Chapter 194 — Hero Faction Incursion

Rias

By the time we reached the abandoned factory, the sun had already set.

The street outside of the factory was dark, and if we hadn’t all been Devils and an Angel, we would have been blind.

We were in the industrial area of the town.

The road leading into the factory we ended up at was gravel, and the premises looked abandoned.

The windows of the factory were broken in places, and there were rusted-out pieces of equipment visible through the open bay doors of the building.

We approached the factory cautiously, but I could already detect multiple hostile presences inside. 

“Be careful, everyone. We don’t know what to expect from the hero faction members. All we will know is that they are human and have Sacred Gears,” I said.

“Yes, Buchou.” My peerage replied.

“Yes, Rias-san!” Irina replied.

We continued forward and reached the large partially open bay doors.

There was dust and broken glass scattered across the ground.

The inside of the factory somehow looked more rundown that the outside and was darker than outside. 

“Man, this place is creepy…” Ise muttered.

“Focus, Ise-kun. We need to stay on guard,” Yuuto said. 

Ise’s gauntlet was already out, and his countdown for his Balance Breaker armor was already almost at zero. 

He would be able to summon his armor as soon as the fighting started. 

Sadly, we were still in the town, so he would be restricted in the amount of power he could use.

But he would still be incredibly powerful and durable during the fight.

We stopped in the middle of the factory floor.

Whoever was waiting for us would surely come find us now. 

Even if this was supposed to be a trap, the presences I was detecting weren’t powerful enough to cause us any real issues.

My peerage’s strength had surpassed that of low-class Devils.

They were currently between mid-class and high-class strength.

“Where are they?” Xenovia asked as she held Durandal aloft.

“M-Maybe they went home?” Gasper said as he nervously looked around.

“There,” Yuki said, pointing to some of the scaffolding above us on the far side of the room.

Her tails had flared out behind her, and her eyes glowed faintly in the darkness. 

“Correct. Welcome, Gremory group. You came much quicker than expected,” a voice called out from the shadows.

A man wearing a dark wide-brimmed hat and a large black coat stepped forward into view.

Then dark, featureless figures appeared from the edges of the room around the man.

They seemed to spill out of the shadows.

They kept coming until there was a wall of dark figures in our way.

They didn’t have any identifying features and looked like pitch-black mannequins.

They didn’t seem impressive, but their quantity may be an issue.

There must have been hundreds of them. 

I stepped forward in front of my group and glared at the man.

“Member of the Khaos Brigade. My name is Rias Gremory. I am the high-class Devil entrusted with overseeing this town by the Three Great Powers alliance. I’m assuming that you are from the Hero faction. Surrender now, and you will be treated fairly and spared.”

The man smirked at me.

I stepped forward before anyone else could.

“Khaos Brigade.” My voice came out cold and steady. “You are from the Hero Faction, I presume. My name is Rias Gremory. I am a high-class devil entrusted by the Three Great Powers’ alliance to oversee this town.”

The man smirked at me.

“I know exactly who you are, little girl. Sister of the Maou. Master of the Sekiryuutei. But we will not be surrendering. Our goal is to purify you Devils and save this town.”

His gaze was full of contempt as he glared hatefully down at us.

The Hero faction had been launching assaults against various locations with small teams.

They normally targeted important areas, but their methods had been getting bolder as things went on.  

We had handled a few such incidents readily, as the threat posed was not very great and the alliance forces were already spread thin. 

The lights above us flicked on and illuminated the factory's main floor as two more men stepped forward to stand next to the man in the black jacket.

One man had bright blonde hair and sunglasses.

The other was wearing traditional Chinese clothing.

The three of them clearly weren’t Japanese.

“Those things aren’t connected to any of the three of them,” Yuki murmured. 

I nodded.

That meant that whoever summoned all of these dark humanoid things was hiding, or was no longer here.

Gasper would be using his Vampire abilities to search the factory for more hiding Hero faction members.

So if he found someone, we could try taking them down to remove these humanoid things.

But until we did, we would have to fight through the horde of fodder to take down our three enemies. 

Ise’s gauntlet flashed with a red light, and he stepped forward as his scale mail armor formed over him.

He withdrew Ascalon and tossed it back to Xenovia, who caught the sword and moved to our flank.

Yuuto moved forward and stood next to Ise with a holy demonic sword already formed.

Asia, Akeno, and I stepped back as the rear guard of the group.

Asia, as our healer, would need to stay back and be protected.

Akeno would attack with holy lightning and prepare to send a large lightning strike if necessary.

And I would be able to send bullets of the power of destruction and give orders.

In the center of the group were Gasper, Irina, Xenovia, Yuki, and Koenko.

Xenovia and Irina took the flanks and would protect the back line and support our vanguard.

Gasper would support the vanguard and use the scanner device given to us by Azazel.

It could scan someone and display information on the Sacred Heart they possessed.

