Banished to Purgatory (Canada)

(A/N: This chapter is from the POV of Lars (the Devil) after leaving the battlefield.)

I materialized in a damp, dark, freezing room - replacing the view of the muddy battlefield I had previously been in - with only the crimson glow of a teleportation array giving any sort of light.

Quickly, I rushed to the boarded-up windows of the securely built and enchanted shack - a 'teleportation safehouse' of sorts I had set up in the Canadian Rocky Mountains - and scouted out the area.

Nothing had changed. It was still daytime; no mountains had collapsed; no forests had been upended; no rivers had been drained. I'm not sure what I expected.

"Well, that was… embarrassing," I murmured, casting a diagnostic spell to see if the shack had ever been disturbed since last I came here..

It was indeed embarrassing - to the point where I have to question what went wrong.

Of course, it didn't go as badly as it could've, considering that I'd been facing two Holy Men [1] - a Holy Man and a Holy Woman, technically, though the latter would be more suited to the name 'Holy Girl' - but the fact remains that I had been damaged - harmed - by a Basic Magic cretin dog of the Church.

I haven't been hit by Holy Energy in a century. I'd forgotten the feeling of abject terror and nonbeing it brings - being directly hit with enough can, quite literally, erase a Devil's existence - and though I had only been affected by an outward wave and not a direct attack, it still cut my stamina by a whole fifth. The accompanying agony wasn't nearly as bad as the notion that my energy and power were draining.

I paused after completing the spell, seeing that nothing was awry, before trying to sense my reserves.

"A little over a fourth is gone." I sighed. "I'm not doing anything until I have completely regenerated."

Walking outside after undoing the enchantment on the decrepit log cabin's door, I sat down on the equally decrepit wooden reclining chair and began a detailed reminiscence, trying to see if there was anything I could've done better.

It was only after I released my Balance Breaker that things began going downhill - for me, at least. One could construe my partner's demise as an integral indicator of such a decline, but I disagree - it was a tactically sound decision. I made no mistake in that decision.

Crescentia would have been unable to contribute anything in a two-on-two fight, let alone a two-on-two fight against a Holy Sword wielder and someone she couldn't even reach. She could hardly control her shapeshifting, fog manipulation, or even shadow manipulation - all she was good for was familiar scouting, hence why she was originally sent with me on a reconnaissance mission.

Which simply casts more suspicion on the notion that we truly were ordered by our superiors to establish a 'base' in the middle of nowhere that had no teleportation array.

Crescentia did have another trait, though, which contributes to both why she was sent on the reconnaissance mission and more evidence for her uselessness in combat.

Despite being absolutely inept at truly controlling fog, Crescentia had a strange trait of having a natural, thin layer of it around her body - largely protecting her from being harmed by sunlight for certain periods of time, though she still preferred to be indoors - which was dispelled whenever she tried to consciously use her fog control ability or really do anything. When dispelled, she was just like any other Vampire - she would practically collapse upon contact with sunlight.

Now that I think of it, the reason why she never got up from that pile of rubble, even though the accursed book's verses are more than possible to acclimate to, was that her 'Haze Cloak' as she called it had been impacted in some way.

Yet another reason for her worthlessness. It's as if she traded all other skills for that trait upon being born. What a bum.

To be fair, it's not surprising. The layer would also disappear whenever a particularly strong gust of wind passed by, always making me construct a box shelter around her and wait until it regenerated.

I believe I've made my point quite clear. In exchange for getting rid of a burden, I also got rid of a Holy Sword user - a win-win scenario.

After using my 'Big Bang' - as the Knight of my King's peerage calls my Balance Breaker - to accomplish that, I was - and still am - unable to use my Sacred Gear until the next time the sun rises.

In response to the murder of his partner, rather than explode in rage and indignity, the Exorcist seemed unaffected, mostly calm, and even had the gall to ask me why I had decided to turncoat, joining 'the ranks of Lucifer'.

Like I said, he doesn't understand.

What I want is the best for myself. If that is accomplished through pious belief and the scrutinization of scripture, I would become a monk who never leaves his cave to do anything other than gather food, so be it. I would have become an Exorcist and fought for Heaven as the most devout clergyman since Mr. Rock [2] himself, praising He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named every second of the day in exchange for the promise of eternal paradise.

Unfortunately, that wasn't a viable option. I had committed the grave sin of Black Magic and necromancy before I found out that the Exorcist ranks were even a thing - or an option.

I refused to risk early Malebolge [3] by trying to repent and join the Church - and I still do, although it's not like I could, having become a Reincarnated Devil, Instead, I will either live for as long as possible, figure out some sort of seal that will trap my soul and mind for eternity after death and keep it from bounding toward eternal punishment, simulating the atheistic view of the afterlife (nonexistence), or achieve some form of immortality. The last one is the least likely out of the two, and the first is the most.

Anyway. I've gotten off track. After the ignorant little guessing game that philistine tried to have with me, acting as if it wasn't obvious how much he hated doing so and was simply forcing himself to stall for reinforcements, I made my first move - which, I believe, was admissible.

