Chapter 6: Crash on top of the snack table

'Hmm… I see, they're skirmishing to find out more of the Death Knight's capabilities. Much like how I'd approach the situation. I approve.' Momonga nodded in his head while pretending to be horrified on the outside as the Death Knight he had summoned was fighting against Rias's group. Or play-fighting, as Momonga had told the knight via order to try to prolong the fight as long as possible to gauge the group's relative abilities.

"What the hell?" The blonde boy was starting to show exasperation as his swings and stabs were either blocked by the tower shield the Knight was carrying or parried by the flamberge, each parry breaking the weapon in the boy's hands. Yet it seemed that the boy could produce a new weapon to replace his broken one in the blink of an eye.

'Hm, low durability weapons suggest that the weapons are all low level. I'm guessing he's using them deliberately to lull the Knight into a false sense of superiority until he brings out something akin to [Burning Brand] or [Warrior mk. 8]' Momonga eyed the boy warily as he pulled a scimitar from thin air. 'At least this confirms he's likely a player as well, since he has an Inventory from where he's getting the weapons. Speaking of which…'

Momonga looked around, leaned back on the hallway's wall to hide his hand behind his back and he reached into his personal Inventory… and pulled his hand back as he felt something claw and scratch it. 'What? I tried to pull out a health potion…'

He tried again, and flinched as something apparently bit the appendage.

Third attempt, and he pulled his hand away and quickly extinguished the odd red and green flame that had enveloped it. 'Okay, something is not right…'

"Yuuto! Use fire!" Rias commanded the boy as she sent a orb of dark energy at the Knight, the energy impacting the Knight's tower shield and causing the undead to take a step back. However, it was otherwise unhurt. "Dammit, how durable is this thing?"

"[Flame Sword]" The blonde boy, Yuuto, chanted as he pulled out a huge demonic straight sword wreathed in flame, and swung it at the Knight. A crescent of fire detached from the sword and hit the tower shield, sticking into the undead and setting it on fire.

'Hmm, that caused a decent amount of damage. Not enough to defeat it in one hit though, or rather reduce to it to one health and activate it's damage nullification that negates all overflowing damage from any single attack that would otherwise kill it, leaving just one health 'point' remaining. Moreover, the flame has a daemonic energy component so it's not as powerful as regular flame damage or holy flame damage against the undead…' Momonga analyzed as he discarded the issue of his Inventory for now.

The Death Knight, still on fire, let out a challenging roar and stabbed it's flamberge to the floor, causing tendrils of dark energy to spread from the stab on the floor and cover the hallway.

"Ufufu, now it's angry and on fire." The raven-haired shrine maiden chuckled as she sent a bolt of lightning at the creature, aiming to interrupt the Death Knight's channeling. The bolt hit but did seemingly no damage. "Truly you are the mind of our generation, Rias-chan."

"Shut up, Akeno." Rias growled at the raven-haired girl, Akeno.

Akeno just flicked her finger against the angry girl's nose. "Ara ara, calm down, Rias-sama. Anyone makes mistakes when too agitated."

The red-head seemed to deflate for a moment before nodding resolutely to the shrine maiden and turning towards the Death Knight who had now pulled the blade out of the ground and was using it to parry Yuuto's flaming attacks, the [Flame Blade] not breaking with each parry for a change. "You're right. Sorry, Akeno-chan. What is it doing?"

A chorus of growls and howls responded to the girl as the dead bodies of maids in the hallway suddenly reanimated themselves, grabbing small flamberges and miniature tower shields from seemingly nowhere and standing to phalanx formation around the Death Knight.

'Oh, Death Squires.' Momonga nodded appreciatively. 'And the Squires can make lower-tier undead from their kills as well. Normally that wouldn't be an obstacle for just about anyone past level fourty or so as low-level matryoshka doll undead aren't that useful against higher tier opponents, since anyone taking out the level thirty-five Death Knight would also take out the Squires it controlled and the zombies the squires had made. However, this will at least force Rias and company to stop playing around and start attacking for real. Good thinking, Knight! ...Actually, the knight is supposed to be just dumb NPC summon, can it actually think and formulate tactics by itself? Ah, so much to discover, I'm getting really excited'

His emotion suppression ruined his happy and giddy feeling, but Momonga guessed he couldn't fault it as he had forced the ability to suppress so many negative emotions it'd be only fair for it to suppress some positive ones as well. 'Ah, win some, lose some I guess...'

