Celtic Pantheon (3/3).

He was still down when they finally managed to find the entrance to the realm of the Celtic gods. They were transported like last time to another place. He was already on guard as they didn't find any devil leading the ones below. As soon as they appeared, they started to look around.

Everything was dead. What was most likely a large beautiful meadow once, was now filled with death. The plants were dead, the trees were dead, even the sky and the ground looked dead and decayed. Some distance away, they could see a small mountain filled with different houses and buildings. All of it was broken, but it showed the previous majesty of the place.

"From what I can feel, the whole realm died with its inhabitants. As a final act, it locked itself to keep the phantoms from leaving." Kuku said sadly as she looked around. She already knew that the realms were somewhat sentient but this was her first time seeing a dead realm. Even the realm of the Aztecs was still alive in a sense due to her being there.

As they went closer to the mountain, they started see devils again. These devils seemed more organized and were trying and succeeding at holding down another abomination formed from the phantoms of the dead gods. He walked forward and killed one of the devils. The abomination got free and started killing the other devils. It didn't take long for it to kill all the devils holding it down.

The abomination, rather than coming towards him, ran back to the mountain roaring. They quickly followed it as it kept running and roaring. Soon they came across a few more devils and one of them looked much more... important, as in wearing more expensive clothes and was not doing any work. This one quickly noticed the abomination running towards them and shouted for the others to intercept it.

"What are you buffoons doing?! Stop that thing!"

Ichigo decided to stay behind and watch the show. It looked entertaining. He knew that he was getting more sadistic after completely accepting Zangetsu but he couldn't say he hated it, with what he just saw. As they watched on, the devils under the leader quickly captured the abomination. The devils called the leader Naberius-sama. Naberius clearly thought very highly of himself as he was berating his subordinates for getting dirt on his clothes.

He watched for some more time as Naberius ordered his subordinates to keep looking for something while he dealt with the abomination.

"What the hell are those idiots back there doing? I will have their necks for this stupid mistake."

Ichigo kept watching and listening a little longer as the devil kept on spouting other nonsense before deciding that he had been passive long enough as the images of the atrocities done below came back to him.

Naberius noticed them quickly and approached them.

"Who are you and how did you come in here?" He asked them somewhat politely.

"We came in here after killing all your minions down below." Before Ichigo could answer, Kuku spoke up, standing besides him.

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"Those incompetent fools." Naberius muttered under his breath.

He was called Naberius simply because the previous Lord Naberius had been killed by one of his experiments, a now S-ranked criminal, Kuroka. He was 'fortunate' enough to be somewhat closely related to him and was crowned as the next Lord Naberius. He didn't want that. He was a high-class devil, simply because of his money and noble status, living a life full of luxury and debauchery. He didn't want to do these stupid missions for the stupid faction whose minions were just as stupid as the faction. He took every opportunity to belittle and ridicule these idiotic minions for taking him away from his easy life, since he couldn't exactly do that to the leaders.

He wanted to go back to his old lifestyle. He didn't want to kill for some crazy reason like taking over the world. For satan's sake, he hadn't even killed an animal in his life, let alone other beings. He was happy as long as he had good food, good wine and good women. But if he didn't do this, he would be killed, seen as a disgrace to the 'noble' devil race. Devils that thrived in sin and debauchery. 'Noble my spoiled ass'. He was a spoiled brat with a lot of money, he knew that and he was proud of it.

So, when faced with someone who openly admitted to killing the stupid minions he had been forced to lead, he was scared. But he was a devil, devils were known to be good actors, he was one of the better ones, at acting that is.

"Why would you do that." He asked with a sigh.

"They had killed all the humans and were having fun 'playing' with the other by torturing them." The scariest of the three standing in front of him said with a growl. The man was fucking scary! He had shining red eyes surrounded by black screla, narrowed at him. Fuuuck, he was so scared. Those fucking idiots! He had ordered them to not kill anyone since they wanted to leave no trace of their involvement!

It was supposed to be a simple mission. They were supposed to come here, find any traces of a red spear, capture the phantom or phantoms and take everything back to the underworld. Not leaving a single track and not alerting any other faction or groups. The idiots must have caused a lot of ruckus for someone to find them even after putting up a barrier. He sighed as his miserable life before answering.

"That shouldn't be right. I ordered them to not harm a single person since this was supposed to be a simple retrieval mission." He said with a real scowl.

At his words, the angry one seemed to become even angrier. His shadows started to move in unnatural manner, like they wanted to get out. Before he could say anything to calm him down, a large gate started to appear behind him. His two companions quickly retreated to a safe distance and he thought that he should do the same. He had an extreme feeling of dread while looking at the gate with the skeletons. He also felt that he should know what the gate was.