With it, we could learn our opponents' weaknesses and the restrictions of their power.

Koneko’s and Yuki’s roles were to move where needed.

Koneko was strong and durable. 

And with her Senjutsu, she could hit deal devastating blows now.

And Yuki was versatile.

She could appear anywhere and attack with a range of abilities.

Her only shortcoming was the backlash of her own spells.

As we took our formation, the man in the black coat activated his Sacred Gear. 

White flames appeared and covered both of his hands.

“Careful! We don’t know what they can do yet!” Yuuto shouted from the front of the group. 

“We expected this! We’ve faced enemies with unknown abilities before!” I said to my servants and Irina. “You all know what to do!”

The man in the black coat dropped down to our level in the factory and quickly began moving towards us and fired the flames towards us.

Ise immediately reacted. 

The boosters on his back came to life, and he launched forward as they roared. 

He deflected the flames as he rocketed forward and aimed for the man in the coat.

The enemy quickly dodged out of the way, and Ise continued past, bowling over a section of the horde of dark figures and taking out the support for the platform the other two were on above us.

They quickly dropped down to the main level of the factory before the platform fell and crushed multiple of the dark humanoids.

The dark humanoids dissipated after they were defeated, breaking apart and fading away into the air.

Ise had realized that he needed to control how much power he was using so that he didn’t bring down the building around us and draw the attention of the humans nearby.

Our opponents were able to react to him because he had to reduce his speed.

“Be careful of the Sekiryuutei! If he manages to hit you once, you’ll be dead! But he can’t fight at his full strength here!” The man in the black coat shouted. 

They seemed knowledgeable of at least Ise’s power and had realized he couldn’t go all out.

Hopefully they hadn’t studied each of our abilities before the fight. 

Ise gathered a ball of demonic energy and fired a smaller version of his Dragon Shot. 

It was small enough to take down an enemy and to not destroy our surroundings.

It flew quickly towards the man in the black coat.

But right before it made contact, the shadows around him reached out and swallowed Ise’s attack.

The Dragon Shot disappeared into the shadows without a trace.

The man with glasses had extended his hand towards Ise’s attacks, and the shadows had responded.

Apparently, he could do more than just create those humanoids.

Yuuto darted past Ise towards the man with glasses, as the dark humanoids charged toward us.

Irina, Koneko, Xenovia, and Yuki engaged the wave of humanoids.

Koneko and Irina moved forward into the horde of enemies.

Koneko coated her fists with white glowing Touki and began to drop at least one enemy with each strike. 

Irina lifted off the ground with her wings and began swooping down at the crowd to strike with her sword.

She also began launching spears of light into the mob.

Gasper-kun was pointing the scanning device at our three enemies, trying to get us information on their Sacred Gears. 

Xenovia stayed slightly back and sent out slashes of holy energy from Ascalon.

Like Ise, she had to hold back her power while we fought in town.

Lastly, Yuki fired a few bolts of cursed lightning into the crowd, but stopped after seeing that her attacks weren’t taking down enough enemies to be useful.

Her attack would take down multiple of the humanoids in a line, but there were too many for her to endure her backlash during the fight.

Instead, she used her own shadow manipulation and extended shadowy tendrils into the crowd of enemies.

When her Shadow Briar came into contact with the dark humanoids, they wrapped around them or pierced through them. 

Yuki’s eyes went wide before narrowing in concentration.

Then some of the enemies wrapped in her shadow tendrils began to deform and dissipate.

It seemed her own shadow powers could combat our opponents’ Sacred Gear.

Ahead of our mid guard, Yuuto quickly reached the man wearing glasses and swung her sword at him.

The shadows that had absorbed Ise’s attack shifted, and the blade of Yuuto’s sword disappeared into them.

Then from Yuuto’s shadow on the ground, the blade of her sword appeared and moved towards her.

Yuuto twisted out of the way of the blade.

She quickly stepped back and pulled her sword from the shadows as she did.

“Be careful, Ise-kun! That shadow-type Sacred Gear can be used to absorb and redirect attacks.  It will be a tricky obstacle to overcome,” Yuuto said.

“Wait… that means—“ Ise turned, and I looked to the same place as well.

I could feel his aura coming from the shadows behind us.

From the shadows, the Dragon Shot Ise had fired earlier appeared, and it was heading straight for Asia.

I gathered my power of destruction, but before I could launch an attack, Ise fired another Dragon Shot at it, and the two attacks canceled out.

Xenovia saw what happened and rushed to protect Asia in our back lines. 

“Don’t you dare attack her! I won’t let any harm come to Asia!” Xenovia shouted angrily.

I looked at the rest of our formation.

Yuuto had joined Irina, Koenko, and Yuki in holding back the horde of humanoid shadows.

They were holding their own, and Xenovia moving back to protect Asia was the right move. 

She had no real combat abilities, so she needed to be protected.

