~ I have added this Fanfic to my Patreon. If you'd like to read advanced chapters, feel free to check it out!
~ I'm planning to increase the number of advanced chapters to +50 this weekend!
~ I've edited some of the previous chapters to remove anything you might consider "cringe" or "unnecessary." I'll continue reviewing them from time to time!
~ Very soon, we'll return to releasing two chapters daily, including bonus privileges for Power Stone contributions!
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Her killer did not resist when a combination of demon blades and steel claws found her a bare second later.
They lost Kiba in the same way as Asia. The other Knight darted under their guard, and sacrificed herself to take out the sword user. The devil's normally handsome face was contorted in fury at the underhanded tactic that had cost them their Bishop, stunned at her sudden disappearance, and could not defend himself when the second Knight plunged into their ranks and impaled him with her zweihänder leveled like a spear. His last act of defiance was to ram both demon swords into his foe's stomach and out her back in a spray of blood. Then the two of them fell, linked together by each other's blades, slumping to the ground and disappearing as the Rating Game registered their deaths.
The effect had been instantaneous. The feeling of imminent victory was gone, washed away like words in the sand. The rush of adrenaline from winning vanished, abandoning them in their most dire hour of need. The sudden loss of two of their most important pieces left them shaken, dazed, and in a deplorable state to resist when Riser suddenly seized the initiative.
Out of all of them, he was the least affected, but that was because his stay among their group was the shortest. The bonds they shared together as fellow members of the same peerage were strong, and what they were feeling he could understand. Many were the times he had woken up in the middle of the night back in his world with treacherous dreams of SEES being swarmed by Shadows assailing his mind.
They lost Koneko shortly after. It took the combined might of Riser's Bishops and his Queen to take her out of the fight, but that they did, saturating the area where the girl stood with ranged firepower. Without Asia's Twilight Healing, she could not endure, and Koneko fell, further reducing their numbers and weakening their resolve.
He took a measure of revenge by incinerating one of the Bishops. The one dressed in a kimono. She had paused for the barest of moments to savor their victory, and the barest of moments was all he needed. He caught her in a pillar of fire, blasting the column of white heat from beneath her, transfixing her in an eruption of volcanic fury. He stripped her of her skin, denuded her of her flesh, and when only bones remained, continued to burn her until there was nothing left but ash, and dust, and the faint lingering echoes of her screams.
Vengeance taken, he stepped back. The smile Akeno gave him sent shivers of warning up his back.
This continued on for he didn't know how long. Such was the nature of battle, where moments of combat became flickering blurs and the mind lost track of time and presence. The two peerages exchanged blows, but it was clear now which side was winning. Riser still had the superior numbers, and at last he was using them to his advantage. His remaining Pawns served as a skirmishing screen, jabbing and probing at their vulnerable flanks, distracting them while his more powerful pieces hovered at a distance, waiting for the time an opportune moment would appear. And appear they did.
Akeno could no longer bear the irritation of the harassing Pawns any longer. The black-haired beauty turned her attention to the lesser pieces and sent coruscating tendrils of lightning in their direction. She fried two and their twitching, blackened bodies dropped from the sky to land in smoldering heaps. The third came from the side, preparing to use the diversion to land a fatal blow on the Queen's unguarded back. He prevented that by conjuring a wall of flame between the Pawn and her target, and the girl surged through it, unable to stop from sheer momentum.
The flames set her alight, and her charge became a careening, tumbling mess of loose limbs and flailing arms. Akeno stepped gracefully to the side as the fiery blur bowled past, raised her delicate brows in amusement as the Pawn crashed unceremoniously to a halt, and then proceeded to electrocute the girl until she stopped moving.
She turned to face him, and he could see her lips moving to form words of thanks. Those words disappeared along with her in an explosion of cloud and dust. He looked up, to where Riser's Queen hovered, a satisfied expression on her perfect face. The plumes of flame he sent her way were easily dodged, and from the way she maneuvered almost lazily as blasts of fire shot past, he knew she was taunting him.
Akeno was gone, and their numbers fell from four to three. The three threatened to become two as Riser's last Rook descended from the sky to land near Issei.
The boy had been running interference, trying in vain to engage the other three pawns and prevent them from harassing their flanks. It had been a noble effort on his part, but he was outnumbered and more importantly, his opponents were fresh while he had fought in almost every bout against Riser's pieces. It was for that reason he was separated from them, and such was his exhaustion, that he could not return before the enemy Rook had already landed.
They could do nothing to help either. The ground around him shook with detonations as the enemy Queen selected him to be her target. Jets of fire wreathed about him as the Bishop lent her weight to the fight. Above him, Rias still battled with Riser, and while she had scored numerous wounds, many of them grievous, her foe merely regenerated them seconds later. The heir of Phenex had seen their lone Pawn alone and hideously vulnerable out in the open, and sought to pin them in place so his sole remaining melee piece could crush her inferior counterpart without intervention.
From the periphery of his vision he could see Issei being savagely beaten back. The Rook, half her face hidden by a mask of steel, was brutally efficient, punching her fists into the openings that were left in the boy's lagging defense. Each blow sent Issei reeling but somehow the devil continued doggedly on, staying gamely on his feet, launching strikes of his own that in his dilapidated state, were easily blocked or parried. Finally the woman seemed to tire from toying with him, and smashed her knee up into his stomach with enough force to double him over.
The boy coughed blood. His face was clouded with pain.
He felt a spark of anger light up within him and for once it was not the demon that was the cause.
And then the boy surged forward, despite the pain, despite the trails of crimson that leaked from the corner of his mouth, and wrapped his opponent in a tight bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides, trapping her with the last of his strength.
"Do it, Arisato-san!" he heard him cry out above the din, "Finish it!"
Desperation shone in his eyes, and it was clear what he wanted. A pillar of flame could easily incinerate the Rook now that she was struggling to move, even if it meant catching the one holding her in the blast.
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