Following Koneko into the venue, Cid did his best to lower his presence.
After Sona Sitri finished her announcement and successfully pulled off a classic "Eminence in Shadow" phantom thief-style performance, he received a message from Rias telling everyone to assemble.
Once he reached the meeting point, they used a teleportation circle to arrive at the main arena.
"Everyone, don't be so nervous. If we stick to the plan, we'll definitely win this."
Rias seemed to notice everyone's unease and smiled as she encouraged them.
"Oh right, Cid, this is for you."
Rias took a token out of her pocket and handed it to Cid.
"What's this?"
"A non-combat pass. It's proof that lets you stay on the field without being attacked by the other side."
"There's something like that?"
"Normally, no. But the other side also has a member who applied not to participate in battle, so Their Highnesses had this specially made."
After explaining it to Cid, Rias turned her attention back to the others.
Now that he was inside the arena, Cid finally saw Rias's opponent and fiancé. He was a blond guy with a short tuft of hair sticking straight up from his head, a fierce glare, and the general look of a thug. Behind him stood fifteen beautiful girls, each with her own distinct charm.
This guy... does he collect character types or something?
"Yo, Rias. I figured you'd try to drag this out a little longer before accepting my challenge."
"As the princess of the House of Gremory, I do not fear any challenge."
Even from that distance, the two of them started trading barbs the moment they saw each other, and the atmosphere instantly turned tense.
"Good evening, everyone! Tonight's broadcast will be hosted by me, Naud Gamigin of the former Seventy-Two Pillars, House of Gamigin!
And the referee in charge of tonight's game will be Rudiger Rosenkreutz."
A voice rang out, and a silver-haired man appeared in the air.
"Rudiger Rosenkreutz is a Devil reincarnated from a Human. He's a former powerhouse who once ranked seventh in the Underworld Rating Games."
Noticing Cid's confusion, Koneko explained it to him.
"Ohhh!"
Cid put on an appropriately shocked expression.
"Are you nervous because this is your first Rating Game, and it's at this level, Cid?"
Akeno Himejima, standing nearby, seemed to mistake his reaction for nervousness and tried to reassure him.
"It's okay. I feel that way too. But have a little faith in us. We'll definitely help Rias win this match."
"Akeno... right, we're definitely going to win this match."
Hearing that, Rias looked so touched she was practically about to cry.
Cid, on the other hand, did not feel moved in the slightest.
If anything, he wanted to laugh.
Magic Power flowed into his eyes, and in an instant, the state of everyone in the arena became visible to him.
There was no need to worry about his eyes turning red when Magic Power flowed into them. He could choose for that to happen or not.
In Cid's eyes, among Riser's group, aside from Riser himself and one peerage member with golden twin tails, the rest of his peerage were inferior to Rias's side in both potential and actual strength.
In other words, Rias's side might be weaker at the very top end of combat power, but they had more fighters in the tier just below that.
If both teams on the field were turned into stat cards of equal value and handed to him so he could play both sides against himself, the cards representing Rias's team would most likely win.
The premise being... no one played the fool.
Cid turned his eyes toward Akeno Himejima, who was hugging Rias. She clearly possessed two powers within her that could fuse together and become stronger, yet one of them had apparently gone unused for so long that there was not the slightest sign of activity from it.
Then his gaze shifted to Yuuto Kiba.
This one might not even realize he was playing the fool. The Sacred Gear inside his Sacred Gear space clearly contained tremendous power, yet he had only developed half of it. The other half was still asleep.
And finally... Koneko Toujou.
Cid gave her a meaningful look.
She was the real heavyweight here. Not only was she resisting her body's growth and slowing her own physical development, but despite having physical attributes suited to the mage path, she had chosen a warrior path that did not suit her at all.
And then there was that unfamiliar cardboard-box Vampire. His talent and strength were both pretty good, but his mentality was lacking. If they actually fought, Cid was confident he could kill him instantly even if he deliberately lowered himself by a whole major level.
Just look at this lineup. Out of five teammates, four were basically throwing the game. The one working the hardest was actually Koneko, who had only joined a few days ago. As for his sister, there was not much to say there. She was just a pure stats monster.
Rias, are you sure you usually treat them well?
Otherwise, why are they still unwilling to go all out even now?
Hmm, no, wait... what is this thing inside it?
Cid was about to withdraw the Magic Power from his eyes, but stopped when he noticed the non-combat pass in his hand.
In his vision, a highly concealed magic circle was engraved inside the token. It contained a huge amount of life energy, and its function was to secretly let that life energy flow out.
To put it simply, the purpose of this non-combat pass was to forcibly lock someone's HP.
...Holy crap, that's a cheat.
Calm down, Cid. At an event this grand, there is no way the Devils of the Underworld would secretly cheat unless they had holes in their brains. I must be mistaken. Rias said the other side also had a non-combat pass. One look at theirs and I'll know.
Suppressing the urge to complain, Cid shifted his gaze to the other side.
