Delta's barrage of attacks on the ground had taken only a few seconds. By the time Dulio reacted in the sky, he had no time to descend and save them. All he could do was watch Delta's claws draw closer and closer to the hearts of the Church warriors as he roared in frustration and rage.
"No!"
As if she had heard Dulio's voice, Delta's swinging claws came to a stop. The muscles in her thighs tensed, and she leaped to the left in a movement utterly impossible for a human, dodging the red beam that came racing in from behind.
"Grrr..."
Delta looked toward Rias, who was still holding her aim on the other side. She arched her body like a wolf and let out a low growl.
A large amount of slime liquid formed into a black greatsword once again, and Delta clamped it between her teeth. Her limbs moved rapidly as she charged toward Rias, intending to eliminate this red-haired woman, who, according to her instincts, was the second most dangerous person on the field.
As she ran, a sharp whistle sounded beside her ear. Delta's beastly instincts made her turn and swing her sword just in time, colliding with a massive fist covered in golden armor.
A heavy, thunderous impact rang out where the two forces met. After a stalemate of one or two seconds, the fist lost against the greatsword and was forced to give way.
A bloodthirsty red gleam flashed in Delta's eyes. The greatsword continued along its original path and slammed straight into Sairaorg's golden lion armor.
Although Delta's attack struck him, Sairaorg was protected by the lion armor, and he had already prepared to disperse the impact. In the end, he was only sent flying, and the injuries Dulio and Delta had dealt him earlier did not worsen.
Delta had no intention of pressing the attack. She tried to continue toward Rias, only to discover that at some point, a group of animals made of water had surrounded her.
"Explode!"
At Sona Sitri's command, all of the animals burst apart. The exploding water, carrying powerful Magical Power, slammed into Delta's body.
Delta shook her head, trying to fling the water off herself. Sona Sitri's water explosions barely hurt her. With powerful Magical Power infused into the slime liquid, she could nullify the damage from Sona Sitri's water magic.
"Thunder!"
Akeno Himejima spread her Devil wings in the sky. For this strike, she used the lightning talent she had been born with, and thunder burst from the dark clouds.
"Awoo..."
Thunder enveloped Delta. The water on her body amplified its power, and for a moment, it actually pinned Delta in place.
"Work with us, or we all die here."
Sona Sitri and Rias accelerated and regrouped, speaking to Dulio at the same time.
A grave expression appeared on Dulio's face. Lightning flickered in his hand, but he did not attack Rias and the others right away. He only remained silent.
"You should have noticed by now. She's different from you. Her targets are all of us. That's why, after wounding you badly enough that you couldn't escape, she turned around and went after everyone else. Once all of us are dead, your turn will come."
Seeing the obvious refusal on Dulio's face, Rias, who had understood what he was thinking, laid out the stakes for him.
Her words made the refusal Dulio had been about to give stick in his throat. He knew Rias was right.
From the very beginning, Delta had aimed straight for Sairaorg, the person with the strongest defense on the field. When Sairaorg blocked Dulio's attack, she took the chance to ambush him and heavily injure him.
After that, she abandoned Sairaorg, who she could have finished off immediately, and turned to fight Dulio. Her sudden chain of attacks had crippled Dulio's body and robbed him of the ability to escape.
Dulio could still fly, but he could no longer fly fast. And in a battle, turning his back on an enemy that terrifying would be no different from asking to die faster.
After Dulio was heavily injured, Delta sensed that his threat level had dropped, so she turned and began dealing with the weaker soldiers. But that did not mean she had given up on hunting Dulio.
The moment the beast before them sensed any sign that Dulio was trying to flee, she would immediately abandon her current target, seize the opening exposed by his retreat, and finish Dulio in one strike.
After the battle they had just witnessed, after seeing that Delta's attacks were aimed purely at slaughter, not a single person doubted that she would kill.
The only reason Delta had not killed anyone yet was because she had started by fighting the two strongest people on the field. She was removing the only two opponents in the area who could escape from her, or even defeat her.
At this point in the fight, Delta was already the dominant force on the battlefield. As long as she dragged it out a little longer, her victory was guaranteed.
