DXD SI : Chapter 74 : Non Combat applications, Spell cracking & Why Romania?! (Patreon)

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

Underworld

–Magdaran Bael–

As he watched his power in action all around him, essentially acting as a lock that sealed the magical state of the room as it was at the moment he arrived, he couldn't help but think of just how this application came to be.

It was during one such spar with Thor, and as was his thing, the God of Thunder had just chucked a bolt of Divine Lightning at him, and as was the case at that point, he had reacted calmly, using his power to resist the attack before he moved out of the way. It was not like he could not stop the attack at all; it was just that it was much more economical to just use his power to buy time and move out of the way.

It allowed him more time to think about his next move and also to assess if he could actually stop Thor’s attack at all, since the attack's appearance was deceptive as to its actual power. It was during one such spar where, instead of just using his power to act as a cushion and move on, he had instead chosen to try something, inspired by a certain anime, a move known as Perfect Cube.

The idea was to somehow figure out a way to trap the attack inside the spell, in a way that he could redirect it at will, essentially attacking the enemy with their own power. Now, he didn’t quite succeed in that spar, as he had to heal his many broken bones because of Thor’s anger at having not followed his advice, but the end result of that spell was an ability to essentially lock down an area, magic residue, and everything else. It was more useful for research purposes than actual combat, but he was glad for that, as finding out new uses for his power that were not Destructive in nature were one of the hobbies he had developed over the years.

Ironically, this hobby, the thing that was started to find out more about the alternative applications of his power, had only made him far more destructive than expected. Nowadays, he was more than just blasting enemies with power and leaving behind nothing, in a way that both increased his threat and reduced the amount of energy required to do that.

All of that firepower was reserved for Zekram and his enemies, and today, he might just get to use that much power outside of a spar with Thor, and this small, non combat application of his power was going to get him there, which was ironic on its own.

A moment later, Odin pinged him again with a new set of coordinates, but also with a warning that this spell was intentionally stacked to create a bunch of teleportation sequences, half of which probably transported nothing more than air to a bunch of locations across both Earth and multiple pocket dimensions, as well as other realms.

It was, in a way, Zekram’s last resort, a way to get away from the boogeyman hunting him down, but that was fine. Zekram might have counted on one pissed off Devil hunting him down with his own power, but he could never have imagined that someone like Odin, a famously neutral Faction leader, would be the one assisting in the hunt, which is why Zekram was going to lose.

As he waited for Odin to do his magic, and find out the proper chain that Zekram actually followed, he moved out of the five star suite that Zekram had used as a hiding spot, actually spotting the advent of Holy Energy near him which was expected since using his power to lock down even a relatively small area was not something that could be hidden, especially since he was in a time crunch and wanted to get all the magical spell residue as he could.

As he exited the place, he couldn't help but comment on the intensity of the Holy Energy that had all but exploded all around the hotel, “Damn.”

It looked like someone had called in one of the Twelve Winged ones to deal with the Devil Energy near the Vatican, which was surprising since he had expected a lower tier Angel to respond to it, but he might just have arrived at a time when one of the higher tier ones had descended onto the Vatican, for some monthly report or something.

Either way, it was not his problem anymore as his vision flashed once before he found himself standing in the middle of a forest, with dense fog blanketing the forest as far as his vision went. 

A quick light spell later, he was standing in…fog. Yup, this was magical alright. Trees were visible, but anything beyond that was also covered in fog, as was the fog on the ground. 

This was very clearly a trap of some sort, but why hadn’t it acti—

His question was answered immediately, as Zeikram had probably activated some kind of timer combined with a proximity alert spell, but the result was quite…anticlimactic.

A bunch of canisters exploded, throwing around Holy Water in vapour form, almost matching the magical fog in its intensity, coming from everywhere, guided by wing magic to converge in his location, funneled from everywhere to form a miniature tornado of Holy Water in gas form, enveloping him completely.

From what he could tell, the Holy Water was of very high quality as well, managing to somehow eat through a layer of his magical shield, which was quite impressive, to be honest, but Zekram was truly underestimating him if he thought that Magdaran of five years ago and Magdaran currently was the same Devil.

