"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Out in the empty countryside, beneath the night sky, explosions continued to erupt as fireballs and demonic power blasts collided again and again. As Leo and Vali chased each other across the sky, the detonations spread outward, the flashes of fire linking together into a blazing line that cut straight across the darkness.
Leo retreated at full speed, firing fireballs nonstop. They crashed head-on into the demonic power shots Vali unleashed while closing in, creating a scene on a truly massive scale.
Vali was fast. So fast he was practically a streak of light tearing toward Leo. In a single second, he covered several hundred meters, long past the speed of sound. Sonic booms rippled violently through the air in his wake.
Compared to that, Leo wasn't slow either. He didn't quite turn into a dazzling beam of light like Vali, but every beat of the five pairs of devil wings on his back sent him hurtling hundreds of meters backward. His figure dragged afterimages through the sky, keeping Vali from ever quite catching him.
"Are you planning to just keep running?" Vali taunted.
He punched apart a fireball that came blasting through the barrage of demonic power shots, his body punching straight through the scattering sparks as he continued the pursuit.
"You seriously think I'm going to stand there and trade punches with you?" Leo replied calmly. "Don't be stupid. I'm just an ordinary devil, not some muscle-brained dragon who fights up close."
As he spoke, Leo suddenly stopped firing fireballs. Instead, he raised a hand and pointed toward the sky.
A low rumble rolled overhead.
Vali jerked his head up, and only then realized that thick thunderclouds had silently spread across the sky. Thunder echoed within them, faint lightning flickering through the clouds.
"Boom!"
A massive bolt of lightning slammed down from the clouds, striking the hand Vali hastily raised.
"Divide!"
From the back of Vali's hand, a blue jewel emitted a low, mechanical voice.
The instant it sounded, the lightning bolt weakened, shrinking visibly.
Its power had been halved.
But that was only the beginning.
"Divide! Divide! Divide! Divide!"
With each voice command, the lightning's power was cut in half again and again, until all that remained was a tiny electric arc. Vali crushed it between his fingers.
Normally, the halving ability of Divine Dividing could only be used once every ten seconds. But in Balance Breaker, Vali could activate it at will, each use consuming a portion of his stamina or demonic power.
More than that, entering Balance Breaker caused Divine Dividing to release its power explosively, sending Vali's own strength skyrocketing as the armor equipped itself onto his body.
Vali had originally been just an eight-winged devil, but with Balance Breaker activated and Divine Dividing Scale Mail equipped, his power had already surpassed the level of an Ultimate-Class Devil and fully stepped into the Maou-Class.
That was the terrifying nature of a Longinus Balance Breaker. It shattered the balance of power and raised Vali by two entire tiers.
It couldn't be helped. Dragons were incarnations of power itself. The Red Dragon Emperor and the White Dragon Emperor, in particular, were Heavenly Dragons who could stand on equal footing with gods. Even reduced to mere souls, once their power was released through a Sacred Gear, even a fragment was enough to send the wielder's strength soaring far beyond what ordinary Sacred Gears could achieve.
Facing a Vali like this, even Leo couldn't help but frown.
"If that's how it is…"
He stopped calling down lightning and pointed his other hand toward the ground.
A deep rumble answered.
In an instant, the earth swelled and buckled. Countless chunks of rock and soil blasted upward like mortar shells, screaming toward Vali in midair.
"Energy attacks get halved, but what about physical ones?"
Leo stared straight at Vali, who was now locked in by the barrage.
Vali didn't disappoint him.
"Half Dimension!"
Vali spread the light wings on his back wide. Dragon-like waves rippled outward from them, spreading through the air like expanding rings.
Where those ripples passed, the flying rocks and soil seemed to be crushed by an invisible force. Space itself compressed along with them.
Their volume was halved. Then halved again. And again.
What had once been massive boulders were reduced to grains of sand.
A gust of wind scattered them before they could even touch Vali.
This was an alternate application of Divine Dividing, halving not power, but volume.
Within a certain range, it could reduce the size of anything: trees, rocks, even buildings.
Vali raised his hand toward Leo, and the dragon waves surged forward.
Leo's eyes sharpened. He instantly flashed out of the affected area. The moment he did, a small mountain behind where he'd been was engulfed by the waves, visibly shrinking again and again until only pebble-sized rubble remained. It was enough to make one's skin crawl.
"That ability is seriously unfair," Leo muttered.
"And yet, even that power still doesn't match your Zenith Tempest, does it?" Vali said, lowering his hand. His voice echoed distortedly from within the helmet.
"So?" Leo shrugged. "What are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying it's about time you stopped holding back," Vali replied slowly. "You still haven't used Balance Breaker."
At a glance, the situation seemed favorable to Vali. Leo had been on the defensive the whole time.
But in truth, Vali hadn't relaxed for a second.
He was already fighting at full power in Balance Breaker, yet Leo was matching him without even using his own Balance Breaker. That was nothing to celebrate.
