The Underworld. Eligos territory...
At the campsite beside the ancient battlefield where the Eligos peerage had once trained, Leo descended from the sky like a specter, twelve devil wings spread wide behind him, and landed before the campfire.
"Out here, nobody should notice."
He retracted the twelve wings that marked him as a devil of the highest rank and surveyed his surroundings, muttering under his breath.
It couldn't be helped. He was about to meet the leader of the Khaos Brigade, the head of a terrorist organization. Better to keep this away from prying eyes.
Sirzechs and the others might be understanding enough to hear him out, but the Underworld's old guard, the ones set in their ways, wouldn't be so accommodating. They might make trouble for him over this.
Then again, before long, even if those people wanted to make trouble, he wouldn't have to worry.
Because if everything went smoothly from here, Leo would never need to fear anyone again.
With that thought, he took a deep breath and held out the Queen piece.
"Hmmm..."
Inside the crimson chess piece, the ouroboros serpent stirred as if sensing something. Black energy seeped from its body, and pulses of invisible power radiated outward like dark serpentine flames, reaching out to somewhere unknown.
Leo watched in silence, letting the serpent within the Evil Piece broadcast its presence.
Before long...
"...Have you made your decision?"
A voice, crystal-clear yet devoid of any emotion, sounded behind him. Leo turned.
Ophis's small figure had appeared without a sound, as if she'd been standing there all along. Those hollow eyes regarded him, still and empty.
Leo walked over without a word and placed the Queen piece in her hands.
"I'll help you deal with Great Red." He told her the decision he'd spent an entire month deliberating. "But I'll only drive it away. I won't kill it. And that's assuming I can actually beat it. If I'm not strong enough, then there's nothing I can do."
Great Red was, after all, the guardian of the dimensional gap. Many believed its existence maintained the balance of that space. If Great Red were gone, the dimensional gap would warp further, the barriers between worlds would destabilize, and the consequences would be severe.
So Leo wouldn't kill Great Red. He'd only fight it on Ophis's behalf, enough to stop it from shutting her out.
"Also, if I do defeat Great Red and you get to return to your world of silence, you need to disband the Khaos Brigade. At the very least, leave it. Stop lending them your power. Stop enabling them."
This was precisely why Leo had hesitated over Ophis's proposal. Her identity was a minefield. Accepting her deal could easily brand him an enemy of the world, an accomplice of the Khaos Brigade.
He could accept that risk for himself. But there were too many girls around him. He couldn't let them all be treated as terrorists.
So after careful consideration, this was his demand.
As long as Ophis left or disbanded the Khaos Brigade, the major factions would surely welcome that outcome. They'd let bygones be bygones. The major incidents from the original story would die in the cradle without the Khaos Brigade to set them in motion. Even if some troublemakers still tried to cause problems, without Ophis's backing, they wouldn't be able to stir up anything meaningful.
And then Leo could finally have the peaceful life he wanted. Just him and a group of lovely servants, living happily in the Eligos territory.
That kind of life would be pretty great, wouldn't it?
"Agreed."
Ophis didn't hesitate for even a second.
She'd never cared about the Khaos Brigade to begin with. She'd only accepted their recruitment and become their leader in order to defeat Great Red.
Once Great Red was dealt with, she had no interest in remaining their figurehead.
Besides, she was about to give most of her power to the devil standing before her. Even if she wanted to bestow power on others in the future, she probably wouldn't be able to.
So she agreed to Leo's terms without a thought.
"Then let's begin."
Leo wasn't the type to drag things out. This deal was almost entirely upside for him. He'd already thought it through and made his choice. No point in hesitating further.
And so he stood there, watching as Ophis pressed his most important chess piece, the Queen, against her chest, letting it sink into her body.
Ba-dump.
In that instant, a pulse unlike anything he'd ever experienced surged through Leo.
Ba-dump... ba-dump... ba-dump...
It was as though a raging river had erupted inside him, as though an infinite universe had detonated somewhere deep within. His entire body shook violently.
His heartbeat thundered loud enough to split the sky.
His blood roared like rapids tearing through a canyon.
Every muscle, every organ, every nerve and vessel, down to each individual cell, was undergoing a seismic transformation.
As the transformation took hold, a flood of information poured into Leo's mind.
[Trait: Servant Conversion activating...]
[Basic feedback acquired: Demonic Power (massive).]
[Advanced feedback acquired: Race (Super Devil).]
[Bonus feedback acquired: Trait, Earth.]
[Bonus feedback acquired: Trait, Water.]
[Bonus feedback acquired: Trait, Wind.]
[Bonus feedback acquired: Trait, Ice.]
[Ultimate feedback acquired: Divinity.]
This was feedback beyond anything he'd ever received.
This was, by far, the greatest harvest of his life.
Ophis. The legendary Dragon God who ruled over infinity. The strongest being in the world aside from Great Red. Even in the original story, after losing most of her power, she'd still been two full tiers above the Two Heavenly Dragons, two levels beyond god-class. Now, at the peak of her power, she'd accepted Leo's Evil Piece and become his servant. The feedback was nothing short of unprecedented.
In a world where Longinus wielders and equivalently special beings already counted as high-potential servants, Ophis as a Dragon God exceeded that scale entirely. Where Leo had previously received at most three types of feedback from a single servant, he now received seven in one shot, including the so-called ultimate feedback. The metamorphosis was beyond imagination.
Vast quantities of demonic power generated within him. The aura burning off his body shook the earth and sky, setting the entire campsite trembling.
He had been a perfect devil before. In this moment, he formally transcended the "devil" race itself, becoming a Super Devil on par with Sirzechs and Ajuka.
Multiple traits with exceptional compatibility to Zenith Tempest's power manifested within him, merging alongside his existing Lightning and Flame traits into his body.
