In front of Kuoh Academy's old school building stood a pink hemisphere with a radius of about ten meters. Inside it, Rias Gremory's peerage, Sona Sitri, the Church exorcists, and Adrien's peerage were all resting.
Thanks to Adrien's training, Mahiru could now condense the area of her Sacred Gear and make it much smaller. The smaller and more condensed it became, the stronger its effect grew. Mahiru was using Sanctum Veil to support the others, easing their exhaustion, refreshing their bodies, and making them feel stronger.
"Thank you so much, Mahiru. You have an amazing power. Adrien is lucky to have you," Rias said.
Mahiru gently shook her head. "I still can't fight properly, especially in battles this big, so this is the least I can do."
"Even so, you're a huge help. Thank you too, Celia and Saeko."
Saeko smiled, while Celia raised two fingers in a V sign. The three girls had already treated the injured and healed their wounds, and now they were helping everyone recover and rest.
"From what happened earlier, Lord Adrien obviously does not have a good relationship with the Phenex. So how did he get his hands on those Phenex Tears?" Akeno asked.
Mahiru and Saeko both shrugged. Celia was the one who answered, letting out a sigh. "He probably stole them the last time he went to the Phenex Manor a few years ago."
Everyone fell silent.
After a few seconds, Issei turned to Rias. "Can't we do that too?"
"No, we obviously can't. He may be strong and reliable, but never use Adrien as an example!"
That made everyone chuckle a little. Since they could not help in the fight, they ended up passing the time with small talk.
Adrien suddenly appeared above Mahiru and placed his hand on her head. Everyone turned to him, wide-eyed. "Talking about me?"
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Heavy footsteps echoed through the forest as the Cerberus tore through everything in its path, charging straight toward them.
The three-headed beast burst out of the forest, smashed through the old school building, and leaped forward using its momentum. Adrien raised his hand, and a massive barrier magic circle formed in front of him.
BAAAAAAAAAAMMMM!
The Cerberus slammed into the barrier head-on. Kokabiel shot down from the sky and unleashed a beam of light.
'Can't dodge this... I'll have to block it, or everyone behind me dies.'
Adrien raised his other hand and created a three-layered barrier above them.
WHOOOSH! BOOOOOOM!
"Rias, Sona, get everyone to a safe distance."
Both of them nodded at once. Two teleportation circles spread out beneath the group, and in the next moment everyone was moved far away. They could still see the fight, but they were no longer in the path of the attack.
Adrien shot forward and fired multiple Dismantles at Kokabiel. The Fallen Angel could barely react to their speed. He managed to force himself to the side, but one slash still caught one of his wings and severed it.
Kokabiel gritted his teeth and flapped his remaining wings, shooting backward through the sky. He raised both hands and poured a massive amount of holy energy into his attack. Hundreds of swords of light rained down from the sky at high speed.
"Well, it's not exactly the same, but I've always wanted to say this," Adrien said as he kept flying straight toward Kokabiel. "Domain Expansion."
Adrien's Time Zone activated and expanded into a sphere with a hundred-meter radius around him. The moment it spread, every sword inside it lost more than half its speed.
The larger the Time Zone becomes, the wider its range grows, but that comes at a cost. Because the same power is being spread across a much bigger area, the distortion of time inside it becomes weaker. In other words, a large zone can affect more space, but its slowing and acceleration effects become far less intense.
But the swords had slowed down enough for Adrien to fly between them without any difficulty. Kokabiel was affected by the Time Zone as well. He kept forcing himself upward until he finally escaped its range, but by then Adrien was already right on top of him, he had deactivated his Time zone.
Kokabiel suddenly stopped in midair to throw Adrien off, then immediately folded his wings around himself and rolled to the side. Adrien shot past him. He quickly turned and fired a couple of Dismantles at the Fallen Angel.
Kokabiel had years of combat experience, he was already starting to read Adrien's patterns. The moment he rolled away, he had predicted Adrien would answer with Dismantles, and he managed to evade them. His wings flapped again, and he shot downward through the sky.
Adrien was clearly winning, but he still could not land the finishing blow.
Kokabiel shot down from the sky like a bullet, and Adrien immediately chased after him. He expanded his Time Zone again, slowing Kokabiel down once more. Adrien quickly caught up, but the Fallen Angel suddenly released a violent burst of holy power from his body, forcing Adrien to pull back before he could grab him.
"Are you seriously going to keep running away? You're the aggressor here, remember?" Adrien mocked him.
Kokabiel frowned, but said nothing. He was still trying to figure out how to beat his opponent. Right now, all he could do was predict what Adrien might do next and respond to it. Even if Kokabiel had more energy than Adrien, it meant nothing if he could not land a single hit. Adrien's techniques were almost perfect for defense against every kind of attack. He could slow down time around himself to stop attacks that relied on speed or numbers, and he could instantly teleport away without even using a magic circle, making large-scale attacks, which were usually slower, almost useless against him.