Momonga was so focused on the fight that he forgot he wasn't supposed to be allied to the undead so he had completely ignored the now-undead glasses-wearing maid who had stood up behind him. Until he saw Rias turning towards him and screaming for Issei to dodge. 'Oh, crap, if they saw the undead not attacking me then… '

Thinking quickly he used the link between the creator and the created to order the Death Knight to direct some attacks towards Momonga as well. The Death Knight let out a roar of affirmation and charged, forcing Rias to scream in frustration and fear as the attack she had aimed at the glasses-wearing maid had to be redirected towards the charging Death Knight so it wouldn't flatten the cat-girl standing between it and the group. "Koneko! Dodge! You can't take it head-on even with Rook's strength! Issei! Get away from here… No! Issei!"

Momonga grunted as he was knocked off his feet by the glasses-wearing Death Squire-maid, waving his hands in faux-panic and doing his best 'panicked noncombatant' impression by trying to push the undead girl from his chest.

Only, his attempt to push the undead girl's head away turned into something else entirely as the maid took his fingers into her mouth and began licking and sucking them, wet, slobbery saliva coating his hand and dripping down to his chest.

"Uh?" Momonga's host's eyes widened and he froze in shock. "Excuse me?"

"Momonhga-shama… so ghood..." the glasses-wearing maid's dull eyes seemed to be filled with ecstasy from the touch as she grind her hips against Momonga's chest before sliding down on his body until their waists touched. Momonga quickly pushed his hand deeper into the girl's mouth to keep the maid from speaking further, causing the undead maid to let out a muffled moan of pleasure and shudder in a way that caused nervous sweat to fall down Momonga's neck.

'Right, this is an eroge after all.' Momonga thought in resignation while feigning terror. 'Hurry up and 'save' me, Rias!'

Tannin scoffed as he found himself inside the forest surrounding Phenix family's building in the Rating Game grounds. The explosion caused by the traitorous Phenix son had forced the lizardman-shaped dragon to dodge, but the explosion had clipped him and sent him off course from his intended approach of 'running towards the heir, leaping through the air to the rooftop and punching the idiot kid's brain out of the back of his foolish head'.

"And what exactly are you?" Tannin couldn't keep disgust out of his tone as he stopped making his way towards the building to look at what appeared to be five brains stapled together into a ball with tentacle-like guts flowing limply out of it, but not quite touching the ground, with the whole macabre mess floating four feet off the ground.

The sound seemed to cause the grotesque ball to twitch and it began to float daintily towards Tannin, who just scoffed and kicked the ball.

The [Drifting Master Mine] exploded, blowing the dragon away from the Phenix Rating Game estate.

"WHO THE HELL USES EXPLOSIVES AGAINST ME OF ALL DRAGONS?!" The enraged Blaze Meteor Dragon roared as he crashed against a mountainside in the distance, the impact burying him a few feet into the stone.

"It seems young Phenix is more cunning than I ever gave him credit for. I'd tip my hat if I was wearing one." Sirzechs hummed jovially as he looked towards a massive explosion and the resulting mushroom cloud emerging from the forest beside the Phenix estate. "I'm assuming that the shape which was blasted into the mountainside was Tannin-san. It'll take him a few minutes to get back here, during which we'll have to fight without him- assuming Riser-kun doesn't have other traps lying around that would further delay Tannin's arrival."

"It's likely Riser Phenix has traps prepared to separate us as well." Grayfia pointed out as the pair sneaked into the estate, having dodged the fireballs Riser had sent towards the pair while making their way to the building.

Grayfia had tried to take to the sky in an attempt to just grab the young man and cut the fight short, having materialized her devil wings, but the approach had been halted as a invisible airborne mine had detonated and forced her to crash into the ground, leading the two to believe that the sky had been turned to a minefield specifically to prevent them from going for the easy approach.

Of course, Sirzechs could have just used his magic circles and [Power of Destruction] to return fire on Riser when he had attacked the first time, alongside myriad of other spells and abilities, likely ending the 'fight' in an instant. But he wanted to capture the young man rather than turning him into burning ashes and sending him into his next reincarnation without memories from his previous life. Moreover, once the pair had been halfway to the estate Riser had disappeared from the rooftop, presumably going inside the building to prepare for their arrival.

