Transmigrated as the Villain Between the Heroine and the Villainess

The world stopped ringing.

Celestria pushed herself up from the crater, her ears aching from the sonic blast. Dust and splintered wood rained down from the sky.

Across the clearing, Theron and Sebastian were doing the same, their expressions grim. Azrael, still cuffed, watched from the dirt, his mind reeling from the sheer, formless power he had just witnessed.

Marius stood in the center of the destruction he had created, his clothes untouched, his expression one of deep, tragic resolve. He had not moved an inch.

"This is your last chance," Marius said, his voice a low hum that vibrated in their bones. "Leave. This does not concern you."

"Like hell it doesn't," Celestria snarled.

She didn't waste another moment on words. She raised her hands, and the air around her warped. Silver light coalesced, hardening into the shape of a dozen long, sharp spears, each one glowing with contained power. With a sharp gesture, she sent them screaming through the air toward the vampire.

At the same time, a shimmering portal ripped open right behind Marius. Sebastian, his face a mask of cold focus, stepped through it, his sword already a blur as he aimed a decapitating strike.

It was a perfect pincer attack. An unavoidable assault from two directions.

Marius didn't even turn around.

He simply whispered a single word. "Shatter."

A high-frequency pulse, invisible and unheard, erupted from his body. Celestria's created spears, forged from pure Aether, disintegrated in mid-air, dissolving into harmless silver dust.

Sebastian's sword, a masterwork of folded steel, met the same invisible wall of force.

Clang!

The blade vibrated so violently it was nearly torn from his grasp. Cracks spiderwebbed across the metal before it exploded into a hundred tiny pieces.

The butler was thrown back through the portal just as it closed, his hands empty and bleeding.

Theron, his face pale with effort, opened another portal directly above Marius. He had redirected the vampire's initial blast back at him. A wave of concussive force slammed down from the sky.

Marius just looked up and sighed. "Repel."

A dome of silent energy formed over him, and the redirected attack washed over it like water off glass, blasting the treetops into splinters.

The fight had barely begun, and they hadn't even touched him.

'This is insane,' Azrael thought, struggling to sit up against the wreckage of the carriage. 'His affinity… it's a perfect defense.'

"My turn," Marius said, his voice still laced with a deep sadness.

He flicked his wrist. A thin, almost invisible blade of compressed sound shot from his fingertips. It moved faster than an arrow, slicing through the air with a faint, high-pitched whistle.

Celestria reacted instantly. A thick shield of solid silver Aether formed in front of her. The sonic blade hit it, not with a clang, but with a sharp hiss as it cut a deep groove into the magical construct before dissipating.

Theron was already moving. He opened a portal in front of him and another one to Marius's left, stepping through to attack from an unexpected angle. His hands glowed with a strange, purple energy, a spell meant to disrupt Aether itself.

But Marius was a master. He stomped his foot.

Thud.

A wave of low-frequency vibrations shot through the ground. The earth itself shook, and Theron, caught mid-step, lost his balance. The spell in his hands fizzled out.

Sebastian used the opening. He charged forward, no longer relying on portals. He held two new daggers, gifts from Celestria's creation. He moved in a weaving, unpredictable pattern, the Flowing Steel Style making him a ghost on the battlefield.

Marius watched him come, his crimson eyes tracking every single movement. "Your footwork is flawless, Sebastian. But you are still touching the ground."

He snapped his fingers.

Snap.

The ground directly in Sebastian's path exploded upward, a geyser of dirt and rock. The butler was forced to leap back, his assault broken.

This was the rhythm of the fight. For every action they took, Marius had an immediate, perfect counter. Celestria's creations were shattered by vibrations. Theron's portals were predicted and disrupted. Sebastian's grounded attacks were useless against a man who controlled the very earth he walked on.

'They can't win like this,' Azrael realized. 'They are fighting his fight. They need to change the rules.'

"Enough of this!" Celestria roared, her patience finally gone.

She stopped creating simple weapons. She closed her eyes, pouring all of her focus into a single, massive creation. The air above her began to shimmer and distort. A giant, silver fist, the size of a carriage, formed in the sky, crackling with an immense power.

"Let's see you shatter this!" she screamed, and brought the fist down.

Marius looked up at the descending mountain of silver. He didn't even try to repel it.

Instead, he spoke a single word. "Silence."

A perfect sphere of absolute quiet expanded from him. The roar of the descending fist vanished. The chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves, the sound of their own breathing—it was all gone.

The silver fist entered the sphere of silence. And it just... stopped. It didn't shatter. It didn't get pushed back. It just stopped moving, frozen in the air a few feet above Marius's head, its power completely nullified.

Then, with a casual wave of his hand, he sent it flying back at her.

Celestria's eyes went wide with shock. Theron reacted in a split second, opening a massive portal that swallowed the giant fist whole before it could impact.

The fight wasn't equal. They were being toyed with.

Marius stood in the silence, his face a mask of sorrow. "It is over. You cannot win."

But Theron just smiled, a tired, knowing smile. "You're right, Marius. We can't win by playing your game." He looked at Celestria and Sebastian. A silent understanding passed between them.

"But your power has a weakness," the Headmaster continued. "It relies on a single, focused mind. What happens when we give you a thousand things to focus on at once?"

Theron slammed his hands together. He didn't open a single portal. He tore reality apart. Dozens of shimmering tears in space flickered open and snapped shut all around Marius, disorienting him, making it impossible to know where an attack might come from.

At the same moment, Celestria unleashed her full power. She didn't create one fist; she created a storm. A thousand silver blades, each one humming with a different, dissonant note, filled the air, creating a deafening symphony of chaos.

Marius's eyes widened. He sent out a wave of silence, but it was like trying to catch a river in a sieve. He could nullify one attack, or a dozen, but he couldn't stop a thousand all at once. The chaotic noise and the shifting space were overwhelming his senses.

He was blinded. He was deafened.

In the one blind spot created by the chaos, Theron opened a final, perfect portal. Sebastian stepped through, his new sword a silent streak of black Aether.

Marius felt the attack a fraction of a second too late. The blade cut a deep gash across his chest. He staggered back, his concentration breaking completely.

The storm of silver blades descended.

He fell to his knees, his body pierced by dozens of the Aether constructs. Silver chains, the last of Celestria's creation, shot from the ground and bound his limbs, pulling him tight.

He was trapped. Beaten. Overwhelmed.

Theron let the portals fade. The storm of blades dissolved. Marius knelt in the center of the road, bound and bleeding, his perfect defense finally broken.

Celestria walked up to him, her face a storm of conflicting emotions.

"You chose the wrong path, Marius," she said, her voice heavy with regret. "However, your defeat doesn't mean your end. You have a life."

He looked up at her, tears now openly streaming from his crimson eyes, mixing with the blood and the dirt.

"That life, huh?" he choked out, a broken laugh catching in his throat. "Without her... do you really think that's a life?"

He lowered his head, his shoulders shaking. "Kill me. It's better than accepting the reality."

He knelt there, a broken man waiting for the end. But in the silent ruin of his mind, a new voice spoke. It was a voice of pure darkness, a voice of ancient power, a voice that was not his own.

'Let me in,' the demon whispered. 'Let your body allow me. I will help you.'