Leo glanced at him without answering. Then, all at once, he shot upward, plunging straight into the thunderclouds.
"You want to see my Balance Breaker?"
His voice boomed from within the clouds, loud as thunder itself.
"Then survive this first!"
Blinding lightning erupted inside the clouds.
Leo's figure, five pairs of devil wings spread wide, was bathed in blue-white light, like a thunder god descending. Countless bolts raced through the clouds, gathering around him at terrifying speed.
"Damn it!"
Vali sensed the danger and spread his wings again.
Halfway through, his expression froze.
He couldn't move.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
With an ice-chilling sound, frost began creeping out from the joints of his armor. His entire body started to freeze.
His light wings were the worst hit. The movable sections were almost completely covered in ice, locking them in place.
The temperature around him had dropped sharply at some point, and Vali instantly understood.
Leo had laid a trap during the fight.
After all, he'd seen with his own eyes how Kokabiel had been taken down.
"Divide! Divide! Divide! Divide!"
Without hesitation, Vali activated the halving ability again. The blue jewels across his body spoke in unison as dragon waves spread outward.
The freezing stopped spreading. Under the halving effect, the ice was rapidly reduced and stripped away, the frost vanishing in moments.
But by the time he finished, Leo's attack was ready.
"Fall."
Like a divine judgment, the word echoed from the clouds.
Lightning exploded outward from Leo, transforming into a catastrophic rain of thunder that crashed down upon the land.
It was a scene straight out of the apocalypse.
The storm covered several kilometers, turning the entire area into a sea of lightning. Wherever the eye could see, bolts poured down from the pitch-black clouds, wild and merciless.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!!"
Thunder struck the earth, forests, mountains. Deafening explosions chained together as massive blue-white serpents of lightning writhed across the land, destroying everything in their path.
The ground shattered. Forests collapsed. Mountains were blasted apart piece by piece.
And at the very center of it all...
Was Vali.
Lightning rained down around him.
Lightning rained down above him.
Lightning filled his vision.
His armored figure looked pitifully small, like an ant facing the wrath of the heavens.
"AAAAAAAH!"
With no other choice, Vali raised both arms and roared, taking the lightning head-on while desperately activating his ability again and again.
"Divide! Divide! Divide! Divide! Divide!"
The blue jewels across his body ran at full overload, their voices ringing nonstop.
A halving barrier formed before him, weakening each bolt that struck, but the lightning never stopped. Again and again, he was forced to activate Divide.
Under such strain, his demonic power poured out like a dam bursting.
Whether it was Sacred Gear abilities or Balance Breaker itself, everything consumed energy. Maintaining Balance Breaker alone was an enormous drain, so much so that most Sacred Gear users wouldn't dare activate it lightly even if they reached that level.
Vali could afford to.
He was a descendant of the former Maou Lucifer, bearing half of a Maou's bloodline. From birth, he possessed staggering demonic power.
Far more than Leo had in the beginning.
When Leo had first started, his demonic power was only at the level of a Mid-Class Devil. Vali, on the other hand, was born with High-Class Devil-tier power and quickly surpassed even that.
With Maou blood flowing through his veins, his talent was obvious. Even the outrageous consumption of a Longinus posed no issue. His innate reserves could handle it.
After reaching Balance Breaker, he could maintain it for an entire month without using any abilities.
A month.
So lavish was his demonic power that he even used the armored Balance Breaker form for long-distance travel.
By comparison, Hyoudou Issei in the original story could only maintain Balance Breaker for half an hour when he first reached it.
Half an hour versus a month. The difference was obvious at a glance.
Of course, that was without using abilities.
The more he used them, the faster the time shrank.
And right now, with Vali pushing his Sacred Gear to the limit, even his vast demonic power wouldn't last forever.
Sooner or later, he would collapse, maybe even fail to maintain Balance Breaker at all.
Bang!
Right then, Vali's helmet shattered.
A bolt of lightning slipped through the halving barrier and struck his head directly.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
More and more lightning pierced through, slamming into his body and tearing apart his armor.
Each bolt had been halved multiple times. Otherwise, it wouldn't have just damaged his armor.
"Guh…!"
Vali clenched his teeth, about to act.
Too late.
Tap…
A soft sound came from behind him.
Vali froze.
A figure with five pairs of devil wings appeared silently at his back. A hand pressed firmly between his shoulder blades.
"In a fight," Leo said with a narrowed smile, "you really should watch your back, kid."
Flames ignited in the palm pressed against Vali's back.
"BOOM!!!"
A deafening explosion erupted at the heart of the lightning storm.
Fire burst outward without warning, intertwining with the thunder in a surreal dance of flame and lightning.
Leo was blasted backward, shooting up into the sky.
Vali's body, smoking, fell from the air, plummeting straight toward the ground below.
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You can read up to chapter 217 on patreon.com/NiaXD.