I casted a fire spell - a special one whose fire increases the oxygen levels of the air around it - with a number of amplifiers and focuses in front of it, speeding up the 'beam'. By the time the Exorcist showed his hand with access to Holy Energy, it was already too late - the fire had reached him, and he scrambled out of the forest.

After that, the mistakes began piling up.

Realizing that I was facing a Holy Man - and that I had already killed a Holy Sword wielder and didn't want a special Church bounty on my head - I refrained from killing him for a bit, aiming to only almost kill him.

With that goal, I defended myself against his crude Basic Magic enchantments - a type of… and I call it so reluctantly, Magic only used by crass, vulgar dogs - and set up an old spell I had thought of in my human days and refined in my Devil ones.

A moving barrier spell.

Long ago, a colleague of mine in the Black Magistrate described that specific spell as 'cheesing Magic itself in exchange for efficiency'.

I'm still not sure exactly what the former part ever meant, but the main premise is true - it is a spell that is half-complete at all times until its boundaries are fully decided on, and one must constantly rearrange its Magic Circle construction with Will and utter focus to change its shape and location, An increase in the casting complexity like that made it cost far less than a true moving barrier, which is a more concrete, expensive spell with many more factors that determine, how, why and when to fulfill your commands.

Before casting it, though, I had casted a water spell hundreds of meters into the air, forming a vast amount of liquid, and kept it from falling with basic seals that would dissipate with a mere thought. The goal was to encircle the Exorcist within a decently sized area with the barrier, then drop the pond's worth of water on top - it would become an aquarium, him being the trapped fish, and if he didn't drown and decided to make fruitful attempts to escape, I would simply shock or boil the water to incapacitate him.

However, putting my focus on three different tasks - the barrier, the seals, and defending myself from rogue Magic - required the aid of my familiar.

Reaching into my pocket and sighing, I pulled out Cecilia's limp carcass. She was a small, aqua blue mushroom with one pale eye at the top - and her use was to release fumes that helped with concentration, focus, and controlling my mind.

Her predecessor, Dagmar, a purple variant, died a century or so ago, and now I will have to find a new replacement.

I sighed again. Trying to get an appointment at Familiar Forest takes months. That queue is infamous.

Anyway, with the help of her ability, I was able to balance casting around three or four spells at once, with the consequence that I ignored everything around me other than the bullets and my spells.

It was a fine idea at first with not much risk to it - the suspected reinforcements wouldn't arrive for a while, and I had previously set up a trashy secondary barrier that would, if not block attacks, alert me of its failure - only, the Exorcist threw his hand grenade above its boundaries.

I called it trashy for a reason. I was too short on time and motivation to make it a dome.

Noticing the ordnance of Holy Energy - one reminiscent of the old relic of Antioch - rushing towards me at high speeds, I, understandably, completely and utterly panicked, trying to send it away with a force spell - forsaking my oath to not use anything other than elemental spells and such basic things for the sake of efficiency against weak opponents.

The grenade blew up, I was put into intense agony, and around a whole fifth of my stamina was cut - all of this occurring even though I had only been hit with some of the outward waves rather than anything straight on. It was like standing near a waterfall - only the stray drops hit me, but even so, it had such an effect.

I need not go any further into detail of this battle's account. It is too humiliating - I still refused to go all out even after this display of incompetence.

Eventually, I got fed up with trying to keep him alive and began to use Aaarabisk's Winepress - a spell that mangles, melts, and mutilates one's bones to the point where it is pulped - when the supporting cavalry decided to show his face.

I assume that was the Gunsmith Reverend. I have developed techniques to use against any Archbishop-rank - or even just notable - Exorcist, including him, but it wasn't worth it.

I had bigger things to take care of - and still do. Such as why my King allegedly ordered me to do such a fruitless task, how the Exorcists knew about it, who Crescentia was trying to communicate with using her familiars, and generally everything involving the situation I had just been in.

Distractions are useful - such as the review of a battle, one which could have been summarized with 'I didn't want to get close to a Holy Man for obvious reasons and thus didn't immediately squash him with physical strength and witchcraft; I didn't want to get a high-priority Church bounty placed on my head for killing a Holy Man and Holy Sword wielder; and I mainly used weaker elemental and basic spells for the sake of efficiency against a notably inferior opponent, as I always do' - but I can't fully avoid the issue.

My King isn't a Gremory. He does not cherish his warriors. The Zepar Pillar is known for being a commander of Hell's Hordes - militaristic, utilitarian, ruthless. I know that he loves war. And there is a war on the horizon.

This situation should only speed it up, depending on how it plays out. If it is nudged away into obscurity, like most other encounters with opposing factions, nothing particularly special will happen - but trying to do anything to bring it to light has a decent chance of starting something in the current supernatural climate, especially considering that Crescentia, a Vampire noble, died.

All of that would serve him well.

The Church is intensifying efforts to fully take control of the New World, comprised of the two continents that have been a battleground between us and them since its discovery; they are recruiting tens of thousands of Exorcists from both their newly Christianized land, the ice patch of the north, and other places; and, as mentioned, Heaven is re-Christianizing that aforementioned patch of ice, Russia, and behaving like they did centuries past, defending their believers and intervening in the mortal world.

