Zekram Bael's private study felt older than most mountains, which, probably, was the truth.
The walls were lined with shelves carved from some black stone that drank light. Old contracts, books and sealed scrolls lay neatly in their places.
Zekram himself sat by a low table, not behind a desk. He wore simple formal clothes, nothing ostentatious, yet his presence filled the room more than any decoration could.
His eyes, old and sharp, turned to me as I entered.
"Magdaran," he said, and there was a faint curve to his lips. "You have grown up well."
I bowed at the correct angle.
"Zekram-sama," I said. "It is good to see you."
He gestured for me to sit.
I took the cushion opposite him. For a moment, he simply watched me, as if reacquainting himself with something he had set in motion and then left to see how it would develop.
"You have surpassed my expectations, to be honest..." he said at last. "I knew you were not the same useless child as before, but to reach high level Ultimate so quickly, that is... impressive."
He took a measured sip of tea.
"Perhaps," he added, "someday, you might even reach my level."
He said it lightly, but his eyes weighed me.
Zekram Bael. High level Satan class. The quiet spine of the Great King faction. In many ways, the true power behind the ostensible head.
"That is one of my objectives," I replied. "Surpassing it is another."
He snorted in amusement.
"Ambitious," he said. "Appropriate for a Bael."
His gaze drifted past me, as if looking through the wall, through the estate, through the Underworld.
"Tell me," he said, "what do you think of the current factions?"
I did not pretend not to understand.
"The Maou faction," I said. "The Great King faction. And the remnants of the Old Satan faction."
He nodded.
"Summarize," he said.
"The Maou faction holds most of the official power," I said. "Sirzechs, Ajuka, Serafall, Falbium. They control administration, military, and external diplomacy. The Great King faction controls old noble wealth, territory, and certain traditions. The Old Satan faction is a shadow. A collection of die hards clinging to the past, with scattered resources and some dangerous individuals."
Zekram's lips curled into a sneer at the mention of the last group.
"The Old Satan faction," he said, "is nothing more than a cluster of rats hiding in the sewers now. Bitter, weak, clinging to dead names."
His expression shifted slightly.
"However," he added, "if that son of Lucifer were to actively join them, the rats would suddenly gain fangs."
"Rizevim," I said.
Zekram's eyes narrowed.
"Yes," he said quietly. "Rizevim Livan Lucifer. That one is beyond what I can handle. Probably only Ajuka or Sirzechs could stand a decent chance against him, and even that is not guaranteed."
He let that hang in the air for a moment.
"This is the irony of the Great King faction," he went on. "For all our political power, our wealth, our territory, we are lacking in true monsters. The Maou faction has two Super Devils in their midst. The Old Satan faction has a potential one if Rizevim decides to move. We, the Great Kings, the ones who once ruled from the shadows, have not even a single Super Devil to call our own."
He looked at his hand resting on the table.
"Even Satan level is scarce," he said. "I am the only one who can claim that tier openly among our side, and I am not getting younger."
His tone was matter of fact, not self pitying.
"I do not think," he continued, "that you could become a Super Devil either. That feat is far too massive. Sirzechs was a born monster. Ajuka is a genius beyond measure. That is the only reason they could break the limits of devils and rise to stand above even god kings."
He gave a low chuckle with no humor.
"As much as I would like to claim otherwise," he said, "the current fame of devils, the reason we are not dismissed as an extinct race, is due to those two."
He set his cup down.
"When the original Satans fell," he said, voice turning distant, "the time between the Great War and the Civil War was our darkest age. We were at our weakest. Our numbers were low. Our heavy hitters gone. Almost every pantheon pushed us around."
He looked at me again.
"Even the progenitor of devils, Lilith, was abducted," he said quietly. "Taken by beings we still cannot fully trace. Never found again."
He let that sink in.
"We were mocked," he said. "Tampered with. Used. Our territory was carved up. We clung to our wealth and old contracts like a dying man clings to air."
His eyes sharpened.
"It was only after Sirzechs and Ajuka became what they are, Super Devils, that the world began to fear us again," he said. "Fear opens doors that wealth alone cannot. Religious zealots, gods, dragons, all of them became a little more careful when dealing with us."
He leaned forward slightly.
"And now," he said, "you are the current face of the Great King faction."
