Lily was much stronger than Altair initially thought. Probably on par with Ketarea before her reincarnation. That made her powerful enough to defeat Rias and her nobility in one fell swoop.
Which didn't happen.
Altair could see how the redhead was holding back her spells, probably out of fear of harming Rias's nobility.
A red spell came out of Lily's hand. It traveled like lightning until it hit Kiba, who didn't even have time to understand what was happening before he was sent flying, disarmed.
Expelliarmus normally only disarmed the opponent, but when overloaded with magic, it could have the effect of sending them flying.
Kiba had a Sacred Gear called Sword Birth, which enabled him to create demonic swords with various abilities.
Lily's spell made all the swords disappear.
Koneko tried to approach; she was a physical fighter—a Tower. Lily was not stupid in any way. Even though the piece had given her incredible physical abilities, she would not seek to fight hand-to-hand. Perhaps partly out of fear of hurting the Nekoshou.
The girl was quickly immobilized. A Petrificus Totalus was enough. The disparity in power made the spell very effective. The cat girl ended up like Neville in the first movie.
Now, only Rias, Akeno, and Issei remained.
Altair noticed the lack of coordination between Rias' pieces.
They weren't weak; Lily was far superior to them. But they weren't used to fighting together. At that moment, they seemed to be waiting for Lily to defeat them one by one.
"Boost," a deep voice said.
Altair looked at the young man. Sometimes he wished he could just kill him and steal his sacred gear. But that would put him on the same level as those guys who wanted to kidnap Asia. He didn't want his life to be based on hypocrisy.
"Boost," the same sound was heard ten seconds later.
At that point, Lily hadn't moved; she was waiting expectantly. Neither Rias nor Akeno seemed to want to move either.
"Boost."
Altair wondered if Lily knew how Issei's Sacred Gear worked.
From what he had heard, Boost multiplied the base power of the user carrying it by a factor of two every ten seconds. It was absurd and impossible. It had to work some other way.
If Issei's power were increased, a low-class demon with a hypothetical Evans of 30,000 would immediately jump to 60,000. In one minute, his power would already be 1,920,000 Evans—an unreasonable amount. Probably even Maous doesn't have that much power.
There had to be another way. Either there had to be a limit, or the increase didn't always double the power. Perhaps the limit was Ddraig, the dragon imprisoned in the sacred gear.
Or maybe the base taken was different; perhaps it took Issei's power as just a human. That way, it would make a little more sense. Or maybe Issei's body had a limit that the Boosted Gear couldn't check.
Be that as it may, he would not get any answers that day. Lily did not seem willing to wait for Issei to accumulate so much power.
"Wait!" shouted the brown-haired boy.
Lily did not hear him, and the boy ended up, like Koneko, frozen in place.
That left Lily against the two girls, the king, and the queen.
"You are strong. I appreciate that you did not harm my nobility, but as their king, I cannot let this pass." It seemed that both girls moved at once.
Altair was a little surprised when he saw a dark energy with red edges appear in Rias' hands. It was wild and untamable.
Lily shot a beam of light at the girl, a spell Altair didn't recognize. It moved like a snake and was white in color.
Rias countered the spell by throwing that dark energy.
'Power of Destruction,' Altair thought. He had heard little about that power, only that it was one of the reasons Sirchesz was so powerful. A skill not from the house Gremory but of the house Bael, as he later discovered.
The black beam swallowed the light Lily had thrown.
Another beam headed toward Lily from a different angle, emitted by Akeno. The girl took advantage of the red-haired teacher's distraction to attack stealthily.
Altair watched as the power of destruction seemed to dismantle Lily's magic; it was as if thousands of piranhas were devouring the spell.
For a moment, he feared for his queen.
He worried in vain.
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Lily cast a spell that swallowed Akeno's lightning bolt. Then she injected more magic into the white bolt. The bolt thickened and glowed with greater power. The destructive force could not continue on its path and was forced to retreat.
"Rias!" he heard Akeno scream as her king, out of fear, stood still, simply watching the beam travel toward her. "NO!" the queen cried. "You!" rage consumed her as she stared at Lily, who was frowning.
Lily hadn't even tried that hard. She just cast a few powerful spells and defeated all her rivals in one fell swoop. Four rivals, four spells.
Suddenly, Lily felt Akeno cast another lightning bolt in her direction. It was different, it was... sacred.
"Agh!" Lily screamed as the lightning bolt struck her hand. She had raised a shield, but the lightning bolt pierced through it as if it were paper.
When the sacred energy hit her body, she felt the second greatest pain of her life, above the Cruciatus Curse and below the death of her son.
The sacred energy penetrated her body, seeking to dismantle it from within. It was as if it wanted to erase her existence. In the past, Lily had used that same magic to destroy Voldemort, but feeling the damage it did to her had never crossed her mind.
She smiled, thinking of how much Voldemort must have suffered as the victim of that magic amplified several times over.
Lily was not in danger, not at all. Only constant pain. Her magic ended up expelling the sacred magic without a hitch.
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"I'm fine, Akeno," said Rias's frightened voice.
"Buchou," her queen yelled out, running toward her.
Rias felt Akeno's arms wrap around her. She couldn't help but smile—a bitter smile, considering everything.
Lily's spell never hit her. Before it did, she felt an arm around her waist pulling her away from the spot. It was Altair. Then she felt as if she were being sucked into a tube. Apparition. She had never experienced it before, and she hoped she never would again.
She didn't know the consequences of Lily's spell, but she couldn't blame her if it really hurt her. After all, she herself had unleashed her power of destruction, which could undoubtedly have hurt the redhead.
For a few seconds of anger, she let herself go.
In reality, it wasn't even anger; it was pride. She didn't like seeing her nobility defeated so easily. None of her reincarnated devils lasted more than one spell. She didn't want to say it, but she found it humiliating. She wanted to win against the mature red-haired woman.
She was also a little annoyed that the woman turned out to be the queen of Altair. 'It's not that I wanted to be her queen... it was just that... Lily was old and would probably die soon; she wasn't a good investment,' thought the devil, knowing it was nonsense.
"I apologize, Rias, for scaring your queen," she heard the red-haired woman approach.
The queen could be considered the king's right-hand woman. She couldn't help but pout.
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"That was... interesting," said Altair.
It wasn't that he was exactly a combat genius, but anyone with half a brain could see that Rias's nobility didn't stand a chance. They were like headless chickens running around. No order. Individually, they had potential, but they didn't know how to fight as a group; only Rias and Akeno were able to do so to some extent. However, it was more Akeno taking advantage of what looked like a free shot.
"Dress... Break!" Altair heard Issei's voice shout.
From the ground, the boy had his hand outstretched toward Lily, a look of determination and perversion on his face.
Altair didn't wait for confirmation of the rare ability Issei had just used; he teleported in front of the young man.
Soon, he felt the cool air of hell all over his body; his clothes were gone.
Issei looked at him from the ground. Well, he didn't look at him, but at what hung between his legs.
"An interesting ability, Issei," Altair said before raising his foot and kicking the boy hard in the face.
"He-he-hentai," he heard Koneko's voice say from the side. With a bit of embarrassment, the black-haired boy conjured up some pants and quickly dressed himself.
"Rias... have you thought about sending Issei to a juvenile detention center?" he asked.
Issei was a danger to society.