Ophis left.
Cleanly. Directly. Without a shred of hesitation, as if she hadn't just spent the last while trying to recruit Leo to her cause.
She had to leave. Even with her power suppressed and her presence minimized, staying in the Dimensional Gap too long meant Great Red would eventually sense her and come looking.
So after returning the Evil Piece to Leo, Ophis departed the Dimensional Gap. Where she went, Leo had no idea.
Before she left, though, Leo had hurriedly asked her how to get out of the Gap.
Ophis didn't say a word. She simply left open the exit she'd created for herself when departing, a black vortex hovering in the center of the ruined throne room. The message was obvious: walk through it, and he'd be back in the real world.
"I just go through here?"
Looking at the swirling black portal, Leo finally felt the tension in his chest unwind. Relief showed plainly on his face.
With a way out, there was no longer any rush.
"I wonder what's been going on outside."
Leo's concerns had shifted from himself to others.
He'd accidentally broken through the Hero Faction's pocket dimension and been flung into the Dimensional Gap. That had been several days ago.
By now, the summit should have concluded. The battle between his servants and the Hero Faction couldn't still be going on. It had to be over.
But the outcome was what worried him.
The summit itself was probably fine. If events followed the original story, things would have ended without major casualties. The Old Maou Faction's attack on the three factions' leaders would ultimately fail. No one would die, no one would be seriously hurt. Only one person would defect from their faction and join the Khaos Brigade, becoming a terrorist.
After this incident, the original story had the three factions formally signing a peace treaty. No more wars. Instead, they'd cooperate, jointly developing the Heavenly Realm, the Underworld, and the human world, expanding their influence, eventually drawing in other mythological factions and moving toward world peace.
That was a good thing. Leo genuinely hoped the plot hadn't deviated. If it followed the original timeline, Rias, Sona, and the others should all be safe.
But the outcome of his own servants' battle against the Hero Faction was completely unpredictable.
The original story had no such event. Going by the original timeline, the Hero Faction shouldn't have even appeared yet. They were supposed to emerge only after the Old Maou Faction's forces were rooted out by the three factions.
But because of Leo, the Hero Faction had surfaced early, inserting themselves into the struggle between the current and old Maou factions, making enemies of Leo and his peerage. This was uncharted territory. Leo had lost the original plot as a reference and couldn't predict how things had played out.
"As long as Cao Cao wasn't there, Yukino and the others should have been able to handle the rest of the Hero Faction."
Leo thought this with some uncertainty.
The Hero Faction was packed with talent. Every member was a descendant of heroes, and nearly all were Sacred Gear users. Their main fighters had all achieved Balance Breaker. They weren't weak.
But compared to the Old Maou Faction, the Hero Faction's overall strength should be somewhat lower.
Their ideology was to defeat non-human races using only human power, proving humanity's worth. So they pushed themselves to their limits, training relentlessly, refining their Sacred Gears, rather than taking Ophis's Snakes like the Old Maou Faction members had.
With Ophis's Snakes, the Old Maou Faction members had all received massive power boosts. Even Lafei Trix had jumped from an eight-winged to a ten-winged. Everyone else who'd consumed a Snake had grown substantially too.
The descendants of the original Maou especially, sharing Vali's pedigree as old Maou bloodline, had reached Maou-Class after consuming their Snakes. That gave the Old Maou Faction at least three Maou-Class fighters: the descendants of Beelzebub, Leviathan, and Asmodeus.
The Hero Faction, having refused the Snakes, had no Maou-Class fighter besides Cao Cao. Their next strongest was probably Siegfried, the former Church elite warrior who'd inherited the hero Siegfried's genetic legacy and wielded multiple demonic swords, including the Demonic Emperor Sword Gram. Siegfried hadn't reached Maou-Class, but at full power he could likely match a ten-winged.
Against Leo's peerage from before, only Yukino in Balance Breaker and Ram at full power could probably hold off someone of Siegfried's caliber. Utaha, also in Balance Breaker, could put up a fight without being embarrassed.
The rest of the Hero Faction members were strong but not unreasonably so. The only ones that warranted real concern were the two top-tier Longinus holders: the wielders of Annihilation Maker and Dimension Lost.
Against those two, even Ravel with her Ultimate-Class Devil strength would struggle. But Ravel had her immortal body. Even if she couldn't win, she shouldn't lose easily.
Running the numbers, as long as his servants chose their matchups wisely and didn't get outmaneuvered, they might not be guaranteed a win, but they weren't destined to lose either.
And in a worst-case scenario, the Eligos peerage still had Rem.
If Rem went into Oni transformation, her power would instantly surge to Ultimate-Class. For a limited time, aside from Siegfried, nobody in the entire Hero Faction could confidently claim they'd beat her.
All things considered, the outcome of the Eligos peerage versus Hero Faction battle was still unclear.