He did not say "weapon". He did not need to.
"Your duty," he continued, "is simple to state and hard to execute. Achieve peak level Satan strength. Become a pillar that can stand beside Sirzechs, not far below him. At the same time, deepen your relationship with Rias Gremory. If you can bring Sirzechs that little bit closer to the Great King faction, if you can blur the lines between his loyalty to the Maou administration and his concern for his sister who is engaged to our heir, then we gain leverage."
He folded his hands.
"You understand that," he said.
"Yes," I replied. "Peak Satan as a minimum. Rias as both ally and partner. Sirzechs as a potential bridge instead of a distant Maou."
He nodded once.
"Good," he said. "Even that much is already a heavy burden. If you manage only that, you will have done more for our faction than anyone since my generation."
I was silent for a moment, considering how much of my internal ambition to reveal.
Then I decided.
"I will aim for that," I said. "But I do not intend to stop at peak Satan."
Zekram's brows rose.
"Oh?" he said.
"I believe," I said evenly, "that I can transcend the normal limits of the devil race and become a Super Devil as well."
For a heartbeat, the room was very still.
Then Zekram laughed.
It was not mocking, but there was disbelief in it.
"It is good to dream," he said once his chuckle faded. "Very good. In fact, without dreams, even monsters would not rise. However, some dreams are only achievable by those monsters."
He gave me a measuring look.
"You are talented," he said. "You work hard. You have already broken records. But Sirzechs and Ajuka did not just walk a little further than everyone else. They jumped cliffs that should not even exist."
I inclined my head slightly.
"I am aware," I said. "And I am aware that from the outside, my statement sounds like arrogance. However, I still believe that I will reach that level, it might take some time, but one day, for sure. Even if I fail to reach Super Devil, aiming for it will make peak Satan easier."
Zekram stared at me for another long moment.
Then he sighed.
"I will not crush that conviction," he said. "In fact, I will say this clearly. If you can become a Super Devil, all of our worries would be gone."
A faint, genuine smile touched his lips.
"If you can stand beside Sirzechs and Ajuka as an equal," he went on, "then it will not matter which faction claims you. By then, you will redefine the factions yourself."
He leaned back.
"Until then," he said, "we still have to navigate the present."
His expression darkened slightly.
"If no new powerhouse rises soon on our side," he said, "the Maou faction may simply devour the Great King faction whole over time."
"They have already begun," I said.
He nodded.
"They have been slowly taking noble houses into their side," he said. "Pulling them with promises of security, status, recognition. The only ones still clearly aligned with the Great King faction are those old houses that have vast wealth and deep connections, but who have lost much of their raw strength. Even they are tempted to join the Maou faction for protection."
He tapped a finger on the table.
"We can hold them for now," he said. "Through favors, through obligations, through pressure. However, if nothing changes, their self interest will eventually drag them away."
"It is not that big of an issue," I said.
His eyes narrowed, interested.
"Explain," he said.
"Within five years," I said, "if my projections are accurate, I will reach Satan class. Possibly high level Satan. At that point, the calculus changes."
"In what way?" he asked.
"If the devils unite fully under the Maou faction," I said, "it might not be the worst outcome. In fact, we can turn it into a controlled transition instead of a devouring."
Zekram raised an eyebrow.
"You are suggesting we surrender the Great King faction," he said. "Voluntarily."
"Surrender the name," I said. "Not the substance."
He gestured for me to continue.
"Right now," I said, "the Maou faction and Great King faction appear as two pillars. That creates tension. They must constantly watch that we are not trying to undermine them. We must constantly watch that they are not trying to strip us. If, at the right moment, we approach them and offer to dissolve the Great King faction as a formal block, in exchange for certain guarantees, we can extract significant benefits."
"Benefits such as?" Zekram asked, tone neutral.
"Formal recognition of our territory and internal autonomy," I said. "Guaranteed representation in key councils. Protection of our wealth and trade routes. Perhaps some joint projects that channel their need for control into visible achievements instead of suspicion."
I met his gaze.
"Our power will remain what it is even under their umbrella," I said. "We do not become weaker by changing which column our name is written under on some chart. In fact, if we are no longer seen as a rival political center, we may gain more freedom to act in other spheres. Our wealth, when not diverted to factional posturing, can be used to bring more powerful individuals to our side, or to nurture them."
