Disclaimer: I do not have any rights of ownership for the characters used except the OC's. All the credit goes to the authors. Only the plot belongs to me.
Chapter 12
Riser Phenex stood amidst the flames of his own making, the heat rising in response to his tantrums and rage. His regeneration factor was working overtime, knitting the skin torn by his own explosive exit, but his ego remained fractured, his pride bleeding with every second he stood alone against a full enemy peerage. His wings, spanning twelve feet of hellish, bright flames, beat rhythmically, sending waves of scorching heat across the courtyard that withered the decorative hedges and turned the manicured grass into grey ash.
"You think you have won?" Riser screamed, his voice cracking under the strain of his fury. He pointed a trembling finger at Rias, his nails digging into his own palm. "Because you cleared Riser's board? Because you stripped Riser's pieces? You understand nothing of the Rating Game! The King is still standing! And Riser is immortal!"
Rias Gremory stood her ground. Her Crimson hair, usually flowing like silk, whipped around her face in the hot updraft. Her Power of Destruction, a dark, crimson-black aura, flared around her body, protecting her from the ambient heat. But she didn't attack. She didn't launch the killing blow that was rightfully hers to take.
Behind her, the Gremory peerage shifted, ready to pounce.
Issei, clutching his now healed yet bruised ribs where Riser's cheap shot had landed, grit his teeth. "Buchou, let me—"
"Stand down, Issei," Rias said, her voice cutting through the roar of the fire. It wasn't a shout; it was a command of absolute authority.
"But he—"
"I said stand down," Rias repeated, her eyes never leaving Riser. "All of you. Step back."
Kiba lowered his sword, though his muscles remained coiled tight. Akeno, hovering above with her mismatched wings, descended slowly, landing gracefully but keeping her lightning at the ready. Koneko relaxed her stance, popping a lollipop into her mouth that she had seemingly materialized from nowhere. Even the Fallen Trio, bloodthirsty as they were, recognized the tone. This wasn't a request. It was the command of a King who had already decided the fate of their enemy.
Only one figure did not retreat.
Taurus.
The Minotaur stood like a tower of bronze skin and muscle, baring his scarred chest and the thick, curved horns that crowned his head. He breathed in the superheated air as if it were a spring breeze, his massive lungs expanding slowly, deliberately. He didn't look at Riser. He looked at Rias.
Rias turned her head slightly, her gaze locking with his. In the chaos of the burning battlefield, a silent communication passed between them—a tether of trust and ownership that transcended the piece system. She walked toward him.
Riser scoffed, misinterpreting the move. "Hah! Sending your pet to die first? Good! I'll melt the flesh from his bones and make you watch, Rias! I'll make you scream his name as I—"
Rias ignored him entirely. She stepped into Taurus's personal space, the sheer size difference emphasizing the strange, animalistic beauty of their bond. She was a princess of the devil nobility; he was a monster of myth. Yet, she reached up, her hand resting gently on his massive forearm. Her fingers looked porcelain white against his tanned, rugged hide.
She leaned in, standing on her tiptoes, bringing her lips close as his frame descended down closer to her, his ear twitched beneath a heavy lock of hair. The noise of the fire seemed to dampen around them, creating a private bubble of intimacy amidst the violence.
"He insulted me," Rias whispered, her voice low, sultry, and dangerous. "He insulted your King. He insulted your family. And worst of all... he thinks he is superior to you."
Taurus's golden eyes narrowed, the pupil constricting into a slit. A low growl vibrated in his chest, a sound deeper than the thunder Akeno had summoned earlier.
"I don't want a quick checkmate," Rias murmured, her breath hot against his skin. "I don't want him simply beaten. I want him broken. I want the Underworld to see that Riser Phenex is nothing but a scared chicken before the Bull."
She pulled back slightly, her turquoise eyes burning with a sadistic, regal light.
"Humiliate him, Taurus."
The Minotaur looked down at her. A dark, terrifying grin spread across his face, revealing teeth that were designed for tearing, not smiling. He didn't bow. He didn't salute. He simply grunted—a deep, affirmative sound that resonated with the emotions overflowing out of Rias's heart and mind.
"As you command," he rumbled.
Rias stepped back, joining her peerage. "Watch," she told them. "Watch what happens when you anger a Gremory."
Taurus turned. He rolled his neck, the vertebrae cracking with a sound like pistol shots. He took a step forward. Then another.
Riser floated a few feet off the ground, looking down with sneering contempt. "So, the cow approaches the slaughter? You are durable, beast, Riser will give you that. You took Yubelluna's explosion. But Riser is not like his Queen. Riser is a King. Riser is a Phenex. Riser's fire is the fire of hell itself!"
