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ArabicHigh School DxD: The Lucifer's Devil Trigger — Chapter 24
Chapter 24: The Princess of the Root
Sajyou Manaka. The Princess of the Root. She was an existence that even gods had learned to fear.
Her Magic Circuits were naturally intertwined with the Root itself, granting her a baseline of power that eclipsed even Solomon. Or rather, the current Solomon was simply no match for her reality-warping whims. She could bat away devastating Noble Phantasms with a flick of her wrist. Ordinary magecraft and physical strikes simply ceased to exist before they could touch her skin.
“I will do my best to take care of Solomon as quickly as possible. I have to leave this side to you all.”
Solomon was the final obstacle. As long as they crushed him, this Holy Grail War would be won. The rules never stated that every Master had to die; once Solomon was eliminated, the Holy Grail could be claimed. By then, he could finally unravel the secret of infinite mana.
If he possessed an endless well of magical energy, he could activate his Sin Devil Trigger, abandon all restraint, and clash head-on with Manaka in a berserk state. That might give him a fighting chance. Otherwise… every single person here would die.
That woman was a walking calamity, a monster who could manifest almost any desire into reality. In the original timeline, her only downfall was her own absolute arrogance. She believed so deeply that her wishes were absolute, and that the person she loved would inevitably love her back, that she left herself completely open. If not for that blind spot, Arthur could never have driven a sword through her back. And even after being impaled, she had refused to stay dead. She could resurrect.
The current Solomon lacked his Grand Saint Graph. In terms of sheer threat level, the strongest Heroic Spirit had ironically become her only glaring weakness.
So, they would target that weakness.
“This is truly hard to accept…” Artoria shook her head. She looked at Levi, a sudden, soft smile breaking her serious expression. “However, since you have said so, I have no choice but to believe you. As long as Solomon disappears, victory is ours. So, you must win.”
That was Artoria. Even knowing the terrifying reality of the enemy Master, even facing an beyond understanding monster, her primary concern remained Levi’s safety.
“You all are the ones who need to be careful.” Levi met their gazes with absolute seriousness. “That person is not someone you can fight conventionally.”
Grayfia and Kuroka exchanged a brief glance before nodding in unison.
“Understood,” Grayfia replied, her voice cool and steady. “We will hold the line here.”
Just how terrifying was this enemy?
Artoria, Grayfia, and Kuroka had already discussed the tactical situation while tracking their target through the Einzbern forest. They operated under the assumption that the enemy had sensed their approach from miles away and had likely laid a lethal trap. It was entirely possible that one of them could be wiped out in the opening second of the encounter.
Artoria, as a Servant, absolutely could not fall first. If she died, their anchor in this war vanished. Kuroka was young, brimming with limitless potential, and might one day stand as Lord Levi’s true partner. Therefore, Grayfia had already made her decision. If they crossed paths with a extraordinary-level abomination, she would detonate her own life force to shield the others.
“You actually followed me all the way here. That is fine. It is perfect, really. No one will disturb their little duel.”
The voice was light, musical, and utterly out of place.
Deep within the frozen Einzbern woods, a pristine clearing had simply willed itself into existence. Elegant tables and chairs sat upon the manicured grass, laden with delicate pastries and steaming black tea. At the head of the table, a screen woven from pure water hovered in the air, broadcasting the standoff between Levi and Solomon.
Sajyou Manaka held a porcelain teacup, her serene gaze drifting over the tense trio. “Would you care for a cup of tea?”
When she smiled, she looked like a fairy woven from morning sunlight, radiating a warmth that felt entirely alien in the dead forest.
Kuroka bared her fangs, her instincts screaming at her to strike. But before her muscles could twitch, her body rebelled. Her legs moved on their own, carrying her involuntarily toward the smiling girl.
Grayfia and Artoria lunged to pull the Nekomata back, only to find their own limbs locked in invisible, crushing chains.
Grayfia’s silver eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. The ambient temperature plummeted. A massive magic circle erupted beneath her boots, projecting the silver crest of the Lucifuge clan. Tapping into her formidable demonic power, she shattered a fraction of the invisible restraint, snatched Kuroka by the collar, and unleashed a devastating blast of demonic magic straight at Manaka.