The mystery of the undead attack could likely be solved if Sirzechs got the opportunity to interrogate the Phenix family's heir, and figure out who was behind the young man's actions. In addition, they needed to re-establish contact with the rest of the Phenix family to figure out what had happened in the hours between Sirzechs and Grayfia leaving the mourning family and the undead attack.

Sirzechs didn't believe the head of the Phenix family to be foolish enough to attempt something like what the heir was doing, so the likeliest conclusion was that the heir was acting on his own. Possibly as a form of vengeance for losing the marriage contract, but Sirzechs somehow doubted the man's spite would reach far enough to declare war on the entire Underworld.

A thick miasma of death surrounded the estate, making it feel more like a graveyard than a place of rest and recovery from the Rating Games, and it seemed whatever had happened in the place was interfering with both Devils abilities to sense life and energy to the point they were going in practically blind as far as non-biological sensing abilities went.

Grayfia began opening the doors as the two explored through the mansion, crushing occasional groups of undead and zombified service staff who had clearly fallen in battle against the relentless dead and had been reanimated. They had discovered no Phenix family members in the first floor, just undead service staff and signs of a desperate battle fought, so they moved to the second floor.

"Hm?" Grayfia paused as a rumble came from one of the rooms, then lifted her hands to shield herself as the wall before them shattered into pieces of timber and masonry.

Once the dust settled the pair saw a Death Knight, similar to the one Tannin had defeated before, standing in the hallway and directly blocking their advance after having burst through a wall nearby. The only difference was that instead of wielding a flamberge and a shield it was wielding two flamberges, one in each hand.

The Death Knight swung one of his blades and the body stuck to it flew off towards the pair and rolled to a stop in front of Sirzechs and Grayfia.

"Ah, that'd be… Riser Phenix's pawn, I believe?" Sirzechs looked at the corpse of a girl with cat-ears. "Interesting that he'd have his minions attack even his own Peerage. Something doesn't add up here."

"I'll take care of this." Grayfia stepped in front of her husband and Sirzechs nodded. "Go ahead and find the Phenix family. I feel Riser may be with them."

"Alright. Make sure you come back to me after you're done." Sirzechs nodded, bored resolution in his voice masking a twinge of worry, causing Grayfia to smile slightly at her overly worrying husband. The man cast a magic circle towards the ceiling, causing it to cave in and he used the resulting hole as an entryway to the floor above with short materialization of his own wings.

The Death Knight let out a roar of challenge while stabbing his blades to the floor, and Grayfia stepped over the corpse of the Pawn to meet the Knight in battle.

The Knight charged, throwing both his swords at her in a opening move that almost caught Grayfia off-guard, but she deflected the throws easily enough. The Knight seemed to pull new swords out of nowhere, surprising her second time in a row. 'So it has something akin to [Sword Birth], but since that [Sacred Gear] is held by a person within Rias's Peerage… Did... No, that can't be the case. Rias was in Gremory's portion of the Rating Game grounds. There's no way this thing could be Yuuto-san. This thing has to be using some other ability'

Grayfia suppressed the sudden fear that sprung in her heart and parried the swords, each of her strikes against the blades breaking the flamberges in pieces. Yet, the Knight pulled new flamberges out of nowhere to replenish it's weapons at equal rate, sometimes swinging an empty hand which would be filled by a wavy sword by the time it would impact against Grayfia's strikes.

'Hm, while it has some interesting abilities, its overall capability is low. A decent front-line soldier but nothing more. The only thing to ascertain anymore is the exact number of these things, as they'd likely be able to put up a decent fight against groups of mid-tier devils. Perhaps even take down single high-tier devils if the undead attacked in large groups. I've analyzed enough.' Grayfia concluded as she jumped back slightly, called forth the power entwined to her in her Queen Piece and aimed a blow at the head of the undead Knight, a strike which would blow the creature into chunks.

"Aih!" Grayfia stumbled as she felt pain from the back of her right knee and fell on her knees, the strike aimed towards the Death Knight going wild and only blowing one of the creature's arms off instead of obliterating it entirely. She hastily parried the swing the creature directed at her neck with its remaining arm, causing the blade to shatter, but the creature pressed the attack through even without weapon and reached for her.