Riser spread his arms. Magic circles, dozens of them, manifested in the air around him. They glowed with an angry orange light, the symbols shining in response to the rise of Riser's demonic power spinning rapidly.
"Burn to ash! Hellfire Rain!"
From the magic circles, torrents of liquid fire poured down. It washed over the courtyard, turning the stone tiles into molten slag.
Taurus didn't dodge. He didn't run.
He walked.
The fire slammed into him. It engulfed his massive frame, burying him in a pillar of inferno. The heat was intense enough to vaporize water instantly, creating a cloud of hissing steam that mixed with the smoke.
"Hahahaha!" Riser laughed, throwing his head back. "See? Nothing but ash! A fool who doesn't know his place!"
Rias folded her arms, her expression unreadable. Issei bit his lip, "Buchou... is he...?"
"Look closer," Koneko said, pointing.
From within the roaring pillar of fire, a shadow moved. It wasn't staggering. It wasn't flailing. It was advancing. One step at a time.
Taurus emerged from the flames.
His skin was smoking. His loincloth was singed at the edges. His body was covered in soot, turning his bronze skin a charcoal black. But he was unharmed.
The magical fire, the pride of the House of Phenex, slid off his skin like water off a duck's back.
The Minotaur heritage was a potent thing. After the first Minotaur had been trapped in the Labyrinth, the Greeks had decided to value the cursed being in their hands and had turned it into a breeding program.
In the ancient days, Minotaurs were bred to be mage-killers. Their skin was naturally resistant to magical interference, acting as a grounding rod that dispersed mana before it could affect the biological tissue. But Taurus was more than just a Minotaur. He was a devil too. On top of that, he was a Minotaur who had been battered, beaten, and forged in the hits of Surtr the Second during their hellish training camp. Compared to the primordial power of the clone of the Fire Giant, Riser's flames were little more than a warm bath.
Taurus brushed a spark off his shoulder with an exaggerated brushing motion.
"Warm," Taurus grunted, his voice booming across the silence that followed the attack. "Like a sauna."
Riser's laughter died in his throat. His eyes bulged. "Impossible... direct hit... high-class magic..."
"Is that it?" Taurus asked, taking another heavy step. The ground shook. "I was promised a Phenex. I see a pigeon with a lighter."
"You... YOU DARE!" Riser shrieked. The insult bypassed his logic and went straight to his ego. "Riser will incinerate you from the inside out!"
Riser flew higher, gathering more power. A massive fireball, dark crimson and swirling with black veins, formed between his hands. "Take this! Riser Crusher!"
He hurled the condensed sphere of destructive fire. It moved faster than sound, a blur of red death aimed squarely at Taurus's chest.
Taurus stopped walking. He planted his feet, digging his muscled leg into the softened, melted stone. He didn't block. He pulled his right fist back.
The muscles on his arm bunched and coiled, veins popping like pythons beneath the skin. He waited until the fireball was inches from his face.
BAM.
Taurus punched the fireball.
It defied the very existence of the devil's class system. His fist collided with the magical energy, and the sheer force of the impact, the shockwave generated by his strength, shattered the spell. The fireball didn't explode; it dispersed. It was blown apart into harmless sparks that drifted away in the wind.
Taurus stood there, his fist still extended, smoke trailing from his knuckles.
"Weak," Taurus spat.
Riser was hyperventilating now. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. He was Riser Phenex! He was immortal!
"Die! Die! DIE!"
Riser began to spam attacks. Fireballs, lances of flame, waves of heat. He threw everything he had. He emptied his reserves, relying on his regeneration to outlast his opponents, but he was burning through his stamina faster than he could recover.
Taurus navigated the storm. He waded through explosions that would have levelled a city block. He batted away fire lances with the back of his hand, the sheer force generated felt like sonic booms. He took a direct hit to the chest that pushed him back a foot, leaving a scorched mark, but he didn't falter.
He was closing the distance.
Ten meters.
"Stay back!" Riser yelled, flying backward.
Five meters.
"Riser is a Noble! You are a slave!"
Two meters.
Taurus looked up. Riser was hovering just out of reach, perhaps fifteen feet in the air, raining fire down vertically.
Taurus stopped. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second.
The memory surfaced. The destroyed grounds of the forest. The constant hits of Surtr, the strongest Rook in the Underworld, looking down at him with a serious expression.
'He heals,' Surtr had rumbled, his voice like grinding tectonic plates. 'But healing has a cost. It costs mana. It costs focus. It drains his stamina. And most importantly... it does not erase the memory of the pain.'
Taurus had wiped blood from his mouth. 'So I just hit him until he stops moving?'
