High School DxD: The Lucifer's Devil Trigger — Chapter 57

Chapter 57: The World Anchor

For a brief, fleeting second, Levi almost suspected his Observation Haki had misfired.

He narrowed his eyes, his senses sweeping across the distant ruined landscape. It wasn’t an illusion. He had clearly felt nine distinct, explosive bursts of Kuroka’s aura erupting into the atmosphere. Then, just as suddenly as they appeared, those nine turbulent signatures vanished, coalescing smoothly into a single, terrifyingly dense focal point.

Kuroka had successfully shattered her limits. She had stepped into the Satan-class.

“Let’s go over and take a look,” Levi said, his tone calm but laced with a faint undercurrent of approval.

Miles away, pitch-black flames danced violently across Kuroka’s fingertips. The dark fire was a volatile cocktail, forged by forcibly fusing multiple power systems into one destructive element.

Opposite her, the massive yokai known as Tsuchigumo slowly pushed himself up from the shattered earth. He wiped a massive hand across his face, his thick fingers tracing the fresh, searing scratch marks left on his cheek. Instead of anger, a wide, manic grin split his monstrous features.

“Interesting,” Tsuchigumo rumbled, his deep laughter vibrating through the rubble. “The dragon backing you up was already fun enough, but I didn’t expect a little cat to be this entertaining too—hahahaha!”

As a quintessential battle maniac, the concept of death held absolutely no weight for Tsuchigumo. What terrified him was boredom. Decades without a worthy opponent were far more agonizing than any mortal wound. Centuries ago, he had scoured the land, crushing every yokai he could find, only to realize none of them could give him the thrill he craved. That arrogant boredom was exactly how that old fox, Keikain Hidemoto, had managed to trick and seal him away for generations.

When Hagoromo Gitsune finally broke his seal, she had made him a promise: help her eradicate the Nura Clan, and she would find a way to contact the neighboring pantheon. She would give him the chance to fight the Victorious Fighting Buddha himself, Sun Wukong.

He hadn’t expected to run into so many exhilarating warm-ups along the way.

Tsuchigumo was insane, but he wasn’t an idiot. He had avoided seeking out the Monkey King back in his prime because he knew it would be a one-sided beatdown. He hadn’t been quite bored enough to commit suicide by god back then.

But things were different now. After hundreds of years locked in the dark, he had emerged to find the world exactly as dull and stagnant as he had left it. Living without a challenge was utterly pointless. If he was going to die, he was going to die bathed in the blood and adrenaline of a true battlefield.

“Compared to rotting away, throwing my life at you guys is definitely a better way to go!” Tsuchigumo roared.

He lunged. The earth cratered beneath his immense strength as he charged Kuroka, his four massive arms swinging in a coordinated, bone-crushing barrage from every possible blind spot.

Hovering in the distance, Tiamat’s lingering anxiety evaporated the moment she registered the shift in Kuroka’s magical signature. The nekomata had broken through. There was nothing left to worry about.

“Go to hell!” Tsuchigumo bellowed, his four fists crashing down with the oppressive weight of a falling mountain.

Kuroka didn’t flinch. She stood perfectly still amidst the collapsing air pressure and exhaled a soft, measured breath.

If I remember his teachings correctly… it should feel like this.

She closed her eyes. The colossal reserves of demonic energy she had just acquired—a chaotic blend of senjutsu, youjutsu, and raw devil power—violently expanded. In the exact microsecond Tsuchigumo’s knuckles threatened to cave in her skull, Kuroka ignited the mixture.

A pillar of absolute black fire erupted from her core.

The dark flames latched onto Tsuchigumo instantly, incinerating half of his massive torso. The yokai shrieked, a raw, guttural sound of pure agony, thrashing and rolling wildly across the cratered ground in a desperate bid to extinguish the blaze. But this wasn’t ordinary fire. It was Kuroka’s newly forged power.

With a lazy flick of her wrist, a concussive wave of force blasted Tsuchigumo backward. His massive frame crashed heavily into the ruins, the impact sending up a plume of dust and ash.

Kuroka stood untouched within the ring of black fire, her golden eyes gleaming with feline smugness as she watched the giant yokai being consumed inch by agonizing inch.

“You should be grateful, you know,” Kuroka purred, her twin tails swishing behind her. “My fire is just a cheap copy. If Levi-sama used this on you himself, your soul and your body would have evaporated before you even registered the pain.”

It was the truth. Kuroka had reverse-engineered this technique from watching Levi. Whenever he unleashed his True Devil Form, his demonic magic expanded to its absolute limit, compressing and transforming into the purest, most destructive energy flames imaginable. For Levi, it was practically a passive trait. For her, it was a devastating ultimate attack.

