control of her breathing, while Itharine kept its wings partially spread around them like a living barrier. For a few moments, the scene seemed far too absurd to belong to the same place where the Sins had been exterminated minutes before. At the center of that chaos, Vergil held his mother like someone finally confirming he had not arrived too late.

When he pulled away, the expression on his face had already returned to its usual control. The concern was still there, hidden beneath layers of coldness, but his focus had returned. Vergil slowly turned toward War and Conquest, who still remained wounded, supported by their damaged armor. The two Horsemen of the Apocalypse held his gaze with difficulty. Not because of moral weakness, but because the presence before them no longer belonged completely to the category of demons they knew.

"Take Famine back to Heaven," Vergil said, pointing with his gaze to the ruined armor lying on the black rock. "Deliver him to Metatron. He will know what to do."

War remained still for a few seconds, as if trying to decide whether he had heard correctly. Even wounded, even exhausted, there was still an ancient rigidity in him, a sense of order tied to the very role he occupied. The idea of receiving an order from that man, that demon, that new bearer of an Authority that should have belonged to the cycle of the Horsemen, seemed difficult to accept without question.

"You are the Horseman of Death," War said, his voice hoarse behind the cracked armor. "Then why are you ordering us to take Famine? You should—"

"I’m not part of your boy band."

The interruption came dryly.

Sapphire blinked slowly, still weak, but clearly lucid enough to register the comment. Sepphirothy closed her eyes for an instant, as if that sentence definitively confirmed that, despite everything, it was still Vergil there. Conquest remained silent, but the slight tilt of his head revealed that even he needed to process the casual absurdity of that answer.

War stared at Vergil, unsure whether that was disdain, provocation, or simply honesty.

Vergil continued without changing his tone.

"I have the Authority of Death because I am the grandson of your God. Nothing more." He looked at Famine again, and the coldness in his voice returned completely. "I was not summoned to join any group. I received no oath. I owe no loyalty to the celestial system of the Horsemen. The Authority recognized me, and that is enough."

The silence that followed was heavy. War seemed to want to answer, but found no immediate argument. Conquest, on the other hand, watched Vergil with a different kind of attention. Not as an enemy. Not exactly as an ally. More like someone facing an anomaly that needed to be understood before it could be judged.

Vergil did not wait for approval.

"Take Famine to Metatron. If he belonged to Heaven, then Heaven decides what to do with him. I already have enough problems to solve."

Sepphirothy noticed the change in his posture even before he said the rest. The tension in his shoulders returned, more contained now, but no less dangerous. Sapphire noticed it too. Vergil’s gaze was no longer on the fallen Horseman, nor on the remains of the Sins, nor on the hole of the Abyss. It was distant, fixed on another unresolved piece of information.

Lilith.

"My grandmother is in a coma because of these idiots’ plans," he said at last. "And I still don’t know who was pulling the strings behind all of this."

War remained silent.

So did Conquest.

Even Itharine seemed to reduce the intensity of its black flames for a few moments.

Vergil looked at the crater again. The Abyss continued to tremble, but now the destruction no longer rose with the same violence. The worst had ended down there, at least for now. The remaining Sins had been eliminated, their Authorities taken, and Famine was reduced to a broken body awaiting judgment. Even so, Vergil’s face showed no satisfaction.

Sapphire slowly supported herself against a rock, still feeling the healing reorganize the final flaws in her body. "You think this isn’t over."

Vergil did not look at her immediately.

"I don’t."

The answer was too simple.

Sepphirothy lightly clenched her hand, trying to ignore the weight that word carried.

"Did you feel something?"

Vergil finally turned his eyes back to her.

"Not enough to name it." His voice remained low. "But this was too organized. The Sins did not act alone on impulse. They had a ritual, specific prisoners, captured Horsemen, and an invasion plan. That requires coordination."

Conquest spoke for the first time since fully awakening.

"Metatron needs to know this."

"Then take the message along with Famine," Vergil replied. "Tell him the Capital Sins are finished. Tell him their Authorities are with me for now. And tell him that if Heaven wants to discuss that, it can wait until I finish taking care of my family."

War remained silent for a few seconds before finally nodding. He did not seem satisfied, but he also did not seem willing to argue. Maybe because he was too wounded. Maybe because he had just seen Famine thrown out of the Abyss like a defeated body. Or maybe because, before Vergil in that state, even War knew how to recognize when a battle did not need to begin.

"We will take Famine," War said.

Vergil only nodded once.

Then he turned to Sapphire and Sepphirothy, and his expression softened for a fraction of a second. "Can you walk?"

Sapphire let out a weak laugh, without humor. "After being kidnapped by Capital Sins, almost drained, and waking up to see you come out of the Abyss with heads in a bag? Yes, I can probably walk."

"Good."

Sepphirothy watched her son for a few moments. She could still feel something different in him. It was not merely new power. It was not merely the Authority of Death. There was a distance in him that had not existed before, as if part of Vergil were still down there, among the wreckage and the shadows of the dead Sins. Even so, when he looked at her again, that human fragment returned for an instant.

"Let’s go see Lilith," he said.