He intended to seize Hikaru by the head and crush his skull in front of everyone.
Yet Hikaru remained calm and unhurried. In the face of Kokabiel's lightning-fast grasp, he reacted effortlessly, catching the fallen angel's wrist.
Kokabiel instinctively tried to pull back, but Hikaru instantly applied force.
Accompanied by a sharp, resounding mechanical "Boost" sound effect, Hikaru snapped Kokabiel's wrist.
"Ugh—aaaaargh!"
His wrist broken, Kokabiel cried out in pain, staring at Hikaru in shock and confusion. How could a mere human have such strength?
But Hikaru didn't waste any words. Having seized the advantage, he swiftly closed the gap again and drove his right foot toward Kokabiel's face. Kokabiel used his one good arm to block, but his body was still forced back several steps by the tremendous power.
Hikaru felt a twinge of surprise. Before this, Freed took a casual punch from him and wound up gravely injured, yet this fallen-angel Cadre had taken an even stronger blow and was merely knocked back. As expected of a mythical being.
Kokabiel, meanwhile, was in utter disbelief.
He'd actually been driven back by a human?!
His previous adversaries were at the level of the Biblical God, Lucifer, or Michael. Now here he was, being beaten by a mortal—it was humiliating to even think about.
After a moment of shock, Kokabiel flew into a rage.
He spread his five pairs of wings wide and immediately put distance between himself and Hikaru. Not one to be foolish, Kokabiel knew that if Hikaru excelled in close combat, he should keep away from him. His tall frame shot into the sky, and with his uninjured arm, he instantly formed a spear of holy light. More and more spears of light appeared behind him.
"Die—all of you!"
He cackled as the spears rained down, appearing like a deluge from above. From a distance, it looked like a downpour of holy light. Rias and the others, fully enveloped by it, looked despairing.
But Hikaru simply clicked his fingers.
Manipulating the water that gushed out of a nearby fire hydrant, he transformed it into arrows of water to meet Kokabiel's large-scale attack head-on. All the falling lances of light were intercepted and neutralized by Hikaru's water magic.
Seeing this, Kokabiel's eyes went wide. Could his magical power be nearly on par with his physical strength as well?!
And having watched a supposedly certain-death situation reversed in an instant, Sona Sitri was taken aback too. She recognized it as the Sitri family's water magic. She had only taught Hikaru for a few days, yet he was already more adept than she was, capable of holding his own against a fallen-angel Cadre? A sense of defeat welled up within her. Who was actually the heir to the Sitri family now?
"Damn you! Who the hell are you—able to use magic as well?!"
Kokabiel couldn't believe it. He was serious now, but his attack had just been nullified—was this some kind of joke?
"Don't you dare get cocky!"
He was done following any plan—waiting for the Underworld's reinforcements to arrive before killing Rias and Sona? He wanted everyone here dead right now. His broken arm had already mostly healed. As a Cadre, his regenerative abilities were beyond normal limits.
With both arms raised, he gathered swirling holy power in his hands, forming it into a spear shape. But that wasn't all—it continued to compress, causing the spear of light to swell further. Within mere seconds, the spear was the size of a house, emanating such a powerful holy aura that the devils—Rias and the others—found themselves paralyzed with fear.
Witnessing Kokabiel draw out that level of power, Balba panicked and fled in a hurry. His other subordinates also scattered like rats. They had been willing to risk their lives for the fallen-angel Cadre, but it was obvious Kokabiel had no intention of sparing them.
"No! Kokabiel is planning to destroy the entire city!" Sona exclaimed in disbelief.
"Damn it!" Rias bit her lip, wanting to help but lacking the power to do so, opening a magical barrier as a desperate measure. Even so, there was no telling if she could stop him. As a top-tier fallen angel, Kokabiel could level an entire town with a single blow. It might not be a large city, but Kuoh Town covered hundreds of square kilometers—driving around it at sixty kilometers per hour would still take at least half an hour. Yet Kokabiel was capable of obliterating it in an instant.
"So he's lost his temper. Well, you've lived long enough as it is."
Hikaru remained unfazed. If anything, he seemed almost pleased—not because of the fight itself, but because he now realized he had power enough to crush a fallen-angel Cadre with ease.
In the next moment, crimson armor surged over his body like an onrushing tide. A scorching wind whipped the ground; a long, metallic, red tail lashed in the gust. Everyone's hearts pounded at the sight of him in this "Balance Breaker" form.
"The Red Dragon Emperor?" Kokabiel murmured in shock, staring at the figure below. Hikaru was actually this generation's host for the Red Dragon Emperor? How had he failed to hear such a thing?
"So beautiful…" Rias breathed. Though she'd seen Hikaru transform before, it still filled her with awe. There were no flashy motions or words—everything happened so naturally.
"So that's the Red Dragon Emperor's Balance Breaker," Sona muttered. She had previously only seen it through a magical display, and witnessing it in person was even more astonishing than Kokabiel himself.
"You wield a god-slaying Sacred Gear? I can't stand you Red Dragon Emperors! Damn you, Red Dragon—are you trying to defy me?!"
With fresh and old grudges burning, Kokabiel hurled his massive spear of light that could flatten Kuoh Town. Like a missile, like a meteor, it descended upon them. To humans, to Rias, and to the others, it was a force of annihilation.
But Hikaru streaked forward, crimson energy coalescing around him. He leapt mightily upward like a rising dragon. All anyone saw was that the huge spear of light only lasted a fraction of a second before being pierced through.
"Cursed Red Dragon!" Kokabiel's face twisted as he watched Hikaru easily tear apart his strongest attack. Hikaru shaped his gathered energy into a glowing blade, striking out from a distance with surgical precision, slashing Kokabiel from left shoulder to right hip, sending him plummeting to the ground.
"I—I fought… even the Biblical God! Why…?"
The fallen-angel Cadre remained stubbornly alive thanks to his tremendous life force, but it was clear he was hanging by a thread. Hikaru scoffed.
"Hurling a single spear of light from eight hundred miles away counts as 'fighting'?"
At those words, Kokabiel's eyes widened, fixed intently on Hikaru.
~~~
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