The massive door stood over twenty meters tall, faintly glowing with luminescent script.
Leo pressed his palm against it. Nothing. Not even a tremor.
He fired a bolt of lightning at it. Still nothing. If anything, the glow intensified.
A complex array of sealing formulas materialized across the door's surface, impossibly intricate. Leo had to accept the reality.
"This door is locked with multiple layers of ultra-high-grade sealing formulas. Without undoing every single one, it's not opening."
"It really won't open?" Kanna, still trapped in her bubble, stared at the door with a look bordering on drool. "I can feel it. The treasure is right behind that door."
And it was. The dragon bloodline and dragon treasure that Familion had guarded with their lives lay sealed behind this door.
That was what Kanna had been drawn to all along. She'd spent centuries guarding this castle as a hatchling and grown to Dragon King-class because of it.
"I told you, it's multiple layers of ultra-high-grade sealing formulas. The complexity alone gave me a headache from one glance." Leo didn't turn around. "Without a top-tier magician, even a Super Devil couldn't brute-force through this."
The seals weren't on the level of what the God of the Bible had used on Trihexa, but Leo could tell the casters had been Maou-class at minimum, working in concert through a ritual to layer this many formulas together.
Breaking it would require either a specialist of the highest order, or raw power at the God-Class level. Ram was a gifted magician and Yukino had read every book in the Eligos family library, but even they'd be stumped. Without god-level power, brute force was off the table.
That was why Leo had given up on this room earlier. He'd turned away and searched the rest of the castle for an escape route first. He'd found nothing.
Now he was back, out of options.
"What do I do?"
Leo tried to read the formulas on the door. A few seconds in, his head started pounding again.
"Let me out. Let me try."
Kanna banged on the bubble's membrane.
"Fine. Go ahead."
Leo rolled his eyes, snapped his fingers to deactivate the Balance Breaker, and the bubble popped.
Kanna immediately reverted to dragon form, opened her jaws wide, and began absorbing ambient electrical ions from the air. Arcs of electricity crackled and flowed into her mouth.
Then she unleashed the most powerful lightning breath she could muster, a plasma-like pillar of light that slammed into the door.
The entire castle shook. Blinding light erupted across the top floor.
When it faded, the door was completely unscathed.
Kanna froze, devastated.
"I did tell you."
Leo waved the lingering smoke away from his face, utterly unfazed.
Kanna slowly shrank back to her girl form, shuffled to a corner, and crouched facing the wall.
"Can't get in again... can't get in again..."
First the anti-dragon barrier had kept her out of the castle. Now that she was finally inside, a door stopped her.
Her mood plummeted. The tiny figure radiated despair, back turned, practically wilting. It was genuinely pitiable.
"If only Sirzechs were here. Or failing that, Vali or Cao Cao."
Leo ignored Kanna and muttered to himself.
Sirzechs in his true destruction form was a genuine God-Class. His Power of Destruction could almost certainly shatter these seals.
Vali using Juggernaut Drive would at least hit god-level output, enough to break through. Or he could use Divine Dividing's halving ability to weaken the formulas.
Cao Cao's Truth Idea might be able to dissolve the seals outright if the effect landed right. And Horse Treasure from his Balance Breaker could teleport him past the door entirely, assuming the seals didn't counter spatial abilities.
Leo had none of those options. Zenith Tempest was unrivaled in destructive power, range, and scale, but in terms of special or unique abilities, it couldn't compare.
"If Issei were here with his Boosted Gear to amplify me, I could probably try brute-forcing it..."
After taking Kanna as a Dragon King-class Pawn, Leo's base power had reached half-step Maou-class. Without his Sacred Gear, he could already take Kokabiel. With Zenith Tempest active, even without Balance Breaker, he'd rank among the strongest at Maou-class.
At minimum, beating Vali without Juggernaut Drive or Cao Cao without Balance Breaker wouldn't be a problem.
And with Balance Breaker active, Leo was confident he could compete with Super Devil-class beings. Serafall, Grayfia, even Tiamat, the strongest Dragon King. He couldn't guarantee a win, but as long as he didn't want to lose, none of them could push him around anymore.
Add Boosted Gear's amplification on top of that, and he could probably deliver a single strike at God-Class level. That would be enough to crack the seals.
