With everyone now on the same page, the atmosphere in the room shifted. People stayed serious, but the tension had turned into quiet readiness.
Sona pushed up her glasses. "Since everything's out in the open now, we need to act fast. Kokabiel isn't hiding anymore, and he's powered up with twisted relics."
Griselda nodded. "The original plan was just to contain the threat and recover the stolen swords. But with what you've shared…" She glanced at Hajime and Alice. "We'll need to go beyond standard Church operations. We'll share information and work as a team."
Rias looked around the room. "We're in. But we need to know where could they show up next. We'll also need to establish a contact line for updates."
Reya tapped a console and pulled up a projection. "There's been a leyline spike in the southern district. Might be connected."
Anisphia rolled her shoulders. "Time for fieldwork then. I can tweak a few detection tools to narrow it down."
Sagiri stepped forward. "Chuuma Ninjas will watch for spiritual shifts. If Kokabiel moves, we'll notice it."
Alice activated the Void Archives terminal, casting a map onto the table. "We'll add any readings of Stellaron traces and match them with leyline activity. This will give us live updates to work with."
Tsubaki chimed in. "We'll patrol the outer areas and boost watch over leyline hotspots. Momo and Reya will handle recon teams."
Griselda raised her hand. "I'll send our status report to Michael-sama. If we need Heaven's help directly, we should be ready."
Hajime nodded. "We'll have to split into three groups: one for tracking, one to secure sites, and a third to stay flexible ready to jump in where they be needed."
Rias crossed her arms. "Let's set the teams properly. We can't afford mistakes. Kokabiel won't give us second chances."
Alice gave a short nod. "Then let's get moving. The Stellaron isn't going to wait while we talk."
------
Far from Kuoh, hidden deep within the ruins of a long-abandoned cathedral cloaked in shadow, Kokabiel stood before a ritual circle pulsating with erratic energy. The air shimmered with raw Stellaron corruption growing more potent by the hour.
Freed Sellzen leaned casually against a crumbling pillar, the edge of an Excalibur fragment glinting in his hand as he spun it like a dagger. "You sure this stuff won't blow us up, boss?"
Kokabiel's wings shifted, his crimson gaze fixed on the ritual. "If it does, it means we were too weak to wield it. And the weak deserve to be consumed."
Valper Galilei emerged from the shadows, holding a containment case lined with cracked runes. Within it pulsed another Excalibur piece, blackened at its edge. "The fusion rate is increasing. The Stellaron energy is merging with the Exacaliburs, but the strain on reality is… significant."
Kokabiel smirked, his confidence oozing like a poison mist. "Let it strain. Let it break. Let the skies crack and the leylines scream. This world has lived too long in the comfort of stagnation. We'll remind it what true upheaval looks like."
Freed let out a low whistle. "And here I thought you just wanted to pick a fight."
"I do," Kokabiel said darkly. "But not with children playing war. I want gods. I want judgment. I want the heavens themselves to look down in fear."
He stepped closer to the unstable ritual, letting the corrupted light lick across his outstretched fingers. "The Stellaron is a gift. A weapon and a message. The age of compromise ends here."
Valper gave a twisted smile. "And what of the outsiders? The ones not belong to any faction?"
Kokabiel's grin widened. "Let them come. Devils, angels, ninjas, 'outsiders' it doesn't matter. I'll break them all the same. And when their remnants scatter, the world will know whose name is etched in fire across the sky."
-----
The sun dipped behind the horizon, casting Kuoh in a soft golden glow. Students departed from school, voices mingling in casual laughter and farewell. For a moment, the town felt untouched by the chaos brewing.
Then, alarms blared.
Within the projection terminal linked to the Void Archives, located inside the Trailblazer field node hidden beneath Kuoh, crimson lights flared to life.
<
Reya and Momo, stationed nearby during perimeter patrol, caught a visual shimmer erupting near the leyline marker.
"That's a dimensional rift!" Momo snapped. "We're calling it in."
Simultaneously, Hajime, Alice, and Anis received the alert through their synced gear. Sagiri, now back in her Chuuma field gear, met them as they converged near the designated site.
An eerie silence lingered as they approached the South District Outskirts. Then just as the shadows stretched long and the pulse of corrupted ley energy throbbed heavier a second ripple surged through the terminal feeds.
"Multiple friendly signatures converging!" Alice called out.
Moments later, Reya and Momo burst from the treeline on the north ridge, flanking with swift precision. Close behind them came Saji Genshirou, as he skidded into position beside them.
"We got your call," Momo said, panting slightly. "Looks like we made it just in time."
Reya nodded, eyes locked on the forming battlefield. "Our scans detected massive rift instability. We couldn't sit this one out."
Saji cracked his knuckles. "And if Kokabiel's pets think they can play in our town they're in for a rude awakening."
Sagiri gave a nod of acknowledgment. "Good. With all of us here, we can hold the line. We can stop this here."
A bolt of corrupted light struck the leyline.
Freed Sellzen emerged with a group of twisted stray exorcists and a contingent of fallen angels, their black wings slick with an unnatural sheen that shimmered with corrupted grace. Their bodies radiated a suffocating aura of desecrated holy energy, faces partially obscured by cracked relic masks that pulsed like dying stars.