"At least I can be sure of one thing: the girls are all still alive."
Otherwise, their souls would have returned to Leo's side already.
That was the reason Leo had been able to maintain a degree of patience and composure even while trapped in the Dimensional Gap.
If the girls' fates had been unknown, he would have lost his mind long ago.
"In any case, I need to get back and see for myself."
His mind made up, Leo prepared to take the sleeping Kanna and the unconscious Stella back to the real world.
But to his surprise, someone woke up before he could move.
Stella had sat up at some point. She was clutching Leo's jacket tight against her body, her fire-colored eyes locked on Leo. No longer empty and hollow, they were sharp with scrutiny and wariness.
"You're awake?" Leo looked at her with mild surprise. Noticing the wariness in her eyes, he immediately said, "I'm..."
Before he could explain, Stella cut him off.
"I know. You're a devil. You're the one who woke me up."
Her tone was blunt, unapologetically cutting him short.
It wasn't hostile, exactly. Nor was it condescending. If anything, it carried an air of authority, more like a knight than a princess.
"You even know what a devil is?" Leo raised an eyebrow, surprised. "I figured you wouldn't."
According to the records, the era when the Kingdom of Familion existed should have predated the era when Angels, Devils, and Fallen Angels first appeared. Devils as a species might not have even existed yet when Stella was sealed.
"I didn't, originally." Stella's voice was oddly cold. "But after you broke into this place, I learned."
Leo paused.
What did that mean?
"I was sealed inside the dragon crystal, but I wasn't always asleep."
Perhaps sensing his confusion, Stella offered an explanation.
"Whenever someone entered the sealed grounds, or even the castle itself, I would briefly awaken."
In other words, Stella had been aware of everything happening around her.
Not just what happened after Leo arrived. She'd witnessed everything after her seal was broken, including losing control to her dragon bloodline's defensive instinct. Her consciousness had been clear throughout. She could "see" and "hear" everything.
"So you also know that you've been reincarnated as a devil and taken as my servant?"
Leo nodded, noting her unfriendly attitude without being particularly bothered by it, and stated the fact plainly.
"Servant..."
Stella's hands tightened on the jacket pressed against her chest. A flicker of anger surfaced in her eyes.
She clearly couldn't accept being reduced to such a status.
Understandable. Stella was the last princess of the Kingdom of Familion. Even if the kingdom was gone, she had been genuine royalty. Noble, exalted, great.
Waking up to discover she'd gone from princess to someone's servant overnight was not something anyone could easily accept.
It wasn't unique to her, either. Plenty of the girls in the Eligos peerage had struggled with it at first.
Yukino and Asuna had been the same way. They'd only gradually come to terms with it because Leo had saved their lives, and they owed their continued existence to him.
Stella had no such reason.
But the princess didn't vent her frustration or anger. She stared at Leo for a long time, then spoke.
"What era is it out there? What does the world look like now?"
She chose to set aside the issue and get her bearings first.
Leo studied her for a moment, then replied.
"Explaining it all would take too long. Easier if you just see for yourself."
He raised his hand and opened a magic circle above his palm.
He'd already developed this method of imparting knowledge and memories directly to save time on explanations. He was simply using it again.
A torrent of information about the modern world flooded into Stella's mind through the magic circle.
Stella's head swam. She involuntarily let go of the jacket with one hand, ignoring the glimpse of skin that showed, and clutched her forehead, looking pained.
Unlike the others, who'd only needed to learn about the Underworld, Stella had been asleep for so long and disconnected for so many ages that she was completely out of touch. Leo had to pour in most of the modern world's common knowledge all at once. The state of the Heavenly Realm. The Underworld. The human world. Devils. Angels. Fallen Angels. He even gave her the basics of every other mythological faction, bringing her up to speed on what era she'd woken up in.
After a long while, Stella finally finished absorbing it all. The pain on her face gave way to blank shock.
"The outside world... has become all this?"
She murmured, almost to herself.
Her voice held loss. Bewilderment. A trace of helplessness.
Her homeland had become a footnote so ancient it wasn't even recorded in history. Everything she'd once fought to protect had long since perished.
The world she'd woken up in was the same one she'd lived in, technically. But it might as well have been a different world entirely.
Everything familiar was gone. Only the unfamiliar remained, assaulting her sense of self.
She was no longer the gallant princess. She was just a ghost abandoned by time.
"Hey."
Suddenly, she heard Leo's voice.
"Are you crying?"
The words snapped Stella back to reality. She touched the corner of her eye.
It was wet.
She was crying.
Stella immediately wiped the tears away. The gaze she turned on Leo sharpened to a blade's edge.
Leo met that razor-sharp stare with a slight smile.
"Don't worry. You'll find a new place to belong."
He said it quietly.
"With me."