“Oh? Aside from Levi, you actually brought this level of combat power to the board.”
Manaka sighed softly. The sound carried a hint of melancholy, yet the smile on her pristine face only grew wider. “However, surprises like this are exactly what make the game so interesting.”
Facing a blast of demonic annihilation that could level a mountain, Manaka did not chant. She did not raise a shield. She simply extended a single finger.
It was a slender, delicate digit, belonging to a sheltered young lady who spent her afternoons playing the piano in a sunlit garden. Yet, with a casual tap against the empty air, she completely neutralized Grayfia’s ultimate attack. The demonic energy simply vanished into nothingness.
“Do not be so hot-headed,” Manaka chided gently. “The main event is about to begin. I will say this only once. I am very much looking forward to this battle. If you interrupt my viewing experience, I might have to do something decidedly unpleasant.”
Witnessing her strongest magic erased like a smudge on a windowpane, Grayfia did not immediately launch a second assault. Instead, she maintained her defensive stance and asked in a low, measured tone.
“Why are you so eager to watch Lord Levi fight Solomon? Do you possess that much absolute confidence in your Servant?”
“No.”
Grayfia had assumed the girl wanted to use the Holy Grail to fulfill a wish, and thus orchestrated this duel to secure victory. But Manaka merely shook her head, her blonde hair swaying.
“As for who will win, I actually believe Levi has the superior odds. But all of that is entirely irrelevant.” Manaka clasped her delicate fingers together, her smile turning dazzlingly bright. “I can know the final result regardless of what happens. But if I just looked at the ending, things would not be fun at all.”
She tilted her head, her eyes fixed on the watery screen. “When those two clash, do you not think it resembles a grand Homeric epic? An ancient king of magic against a modern king of demons. Rather than caring about the victor, I simply wish to savor the spectacle of the struggle itself. How wonderfully tragic. How interesting. Do you not agree?”
“…Devils are never the protagonists in any heroic epic,” Grayfia replied coldly, lowering her hand.
It was not a surrender, nor a lapse in vigilance. It was the cold, calculating realization of a veteran maid. The entity sitting before her had effortlessly breached the extraordinary level. Even if Sirzechs Lucifer or Rizevim Livan Lucifer stood in this clearing, they would likely be suppressed. Anything higher than that? Grayfia refused to entertain the thought. She knew her place, and she knew this girl was an impossible wall. That was enough.
Beside her, Kuroka and Artoria were practically vibrating with anxiety, but Grayfia found her own heart settling into a calm rhythm.
Levi would not lose to Solomon. This absolute faith stemmed from more than just his ascension to the Satan-class. A specific image burned brightly in Grayfia’s mind. The terrifying silhouette of Levi sprouting abyssal wings and a draconic tail, his flesh hardening into impenetrable armor, ethereal blue blades erupting from his forearms.
Just the memory of that monstrous form assured her of his victory. Even if the power threatened to consume his sanity. Even if he could only sustain the transformation for a fleeting window of time. Once Lord Levi unleashed that state, Solomon was a dead man walking.
Levi’s demeanor toward Solomon today was a stark contrast to their previous encounter. Last time, his physical condition had been compromised. Today, he stood at the absolute zenith of his power.
Solomon, on the other hand, had clearly expended a massive amount of energy preparing the battlefield; his mana reserves were nowhere near maximum capacity.
Levi locked eyes with the Grand Caster, his Observation Haki sweeping outward like an invisible radar.
‘He set up a bounded field and a magic territory in advance, huh.’
“Solomon,” Levi finally spoke, his voice echoing across the desolate terrain. “You are the final obstacle I need to remove in this Holy Grail War. I had originally formulated dozens of complex methods to dismantle you. But I find myself rather pressed for time today. So… my apologies.”
Solomon furrowed his brow. Stripped of his Clairvoyance and the ability to foresee the future, the ancient king could not fathom why this devil was speaking with such absolute finality. They had crossed paths before. Levi was undeniably powerful, but he had not been overwhelmingly superior. Given their current Saint Graphs, fighting without external protections, their raw output should have been evenly matched.