'No,' Surtr had corrected, taking a swig from his stash of alcohol. 'You break him. You make him fear the next hit more than he desires victory. He can still feel pain. Make that pain his entire world. Outlast his healing. Break him mentally.'
Taurus opened his eyes. The golden iris burned with cold calculation.
"Come down," Taurus said.
He bent his knees. The muscles in his legs, thick as tree trunks, compressed like high-tension springs. The stone beneath him cracked, spiderwebbing outward for twenty feet.
BOOM.
Taurus launched himself into the air.
For a creature of his size, the speed was terrifying. He was a missile of muscle and rage.
Riser didn't have time to react. One moment he was looking down; the next, a massive hand had clamped around his ankle.
"Got you," Taurus whispered.
Gravity reasserted itself with a vengeance. Taurus didn't just fall; he threw his weight downward, dragging Riser with him. Riser screamed as he was yanked from the sky, his wings fluttering uselessly.
They crashed into the earth.
The impact crater was substantial. Dust and debris plumed upward.
In the centre of the crater, Riser lay gasping, the wind knocked out of him. He tried to scramble away, but a heavy foot slammed onto his chest, pinning him to the dirt.
Taurus stood over him, blocking out the moon.
"My turn," the Minotaur said.
Riser clawed at the foot on his chest. "Get off! Get off me! Riser will have you executed!"
Taurus leaned down, grabbing Riser by the collar of his ruined shirt. He lifted the devil effortlessly, holding him up so their faces were level. Riser's feet dangled uselessly in the air.
"Regenerate this," Taurus growled.
He drew back his free hand and delivered a brutal, open-palm slap across Riser's face.
CRACK.
The sound echoed like a whip crack. Riser's head snapped to the side with sickening velocity. His jaw dislocated instantly, hanging loose and crooked. Teeth flew out, scattering like pearls on the ruined ground.
Riser gurgled, eyes rolling back.
Flames flickered around his jaw. With a wet, squelching sound, the bone snapped back into place. New teeth pushed through the gums. The bruise vanished.
He was healed.
But the look in Riser's eyes had changed. It wasn't anger anymore. It was confusion. And the seed of fear.
"It hurt, didn't it?" Taurus asked, his voice conversational. "The magic fixes the bone. But the nerves... they remember. Your mind will remember."
Riser spat blood. "You... you monster..."
Taurus slammed him into the ground again. Thud.
He straddled the Phoenix Lord, pinning his arms with his knees. This was intimate violence. There was no magic here, no flashy lights. Just a sheer physical beatdown.
Taurus raised both fists.
"Let's see how fast you are," Taurus said.
He began to pummel him.
It wasn't a frenzied attack. It was methodical.
Right fist. Into the ribs. Crack. Riser screamed as the bone splintered into his lung.
Left fist. Into the nose. Crunch. Cartilage flattened. Blood sprayed.
Right fist. Into the shoulder. The joint popped out of the socket.
Riser screamed and screamed. The fire of the Phenex flared up after every hit, knitting the bones, sealing the skin, refilling the blood.
But Taurus didn't stop. He found a rhythm.
Break. Heal. Break. Heal. Break. Heal.
"Stop!" Riser begged, tears mixing with the blood on his face. "Stop it! Riser orders you!"
Punch.
"Riser is immortal!"
Punch.
"Riser is... urggh..."
Punch.
Taurus leaned in close, his face inches from the ruin of Riser's visage.
"You are a punching bag," Taurus whispered. "And I have a lot of stamina."
From the sidelines, the Gremory peerage watched in a mixture of awe and horror.
"Holy crap," Issei muttered, wincing as Taurus landed another blow. "That's... brutal. He's spawn-camping him."
"It is necessary," Kiba said quietly, his hand resting on his sword hilt. "Riser relies on his invincibility. He has never had to fight through pain. He assumes that because he cannot die, he cannot lose. Taurus is teaching him the difference."
Akeno licked her lips, a flush rising on her cheeks. "My, my. Taurus is quite... dominant tonight. The way he's taking him apart... it's positively stimulating."
Raynare chuckled darkly. "He's breaking his mind. Look at the chicken's eyes. The light is going out."
Back in the crater, Riser was no longer screaming threats. He was just screaming.
His regeneration was slowing down. The flames that licked his wounds were growing dimmer, flickering weakly. The instantaneous healing was becoming sluggish. A broken nose took three seconds to fix instead of half a second. A shattered rib took five.
The pain was accumulating. Riser's mind, unaccustomed to prolonged suffering, was fracturing under the sensory overload.
Taurus sensed the shift. He stopped the barrage.
Riser lay there, panting, his face a mask of blood and snot. He looked up at Taurus through swollen eyes. He tried to summon a fireball, but only a pathetic spark fizzled in his palm.
