Was it Creuserey? Or Shalba? Or could it have been Vali Lucifer?
But they had only just persuaded Vali to join them, and the only task they'd given him was to provide the spatial coordinates inside the barrier.
There was no way Vali could have known about the plan to send the witches to look for the holder of the time-stopping Sacred Gear.
At first, Katerea had expected Rod to reveal something useful.
But now, she almost wished she had never heard what he just said.
Only a handful of trusted high-ranking members knew the full plan, yet the man she had only just recruited had practically stripped them bare and laid everything out in front of her.
To be honest, Katerea was already beginning to feel a faint sense of fear toward Rod.
"How do you know all this?!"
Her expression tightened, and her fingers gripping the armrest turned white from the force.
What she got in return was only Rod's faintly smiling expression.
"You don't need to know that. All you need to know is that if you make your move during the Three Factions conference, you will die, and you'll die without even a shred of dignity."
"Impossible! I've already obtained the power of the Infinite Dragon God. There's no way Serafall and the others are stronger than me!"
Katerea's emotions rose sharply.
After all, the core of their entire plan was obtaining Ophis's power.
As long as they could kill or capture Serafall and the others, that would count as victory.
At that point, the morale of the current Maou government would absolutely collapse. Then, using the Infinite Dragon God's power, they could defeat the remaining Maous one by one, seize the Underworld in one sweep, and eventually bring the entire world under devil rule.
"Borrowed power is still someone else's power. Once the energy inside you runs out, won't you just be done for?"
"Of course, words alone prove nothing, so let me show you some data."
As soon as he said that, Rod reached behind him with his right hand and, under Katerea's stunned gaze, pulled out a small blackboard.
Katerea was dumbfounded.
Where exactly had he pulled such a huge blackboard from?
But then she noticed the chart drawn on it, covered in names.
What were all these things like T0 Evil God Tier, T1 Pseudo-Evil God Tier, and Beyond Dragon God Tier supposed to mean?
Even though the writing on the blackboard was in an unfamiliar text, as a true descendant of Leviathan, Katerea could understand every written language in the world. Not just other language, even the most obscure scripts were no problem for her.
But although she could understand each individual word, once they were put together, she had no idea what they meant anymore.
What even was something like the Three Mechanical Evil Gods of EXE? The name sounded ominous, sure, but she had never heard of them before.
It wasn't until she got to the later part of the T2 rank that she finally saw a few familiar names: Great Red, Ophis the Infinite Dragon God, and the long-dead God of the Bible.
"Wrote too much. Don't look at the stuff at the top."
Rod grabbed the eraser and wiped away everything in the T0 and T1 sections.
He had drawn this chart out of boredom in the past, a power-scaling tier list for High School DxD characters based on a template some expert power-scalers online had put together.
It was originally just something made for fun, yet somehow one day he had actually gotten the chance to show it to the locals.
"What is this?"
Katerea looked genuinely confused.
Although Rod had erased those names, the moment he thought of the Three Mechanical Evil Gods, a sudden chill still ran through him.
"A ranking of the power tiers in the world of High School DxD."
"What... High School DxD?"
"Oh, that's just a name I came up with. Don't mind it too much."
Rod had accidentally blurted out the original title, but fortunately Katerea looked easy enough to fool.
Besides, any normal person would be far more concerned with the term power ranking at a time like this.
"I'll skip the nonsense. This is a ranking I made, listing people from strongest to weakest according to their power."
"Oh? Like one of those Top Ten in the World rankings?"
Katerea nodded to herself.
This world actually did have power rankings.
But they only covered the top ten.
Every being on that list was absurdly powerful.
Of course, plenty of people disagreed with those rankings.
Katerea herself was one of them.
She didn't believe she was weaker than Odin, Zeus, Hades, or Sirzechs, all of whom appeared on those rankings.
With the Infinite Dragon God's power, if she wasn't ranked number one, she should at least be in the top three.
"Something like that, except those are unofficial rankings. Mine is more authoritative."
Rod said this with a perfectly straight face.
"So where am I on it?"
Katerea scanned the blackboard once, only to discover that even once it reached the Maou-class category, her name was nowhere to be found.
"You? You're too weak, so I didn't bother writing you in."
Rod had only bothered making the chart down to Maou-class. There was no need to rank anything beneath that.
"You-!"
Katerea's expression darkened instantly.
But before she could react, an electronic Clock Up sound rang out, and the man who had been standing by the blackboard suddenly appeared behind her without warning.
One of Rod's hands now rested lightly against her neck, and the touch of his fingertips made a thin layer of goosebumps spread across her skin.
This man...!
When did he get there?!
Katerea stared at the man right in front of her, her eyes full of disbelief.
What had just happened?
Why hadn't she reacted at all?
"Basic stuff. Sit down."
Rod pressed Katerea back into her seat when she unconsciously tried to stand.
Because of the angle and distance, all Rod saw in front of him was a field of warm brown skin.
Naturally, out of respect for the difference between men and women, he didn't study it too closely. He only felt that Katerea's deep V-neck seemed to be about thirty millimeters lower than before.
Then he casually walked back to the blackboard.
And now, when Katerea looked at Rod again, her eyes held a complicated mix of emotions.
"You're this strong, so why did you accept my invitation back at Khaos Brigade?"
This was the first time Katerea had ever personally faced an opponent outside of Shalba and Creuserey.
Most of the time, the three of them only compared themselves to one another. Since they were also the strongest people in the entire Old Maou faction, they had naturally come to believe they were all Maou-class.
"Because of love"
"?!"
"Sorry, that just came out as a song lyric."
"..."
If Katerea had been able to beat him, she would have wanted nothing more than to beat this man half to death right then and there.
"Just for the fun of it."
Rod shrugged.
After that, he formally explained the combat power of each of the Three Factions' leaders, making it clear that even after swallowing the snake, Katerea would only just barely reach true Maou-class, while Serafall, the one Katerea cared about most, stood at the very peak of Maou-class.
As for Sirzechs, his strength was two full levels above theirs.
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