But he didn't have Boosted Gear. Wishing for it wouldn't make it appear.
"What do I do?"
Leo racked his brain, then decided to try a different approach.
His body suddenly burst apart, dissolving into water that splashed across the floor.
"Huh?"
Kanna turned around at the sound and stared, baffled.
The water hung in the air for a moment, then flowed toward the door. Toward the gap between the door and the frame.
Nature's Hope. Transform into liquid and seep through the crack.
If this didn't work, he was truly out of options. This was his last hope.
The water reached the crack and...
The sealing array materialized again, forming an impenetrable wall across the gap, blocking him completely.
He couldn't get through. No matter how he pushed, the formulas wouldn't give.
"Figured it wouldn't be that easy."
The water reformed into Leo's shape. He let out a long breath.
He was out of ideas.
"Do I just give up?"
Leo stared at the door. He didn't want to accept it, but he had nothing left.
He wasn't the type to wallow, though. Once he confirmed there was no way forward, he adjusted quickly.
"If this place is a dead end, I'll find the next one. I'll get out eventually."
Worst case, he'd wander the Dimensional Gap until he stumbled across a train traveling between the Human World and the Underworld. He refused to believe he'd be trapped here forever.
"Kanna, you..."
He turned around to address her.
Before he could finish, something interrupted him.
An impact. Distant but enormous. Far more violent than even the fire lotus that had nearly killed Kanna. The entire castle lurched as though struck by an invisible tsunami. The floating landmass itself shook.
A second later, the shockwave hit. Walls shattered. The ceiling caved in. The floor cracked. The castle was coming apart.
"What?!"
Leo nearly fell, dropping to one knee, his face pure shock.
"Wh-what's happening?!"
Kanna was terrified. She curled into a ball with her hands over her head, panic written across her small face.
A second impact followed almost immediately. The already crumbling castle couldn't take it. It began to collapse entirely.
"Move! Out, now!"
Leo grabbed Kanna, spread his ten devil wings, and flew through the nearest breach in the wall.
They burst out of the castle and into open air. Only then did they see the full picture.
It wasn't just the castle. The entire landmass was breaking apart.
Massive cracks split the ground like chasms, carving the earth into fragments. The once-whole landmass fractured and scattered in different directions. Some pieces crumbled further into rubble, drifting off into the depths of the Dimensional Gap.
"What's going on?"
Leo held Kanna and hovered in the air, deploying his magical detection.
What he sensed made his blood run cold.
Two auras. Coming from deep within the Dimensional Gap. Both unfathomably powerful.
Vast as oceans. Heavy as the sky itself. Even from an immense distance, every hair on Leo's body stood on end. Every instinct screamed danger.
"Whose aura is this?"
Leo was stunned.
Either of these auras dwarfed every powerful being he'd ever encountered. Combined, every strong individual he'd ever met might not even compare.
God-Class?
Leo hadn't witnessed a being of that caliber going all-out before, but he was certain even that wouldn't feel like this. At the very least, with God-Class power, he should be able to sense its limits from a distance.
These two auras had no limit he could find. They were bottomless.
And this was from an unknown distance away.
If they were right in front of him...
Leo shuddered. He didn't want to think about it.
"So scary..."
Kanna felt it too. Her entire body was trembling.
"What is that? It's so scary! So scary!"
She clung to Leo, shaking uncontrollably.
Then, in a trembling voice, she said something that made Leo freeze.
"There are really scary dragons out there!"
Dragons.
Leo hadn't realized it until Kanna said it, but both auras were draconic.
"Dragons more terrifying than god-level beings..."
Leo's heart lurched.
He knew. He knew exactly who those auras belonged to.
Only two beings in existence could produce auras this bottomless.
His expression shifted, flickering between emotions.
"W-we need to go! We can't stay here!" Kanna didn't notice Leo's face. She was too busy panicking. "Let's run!"
"Run?"
Leo whispered the word.
She was right. The smart move was to flee.
But after taking a deep breath, his expression hardened with resolve.
"No. We're going toward them."
Kanna went rigid.
"T-toward them?"
She stared at Leo in disbelief.
"Yes."
Leo's voice was calm.
It might be dangerous. But this was the closest he'd come to escaping the Dimensional Gap.