Greatest Devil

Chapter 7: Final Revelation

"You know," Kuroka's tone was dry, "Laverus-sama is affiliated with the Youkai Faction. If he wanted to, he'd probably take out all of you crows- as he called you- by himself."

"All the better!" Kokabiel snarked back. "That bastard was more concerned about starting a civil war rather than fighting us fallen. Oh, I'd like to see him fight in this restarted war! Ah ha ha ha ha haa!"

"That won't happen, Kokabiel!"

From an indistinct location, Valerie showed up- Xenovia close behind her.

"Valerie?" Kuroka turned to the vampire. "If Laverus-sama finds you here-"

"-I want to make sure Gasper is safe myself!"

"Gasper?" Issei turned to a suspicious Rias. "Who's Gasper?"

"My first bishop." the redhead didn't turn her gaze away from Valerie. "I had to seal him away because he was too powerful. But how does she know him…? Maybe…"

"Kokabiel!" Xenovia yelled. "You've hurt my partner! For that, I will defeat you with my blade!"

"Oh?" The cadre rose an amused eyebrow. "Did Heaven really send such a weak little girl after me to recover one of their treasured weapons? Well, you'll still do, I guess. Let's invite my pet to this little gathering!" With a snap of his fingers, a huge monster with three heads- several times the size of a regular human- jumped out of a magic circle. "You devils must know what this is, right?"

"A Cerberus?!" Rias exclaimed in shock. "But how…?"

Also emerging from the magic circle was an elderly man with a mustache and grey hair wearing priest clothes and-

"You!" Issei took a step towards him. "You're Freed Sellzen!"

"Ooh!" The excommunicated priest laughed gleefully. "Look at that! It's the shitty devil! Or, well, the shitty devils!"

Xenovia pointed Excalibur Destruction at the elderly man. "I recognize you- you're the Genocide Archbishop!"

Undeterred by the blade, he bowed a little. "My name is Valper Galilei, but yes. A pleasure to meet someone capable of wielding an Excalibur."

"Who is he?" Valerie asked.

"He's known as the Genocide Archbishop." She replied. "He was responsible to experimenting on children to create artificial Excalibur wielders. When the church found out, we excommunicated him."

Kiba glared viciously at the elder man. "The Holy Sword Project… Then he's my enemy. I'll deal with him!"

"If you're sure. I'll take Freed."

"I'll help with the Cerberus!" Valerie ran to the large dog.

"Akeno and Koneko," Rias called, "you two go help her."

The two nodded in response to their master's command, before running and standing with Valerie before the Cerberus.

"I can hold my ground against it, my… leader trained me a lot." Valerie informed them. "But we'll have to work together to defeat it."

"You take charge." Akeno decided. "Even though we're devils, we don't learn too much about the Cerberus."

"Alright. Koneko, you stay back and wait for an opening. Akeno, please get to the skies and do what you can from a distance. I'll keep distracting it and do what I can to it."

…

"Sona?" Rias whispered to the bespectacled teen. "Now might be a good time for you to go find him."

"I know. Be careful, Rias. Everyone," Sona turned to her peerage, "you know what to do! I hope you all caught it!"

"Yeah!" "Yes!"

With an affirmative chorus, everyone proceeded to run away from the battle.

"Oh?" Kokabiel was intrigued, but did not pursue. "It looks like your friend recognises the futility in resisting. No matter, I'll hunt her down after I'm done with you."

"You may regret that." Despite the severity of the situation, Rias smirked, fully confident in Sona's ability to get Laverus' help. "But even if we die, we won't go peacefully. Kuoh is my territory, and on behalf of my brother, we won't allow you to restart the Great War!"

"Ahahahahaha!" The cadre laughed maniacally. "How cute! And by cute, I mean pathetic. Tell me, what can you do to stop me?"

"Oh, we won't. But someone will."

Scene Change

Sona's search plan involved three main phases. The first phase was to make absolutely sure that every single corner of the school and its surrounding areas were checked- no stone left unturned. Everyone's familiars- even those belonging to Rias and her peerage- were stationed around to detect any sign of Laverus.

Each member of Sona's peerage were trained to work together and communicate- it was the only real way to make up for the lack of firepower that they face. Thanks to this, they were able to communicate effectively- to tell the others that they were unsuccessful in finding Laverus in their first assigned position.

The next phase would involve searching a bigger area close to where they had been previously searching- again, if Laverus was not found, the searching member would communicate with the others and move onto phase three- playing it by ear.

From that point on, there was no other clue where Laverus could be, so they had to investigate any area that they could, communicating with the others while doing so to cover as much ground as quickly and efficiently as possible. Sona, as the one in charge of coordinating all the efforts and managing the search, would stay by herself in a safe place.

'He's nowhere in near the school then.' She thinned her lips as Saji reported that he finished his portion of the search. 'I even had them check the gym storage room. He must be somewhere around the town.'

There was nowhere that they could immediately go to- no home address, no magic communication, nothing.

The Sitri heiress had no choice- she'd join the search herself. Both she and Laverus used water magic, and Sona had read up about water magic and all its known applications- such as turning oneself into water. Yes, she was nowhere near being able to do that herself, but she could still detect irregular water if she was close to it. The way she saw it; she had the biggest chance of finding Laverus out of anyone around.

Except maybe Kuroka. Her senjutsu was certainly an invaluable asset, but she was occupied with Kokabiel.

Devil kings- this is the reason why she had asked about a quick way of communicating with Laverus…

Scene Change

Koneko slammed both her hands down- full force- at the Cerberus' head, using the gravity and momentum of her descent to her advantage. It howled in pain, before quickly recovering and smacking her aside with its head.

From the clouds above, a barrage of lightning rained down on the hellhound and kicked up a cloud of smoke and dust, obscuring the results from visible sight.

Valerie gasped. "Get back!"

The large cloud parted way for a big blast of fire that the Cerberus sent at Rias' queen, who was catching her breath after the slightly exhausting lightning attack. Thankfully, a large wall of black shadows erected in front of Akeno, shielding her from the fire.

"Aim for the head!" Valerie commanded. "Just a little bit more!"

Without waiting for them to move, the hellhound jumped at Koneko, intent on ripping her apart with its claws. She jumped away- although she wouldn't have been fast enough normally, Valerie manipulated the shadows to grab at the Cerberus' legs, slowing down its acceleration towards Koneko- but it still left her in range of the petite girl's short arms.

With all her strength, she smashed the hound on the head- taking gratification from its howl of pain- before backing off to a safe distance. The Cerberus slowly stood back up- clearly exhausted from the battle.

A little more, and it would be either killed or knocked unconscious.

"Hyah!" Kiba brought his sword into a downward slash against Freed, who countered with Excalibur Rapidly.

Earlier, Valper Galilei had combined Rapidly and Excalibur Nightmare into one.

For some reason, Excalibur Transparency could not be found anywhere. It had been guarded by a bunch of excommunicated priests, but they were all found dead with no Excalibur in sight. Valper had been outraged, though Kokabiel didn't care much for it (since he was capable of destroying Kuoh without them) and Freed was… Freed.

For Kokabiel, the Excaliburs were only meant to bring some exorcists to the town- he had actually hoped for one or two more, but he supposed that taking another two from them if necessary would be enough for war. Hopefully.

Valper, however, had a great fascination with all holy swords. For him to have lost one of the sacred treasures was an abhorrent incident. His research still allowed him to combine two of the remaining blades, and hopefully he'll have two more by the end of the night.

Freed was just bandwagoning.

"Come on come on!" The crazed exorcist goaded. "Where's all your gusto from before?!"

"Shut up!"

Rias, Akeno, and Issei were having a much harder time against their adversary. Being a ten-winged fallen angel, his power was among the top-brass of their ranks.

Even with the boosts supplied by Issei, neither Rias or Akeno could even come close to scratching Kokabiel with their powers. In fact, hitting him only seemed to further his enjoyment of the situation.

He had noticed something… peculiar.

"This energy I'm feeling…" Kokabiel did his best to suppress a chuckle- he really did. "So tell me, lightning user, are you his daughter?"

"Don't speak of him!" Rias' queen snarled.

"Aww! Daddy issues?"

"Shut UP!"

"No need to be shy, child!" Kokabiel half laughed and half spoke. "Not once did the beady idiot regret leaving you and your weak mother!"

Akeno almost rushed straight at the cadre for his remark, just barely stopping by reminding herself that that fallen angel could kill her with a flick of his wrist.

Issei, however, was much more affected by Akeno's unrelenting rage. He had never seen her so… uncontrolled before. Not even the incident with Riser- when she found out that they had lost the game and that she failed her master in her time of greatest need- came close to this level of unbridled fury.

The incessant laughter of the mad cadre roared across the field, permeating a sense of ominisity and dread. Even the humans sleeping peacefully outside the barrier felt chills sprinting down their spines and waking up in the middle of their dreams, inexplicably drenched in sweat.

They weren't just dealing with an average stray devil here, nor were they dealing with Raynare's group. No, what they were dealing with right now could have the potential to very well end all life on Earth, in the Underworld, in the Heavens, and all other pantheons.

If Laverus was seriously just turning a blind eye to this, he must have serious contingency plans in the case of the Great War being restarted.

But there was one serious issue they hadn't addressed.

'What are you up to, Sona?!'

Rias Gremory could not, for the life of her, figure out why her intelligent friend was taking so long just to find one person. Their lives were on the line here, so she had good reason to start fretting over the whole matter. They were trying to buy time, but Akeno was freaking out and would probably die sooner or later.

She'd rather prevent any deaths at all. But that was impossible, not with the way things were going.

"I'd like to see what your father thinks of your death!" Kokabiel drew a hand back, and created the biggest spear of light ever seen.

And instantly, everyone's faces dropped.

"Die!"

The light spear, which was probably the size of the entire school, rushed down at blinding speeds. Everyone there was doomed.

Or at least they would have been, if it didn't disintegrate into nothing.

"Hm?" For the first time since arriving, Kokabiel frowned in confusion.

"We meet again, Fallen Cadre Kokabiel."

…

Sona rushed through the streets of Kuoh. Though her magic couldn't increase her speed, she was still extremely fast for a normal human. She was thankfully able to coordinate her peerage's search efforts while she was on the move.

The north side of the town had been completely turned upside-down searching for the ancient devil, so they'd have to split up and search the rest of Kuoh.

Ever since she had found out about how Laverus had interrupted the meeting at the ORC club room, she wanted to try it for herself. Progress was extremely slow since she didn't want to accept help from anyone, and it didn't help that there was an entire school to manage. But what she is currently capable of is more than sufficient.

She could detect abnormalities in the air's moisture around herself.

So that was why…

"You've found me." Laverus' slightly impressed voice reverberated in the surroundings. "I will admit, your pertinacity is not to be underestimated."

"I thank you for the compliment, Leviathan-sama." Sone spoke without looking for the source of his voice. "I must ask for your assistance in our battle against Kokabiel."

"I reiterate to you again, young Sitri, that I am not associated with you nor your race, and therefore have no obligation to fight for or with you."

She had expected that reply, and already prepared a response. "Kokabiel plans on destroying Kuoh town, not just us governors. He also plans to restart the Great War with the Shinto Pantheon involved by destroying this town and angering your superiors." Something told Sona that Laverus already knew that tidbit of information. "I have the proof with me, a recording of his voice."

She activated the magic circle, and- "I wish to kill you and all the other trash in this town with the power of the Excaliburs, which would not only get the devil kings involved, but also the seraphs of Heaven! With it all descending to chaos, the Great War will be restarted on Japanese soil- dragging the Shinto gods in! Oh, and the Youkai Faction would also be dragged in, but who cares about them?"

A silence pervaded.

"This is… certainly troubling news." Laverus slowly whispered. "If this is true, then I must go to him myself. Confirmation from Kokabiel himself must be acquired, but I will get to the bottom of it. I thank you for alerting me rather than acting on your own. This is no longer just your problem. It involves what is left of the fallen angels and Heaven, and also the Shinto-Youkai Alliance. Return to your school, immediately."

And just like that, the presence disappeared. After waiting a moment to ensure it was safe, Sona released a relieved sigh. She then activated a magic circle, communicating with her peerage.

"I've found him. Everyone return to the school and be ready for anything. Good work, everyone."

…

Sona had just finished explaining to Rias what had happened and why they had taken so long. Now that Laverus was here, however, they could all finally take a breather.

But Valerie… "Umm… Laverus-sama?"

He regarded the half-vampire with narrowed eyes. "We'll talk later."

She nodded.

"Well isn't this a surprise." Kokabiel remarked. "I didn't expect you to be here, Laverus."

"I'm only here to confirm whether you wish to restart the Great War not just on Japanese soil, but also to drag the Shinto-Youkai Alliance into it as well."

"I am, yes. And I intend for you specifically to be involved." The cadre's smile was significantly smaller than it was before.

Gone was the chipper and maniacal tone that had been thrown around only a minute ago. Now, he was completely on his guard. Laverus Leviathan was among the most powerful beings in the world, and could probably kill him with a flick of his wrist. He was still smiling, sure, but it was strained and tensed.

Laverus took a breath with closed eyes, before snapping them open, sharp and stern. "In that case, you have declared war. I, Laverus Leviathan, Head Chancellor of the Youkai Queen and Embassador of the Shinto Pantheon, will put an end to you before you may deal damage. Ready yourself, Kokabiel."

But before anything could happen, Freed rushed up to the ancient devil, fused Excalibur in hand. His enchanted speed from Excalibur Rapidly allowed him to close the distance quickly, and swing the devil-killing blade just as quickly.

"Hahaha! Die!"

No one could react in time. Laverus either did not notice or did not care, as he did not react even in the slightest. The blade made contact with the Leviathan, and…

Did absolutely nothing. It only bounced harmlessly off of Laverus' body.

"Eh?" And that was the only moment of reprieve before Laverus' hand quickly made its way to the exorcist's neck and easily crushing it.

Freed's corpse hung limply from his hand, before it's tossed aside like a broken toy.

"So…" Laverus smiled, almost cruelly. "Shall we get started?"

"H-Hey…" Issei breathed. "That was Excalibur, right? The ultimate weapon against all devils? Why didn't it do anything to him?!"

Rias shuddered. "I don't know. Going off of what we already know, Laverus should have been killed right there. But he didn't even flinch!"

Kuroka and Valerie could easily guess why the Excalibur failed to make a dent on the ancient devil, but everyone else, Xenovia especially, could only stare with widened eyes. She had been conditioned to believe that no devil could withstand the might of a holy weapon. Seeing an Excalibur have no effect on Laverus Leviathan… terrified her.

Kokabiel manifested spears of light in his hands, and rushed down. Hopefully, his momentum will allow a good stab or slash in. Just before his spears made contact, however, Laverus turned his body into water, and Kokabiel had nothing solid to stab.

The water slithered around him through the air and rejoined right behind the fallen cadre, Laverus re-manifesting from the blob of liquid. With a fist encased in water, he punched Kokabiel right on the left shoulder. This lead to his entire left arm being separated from his body.

All of that happened in under a second.

Kokabiel bit his lip. He wouldn't scream. It'd be a sign of weakness that Laverus would all-too-happily taunt him with. Instead, he snapped around and tried to slash the ancient devil with a blade of light in his left hand.

But that was worthless. The blade slipped right through Laverus' body, seemingly swiping at nothing but water, and had no effect. A powerful kick from the Leviathan was enough to send the cadre skidding through the ground.

Everyone else watched in awe. Not even Kuroka and Valerie had imagined this level of strength. Sure, they'd heard about his power and feats before, but being able to now realise his strength, knowing that it wasn't all exaggerated, left them in a bit of a trance.

The other devils had no progress fighting the fallen cadre. Everything they threw at him was bit back several times. But then here came Laverus, effortlessly undermining everything they had tried to do. The ancient devil was doing everything they tried and failed to do with no effort.

Xenovia know realised why her Excalibur was so scared of Laverus. If the ancient devil could so easily curb Kokabiel to the ground, when so many others had struggled against him, God knows what else he is capable of.

"I've seen everything about you, Kokabiel." Laverus spoke when the cadre jumped back to gain some distance. "I've studied you, analysed you, planned against you. All in the event that we meet on the battlefield. I must say, for someone who preaches that the factions have grown weak and brittle from peace, you aren't doing all that well either. You're about as bad as the factions themselves."

Kokabiel growled. "You have no right to speak, coward. From what I know, you always hid behind your friends as they did all the battle, then struck while your opponent was weakened. Just like that one time when-"

"-Oi, Lord Kokabiel!" Valper rushed in from the side. "Here, take this and use the Excalibur!"

He threw a blue inconspicuous crystal to the cadre. From an immediate glance, Laverus quickly knew it had some sort of holy energy to it. Not to be used as an offensive weapon, obviously, but certainly containing a significant amount. What it was meant to be used for probably had something to do with the Excalibur being mentioned.

It was then that Kiba realised his mistake. He had focused all of his rage on getting past Freed's defense to get to Valper, rather than saving it for killing the Genocide Archbishop himself. He had to play it safely against Freed since he had wielded Excalibur. When Laverus appeared, he had been so awestruck that Valper had managed to get under everyone's noses.

Kuroka probably noticed that he was amiss, but had simply waved him off since he didn't have anything in particular that had to be worried about.

Kokabiel unobstructedly caught the crystal, absorbed the energy inside it before stashing it away and bending down to pick up the Excalibur lying at his feet, where Freed had dropped it.

Laverus and Kuroka narrowed their eyes. Everyone else frowned in surprise and anxiety at the action.

The general thought seemed to be, 'How is a fallen angel able to wield a holy sword?'

While there wasn't any rule dictating that fallen angels couldn't use a holy sword, they were greatly effective against the fallen. Not as much as they would be to devils, but enough that it would certainly wound them more than the average weapon.

'The crystal.' Laverus deduced, the knowledge of studying holy powers being run left and right in his mind. 'It looks like Kokabiel is using all of the holy affinities stored in that crystal as his own, allowing him to artificially wield Excalibur. But if he knows that I had destroyed that blade, then how does he plan to use it against me?'

"Do it Lord Kokabiel!" Valper cheered. "Use the fruit of my research! All the hours I've spent into the project! All of it is ingrained in that crystal! Kill the devils!"

"Well then…" Kokabiel smirked. "It would seem that I have no other option."

A teleportation circle opened up beneath the feet of the cadre. And everyone immediately knew what he was planning.

Valper frowned, hoping it wasn't true. "Lord… Lord Kokabiel?"

"You may have won this battle, Laverus." Kokabiel pranced on, ignoring the excommunicated archbishop. "But this war shall be our's!"

With that, the teleportation circle flashed, and disappeared.

"What?!" But Kokabiel did not disappear with it. "What-What happened?!"

Without warning, Laverus shot forward with a pumped fist. With barely any time to react, Kokabiel only managed to bring up the Excalibur to block. But on contact with the holy blade, Laverus' fist completely shattered the blade. The cadre had only a tenth of a second to widen his eyes before the oncoming fist smashed itself into his chest, the velocity and direction also vaporising his right arm.

That was it. Kokabiel was armless, and completely defenseless. Laverus took the opportunity to quickly spin around and quickly grab all of the cadre's ten wings in his two hands. Without a moment of consideration, Laverus yanked out the wings, earning everyone a drawn-out, horrendous scream of pain.

Stabbing a tendril of water into Kokabiel's two knees, once again earning another cry of pain, the ancient devil finally released the cadre onto the ground, where he heaved and panted in pain and agony.

"You expected to win a war in this state? You're not even fit enough to win a vote of surrender."

"Hahaha…" Even despite the situation, Kokabiel laughed. "Hahahahaha!"

Everyone, sans Laverus, found themselves either slightly or extremely disturbed at how much the cadre cackled in his state, before throwing up blood from his mouth.

"So… is this how I will die?"

"Maybe." Laverus replied. "You declared war on us, Kokabiel. You are my prisoner of war now. I may do whatever I please to you."

'Well then, no better time to do it than now. If I go down then I'll do at least one more tiny thing.' "Haha! At least I die… to the hand of the one who slayed God himself!"

Xenovia dropped Excalibur Destruction, mouth hanging open in the shock of the declaration. Everyone not named Laverus or Kokabiel had wide, gaping eyes of disbelief, shock, and fear all at once. Not even Kuroka and Valerie knew that he had killed the almighty ruler of Heaven.

Asia couldn't even feel the tears running down her cheeks. "God is… God is dead? He-He can't die… He's God…"

"Asia!" Issei quickly caught the fainted girl.

"You-You're lying!" Xenovia quickly denied. "God can't be dead! How could the world still go on without Him?!"

"Oh, think about it! Would God let poverty rule over the world? Leaving all the petty corruption of humanity to fester and not do the slightest thing about it?! What about the Holy Sword Project? Why would he allow such a horrendous and cruel experiment take place if he is still alive?!"

"No… No, that-" Xenovia twitched, her mind racing back to all the lessons and beliefs crammed into her mind ever since her early years.

God is almighty. God is undefeatable. God is above everything. God is above death.

Her vision blurred, and she couldn't hold onto her consciousness anymore.

"How could God possibly die?" Rias whispered. "He's…"

"All hail Laverus Leviathan!" Kokabiel cackled mockingly. "The Greatest Devil! The Destroyer of Excalibur! The Slayer of God!"

Author Notes:

So… I'm a senior student now! Work is expected to start piling up the moment school starts back up again. Roll-over is basically a trial period for us to get adjusted to our classes and subjects and determine whether we're going to stay or change. I'm fine with mine, personally.

But enough about me, I tried to make the reveal as 'obscure' and 'spontaneous' as possible. I gave you like half a year to work it all out though (xD). So Laverus killed God. He basically just waited behind everyone and kept himself away from the battle, then got the drop on a weakened God. Yeah, he's dirty.

I never really understood how the crystal worked so I just made up something. And since Kiba didn't get his hands on it, he didn't achieve balance breaker. I have a separate plan for him, later on down the line.

I'm not too sure whether I'm going to get to the peace meeting the next chapter or leave it until the one after. Expect lots of Laverus' in-depth political and diplomatic analyses as he scolds Valerie, talks to Yasaka, attends a meeting with the Shinto-Youkai Alliance, and prepares to bring Crom Cruach to the meeting with the other leaders. That's all for now!