As soon as Rias and her peerage vanished from sight, carrying the mutilated body of Kokabiel, the oppressive tension in the air evaporated instantly.
Vali raised his hand, casting a complex, shimmering blue barrier around the ruined schoolyard. It was a high-level isolation field, designed to block not just sound and sight, but even the magical surveillance of Supernatural beings.
"Clear," Vali muttered.
The white armor dissolved into motes of light, revealing the silver-haired descendant of Lucifer in his casual civilian clothes. He stretched his neck, cracking it loudly, a lazy smirk replacing the cold, imperial visage he had worn moments ago.
Issei followed suit. The crimson Boosted Gear Scale Mail retracted, leaving him standing in his torn Kuoh Academy uniform. He let out a long breath, brushing the dust off his shoulder.
"You were late," Issei said, his voice returning to its normal pitch, though it still held the hardened edge of a veteran soldier. "I almost had to improvise a monologue."
"Relax, Hyoudou," Vali chuckled, walking over to inspect the crater where Kokabiel had landed. He whistled appreciatively at the bloodstain.
"I had to wait for Azazel to actually give the order. If I showed up before he asked, it would look suspicious. Besides, you seemed to be enjoying yourself. Ripping the wings off? That wasn't in the script."
"He was pretty annoying," Issei replied, crossing his arms. "Anyway, we wanted 'absolute dominance.' A flightless crow sends a better message than a dead one."
Vali kicked a piece of debris, grinning. "Brutal. I liked it. The Emperor certainly knows how to stage a tragedy."
Vali turned to look at Issei, his eyes gleaming with genuine amusement. "So, the stage is set. Azazel is going to have a headache when I tell him I 'failed' to retrieve the prisoner because the Red Dragon was too stubborn."
"Make sure you sell it," Issei warned. "Azazel is sharp."
"He won't," Vali interrupted, his confidence unwavering. "He thinks I'm just an arrogant battle maniac. He'll believe I let you keep the prisoner because I wanted a fight and soon I won't even need to act"
Suddenly, the air in the isolated barrier shifted instantly. The political maneuvering, the deception, and the allegiance to Algernon were pushed to the periphery. What remained in the center of the devastated schoolyard were two young men carrying the souls of ancient, eternal rivals. The camaraderie of co-conspirators evaporated, replaced by the searing heat of destiny.
From the green jewel on Issei's gauntlet and the blue gems on Vali's wings, two spectral shapes erupted—massive, draconic avatars of pure energy that towered over the barrier.
[Partner, the time for talking is over,] the deep, resounding voice of Ddraig echoed from the Red Dragon Emperor's gear. [If we all are to march into this war as the spear of Azeroth Empire, we must know who is truly sharper. No more interruptions. No more holding back.]
From Vali's back, the cool, analytical voice of Albion answered, the White Dragon's spirit manifesting in a blinding azure glow. [Agreed, Ddraig. We have danced around this destiny for too long, constrained by weak hosts and petty politics. Tonight, before the world burns in the fires of war, let us decide the hierarchy of the skies.]
Issei and Vali didn't need to exchange words. They understood the stakes. This wasn't a death match, but it was something far heavier—a battle for dominance. A final test to see who would emerge as the true heavenly dragon.
"Let's go, Vali!" Issei roared, his aura exploding outward in a torrent of crimson power that cracked the concrete beneath his feet. "Show me the power of the strongest descendant of Lucifer!"
"Don't disappoint me, Issei!" Vali shouted back, his smile ferocious and wild. "Show me that a human can surpass everything!"
[WELSH DRAGON BALANCE BREAKER!]
[VANISHING DRAGON BALANCE BREAKER!]
Two pillars of light—one blood-red, one divine white—shot into the sky, intertwining and repelling each other with the force of a nuclear storm. The Boosted Gear Scale Mail and the Divine Dividing Scale Mail materialized instantly, fully encasing their hosts.
There was no hesitation.