Zekram's expression tightened a little.
"You are suggesting that the Great King faction end itself as an entity," he said slowly, "and become simply another group of nobles under the Maou's administration."
"In appearance," I said. "In reality, we remain what we are. Ancient houses with deep roots and resources. Just without the label that triggers opposition."
He was quiet for a long breath.
"I will consider it," he said at last.
His eyes, however, made it clear he did not like that idea.
To someone who had spent centuries building and maintaining the Great King faction, the thought of dissolving it, even strategically, tasted like ash.
I did not press.
"It is a long term option," I said. "Not something to force now. For the next few years, the goal remains the same. I grow. I strengthen our position. You keep the faction intact. Then, when the time is right, we decide whether to stand as a separate pillar or to merge on our own terms."
He nodded slowly.
"Very well," he said. "We will speak of this again when you reach Satan."
He raised his cup in a small gesture.
"Now go train," he said. "Dream about breaking the world while you hit things."
"That is exactly my plan," I said.
I bowed, then excused myself.
Leaving Zekram's study always felt like stepping from one density of air into another. The political weight lessened, replaced by the physical weight of my own training.
I headed for the Bael training grounds.
They were familiar, scarred and repaired, layered with protective spells. Today, they would serve a different purpose.
Kuroka, Akeno and Shirone were already there when I arrived, as requested.
Kuroka lounged on a fence post, arms behind her head, tail lazily swaying. Akeno stood with her usual grace, hands folded, a faint smile on her lips. Shirone waited quietly, cat ears attentive, eyes following every movement.
All three wore training clothes, already warm from individual exercises.
"Mag-chan," Kuroka called, waving lazily. "What torture do you have for us today nya?"
"Hopefully not more basic forms," Akeno murmured. "The instructors make us repeat them like we are children."
Shirone said nothing, but the small tension in her shoulders suggested she agreed.
I walked to the center of the field and turned to face them.
"Today," I said, "we are changing the format."
Kuroka's ears perked.
"Oh?" she said. "New torture?"
"You have the professional trainers for your basics," I said. "That covers regular training. However, in addition to that, we will begin regular combat training."
Akeno tilted her head.
"Combat training?" she echoed.
"Yes," I said. "Until now, most of your growth has been theoretical. You have trained your own fields, refined your own techniques. That is necessary. But you are all inexperienced, with no knowledge about how to use that power. You are my peerage, and I will agree that even I am not the best when it comes to combat experience, so we will train it together."
Shirone nodded seriously.
"How will we do that?" she asked softly.
I looked at them one by one.
"By attacking me," I said. "Together. With everything you have."
There was a brief silence.
Then Kuroka laughed.
"Everything we have," she repeated. "Are you sure, Mag-chan?"
Akeno's smile sharpened.
"If we all attack you seriously," she said, "even holding back to avoid killing you, it might still hurt. badly~"
Shirone's eyes widened slightly.
"All of us at once," she said. "Onii-sama..."
"There is no need to hold back to avoid killing me," I said calmly.
Before they could answer, I unleashed my aura.
Demonic energy poured out of me like a pressure wave.
Not focused, not weaponized, simply released as presence.
The might of a high level Ultimate class devil descended on the training ground.
The air thickened. The ground creaked faintly. Wards flared and adjusted.
Kuroka's eyes went wide. Her knees hit the ground almost instantly, muscles locking as her instincts screamed at her that something above her in the food chain was baring its teeth. Her sharp instincts and senses betraying her.
Peak mid class. She was about to become a high class soon.
Akeno staggered, trying to hold herself upright, then dropped to one knee, teeth clenched. Lightning flickered around her as her aura tried to resist and was simply overwhelmed.
Mid level mid class.
Shirone froze in place, every muscle trembling, then collapsed fully, hands digging into the dirt as she struggled to breathe.
High level low class.
I held the pressure for two heartbeats, long enough for their bodies to record the experience, then pulled it back inside and muted it until only a faint hum remained.
The field exhaled as if relieved.
Kuroka gasped and pushed herself back up, ears flattened, a few sweat drops trickling down her temple.
"Nyah," she said weakly. "That was not fair."