He saw that among Riser's peerage, the blonde twin-tailed girl had a non-combat pass hanging at her waist. Aside from its monitoring function, it had no hidden effect at all...
All he could say was, as expected of the little sister of one of the current Four Great Satans of the Underworld, "Lucifer." She could cheat even in a situation like this.
...
At the very top level of the arena, the Four Great Devils of the Underworld stood together, watching the two teams enter the field.
"Everyone, don't you think something feels a little off?"
The alluring green-haired man frowned as he spoke to Rias's older brother beside him.
"Hm?"
"Did you notice something strange?"
"What do you mean, Ajuka?"
The moment Ajuka, one of the Four Great Devils, "Beelzebub," said that, he immediately drew the attention of the other three.
"It's not that anything in particular feels strange. It's just... don't you think this Rating Game between Rias and Riser has become a bit too big? Big enough that it completely exceeds the scale it should have reached."
Hearing that, the other three looked at one another.
It was true. The scale of this Rating Game had gone way too far for Rias.
Under normal circumstances, even with the gimmick of the princess of House Gremory and the third son of House Phenex, having a dozen or so current heads of the Seventy-Two Pillars show up would already be the limit.
But now...
Sirzechs and the others looked around.
On the far left was Brahma, one of the Trimurti of the Hindu pantheon, with the monkey god Hanuman and the subordinates of the elephant-headed god Ganesha behind him.
Right beside them was Zeus, a white-bearded middle-aged man, followed by a group of demigod heroes and representatives of the Greek gods and the Eve elves.
Then there was an old man with an eyepatch. Though dressed casually, he looked exceptionally sturdy, and behind him stood a group of Valkyries and frost giants. They were from the Norse pantheon.
After that came the Sumerian pantheon, the Celtic pantheon, and more.
Sirzechs and the other two swept their gaze across the surroundings, then looked behind themselves. To hold down a situation like this, with top gods from various pantheons gathered together, they had brought out not only the current heads of the Underworld's Seventy-Two Pillars, but also most of the old monsters from the older generation.
To match a spectacle like this, even Ajuka himself, the creator of the Rating Game and the one who loved it most, felt that only a future where the Rating Game had become internationalized, with every pantheon treating it as an arms race, could possibly justify this kind of scene.
"Even if things have gotten a little out of hand, at its core this is still just an accidental mess caused by coincidence. It shouldn't be some kind of conspiracy. Haven't we already checked?"
The languidly handsome "Asmodeus" spoke in a casual tone.
That was true. Even though the scale had become absurd, their investigation really had shown that it was all just a coincidence.
The Kingdom of "Netheril" had suddenly announced that it wanted to come watch this Rating Game, which prompted the various pantheons to respond and say they would attend as well.
Originally, that had been a good thing. It might have been the perfect chance to push the Rating Game fully into the awareness of the various pantheons and set it on the road to internationalization.
But then the publicity department had inexplicably gone crazy and started using a weirdly provocative tone, forcing pantheons that originally only intended to put on a show and casually send a few people over because of Netheril to seriously think about who they would dispatch. On top of that, one of the world's top fifteen powerhouses just happened to be free.
And once the first pantheon's delegation included someone from the world's top fifteen, the others had no choice but to follow suit and send their own top experts as well. Otherwise, they'd be the ones looking bad.
"Then where are the people Netheril sent?"
Looking toward a completely empty section, Ajuka said with a twitch at the corner of his eye.
Even if "Netheril" could not be called the true mastermind behind the current situation, it was absolutely the fuse that had set everything off.
And yet they had not sent a single person.
"Maybe... it's because they don't have anyone strong enough to control a situation like this?
You all know how it is. The witches of Netheril rely on their unique Magic Network, so within Netheril they can say 'anything below SSS can come die by the truckload,' but their personal strength isn't actually that high."
After thinking it over for a moment, Asmodeus answered in a somewhat uncertain tone.
"That is a possible explanation, yes. But it's still too much of a coincidence. So much so that it feels like someone deliberately wanted us to appear here."
"Ajuka, are you saying you're worried someone might use this gathering of the Underworld's forces to cause trouble inside the Underworld? That the teleportation circles have been tampered with?"
In the end, it was Rias's brother, Sirzechs, who more or less understood what Ajuka was trying to say.
If someone really had sabotaged the teleportation circles in secret and planned to exploit the Underworld's weakened internal defenses to cause destruction, then that operation would indeed have a decent chance of succeeding.
"That's only part of my guess. I'm not worried about the circles failing. I'm worried that someone might attack the arena itself while all these powerhouses are gathered here."
The moment Ajuka said that, the other three turned to him in shock, as though they had just heard something unbelievable.
And it was no wonder.
Just looking at the people present, even counting only Sirzechs and Ajuka along with the others, the number of world top-fifteen powerhouses here had already exceeded ten.
