In the highest floor of the Lucifer Stadium, within the heavily fortified and luxuriously appointed Four Satans box, Sirzechs Lucifer's eyes suddenly widened.
The air in the room seemed to ripple for a fraction of a second.
Seeing the sudden change in expression on Sirzechs' face, the beautiful girl sitting at his side immediately noticed. She appeared to be in her late teens, with raven-black hair tied into her signature high twintails and piercing blue eyes that sparkled with a perpetual, restless energy.
"Is there something wrong, Sirzechs-chan?"
It was Serafall Leviathan who spoke.
As one of the four Maou and the primary official in charge of foreign affairs for the Underworld, she was rarely seen without a playful smile.
Even someone like her, who usually did not have a deep interest in watching the tactical nuances of Rating Games, preferring to spend her time watching random human TV shows or magical girl anime could not simply miss a match of this caliber, albeit forced by her colleagues.
"No, it's just... I felt like I felt a wind blowing against my body, despite the fact that we are literally in an enclosed room right now," Sirzechs muttered. His gaze remained fixed on the space in front of him, his senses searching for a disturbance that had already vanished.
"I didn't feel anything. Maybe that's just your imagination," Serafall said, leaning back.
"No, I feel it too. Though, it might just be the collective mana from the hundreds of thousands of people inside the stadium, as my barrier didn't detect anything unusual." another voice added.
"You too, Ajuka-chan?" Serafall turned her head to the side.
Ajuka Beelzebub sat there, his eyes reflecting the glow of several holographic screens that displayed complex magical structure and data instead of the match.
He didn't look up, but his silence carried an agreement.
"Hm... Do you feel it too, Falby?" Serafall asked, turning her attention to the bald man on her other side. Falbium Asmodeus, the Maou in charge of the Underworld's military affairs, simply let out a lazy grunt.
"Nope."
"Both of you are imagining things," Serafall said with a dismissive wave of her hand as she stood up from her seat. The vibrant colors of her outfit seemed to glow in the dim light of the suite.
"Where do you want to go, Serafall? The match has just started," Sirzechs asked, finally pulling his gaze away from the empty air.
"Meh~, this match is boring! Both Ruval-chan and Roygun-chan aren't really interesting fighters compared to someone like Bova-chan. I don't like these intricate, slow fights! I like it when things go boom boom!" Serafall said, throwing a playful punch into the air.
"Aren't you a little bit too picky..." Sirzechs said, a wry smile finally returning to his face.
"Anyway, I'm going to go watch it with Sona-tan and her peerage. Cya~!"
After she said that, Serafall turned and skipped out of the Four Satans box suite.
The heavy, reinforced doors hissed shut behind her, sealing off the concentrated power of the Maous.
She began to walk cheerfully through the long, empty hallway that bypassed the main stands. The muffled, thunderous cheers from inside the stadium echoed through the stone walls, creating a rhythmic pulse that vibrated in the floor.
As she walked, her heels clicking rhythmically on the polished marble, before she saw a man walking in the opposite direction.
The man was wearing a black hoodie, layered with a long, black trenchcoat that swayed slightly with his stride.
His hands were buried deep in his pockets, and his hood was pulled low, obscuring most of his features in shadow. He walked with a silent, steady gait, moving past Serafall without a word or a glance.
Serafall had no intention of stopping or interacting with a random guest, until the very moment their shoulders passed one another.
'Hm?'
Serafall's blue eyes suddenly widened to their limits.
A primal cold sensation washed over her as every single hair on her body stood on end. It was an instinctual reaction, the kind of soul-deep alarm that only triggered when her body knew something was wrong.
She stopped and spun around to look back at the man.
But the hallway was empty. The figure of the man in the black coat had already disappeared from her sight, as if he had never been there at all.
Feeling a heavy sense of unease that she couldn't quite name, the Magical Girl whispered to herself.
"What was that... just now?"
***
"I'm sorry, I was just meeting a friend."
The door to the Phenex family box opened with a quiet click as Ravel stepped inside.
Her presence immediately drew the attention of everyone in the room. The box was filled with the members of the House of Phenex.
Her parents, the Lord and Lady Phenex, sat at the front, while Riser stood near the glass with his entire female peerage gathered behind him.
"Ravel, I told you not to be late! Why are you taking so much time meeting that friend of yours? The match has already started!" Riser said, turning away from the window to glare at his younger sister.
His voice was laced with its usual arrogant irritation.
"I'm sorry, Nii-sama... I just talked with him for a little bit," Ravel said, her voice small as she lowered her head.
"Him?" Riser raised his eyebrows, his expression twisting into one of realization and disgust.
"So it's really that half-devil again! Didn't I tell you not to involve yourself with that filthy half-breed? You will only bring shame to our family by associating with such low life!"
"I-I'm sorry, Nii-sama," Ravel whispered. She kept her head lowered, her hands trembling slightly at her sides.
