DXD SI : Chapter 39 : Emerging out of training, Ajuka's danger, Sitri Soil amazement & FINALLY! Finally, the insect takes action.... (Patreon)

Disclaimer - I don't own any of the characters appearing in High School DXD or the Anime or the manga whatsoever.

The Pits, Underworld

–Magdaran Bael–

He left the Pits with a smile on his face, having successfully adapted to the Divine aura coming off of a freshly blessed artifact by a middle tier Norse God in terms of strength. It really made him realise just how fucked Devils were when faced with their sure fire weaknesses. If the other party was an Angel or a Divine Being, they could hurt Devils who were a tier above their strength.

It was messed up, and it made him appreciate the reach of Big G’s system that was still functioning in Heaven, albeit at a reduced capacity. It made him realise just why the New Satans pursued peace, well, on top of having gone through the horrors of war once and having come out extremely traumatized from it.

It was always the good ones that came out worse for wear out of wars, especially when they had to not just fight but put down many of their own acquaintances, all because the other side refused to back down, seeing not going to war as an affront to their ideology, that had been all but set in their minds.

He didn’t have any friends, per se, but he would be sad if he had to be the one to kill even Akihito, a Youkai he had barely exchanged a few sentences with, all because the other part refused to part with their ideology, choosing to die with it rather than change in any meaningful way, even if it was all for the good. 

He was screwed in the head like that; he could freely admit that. It was as if the emotion centers of his brain lay dormant, right up until someone tried to do something to his Garden, and then they poured the emotion that should have been distributed across all his life into that one object, making it extremely hard for him to control it.

He couldn't imagine himself in the shoes of someone who had extreme empathy and the willingness to carry out their actions for the objective good, but even he could tell that it would be extremely mentally draining, and would almost certainly leave them a different person than they were before the war.

Well, everyone save for maybe Ajuka, but who knows what goes on in the mind behind the stoic face of the often overlooked danger in the Underworld. He was sure that most bigwigs of the supernatural world knew this, but the only reason Sirzechs was known as the most dangerous was because his power is straightforward.

He looks at something he doesn’t like, and then he erases it. That’s it. Straight up brute force. It worked for most situations, especially for the Devil race, but Ajuka? His power was far more insidious. He had a mind of his own and immense power to boot, he could probably bring down pantheons on his own, more if he effectively utilised Sirzechs.

Sirzechs would probably defer to his friend’s advice in most situations, but Ajuka seemed like the type of Devil that would take steps that would make even a war veteran like Sirzechs hesitate, as moral quandaries did not seem to exist for Ajuka.

After all, how could he have made a piece of magitech that worked on so many species, making them devils whilst doing so in a way that it was completely beneficial, save for the inherent weaknesses of Devils?

How could he have made something that preserved any original powers the recipient might have had and only added the Devil’s power to them? He guessed that there was probably a mountain of corpses behind the nearly perfect treasure of the Underworld that was the Evil Pieces.

Shaking his head, he dismissed the thoughts of the league of power he would one day enter, and teleported back to his Garden. 

Unlike his previous trips, this one hadn’t taken too long. Only 2 days before he had finished adapting to the Divine Aura from the artifact. He was sure that had the blessing been from a stronger God or had been done in a way to hurt Devils, he would have needed far more time, but as things stood, it was not blessed by a hostile Odin, so he managed to somewhat get used to it.

It didn’t help matters that the cube he made to create space for himself was relentlessly attacked by the Holy Light in the region, something he hadn’t noticed before. The more Demonic Energy he used up in that place, the more Holy Light converged in his location.

By the time he left, he had noticed that the area excluding Holy Light had decreased a bit, converging on his location.

He paused as he floated down and noted the letter waiting for him. It was just left out in the open, unlike the previous time when it was secured properly in a container.

Snapping up the letter, he walked into his garden, flicking balls of his Power in the direction of the Sitri sprinkled soil, not to destroy anything but to read over the concepts. Opening the letter, he was about to read through it only for his neck to snap towards the experimental soil section, a smile adorning his face as he crouched down and inspected the soil.

