Chapter 2: Shin Akira's Thoughts
Inside the Gremory estate in the Underworld, the dining hall was filled with an oppressive silence.
Seated there were the head of the Gremory clan, Zeoticus, and his wife, Venelana. Alongside them were Rias and her entire group of followers. Without exception, every pair of eyes was fixed intently on Akira.
Rias and Akeno, in particular, could not look away. One was his girlfriend and the other his fiancée; they were the two people closest to him. Yet today, they realized the man they thought they "knew" had undergone a total transformation.
The long, emerald-green hair characteristic of Enkidu was gone, as was the androgynous face that leaned toward feminine beauty. The Akira standing before them now looked like a true, masculine man.
Being stared at by everyone made Akira feel incredibly self-conscious, as if he were a monkey on display at a zoo.
Clink—
Setting his utensils down, Akira let out a heavy sigh.
"If you have something to ask, just ask. Don't stare at me like that; it's making me lose my appetite."
His helpless voice echoed through the room, causing the girls to offer awkward, apologetic smiles. Rossweisse, who had only recently joined this "extended family" as Rias's newest Knight, quickly lowered her head in embarrassment. Being Nordic and new to the Peerage, she felt especially out of place.
"Um, we just wanted to know... what happened to your previous appearance?" Rias finally spoke up. As the King of her Peerage and Akira's fiancée, the responsibility of breaking the ice fell to her.
"That was an influence that surfaced after I inherited Enkidu's power," Akira explained calmly. "Because I hadn't perfectly mastered it back then, my form leaned heavily toward Enkidu's traits. Now that I've fully brought it under control, I've returned to my normal self."
"Then, your current strength..."
"Well, that's a bit hard to say."
Rias's brow furrowed slightly at his vague response. "Why is it hard to say?"
"Even I don't quite know the full extent of my power yet," Akira replied with a casual shrug, though his next words were world-shaking. "However, I should be well above the Transcendent level."
He spoke the terrifying truth as if he were commenting on the weather.
In this world, across various factions and mythological systems, "Transcendent" was considered the absolute ceiling—the very peak of the pyramid. Anything beyond that was a realm no one had ever touched. People didn't even have a concept for it. If one had to name it, it would be the "Dragon God" level—the domain occupied solely by the Infinite Dragon God, Ophis, and Great Red.
Doubt clouded the faces of almost everyone in the room, especially Zeoticus. Reaching the Satan level at such a young age already made Akira a once-in-a-century genius, but claiming to have surpassed Transcendents? It sounded like a bold-faced lie.
However, two people didn't share that skepticism.
The first was Grayfia. Having fought Akira personally, she was acutely aware of his terrifying strength. When facing him, she felt as though they existed in entirely different dimensions, even though she herself was at the Satan level. It was a sensation of power that even her husband, the Transcendent-class Lucifer, Sirzechs, had never made her feel. Because of that, despite her lingering shock, a part of her believed him.
The other was the matriarch, Venelana. She had seen with her own eyes how Akira broke through to the Transcendent level after merely "playing around" with her for a bit. Seeing him now, his presence was clearly even more overwhelming than it had been days ago.
Akira noticed the room's collective disbelief but had no intention of explaining further. Whether they believed him or not didn't change the fact that he now possessed peerless power. He had returned this time simply to relax and get some well-earned rest.
"Hmm?"
Suddenly, Akira sensed a familiar presence.
"I'm finished with my meal. I'll be heading back now..."
"Very well. Get some rest," Venelana nodded, being the first to snap out of the shock.
Akira left the dining hall, but instead of returning to his room, he slipped out of the Gremory estate and headed toward the wild, uninhabited areas of the Underworld.
"Master..."
The moment he arrived, a purple-skinned shadow general with a sharp mouth and protruding fangs emerged from the darkness. It was Murasaki, the leader of the Razor Khan—the form taken by the Ratso mask from the Jackie Chan Adventures universe.
"Did you find it?" Akira asked slowly. Upon his return, he had dispatched his shadow generals on various missions. Murasaki's task was to locate a forbidden existence hidden in the depths of the Underworld.
"Yes. The specific location has been found, and a shadow mark has been left. You may go there at any time, Master."
"Excellent. Good work."
"As you command."
To the shadow generals, Akira was the supreme being who had awakened them from the void and bestowed upon them the terrifying power of the Commandments.
"You weren't spotted, were you?"
"Please rest easy. No one noticed my presence."
"Good. You may return for now."
"Understood." Murasaki then sank back into the shadows and vanished.
Akira hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should head there immediately. What he was looking for was one of the most unique and dangerous entities in the High School DxD universe: Samael.
Samael was a bizarre creature with the upper body of a fallen angel and the lower body of a dragon. Because he had taken the form of a serpent to tempt humanity in the Garden of Eden, he was hated by the God of the Bible. He had become a vessel for God's malice and resentment, eventually becoming a cursed "Serpent whose existence was erased."
He possessed the absolute power to eliminate dragons and serpents. Even now, he remained sealed in the deepest part of the Underworld, radiating a Dragon-Slayer curse so potent it could affect even Ophis.
As a transmigrator, Akira knew exactly how dangerous this monster was. In the original story, Ophis was suppressed by Samael and had a significant portion of her power stolen. If Akira could control such a thing, it would be an incredibly sharp blade in his arsenal.
As for whether he could control it, the answer was simple. By using the Sea of Chaos to modify Samael slightly, the beast would essentially become a "Child of the Mother." And since Akira himself was a direct child of Tiamat, commanding him would be effortless.
While Samael was an absolute nightmare for dragons, his power against other races wasn't nearly as overwhelming. But combined with Akira's Chains of Heaven—which suppressed those with Divinity—having Samael would mean the Dragon race would never pose a threat to him again.
He might not need such a trump card right now, but a man can never have too many hidden aces.
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