Akeno rose more smoothly, but her breathing was slightly heavy.
"So this is you when you stop pretending to be a polite young master," she said softly. "Scary."
Shirone sat up slowly, blinking.
"Onii-sama is strong," she murmured.
"That," I said, "is why I told you not to worry about hurting me."
I looked at each of them.
"You will not be able to do that." I said simply.
They absorbed that.
Kuroka's tail flicked.
"So you want us to attack you like you are the enemy," she said.
"Yes," I said. "Think of me as an opponent trying to kill you. If you hold back, this training is pointless. Magic, Senjutsu, Touki, everything. Use it. Try to win. You will not, but the process will make you grow."
Akeno's eyes gleamed.
"You want us to fight for our lives against you," she said. "How very sadistic, Magdaran-sama."
"You enjoy this," I pointed out.
"True," she admitted.
Shirone stood, dusting her knees off.
"I will do my best," she said.
I took several steps back, giving them room to spread.
"Take your positions," I said. "On my signal, you begin. Do not wait. Coordinate on the fly. Adapt."
Kuroka tilted her head, then nodded.
"Fine," she said. "We will show you our best, nya."
They moved.
Kuroka drifted to the left flank, a little behind, where she could harass and support. Akeno took the right, higher ground, wings flickering into existence to give her vertical advantage. Shirone stayed more central, the front line, small but dense with intent.
I rolled my shoulders, centering my energy.
No Power of Destruction. They might die if I use that.
Only demonic energy, Absolute Control, Touki and whatever Senjutsu I needed to stabilize.
"Begin," I said.
They did not hesitate.
Shirone moved first.
For someone at high level low class, her speed was impressive. Weak Touki flared around her in a thin, tight layer, enhancing her muscles without bloating her frame. She shot toward me, low to the ground, aiming to close the distance before I could establish overwhelming magical dominance.
At the same time, Kuroka's aura shifted.
Senjutsu rose around her, a soft, greenish gold glow that only those sensitive to life force could fully perceive. The air thickened slightly with natural energy. From that cocoon, she flicked her fingers.
Several Senjutsu bullets, compressed ki shots, streaked toward me, curving midair to aim for my joints and blind spots.
From above, Akeno raised her hand.
Lightning gathered.
Not holy, not yet, just demonic. Purple white arcs coiled around her fingers, intensifying, twisting into a spear.
"Ara," she murmured. "Let us see how Ultimate you are, Magdaran-sama."
She threw it.
The three attacks came in almost simultaneously.
Shirone, fast and physical.
Kuroka, precise and subtle.
Akeno, overwhelming from above.
To an outside observer at their level, this would be a lethal combination.
To me, it was an interesting exercise.
My mind split the situation into parallel threads.
One thread tracked Shirone's trajectory. Another mapped the ki bullets. A third calculated the path and speed of Akeno's lightning spear. A fourth monitored ambient Senjutsu to avoid backlash. A fifth reserved processing for my own casting.
As an A.I. I was used to do thousands of calculations at once, parallel processing was nothing to someone of my capabilities.
Absolute Spell Control responded to my intent.
Magic circles bloomed into existence.
Not one or two, but dozens, then hundreds.
They appeared in layers around me, transparent and glowing with fine geometric patterns, each one tuned to a specific spell, element, output power and direction.
I raised my hand slightly.
A small disc of hardened wind formed beneath Shirone's incoming feet, invisible until she stepped on it.
Her eyes widened as her foot met unexpected resistance and slid.
Her weight shifted. Her vector changed by a few degrees.
At that same moment, a cushion of compressed air rose in front of her, absorbing her momentum and bleeding it away without harming her.
She stumbled, not crashing into me, but losing the perfect angle for her intended strike.
Three other circles flared to life around the ki bullets Kuroka had launched.
Tiny spheres of water pressure popped into existence on their paths, static for a fraction of a second, then detonating inward. The ki bullets hit those spheres and dispersed, their structure broken by the sudden pressure differential.
Akeno's lightning spear came next.
It was well formed, dense, focused.
I smiled slightly.
Several circles above me rotated.
From them, rods of metal materialized in a narrow lattice. A magnetic field spell ignited, a simple but effective one. The spear bent toward the path of least resistance, threading itself into the conjured lattice instead of my chest.