He could not rely on hand-to-hand combat either. If Adrien condensed his Time Zone around himself, Kokabiel would not be able to land even a single punch. On top of that, he did not want to get close to him in the first place. That teleportation technique of Adrien's was not limited to moving only himself; he could use it on other targets as well. Earlier, with just a single touch, he had repositioned the Cerberus right into Kokabiel's own attack.
The more Kokabiel thought about the situation the angrier he became, "Impenetrable defense, untraceable movement, immense energy control, Adrien is there anything you're not capable of doing?"
"Huh? I swear I've heard that line before" Adrien said as he suddenly slammed his hands together creating a demonic shockwave directed straight at Kokabiel.
The powerful blast struck the Fallen Angel head-on, making him lose control of his flight. Every instinct screamed at him, and he tried to twist his body to the right, but he was too late. A gigantic Dismantle severed his arm at the elbow. The slash kept going, cutting the old school building in half and leaving an enormous cleave in the ground.
Before Kokabiel could recover, Adrien drove his foot into his stomach and slammed him down into the ground.
BAAAAAAAAMM!
Dust shot in the air, Kokabiel vomited blood all over himself. As he lied on the ground like a corpse.
Adrien stood over him with one foot on his chest. Then, with a casual wave of his hand, he sent out another Dismantle and severed Kokabiel's remaining arm at the shoulder. Blood quickly pooled inside the small crater around them.
"You really thought you could keep running forever?" Adrien chuckled.
"Monster..." Kokabiel muttered.
"I get that a lot."
Everyone watched with wide eyes.
"What did I just witness?" Issei said, staring at the massive cleave in the ground. It stretched from where they were standing, passed through the forest, and continued for more than a hundred meters. The slash had carved over ten meters deep into the earth.
Adrien looked down at the Fallen Angel. "You're so weak that all you have is power. You've lived for hundreds of years, yet the only things in your arsenal are basic attacks. True strength comes from the mind. In our world, imagination is strength."
"I don't want to hear that from an exception like you!" Kokabiel snarled. "You should not exist! Your very birth is a flaw in the world. Only the Biblical God was perfect, and He is dead! So why does a devil like you possess that perfection?!"
"...What does that mean?" Rias asked, her voice full of doubt.
Xenovia and Mary both looked at Kokabiel. Then, all of a sudden, the two of them dashed toward the fallen angel.
"In the name of the saints who dwell within this blade, I release you, Durendal!" Xenovia shouted.
A large, uniquely shaped broadsword appeared in her hands, its blade blue with a golden edge.
At the same time, Excalibur Rapidly and Excalibur Destruction formed in Mary's hands. Three legendary swords were suddenly aimed at Kokabiel.
"W-What are you talking about?!" Xenovia shouted. "Speak!"
Mary's hands were trembling. Adrien simply frowned.
Seeing their reaction, Kokabiel grinned. Then he suddenly burst into mad laughter, like he had completely lost his mind. He laughed as if he were not lying on the edge of death with both arms gone.
"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Right, I forgot. Your superiors never told you the truth, did they? Then let me be the one to tell you. The Demon Kings were not the only ones who died in the last Great War. God Himself was killed."
He kept going, almost shouting now.
"Of course they hid it from you. Who would willingly admit that God is dead? Humans are fools. Without God, they fall apart. They drown in despair and chaos. Neither the fallen angels nor the devils could make the masses accept that truth. After that final battle, all that was left were angels who had lost their God, devils who had lost their kings and most of their leaders, and we fallen angels, stripped of many of our own!"
"...No... You're lying," Xenovia murmured.
Mary's whole body trembled. "...The Lord is gone...? Dead? Then the love we offered Him..."
Both of them were true believers, servants of the Lord. Their entire lives had been devoted to carrying out God's will.
Kokabiel looked genuinely amused. "Indeed. He can offer you no protection, no love. He has been gone for a long time. Michael is doing quite well, though. He has taken God's place and now commands the angels and their human followers. The system you people use to contact God still works, to a certain extent. Blessings and exorcisms still function as they always have, just far less effectively."
"And that Holy Demonic Sword brat? He was only able to create such an abomination because the balance between God and the Demon Kings has collapsed. Normally, holy power and demonic power should never mix. But once that balance was thrown into chaos, all kinds of impossible phenomena became possible."
Xenovia's breathing became ragged, and Mary started to feel nauseous. Even Rias, Sona and the rest of the devils with them were completely shocked.
"You talk a lot for someone who lost." came a new voice from the sky.
Adrien turned toward the source of the voice.
A glowing white figure stood there, untouched by even the slightest shadow. Its body was covered in radiant white plate armor, with jewels embedded across different parts of it. Even its face was hidden behind heavy metal. From its back extended eight wings made of pure light, each one giving off an unmistakable divine radiance.
"...The Vanishing Dragon," Kokabiel was the first to mutter.
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If we get to 120 power stones I'll drop another chapter today
Characters that appeared in this chapter:
Adrien Agares
Celia Agares
Mahiru Shiina
Saeko Busujima
Mary Leroy
Xenovia Quarta
Rias Gremory
Sona Sitri
Akeno Himejima
Issei Hyoudou
Kokabiel
Cerberus
Vanishing Dragon