Sairaorg, who had the strongest defense, was heavily injured. Two holes had been torn into his body, and he was now relying entirely on the armor covering him to hold himself together. In Sairaorg's current state, even if Delta clashed with him head-on, it would only take a few heavy blows at most to destroy the golden lion armor.
Dulio was heavily injured as well and had already lost the ability to flee. Once the excitement sustaining him faded, the injuries throughout his body would begin affecting his combat condition. At that point, even if he stayed in the air, Delta would still be able to kill him.
And once the two strongest fighters fell, none of the remaining people could survive a single exchange against Delta. The result went without saying.
That was why their only chance of survival was to join forces and defeat Delta while the two top fighters on the field could still fight.
Dulio understood that perfectly. Even so, he only looked away, pressed his lips together, and said nothing. Anyone could understand the logic. Actually saying it out loud was another matter.
Once he agreed to cooperate, wouldn't everything they had done become a joke? How were they supposed to capture and interrogate all the Devils on the island afterward? And besides... he did not trust Devils.
Every Church warrior present knew how dangerous this mission was. Rather than survive by accepting the Devils' demands and bring disaster down on the Church, it would be better to cut their losses here, let this Therianthrope kill everyone on the field, and pin the blame for starting the war on...
"We can accept your demands. We can even match our stories about your attack on us. We'll say we were attacked by this Therianthrope, and you happened to pass by and helped us."
Seeing Dulio's expression gradually turn extreme, Sona Sitri guessed what he was thinking and stepped forward, agreeing to Dulio's conditions outright.
Rias and Sairaorg looked as if they wanted to say something, but they quickly closed their mouths. They knew what mattered more right now. This enemy was nothing like the Church warriors, who still had the idea of holding back. She was truly here to kill them.
"Remember what you said. And after this cooperation, I won't stop my operation because of it."
Dulio reluctantly unclenched his fist, took a deep breath, and agreed to cooperate with Rias and the others.
"Fine. As long as it doesn't come to the final soul-search, we'll cooperate. After all, we don't want hundreds of thousands of people to die either.
And..."
A strange gleam flashed in Sona Sitri's eyes. Having already received news from her servant, Tsubaki Shinra, she wisely lowered her bottom line.
"Perhaps you won't need to target us Devils at all. Isn't there a very suspicious suspect right in front of us?"
Picking up from Sona Sitri's words, Rias turned her gaze toward Delta, who was trapped in the electric net. In the short time they had been talking, Delta had already adapted to the paralyzing effect of the thunder and was beginning to launch an attack at Akeno Himejima in the sky, even with lightning striking down over her head.
"Let's hope that's how it turns out. How do you plan to deal with her? Who's giving orders?"
Dulio did not give a definite answer. Instead, he turned to the matter of their cooperation. Clearly, he did not think Delta would know the solution to the Black Spot Curse. In the end, they would still have to capture the one Devil lead if they wanted to save people.
"I'll do it. I'm better at this sort of thing."
Knowing that time was tight and there was no room for modesty, Sona Sitri volunteered herself directly.
"Fine. We trust you, Sona."
Rias was the first to approve. She knew her best friend's ability to plan very well, and Dulio offered no objection either, clearly tacitly accepting it.
"Good. Joker-san, I need information on this Therianthrope. You fought her the longest. What weaknesses do you think she has?"
"She's strong. Her Magical Power, body, and speed are all first-rate. Even ambushes won't work. Her instincts are frighteningly sharp. If I had to name one weakness..."
Dulio narrowed his eyes and looked at Delta ahead of them, who was almost through the lightning cage.
"I can only say she fights too straightforwardly. The attacks I hid before were only discovered by her right before they hit. She's a beast who fights on instinct alone."
That was the truth. Delta's previous order of attack might have looked smart, but she was only eliminating the two people who felt most threatening to her one after another. She was a beast, after all. Ambushes and harassment were common enough.
"I see. A beast without tactical intelligence. I understand. That happens to be exactly the type I counter."
Sona Sitri pushed up her glasses, a confident smile curling at her lips as she nodded.
"We need to settle this quickly. Otherwise, our bodies won't last much longer."
Hearing Dulio, Sona Sitri did not answer. Instead, she turned toward a gothic lolita holding a parasol and bowed.