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Ichigo was already angry after seeing what had happened in the tomb and the words of the leader devil only made him angrier. His powers started to respond to his emotions and a Hell Gate appeared behind him. The leader was shocked still looking at the gate, as it slowly opened. Once again, thousands of chains appeared from the gate and started impaling the devils that had gathered around their leader and the abomination. For some reason, they completely avoided the leader and dragged everyone else around him in and closed after the abomination was dragged in.

Though this time, the abomination had quickly started to disintegrate as the number of chains stabbing it increased. Naberius was the only one in front of him besides his friends. He looked extremely scared and was on the ground looking vacantly where the gate had been.

"You, tell me what you devils were doing here before the same thing happens to you." This time Inari spoke up while he concentrated on getting his emotions under control. The turtle elder was right, he was more tempted to do as he desired and his emotions were also magnified. While he got his calm back, the devil had started to tell Inari and Kuku whatever he knew.

They were sent here to find a red spear and capture the phantoms and bring everything back to the underworld. It was supposed to be a quick mission, that is why there weren't many devils here. He kept on blabbing how he was forced into obeying the commands on the threat of his life, how he had never killed a single thing in his life, that he was just a spoiled brat enjoying life because his ancestors were famous, how he got stuck with them in the first place and whatever plans he knew they had, which were not a lot or of any help.

Ichigo sighed before letting the devil go. As he was getting more and more in tune with his new status as an Agent selected by Hell to capture the worst of the worst, he had started getting a feeling whenever he met someone new. A feeling that told him whether he should capture them or not. The feeling with the devils he had met was not as strong as when he was in front of the abomination, but his own judgement seemed to affect the result somewhat as well.

He wasn't getting any such feeling from Naberius. When he saw the devils, the feeling appeared on the back of his neck like something was crawling on it. But when he saw the abomination, something inside of him got restless. It wasn't the same screaming that had happened when the chains first appeared, but it was still there.

After the devil left, they continued to search the place in hopes of finding whatever the devils were looking for. It couldn't be anything good if they were looking for it. Kuku had said that she may have an idea of what the spear could be. According to her.

"A red spear belonging to the Celtic pantheon. The only thing famous that comes to mind is Gae Bolg. A spear made from the remains of an unknown primordial. It was known to be indestructible and capable of killing gods. A weapon most commonly associated with Scathach, Witch of Dun Scaith and one of the few humans who ascended to godhood. It was last seen during the climax of the great war with the Heavenly Dragons. It was used on Ddraig, the Red Dragon Emperor and in retaliation, Ddraig killed the user and the spear vanished." Kuku explained.

"The heavenly dragons, Ddraig and Albion. Believed to be stronger than most gods. How were they even killed in the end?" Ichigo asked.

"No one knows. Nearly everyone on that battle field died. I was far enough to see them make their entrance and the moment I saw them, I ran. I saw enough to see them get angry as more and more gathered there, after which I ran even faster. I was surprised when I learned that they had been killed." She told them, unashamed. Just meeting the hosts, another surprise that the two were sealed in sacred gears, of the two dragon emperors was considered bad, let alone the original dragons with so many gods. She didn't know how the Biblical God was able to seal them inside his sacred gears and was happy not knowing.

They kept walking and talking for sometime before coming across a building similar to all the others but this one was less damaged. They decided to enter it and look for anything. They were surprised when they actually found something. It was a message in a language he didn't understand so he gave it to Kuku. She said that it was a message from the King of Celtic gods, The God of Light, Lugh. She summarized the letter for them.

According to the letter, Lugh believed that they would soon be heading to their last battle. He was confident in their victory and claimed that they would have a month long feast when they return. On it was the place where they would have their final battle. It was the same place where the heavenly dragons appeared and the great war ended. It was a short letter and it only told them that the gods either died in the fight or most likely there was a bigger conspiracy.

Even if they had sent all their fighters to the battlefield, there should still be some minor gods and goddesses that should have remained behind. The same with the Aztecs but Kuku had said that she was separated from her friends when she ran from the dragons. By the time she returned, all of them were dead and the phantoms had started forming. After that she got stuck in the seal and couldn't investigate any further.

"Do we keep looking?" Inari asked.

"A while longer." Answered Ichigo.

In the end, they looked for a few hours but didn't find anything besides some more letters and books, that according to Kuku were completely useless. Though she did keep one of the books and wouldn't tell them what was written in it. She kept looking at him after reading the book and said that it would come in handy in the future. They left shortly after that. Ichigo decided to go wherever one of them wanted to go next. Inari said that she didn't have anywhere specific to go. Kuku on the other hand answered very quickly.