Bab 68: Overwhelming
"Don't think you'll be able to escape here easily..." said Vahn, lowering himself into a stance that made it clear he was prepared to lunge forward if Valper didn't surrender.
"I see...you must be the anomaly. The boy who has all three Factions on tenterhooks..." remarked Valper, caressing his chin with his right hand and positioning his left behind him.
"We didn't come here to chat...!" exclaimed Vahn, causing Issei's eyes to widen as he tossed his spear up, grabbed it by the shaft, and hurled it at Valper with all his might.
"Oh, my..." hummed Valper, revealing a rosary with an ornate gold and glass container from behind his back, within which was a piece of bone. As a result, the Legendary Spear stopped half a meter away from him, its momentum seeming to disappear as it dropped to the ground.
"Well, that's new..." remarked Vahn, recalling his Legendary Spear to his right hand.
"It appears to be a defensive reliquary containing the finger bone of a Saint..." revealed Grayfia, causing Sis, who was providing the same exact information, to trail off awkwardly in Vahn's mind.
"Long time no see, little miss Twilight Healing! Mind if I butt—" started Freed, appearing next to Grayfia and Asia, targetting the latter with his weirdly shaped sword.
"No! You imbecile...!" exclaimed Valper, but he was much too late as, the moment Freed appeared, Grayfia's left hand and arm appeared to vanish. The result was Freed's head nearly forming a circle with his feet before he was sent flipping dozens of times through the air, his shoes flying off after receiving an imperceptibly swift backhand from Grayfia. At the same time, without anyone noticing when she had done so, Grayfia nabbed his sword away from him, holding it wrapped in white cloth.
"That damnable fool...!" hissed Valper, his expression forming into one of the ugliest Vahn had ever seen as Kiba dropped down behind him, sword at his neck, and said, "It's over, Valper..."
Raising his hands, Valper snorted and responded, "Fine, fine. I surrender. Go ahead and take me in."
Contrasting his words, Valper dropped a glass orb from his right hand, its impact with the ground causing blindingly white light to fill the area. Kiba instinctively tried to slit his throat, but the same force that prevented the Legendary Spear from piercing his abdomen protected his neck.
"Once a failure, always a fail—" started Valper, unsheathing a concealed dagger from a golden cross and spinning around in an attempt to stab Kiba in the diaphragm. Before he could, a cord tightened around his neck as Irina dropped behind him, holding both ends of it as she forced him off balance and choked him.
Though he grasped at his throat and flailed violently, Valper's advanced age and portly physique worked against him. His physical strength wasn't much greater than the average adult human, and since the cord in Irina's hands was an Excalibur camouflaged as a piece of white cord, he had no hope of breaking it.
"Valper Galilei, your twisted machinations end here! For your many crimes and involvement in the Holy Sword Project, you are hereby consigned to death! Go and face judgment...!" exclaimed Irina, using her superhuman strength to tighten the cord around Galilei's chubby neck to such an extent it could no longer be seen, his head immediately turning a reddish-purple.
"No! He's mine to kill, and he doesn't deserve a swift death...!" shouted Kiba, grabbing Valper's feet and flipping him over quickly, liberating him from Irina's stranglehold. Unfortunately, he had already sustained critical damage to his trachea, causing him to spasm and froth violently after he collided with the ground face-down.
"Damnit! You're not allowed to die this easily...!" exclaimed Kiba, grabbing Valper and rolling him over before looking at Asia in desperation, shouting, "Asia, quick! Use your Twilight Healing to heal him...!"
"Kiba..." muttered Issei, his expression and tone conveying his disbelief as he saw the fury and indignation in his friend's eyes.
"That's enough, Kiba..." said Vahn, raising his left hand to stop Asia from stepping forward as he asserted, "The best revenge you can get against those who made you suffer is to live a happy and fulfilling life. Compelling them to suffer in turn will just wound your heart even further...such people don't deserve such consideration..."
"You don't understand..." argued Kiba, staring down at Valper with teary eyes and clenched teeth as he stated, "This man is a monster who made innocent children suffer...he deserves to spend the rest of his life locked away, tormented to the end of his days..."
"Unless you're prepared to be the one who torments him, wasting years that could be spent in the pursuit of happiness, let him go..." said Vahn, walking forward with his Legendary Spear in his right hand. Kiba defiantly raised a sword at him, but Vahn held his gaze, his expression firm as he stopped just short of the blade's tip and raised his spear, tip aimed down.
"Life is best lived to the fullest..." declared Vahn, punctuating his words by stabbing the ground next to Valper's head, adding, "You are no longer the person this man wronged. You are Kiba Yuuto...Rias Gremory's Knight and my first male friend..."
"..."
Instead of responding to Vahn, Kiba looked at the dying Valper, who, at that point, had his eyes rolling back and the lower half of his face covered in pink-hued froth. He truly believed the man deserved to endure all forms of suffering, but as he watched him, there was no sense of gratification or joy. All he felt was emptiness...
"I think I understand what you mean..." muttered Kiba, closing his eyes and tilting his head back to inhale a deep, iron-smelling breath. Once he was done, he looked down at Valper, grabbed his dagger, and stabbed it into his heart with a neutral expression, ending him instantly.
"Good job," said Vahn, offering a curt nod and his left hand to Kiba as he said, "Now, let's go home..."
