In the dim alley, a dazed Therianthrope girl stood before a black figure whose stomach had a large hole torn through it, yet whose expression remained perfectly calm as he held out a white crystal. It was a deeply bizarre sight.
"Hm? Delta, why are you just standing there?"
After holding the white crystal up for several seconds and seeing that Delta still had not moved, the black figure could not help asking in confusion.
"Wah! Boss, don't die!"
Snapping out of her shock, Delta cried out and clutched her head, anxiously trying to do something. But because she had no idea what to do, all she could manage was to spin in circles in a panic.
"What do I do, what do I do, what do I do? Boss is going to die. No one will want Delta anymore."
"Panicking like that, what kind of behavior is that? Sit."
Cid's eyes sharpened, and with a cold snort, he gave Delta an order.
Hearing the command, astonishment flashed across Delta's panicked face, but her body stopped moving before her mind could catch up. She crouched on the ground like a little dog.
"Making such a fuss over a mere fatal wound. Delta, you've disappointed me."
"B-but Boss, your stomach is bleeding..."
"No need to worry about it. A wound like this will heal once I eat something."
As he said that, Cid raised a hand and caught a huge rock that had been sent flying by the nearby battle, then ate it. The gaping hole in his stomach disappeared.
"It really did. Boss, you're amazing."
"It's just the dumbest method of Magical Power accumulation. As long as there's enough Magical Power, even you could do it, Delta."
After brushing it off with a perfunctory explanation, he pulled Delta's hand over and placed the white crystal on it.
"All right, this is yours again. Now go take them down."
Cid pointed toward Rias and the others in the center of the battlefield, who were being relentlessly beaten down by Dulio, his voice rising with intensity.
"Oh, oh, oh... Boss, why did you..."
Delta's words were muffled, but judging from the way she pointed at Cid's freshly healed stomach, what she wanted to ask was about what Cid had just done.
"I lost to someone, so I kept my promise and ate this."
"There's actually a creature in this world stronger than Boss?!"
Compared to before, Delta's voice was twice as loud this time, showing just how shaken she was.
"Impossible, absolutely impossible. Boss is invincible. Boss is the strongest in the world."
"Delta, I know this is hard for you, but unfortunately, I really did lose this time..."
"Ugh..."
Delta let out a reluctant, choked sound, and resentment toward that unknown person welled up inside her. It was the first time Cid had ever seen Delta this angry.
"All right, Delta. You don't need to be that angry. I'll tell you something. The person who beat me was you."
"Me? Delta beat Boss?"
Delta pointed a finger at herself and tilted her head in innocent confusion.
"Yes. You won."
"Impossible. Delta couldn't do that. Boss is the strongest in the world!"
Delta shook her head frantically, unable to believe that she was the one who had beaten Boss.
"Being the strongest doesn't mean I can never lose. At the very least, this time, I lost to you, Delta.
I won't deny that just because you don't understand it. But this is the only time. I won't fall into the same pit twice."
"So what exactly are you talking about, Boss? How did Delta beat Boss?"
"...You don't need to know. You only need to know that you won."
"But if Boss won't tell Delta..."
Delta's foolish voice stopped abruptly. With the large hand pressing down on her head, she stiffly raised her face and looked up at the eyes glowing with bloody red light, then swallowed.
"I said you don't need to know, so you don't need to know. Don't ask again. Do you understand?"
Cid's tone was more serious than ever. Especially when he spoke the final word, Delta was so frightened that she quickly nodded.
"Delta understands. Delta understands."
"Good."
He withdrew the hand pressing down on Delta's head. Slime liquid gathered in his hand, forming a black mask. After glancing at the dog, who had been scared stiff, he calmly put on the mask and pointed toward the battlefield.
At this point, for the sake of my reputation, there is no way I can ever say I was outsmarted by a dog.
"Go. Take them all down."
"Yes. Delta is deploying. Woof."
Watching Delta crawl across the ground as she charged toward the battlefield, Cid turned and rushed toward the eastern part of Itogami Island.
...