Then, the atmosphere shattered.
Levi’s internal mana reserves detonated like a dying star. Previously, his partial Devil Trigger had been a terrifying sight, but this was an entirely different world of existence. The power radiating from his flesh was literally igniting the air. Ethereal blue flames violently erupted across his entire body. His heartbeat echoed across the wasteland, thudding like a massive war drum.
In the next fraction of a second, the ancient bloodline dormant within his veins achieved total critical mass. The primordial power of the original Lucifer broke its chains.
Pitch-black, leathery wings violently tore through the back of his coat. A razor-sharp draconic tail whipped out, cracking the air like thunder. His hands warped into vicious, tearing claws, while a pair of glowing blue energy blades manifested smoothly from his forearms.
His previous Devil Trigger had at least retained a vaguely humanoid silhouette. This new form abandoned humanity entirely. It was a pure, unadulterated demon. An evil dragon. A nightmare dragged kicking and screaming from the darkest depths of mythology. It bore absolutely no resemblance to anything born of the human world.
A guttural, earth-shaking roar tore from Levi’s throat as he threw his head back, fully crossing the threshold into his Sin Devil Trigger.
He had spent the entire journey calculating the most efficient way to slaughter Solomon. In the end, he had settled on the most brutal answer. If he drew Yamato and engaged in a prolonged sword duel, Solomon’s pre-established magic foundations would drag the fight into a war of attrition.
But Levi had other tools at his disposal. Tools like this.
The shockwave of heat arrived before the sound. Before Solomon could even register the sonic boom of Levi’s movement, the scorching air pressure peeled the top layer of skin from his face.
The ancient king instantly threw his hands forward. The ten rings adorning his fingers ignited in perfect unison, erupting into ten blinding colors of pure magical authority.
But in the exact millisecond he attempted to unleash his power, his sequence was violently interrupted.
His vision blurred into a smear of motion. He never even saw the enemy approach. Before his mind could process the threat, his entire body was already airborne, launched backward like a broken doll. The kinetic impact registered a full second before the agonizing pain. The ten rings still glowed brightly, but Solomon’s consciousness was already teetering on the edge of the abyss.
In that desperate instant, Solomon’s eyes rolled back, turning a blank, terrifying white. It was as if a vastly superior, ancient will had forcibly hijacked his failing vessel.
The ten rays of light, which had been on the verge of scattering, instantly condensed into a blinding singularity. And the seventy-two demonic pillars he had carefully buried in the surrounding territory began to siphon and stockpile mana with suicidal ferocity.
Because the entity piloting Solomon knew one thing with absolute certainty: it refused to endure a second strike from the monster that had previously shattered the very fabric of space.
Solomon abandoned all defensive measures. The ten colors of authority bled together, forming a colossal, hyper-dense magic circle between his outstretched hands. Crimson circuits, resembling ruptured blood vessels, spider-webbed across the empty void. The combined, astronomical power of the Seventy-Two Pillar Demon Gods flooded into his fragile vessel in a single, uninterrupted breath.
And then, while his body was still hurtling backward through the air, he locked the apocalyptic magic circle directly onto his pursuer.
In that microsecond, the world simply stopped. The wind died. The dust hung suspended in the air. The entire planet seemed to hold its breath, forced into silence just to hear the ancient king’s decree.
“The time of birth hath come, with this, I correct all things.”
The magic circle violently expanded, its gravitational pull isolating everything within its radius. A halo forged from millions of burning bands of light locked onto the demonic comet that was Levi’s Sin Devil Trigger.
The Third Noble Phantasm was unleashed.
A beam of concentrated heat, a catastrophic force that no defensive Noble Phantasm on Earth could ever hope to withstand, fired from his hands and slammed squarely into Levi’s chest.
Levi’s jaws unhinged, releasing a deafening, demonic roar into the blinding light. But he did not attempt to dodge. He did not raise his arms to block.
Instead, fueled by the absolute instincts of his Infinite Martial Arts, the berserk demon made a tactical calculation that his sober mind might never have dared to execute. He leaned into the apocalyptic beam, reached his clawed hand directly through the burning light, and lunged for Solomon’s throat.