Damn that note is right about most fic

Yeahh Best fanfic ever... Twice Critical Issei. Yosshh feel the youth. Burrnnnn Gremory~Ri-ass

wow i think this fanfic is dead, wow

will you ever make a discord

Fights definitely dragging on. You can't just have 'epic' stuff happen again and again crushing almost all of the enemy multiple times in the same fight just to have most of the enemy still be alive? It makes the fight not matter. Apparently NOW we can see the full might of the fallen? What about when they surrounded them at the start? What about when they went into a phalanx? What about all the 'hundreds' who already died?
NOW apparently they all come back to life?

So there were 1200 fallen to start with, he's already killed 'several hundred' a few times now, but somehow there are still 1000 left?

OK, that was a twist. Still hoping shirou gets a sacred gear though :P maybe he can make his own kingdom of heaven in his reality marble?

It's either Catholics and Protestants or the full fancy name. You can't just give the Catholics the full fancy and not the Protestant Church lmao.

I mean... Back then unclean water WOULD make them sick and eventually kill them.
Alcohol wasn't invented for taste, but to kill bacteria without killing the person drinking it. Watered down wine was what every drank because it was what was safe to drink, that's why the wine trade in the roman empire was so huge, it was like instead of reservoirs and water filters they shipped water purification tablets to every part of the empire.

Is he talking about the peerage he's a queen in, or does he also get a personal peerage outside of Serafall's one?

WHAT? you had the perfect opportunity to name him the Queen of Blades and you MISSED IT! :P
/s

Wow, it's great to see someone address the devils' mania regarding chess. It's not the be all end all and it always annoys me when DxD writers like to pretend that any chess grandmaster is automatically a war god.

Well,I've binge read this over the past few days.

I can say without doubt it's the best Fate/DxD story I've read hands down, and one of the better Fate stories in general. You have a good grasp of world building and I think almost everything you've done to expand the setting and get a plot different from canon is merited. Furthermore, you manage to build up mystery, whether that's figuring out someone's motivations, how someone is sneaking around, or the mystery of a fight with an opponent whose capabilities are unknown. That alone is something a lot of stories fall short of.

Furthermore, I'm finding I love the characters of this story. They aren't the romance interest and the main character, almost everyone seems to be their own character. Koneko stands out to me as one of the most interesting divergences from canon at least in her interactions with Shirou, but everyone is interesting. Sona feels like a real character here, with how she has her public mask but also her childish moments, her frustration, and her drive to better herself-I can't recall another fic showing Sona in all thsoe stages. Some show her as a capable fighter, others show her as knowledgeable, but it's exceedingly rare to have all of that and show her as, well, being a teenage girl with her own emotions (I don't think I'm liable to forget the image of her hip thrusting to Rias' failure as she talks about the burn Rias feels).

Then there's Serefall. While I think the background you've setup for her-or at least it's characterization-is somewhat overdone/direct particularly in regard to Evelyn, I still find myself loving her current characterization, her drive to live up to the ideal of a magical girl, drive people crazy, have fun with her life, and earn the love of those she holds dear.

Then there's the fights. While a lot of authors get Shirou's fighting style down, it still often comes down to "lets find the next best sword". I'm exaggerating somewhat, but I really like that you've shown how Shirou's reality marble, for all its ability and unprecedented potential, is still something that isn't top tier in this world, that there are beings who can fight him even in the seat of his power. One thing I think you could do is describe a bit how Shirou is training himself even if it's a side thing-how he's refining his reality marble further, or technique, or just swinging a sword.

Honestly, you've done a magnificent job with this story. At 400k words I honestly can't see the end so this is a meaty read, and one I honestly intend to re-read at some point. It's definitely worthy of a favorite.

That being said, there's two things that do get to me somewhat as I read. The first is exposition. Quite often, you do show lots of exposition in the middle of dialogue. It's interesting exposition, but at the same time there's often so much information it can be difficult to follow.

The second is the dialogue. Most of it is pretty good, but when characters really get to talking about, say, their history, it can become a bit much in this fic and I think there's places where you could simplify without losing the story.

But while those are criticisms I have for this story, I think you're still doing a damn good job and I'm glad I came across this story. It's given me the chance to look at DxD characters, and Shirou in particular, in a new light.

That rule on the boosted gear eventually putting too great a strain on the body makes sense. I imagine as an artifact drawing on the power of a dragon, a normal human body likely can only handle so much...

Which reminds me. In the anime Issei should have been screwed over repeatedly by that little factor because he never had what I would consider the type of body that could withstand that sort of strain. I'm not saying you'd look like an enraged Berserker to be the "ideal" boost wielder, but a fair bit harder. Karasuba seems fit enough herself, although I suspect the dragon's flesh she's got going for her is helping.

Honestly, I really like what you are doing with this story. Darker, certainly, but it actually makes sense and there's consequences. I wasn't expecting Jeane or Heracles to die in this, but it was Heracles that got me. Mostly because I was expecting Illya to encounter him at some point and be so disgusted by his lack of resemblance to her Berserker that she sics her pets on him in a curb stomp battle.

Also, I got a chuckle when Shirou discussed the sheer amount of obsessive desire Karasuba had for killing him and its resemblance to Serefall, although in the latter case I'm just picturing Serefall walking up to Shirou in a quiet moment and declaring her love for him in the creepiest way possible before skipping off.

This story is one of my favs but i gotta say the MASSIVE exposition dumps in between conversations really harps on my immersion... one sentence or a few followed by 5-10 paragraphs of information. My internal storage is all but full after one paragraph but whatever, tis the charm i guess...

Now one of the things thats bothering me - other then the grammer mistakes a some lacking punctuation - is also something I'm hoping you'd remedy. Its clear your ability to characterize usually forgettable characters and make them actually lovable is your biggest strength but what annoys me in any fanfiction story is when the writer adds an "OC" - whom actually is just a character from another series - into a canon characters family and then proceed to grind the original canon character down to the point of obscurity.
Now i could be preaching to the quire (however the fuck you spell that) but considering the tomfoolery involved with Issei's resurrection and karasuba's desire for an equal then theirs a recipe for a two birds one stone scenario that can coincide with your desire to make this world dark.

Issei learns of the manipulation that resulted in his death, resulting in him sparking a series of events that also sparks his character development... this would be cool, but consider the last line of dialog from Issei was "but... there... there was boobies"
.
.
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Not sure if that was a drunken line written on a friday night or an attempt at humor because bruh... that was CRINGE...and it just kinda... ruined any hope i had for your "OC" to grow and achieve a semblance of that dream she wants... an equal, now other that possibility karasuba is just karasuba but with parents.
with her past out in the open and revealed where exactly do you take a boring battle crazy character?
Soften them up... give them emotion
And what better way to kick start a character arc then to have issei realize the truth and begin to grow to become that equal. And know knows, considering shirou likes tripping over himself to provide assistance to anyone willing, i wouldn't be so surprised if he starts training the kid just so he could become that equal.

But alas... issei is irredeemable at the moment and karasuba shall forever remain karasuba... boring

Heaven forbid Vali and karasuba fight before anything is actually made of their character... just a write off.

This story is really good, but karasuba... meh... i feel like you already have everything planned out but... meh... karasuba was a boring character originally and I'm hoping theres some kind of change for her in characterization rather then whats in her past