In the dim room, Xenovia lay on the bed, deep asleep. Perhaps because of the stifling heat, even while unconscious, she was still breathing heavily, and her forehead was already covered in sweat.
Invisible darkness filled the room. The only light came from the setting sun shining in through the curtains. Under that faint glow, the black markings that had covered Xenovia's entire body yesterday could be seen to have completely vanished, revealing large stretches of snow-white skin.
If nothing unexpected happened, this scene would likely remain as it was until someone came in to check on her and broke the silence.
In that quiet, oppressive room, where even the flow of air was almost nonexistent, the curtains blocking the sunset began to move.
A breeze appeared out of thin air and blew toward the curtains that covered the setting sun. Stirred by the wind, the curtains swayed slightly open, revealing a narrow gap in the middle. Light from the sinking sun shone through that gap and fell across Xenovia's heroic face as she lay unconscious.
It was not man-made, not technological, and not magic. It was a supernatural phenomenon that completely defied the laws of nature and physics. Unfortunately, there was only one person present to witness that miraculous scene, and that person was asleep and saw nothing.
The light flashed across Xenovia's face and vanished. As the sun sank, the room fell completely into darkness, as if nothing had happened. As if...
"Mmm..."
With a soft murmur like someone waking from sleep, Xenovia opened her eyes and instinctively sat up, stretching her arms.
"That was some sleep... Wait, I'm not dead!"
Her stretching arms suddenly froze. Only then did Xenovia remember the black spots on her body. She stared at her own arms in astonishment and spoke in disbelief.
"They're... they're all gone."
As she said those words in a trembling voice, the corners of Xenovia's mouth lifted, and tears flowed uncontrollably down her face.
"Thank goodness. I'm not dead. I'm not dead..."
She kept murmuring to herself, immersed in the joy of surviving, wiping away her tears again and again with her hands.
"BOOM..."
She was about to get out of bed and share her joy with her partner when an explosion loud enough to shake heaven and earth suddenly rang out, making Xenovia stop and look toward the window.
She quickly stepped forward, pulled open the curtains, and opened the window. Her pupils instantly contracted as she stared ahead in shock.
Lightning, flames, hail, and spears of Holy Light appeared constantly in the sky. The endless violent explosions were visible from all across Itogami Island, and they had even begun to indirectly affect the entire island.
"That's... Captain Dulio. No, that's not right. With that many powerful Holy Lights, Captain Dulio couldn't do it alone. The Church's main force is all here!"
Recognizing one side in the sky, Xenovia looked around a few times, quickly found her Church combat uniform, changed into it, and left the room, heading toward the source of the explosions.
...
Dulio's body flew through the air in a parabolic arc. Under that immense force, he pierced straight through the entire building before crashing heavily to the ground.
"Who the hell are you?!"
He crawled out of the crater and roared. His hand clenched in the air, and pale lightning mixed with sacred Holy Light, forming a holy spear dozens of meters long in his grasp. He aimed it at the figure crawling toward him like a beast and swung.
Lightning and Holy Light merged, then erupted. The instant it struck that beastlike figure, the destructive force and shockwave obliterated the entire street. The soil buried beneath the concrete road was blasted high into the air, and dust and smoke immediately swallowed the battlefield.
Unlike the earlier skirmish, where he had focused on capturing Rias and the others, this was Dulio's full-power strike, aimed to kill. It had enough force to truly injure, even kill, a god-class powerhouse.
With the destructive power of that blow, Dulio was confident that even one of the world's top fifteen powerhouses would be seriously injured if they tried to take it head-on with their body and no defense.
Even so, Dulio did not let his guard down. His expression remained grave as he stared at the battlefield ahead, now covered by the dust that had been kicked up. The haze blocked his view, making it impossible to tell what had happened to the enemy.
"Awooo!"
A slender figure shot up from the smoke, letting out a wolf-like howl. In her hands was a giant sword formed from slime liquid, which she swung down from above at Dulio on the ground.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Layer after layer of earthen walls rose from the ground as Dulio tried to block the ambush. But those seemingly thick walls crumbled like cheap construction the moment they met Delta's black greatsword.
"Shhk!"
