High School DxD: The Lucifer's Devil Trigger — Chapter 43

Chapter 43: The True Satan

“If Grayfia and Tiamat teamed up for a two-on-one, I would definitely get beaten to the point where I wouldn’t even know which way was up.”

Serafall crossed her arms, her head tilting as a barrage of question marks practically materialized in the air above her. “Wait, that’s not right! Isn’t Levi only a High-Class Devil? How is he able to take Grayfia and Tiamat as his servants?”

Sirzechs and Ajuka exchanged a complicated look. Neither of them could fully explain the mechanics behind Levi’s Devil Trigger, nor the sheer depth of the power he kept hidden.

After a long, stunned silence, Sirzechs finally let out a soft sigh. “Levi… he is different from others.”

Serafall stared at the Crimson Satan. She blinked once, twice, and then nodded with a completely blank expression. “Let’s put it this way: you’re saying that even though Levi is a High-Class Devil, he has some special method to sign Satan-class servants, right?”

“From a certain perspective…”

Even Ajuka, renowned throughout the Underworld for his unmatched technical expertise and creation of the Evil Piece system, couldn’t decipher the anomaly of Levi’s existence. That lack of understanding bled into his hesitant tone.

Serafall, however, had clearly taken this hesitation the wrong way. Her eyes lit up with sudden realization. “If that’s the case, this is a Rating Game after all. In other words, as long as I take out Levi—the High-Class Devil acting as the King—won’t that iron wall of Grayfia and Tiamat be instantly broken?”

A bright, confident smile spread across her face. This was actually a massive advantage. A grand delusion took root in her mind—as long as I can just snipe the King…

Flashing Sirzechs and Ajuka a cheerful thumbs-up, she spun on her heel and marched directly into the arena before either of them could correct her fatal misunderstanding.

Levi led his peerage through the teleportation circle, stepping into the dimensional arena prepared specifically for this match. The surrounding spectator stands were packed. The gathered devils had originally arrived expecting to witness a simple marriage engagement dispute, only to find themselves front-row to an official Rating Game.

Given that the protagonists of this duel were the sole heir of the House of Lucifer and the current Satan Leviathan, the atmosphere in the stadium had already ignited into a roaring frenzy.

Up in the VIP box, Sirzechs rubbed his temples. Serafall had completely dragged him into this mess. But with the magic circles already locked and the audience waiting, he could only brace himself, step up to the magical amplifier, and project his voice across the arena.

“The battlefield this time was randomly selected. Although it doesn’t look intuitive from the outside, it is a localized ocean field.” Sirzechs’s voice echoed over the roaring waves. “For ‘Leviathan,’ this might offer a slight home-field advantage, but victory will ultimately come down to the true strength of both sides. The condition for victory is for either Serafall or Levi to completely withdraw from the battlefield. Then—”

He raised his hand, dropping it in a swift, cutting motion.

“The match begins.”

The moment Levi stepped onto the water-logged terrain, a flat, emotionless voice echoed directly inside his mind.

Kill her?

Levi’s breath hitched. His heart skipped a heavy beat against his ribs. He knew Ophis was hiding somewhere nearby, but with the Dragon God’s absolute mastery over nothingness, as long as she didn’t wish to be perceived, even Sirzechs and Ajuka would remain completely blind to her presence.

He quickly suppressed the spike of adrenaline and projected his thoughts back through their unique telepathic link. No need.

This is our first Rating Game. Just watch from the sidelines. We will win this beautifully.

Oh.

The connection severed instantly, leaving behind a deep silence. Levi let out a slow, controlled breath, centering his focus on the crashing waves ahead. He glanced over his shoulder. “Sakura, you and Shirone go hide first.”

“Understood.”

The two youngest members of his peerage immediately vanished into the dense foliage of the solitary island situated in the center of the vast, endless ocean. Seawater stretched out to the horizon in every direction. For a Satan bearing the title of “Leviathan,” this environment was practically tailor-made. Even though Serafall specialized in absolute ice magic rather than fluid water manipulation, the sheer volume of moisture gave her an obvious edge.

Levi’s expression remained completely undisturbed. He turned his gaze to the quiet girl standing nearby. “Ingvild. This round, it might be your turn to shine.”

Ingvild offered a gentle, trusting smile. She stepped forward, stopping right at the water’s edge. Closing her eyes, she parted her lips and began to sing.