And finally, true divinity formed within him, elevating his very existence to a fundamentally higher plane.
If Ophis and Great Red were dragons who possessed divinity, making them gods among dragonkind, then Leo was now a devil who possessed divinity. A transcendent among devils. A god among demons.
Demon God. That was what Leo had become. Beyond Maou. Beyond even so-called Super Devils. Just as Ophis had transcended Dragon Kings and Heavenly Dragons alike.
"Is this what I am now?"
Leo closed his eyes, feeling the terrifying power coursing through him.
Before, he could roughly estimate what tier he occupied, what level he'd reached, how strong he was. Now he had no idea. The scale had simply stopped making sense.
"You've reached the same height as me."
Ophis gave him the answer.
"Perhaps not quite my equal yet, nor Great Red's. You're still new to this. Your divinity was only just born. But you stand on our level."
In other words, Leo as a Demon God might not yet match either Dragon God in raw power, but in terms of realm and tier, he was their peer.
From this day forward, the world might see the birth of an entirely new classification. One equal to Dragon God-class: Demon God-class.
And Leo, standing at that summit, might not surpass Ophis, certainly couldn't surpass Great Red, but he was absolutely stronger than 666, the beast reputed to be just below Dragon God-class.
This was a level of power sufficient to oppose every mythological faction in the world combined.
Of course...
"To defeat Great Red, your current strength alone still falls short."
Ophis's voice continued.
"So take it. My power."
The moment those words fell, Leo, eyes still closed, felt it immediately. A torrent of power every bit as vast as what he now possessed, perhaps even greater, came flooding into him.
In the haze behind his eyelids, he saw it: an ouroboros serpent hurtling toward him, so immense that the slightest twitch of its body could crush him flat. But it dissolved into an endless stream of black energy that surged into his body, absorbed completely.
The influx of that staggering power triggered yet another metamorphosis, his body swelling with force.
"I've kept only a tenth of my power for myself. The rest is yours."
"From now on, I am no longer infinite. I am finite."
"And you will become the new infinity. The strongest."
As Ophis spoke those words, Leo felt it with absolute certainty. As his power grew, he'd grasped something else. A concept.
Infinity.
With this concept in hand, the power within him would become truly inexhaustible. It would never run dry. More than that, like Ophis before him, he could bestow fragments of his power upon others to strengthen them, at no cost to himself.
And with that, the terrifying aura that had been shaking the heavens gradually calmed, settling into stillness. Just like Ophis herself had always been: undeniably powerful, yet impossibly serene. Impossibly quiet.
Slowly, Leo opened his eyes.
Ophis stood before him, but he could no longer feel that boundless, overwhelming presence radiating from her. Instead, she seemed incredibly small. Incredibly fragile.
"Are you alright?"
He couldn't help but ask.
"No." Ophis was honest as always, shaking her head, her face blank. "I'm too weak now."
She really was.
To give Leo the power to defeat Great Red, Ophis had gone all in. She'd kept only a tenth for herself, handing over everything else.
In the original story, the power stolen from her had amounted to roughly three-quarters of her peak. What she'd retained, while less than a quarter, was still considerably more than a tenth.
So the current Ophis didn't even have the strength she'd possessed in the original story, where she'd still been two tiers above the Two Heavenly Dragons. Whether she could even manage one tier above them was questionable.
Right now, she probably had around god-class power. Compared to her former self, she'd weakened enormously.
But...
"You, on the other hand, are very strong now."
Something flickered in the depths of Ophis's eyes as she looked at him.
"At your current level, you should be able to match Great Red."
Leo understood exactly what that assessment meant.
Stronger than Great Red would make him the strongest being in the world. Bar none.
"Just like that, I'm the strongest?"
Leo himself didn't quite feel it yet.
He could sense that he was incredibly powerful. But exactly how powerful? Without actually fighting someone, he'd never truly know.
In that case...
"Guess Great Red's in for a rough day."
Thinking of that red dragon, soaring happily through the dimensional gap, Leo felt no guilt whatsoever. If anything, he was itching to go.
He was dying to find out just how strong he'd become.
"Let's go."
He extended his hand to Ophis.
"The sooner we finish beating up Great Red, the sooner we come home."
Recently, Ravel had been working with the Phenex House to scout potential servant candidates for him. According to her, she'd found five human girls, quintuplets, who appeared to share a single peculiar Sacred Gear between them. Individually, the Sacred Gear's power was modest. But when all five sisters combined it, the resulting force rivaled a Longinus.
Conveniently, after giving his Queen piece to Ophis, Leo had exactly five Pawn pieces remaining.
Those quintuplet sisters would be his final five Pawns. His last five servants.
Leo was already planning to make contact with them.
"Mm."
Ophis nodded and reached out, taking Leo's hand.
"Let us return. To the world of silence."
Hand in hand, the two of them watched as a rift tore open before them, widening into a void.
On the other side of that void lay the kaleidoscopic distortion of the dimensional gap.
With Ophis at his side, Leo grinned and stepped through into that twisted world.
=-=-=-=
Nia's Note: The main storyline of the fic ends here. Yeah, I know, disappointing. The author suddenly rushed everything like there was no tomorrow. Anyway, the next volume is supposedly a side story, though honestly it feels more like a completely different novel that just happens to share the same MC's name. It starts in Danmachi, nothing is really from this verse anymore.
I'll still translate it even though I'm pretty disappointed myself, since I can't exactly leave it unfinished halfway through. I'll also be changing the cover and title of this fic soon, along with adding some notes in the description, because as I said, it's basically a completely different story now.
Anyway, thank you all, my lovely readers. Before you leave, I'll be releasing the first 10 chapters of the next volume today, so feel free to give it a try if you want. Otherwise, take care~