The sound of flesh being savagely torn rang out. A mangled angel wing fell to the ground, blood spraying from the severed edge and spilling everywhere.
Dulio, whose wing had been cut off, flew into the sky. Because he had lost one wing, his center of balance was thrown off, and his entire posture became crooked and unstable.
Having lost her target, Delta prowled on the ground with her body lowered, her scarlet eyes locked tightly onto Dulio in the sky. A beastlike snarl rumbled from deep in her throat.
Under Delta's unwavering lock, Dulio's breathing grew heavier. His right hand pressed against his already broken left arm as he met Delta's gaze. Holy Light flickered over his body, and elemental forces began to manifest around him.
She had suddenly barged into his fight with Rias and Sairaorg. Without saying a single word, she had wounded Sairaorg with one swipe, then shifted targets and attacked him.
With his strength, the Therianthrope before him, though powerful, should only have been somewhat troublesome. As long as he did not underestimate her, he should have been able to win with a little time.
But after only a few exchanges, the Therianthrope before him seemed to have gone berserk. Her entire appearance changed, the hair across her body grew wildly, and her Magical Power, speed, and strength increased severalfold.
He had not expected the enemy to have that kind of ability. Caught off guard by Delta's surprise attack, his arm and internal organs had both suffered severe damage.
To be honest, Dulio himself was no longer sure whether he could defeat Delta.
If he had been uninjured, he would still have had a chance to fight. But now his arm was broken, his wings were damaged, and his internal organs had shifted out of place. If he took another hit, he would be going straight to heaven.
Should he retreat?
The thought flashed through Dulio's mind, but he immediately rejected it. If they could not find a solution to the Black Spot Curse, once the sun set in Europe, hundreds of thousands of lives would be lost, and the rampage would begin.
From the moment the attack began, they had already committed the crime of attempting to ignite a world war during the alliance. If they did not find the Devil involved in this incident now and push the blame for the first transgression onto the Devil side, the Church would inevitably become the target of everyone's condemnation.
They had no way out.
"Awoo!"
Delta's beastly instincts sharply caught the instant Dulio's attention wavered. With a howl, she focused the Magical Power in her body into the greatsword, firing a compressed cannon of Magical Power at Dulio in the sky.
At the same time she fired, Delta kicked off the ground and leaped onto the outer wall of a tall building. Like a gecko, she crawled along the wall, then bounded sideways several times and sprang into the air. Her claws, wrapped in deep purple Magical Power, slashed through the sky, leaving a crescent-shaped arc behind.
"Snap!"
Another pair of wings was cut apart. Dulio endured the agonizing pain of his flesh being torn open and grabbed Delta's hand, the one that had been aimed at his heart but had only pierced his shoulder.
"Die!"
"Boom!"
With Dulio's furious roar, lightning and raging fire intertwined and exploded in midair. The resulting shockwave, even though it burst in the sky, instantly cleared the rubble from the entire street and left behind a crater more than ten meters deep and several hundred meters wide.
"Thud!"
A pitch-black figure with hair blasted into an afro dropped from the smoke of the explosion in the sky and hit the ground with a dull sound.
Delta pushed herself up with both hands and crouched, swaying a few times before shaking off the slime liquid on her body, which had already been blown useless, then smoothing out her hair.
She glanced at the seven-winged angel in the sky, who was staring at her in shock. Then she turned toward the five Church warriors on the other side and the Devil they were carrying, revealing a pure and feral smile.
The beast began her charge, releasing an enormous amount of Magical Power from nothing more than running. The distance of several hundred meters was crossed almost instantly, and her deathly claws swung out.
"Slash!"
Even though the five of them had already been on guard against Delta's attack after seeing their captain beaten into such a miserable state, Delta's sharp claws, glowing with Magical Power, still sliced easily across their chests. Blood sprayed out and splattered across the ground.
Their so-called defense had only made Delta feel that cutting open their throats would be a little harder. So she switched to attacking their chests instead, deciding to kill them in two strikes.
Her claws tore through the air with a sharp whistle, aimed at the hearts of the five Church warriors and the head of the Devil they had just knocked down.