With a sonic boom that shook the very foundations of the isolation barrier, Red and White blurred out of existence, colliding in the center of the arena. The impact didn't just break the ground; it shattered the atmospheric pressure, creating a vacuum where only the two Heavenly Dragons existed, locked in their eternal, fateful struggle.
The barrier trembled violently as red and white comets collided, separated, and collided again. The speed was incomprehensible; to a normal eye, it would look like the sky was simply detonating in random pockets of vacuum.
[DIVIDE!]
Vali caught Issei's fist, the white gems on his gauntlet flashing. Issei's aura halved instantly, the crushing weight of his blow evaporating into mist.
[BOOST! BOOST! BOOST!]
In the fraction of a second it took Vali to smirk, Ddraig roared. The lost power returned threefold. Issei didn't pull back; he drove his fist forward with renewed, explosive force.
CRACK.
Vali was launched backward, crashing through the remains of the gymnasium. He righted himself in mid-air, but a spiderweb fracture had appeared on his white faceplate.
"Good!" Vali laughed, wiping a trickle of blood that leaked from beneath the helmet. "That's the raw power I wanted!"
He flared his wings, each feather turning into a cannon of condensed demonic light. He unleashed a barrage of beams that turned the air into a grid of destruction. Issei roared, crossing his arms to tank the blast, but the sheer density of Vali's magic began to strip the red armor away.
The Boosted Gear Scale Mail groaned under the stress. The shoulder pauldrons shattered, flying off as glowing shrapnel. The greaves cracked, revealing the torn uniform and bruised skin underneath.
Issei ignored the damage. He charged through the bombardment, a red streak of defiance.
"I'm not done yet, Vali!" Issei screamed, slamming a knee into Vali's midsection. The impact was so heavy it created a shockwave that finally cracked the isolation barrier itself.
Vali coughed blood, his white armor caving in at the stomach. But he didn't retreat. He grabbed Issei's head with both hands.
[DIVIDE! DIVIDE! DIVIDE!]
[BOOST! BOOST! BOOST!]
The two heavenly dragons screamed their commands in unison, the conflicting concepts of Domination and Supremacy tearing reality apart. The feedback loop was too much. The Sacred Gears couldn't contain the output of two hosts pushing past their absolute limits.
SNAP.
Issei's helmet exploded, sending fragments of red metal spinning into the dust. Vali's right wing was ripped clean off by the sheer force of Issei's aura.
Both men were now half-armored, bleeding, and running on pure adrenaline.
The dust from their collision had barely settled when Issei and Vali staggered to their feet. Their armor was in ruins, exposing bleeding skin and torn clothes, but the fire in their eyes hadn't dimmed. If anything, it had turned into something darker, something ancient.
They looked at each other, and for the first time, there was no smirk on Vali's face, and no hesitation in Issei's stance. The limit had been reached. The only way forward was to break the vessel entirely.
[Partner,] Ddraig's voice rumbled, low and ominous, vibrating in Issei's very marrow. [To go further... you must offer your life. You must become the beast.]
[Vali,] Albion whispered, a cold wind chilling the air. [The seal must be broken. Are you prepared to let the madness take the wheel?]
Issei clenched his bleeding fists, his teeth bared in a snarl. "I don't care... I won't lose!"
Vali wiped blood from his eyes, his expression twisting into a look of absolute obsession. "Let's see the bottom of the abyss, Hyoudou!"
Simultaneously, a dark, heavy aura descended upon Kuoh, crushing the gravity around them. The sky turned a sickening shade of purple and blood-red. They threw their heads back, and the forbidden chants began—not spoken, but screamed from the depths of their souls.
"I, who am about to awaken..." "I, who am about to awaken..."
The ground liquified beneath them. The shards of their broken armor didn't fall off; they began to writhe, growing organic, turning into scales and bone.
"Am the Red Dragon Emperor who holds the truth of the King!" "Am the White Dragon Emperor who will take the law down to the darkness!"
