High School DxD: Return of the Crimson Dragon Emperor

Chapter 463: Chapter 453: The Path to the Future

After my father and the others saw us off, Tia and I plunged through the ”Gate” Asem had opened, diving headlong into the world he had conjured from nothing.

Beyond the threshold, we were greeted by a sky the color of fresh blood and a desolate, infinite wasteland. There, the Coalition forces were locked in a grueling, desperate struggle against Trihexa and its legions.

”It seems our timing wasn’t as poor as I feared,” Tia remarked.

”Tell me about it,” I grunted, nodding in agreement.

The second we arrived, Trihexa and its army were on the verge of unleashing a synchronized extinction-level volley. I’d had to scramble to fire an EXA-level blast just to intercept it. It was a hair’s breadth from disaster.

I glanced toward Trihexa, the primary target of my bombardment.

”Tch. Virtually unscathed after a direct hit? What a monster,” Tia spat, clicking her tongue as the smoke cleared around the Beast.

The flesh where my blast had struck was charred and smoldering, but it wasn’t a wound. To a creature like Trihexa, a direct hit from me was nothing more than a superficial scratch.

It truly was a nightmare on the level of Great Red—the ultimate calamity. Taking that thing down was going to be a monumental task.

”This is as far as I can escort you,” Tia said, her gaze narrowing. ”I cannot allow that monster to advance a single step further.”

”Right. I’m counting on you to look after Rias and the others.”

”Leave this front to me and move out. But remember—the one waiting for you, the place you must reach, lies at the center of this world. That tower over there. You’ll have to break through their lines to get there. Any ideas?”

That was the problem.

Trihexa was dead ahead. If I tried to circle around, I’d be swarmed by Evil Dragons, clones of myself, and whatever other horrors Bell had cooked up. To make matters worse, I could see doppelgängers of the Coalition warriors scattered through the enemy ranks.

I could fight my way through one by one, but that would take too long. I needed to conserve my energy for the final showdown.

Suddenly, a voice crackled in my ear.

『Leave this to me.』

It was Reisha, chiming in over the comms just as I was weighing my options.

She streaked past me at incredible speed, taking point. Hovering around her were twenty-eight remote units—a mix of Rifle Bits and Shield Bits. As they deployed in front of her, they snapped into formation, their targeting systems locking onto the enemy with mechanical precision.

Reisha’s eyes, already a deep crimson, began to glow with a fierce, incandescent light.

”Now... out of his way!”

Every single barrel erupted at once. A storm of fire and ice lanced through the air, piercing her chosen targets with unerring lethality. Enemies struck by her barrage were either incinerated or flash-frozen, falling from the sky like lead weights.

It wasn’t just sniping anymore; it was a localized curtain of death. No enemy could even hope to close the distance; Reisha’s bolts found their vitals with terrifying efficiency before they could even scream.

As we advanced under her cover, a hundred-meter-tall giant created by Bell lumbered into our path. I worried that even with Reisha’s firepower, a target that size wouldn’t go down easily.

I braced myself to fire a supporting shot, but in that instant—the giant was cleaved perfectly in two. With a deafening roar of collapsing stone and flesh, it crumbled into the wasteland.

The culprit, of course, was...

『Took you long enough! Get a good nap in, did you?』

Maurice-san’s voice boomed through the intercom.

”Sorry to keep you waiting! I feel great, thanks for asking!”

『Is that so? You sound awfully chipper, Issei. Something good happen?』

”You could say that. But look at you, old man. You’re sounding pretty energetic yourself for someone in the middle of a war.”

『Well, the Boss is finally on the clock. The grunts can only show their true colors when the General is on the field, after all.』

”...Calling a former Knight Commander a ’grunt’ is a bit of a stretch, don’t you think?”

『Gwahaha! I don’t have a title anymore! All the responsibility falls on the Master’s shoulders now!』

”Hey! I knew it! Alice’s habit of slacking off is definitely your fault!”

The old man ignored my jab, charging forward through the chaos. Wherever he passed, mountains of minced Evil Dragons were left in his wake. Even the giants, two hundred meters tall or more, were shredded like paper. As usual, the man was an absolute force of nature.

After pushing a significant distance into the enemy lines, Maurice-san and Reisha came to a halt. Maurice sheathed his blade and dropped into a low, focused stance. Reisha arranged her bits in front of her, forming a perfectly ordered wall of floating weaponry.

In that moment, a complex magical crest flared to life in the eyes of Reisha, Sally, and Fina.

””Double Delete!””

A massive, overwhelming pillar of light erupted. It wasn’t just a single beam; it branched into three directions—center, left, and right—erasing everything in its trajectory.

Simultaneously, Maurice-san unleashed a god-speed draw technique that transcended the physical. His black sword strikes didn’t just cut meat; they severed the very space they occupied, rending the world itself.

As the light of the bombardment faded, Reisha shouted over the comms.

”Go, Issei! Go finish this!”

”Leave the rest to us! There’s someone waiting for you, isn’t there?!”

I nodded, snapping my dragon wings and surging down the path they had carved for me. Internally, I was reeling from the sheer scale of their power.

The enemies that had choked the sky and earth just moments ago were simply... gone. It was impossible to count accurately, but they must have vaporized tens, maybe hundreds of thousands in that single opening.

And what was that move Reisha used? I’d never heard of her having a technique like that. It felt similar to Rias’s Power of Destruction, but the magical signature was fundamentally different.

Ignis’s voice echoed in my mind, providing the answer.

『It looks like a technique that utilizes the opposing attributes of Sally and Fina.』

”Their attributes? Fire and Water?”

『Opposing forces usually cancel each other out. Reisha-chan is harnessing the raw energy generated by that mutual annihilation and firing it as a projectile. It’s essentially a rejection of the world’s logic. In other words... it’s an unblockable attack.』

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