Both Adrien and Kokabiel walked toward each other and stopped when only about fifteen meters separated them.
"And you are?" Kokabiel asked, his voice calm.
"Adrien Agares," Adrien replied casually. "And you must be Kokabiel, right?"
Kokabiel did not answer. He only stared at Adrien, his brows slowly tightening.
Why... is he not leaking any energy at all?
"I was born like this," Adrien said simply, answering the question before Kokabiel could even voice it.
Kokabiel's eyes narrowed. For the first time, his face lost a little color. "You're lying..." he said quietly.
Adrien smiled, relaxed and almost amused, like none of this was worth getting worked up over.
"I'm just built different, you see—"
Kokabiel attacked instantly. He shot toward Adrien like a bullet, and at the same time, dozens of magic circles appeared around Adrien from every direction and fired swords of light at him.
Adrien did not move.
The swords all began to slow when they were about half a meter away from him. They were still moving forward, but the closer they got, the more they slowed, as if something invisible was stopping them. Adrien casually waved his hand and released a surge of demonic power that shattered the light swords in an instant.
Kokabiel was already in front of him. He thrust his sword straight at Adrien, but just like the others, it slowed the closer it came. Adrien did not even flinch. He simply stood there with a smirk on his face, watching Kokabiel.
"Is that the Agares' time? What magnificent control, you have far surpassed your father!"
Time. The inherited power of the Agares clan. It lets them create a field where they can control the flow of time to a certain extent, making it faster or slower inside that area. It is not true control over time itself, but a powerful distortion of it. Because this ability is complex and naturally suited for wide-range use, Agares users usually spread it over a large battlefield and within that field, they control the pace of battle itself, and that terrifying power is one of the reasons the Agares family rose to the rank of Archdukes in the Underworld.
That was true until Adrien Agares was born. Because of his unique constitution, Adrien had extraordinary control over demonic power and over any technique he tried to use, while also needing less energy to keep it active. The idea for this application came from Satoru Gojo's Infinity.
Adrien closed the distance in an instant and forced Kokabiel into his zone. The moment he entered it, Kokabiel felt his movements become unbearably slow. Before he could react, Adrien was already right in front of him, only inches away. Then Adrien drove a punch infused with demonic energy into Kokabiel's side. Kokabiel could not even raise his guard in time.
BAM!
A thin trail of blood slipped from Kokabiel's mouth in slow motion, and the force of the blow pushed his body away little by little. Then, without warning, Adrien reversed the flow of the zone and accelerated it. Kokabiel was launched out of it at absurd speed.
Adrien used his time zone to give Kokabiel an absurd initial velocity the moment he left it. Kokabiel slammed into the old school building in a flash, tore straight through it, and burst out the other side into the forest behind it.
--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>
Issei slowly opened his eyes and found himself lying on the grass in front of the old school building. He looked around and saw everyone being treated. He had been treated too, and he was not feeling any pain anymore. He just felt extremely tired.
"What happened...?"
It was Mary who answered. "Adrien somehow brought all of us here, and we're being treated right now while he fights Kokabiel."
"Alone!?"
"Yes," Rias said, lowering her eyes. "He told us to leave it to him, but..." She wanted to fight. She wanted to help. But she knew she stood no chance. Even with her peerage, Sona, and the exorcists by her side, they had stood no chance against Kokabiel.
"Just leave it to him," Celia said as she treated Koneko. "Kokabiel might have more raw power than him, but Andy is probably the most skilled fighter in all three realms. And now that he has that new technique, he's become even stronger."
"You mean the one he used to bring all of us here?" Sona asked. "Isn't it just teleportation?"
"I asked him the same thing, but he said they're not. He said it's called the 'Flying Thunder God'"
"Wait isn't that from Naruto..." Issei as he looked toward the blasts that erupted from the forest.
--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>--<>
Kokabiel crashed through tree after tree, leaving a long trail of destruction behind him.
He finally forced himself to a stop by digging one hand into the ground. He coughed up blood, and his vision spun.
'What a monster... How am I supposed to beat him? There has to be a limit. ...Wait. Why did he punch me instead of using some kind of technique? I could barely move back there. He could have finished me right away. Does that mean he can't use a technique while his Time Zone is active?'
Adrien dropped from the sky a moment later, his four pairs of wings beating as he descended like a bullet.
Kokabiel instantly created dozens of layered magic circles to stop Adrien's momentum. But Adrien flicked a knife forward and used demonic energy to control its path. The blade curved around the magic circles and landed three meters away from Kokabiel.
In the very next instant, Adrien appeared where the knife had landed. He raised his hand and unleashed a Dismantle at Kokabiel.
"What?!" Kokabiel immediately folded his wings, but the Dismantle still sliced through them and carved a deep slash across his chest.
Kokabiel clenched his teeth. "PEST!" he roared.
A large trap magic circle suddenly lit up beneath Adrien, and a pillar of light burst from the ground and shot into the sky.