Issei's scream turned into a guttural roar as his size began to expand. His armor morphed, growing massive, jagged spikes. A second pair of wings tore out of his back, and the helmet elongated into a snarling dragon's maw.
"Holding the infinite hopes and dreams!" "I walk the road of domination with infinite destruction and piercing through the imaginary dream!"
Vali's white aura turned chaotic. The sleek, divine wings of the Vanishing Dragon twisted, becoming larger, sharper, resembling the wings of a demon lord. The gems on his armor turned from a calm blue to a violent, blinding white.
"I shall become the King of Red Dragon!" "I shall become a pure King of White Dragon!"
The sheer magical pressure vaporized the remaining debris of the school. The barrier Issei and Vali had fought within was long gone; now, the entire town of Kuoh began to shake as if an earthquake had hit.
"And I shall sink you to the depths of the crimson purgatory!" "And I shall have you obey the silvery-white illusions!"
[JUGGERNAUT DRIVE!]
The explosion of energy was silent, for it sucked all sound out of the world.
Where two young men once stood, two towering, mechanical beasts now existed.
On one side, a colossal Red Dragon, overflowing with an aura of pure madness and rage, its roar shattering windows for miles. On the other, a sleek, terrifying White Dragon, radiating a cold, destructive light that threatened to divide the very atoms of the air.
With a roar that signaled the end of the world, the two Juggernaut Drives lunged at each other.
_____________________________________________
The isolation barrier that had hidden the supernatural conflict from the human world didn't just fade; it detonated.
Rias and Sona Sitri stood on the rooftop of a nearby building, shielding their eyes as the shockwave of the Juggernaut Drives blew out every window in a three-mile radius. Below them, the familiar campus of Kuoh Academy was gone, replaced by a swirling vortex of chaotic purple and crimson energy.
"It's... it's broken," Sona whispered, her face pale with horror as she watched the two colossal mechanical dragons tearing at each other's throats. "The barrier is gone. The fallout... it will wipe Kuoh off the map. Millions will die!"
Rias gripped the railing, her knuckles white. She flared her Power of Destruction, but against the sheer, God-killing volume of magic pouring off Issei and Vali, she felt like a candle in a hurricane. "What are they doing? We can't contain this!"
A stray blast of energy—a combined beam of Red and White—strayed from the duel, arcing high into the air. It began to descend toward the residential district, a meteor of annihilation that would incinerate thousands of homes in an instant.
Rias screamed, reaching out helplessly. "NO!"
Just as the beam was about to make contact, the space above the town twisted. It wasn't a magic circle; it was a forcible rewriting of coordinates, a manifestation of Algernon's Space Law.
CLANG.
A sound like a massive gong being struck echoed across the entire region.
The destructive beam didn't hit the town. It slammed into an invisible, hexagonal wall that had materialized out of thin air, dispersing the energy harmlessly into the atmosphere.
Rias and Sona looked up, stunned. Standing in the sky between the town and the raging dragons was a massive, lazy-looking figure with a bald head and a bored expression.
Falbium Asmodeus. The duke entrusted with the greatest defense in the Underworld.
He yawned, scratching his beard, even as his aura expanded to cover the entire horizon, creating an impenetrable fortress around the battlefield.
"Good grief," Falbium muttered, his voice amplified so the devils could hear. "The Emperor really works me too hard. 'Go instantly,' he said. 'Use my Space Law so you aren't late,' he said."
He glanced down at Rias and Sona. "You girls can relax. From this point on, not a speck of dust from their fight will leave this barrier."
He turned his gaze back to the two rampaging monsters, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Now, let's see how long they can keep up that tantrum before they burn themselves out."
(END OF CHAPTER)
chapters are released early and uncut on Patreon, ahead of public publication along with exclusive NSFW works.
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You know where to stand.
Special thanks to all my EPIC members and,
MYTH: Asaf Montgomery
MYTH: Dutchviking
MYTH: Robert Hernandez
MYTH: Kevin Boutte jr.
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