A militaristic spirit seems to have overtaken them. There are hardly any moles in the Vatican - not many humans are willing to consort with the forces of evil and threaten their immortal soul when they have empirical data that the Heavenly Host exists - but, according to the grapevine, the idiots we do have in our clutches recently reported that their superiors are nervous and are searching for information from the Angels of what has went on. There are murmurs our infiltrators have heard of 'choosing sides' from those in the know.

Apparently, there are complications in Heaven.

Nobody knows the details. I doubt many in the Vatican itself do.

And it is not only their fault that a conflict is coming. It is also ours - in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this new change in Heaven's countenance is due to the tension we've been emanating.

There is a Longinus user in charge of Germany - the new Alphecca Tyrant - and our sources have informed us that he is preparing for total war throughout Europe - normally, this wouldn't be a big deal for us. During the last one around twenty years ago - the one instigated by that Telos Karma user who bragged about manipulating fate so that the Archduke of Austria-Hungary encountered the same assassin multiple times and was eventually killed, starting the conflict - we didn't really do anything, not seeing the need to. A few young Devils saw the easy chance for making contracts with humans affected by the war and went, but that was really it - and it's not like they were commanded to go.

It's viewed differently this time, however.

Now, it is a chance for us to establish our presence once again in the Christian, Greek, and Nordic lands of the old continent amidst the chaos.

Of course, we wouldn't contest the Greek and Nordic spheres of influence at first, if ever, but they're still there.

I suppose the thought process is that we must strike before the Church fully trains all of its new recruits and is a greater fighting force than ever before, with both quantity and quality - their new recruits and the notable characters of their roster, such as the Violence of Heaven, Vasco Strada. Hence our hasty partnership with the Vampires, the only faction of Europe willing to tolerate and assist our intended expansion in exchange for more of their own land.

We must accelerate the dawn of war - without looking completely unjustifiable - in other words, otherwise we will either lose or suffer many losses.

All of this is to say, I was bait. I believe that my King intended to use me as some sort of scapegoat to fuel the war - as to exactly how, I wouldn't know.

What I know is that I'm very glad I never told a single soul about any of my safehouses.

Their divinations can't reach me in these places. I'm more than willing to sit it all out and study Magic for a century or two while the heat dies down. I'm sure my King would prefer that over having to assign a task force to hunt me dow-

Feeling as if my entire body was about to scatter into pieces of mincemeat and then condense into one spot, I gasped.

Then the sensation disappeared.

The King just checked to see whether or not I was dead by trying to resummon the Evil Pieces he had reincarnated me with.

Well, it doesn't really signify much - anyone would check whether or not I was dead for obvious reasons. Doors could open or close, depending on the outcome - it's best to be informed. Nothing has changed in my knowledge of whether or not my King will try to kill me regardless of what I do.

Relaxing my suddenly taut body, I took off my hat, loosened my collar, and put my right ankle on top of my left knee, leaning back into the reclining chair.

I have time to think about what I can possibly do now, all while gazing at the snow-capped mountains and verdant forests in front of me.

If only alcohol could still affect me.

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[1] 'Holy Men' are just humans who can wield Holy Energy, whether through a Holy Relic Longinus, through a Holy Sword, or through 'natural' means (Vasco).

[2] Mr. Rock refers to Saint Peter (the name Peter comes from the word for 'stone' or 'rock') - he's saying it instead of his actual name because it would slightly affect him. Much less than saying 'God', but he'd rather avoid it - even if it's to a barely noticeable degree - while regenerating his Mana.

[3] Malebolge is what DxD calls the realm where sinners and stuff are punished. It's in the Underworld, and it's a reference to the Malebolge from Dante's Inferno.

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Let's do the math:

The Holy Energy drained one-fifth of Lars' stamina, and in total, he ended up draining around a fourth of his total reserves by the end. 1/5 = 4/20, and 1/4 = 5/20. That means that casting all those spells only drained around a twentieth of his total reserves. Bishops who were Magicians in their past lives, like Lars, must be crazy.

Also, I really, really, really feel like I'm forgetting some details to add into the dumbed-down, practically external POV of the 'supernatural politics' that were summarized near the end of the chapter, but I never wrote down every single thought I had about it and so only remember, like, 90% of it.

Another thing to add is that the analysis of Heaven and the Church's state is obviously pretty shallow and partially wrong, since Lars is a Devil and not even a super high-ranking one who'd have access to every shred of intel they have (which isn't much, and what they have is from unreliable, barely middle-management grunts, but still), so wait another like forty chaps until MC is high enough in the food chain to learn the full details about that.

By the way, obligatory notice - none of those politics and stuff are canon to DxD. In DxD, Heaven is perfect and has no problems whatsoever despite God's death, the Underworld is a great place, and nobody ever really fought each other - the author kinda just pretended that they did because it wouldn't be realistic otherwise, which even he knew, but he never committed to it. Most of this is of my own design, in case you haven't noticed - I'm filling in the blanks as I go along for the power system and stuff as I go along, and the plot is completely alien.

Hope you enjoyed the unnecessarily long A/N.

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