The fallen angels flew in practiced formations, their dark halos shimmering erratically above their heads—symbols of power once holy, now warped by Stellaron energy. Some wielded spears that crackled with unholy lightning, others summoned malformed light constructs to their sides.
In front of them, orbiting like cursed satellites, the Excalibur fragments no longer radiant, but contaminated by the Stellaron. The blades twitched unnaturally in the air, as if hungry, whispering curses too low to hear yet too sharp to ignore.
Freed took one of the fragments, grinning like a madman. "The curtain rises, boys and girls. Ready to scream?"
"Showtime," He grinned, flipping one blade into the air. "Kokabiel sends his regards."
"Contact confirmed," Sagiri muttered, drawing her twin kunai, their edges humming with disruption enchantments.
Hajime drew his twin guns, each shot precisely calibrated to disrupt corrupted energies. "Alice, support. Anis, don't go overboard."
"Too late," Anis chirped, summoning not just one, but three glowing devices from her satchel—each one unfolding into a different invention of her own making. One was the Celestial Magic Blade, its core charged with magicite from her Impressed Seal; the second, a compact Runeblaster Cannon etched with her signature chaotic formulae; and the third, the Spark Shroud Barrier Disc, rotating rapidly as it hovered beside her.
She gave a wink. "Let's light this place up with some good old-fashioned Sparkle Engineering."
The battle began.
Freed's forces unleashed a barrage of corrupted holy light, spears and sigils ripping through the air with malevolent force. The frontlines roared to life.
Anisphia surged forward first, her Celestial Magic Blade meeting the nearest corrupted exorcist mid-charge with a thunderous crack. The blade discharged a blast of condensed mana like a coiled dragon's breath, sending the attacker flying back with a scream.
Reya took the left flank, unleashing a barrage of spells that exploded mid-air, disrupting incoming attacks with pinpoint control. "I'm holding the aerial advance, keep the pressure!"
Momo dashed beside her, twin batons ablaze with runic light. "I'll stun the strays, focus on the flyers!"
Saji clenched his gauntleted fist, the signature of his Sacred Gear, Absorption Line, flaring to life along his arm. Black lightning crackled outward, forming tethered lines that siphoned corrupted magic from several exorcists. He redirected the stolen energy, discharging it into the ground as a shockwave that knocked three of them back. "Hmmp! is that all you can do?!"
Sagiri appeared beside Anisphia with a shadowstep, her kunai slicing through the corrupted spell node on a fallen angel's weapon. "They're completely gone. No control left."
Hajime knelt near a ridge, firing off a precise shot with one of his guns, gravity bullet hit the relic pinned on the chest of fallen angel. His focus was calm, clinical. "Relic nodes in their chest, It is the source of their power." he muttered. "Destroying it will stop them."
His Emblem, glowing faintly with Hydro element, shimmered across his gear, subtly empowering his reload cycle and shot velocity, allowing him to stay a few critical seconds ahead of each attack.
Behind them, Alice stood within a warded circle of protection, her Astral Emblem thrumming gently across her back, its Anemo element fueling her wide-range defense sigils. Streams of verdant wind-light wove from her fingertips, forming radiant barriers that adjusted dynamically with each strike. "Shield rotation active—stay within thirty meters if you want to live!"
The second of Anisphia's devices, the Runeblaster Cannon, unfolded at her side. Her Pyro Emblem pulsed at her waist, syncing with the cannon's core, amplifying the output of its mana charge. She directed it with a flick of her wrist, and it fired a concentrated beam that swept across the battlefield, carving a trench of molten earth and bisecting the fallen unluckily at line of fire with explosive flare.
Momo and Reya fought back-to-back, with Reya slashing enchanted glyphs into the air to intercept projectiles, while Momo parried corrupted angelic blades with a magically reinforced baton. "These guys are using leyline surges to amplify their magic!" Reya shouted.
"They're trying to collapse the node!" Alice confirmed, eyes glowing as a ring of sigils pulsed above her.
Meanwhile, Saji charged through a barrage of corrupted spells, his Sacred Gear thrumming with lightning. "We can't let them widen it!"
The air crackled. The leyline itself began to scream, its energy convulsing like a wounded beast as threads of corrupted light wove into the heavens.
Then came Freed's laughter, wild, manic, triumphant. "Let's make some art!" he howled, hurling the Excalibur shard into the heart of the leyline fissure.
The Trailblazers turned their attention to the rift, ready to take action but was too late.
With a lound screech that shattered the air, something began to rise.
A deep tremor shook the ground as the fissure split open even wider. Runes cracked apart under the pressure, and then, without warning, a massive Fragmentum breach tore through the leyline. Black mist surged upward, warping space as jagged terrain twisted into place—forming a twisted zone filled with corrupted energy, wild and unstable.
Its scream with despair, hunger, violation. It reached with its presence alone, grasping for the leyline beneath.
"Oops. Looks like I poked the void," Freed cackled, already vanishing into the rift. "Catch you later!"
From a teleport seal at the edge of the battlefield, Issei, Kiba, and Xenovia burst into view. Seconds behind, Rias and Sona arrived with a flash of crimson.
Issei's eyes widened at the abomination before him. "What the hell is that?!"
Draig's voice growled from the Boosted Gear, edged with urgency:
["An abominable creature born of corrupted divine essence and stellar anomaly... such thing if left unchecked, it may devour this leyline and everything tied to it. YOU have to destroy it now."]