As for the god- or Devil King-class powerhouses at the scene, even though most of them were from the Underworld, once you added in the ones brought by the various pantheons, the total still easily broke into the hundreds.
To put it bluntly, with a lineup like this, even if Shiva, the God of Destruction, suddenly went mad and attacked this place, the one publicly acknowledged as the strongest outside the world's recognized top five, the default "world number six," a full tier above the world top fifteen, the outcome would only depend on whether the various pantheons wanted to use the chance to weaken the Hindu pantheon. Either they would take him down without a scratch, or they would kill him after suffering only minor injuries.
"You mean... Shadow?"
"Yes. The intelligence reported by Sona Sitri has me a little worried."
Sirzechs put Ajuka's true concern into words.
If it was someone on Shadow's level, then he really did have the right to attack the venue.
After all, everyone knew that the world's top five were at least two tiers above Shiva, the world's number six, and Shiva himself was one tier above an ordinary member of the world top fifteen.
Combined with the information Sona Sitri had reported, Shadow's destination was obviously this place. And if Shadow really intended to make a move against them, how exactly were they supposed to deal with that?
With that thought in mind, the three male Devils fell silent in thought.
"Hmm... Ajuka, what you're saying makes sense, but would Shadow really need to go through all that trouble just to deal with us?"
In the end, it was "Leviathan" Serafall, who had not been able to get a word in from the start and looked completely out of place among the other three Devils in her magical girl outfit, who glanced at her three colleagues and asked in a puzzled tone.
"..."
As if Serafall's voice had jolted them awake, Ajuka, Asmodeus, and Sirzechs looked at one another and all fell silent.
Right.
If Shadow was really a top-five-level powerhouse, would he need to go through all that trouble just to kill them?
Once they realized that, the four of them returned to their original mood.
There was no need to overthink things. If anyone below the top five in the world dared to cause trouble here, then with the number of powerhouses present, whoever came would die. And as for someone at the top-five level, did a person like that really need to set up a special scheme just to kill them? Wouldn't that be more trouble than it was worth?
"Yo, what are you four talking about so happily? Mind filling me in?"
A middle-aged man who looked carefree and unserious appeared beside them.
"Azazel, you're here?"
Seeing who it was, Ajuka smiled and stepped forward.
The other three were unsurprised by Ajuka's reaction. After all, they were both technical types, and Azazel was the leader of the Fallen Angels. He was also the first person in their world to propose a world alliance.
In terms of hobbies, status, and personal leanings, Azazel was basically a perfect match for Ajuka's friendship preferences.
"Azazel, what is it? Is there someone among the participants below who caught your eye?"
After only a few exchanges, Ajuka noticed that Azazel seemed distracted.
"One of them, I guess."
"Oh? I wonder which lucky person managed to catch the attention of the Governor General of the Fallen Angels and Grigori."
"Lucky isn't the word. I'm just a little curious."
Following the direction Azazel pointed, Ajuka saw a black-haired boy with almost no presence at all.
Ajuka had some impression of him. He was a Human whose physical constitution was unsuited for reincarnating as a Devil. Rias had once asked him to help adjust the boy's body after the match, but aside from that, there was nothing especially noteworthy about him.
"This one? He looks pretty ordinary. Or is there something special about him that I didn't notice?"
"I don't know. He just gives me a very unusual feeling."
Azazel shook his head. Even he could not explain what that feeling was. It simply reminded him of someone very special to him, and because of that, he had ended up paying a little more attention to Cid as well.
"He does look ordinary, but since he's managed to catch the attention of the Governor General of the Fallen Angels, I imagine there must be something unusual about him..."
Ajuka stopped halfway through his sentence and looked to the side at a mature green-haired woman who was watching their conversation with obvious interest. Judging by her expression, their discussion had caught her attention.
Realizing she had been noticed, the woman gave them a polite smile and a small nod to indicate that she meant no harm and was merely curious, then turned and left.
They had not gone out of their way to hide what they were saying, so in a venue full of powerhouses, it was hardly strange for one of them to overhear.
Ajuka recognized the green-haired woman. She was a Vampire Primogenitor from World No. 2, one of the only three SSS-class powerhouses in that world, and the ruler of the Dominion "Chaos Zone," Chaos Bride Giada Kukulcan.
So it seems I'm not the only one who sensed something unusual. What an interesting boy. Let me have a closer look.
With her back to Ajuka and the others, Giada waved a hand and summoned two leopards transformed from her servants, secretly sending them off to investigate.
Still... the feeling that boy gives that Fallen Angel leader is probably not the same as the one he gives me.
Giada ran her pink tongue lightly over her lips.
For the first time, she felt the urge to drink a man's blood.
But only that much.
The temptation was not enough to shake her reason, which meant she had plenty of time to investigate at her leisure.
Thinking that, Giada slowly walked away, unaware of one thing.
The battle arena below the venue was a separate spatial barrier, isolated from the venue itself.
In other words, a stretch of empty void lay between them.