Maurice placed a hand on Xenovia's head and smiled. "Well, I can't imagine that guy dying easily. He'll be fine. Besides, there's no way he'd kick the bucket and leave you girls behind. Isn't his dream to become a Harem King?"
He had a point. I couldn't imagine Issei-kun doing anything that would make Miwa-san, Alice-san, or Rias-senpai cry. He was a man who had crossed dimensions just to see his will through, after all.
"Well, it looks like we've cleared out this sector for now…" Maurice said, surveying the battlefield. The local enemy forces had been mostly eradicated.
Our next move should have been to rotate to a high-intensity zone and support our allies. But…
"How the hell are we supposed to drive that thing off? No… wait. There are other monsters out there, too."
Maurice's gaze shifted to the west. Far in the distance, the sky was split in two: one half was swallowed by an encroaching darkness, while the other was bathed in a divine, radiant light.
Light and Dark—two opposing forces clashing in a violent stalemate. At the center of the storm were two figures. One was a handsome, dark-skinned youth in black vestments radiating shadows; the other was a woman with shimmering golden wings radiating light.
I hadn't met the youth personally, but based on what Azazel-sensei had told us, that had to be the 'Original Dragon of Darkness,' Apophis. He was one of the legendary Evil Dragons resurrected by the power of the Holy Grail.
And the woman facing him was Alice-san. In her seraphic form, she radiated a palpable divine pressure.
—God-Princess Manifestation.
During the battle for Agreas, Alice-san had awakened, attaining the power of a god. It was a level of power that had allowed her to overwhelm Vika, one of Assem's direct subordinates.
And yet…
"She's being pushed back," Maurice muttered, his expression grim. "Alice is giving it everything she's got, but her opponent looks like he's barely trying."
Even from this distance, I could see the composure on Apophis's face. Slowly but surely, his darkness was beginning to erode Alice-san's light. The balance was tipping.
To think there's someone stronger than Alice-san, even after she gained the power of a god…!
The other legendary dragon, Azi Dahaka, was simply looming near Trihexa, observing the carnage. If he possessed the same level of power as Apophis, the situation was beyond dire.
Two Evil Dragons with power exceeding the gods. It was an unthinkable threat.
As I grappled with the scale of the danger, Lisha and Rossweisse descended from the sky after finishing their sweep of the local airspace. Perched on Lisha's shoulders were the twin fairies, Sally and Feena.
Lisha narrowed her eyes. "I'd love to go back Alice up, but it's not going to be that simple."
She was looking at Trihexa. One of its seven heads let out a low, retching growl and unhinged its jaw.
Is it going to breathe fire again?! I braced myself, but I was wrong.
What Trihexa vomited forth was a swarm—hundreds of mass-produced Evil Dragons. And they weren't just standard types; there were Grendel-types and Ladon-types mixed in.
"You've got to be kidding me… Trihexa is a production factory, too?!"
Rossweisse gritted her teeth. "This means that unless we seal or kill Trihexa itself, the number of Evil Dragons will keep growing forever. They must be using the power of the Holy Grail in tandem with Trihexa's own energy to accelerate the process."
"Killing Trihexa here is impossible," Lisha added, her voice flat. "We are hopelessly outmatched. Our best bet would be to seize the Holy Grail, but it's held by one of those two legendary Evil Dragons. Given that even Alice can't reach Apophis right now, taking it from them is a pipe dream."
Maurice let out a long, heavy sigh. Even these two, the most seasoned among us, sounded defeated.
We could handle the mass-produced dragons easily enough. We'd all grown stronger through these life-or-death battles. But if their numbers were infinite, the math simply didn't work in our favor.
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