The Undead Knight grabbed Grayfia by the throat and flung her through a windowed wall, causing her to crash to the ground with a resounding thud after falling from the second floor of the building.

Grayfia saw as the cat-eared girl who had been skewered by the undead Knight followed her through the hole in the estate's posterior wall, soon followed by the one-armed Knight as well. The creature landed on his feet with an impact that sent vibrations through the grassy ground.

Grayfia hissed as she pulled a small flamberge out of the back of her knee, the blade having pierced straight through her knee and kneecap, leaving a mangled wound as was usual for the wavy blades. She guessed the 'dead' neko had stabbed her in the back once her attention had been fully on the Knight. 'How cunning, I should have known something like this would happen when Sirzechs said something was off… Riser had the Knight stab one of his own Peerage to lower our guard. He's better than either of us gave him credit for. More ruthless too.'

She tried to heal the wound with her magic but for some reason it was almost as if the wound rejected her healing magic, closing with reluctant sluggishness rather than repairing itself almost immediately. 'W-what is this? Cursed weapons? Just who did Riser contact to get weapons like this? Just why is he doing this?'

Grayfia wanted to contact Sirzechs to tell him to be careful, but she was out of time as the Knight and the Pawn charged. Since she was forced to fight while kneeling she had to turn to magic and discard melee combat as her wounded leg wouldn't carry her. And with the air turned to minefield, she couldn't afford to try to take the fight to the sky either. She concentrated on her power and brought forth an array of magic circles behind her, each launching a magic arrow imbued with different elemental properties at her attackers.

The resulting storm of fire and projectiles hit the Pawn who had pulled a small tower shield out of nowhere and forced the cat-girl back, while the one-handed Knight was doing its best to parry the projectile attacks, going through blades at alarming rate while occasionally suffering a hit or two that left burning marks or gouged chunks out of its armor. The creature fell on its knees, forcing the Pawn to run in front of it to shield it with her body, the tower shield smoking from the heat it had absorbed and broken in multiple parts.

'...I see. They're staying in front of the estate... Cunning.' In normal circumstances, Grayfia could have thrown even more powerful magic at the enemy to the point of turning the entire battlefield into frozen hellscape where no living or dead could linger without her express permission, but the fact the enemy was holding position in front of the mansion forced her to hold back her power.

While she didn't think she'd manage to hurt Sirzechs who was inside the mansion if she went all-out and leveled everything around them, the fact the rampage would destroy any evidence the undead might have left behind, possibly kill Riser, and also possibly kill the rest of Phenix family who presumably were inside the mansion forced her to limit the power of attacks she'd throw around.

The political fallout from the Queen of the strongest Maou of Underworld killing a member of noble families with collateral damage would be immense, even if it happened by accident, and in the worst-case scenario Sirzechs might be politically forced to cast Grayfia out as a Stray should that happen since the memories from old Maou's tyranny and attitude of 'being above the rules' from before the Civil War in the Underworld would put Sirzechs between a rock and a hard place.

She wondered for a moment if that had been the entire point of Riser's appearance from the enemy- To force a wedge in the Underworld's political sphere by tricking the Maous or their Peerages into killing a member of noble Pillar Families without due process and judgement from the rest of the Pillars.

The barrage came to an end as another cat-girl and two other girls who had shielded the undead knight, whom Grayfia recognized to be holders of Riser's Knight Pieces and a Pawn, jumped down from the hole blown in the estate's posterior wall and joined the battle, covering the damaged Death Knight with their odd tower shields as Grayfia attacked again. The constant barrage was draining Grayfia's strength but it seemed that the spells were causing decent amount of damage on the shielded undead, meaning that the fight had turned into a game of endurance rather than skill.

'Hurry up and end this, Sirzechs!' Grayfia sent another barrage of spells at the assailants to keep them back while trying her best to simultaneously heal her leg.

"And here we are." Sirzechs hummed to himself as he entered the third floor of the Phenix estate. Normally the third floor was reserved for servants and staff who'd serve the family during their stay in the Rating Game's grounds with first floor being reserved for relaxation and healing, and second for the family members and Peerages to stay in, so it felt odd for Sirzechs that the Phenix heir would be hiding in there. The man was usually pompous and arrogant so it would have been more thematically appropriate for him to confront Sirzechs in the first floor, likely lounging on a throne of bones or something equally pretentious, yet it had been empty sans for few undead milling about when he had gone through it with Grayfia.