Satisfied, Kuroka reigned in her aura, the black flames dissolving into harmless wisps of smoke. She turned around, fully intending to gloat to Tiamat about her victory, only to freeze.

Standing right beside the Dragon King were Levi, Artoria, Ingvild, and Yakumo Yukari.

“Levi-sama~!”

Kuroka abandoned all pretense of cool detachment, launching herself through the air and crashing directly into his chest.

Levi caught her easily. He reached up, his fingers gently massaging the base of her cat ears before ruffling her dark hair.

“To take down Tsuchigumo so cleanly… it seems you’ve completely mastered it,” Levi said.

Kuroka’s ears twitched, catching the faint but unmistakable note of relief in his voice. Her lips curled into a radiant, entirely genuine smile. “Hehe, don’t worry so much about me~ Cats have nine lives, meow~”

With the group fully reunited, they turned their attention toward the heart of the city—the Kyoto Clan headquarters.

As they walked through the ruined streets, Levi glanced down at the nekomata clinging to his arm. “Kuroka. When I swept the area with my Haki earlier, I felt your aura split into nine distinct strands before merging back together. What exactly was that?”

Kuroka looked up, her golden eyes bright. “It’s the Fear I awakened.”

Fear was the innate, conceptual weapon of all high-tier yokai. It wasn’t a technique learned through study, but a biological phenomenon that required a specific catalyst to awaken. The Nurarihyon’s signature Kyōka Suigetsu—the illusion of the moon in the water—was a prime example of a fully realized Fear.

Levi nodded slowly, processing the information. “As long as it’s a natural ability, that’s fine. I’m relieved.”

Trailing slightly behind the group, Yakumo Yukari—who was currently being dragged by her collar by an unbothered Tiamat—blinked in genuine surprise. She stared at the back of Levi’s head, analyzing the soft, entirely un-malicious tone he had used with the nekomata.

Wait… he actually knows how to speak to people normally?

Yukari’s eyes narrowed. She was becoming increasingly certain that his earlier hostility toward her had been a deliberate, calculated psychological game.

Kuroka, meanwhile, felt her heart skip a beat. She knew Levi was likely just assessing her combat stability as his peerage member, but hearing him openly admit his relief sent a warm, electric thrill straight to her core.

Levi patted her head one more time. “I was genuinely concerned something had gone wrong during your breakthrough. The path you’re taking to forcefully merge your power systems is volatile. If you get impatient, the backlash could be fatal.”

He didn’t wait for a response, shifting his gaze forward as the shimmering, multi-layered barrier of the Kyoto Clan came into view. They were almost there.

Kuroka, however, was entirely paralyzed. The lingering warmth of his hand on her head, combined with his blunt confession of worry, was too much. She slapped both hands over her violently blushing face, her knees turning to jelly. If Artoria hadn’t swiftly reached out and grabbed her by the back of her sash, the newly ascended Satan-class devil would have face-planted straight into the pavement.

She had expected him to say something pragmatic, like ‘I thought my senses had malfunctioned.’ Instead, his casual, unshielded care hit her harder than any spell, flooding her chest with an intoxicating sweetness.

Behind them, Tiamat and Ingvild exchanged a deeply complicated look.

Was the world ending tomorrow? The ruthless, calculating Levi Lucifer was actually handing out tender words of affirmation?

Artoria simply frowned, her emerald eyes fixed on the horizon as she pondered a deep, obvious truth: The human heart is truly a complicated thing.

The Kyoto Clan headquarters was the final stop on Levi’s itinerary.

The Nura Clan had already begun their strategic retreat from the city limits. As for Hagoromo Gitsune’s faction, with both Tsuchigumo defeated and the nine-tailed fox herself absent from the front lines, Levi’s forces had watched their remnants scatter into the shadows along the way.

The Kyoto Clan had only ever mobilized to defend their home. They had no interest in pursuing a war of aggression.

For all intents and purposes, the chaotic three-way war that had threatened to sink Kyoto into the abyss was over. All that remained was for the leader of the Kyoto Clan, Yasaka, to officially stand down.

“General Yasaka,” Levi began, his voice echoing smoothly across the traditional tatami room. “While the yokai who perished and the history destroyed in this conflict cannot be restored, if you don’t order a complete ceasefire right now, this entire city will be reduced to ash.”

Sitting opposite him, dressed in an elegant, flowing kimono that accentuated her mature curves, the blonde nine-tailed fox slowly closed her eyes.

“Your assessment is entirely correct,” Yasaka replied softly.

She had never wanted this bloodshed. She had only been forced to fight because the Nura Clan and Hagoromo Gitsune had turned her territory into a meat grinder, and she hadn’t possessed the sheer military force to expel them both. Now that Levi had effectively broken the siege, she had absolutely no reason to prolong the violence.

