High School DxD: Return of the Crimson Dragon Emperor

Chapter 460: Chapter 450: A Glimmer of Hope Amidst Despair

[Kiba’s Perspective]

The battlefield had descended into absolute, grinding chaos.

Bell had harnessed the stolen power of the Red Dragon Emperor to transcend her own limits. That surged power allowed her to sense and replicate every single warrior in the vicinity, excluding only the gods.

The reach of her ability was staggering. Not only were we—who had reached new heights through our training—being mimicked, but even veterans like Maurice-san and Reisha-san were forced to face hollowed-out versions of themselves.

”Dammit...! Take this!”

Xenovia roared, her body wreathed in flickering azure flames as she clashed with her own doppelgänger. Her current strength was immense, yet the copy matched it note for note, blow for blow. Every time the two Xenovias collided, the earth splintered and groaned, the shockwaves leveling everything in their wake.

Between heavy breaths and showers of sparks, Xenovia let out a dry, ironic laugh. ”So, this is the extent of my power? I’d love to say I’m impressed by myself, but fighting me is a total nightmare!”

”Tell me about it!” Irina’s voice drifted from nearby. ”You’re destroying everything in sight!”

”You’re one to talk, Irina! Hurry up and finish your copy! Your purification light is lethal to us Devils!”

Xenovia was right. Irina’s holy power had always been a double-edged sword for our team, and her empowered clone was currently raining down arrows of light, scattering them across the field with reckless abandon. Our forces were taking heavy casualties.

But it wasn’t just the clones of Xenovia and Irina. All of us—President Rias, the other members of the Occult Research Club, and especially Dulio-san, the leader of DxD—were being hunted by our own shadows. The destructive scale of Dulio-san’s copy was particularly terrifying; it had seized control of the local atmosphere, bending the very weather into a weapon against us.

”I never imagined I’d end up in a life-or-death struggle with myself,” the real Dulio shouted over the roar of the wind. ”Talk about a sick joke!”

He battled a version of himself that churned the sky into a blackened mass of thunderclouds, calling down localized deluges and gargantuan bolts of lightning. The sheer area-of-effect of his power was devastating. The only reason our side hadn’t been completely annihilated was that Dulio-san was occupied keeping his own double at bay.

Because we knew our own techniques better than anyone, we each did our best to pull our respective clones away from the main fray, engaging them in private duels of attrition.

”Is this supposed to be some trial to overcome our past selves?” I muttered, my grip tightening. ”What a troublesome ability.”

In my Knight of Kings form, I lunged at the mirror image of myself. Speed, swordsmanship, the breadth of our abilities—we were identical. I pushed my acceleration to its absolute limit, weaving through the air to disorient him, but the clone moved with the same fluid grace, meeting my blade every single time.

To an outsider, we would have been indistinguishable. Unless they possessed the sensory perception of Issei-kun or Koneko-chan, they wouldn’t know who to root for.

However, there was one tell.

The eyes. The clones were marked by dark, ink-like shadows around their eyelids—kumadori—that set them apart from the originals. In the heat of high-speed combat, it was a minuscule detail, but for now, it was our only way to tell the puppet from the person.

The only ones Bell couldn’t copy were the gods and, as an exception, Miwa-san and Alice-san in their Shin-ki forms. They had likely activated their Pseudo-Divinity just before the replication pulse hit. It seemed Bell’s mimicry reached its limit at the threshold of true godhood.

I wished the gods could assist us, but they were occupied trying to contain the Great Beast, Trihexa. With Apophis backing the Beast up, even the god-class beings were struggling just to hold the line.

Miwa-san was locked in a spectacular magical duel with Bell. Between Bell’s bottomless well of mana and Miwa-san’s divine empowerment, the sheer scale of their conflict created a ”no-man’s-land.” To step within their range was to be vaporized instantly.

Meanwhile, Alice-san was acting as the coalition’s guardian angel. Cloaked in a celestial radiance, she picked out the clones with unerring accuracy, piercing them with countless spears of light. Those she struck were reduced to ash by the sheer intensity of her power.

Despite her efforts, the enemy numbers refused to dwindle. Apophis continued to spread a thick, cloying darkness, using the Holy Grail to churn out an endless tide of Evil Dragons.

This is bad...! If this turns into a war of attrition, we’ll break before they do!

Anxiety gnawed at me. But I couldn’t look away—not while the ”other me” was still standing.

Suddenly, my clone was sent flying by a massive impact from the side! I blinked, realizing he had been blindsided by... Maurice-san’s clone? No—it was the man himself.

”Good grief... I never thought I’d have to murder myself today. You alright, Yuto?”

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