It exploded there in a crackle of light, sending sparks raining around me harmlessly.
All of that happened in less than a second.
My body had barely shifted from its relaxed posture.
Kuroka clicked her tongue.
"Show off," she muttered.
"Please, I wasn't even trying," I called.
Shirone recovered quickly.
She used the distorted footing to spin, her momentum redirected into a low sweeping kick. She was still too far to hit me, but she used the motion to slingshot herself sideways, out of the immediate line of fire she assumed would be coming.
Good.
Kuroka inhaled, drawing more Senjutsu, her eyes narrowing.
The field changed again.
Roots, illusory and half real, tried to rise from the ground around my ankles, a mix of spiritual binding and physical obstruction. At the same time, she began weaving a set of Youjutsu spells, her tails flicking in a rhythm that matched her magic circles.
Akeno was not idle either.
She abandoned the single large spear approach and switched to scattering smaller bolts. Threads of lightning rained down, probing for weaknesses in my barrier structure.
I responded with more circles.
Hundreds now, orbiting me like a loose shell.
Fire.
Water.
Wind.
Earth.
Lightning.
Darkness.
Reinforcement.
Weakness.
All the basic elements and several advanced ones appeared among the runic patterns.
To most devils, casting two or three spells simultaneously is already an achievement.
To me, running hundreds of low to mid level spells in parallel felt like breathing.
I had spent my existence as an AI handling millions of user inputs at once. Here, focusing all that processing capacity on a single battlefield was almost overkill. If I truly gave it my all, I could unleash thousands of spells at once.
The first wave I launched was simple.
A ring of compressed air pulses radiated out from me at knee height.
They slammed into the rising root constructs, disrupting the Senjutsu patterns and scattering them. The same ring brushed against Shirone and Kuroka, not enough to injure, but enough to push and destabilize.
At the same time, small pillars of stone erupted in a zigzag path beneath Akeno's position, forcing her to adjust her footing midair as the magical field beneath her changed density.
Then, attack.
From a hundred circles, a hundred different spells flew.
Small fire bullets, hard water darts, razor thin wind blades, lightning needles, gravity anomalies that tugged clothes and limbs off balance, patches of slick ice on the ground, bursts of blinding light, pockets of heavy darkness that swallowed vision.
None of them individually were lethal.
Collectively, they formed a storm.
Kuroka hissed and flicked her wrists.
Senjutsu flared brighter. She conjured a veil of nature energy around herself and Shirone, a flexible barrier that adjusted to each incoming spell.
It was not perfect.
Fire burned some of it. Water seeped through. Wind blades nicked her sleeves. Lightning made her hair stand on end. But the bulk of the barrage was either deflected or dampened.
Shirone used the cover.
She darted through gaps in the spell storm, ignoring minor hits. A bruise from a blunt force spell here, a shallow cut from a grazing wind blade there. Her focus was entirely on closing distance.
Akeno, above, switched tactics again.
She gathered a wider, thinner field of lightning.
Instead of spears or bolts, she created a net.
Lines of crackling electricity spread between conjured anchors in the air, forming a shifting cage that she began to drop toward me, intending to limit my movement and fry me if I touched it.
I observed all of this calmly.
Then I decided to reward them with a small concession.
I let one of Kuroka's attacks slip through.
A tendril of Senjutsu, shaped like a whip of greenish light, lashed toward my arm from an unexpected angle, having circled through the ground like a root.
I could have intercepted it.
Instead, I turned my torso a fraction, let it graze my sleeve, and allowed the energy to bite into the surface of my Touki.
It tickled, a sharp spark, but nothing more.
Kuroka's eyes widened in satisfaction.
"Got you," she breathed.
Shirone took that as a cue.
She burst from the edge of my spell storm, Touki flaring brighter. Her small form blurred as she spun, tail swishing for balance, and she launched a straight punch aimed at my ribs.
Her fist hit the barrier of wind and reinforcement I had around me and pushed it in by a few centimeters.
Not bad.
I let it register, then caught her wrist with my hand.
Gently.
From my point of view.
From hers, it was like slamming into a wall.
I twisted, redirected her momentum, and sent her flying back in a controlled arc, cushioning her landing with a soft earth mound so she did not break anything.