“However…” Yasaka opened her eyes, her gaze meeting Levi’s. “Levi-sama, if possible, I hope you can ensure the Nura Clan and Hagoromo Gitsune’s forces withdraw from Kyoto entirely. I am willing to swallow the grievance of this destruction and not seek vengeance. But if they remain and continue to spark friction, I fear what little is left of my city will not survive.”

Levi nodded, accepting the term. But diplomacy wasn’t the reason he was sitting here.

“Consider it done. But I have another matter to discuss,” Levi said, leaning forward slightly. “This city was constructed specifically to hoard ‘power,’ wasn’t it? Before the devastation, whether it was the ley lines prized by Magus factions or the wind veins your clan manages, Kyoto sat on an ocean of massive, concentrated energy.”

He tapped a finger against his knee. “I know enough about magic to sense that the ley lines haven’t suffered critical damage. But the wind veins… given the state of the surface, they should be completely scattered by now, right?”

The wind veins of Kyoto were a highly specific phenomenon. They were atmospheric energy currents anchored by the city’s famous historical sites, ancient shrines, and the ambient spiritual power of the nine-tailed fox lineage. With half the city leveled, the anchors were gone.

“The wind veins are still intact.”

Yasaka didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. She chimed in immediately, her tone eager. It wasn’t out of blind trust for the devil sitting across from her. It was pure survival instinct. She was an ancient, cunning leader, and she knew perfectly well that she had zero capacity to resist a monster who treated Satan-class beings like casual subordinates. Being highly cooperative and useful was the best way to ensure her clan’s survival.

“The moment I realized Kyoto was facing total destruction, I ordered my subordinate clans to construct a ‘Pseudo-Kyoto’ in a hidden pocket space,” Yasaka explained, a hint of pride bleeding into her voice. “I channeled the entirety of the wind veins’ power into that sanctuary before the anchors on the surface were destroyed.”

She looked up at Levi, the corners of her lips curling into a soft, deeply appreciative smile.

“Levi-sama, you ended the slaughter in my home, and more, you saved my daughter, Kunou. To me, you are a true benefactor. Once Kyoto is rebuilt… if you have need of the wind veins, I will personally ensure they are at your disposal.”

Levi blinked, genuinely surprised by the frictionless transaction. He reached up, scratching the back of his head. “Dealing with smart people really does save a lot of breath. Still, this is the first time I’ve had someone hand over the keys before I even asked. Is this the legendary charm and tact of a mature fox?”

Yasaka’s smile deepened, taking on that distinct, intoxicating allure unique to her species.

Deciding to skip the rest of the pleasantries, Levi laid his cards directly on the table.

“I’ll be honest with you from the start. I didn’t come here to accumulate favors, and I certainly didn’t come here to play the hero and save your city. The only reason I intervened to stop this war is because Kyoto’s ley lines and wind veins are critical components of my master plan.”

The seductive warmth instantly vanished from Yasaka’s face, replaced by the sharp, serious focus of a clan leader.

Behind Levi, his peerage members straightened up, their ears practically twitching. Aside from Grayfia, who handled the logistical nightmare of his ambitions, none of his subordinates actually knew what his grand strategy was. He had kept them in the dark simply because they had been too busy cultivating their strength to assist with the magical theory.

Now was the perfect time to bring everyone onto the same page.

“General Yasaka,” Levi said, his voice dropping to a low, commanding register. “I intend to use several major cities across the Far East as geographical anchor points. I am going to construct a super-massive, nationwide-level spell formation. Using that array, I am going to temporarily lock down and stabilize this entire world.”

Yasaka’s breath hitched. She had assumed Levi’s ambitions were grand, but she hadn’t anticipated something so terrifyingly absolute.

In theory, what Levi was proposing was a universal defense mechanism. The multiverse was a chaotic sea of flowing parallel worlds. Entities capable of observing or traversing those worlds relied on tracking specific coordinates. By throwing a giant, conceptual lockdown formation over their reality, Levi would effectively erase their world from the multiversal map. Unless an invader got astronomically lucky and stumbled blindly into their exact dimensional space, it would be impossible for outside forces to target them.

It was the ultimate shield. But there was a glaring issue.

“Why would you go to such extremes?”

The question didn’t come from Yasaka. It came from the small, blonde fox girl sitting beside her. Kunou couldn’t suppress her burning curiosity any longer.

A lockdown spell of that magnitude was the equivalent of welding the blast doors of a bunker shut from the inside to prevent a nuclear leak. It was an apocalyptic emergency measure. What kind of sane person would permanently weld their own home shut just for the sake of it?