The melody was soft at first, a hauntingly beautiful hum that connected through the salt-heavy air. By human standards, her total magical capacity had long since shattered the boundaries of the Satan-class. As the song escalated in pitch and power, blinding light erupted from her back. Six pairs of wings—twelve brilliant, radiant wings—tore through the air, unfurling in a magnificent display of supremacy.

Standing behind her, Artoria and Tiamat both stiffened. Possessing draconic attributes, they could feel the ancient, terrifying power radiating from Ingvild, surging outward like a shattered dam.

The ocean responded to its true master.

As Ingvild levitated higher into the sky, the sea began to boil. Giant tidal waves from all four directions converged upon the island. From the churning depths, nine massive dragon heads formed entirely of highly compressed seawater erupted into the sky, their liquid fangs gleaming under the artificial sun.

The magical characteristic of the original Satan Leviathan was the absolute dominion over the oceans, capable of drowning the human world and bringing about apocalyptic chaos. Ingvild had smoothly fused this ancestral bloodline trait with her Longinus, Nereid Kyrie.

The resulting cooperation granted her an overwhelming, conceptual control over everything related to the “sea.” Serafall might possess the Leviathan name and devastating ice magic, but in a contest of pure oceanic dominion, she stood absolutely no chance. Ingvild’s talent was innate, her authority absolute. It was entirely possible that her command over the waters had already eclipsed the original Leviathan.

The nine water dragons reared back and unleashed a synchronized, deafening roar. They opened their massive jaws, firing nine spiraling water tornadoes that tore across the surface of the sea, converging directly toward Serafall’s position.

“Locked on.” Levi drew Yamato, the blade sliding an inch from its scabbard with a sharp click. He glanced at the two women flanking him. “Let’s go.”

“Understood, Lord Levi!”

Outside the dimensional barrier, the spectator stands had descended into a dead, suffocating silence.

Countless high-ranking devils sat frozen, their jaws practically hitting the floor.

After a long, agonizing minute, the current head of the Sitri Clan gripped the railing of his balcony, his voice thick with disbelief. “If I’m not mistaken, that is the magical characteristic of the former Satan Leviathan… but to push this power to such an extent, and those twelve wings behind her…”

Satan.

Aside from that single, terrifying word, the devils present couldn’t fathom any other explanation. They had originally assumed that with the decline of the Four Great Satans’ bloodlines, the House of Lucifer producing a monster like Levi was already an absurd anomaly. Now, it was glaringly obvious that the Leviathan descendant he had claimed was just as monstrous.

, with the old system abolished, this generation’s true Leviathan had willingly become a servant to a Lucifer. A Satan-class Leviathan, combined with Grayfia Lucifuge—the super genius the Underworld only saw once every millennium.

The nobles of the Reformist Faction swallowed hard. They had spent years believing the Old Satan Faction was a decaying relic of the past. Watching the monitor, they were violently forced to re-evaluate the remnants of the faction they had defeated in the civil war.

Inside the arena, Serafall stared at the apocalyptic tidal wave bearing down on her, her eyes nearly popping out of her skull. “Is… is this a joke?!”

As the nine water tornadoes blotted out the sky, threatening to crush her into paste, Serafall threw her arms wide. A massive, glowing magic circle engraved with the Sitri Clan emblem burst to life beneath her boots.

“Freeze!”

Terrifying, absolute zero cold erupted from her body, expanding outward like a glacial tide. The moment the freezing aura touched the nine water tornadoes, they instantly solidified into towering, jagged pillars of ice. The ocean surface froze solid in a fraction of a second. The trees on the island snapped and shattered as the temperature plummeted. With a forceful push of her hands, Serafall froze the nine giant dragon heads mid-roar, turning the entire dimensional space into a frozen wasteland.

She was, after all, the Satan who currently held the title of Leviathan. She knew perfectly well that her true, world-ending combat power required her signature weapon. Empty-handed, her output was significantly restricted, but she was far from helpless.

The next second, Serafall’s playful demeanor vanished. Her gaze sharpened into deadly focus.

She spotted them. Levi, Grayfia, and a black-haired woman with cat ears were sprinting across the newly formed ice directly toward her.

Grayfia is too troublesome, Serafall calculated rapidly, her eyes darting between the targets. And that cat demon… her aura feels like she’s at the peak of an Ultimate-Class Devil, just a paper-thin veil away from the Satan-class.