"Sensei, we may need your help."
Natsuki Minamiya sighed with a long face and closed the parasol in her hand.
"I take my eyes off things for a few minutes, and this happens. I'll do what I can."
"Thank you, Sensei."
While Rias, Sona Sitri, and the others were settling on a battle plan, Delta, who had been trapped inside the lightning cage, finally burst out. With one swing of her heavy sword, she knocked Akeno Himejima down and broke the cage apart.
"Akeno!"
Rias cried out and flew up to catch Akeno Himejima, only to be dragged down by the force still lingering on Akeno Himejima's body and crash to the ground.
"Grrr..."
After breaking out of the lightning cage, Delta did not charge forward as she had before. Instead, she tensed all the muscles in her body, leaped onto a tall building, and faced off against Rias and the others.
"She's trying to drag things out. We go straight in and follow the plan."
After helping Akeno Himejima settle down, Rias exchanged a glance with Sona Sitri and stated Delta's goal. Delta was waiting for Dulio's and Sairaorg's injured bodies to give out.
I hope I don't regret this later.
"Everyone, prepare..."
Dulio prayed silently in his heart, then shouted. Around them, the Church warriors raised the spears of Holy Power in their hands and fired them at Delta all at once.
Faced with over a hundred Spears of Light in the sky, Delta's heart began to stir. She bounced several times along the walls of the surrounding buildings, dodging every spear with a series of movements that defied the human body.
The moment she landed again, with no time to rest, Delta spun and swung her black greatsword at Sairaorg, who had suddenly appeared behind her.
Sairaorg did not retreat. Though Delta's black greatsword shattered his arm, he still pushed Delta back a step at the final moment, taking advantage of her unstable balance.
Delta paid no attention to that single step. She only wanted to press the attack and finish Sairaorg off, but alarm bells suddenly blared behind her.
At the same time Delta's instincts warned her, one of the Spears of Light stuck in the ground behind her suddenly changed shape. It turned into a katana, rose into the air, and stabbed toward Delta.
The sudden attack and the step she had been pushed back happened at the same time. It was almost as if Delta had taken a step toward the attacking blade herself.
"Gugaaaah!"
Irina Shidou, having retrieved Excalibur, stared in shock at the scene before her. Delta let out a thunderous roar, and a ferocious shockwave of Magical Power surged outward, instantly blowing away Sairaorg, who had still been locked in a stalemate with her.
Only when Sairaorg landed did everyone see the horrific state he was in. The armor on his body had shattered, and there was not a single undamaged spot left on him. He looked like a man drenched entirely in blood.
"Sona, did you predict this?"
Rias looked at Delta in the crater, her expression grim. The dangerous aura coming from Delta was several times stronger than before, a bloody wound was exposed on her back, and the Magical Power leaking from her body was so dense that it had formed a protective membrane.
"I predicted that a wounded beast would become more dangerous after losing its reason. I didn't predict she had a third form."
Sona Sitri gave a bitter smile. The Magical Power coming from Delta no longer matched anything she had shown earlier.
"We're counting on you, Rias."
"I'll do what I can."
On the battlefield, Delta, having entered her third stage, fixed her target on Dulio in the sky. This time, she did not use the walls as a launch point. She simply jumped from where she stood, soaring more than a hundred meters in a single leap.
Dulio launched several elemental attacks from where he was, but in his heavily injured state, his attacks could not even break through Delta's current defensive membrane.
The howl of wind flashed past her ears. Several large mirrors appeared along Delta's jumping path. She raised her claws and shattered them all, reaching Dulio directly.
"Boom!"
At the critical moment, Dulio detonated an explosion in front of his own chest, using the blast to dodge the attack.
As Delta fell, her instincts sounded the alarm again. Several golden chains appeared around her and rushed toward her.
She instinctively tried to dodge or destroy them, but following right behind the chains were shockwaves fired from the fragments of the mirrors Delta had shattered.
"Clink..."
Her movement was half a beat too slow. The chains locked around Delta's limbs. At the same time, Natsuki Minamiya appeared, and beside her was Rias, a massive sphere of Power of Destruction floating before her.
Inside Delta's slime bodysuit, the white crystal stained with Cid's blood gave off a faint glow...
...
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