A few stray tears began to prick at her eyes, eventually dripping down her flushed cheeks.
"Now, now, Riser. Don't yell at your little sister like that."
'
A mature blonde woman moved toward them. It was Lady Phenex, the matriarch of the house.
She reached out and pulled Ravel toward her, offering a comforting presence.
"It's okay, Ravel. Don't mind your brother's words. Let's just watch the match together. Don't cry, okay?" Lady Phenex said, gently tapping Ravel's head.
The young girl sniffled and nodded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she moved to a seat.
[ WOW! Look at that! That's Ruval Phenex for you! Three of Roygun Belphegor's peerage members have been retired by a single attack! ]
The announcer's voice boomed through the speakers, accompanied by a roar from the crowd that shook the very foundations of the stadium.
"That's what I'm talking about!" Lord Phenex shouted, clenching his hand into a fist as he leaned toward the holographic screen in front of him.
His eyes were alight with pride as he watched his eldest son dominate the field.
Hearing the news of the successful attack, everyone in the box immediately turned their attention back to the magical broadcast of the Game Field.
Even Riser, who had been angry just a moment before, wore a wide, smug grin.
He loved a show of dominance, especially when it came from his own bloodline.
[ Is this going to be the rise of the underdog? Is Roygun Belphegor finally going to be defeated by someone outside of the Top 3? ]
The sound of the crowd reached a fever pitch, chanting a single name in a deafening anthem that echoed through the city of Lucifaad.
"Ruval!"
"Ruval!"
"Ruval!"
On the screens, the tactical map showed that Roygun Belphegor's peerage had been cut in half in a shockingly short amount of time.
The tide of the battle had shifted violently, and the People's Champion was now firmly holding the upper hand against the veteran Queen of the Rating Games.
"Mama, look! Nii-sama is going to win!"
Ravel said, her previous sadness forgotten in a flash of excitement.
She wiped the last of her tears away, her blue eyes shining as she watched her brother, her pride, move with the grace and power of a true King.
"Nii-sama."
Meanwhile, in the Game Field.
The roar of the stadium reached a crescendo as the focus of the magical broadcast tightened, centering on a scorched, desolate mountain range within the Game Field.
The tactical phase had ended, most of the pawns and knights had been cleared.
Ruval Phenex moved like a streak of golden-red lightning across the air inside the Game Field with the famous Phenex Wings.
His presence radiating a heat that turned the sand beneath him into glass. Unlike his younger brother Riser, Ruval's control was surgical.
Opposite him, Roygun Belphegor stood on a jagged precipice, her cherry-blossom hair whipping in the artificial wind.
She was isolated, her peerage having been picked apart by Ruval's peerage, yet her expression remained as stagnant as a frozen lake.
"You've fought well, Ruval-kun," Roygun said, her voice calm despite the wall of fire closing in on her.
"But this is not enough to defeat me."
Ruval let out a sharp, confident laugh, his hands igniting with a brilliance that rivaled a miniature sun.
"Then let's unleashed everything we have, shall we!"
With a roar, Ruval lunged.
Streams of Phoenix flame erupted from the air around Roygun, converging on her like the closing teeth of the legendary bird shaped flame.
The heat was so intense that the magical camera feeds flickered, struggling to render the sheer density of the demonic energy.
But Roygun didn't even move her feet.
She simply raised a slender hand and made a sharp, pulling motion with her fingers.
Crack
The space in front of her literally tore open.
Her trait, Crack, a unique power that creates a tear in things within the range of the user, manifested as a jagged fissure in the air.
The incoming Phoenix flames shattered in an instant.
[ AMAZING! ]
The announcer screamed, his voice cracking with excitement.
[ Roygun Belphegor's Crack is as sharp as ever! She just tore through the Phoenix Flame as if it were nothing! But Ruval isn't stopping yet! ]
Ruval gritted his teeth, the golden glow of his eyes intensifying.
He began to circle her at subsonic speeds, a blurring cyclone of fire.
"Then let's see you tear through this!" Ruval muttered.
He clapped his hands together, and the atmosphere groaned under the sudden pressure.
From behind him, the silhouette of a gigantic, majestic Phoenix manifested, its wingspan wide enough to cast a shadow over the entire arena.
With a downward thrust of his arms, the bird dived downward as a singular, sentient shape of the legendary bird, intended to engulf Roygun in a sea of flames.
The flames were so bright they blinded the spectators in the stadium for a split second.
Ravel, watching from the VVIP box, gripped the railing so hard her knuckles turned white.
"Nii-sama has her!" she whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs.
The Phoenix collided with the precipice.
A dome of white-hot fire expanded, vaporizing the stone and turning the sky into a hellish orange.
For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of the inferno. Ruval hovered in the air, chest heaving, a triumphant smile beginning to form on his handsome face.
'I won!'
But then, the fire stopped moving.