With a chuckle, he muttered, “Cute,” as his power flared to erase the Holy Tornado around him as well as the fog, the trees, the ground, and even the magic in the area, creating a dead zone all around him, as Odin did his magic in the background and worked on getting the shortest possible path to Zekram.

He could make out part of what Odin was doing, and it was nothing less than genius. In theory, a magical spell could be traced, but there were so many problems that it wasn’t even worth attempting, as most minds were not equipped to deal with that level of turbulence when it came to magical spell dissection. Operative word being most minds.

Odin could go through that and do the same thing Zekram did to send them on a wild goose chase. Send in a bunch of magical pockets, just enough to trigger the spell and track what worked and what didn’t, only to move on to the next location.

He tracked no less than two hundred different teleport sequences before Odin actually locked down on something and sent him the final coordinates.

“He is in Romania. More specifically, in the Tepes grounds. There are no further magical teleport traces after that, so it is possible he might have fled the area by flight, but I think he is in cahoots with the blood suckers, as they will take anyone in.”

He grinned at that, ignoring the magical void around him before teleporting once more, right into Romania, one of the more volatile magical hotspots on Earth, constantly in turmoil and infighting as the two stronger Vampire factions battled to be the one to inherit Dracula’s will, even though everyone and their mother knew that the vampires would betray Dracula without an ounce of hesitation to gain the upper hand, if they could, as it was a hard coded weakness in the entire Vampire race that unless one was an Elder Vampire, converted directly by Dracula himself, they were utterly subservient to the Vampire that converted them.

It was only genetics and pure might make right that was hard coded into their very being that restrained them from acting directly against Dracula himself.

And the only reason all the vampires were even alive and not hunted down to extinction was precisely because of Dracula’s existence. 

It was rumoured that Dracula was once a human and the only reason he is currently in his state was because of some curse from the Big G himself, and the same curse that made him super strong, to the point that all the other factions, even ones with generational enmity with Vampires, only culled the Vampires to the point that they wouldn't be a threat for some time before they rinsed and repeated the whole high again.

The same had been happening for generations, spanning centuries now, and maybe, just maybe, if they did not come in his way, they could live to continue that cycle for a day more. Otherwise, being fellow creatures of darkness, he was sure that out of the two of them, he was more accustomed to the crippling weakness that came with Light based attacks.

Either way, he would find out soon now, wouldn't he?

____xx___

As the spell lock faded away, telling him and OPdin both that the spell ended in this area, and that Zekram hadn’t yet fled this location, he looked around and found himself in a similar wooded area, blanketed in darkness, though this darkness was more magical in nature, which meant he was in the interior areas of Romania, the place where the Vampires moved about all throughout the day, courtesy of their magic that kept the area perpetually plunged in darkness.

He couldn't sense Zekram yet, but the incoming squads of dozens of Vampires told him that he had been detected already, which was supposedly impossible, at least for the weak vampires headed his way, which meant that either they were coming here randomly or Zekram had told them about the Devil coming and had given them the exact location of his arrival.

After all, at this point, even Zekram must have realised that his spell was hijacked and he was being tracked correctly.

After all, the Devil had been alive for all this time. He must have some tricks up his sleeve. Though he expected Zekram to just hold up in some stronghold inside the Underworld, with hordes of Pillar Devils and their armies standing in between them, to stop him from attacking Zekram.

That would have been the obvious and logical thing to do, something that might even have prompted a response from the Satans, as upon killing enough Devils, even the Big Super Devil Guns would have had to come out to stop the killing, as the population of the Pureblood Class of Devils was one of the bigger problems in the current rendition of Devil Society.

But Zekram hadn’t done that. Instead, he had fled to Romania, a place with litreally zero Devil presence, and a place that had been historically ignored by almost all other factions, even Devils and where the chances of reinforcements reaching in time to save Zekram from being killed were very low, a place that also had a ton of fodder that he couldn't give a fuck about, allowing him to go all out without having to worry about collateral damage.

It just didn’t make enough sense to him. Why would Zekram choose a place that was favourable to him? But then again, he had never been all that great at the thinking and strategizing part, which is why he just flew ahead, over the small squad heading towards his last location.

His destination? The big ass black castle that just exuded ominous vibes.