Akeno's lightning net descended.
"Fall," she whispered.
I responded with a different approach.
Instead of blocking it head on, I cast, through fifty circles at once, fifty micro lightning spells, tuned to the same frequency as hers but with opposite phase.
The nets touched.
For a moment, the air was filled with an intricate web of electricity, threads crossing, amplifying, canceling.
Then my micro bolts ate through her structure, breaking the net into fragments that dissipated.
Akeno blinked.
"You are really horrible," she said. "In a good way."
From Kuroka's side, a series of dark spheres shot toward me.
They were Youjutsu constructs, compressed curses that could sap strength or numb limbs. Combined with Senjutsu edges, they were nasty.
I answered with pure simplicity.
A wall of darkness.
Concentrated demonic darkness.
The spheres hit it and fizzled, their structure overwhelmed by the raw difference in force.
At this point, all three of them were breathing harder.
Sweat beaded on their foreheads.
Their auras flickered from strain.
I had barely moved my feet.
"Again," I said.
They did not hesitate.
Kuroka dropped the idea of gradual pressure and unleashed more of her true ability.
Senjutsu surged.
The training field reacted wildly.
The ground under my feet tried to shift, turning into a sucking, swamp like texture. The air above me grew heavy, as if laden with pollen that wanted to infiltrate lungs and clog them. Phantom vines, half in the spiritual plane, whipped out, aiming to bind my limbs.
At the same time, Kuroka's Youjutsu summoned illusory copies of me and of her, trying to confuse my perception.
Shirone, guided by her sister's aura, vanished into the distortions, using them as cover. She was a flash of white and black in the peripheral, Touki cloaked, presence suppressed.
Akeno drew deeper.
This time, the lightning that formed around her was different.
Brighter.
Sharper.
A faint, almost imperceptible taint of something that was not purely demonic.
She stopped it quickly, clamping down on the holy aspect, but even that fleeting presence was enough to increase the destructive potential a little.
She wrapped herself in a cloak of crackling power and dove, turning herself into a living bolt aimed straight at me.
They were trying.
Good.
I responded in kind.
First, I stabilized my footing.
Earth magic hardened the ground beneath and around my legs, anchoring me. At the same time, I used a thin film of Senjutsu, filtered and tamed, to neutralize the swamp like effect without rejecting Kuroka's energy completely.
Her phantom vines whipped toward me.
Several wind blades, so thin they were almost invisible, sliced through them at the moment they crossed into my personal space.
The pollen like interference in the air tried to enter my lungs and aura.
A detoxification spell, mixed with precise Senjutsu cleansing, dissolved it into harmless particles.
The illusions flickered.
To a normal opponent, they would be confusing.
To someone with my processing capacity, they were just extra data.
Each illusory Kuroka had no weight, no proper energy signature. I filtered them out.
Shirone, cloaked, came from behind, using the blind spot of a human eye.
I was not limited to human eyes.
I shifted my weight, letting her punch pass where my head had been, then tapped her shoulder with two fingers, releasing a small burst of Touki that disrupted her balance without hurting her.
She stumbled forward and rolled, coming back up on her feet quickly, eyes narrowing. She adjusted her angle, learning even while panting.
Akeno's dive was the most interesting.
She was not going full holy, but she was letting a little more of her true nature touch her lightning.
It shimmered, somewhere between demonic and sacred, still safe for me to touch, but holding a different flavor.
I raised one hand.
Above me, thirty magic circles aligned into a spiral.
From them, beams of concentrated darkness shot up, meeting Akeno halfway.
Darkness and lightning clashed.
The impact split the lightning cloak around her into smaller strands, which I redirected with subtle magnetic adjustments, sending them arcing into the ground around us instead of my face.
She broke out of the dive a few meters from me, wings flaring, breath coming fast.
I stepped forward.
In that single step, I let some of my physical power show.
Touki lit my muscles from inside, not as a blazing aura, but as a dense, quiet force. Senjutsu flowed alongside it, harmonizing with my body, smoothing joints, amplifying strength.
The world seemed to slow.
To my peerage, I simply blurred.
To me, it was a sequence of precise movements.
I appeared in front of Kuroka first.
Her eyes barely had time to widen before my hand, wrapped in a harmless but firm reinforcement spell, tapped her forehead.