A groan answered Sirzechs from nearby and he walked to a door of what would have been a communal room for the servants, opened it, and did a double-take as he saw Lord Phenix strapped to an operating table in the center of the room.

The room had been turned into some sort of laboratory and was covered in blood and organs, some burnt and some looking fresh while others had shriveled up and were twitching violently. All in all, Sirzechs rated it six out of ten on the mad scientist scale, ten being Beelzebub's laboratory during the war against Old Maou's.

Lord Phenix looked like he'd been through double-hell, wounds covering his body with each cut made to resemble a rune of some sort. What was more worrying was that the wounds on his skin were bleeding freely and weren't closing despite the man having blood of the Phoenix flowing through his veins

"No, get awa- urgh!" The man noticed Sirzechs and tried to speak before a spasm caused his body to tense up and release. "My son… What did I do wrong with you… How could you do this…"

"I take it you're aware of what's happening?" Sirzechs asked as he moved next to the operating table, deciding against cutting the pieces of clearly enchanted cloth that tied the man to the bed, just in case the head of Phenix family was merely trying to lull him into a false sense of security with the display. "Ah, and on a related matter, where might be the rest of your family?"

"M-my family... " Lord Phenix's voice cracked, his eyes focused somewhere else than present. "We were so glad when you woke up. So glad… but… The eyes... your face turned so hollow..."

"Yes?" It seemed that Sirzechs voice was finally enough to wake Phenix family's patriarch from his after-torture stupor and he focused his eyes on Sirzechs.

"S-Sirzechs-sama! H-He... He took my wife first. The fire he used, it wasn't Phoenix Flame. It was cursed, bale flame, and before we knew what was happening..." the man groaned as the spasm seemed to return. "Riser said… said that he would reward him if… if he managed to make an undead phoenix… he had failed to become one, apparently. He was just… ugh… 'a mere Elder Lich, a disappointment to the Supreme One's aspirations' or something like that. I told him to take me, leave his mother alone… The sick things he said he could do with a female specimen... I fought, I managed to free her from his grasp. I told my wife to run, to hide Ravel and Ruval… I fought to buy them time, and to distract him I allowed myself to be captured. I don't know where the rest of my family are."

"Ah, I see. Thank you for the information. I trust you know why I can't release you right now?"

"Yes, you don't know whose side I am on. I could be deceiving you, albeit your skillshould be able to tell you that I am not lying but I won't fault you for being careful. Please, if you find what has become of my son, kill him. Kill it and burn his body so itcan never come back." The Phenix family patriarch's voice turned resolute and his eyes seemed to gain focus. The man turned towards Sirzechs as much as his restraints allowed him. "Swear it to me, in the name of Maou. Name your price and I'll pay it willingly. Form a contract. Please."

"Of course, however I request the right to interrogate Riser-kun first... And in exchange I'll demand a unrefusable favour I'd like to call in at a later date." Sirzechs nodded as Lord Phenix agreed, the contract forming between them.

"'A unrefusable favor at a later date'... Ha, you truly are Lucifer… I accept." Lord Phenix shook his head in amusement before tensing as another spasm of pain caused the man's back to arc. "T- thank you. Don't worry about me. I'll live. Th- this isn't enough to kill a Phoenix!"

"Did Phenix-kun…"

"Riser Phenix is dead. That thing inside is just a mass of malevolence and spite puppeting his corpse. I refuse to call it my son any longer. I refuse his place in my family, and reject his right to my name." Lord Phoenix interrupted Sirzechs with dark vehemence in his voice.

"Of course. Did Riser mention more about this 'supreme being'?" Sirzechs didn't press the issue as a juicy bit of intel practically fell on his lap.

"Nothing much, it- ugh- it seems that the 'supreme being' is its deity or something like that, the way it spoke about the thing was more akin to worship than one speaking about one's leader." Lord Phenix winced. "I don't really recall much else."

"I see. Well, Grayfia should be following me soon so I imagine by the time she's here, I'll have Riser-kun subdued, interrogated and killed, and we'll see what we can do for you." Sirzechs bowed slightly towards the Phenix family patriarch. "Oh, and I'll see if I can find what has become of the rest of your family. If they are innocent to all this then no blame will fall upon them."

"Thank you."

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