"Home..." repeated Kiba, regaining a hint of his usual smile as he placed his right hand into Vahn's, creating a strange atmosphere that caused the nearby Irina's eyes to widen and sparkle.
vwoom
Seeing the world around him darken and feeling every nerve in his body tense, Vahn raised his head in slow motion, finding a spear of light more than ten meters long, surrounded by a halo, descending on his and Kiba's position. The energy contained within it distorted the surrounding space and created a localized barrier that allowed it to transcend the speed of light, but he was somehow able to perceive both it and Grayfia appearing to smack it out of the way.
BOOM
With the spear of light penetrating the abandoned museum and creating a mushroom cloud behind it, a tall, exceptionally pale man with inordinately long and black hair, narrow, crimson eyes, forked eyebrows, pointed ears, and, most notably, five pairs of raven black wings, and long-sleeved black robes with golden pauldrons, remarked, "Hooo...as expected of the former heiress of House Lucifuge. Even if it's tainted, Lucifer's blood undoubtedly flows through you..."
"I am honored by Vice-Governor Kokabiel's words..." responded Grayfia, smiling as she materialized a pair of swords formed from Demonic Energy, one bluish-white and emitting a potent chill and another a hazy greenish-white, giving off a pleasant warmth.
"This is excellent," said Kokabiel, adopting a broad, toothy, and disgusting grin as he materialized two cross-shaped swords of light and remarked, "I was hoping to draw out Sirzechs and Serafall by butchering their precious younger siblings, but killing or taking his beloved Queen and wife hostage should suffice to provoke his fury. Shall we find out together?"
"Are you sure you want to fight me here, of all places...?" asked Grayfia, her demeanor exuding confidence as she noted, "Without the Excaliburs to circumvent the local Gods' influence, your power is exceedingly limited. Mine, on the other hand, is stronger than ever..."
Demonstrating her point, Grayfia allowed her Demonic Power to leak out, causing the surrounding space to tremble and the grin on Kokabiel's face to turn into a withering glower. He knew Grayfia was exceptional, but the power she was presently exuding was on par with the original Four Great Satans. It was impossible for a Devil at her level to grow meaningfully in the few decades since their last encounter, so he found her growth highly suspicious...
What Kokabiel didn't know was that, while her short-skirted Maid attire looked the same as usual, the earrings, headdress, choker, cuffs, panties, stockings, heels, and two of the three rings Grayfia was wearing were all provided by Vahn. Combined, they augmented her Power Parameter by a startling 64% and increased the potency of her Magic attacks by 20%, so while it was predicated on the fact she was wearing high-end equipment, her power had exceeded the standards of the Ultimate Class, making her an artificial Super Devil.
"Hmmm...it does appear I'm at a disadvantage..." conceded Kokabiel, his malicious grin returning as he asked, "But do you believe you'll be able to fight at full power while protecting these brats and the residents of Kuoh? I'm curious to see you try..."
Following his words, Kokabiel aimed the sword in his right hand at the sky, creating six rapidly growing spears of light that he intended to unleash on the innocent citizens of Kuoh. Grayfia quickly rose to stop him, but as fast as she was, her speed rivaling teleporation, she couldn't intercept multiple faster-than-light projectiles at the same time.
Shielding himself with his wings, Kokabiel couldn't stop Grayfia's attack completely, but he prevented her from running him through with a vicious grin on his face. At the same time, his spears of light left lingering, laser-like trails as they flew in completely random directions, each possessing more than enough power to shatter the enclosing barrier. At least, that's what should have happened...
"Transfer...!" shouted Issei, raising his hand to the sky and unleashing all his stored energy to strengthen the barrier several times over, effectively isolating the space from the rest of the world. Kokabiel spears of light still hit Kuoh, but it was just the projection reproduced by the barrier, meaning no harm was done to the city itself.
"Red Dragon Emperor whelp...!" snarled Kokabiel, spreading his wings and using them like whips to repel Grayfia. However, once again, things didn't go as he intended as, while she was pushed back, Grayfia's ruthless silver eyes were able to follow the movements of his wings, allowing her to slice three of them.
"You insufferable wench...!" exclaimed Kokabiel, charging forward and swinging his blades at Grayfia, only for her to parry and weave between them with a neutral expression. The power Kokabiel could manifest with his current restrictions was less than a tenth of what he would normally be capable of, and with much of it stored within his wings, losing sections of three of them made him even weaker.
"The era of the Great War is over..." said Grayfia, evading one of Kokabiel's strikes by a narrow margin before slicing upward, casually cutting off his right arm before sending him plummeting toward the ground with a heavy, shockwave-inducing kick as she coldly proclaimed, "It's time for relics like you to move on or disappear from this world..."
Lying within the nearly fifty-meter-wide crater produced by his collision with the ground, crimson streaks reminiscent of cracks flowed away from Kokabiel's equally red eyes as he retorted, "War is necessary for progress. And this power that you, Sirzechs, and others have acquired isn't without purpose. Something is coming, and this time, there won't be—"
Before Kokabiel could finish speaking, a powerful shudder permeated Asia's barrier as the top cracked like glass, revealing the blue sky beyond as a figure descended upon the rambling Fallen like a beam of pure white light. In reality, it was a figure wearing white, mech-like armor with large pauldrons, blue orbs in the chest, shoulders, knees, and gauntlets, a multi-segmented tail originating from between its shoulders, and wings constructed from eight panels of transparent blue light, each coming to a sharp point...
...
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Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone