Dungeons and Devils (Chapter 57) (Patreon)

"It's finally time." A girl wrapped in a large red blanket whispers, a rectangle with a screen slowly finds its way out of the blanket as she pulls out a cookie with her other hand.

"Welcome all rating game fans! It's a pleasure to be here today! My name is Naud Gamigin, here with my co-host-"

"Ingmund Barbatos" a second voice speaks up.

"Today we've got a special little match, a rating game newcomer against the beloved blaze meteor dragon at tenth place, Tannin." The first man continues.

"ooooh. Yikes. To get a top ten on his first ever match. That's gotta be soul-crushing!" The co-host grins.

The silver eyed girl had followed Gaius' advice and bet everything on this... absolutely everything she had. She... hopes Gaius wins...

This little 'phone' thing has been a godsend. There are so many fun things to do on it! She can look through supernatural stores, watch cartoons, watch extremely cool- but slightly violent- fights.

It is the best!

Here she can watch high speed sword fights and magical combat, it's just so cool!

She's learned a surprising bit about devil culture in the last seventy two hours...

Gaius was right. It's a little more... archaic than she's used to, there's regular porn ads, and advertisements for uh... 'ladies of the night'. But the peerage system is also incredibly cool!

When it works, of course. There are a few forums for trading pieces, and the implications of that sort of makes the girl's skin crawl, but... most devils are happy in their peerages.

Most.

She lets out a quiet sigh.

"Yes indeed, my devilish companion, such a shame indeed." The host sighs. "So what do we know of today's contestants, Ingmund?"

"Well, one is quite obvious, Tanin, the previous Sixth dragon king who became the queen piece to the chairman of the Grauzauberer mages association, Mephisto Pheles, he gave up his right as the sixth dragon king to gain land in the underworld, the only place capable of growing Dragon Apples, a type of fruit that is the sole diet of a certain species of dragon."

"What a guy." The host comments as a picture appears on the screen, it is an absolutely TITANIC bipedal dragon wearing metal armor on its shoulders and a loincloth. His arms are crossed in front of his chest.

It is purple in color with blood red eyes and two forward facing yellow horns, and a whitish underbelly framed with a line of yellowish gold. His fingers are tipped with massive golden claws.

"In addition to his regular draconic strength, he was given a static boost to all abilities by the queen piece, placing him as one of the strongest devils in our faction... at the very least, the strongest reincarnated devil. His strength may even rise to that of the four new satans who benevolently rule our lands." The co-commentator finishes.

"And what of his competitor?"

"…"

"…"

The sound of shuffling paper echoes from the device.

"Ingmund?" The first devil questions.

"Ah, Here we are. His name is Gaius Decarabia-Malthus, the lord of both the Malthus and Decarabia clans." The co-host begins

"Oh? Didn't those go extinct centuries ago?" The host asks.

"That is what many thought, actually." The co-host continues. "But apparently, the young lord was placed in a coma for roughly four hundred and ninety eight years, he didn't age, nor was he able to learn about the changes of the past five hundred years. In recent times, he has been slowly dragging his home back from obscurity, going from a extinct house, to a small time one... in addition, it appears that last year he had an altercation with the previous lord of the Phenex Family, Reynaud Phenex, when he almost had the boy assassinated five hundred years ago along with the rest of his family."

The girl watching the pre-fight announcements... never knew that sort of thing happened to Gaius... he's sort of like her in a way... but instead of just his mother... his father died too.

The screen changes to show a fairly bored looking teen propping his hand up with one arm as he gives the camera a half-lidded stare.

"Nowadays, he prefers to stay out of the limelight, residing at home with his fiancée Ravel Phenex and his concubine and previous fiancée, Rosaline Phenex."

"If he was in a coma for most of his life, that means he hasn't had much time to train, correct?" The host questions idly.

"That would be correct." The co-host nods.

"It appears he has some talent, reaching the ultimate class requirement of this bracket in such a short period of time and at such a young age. It's just a shame that he had to fight one of the top ten in the first round... his rise through the tournament would be a sight to behold." The host sighs. "anything else?"

"He has gotten into the catering business quite recently, and has taken the market by storm with his White Apple beverages."

"Oh? That's him? Those are quite lovely. Some of the best cider I have ever tasted." The host notes. "Shame. Now I sort of hope he wins."

"As do I." the co-host pipes in.

"It also says here that- holy sh*t!"

"Language, my friend." The first devil chastises

"He is also the Fiancée of the young Sitri, Sona Sitri... and is set to marry THE Lady of the Lake."

"What?!" The host whispers.

They both fall into silence

Who is the Lady of the Lake? The silver eyed girl silently wonders as she takes a bite of her cookie.

She also takes a moment to note that Gaius has three Fiancées, that number isn't exactly unusual on Remnant, it just means that he has extremely good genes and the kingdom is requesting that he pass them onto the next generation.

"W-Well uh- perhaps this fight may be far more even than we predicted." The Host awkwardly comments. "I wonder why he has stayed out of the limelight for so long?"

"Why don't we take a look at our two peerages as they near their last minute of preparation." The co-host suggests.

"A wonderful idea, my friend." The commentator grins.

The girl double taps the 'full screen' button and watches as a holographic screen about the size of a television appears in the air above the phone.

She sits it down on a nearby table and watches at it shows off a gentle forest... that three dragons are stood amongst, the trees barely coming up to their waists.

The screen seemingly splits in two, one half showing the three dragons, calmly speaking to each other and the other... shows a bunch of girls sat around a table playing cards? There's a blue haired girl, a brown haired girl, a small blond in clothes that seem reminiscent of the watcher's combat attire if you just replace the white with red-

Gothic Lolita is the way to go. That girl has style the silver eyed girl slowly nods.

There's also a girl who looks like Neapolitan ice cream sat at the table, a girl with long silky blonde hair, red eyes, and pointed ears, and a girl with lilac colored hair which looks quite nice. The latter two seem to be merely watching the group as they appear to be deep within their game.

There's another group in the background playing chess, a white haired girl and a blond girl with twin-tailed drill-like hair, there's a grey skinned girl with horns reading a book, she is distanced from everyone... and there is also a pink haired girl suspended from the ceiling while being wrapped lewdly in rope.

In the background, two other girls are sat side by side while they read from a shared gilded book, the blonde of the two slowly raises a hand and causes an orb with a miniature trident to appear, her eyes widen as she goes back to reading the book, the trident being snuffed out as she clenches her fist.

The half of the screen showing the girls suddenly shifts, showing a different scene, three people are steadily walking through a forest, one a black haired young man with pale skin and purple eyes, he has a near constant slightly bemused smile on his face.

Walking on both sides of him, are two women, the first, a tall and busty brown haired woman wearing a large floppy witch's hat and a black and red leotard, her hair reaches her lower back, her skin is tanned and slightly cocolate-y, and her burning orange eyes slowly trail around the forest.

She has a feral smirk on her face, numerous sharp and jagged teeth fill her mouth.

The other is a blond girl with her hair tied up in a ponytail behind her head with a black ribbon, a single hair atop her head refuses to fall down. She wears a white dress with black accents that goes to roughly her knees, she wears a metal breastplate over the top of the dress, with two metal Faulds at each hip, a type of armor used to protect the thighs and hips.

The girl also wears gauntlets over both hands that transitions into white cloth sleeves with black ribbons that don't actually connect to the girl's dress at all.

In addition, she wears high heeled greaves that disappear under her slightly frilly dress.

She has green eyes and has a hand resting on a sheathed sword at her hip, her other hand holding a skewer with multicolored... dough balls? on it. There's one pink, one green, and one white.

"He... is going to meet Tannin head on with merely two pieces?" The co-commentator questions slowly.

"I'm not sure if that's confidence or arrogance. Probably both." The host states.

The dragons look to each other, one of them silently pointing a thumb at their chest as they speak inaudibly to their companion.

Gaius looks to the tanned girl and does the same. It appears they haven't connected the audio quite yet.

"I'm telling you! I can take on both!"

Voices suddenly come through the screen, that slightly gruff voice was the tanned woman walking beside Gaius, the other just simply eats one of the dough balls with a quiet 'om'.

"I'm not saying that you can't. Just that I want you to focus on one dragon for now." Gaius placates.

"I'm going to take out more of them than you, Drizin!" The dragon on the other side of the screen- in another entire area- grins at the other non-leader dragon.

"Both of you. Be serious." Tannin lowly growls as he looks over his shoulder, quietly staring off into the distance. "Can't you feel that. If you think these devils are mere pushovers you are going to be taken out."

"Your thirty minutes of preparation has now ended." The announcers state, causing most of the visible people to glance around seeming to look for the voice.

A smirk worms its way onto the young male devil's face as he steps through a rift that appears in front of him, the two girls swiftly following after him.

A rift had appeared on the other side of the screen as the three humanoids step out in front of the dragons.

"Hey." The black haired devil smiles as the rift closes behind him. "You're Tannin, right? I don't believe we have had the pleasure of meeting."

The blue-ish dragon on the left opens its mouth and unleashes a massive beam of fire at the black haired devil

The brown-haired girl to his left holds up a hand, blocking the attack with a magical barrier, cracks seem to pass through it for a moment, but they are sealed a moment later as she holds up a second hand, her expression morphing into a savage grin.

The attack which briefly shook the camera comes to an end, leaving Gaius stood there looking fairly unimpressed. "Well. That was quite rude. Tyra if you would."

The dark skinned woman beside him disappears.

*CRASH*

A crater is formed beside him dust is kicked up, the girl appears by the dragon which had attacked, her small hand crashing into the dragon's snout, the dragon's head is forced back slightly as it takes a single step backwards, gritting its teeth as it does so.

"Well now that's some serious power if I do say so myself! It looks like we've got a fight between two rooks." The host exclaims.

"That's a bishop." The co-host corrects.

"HUH?!" The commentator rightfully gets a bit confused.

The silver eyed girl watching the rating game blinks owlishly. Huh? That's a wizard?

**Linebreak**

Pov: Returned.

"So... as I was saying." I smirk up at the large purple dragon as in the corner of my eye I see Tyra, shoot a massive beam of fire from her mouth, causing the dragon to raise both arms and block the beam that scorches its scales and causes a few to flake off.

"KYAHAHAHA!" The girl cackles as she dives forwards, using the dragon's size against it as it swipes a hand out towards the T-Rex girl, she flies under the swipe fairly easily and lands a kick to the ribs of the dragon, the blow accompanied by a blast of magical power that causes the dragon's flesh to ripple as he violently slides backwards, carving trenches in the earth.

"My name is Gaius Decarabia... you will probably be hearing quite a bit about me in the coming months."

The dragon narrows his eyes. "Are you looking down on the dragon race? Merely bringing three people to fight us?"

"Well, you brought three people to fight me." I shrug with a slight smirk. "And believe me... me taking this 'seriously' wouldn't be fun. I'd just use my pawn whose sacred gear is literally made to counter you three. That would be a very boring and uneventful match, leaving everyone here, primarily those watching, with a bad taste in their mouths to watch the one they probably want to win, go down to what's basically bullshit curse and weakening magic."

I roll my shoulders earning a few satisfying cracks. "I respect you, so I'm going to beat you down with my own two hands... no ganging up. Just one on one."

"Geh." The other rook dragon who stands nearby with his arms crossed laughs. "I like this kid."

The girl beside me finally finishes her Dango and tosses the skewer aside, slowly drawing her blade, the two dragons widen their eyes at the sheer holy aura it is outputting.

"I'm starting now." The pendragon announces as two wings sprout from her back; she takes off with a sudden flap of her wings towards the dragon rook who is forced to duck backwards as a scything wave of holy energy nearly crashes into his chest.

Treetops are cleaved from their trunks, the mountain background scenery in the distance loses its tip as the slash carves through it, the cut off part slowly dissipating into magical particles as Artoria re-orientates herself and lunges forwards again, this time landing a slash that cuts through the dragon's forearm, almost completely bypassing its scales as it fails to dodge.

"Shall we start this?" I question idly as a blade appears in my grasp, it is a simple slightly tarnished looking sword that allows silver to peek through the grey splotches, it has a wide handguard with a little jagged spikes about a quarter way up the blade, making it look fairly similar to a Zweihander sword, just with the ability of being held within one hand comfortably.

The moment I blink, a tremendous fist is rocketing down towards me, a smile briefly crosses my face, and in the next moment, I hop back a short distance, allowing the fist to slam into the ground just in front of me.

I swiftly hop up onto the arm, and calmly run along it, reaching his elbow before a weak gout of fire spews from the dragons mouth in an attempt to get me off.

A reddish bolt of lightning strikes my sword, as I do a round-about attack, my blade seemingly extends as an aroura of power surrounds it, starting at the part where the two spikes are, it starts out a warm light blue, then swiftly transitions to a blood red as the flat plane of light travels down the length of the blade, it extends slightly past the tip, where it rapidly turns to blue once more. Honestly, at this point, it looks more like a buster blade than a regular sword.

Four holographic copies are summoned, hovering around the blade while pointing forwards in a slight outwards facing pattern, my arm swings downwards, colliding with the large dragon's scaled forearm-

*BOOM*

His arm is forcefully shoved to the side as I rocket in the other direction, a large hook on a chain made out of a green laser sprouts from the hilt as I shoot past the dragon's other arm, with a flick my wrist the hook wraps around his wrist and hooks around the chain.

With a tug I am sent rocketing in the other direction.

There's another loud crash as a purple bolt of lightning strikes the blade, the aroura surrounding it has changed yet again, this time extending quite a bit farther than the first glow, it starts out in an orange color and rapidly transitions to a deep indigo color.

The chain draws taut as I swing through the air, my sword draws back for a moment as a blue barrier flashes to life around me for a brief moment before dissipating, it does it once more mere moments later.

The chain abruptly snaps, transforming into green motes of light as I grin, thrusting the blade forwards.

I am rapidly pulled through the air by the sword, the dragon's snout shifts into a grin as he moves his hand in the way as fast as he physically can.

His eyes widen as the blade pieces cleanly through his hand, the tip coming out of the other side with a small spurt of blood and launching a piercing beam that strikes the dragon in the chest, most of the scales across the left side of his chest is scraped off.

He begins to clench his fist around me, but a bolt of red lightning strikes the blade, and as extended blade shifts, four more being conjured, I am shot backwards at high speeds, the blades rending and slightly mangling the palm of his hand.

As I fly backwards through the air I hold out a hand, several gemstones appearing around me.

A small black orb, roughly the size of a coin, appears in my hand as I let out a low chant. "Intensify. Empower. Admixture."

As black fire briefly crackles around me, the gemstones turn into whisps of magic, rapidly flowing into the orb and causing tiny flecks of purple lightning to crackle around the orb of black fire, in the next moment, I am blasted backwards at even higher speeds as a beam of black fire and purple lightning the size of my entire body rockets from my extended hand.

The dragon ducks out of the way, but he is too late, the beam punches cleanly through his side, carving a circular hole through some of his stomach and upper torso.

I flip through the air and land on the ground, stabbing my sword into the ground as my feet carve trenches through the earth, I crash through tree trunks and through shrubbery as I eventually come to a halt a good two hundred feet away from the dragon in a fairly large dust cloud of my own making.

He staggers to the side, bringing a hand to the wound as he falls to a knee.

A flash of purple lightning strikes my blade, illuminating the dust cloud as I slowly draw it back.

The dust is abruptly blown away as a dull blue explosion springs to life around me, a few second later, a second follows, then a third and a fourth.

By this point, Tannin had gotten to his feet once more, he glares dead ahead as fire crackles at the corners of his mouth.

I stab forwards, I am carried the two hundred feet in a mere moment, Tannin shifts his weight and dodges the brutal pierce, allowing me to shoot past him.

Meteor Dragon Tannin's Rook has been retired.

His tail whips up under me, planning to strike me as I defenselessly fly past, but I expected it. I twist through the air and land crouched on the tail as I leap up, teal lightning strikes the blade as I whirl around and point it at the dragon.

Three chain-like whips shoot from the blade and begin absolutely ripping apart the sky, each of the flailing whips are tipped with a miniature sword, and as the chains tear into the ground, trees, nearby rocks, the blades themselves are even sharp and fast enough to cleave through the large dragon's scales, but they don't do much damage besides that. What they do, however, is seriously irritate the dragon's piling wounds.

I stop abruptly as a beam of concentrated fire shoots from the dragon's maw.

"Hm." I hum idly as I watch the beam steadily approach, the world almost moves in slow motion.

Suddenly, everything folds inwards.

I reappear behind the dragon, looking up into the sky with a hand above my eyes to block out the sun's glare.

The beam detonates on me... or rather, the astral projection of me that I was moments ago before I took a little jaunt through time in an alternate timeline and punched my way back through into this world.

My chosen martial art... Riven Hourglass.

A martial art based around gathering small motes of time in the hour glass of my soul... every practitioner believes that in each soul, has an hourglass, and within this hourglass resides the sands that flow endlessly towards the end of a creature’s time in the world.

Riven Hourglass disciples are capable of manipulating said hourglass in not only themselves, but in others... seeing minute flows in the endlessly flowing sands of time and are capable of making decisions in the moments when they need to be made.

I just used the ninth level maneuver, something said to be on par with the strongest of spellcasting... and realistically? They're not wrong.

I just used 'Break the Hourglass' to transport myself to a position I could have made it to in roughly six seconds... all in an instant.

The use of this ability isn't limited to movement, however. I could cast spells, slash foes, or even use other Riven Hourglass maneuvers.

And should I stop something within those six seconds... it never happens in the present. Say for instance... me getting hit in the face by a good majority of Tannin's demonic power and dragon breath in one shot and having my torso blown up.

All solved by moving a mere sixty feet.

A 'second chance'. A fitting, absolutely broken, ability that is completely and totally core Art of Blades rulebook.

Tch. And to think. I was about to take the weeaboo Iaijitsu strike martial discipline.

M-Meteor Dragon Tannin's Second Rook has been retired.

"Did you get him?" I question idly causing the dragon to whirl around with a roar and attempt to snap his jaws around me.

With a green crack of lightning and single swipe of my blade a massive circular cut appears in the world, cutting a gash in the dragon king's snout and the earth beneath my feet.

I hop over his bite with a small frown-

His tail smashes into my side, sending me rag dolling through the air, I think some of my ribs snap under the blow.

I land a crumpled heap a short distance away.

I sit up a moment later, rolling out of the way of a furious stomp from the ex-dragon king.

With a swing of my blade, the tree behind me is cut in addition to the side of the dragon's calf.

With a sudden burst of speed I lunge forwards, creating tremendous distance from the dragon as everything nearby is reduced to a molten crater due to a sudden blast of his demonic power.

With a snap of my fingers, I turn back to look at the burning dragon said to be on par with the four satans.

A shadow is cast upon the surroundings as a massive glacier falls from the sky.

The dragon slowly looks up with a growl, and suddenly the sky is set alight.

Three crackling motes of lightning appear around my fingers as I gesture forwards, causing the three of them to shoot off.

They impact the dragon's chest a moment later, scorching his scales and causing him to falter his breath just long enough for the iceberg to land on him.

"T-Tannin has been r-retired... the winner of this Rating Game is G-Gaius Decarabia."

I glance to seemingly nowhere and give the hidden magical camera a peace sign as my body begins glowing.

In the next moment I am teleported out of the arena.

My peerage appears all around me.

"You totally fucking cheated!" Mittelt snarls at the pink, brown, and white haired girl.

Weiss doesn't look particularly bothered by the squabbling of Neo repeatedly signing 'get good' and Mittelt's shouting despite the fact she is stood between them.

Ingvild is scratching her head, still wondering how that game is even played, Valerie is about in the same boat.

Ravel is looking between the two bickering girls with a bemused smile as Xenovia sulks nearby... she probably lost pretty badly. Irina seems to be trying desperately to cheer up the girl.

The grey skinned girl with horns is still quietly reading a book on curse magic.

Le Fay and Meredith are still trying to figure out the spell tomes I stole from Terraria. They've managed to figure out the simple ones... Fire Bolt, Frost Bolt, Water Bolt, but they could probably duplicate those spells with what they knew beforehand.

Virgo is laying on the ground, tied up, with a ball gag in her mouth.

I turn to look at the last members of the peerage, Artoria is fine, quietly munching on a bowl of noodles in her hands.

We should have never taught her dimensional magic.

It has made food far too accessible to her.

Finally I look to the savage of the group and- HOLY FUCK!

Tyra is covered head to toe in blood.

"JESUS CHRIST!" I shout, earning a small flinch from everyone in the room- and a weak moan from Virgo.

"O-Oh my-" Ravel begins as she covers her mouth.

"Don't worry." The tanned girl we are staring at scoffs. "Most of it isn't mine."

"Most of it." I whisper.

I rub my temples and let out a long sigh. "Alright you."

She is engulfed in a blast of white fire, it burns away the blood and fixes whatever wounds she possibly had, leaving her prim and proper yet again.

Well... uh... maybe not those two things, but at least she's not dripping gore on the floor! That's a good thing, right?

"Well, let's go home, friends." I grin to the group.

**Linebreak**

I look to a news article with a smile on my face.

"WHO IS GAIUS DECARABIA?!"

Earlier yesterday morning, the underworld was sent into an uproar as the top ten rating game rankings has been shifted. Tannin, the previous holder of the tenth rank, has been utterly defeated by a complete unknown. In this article is whatever we have pieced together for our new ranker!

1: He is engaged to the lady of the lake!
This is huge! Surely most devils have heard of the infamous Lady of the Lake. The smith of the sword Excalibur, Galatine, and Arondight, three swords, split into nine, which had been a plague on our race for centuries, the church, in the past, had stolen numerous fey blacksmiths and had them reforge Excalibur after it had broken in the final battles leading up to the end of the great war, then, through an error on the church's part, one fragment was lost and thinking that they fey had done this, they killed the blacksmiths swiftly and painfully, causing the Fey to seal themselves off from the supernatural for thousands of years! But that seclusion ended when the lady of the lake sought out the young Decarabia to court him. For what purpose? We still do not know!

2: He has (Or is going to soon have) a full peerage of 15 separate pieces.
Devil peerages are a wondrous thing, but not many, not even the four satans, have a full one. A large majority of the time, a peerage has at least one member who costs more than one piece. In this case, Gaius Decarabia has the potential of a full set. Eight separate pawns, two rooks, two bishiops, one queen, and one knight with one unused knight piece remaining. This implies that his peerage will be slightly weaker than the standard rating game peerage who has pieces who require more than one piece.

I read through a little of the article, it seems to go on and on about my two 'strongest pieces' as well.

They had assumed Artoria and Tyra to be my strongest pieces. Ugh. Rubbish.

The underworld is in an absolute buzz about myself. I'm the talk of most of the rating game chat rooms, theorizing about who I am, how powerful am I, and who my peerage is... and how powerful they are.

There has been a few accusing me of having a weak peerage with only a few strong members, and I guess that's to be expected. 'one pawn' doesn't exactly scream 'powerful'.

I'm looking forwards to seeing the looks on their faces when I absolutely crush Diehauser.

I've even got a fan club that sprung up pretty much overnight.

I spy the devil equivalent of a tweet from the third ranked rating game king, it causes my eyebrow to twitch slightly.

"Gaius Decarabia seems to merely reincarnate those he sees as attractive, that foolish mindset will never allow him to get far in rating games. His win against Tannin was a mere fluke. Against any other top ten devil, his two strong pieces simply wouldn't cut it, as he will soon find out in our own rating game. It's sad that such a young talented devil is making so many mistakes in his hubris."

I let out a low click, a smirk working its way onto my face. It's just a simple two words, but it gets my point across nicely.

"You're next."