DXD SI : Chapter 98 : Bloodied not Defeated & BEAST AT END TIMES! (Patreon)

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

Grigori Training HQ

–Azazel–

He lay there, bloodied, missing a limb, eyes swollen, vision blurry, his sword shattered in two, his armour dented in various places, but not defeated. No, even now, as he tried to stand on one leg, his magic entirely spent trying to duke it out with Vali with one hand tied behind his back, he was not defeated. 

Vali was.

Spitting out blood, he stood up on one leg, using the shattered sword as a cane to limp towards the knocked out form of Vali, the light formation deactivated as Vali had destroyed it entirely, forcing his backup systems into action, deactivating the whole thing before the Light as well as the Holy Light could rush out uncontrollably.

Truly, Magdaran had been quite the influence on Vali. He never would have thought that Vali could use her Sacred Gear in that manner. To influence an enchantment and Divide it to induce a cascading failure was something that she could have learned only from Magdaran. He was the only one to whom she listened even a tiny bit when it came to learning stuff that was not smashing each other. He knew for a fact that she did not learn that from the Norse, even if some of them were more than willing to teach her about it. Shaking his head, he looked down at her bloodied form, Scale Mail nowhere to be seen, as towards the end, they were just punching each other with nothing left in the tank.

Truly, Vali had grown a lot, to the point that she was able to make it a very close fight. Alarmingly so. He wasn't sure he would be able to defeat her a second time, not with his Light anyway. Vali was resourceful and tenacious like that. At this rate, by the time she became a full adult, she would have been easily able to match the likes of Grayfia or Serafall, and yet still fall short of the power required to even match someone like Rizevim.

That was a truly different realm of power, especially with what was the primary source of Vali’s power. To think that Rizevim had somehow developed something like that…. 

At one point in time, he had been relieved that Lucifer’s only child had not inherited his signature Demonic Brilliance of Evil Light, and yet, knowing what he did about Rizevim now, he wasn’t sure if he should be glad or not. In today’s world, the higher tier combat prowess of the Three Factions was more of a mix between actual members and Sacred Gear wielders. 

Thankfully, it required touch, but so did Vali’s Gear, which meant that, unfortunately, that particular fight was never going to be Vali’s. He knew that was never going to go well with her, which is why he went ahead with Odin’s plans, despite his many hesitations. Plus, it was not like he could actually stop Odin from doing what he wanted to do. Not only was the God now massively stronger than before, with a Thor who was the strongest he had ever been, Odin also had the collaboration of Ajuka somehow.

It was one of life’s greatest mysteries, the answer to which he suspected he would never truly get. For now, his goal was…Vali.

Or rather, making sure that Vali did not find her way into the clutches of Khaos Brigade. His role was limited to that. He had his suspicions that someone else was going to deal with the Old Satan Faction, but Odin never really confirmed anything for him, and he had the distinct sense that it would be better for him if he just never knew.

Sighing once more, he felt all the injuries and more that Vali had inflicted upon him before taking out the restraints and placing them on her. These ones had both Devil as well as Sacred Gear specific restraints, so Vali should be here for quite a while.

After that, he swayed on his feet before falling down on his ass, not even having the strength to take out the Phenex Tears he kept on hand to heal himself, and Vali. After all, while it may have looked like both of them had fought to the death, the truth was that neither he nor Vali had taken out the big guns or aimed for the head. Many times Vali could have severely injured him and forced him to activate something that had the potential to kill even Vali, but she did not. Instead, they had to fight this long, protracted battle to find the winner.

Sure, some would say that the reason Vali did not fight him with all she had was that she was worried about his many means and what he might pull out of his ass at the last moment, but he chose to believe in Vali and the bond he thought they had.

Maybe it was all in his head, but for now? Right now, he would like to believe that.

____xx___

Asgard

–Thor Odinson–

He was sitting in his Father’s office, Mjolnir set down on the table, as he waited for his father to arrive. He perked up as his senses told him of Father’s impending arrival. A moment later, Father appeared in front of him, sitting on the chair as if he had already been there before his arrival, instead of arriving just now. It was one of those things that had improved since Father came back with…her.

A half vampire wielding something that held quite the hold over souls. Researching that particular Artifact had elevated his Father’s magic to beyond what he could sense, at least before he too had his power levels elevated by that Lightning Bolt. If Father hadn’t explicitly stopped him from seeking out Magdaran, he would have stormed to the Devil’s garden and demanded more of that Lightning Ale.

It was just that good, giving him the impetus required to reach out and lock onto something that felt like a world storm, facilitated by the World Tree itself, guided by his Father, and survived by him, allowing him to reach his current power levels. He couldn't tell before, but now he could tell that everything that had been happening on Asgard for quite some time had all been a part of some grander plan, designed by the All-Father.