At that same moment, Kokabiel saw a knife flying straight toward him. He guessed Adrien would appear right in front of him, so he unleashed an enormous blast of light, making sure the knife would have no room to escape its range.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The blast tore through the forest, destroying everything in its path.
Kokabiel quickly looked around, only to find Adrien sitting on a tree branch above him, swinging his legs like a child.
Adrien leaped down from above and landed beside Kokabiel. He tilted his head slightly and smirked.
Kokabiel frowned. "Were you the one in Tokyo? The demonic energies I felt there were weak, so they must have belonged to your servants, son of Agares."
Adrien's smirk widened a little. "I couldn't sense you either, so I was confused for a while. I thought you were like me... but I guess not. What a disappointment."
Kokabiel's gaze turned colder. "What you possess is something I will never accept. Today, I will kill you."
Adrien raised a brow. "You're talking like I killed your wife and children."
Kokabiel's expression darkened even more. "You really have no idea, do you?"
"Nope. No idea what you're talking about."
Kokabiel frowned, then flicked his fingers. Behind him, two enormous summoning circles spread open in the air.
ROOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRR!
In a flash of light, two gigantic three-headed hounds appeared. Their bodies were massive, with thick legs, sharp claws, glowing red eyes, and mouths full of jagged fangs.
"Wow, you actually brought your pets out," Adrien said, lifting his head to look at the two Cerberuses.
Five pairs of wings spread from Kokabiel's back as he leaped away. At the same time, several long feathers hardened into black blades and shot toward Adrien from different angles.
A longsword appeared in Adrien's hand, and he immediately coated it in demonic energy.
CHING! CLANG! CLING!
Adrien moved with precise, minimal motions. He tilted his body just enough to let one blade pass by his shoulder, then turned his wrist and knocked the next two away with quick, sharp parries. Another blade came for his side, and he stepped around it, his sword flashing again as he deflected it off course.
Then, in the middle of the barrage, a huge spear of light shot straight at him.
Adrien's eyes narrowed. He suddenly dashed forward instead of retreating, slipping through the narrow gaps between the flying feather blades. He twisted his body at the last second, the spear of light missing him by inches as it tore past his side.
He threw the longsword at Kokabiel, and the moment it passed the remaining black feather blades, Adrien teleported to it before it could reach the Fallen Angel.
His wings flapped once, and he shot upward toward one of the Cerberuses. Kokabiel immediately chased after him. The giant hound opened all three mouths and fired a blast of flames from each head, while the second beast lunged at Adrien from the side.
Adrien weaved through the fire precise movements, twisting his body between the blasts as they tore past him. One of the Cerberus' massive forelegs suddenly swept toward him, but Adrien leaned back in midair and let the claws pass just inches from his chest before angling himself away.
Kokabiel shot after him. "Why aren't you using your Time Zone? Is it because it can only defend?!"
Adrien did not answer. He condensed fire magic into his right hand, then detonated it in a burst to violently shift his trajectory, narrowly avoiding a fire blast that had been coming straight at his face. As he passed by one of the Cerberuses, he pressed his left hand against one of its heads, then shot upward again.
What did he do? Kokabiel thought.
Kokabiel opened both hands. One of them had been cut in half at the knuckles, but he could still use magic since his energy point had not been damaged. Two enormous walls formed on both sides of Adrien's flight path, and then Kokabiel slammed his hands together.
Adrien smirked, and a knife appeared in his hand. He suddenly halted in midair and threw it between the two rapidly closing walls.
Kokabiel reached him almost instantly and thrust a spear of light at him. The spear kept extending toward Adrien at high speed, but the moment Adrien activated his Time Zone, its movement began to slow exponentially the closer it got to him.
Adrien twisted his body, then deactivated the Time Zone at the perfect moment. The spear shot straight past him.
With a flick of his fingers, the Cerberus he had touched suddenly appeared between the two walls.
BAAAM! ROOOAAAAARR!
All of it happened within three seconds.
Adrien dropped from the sky again, laughing hysterically.
"That's a Kevin De Bruyne type of assist! HAHAHAH!"
Adrien let himself fall without using his wings. In midair, he turned his body and fired multiple Dismantles at Kokabiel from all kinds of angles.
The moment Kokabiel saw Adrien turn toward him, he immediately raised several barriers of light around himself. He had reacted in time. The Dismantles slammed into the barriers one after another and shattered them, but Kokabiel still managed to come out of the attack without a scratch.
What kind of slashes are these? If one of them hits me in the wrong spot, I'll die instantly. It's because of that perfect body of his... With that absurd control, he can release powerful techniques without wasting even a drop of energy.
Kokabiel sent a mental command to the other Cerberus. It was about to fire at Adrien, but instead it suddenly turned and ran through the forest at high speed, heading straight for the old school building.
Adrien noticed the change in direction and instantly vanished again.
"Tsk... Just how far can he teleport with that technique of his?!"
Kokabiel flapped his wings and shot back toward the old school building.
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Characters that appeared in this chapter:
Adrien Agares
Kokabiel
Issei Hyoudou
Rias Gremory
Mary Leroy
Celia Agares
Sona Sitri