The plant he had deliberately poisoned with his Demonic Energy was alive still. Barely, yes, but still alive, and that was an improvement, especially since he had left the plant on the verge of death. The only way out of that should have been his power to erase the damage while also giving the tree the required nutrients for it to heal itself. 

The nutrients would come up with their own set of Demonic Energy corruption, which he would then heal, creating a small healing cycle that resulted in the plant instinctively strengthening itself, to the point that small concentrations of Demonic Energy would no longer bother it at all. It was how he had trained all his other plants in the Garden, but with this soil? 

He could focus on other stuff. See, the plants being mundane meant there was a limited amount of stuff it could do. Well, mundane in the Underworld anyway. They could either grow resistant or immune to Demonic Energy corruption or grow fruits, or create deep burrowing roots or many other things.

If he could leave the Demonic Energy corruption to the Sitri soil, then he could focus on other stuff and create a tree stain that would lie for a long time. So far, his experiments had resulted in trees and plants that had exotic effects to them but they never lived for long. Even when he took a risk and planted them, their internal systems warred with themselves, not knowing what to do.

Either they could deal with the Demonic Energy entering their systems or do what he had programmed them to do, like grow endlessly, or create highly concentrated Demonic Energy fruit, or soak up all the water from their roots and form leaves with a heavy concentration of magic extracted from that water.

He had theorised that those leaves will help the Sitri devils in minute ways or some human water aligned magician a good amount. Someone like Serafall might need millions of those leaves to feel some difference, but someone on the level of Sona would get the benefit much earlier.

He had eaten one, and aside from feeling a temporary surge in ease when he tried to manipulate water with his magic, he felt nothing, but he attributed that to his magic being destruction aligned and his strength at the time. If he tried to eat one right now, he probably wouldn't even feel a thing.

He looked at the Sitri soil with excitement in his eyes. He could do so much with this stuff! If only it didn’t require him to basically exit the Bael House and move into the Sitri House, something he might just do based on what the letter said and what Zephyr and Zekram try to pull off.

He felt far more prepared to deal with the likes of Zekram and Zephyr than just a month ago.  He felt like he had experienced more of his life in the past month and a half than he did in the decade before that. 

He could see now that Zekram was far more likely to just throw Zephyr under the bus than confront him, especially since his little mistake that day that led him to lose control for a split second must have given Zekram some idea of his strength.

He could also see that now that his strength was known to many of the parties he wanted to keep it a secret from, he could act with much more impunity, and knew that he would have much more leeway from Zekram, not that he needed anything.

He held confidence that even if the old monster pulled something unbelievable, he should be able to atleast escape with his life intact. His only fear was his Garden, but even that was going to be addressed soon enough, and he didn’t think there would be any retaliation from Zekram if he killed Zephyr for the crime of hiding details about his mother, even if he knew that the crime was much graver than that.

He would have felt far more confident, bordering on arrogance, had he analysed the runes on the artifact, but Odin had been smart about it and had the exact same projections from the bar table layered on top of the artifact, only they were even stronger this time, seemingly accounting for his power.

They were layered in a way that should he even try to break through the runes, the artefact will be destroyed and probably in a flash of Divine Aura blast, something that was sure to severely injure him.

Still, all of that was overkill for the lies of Zephyr, the insect that he was.

Rolling his eyes, he opened the letter, noting the absence of flowery language, as Zephyr had finally realised that his heir was not the one he had in mind, and had far different thoughts about the Head of the House. More specifically, he wanted the Head of Head of the House.

Reading through the two sentences, he smirked and disintegrated the letter. It read :

Come to the Ancestral Hall.

The Ancestor finally wishes to meet the Heir of the House.

Let’s see what scheme Zephyr’s small brain had managed to come up with. He hoped that the Furcas woman was there with him. It would be nice not to have to hunt her down and waste his time.

After all, he had his Garden to take care of.