Her gaze swept past the two heavy hitters and locked dead onto Levi.

No, this guy’s servants are completely absurd. Grayfia, Tiamat, and that Leviathan girl from just now… if that cat also knows Senjutsu, I won’t be able to take them down in a battle of attrition. If I try to fight this peerage head-on, I’ll just end up getting utterly crushed.

A confident smirk returned to her lips. However… this is a Rating Game, not a life-or-death battle~

The moment the thought crossed her mind, a sequence of blue magic circles flared to life. Grayfia materialized directly beside Serafall, her right hand clenched into a fist radiating a blinding sphere of condensed demonic energy. Without a word of warning, Grayfia slammed the sphere down toward Serafall’s head.

The ice shattered with a deafening crack, crystalline shards spraying violently into the air.

Grayfia’s eyes narrowed. The figure she had crushed was nothing more than a flawless ice clone.

A hundred meters away, Kuroka’s ears twitched. Her Senjutsu perception flared, instantly detecting the spatial anomaly. She knew she was technically the weakest of the vanguard trio, but her sensory abilities were unmatched.

I’m not that easy to use as a breakthrough point, nya…

Kuroka braced herself, assuming Serafall had bypassed Grayfia to eliminate the easiest target. But as her Senjutsu swept the frozen battlefield, her golden eyes widened. Serafall’s target wasn’t her at all.

“Sorry, but I’ll take the victory~!”

Serafall materialized directly in front of Levi, moving at blinding speed. She drew her signature magical girl wand with her right hand, channeling a concentrated burst of magic into the tip, and swung it in a brutal, downward arc aimed right at Levi’s head. Knowing Levi was supposedly only a High-Class Devil, she deliberately pulled her strike, holding back just enough strength to knock him out without killing him.

The wand descended.

A sharp metallic ring echoed across the ice.

Serafall’s sure-hit, match-ending strike was stopped dead in its tracks. Levi hadn’t even drawn his blade. He simply raised Yamato’s scabbard, catching the glowing wand with effortless, terrifying precision.

“This… how is this possible—” Serafall gasped, her eyes widening in absolute shock. She had held back, yes, but the sheer kinetic force behind her swing should have shattered the defenses of any normal High-Class Devil instantly!

Before she could even process the impossibility of the block, the air around Levi warped.

Dark, abyssal blue demonic energy erupted from his body, expanding outward with such density it felt like physical gravity. When he had raised Yamato to block, his hands had already begun to shift, covered in hardened, demonic plating.

Now, the transformation consumed him. Jagged horns tore through the air from his head. complex, glowing markings burned across his expanding physique, and a terrifying black steel mask solidified over his face, forged from the surging torrent of dark blue magic.

The sheer pressure of his magic exploded outward. With a casual flick of his wrist, Levi shoved Yamato’s scabbard forward, sending Serafall skidding violently backward across the ice.

Serafall dug her heels in, her breath catching in her throat as she stared up at the towering, nightmarish figure of Levi’s Devil Trigger.

Levi lowered the scabbard, his voice echoing from behind the steel mask—deep, resonant, and dripping with dry amusement. “It seems I really have been looked down upon.”

He gripped the scabbard with his left hand and rested his right on Yamato’s hilt, his thumb slowly pushing the guard up a fraction of an inch. “You wanted to use me as a breakthrough point, huh.”

The blue aura flared, cracking the ice beneath his boots.

“I really don’t understand where you get the confidence to think that I’m weak. But if you pinned your hopes on that delusion, then you’ve already lost, Serafall.”

Up in the spectator stands, the nobles of the Reformist Faction sat in paralyzed silence, the color completely draining from their faces.

Every single scheme, every political maneuver they had been brewing in the back of their minds evaporated into thin air. A High-Class Devil flying the flag of Lucifer, recruiting the core powerhouses of the Old Satan Faction—of course they had planned to exploit him.

But watching Levi stand there, radiating an oppressive aura that warped the very air around him, the truth hit them like a physical blow.

A High-Class Devil capable of reincarnating Satan-class entities? Such a thing never existed. The real reason Levi Lucifer could command Satan-class servants was because he himself was a monster of the exact same caliber.

He was a Satan-class entity who had just casually swatted away the current Leviathan.

Realizing this, not a single devil in the stands dared to entertain another treacherous thought. And looking at the VIP box, they finally understood exactly why Sirzechs Lucifer treated this young man as an absolute equal.