"Done?" Taurus asked.
"Please..." Riser wheezed. "No more..."
"Rias told me to humiliate you," Taurus said, standing up. He grabbed Riser by the ankle again. "We aren't done."
He began to swing Riser.
Like a ragdoll. Like a wet towel.
Taurus spun in a circle, gathering momentum. Riser flailed helplessly, centrifugal force pinning his blood to his head.
"Fly, Phenex!" Taurus roared.
He released him.
Riser flew across the courtyard, skipping off the ground once, twice, before crashing through the wall of the school building. He smashed through brick and mortar, tumbling into a classroom and burying himself under a pile of desks and debris.
Silence descended on the battlefield.
Taurus stood in the centre, chest heaving slightly, steam rising from his body in the cool night air that was slowly reclaiming the temperature. He turned to Rias.
"He is not retired yet," Taurus stated flatly.
Rias smiled. A terrifying smile that the Underworld, including her family, would never expect from the girl. "Then finish it."
Taurus walked toward the hole in the wall.
Inside the classroom, Riser was trying to crawl. His legs were broken again. His healing factor was running on fumes. Every inch of movement was agony.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The footsteps approached. To Riser, they sounded like the drums of doom.
"No..." Riser whimpered, dragging himself over the broken glass. "Stay away..."
Taurus stepped through the hole in the wall. He loomed over the crawling devil.
"Get up," Taurus commanded.
"Riser can't!" Riser sobbed. "It hurts! Everything hurts!"
"Stand up and fight for your bride," Taurus mocked, kicking a desk out of the way. "Or do you not want her enough?"
"Take her!" Riser shrieked, curled into a foetal ball. "Take her! Riser doesn't care! Just don't hit Riser again! Please! Riser yields! Riser gives up!"
He looked up at Taurus, eyes wide with terror.
"Riser resigns! Do you hear Riser?! RISER RESIGNS!"
The scream echoed through the building. It was the sound of a man completely and utterly broken.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, the mechanical voice of Grayfia Lucifuge echoed from the heavens, sounding clearer than it had all night as she got over her shock of what had transpired in the last few minutes.
"Lord Riser Phenex has surrendered."
A pause.
"The winner is Lady Rias Gremory and the House of Gremory."
The tension in the air snapped.
Taurus looked down at Riser one last time. The Phenex heir was weeping openly, clutching his knees, rocking back and forth. He wasn't dead. He would heal. But the memory of tonight… the memory of the Minotaur who walked through fire and broke him like a twig, it would haunt him for eternity.
"Smart bird," Taurus grunted.
He turned his back on the defeated devil and walked out into the courtyard.
The Gremory peerage erupted.
"YEAAAAAH!" Issei screamed, sprinting forward. "WE WON! WE ACTUALLY WON!"
Asia was crying tears of joy. "Buchou is free!"
Koneko gave a rare, small smile, pumping her fist. "Osu."
The Fallen Trio were cackling, Raynare looking particularly smug. "I told you. We picked the winning side."
But Rias didn't celebrate with them. She didn't look at the camera that was broadcasting this to the Underworld.
She ran to Taurus.
The giant Rook had barely stepped onto the grass when he was hit by a crimson projectile. Rias slammed into him, wrapping her arms around his thick neck, burying her face in the crook of his shoulder.
"Thank you," she sobbed, the regal mask finally shattering, revealing the relieved young woman beneath. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Taurus, careful of his strength, wrapped his massive, soot-stained arms around her waist, lifting her off the ground. He held her close, feeling her heartbeat hammering against his chest.
"He will not bother you again," Taurus promised, his voice a low rumble against her ear. "If he does... I will break the rest of him."
Rias pulled back, her eyes shining with tears. She looked at his face, at the soot, the sweat, the fierce, uncompromising loyalty etched into his features. She didn't care about the dirt. She didn't care about the audience watching.
She leaned in and pressed her lips to his.
It wasn't a chaste kiss of gratitude. It was fierce, possessive, and hungry. It was a claim.
Taurus responded in kind, deepening the kiss, his large hand splaying across her back, pulling her flush against his hard, muscular form.
"My, how bold," Akeno giggled, walking up to flank them. "Save some for the rest of us, Buchou."
Rias broke the kiss, breathless, her face flushed a deep crimson that matched her hair. She looked up at her Rook, her saviour, her lover.
"Let's go home," Rias whispered.
Taurus nodded, looking over her head at the moon. The Rating Game was over. The engagement was broken. And the Underworld had learned a valuable lesson tonight.
You do not mess with Rias Gremory.
And you never, ever, fight the Bull.
Author's Note
Smut incoming.