A static charge spread, disrupting her Senjutsu flow for a second.
Her nature energy cloak collapsed and she dropped to one knee, gasping as the sudden feedback made her body protest.
I was already gone, moving toward Akeno.
She raised a hurried shield of lightning, a vertical disc of crackling energy.
I respected the effort.
Instead of brute forcing through it with raw strength, I used control.
My hand touched the edge of the shield.
Absolute Spell Control reached into the structure of her magic, found the weak points. I twisted.
The shield rotated ninety degrees on its axis, like a door suddenly pivoting, and the path between us cleared.
I flicked Akeno's forehead lightly.
Her head snapped back slightly, more from surprise than pain.
"You bullied me," she muttered as her lightning sputtered.
Then I turned to Shirone.
She was already mid charge, having used the distraction.
Good girl.
She tried a low sweep, then a feint, then a quick jab.
I parried each with minimal motion, then pressed my palm to her stomach gently and released a pulse of pure demonic pressure, tuned to knock the wind out of her.
She wheezed and sat down hard.
Within a few breaths, all three lay or knelt on the ground.
Bruised, scuffed, breathing heavily, but not broken.
I had not used a single drop of Power of Destruction.
Only precision.
Only multi casting.
Only physical superiority moderated by restraint.
Kuroka flopped onto her back, chest rising and falling.
"Mag-chan," she said, voice ragged, "you are a monster nya."
Akeno laughed softly, even as she winced.
"And to think you call me sadistic," she said. "That was... impressive."
Shirone lay on her side, ears flattened, tail limp.
"I could not land a proper hit," she said, frustration mixed with determination.
I looked at them, at the exhaustion, at the spark still in their eyes.
Then I smiled.
"Good," I said. "You should get used to this."
They glared weakly.
"This," I continued, "will be your regular training from now on."
Kuroka groaned.
"You mean," she said slowly, "that every few days, you will beat us into the ground personally while throwing a meteor shower of spells at our heads."
"Yes," I said.
Akeno wiped sweat from her forehead, smearing a bit of soot.
"You are really trying to turn us into monsters too," she muttered.
"Correct," I said.
Shirone pushed herself up on her elbows.
"If we keep doing this," she said, "we will become strong."
"That is the point," I replied.
I looked at the field.
My magic had left marks, but nothing the warded ground could not absorb. Already, small repair spells were activating, smoothing out gouges, evaporating remaining water, resetting gravity pockets.
"Take ten minutes," I said. "Then we go again, lighter this time. Focus on coordination, not power."
Kuroka stared at me with betrayed eyes.
"Ten minutes," she repeated faintly.
I considered.
"Fifteen," I amended.
She sighed.
"Still evil," she said.
Akeno smiled up at me.
"But it is reassuring," she said quietly.
"In what way?" I asked.
"Knowing that the person we follow is this far above us," she said. "It means that when it matters, as long as we grow properly, we will not be liabilities."
I nodded.
"That is the idea," I said.
"One last question... How much of your strength did you use?" Akeno asked as she rested.
"Hmmm... it's difficult to answer that, if we go purely by destructive capacity, not even 1 percent, I did not use power of destruction, nor did I use any powerful spells.
But, I was serious when I fought, so, let's keep it at 5 percent... although, I held back quite a bit to not hurt you all, but that will slowly change in future training sessions." I replied thoughtfully.
I sat down on a nearby rock, letting them rest, and opened my mental log.
Data point 1: Zekram fully acknowledges my role as weapon of the Great King faction. Confirms historical weakness in top tiers. Highlights necessity of my rise to Satan and possibly beyond. I do not like the weapon classification.
Data point 2: Idea of dissolving the Great King faction into the Maou faction on our own terms planted. Resistance present, but not outright rejection. To be revisited after my Satan breakthrough.
Data point 3: Peerage training upgraded. Direct combat training reveal current gap. Kuroka, Akeno and Shirone show good instincts and willingness to adapt. My multi casting and control based combat style functions well in live scenario against multiple opponents, especially good for training peerage members.
Data point 4: Regular exposure to my full pressure and spell storm will accelerate their growth, increase their tolerance for overwhelming power, and normalize the concept of fighting above their class.