"Right. Let's go," Maou said before pencil diving into the foliage, not bothering to spare a glance to see if Urushihara was managing with his wingspan. He alighted on a higher bough, checking for nearby, living humans, before dropping to the floor. He took a few steps toward the treeline ahead, every silent footfall a higher notch turned on the Devil's furnace. The general feeling of wrongness the forest bred camouflaged the strangeness of its effects almost completely, but the anger still didn't quite belong.

So the flames twisted themselves into the right shape, roots writhing in both Lucifer's and Satan's hearts. It hit Maou with the memory of pain he thought he'd long since outgrown, of a wounded ghoul lying alone in a field that held the still bodies of his tribe. A kid hopeless and angry, even at his rescuer. That moment contorted into the heavy blows of losing three of his generals, one by one, like a man gradually losing limbs as he climbed, the clifftop in sight. Sure, the left arm wasn't as big a deal, particularly since he knew it would reattach. Fighting with only one limb of four, however, was a futile endeavor. The fact he still tried didn't mean he didn't feel the phantoms where that support once was.