Boom!
A crimson magic circle erupted in the center of the office, its deafening roar cutting off the conversation.
The room filled with black mist, and a red-haired man emerged, wearing a gentle smile as he looked at the two figures before him.
"Lucifer!" Rias exclaimed, but Serafall Lucifer's appearance didn't bring her joy. Instinctively, she stepped in front of Gaio, shielding him.
Serafall's eyes narrowed slightly at his sister's unusual behavior. "A forced contract?"
He snapped his fingers, and the air around them froze. The black mist morphed into chains, surging toward Gaio. "But someone from the Gremory family isn't someone you can—"
Clang!
The Yama Blade slid three inches from its sheath, its icy gleam shattering the temporal stasis.
Gaio held the blade upright in front of him. The chains halted three inches away, then shattered like glass, falling to the floor with a clatter.
"Brother… run!" Rias shouted, still standing protectively in front of Gaio.
Serafall's gentle smile froze. He glanced at his sister, then at the Yama Blade, still only partially drawn, and his pupils contracted. That temporal stasis move was something even an ancient demon would need full power to break.
"Lucifer?" Gaio twirled the blade's handle, the sheath clinking softly. "You seem… kinda weak."
"What did you say?" Serafall's red hair stirred as if caught in an invisible wind.
As the current Lucifer, bearing both the Bael and Gremory bloodlines, he hadn't heard such provocation in five hundred years.
The air around him crackled, and countless grain-sized magical orbs materialized, their crimson glow bathing the office in a bloody hue.
Rias's body trembled uncontrollably, her nails digging into her palms. She knew better than anyone that her brother's Meteor Shower of Magic Bullets could level an entire city with ease.
Gaio yawned. To Serafall, it seemed like Gaio's figure flickered for a moment before vanishing from sight.
"Fighting here would be a real hassle for me," Gaio's voice said, suddenly right beside Serafall's ear.
Before Serafall could react, the world around him blurred.
---
The salty tang of seawater hit him as Serafall's expression grew grave.
He looked down at the churning waves beneath his feet, his red hair whipped wildly by the sea breeze.
From the moment Gaio's voice sounded in his ear to their sudden appearance above the ocean, only 0.00001 seconds had passed.
"Forced spatial transfer?" Serafall muttered. For a demon of his caliber, being forcibly transported to another space was nearly impossible.
He looked at Gaio, hovering in the air across from him. "Who are you?"
"Wanna know?" Gaio smirked, but the smile quickly faded as he tilted his chin slightly, staring at Serafall. "Make it fun for me, and I'll tell you. So, entertain me."
"Insolent!"
Serafall's roar was cut short as crimson magical orbs reappeared around him, now a hundred times larger than before.
The grain-sized orbs swelled to the size of small rocks, their surfaces etched with the Bael family's signature annihilation runes. Thousands of them formed a blood-red storm that blotted out the sky.
"Annihilation Bullets!"
The sheer pressure of the orbs forced the ocean waves to sink a hundred meters, creating a massive vacuum in the sea.
Serafall's red hair stood on end, his eyes blazing with demonic fire. This move, capable of leveling half the Demon Realm, hadn't been used in five hundred years.
Gaio's wrist flicked, and the Yama Blade fully left its sheath.
Countless blade arcs flashed across the sky.
The trajectories of every magical orb froze. Thousands of energy spheres disintegrated midair, dissolving into countless red specks of light.
"Impossible!" Serafall's eyes widened, his pupils shrinking.
Gaio sheathed his blade again. "If this is all you've got, you won't be much help to your sister."
Serafall roared, summoning the towering phantoms of the Gremory and Bael families' demon gods behind him.
Dozens of crimson magic circles, ranging from ten to a hundred meters wide, materialized around him.
"Darkness, eternal darkness, heed the demon gods of destruction and prophecy!"
"My power, my form, all exist to eradicate the source!"
"Play the prelude to the annihilation of heaven and earth! Sing the song of finality!"
"World-Ending Magic Bullet: Finale!"
As Serafall chanted, the crimson circles converged, summoning massive magical orbs.
Gaio watched Serafall recite his overly dramatic incantation while controlling the magic circles and couldn't help but laugh.
This guy's chanting such a long spell. Is he trying to get himself killed?
Indeed, Serafall's incantation gave Gaio enough time to kill him ten thousand times over.
"Ha!"
Serafall thrust both palms forward, sending dozens of kilometer-sized magical orbs, trailing crimson flames, hurtling toward Gaio.
The orbs' paths evaporated the seawater into walls of white steam, leaving scorched black scars across the sky—a power that even Transcendants (not Marvel's, but a power tier in High School DxD) would fear.
Gaio stepped back half a pace, the Yama Blade trembling faintly in its sheath.
Not bad power-wise, he thought, squinting. His left thumb pressed against the hilt. As the first orb broke the sound barrier, its ear-splitting screech reaching the ten-meter mark, a circular tsunami surged across the ocean.
"Dimensional Slash: Void Break!"
The moment he drew his blade, there was no sound.
Only a cerulean blade arc sliced across the heavens, like a boundary drawn by a god.
Space shattered like glass along the arc's path, countless diamond-shaped fragments hovering in the air. The world-ending magical orbs, capable of obliterating anything, split cleanly in half behind Gaio.
"This…" Serafall's chant trailed off.
Gaio's wrist flicked, the Yama Blade weaving a dense net of blue light in the air.
The severed orbs' cores erupted in blinding red light but were instantly consumed by countless tiny spatial rifts as they touched the light net.
Explosions that should've upheaved continental shelves only rippled faintly within the rifts, not a single shockwave escaping.
"This power…" Serafall's body trembled violently.
He saw the time flow itself warp along the path of Gaio's blade.
Within the floating spatial fragments, he could even see afterimages of the orbs before their explosion, forever trapped in fractured time.
The crisp sound of Gaio sheathing his blade echoed across the sea.
The remains of the magical orbs lost all momentum, crumbling like shattered glass beads into billions of specks that sank into the deep sea. Only a faint blue glow lingered at the tip of his blade, slowly devouring the surrounding spatial debris.
"Chanting too long can get you killed," Gaio said, brushing off imaginary dust from his sleeve. "Next time, keep it short."
With that, he turned to leave. This Lucifer wasn't much fun—long chants, long charge-ups, like something out of an ancient anime.
"Don't attack while I'm chanting."
"Wait until I finish transforming, no matter how long it takes."
That old-school anime nonsense.
If not for Rias's sake, Serafall would already be dead.
"Wait!" Serafall called out suddenly. Gaio glanced back.
"I'd like to make a deal with you."
"A deal? You sure?" Gaio raised an eyebrow.
"Yes. The power you just showed… it feels familiar."
"Oh? What do you mean?" Gaio's interest was piqued. His slash had come from another world.
"Hundreds of years ago, a greatsword fell into the Demon Realm," Serafall said gravely. "Its power was immense. Every demon wanted it, but none were worthy to even touch it."
"A greatsword?" Gaio turned fully, facing Serafall.
"Yes, a greatsword." Serafall nodded firmly.