It was alarming to him that a plan that required upending the status quo of the entire world in such a violent manner was being hatched. For one, feeling Loki’s life signature simply blip out of his senses had been quite the shock, and for a moment, he had thought that the God had simply managed to hide from even his enhanced senses, but after a while, he realised that the All-Father had simply ended him, despite being aware that doing so was a surefire way to trigger the end times.

Then, he had met the Devils, asked him to supply them with all the energy he could muster, and then sent the Devils as well as Magdaran off. It was highly alarming, and he had been trying to get a hold of his father for a while now. Even today, he had to resort to ambushing the All-Father in his personal office, just to get some, in his opinion, well deserved answers.

“Speak what ails you, my son.” Odin’s voice boomed in the office as he took a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking up.

“What is happening? Why kill Loki so abruptly without any preparations?” That was the one thing that bothered him the most. Everything else, regarding the Devils and the Crow, he couldn't care less about, but that? Ragnarok? It was the question of their entire existence, and to know that Odin did something that drastic without even consulting any of them was quite alarming. He wouldn't hesitate for a moment to lay down his life and head to Valhalla with his head held high, but he would alteast like to know why it was triggered so early, especially since the entirety of Asgard was well on track to become a vastly more powerful entity as a whole. Courtesy of Magdaran, they were going to uplift their entire civilization to a higher level before taking such drastic steps. 

Why would Odin do that now, when they were not even halfway done with the plan that Odin himself approved of?

Odin smirked at him before laughing out loud, drawing a frown to his face.

“Haha! Now, don’t look so down, my son.  The reason I killed Loki was because I wanted to trigger Ragnarok.”

“All-Father?!” He stood up, glaring down at the laughing old man, who more and more was looking senile to him. If only he couldn't sense all that power kept under a tight leash, he would have expected something else to have replaced the All-Father at some point.

“Magdaran was the catalyst, Thor, but his mere existence has opened my eyes to so many things that I was blind to before. I suspect it was done deliberately, but I digress. This is the perfect time to trigger Ragnarok. This will give us the perfect opportunity to strike.”

“Strike at what, father?” He asked Odin, getting frustrated with all this cloak and dagger business. Thor was a simple God at heart. He had his strength, he had Mjolnir, and he had the one tone devotion necessary to fulfill the task assigned to him, even if he died in the process. He just wanted to smash something, not participate in this sneaky business, but he supposed that being a pillar of the Norse meant that he would sometimes have to participate in such stuff.

Odin leaned forward at his question, “The beast at the end of times, Thor.”

He looked at Odin, firmly questioning if the All-Father had finally let all that power get to his head and gone mad. Still, he was curious, so he asked once more.

“What is that? How do you know of it anyway?”

Odin looked at him with a rare serious look in his eyes before Gungnir flashed into the All-Father’s waiting hand, slamming into the ground as he flinched, finding himself trapped in a bubble of his father’s power, inside the Dimensional Gap.

“Good. No one can hear us here.” Odin said before turning to him.

“See, son, it all began when I retrieved a half vampire brat who had one of the most important artifacts that the God of the Bible managed to create before succumbing to his son. Through that, I was able to….”

Then, the All-Father told him about the Sephiroth Graal, a soul based artifact capable of conceptual manipulation regarding Life and free will itself. It was essentially connected to some kind of soul river that allowed it to manipulate Life itself on a vast scale, provided the wielder's soul did not dissipate before that.

Using the artifact, Odin was able to track down a link connecting it directly to Heaven’s System; the thing responsible was regulating most of the curses, blessings, and artifacts that the God of the Bible left behind after his death. Through that, Father was able to find out a lot of things, but Odin did not tell him much.

Aside from the fact that the System had records of the last moments of the God of the Bible, as well as a recorded message.

From there, Father found out that the only reason a God of such strength fell to a Devil vastly weaker was because he had exhausted all his strength sealing a being at the End of Times, sacrificing most of his essence to make sure that the beast could not enter their world and destroy it entirely.

Because the beast was capable of that, according to the All-Father anyway. So, Father took some drastic steps to not just strengthen himself, but his allies as well.

Odin did not tell him, but it was likely that his father foresaw his failure if Odin tried to do things on his own, hence the mad rush to get his allies’ affairs in order. His elevated strength would likely help significantly.

The Devils were likely doing something similar as well, as he could bet that the spell he helped power was some kind of precognition spell.

He sighed, feeling drained in a mental capacity, as the depths of Odin’s manipulations were revealed to him. Even then, he was sure that he was not told everything.