Suddenly, a sound like a thousand mirrors shattering simultaneously echoed through the stadium. The silence that followed was deafening.
A singular, jagged line appeared in the center of the massive Phoenix flame. Then another. And another. Within seconds, the entire sea of fire was covered in a web of glowing white fissures.
Crack
"What...?" Ruval's smile vanished, replaced by a look of pure shock.
BOOM
Roygun's aura exploded outward.
A violent, suffocating tidal wave of demonic power that made the stadium's seats rattle. The gigantic Phoenix shattered like a glass.
The flames broke into harmless, cooling embers that drifted away in an artificial wind.
Roygun Belphegor stood in the center of the crater, her cherry-blossom hair now glowing with a predatory light.
Her horns seemed sharper, as she narrowed her eyes. Dark crimson energy enveloped her body.
The hundreds of thousands of cheering fans were struck mute by the terrifying display of power.
Within the Gremory peerage box, the atmosphere had shifted from observation to heavy silence.
Rias Gremory stood at the very edge of the balcony, her hands gripping the velvet-covered railing.
Her signature crimson hair seemed to vibrate in response to the massive discharge of demonic energy being broadcast.
Her eyes, usually sharp and excited, were wide with a mix of awe and a burgeoning sense of dread.
"I knew Roygun-sama was powerful," Rias whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the monitors.
"But to shatter a high-level Phenex ultimate move like it was nothing but brittle ice... is the gap between the Top 10 and the Top 3 actually that big?"
Beside her, Akeno Himejima had let her usual playful, seductive smirk slip.
"Ara... this is getting dangerous, Isn't it." Akeno murmured, her voice uncharacteristically serious.
Meanwhile, Gasper stared at the screen with a serious, determined expression.
[ WHAT! ]
The announcer finally found his voice, though it was now a panicked shriek.
[ WAS ROYGUN BELPHEGOR HOLDING BACK ALL THIS TIME?! THAT AURA... IT'S ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT LEVEL! THIS IS THE TRUE POWER OF THE UNMOVABLE BIG THREE! ]
And the whole stadium went silent once more.
***
As the stadium went silent, their focus entirely on the fight between Ruval and Belphegor in the big quad-screens.
High above the oblivious crowd, on the expansive roof of the stadium, a solitary figure stood against the barriered sky.
The man was clad in a black hoodie and a long trenchcoat that snapped violently in the high-altitude winds.
Despite the violent gust of wind, his body did not falter.
The man stood as an immovable pillar of shadow overlooking the arena.
This man was Jay.
From beneath the deep darkness of his hood, his dark hazel eyes glowed with indifference.
Slowly, he withdrew his left hand from his pocket.
And in a flicker of ethereal light, a pale silver sword manifested in his grip.
Ame-no-Murakumo appeared, its blade perpetually shrouded in a drifting, ghostly mist that seemed to swallow the surrounding air.
The archaic Shinto runes etched into the steel began to pulse with a glowing purple light, while jagged streaks of yellow and bluish lightning crackled and hissed along the length of the edge.
Jay looked upward, his gaze piercing the veil of the stadium.
Through the power of Avesta, he began to reconstruct the intricate formulas and spatial runes that composed the massive barrier Ajuka Beelzebub and his technical team had woven around the stadium.
As Jay raised Ame-no-Murakumo toward the heavens, a terrifying transformation took place in the sky of the Underworld.
Hidden behind the curvature of the barrier, enormous amounts of divine energy began to condense.
From the churning clouds, a towering, mythical Lightning Qilin and a massive, coiling Storm Dragon manifested.
Titans of pure, concentrated divine lightning.
Because the barrier was designed to isolate the stadium from the outside world, the hundreds thousands of spectators below remained blissfully unaware of the catastrophe hovering mere hundreds of kilometers above their heads.
A vast distance, if not for the fact that it would be crossed at the speed of light
Except-
Inside the Four Satans box, the quiet atmosphere shattered.
Ajuka, Sirzechs, and Falbium suddenly stood up in unison, their chairs scraping harshly against the floor.
A rare, genuine horror filled their eyes as their senses were assaulted by a sudden spike in pressure.
"This condensed divine energy...!" Ajuka muttered, his mind already racing to analyze the breach.
They looked upward, their gazes tensed as they perceived the reality beyond the reinforced ceiling and the stadium's magical shield.
They saw the divine beasts waiting to be unleashed.
"Move!"
Sirzechs commanded, his voice sharp with urgency.
On the roof, the only sound was the lethal crackling of Murakumo's blade.
As Jay raised his right hand toward the shimmering barrier in the sky, his fingers splayed as he touched the invisible logic of the world.
"Let's see how the Four Satans would react..."
With a surge of Avesta, a glowing crack suddenly spiderwebbed across the magic structure of the barrier.
As the sound of magical glass shattering echoed through the air.
A whisper seeped through the wind,
"Let the sky fall."