A Rating Game was supposed to be a combination of tactics and strategy. If it turned into nothing but an exchange of gunfire, there would be no fun in watching it.
After hearing the news, Rod could only loudly denounce the referees for their shamelessness.
Still, that changed nothing.
After roughly fifteen minutes of preparation time, the Rating Game officially began.
The time limit was one hour. If that limit was exceeded, the side with fewer remaining members on the field would be declared the loser.
At the same time, if either Rias or Riser was defeated first, their side would immediately be declared the loser as well.
"All right, my lovely devil servants! This is our first battle, and there are plenty of important figures in the audience watching us, so we absolutely have to win!"
"Yes!"
Everyone's morale surged.
It was time to use this battle to test the results of all their training.
...
Taking into account the new restrictions suddenly added to the Rating Game, Rias had adjusted her battle plan.
Since Gasper was not allowed to use his Sacred Gear, she had him use his vampire abilities instead and turn into a bat to scout out the positions of Riser and his peerage.
Ten minutes later, Gasper sent back word.
"P-President, I've figured it all out!"
He then explained the entire deployment of Riser's peerage.
"It's just as I guessed. Riser is still using the same old style. From pawns to queen, he's spread out his peerage according to a chess formation, scattering them across different positions while keeping himself alone in the rear."
Rias gave a faint laugh.
"He still plans to weaken us using his peerage first, then use his own recovery ability to finish us off once we've run out of strength."
The tactic was simple, but effective.
If this had been based on Rias's earlier strength, then with only the few of them, they likely would not have even gotten past Riser's queen.
Even if Rias herself stepped in, the best outcome would have been a one-on-one fight with Riser, only for her to lose bitterly in the end against his absurd immortality.
But times were different now.
"If Riser wants to play it like that, then we'll do the opposite. Numbers are already our disadvantage, so there's no point in splitting up. We'll all go together."
And so, just as the audience was eagerly wondering what kind of strategy Rias would use against Riser, they saw her entire group charge straight toward the indoor gymnasium in front of the New School Building.
There was no hesitation in their movements, nor any needless discussion. Before moving out, Koneko had only cast an enhancing senjutsu on everyone that increased their movement speed and muffled their footsteps.
Offensive senjutsu was harder to learn and not that powerful, so before this, Koneko had specifically learned a great deal of support-type senjutsu from Kuroka.
Under cover of night, the whole group rushed into the gym at several times their normal speed.
At that moment, Riser had only stationed two peerage members there, both of whom had been given Pawn pieces.
They knew very well that they were little more than cannon fodder. They did not expect to stop Rias's peerage. They only hoped to drain as much of their magic power as possible, or maybe even take one of them down.
Judging from normal tactical logic, with the size of Rias's peerage, she would most likely only send out one person, either Yuuto or Koneko.
At most, Gasper might be with them too, though with his Sacred Gear banned, he was effectively useless.
Yet what they encountered was none of those things.
The moment they saw an entire group charging toward them with murderous momentum, the two girls froze.
"Wh... what's going on?!"
"Why are there so many of them?! This isn't the tactical pattern we predicted!"
"Quick... get ready to fight!"
"Aaaahhh!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Before Rias's group even got close, Gasper had already raised his handguns and fired at the two girls' non-lethal spots.
He missed every shot, but he still scared the life out of them.
What the hell, man? Since when were firearms allowed?!
They were holding actual cold weapons here!
Under the full-on dogpile from Rias's entire team, the two girls were quickly defeated and automatically teleported out of the game field.
After that, under the audience's stunned gaze, Rias's team did not slow down in the slightest and continued rushing toward the New School Building.
Using that method, in just a few minutes, more than half of Riser's peerage had already been eliminated.
As he listened to the elimination announcements echoing across the game field,
Riser finally realized that something was wrong and hurriedly called together what remained of his peerage, asking in shock what had happened.
"Lord Riser, Rias and her entire team charged us all at once. The people stationed on the front line were eliminated before they even had time to react."
At that very moment,
Riser could even hear explosions coming from somewhere nearby.
At the same time, the announcement of two more teammates being eliminated sounded again.
Boom!
The rooftop door of the New School Building was blown inward by a punch from Koneko, only for Riser to instantly melt the incoming metal door with his Phoenix flames.
When he saw Rias's entire team coming at him all at once, Riser's expression no longer held the same composed confidence from before the match. Instead, he stared at them with a dark, unstable look.
He finally understood why his peerage had been defeated so quickly.
It turned out Rias's group simply refused to play by the usual rules and instead charged together as a mob. In that case, of course the people he had stationed in different places would never stand a chance against all of them at once.
Outrageous. This was more shameless than bandits.
"Riser, I've come for you!"
The moment Rias saw Riser, blazing fury burst from her eyes. Her aura of Destruction surged around her, and her crimson hair whipped wildly in the air.
"Rias! You actually dared to gang up on the few people I stationed out there! Do you even have any dignity as a pure-blooded upper-class devil?!"
"Heh! I'll give those words right back to you. Your peerage outnumbers mine several times over. If we're talking about numbers, then we're the ones at a disadvantage. And even so, you still agreed to a Rating Game with me. So where exactly is your dignity?"
Rias fired back without the slightest trace of mercy.
Riser clearly had not expected Rias to leave him no room at all, and his face went red and green by turns.
In truth, all of this was the result of the time she had spent training under Rod.
Under his constant influence, she had not become exactly like him, but at the very least she was no longer the type who, when mocked, could only answer with something like "Even death would not be enough to atone."
After that, she did not waste any more words on Riser.
"Everyone, together! Focus fire on Riser!"
At those words, Riser's peerage immediately moved to protect him. Yet instead of following her words literally, everyone except Rias instantly turned their full assault on the peerage member standing furthest in front.
[Riser's peerage member eliminated.]
Riser: "???"
Wait, what happened to focusing fire on me?!
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