We needed to take down the shadow user.

Not only was he creating the horde of fodder enemies we had to deal with, but he was also their main defense.

The man wearing the traditional Chinese clothes finally moved and created a bow of light in his hands.

He fired several arrows of blue light at once into the air above us.

They suddenly changed direction mid-flight and came down at us.

“Leave this to me!” Shouted Irina.

She flew up

From the horde of enemies and summoned spears of light.

She launched them at the light arrows, and the two attacks canceled each other out.

We were lucky we had her with us. 

The light user’s Sacred Gear would be especially troubling for us Devils, but Irina didn’t have the same weaknesses as us. 

She was able to easily deal with the attack.

Akeno formed lances of ice and fired them at the light user.

They flew at him, but another shadow rose from the ground and swallowed the attack.

I quickly moved to the side and fired bullets made of the power of destruction at the ice spears that appeared from my shadow.

I turned back towards our three opponents and saw that the flame user had moved next to the light user, and they were both being surrounded by a wall of shadows.

More blue arrows of light were fired into the air and then changed direction towards us.

Flames shot out from behind the shadow wall towards us as well. 

This time Ise moved in front of the group and batted the arrows away as they uselessly broke against his armor.

Yuuto creased a sword and sucked all of the flames into it as she continued to fight the humanoid shadows.

“We need to take out the shadow or light user!” I shouted to my group.

Those two were the largest threat to us now.

Once one went down, the other two Hero faction members would quickly fall. 

“I’ve got it,” Yuki shouted back.

Her tails and ears immediately darkened before she disappeared in a gut-twisting motion. 

She reappeared in the air at the shadow wall. Both of her hands were extended, and spells were forming on each of them.

She fell through the air and disappeared from view behind the wall.

The attacks coming from the shadow wall stopped, but I could hear the sound of Yuki’s Baleful bolts firing, and the bursts of flames of the fire user’s Sacred Gear.

The horde of shadow humanoids continued to advance on us.

“We need to help Yuki-senpai!” Koneko shouted as she tore through the crowd with her fists.

“We will!” I shouted back. “Gasper! What did you see from the scanner?”

“T-The fire Sacred Gear is called [Flame Shake]! It’s a rather straightforward and simple Sacred Gear! The shadow Sacred Gear is called [Night Reflection]! It’s a defense and counter-type Sacred Gear! The last one is [Staring Blue]! It’s a light-based technique-type Sacred Gear!” Gasper quickly replied.

“Alright! Everyone, push forward now! While Yuki’s distracting them!” I ordered.

Ise and Yuuto dashed through the crowd of enemies.

Koneko was hot on their heels as she tore through the remaining enemies.

The crowd of shadow humanoids had thinned considerably. 

Ise and Yuuto cleared a path and vanished into the shadow wall.

A moment later, the wall dissipated to reveal Yuki facing off against the light user and the shadow and fire user fighting against Ise and Yuuto. 

The fire user had a bloody claw mark along the side of his face and was moving with a limp.

The shadow user seemed unharmed but was beginning to panic.

The light user looked unharmed as well, but Yuki was wounded.

Her clothes looked like they had been singed, and she had a nasty poking wound on her side.

She snarled at the light user as he drew his bow back and released another light arrow at her.

She blinked out of the path of the arrow, but it turned midair and moved to her new position.

Yuki lifted an arm and formed a large Baleful Bolt. 

At the same time, tendrils of shadows reached out towards him. 

The shadow user extended his arm, and the shadows around the light user rose to defend him.

The tendrils of Yuki’s Shadow Briar crashed into the shadows shielding the light user.

The tendrils burrowed into the other shadows and tore open a gap, exposing the surprised-looking light user.

Yuki fired her spell, and the large bolt quickly tore through the air.

The light user couldn’t react before it struck him in the chest. 

The arrow of light that had been about to strike Yuki dissipated as the man dropped to the floor.

Smoke rose from the wound on his chest as he lay there unmoving. 

Yuki panted for a moment before turning towards where Ise and Yuuto were still fighting the shadow and fire users.

They were dodging flames and their own attacks that were being sent back at them, but they were surely pushing the Hero faction members back.

“Yuki, rest. We will finish the rest of the fight. You’re injured and need Asia to check on you,” I said as we all arrived.

Koneko was already at Yuki’s side and checking on her.

Yuki glanced over to me before looking back at the fight.

“There’s a fourth enemy. I need to keep fighting until we’ve won,” she said.

Her voice sounded lower and rougher than normal in her state ability.

She started to move towards where Ise and Yuuto were still fighting, but stumbled and clutched her side after running a few steps.

“Yuki!” “Yuki-senpai!”

Asia and Koneko cried out.

Koneko caught her and stopped her from collapsing to the floor.

 I needed Yuki to tell me where the fourth enemy was, and then I needed her to listen to reason and sit out the rest of this fight.