Chapter 55: Tepes Clan Finale and Minor Time Skip

"Azazel!"

"What with the urgen-"

*Roar*

A loud roar muted Azazel's voice as his voice was drowned by the draconic roar which sounded like an angered beast more than anything.

"No time for full explanation but Khaos Brigade stole a grail from Valerie and used it to turn vampires into evil dragons. There are hundreds of them and I need back up. Fast! Shit!"

The communication ended abruptly as Ray was forced to take arms and fight back or the evil dragons would be released to the world above this city.

*ROAR*

A massive western dragon flies and dives straight at Ray. Sending him tumbling away to dodge the dragons and more dragons swarmed at him when he lost his footing.

"Shit!"

He quickly activates Hold The Line and Die Another Day before anchoring his foot firmly on the ground while bracing for the impact of his following moves. He loads the bullets made from condensed all out attack from Azazel then starts shooting at the evil dragons.

When he pressed the trigger, he still felt nothing as he saw the light beam shooting out from the rotating barrels. When the first bullet hits a target however, the world in Ray's perspective turns white before a strong shockwave and prickling pain washes over his body and he resists with his entire strength that his legs are buried into the ground as the strong shockwave keeps washing over him.

From the perspective of another vampire at the edge of the city, all they saw is numerous spheres of light expending and swallowing half the city. Immense shockwaves from the explosion created an apocalyptic earthquake that caused the whole underground city to break apart. The cavern ceiling started to crack as rubbles is burying the city.

Survivors all shouted to flee above as the whole place was about to cave in. The proportion of the battle is so great that the underground city that survived the Great War is now reduced to rubbles.

The great news however is the attack reduced the numbers of evil dragons from hundreds to just a dozen as those dragons are on the outer edge of the kill zone and the clone of Ladon which possess the ability to create strong barriers like the original to protect themselves.

In ground zero, it was reduced to a large crater that immediately filled when the ceiling collapsed and buried the crater with falling boulders and chunks of stones.

The all out attack from the level like Azazel isn't something to scoff at since even opponents the level of Satan's need to spend great effort to defend against the attack. Normally, Azazel even need a short break before he can do another similar attack but Ray defied that and emptied the whole magazine containing 450 rounds which means 450 all out attacks from Azazel at once which turn the heavily enhanced and warded ancient vampire city into rubbles. The defences didn't even last for ten seconds as it was torn apart like a paper by the attack Ray unleashed on the evil dragons.

———

Meanwhile with the escaped team above ground, the operators suddenly vanished after leaving a message that said. "The High Commander Ray, died in battle. We will vanish with his death."

Then a great earthquake ravaged the city of Romania. The ground cracked before it fell into the earth. Buildings shattered with massive cracks scarred them and the surrounding landscape that even some part of the city splitted as the earth split open and devoured a chunk of the land into the abyss like jaw as they only see darkness without any visual on its bottom.

The agent of Church deployed around the edge of the city and the neighbouring cities quickly rushed to the disaster zone to assist the victims while a few minutes later massive teleportation magic appeared, belonging to the three factions, arrived to help after receiving the request for help from Ray.

They quickly create a barrier to isolate the city and prevent the spread of information while a portion of the newly arrived people quickly start wiping memories of the incidents.

Then leading the backup is Michael and Azazel who quickly do their job when vampires and a few evil dragons emerge from the hole on the earth.

The battle against the evil dragons is rather easy but takes a long time because of their strong barrier which the evil dragons used as turtle shells to hide under while being barraged by the alliance. Vampires however mostly apprehended and for few that refused to cooperate are beaten to half dead into submission.

———

"Lord Michael, Lord Azazel." Griselda greeted with respectful bow and so did the exorcists as they were called by the two leaders to be asked a question. Most likely regarding Ray.

"First I would like to thank you for completing the task to retrieve Valerie Tepes." Michael said with a smile on his face which very quickly dissipated.

"Thank you for your praise, Lord Michael. However we still have another pressing to attend. The familiar Lord Ray summoned told us he died before dissipating."

"Hmn, indeed we are trying our best to search for him right now." Michael said before he shifted his gaze to the people working at the big hole in the city. Everyone is using magic to dig down and they are already half way through by now.

"I'm sure he is okay, that guy has more life than a cat." Azazel said, trying to lighten the heavy atmosphere. "In the meantime, can you all report everything that happened through the mission and how exactly a progenitor is tagging along with you all?"

Then the eyes immediately focused on the said progenitor, sitting on a piece of rubble while grumbling in low tone about how someone finally noticed her presence.

"Of course, Lord Azazel." Griselda agreed.

———

"Uggh…" Ray woke up finally and to see a white ceiling above and various medical equipment on his sides as he laid on a bed.

He then saw Mittelt, Raynare and Cheshire around him. Cheshire is sleeping on the bed with him while Mittelt is also sleeping with her head resting on the bedside. Only Raynare is awake and smiles when she sees Ray finally woke up.

"Finally waking, sleepyhead." Raynare greeted Ray before releasing a sigh of relief.

"Mn, sorry I made you worry." Ray apologized but Raynare immediately shook her head.

"No, we aren't really worried or anything since nothing was wrong about you when they discovered you. Other than exhaustion, you are fine." Raynare said before grabbing a lunchbox from the side table.

"Here, some food Lancelot prepared for you." Raynare opens the lunch box and starts spoon feeding Ray what seems to be chicken porridge that is still warm.

No words are exchanged as Raynare simply keeps spoon feeding Ray until the porridge is finished. However Ray felt an ominous feeling creeping up as Raynare's aura suddenly changed from warm and kind to a cold freezing arctic.

"Now that you are well fed and rested, it's time for you to answer my questions. Care to explain how you somehow picked another girl? Hmn?" Raynare suddenly asked with a forced tone as she tried to hold in her anger stemming from jealousy.

"What? Who?" Ray was confused because he didn't remember doing anything that Raynare just said.

Then his mouth turned to 'o' shape as he remembered he had met and saved Krul Tepes, an irregular person that shouldn't exist in this world. However he didn't remember doing anything that warranted Raynare's jealousy. Heck, he didn't even make any advances on Krul yet and suddenly Raynare said he just got another lover behind her.

"Raynare, I can assure you that I and the vampire named Krul Tepes had nothing between us. I just saved her from captivity and that's all it is."

"Krul Tepes? Who is that?" Raynare asked, confused at the unknown name. Which cause Ray to replied with equally confused expression to Raynare

"Huh?"

"Huh?"

The two looked confused at each other and the noise they made woken up the two sleeping girls.

"*Yaaawwan* Oh, papa wakes up!" Cheshire jumped on the bed and lunged at Ray's head, glomping him with hugs and cuddles.

"Oh, good morning Ray…" Mittelt greeted with a sleepy face before her head fell back to the bed and immediately snored.

"It's evening, Mittelt… and she is asleep again. *Sigh*" Raynare lost her previous jealousy as Ray is innocent since he didn't even know the name of the person she assumed is his new lover he had behind her back.

To clarify, Raynare and Mittelt aren't against Ray having more lovers as they even welcome Xenovia and are happy to receive new sisters. They simply want Ray to be transparent with them and at least inform them if he did want to add another lover.

After the interruption and Ray is proven innocent, Raynare lets it pass and acts like the conversation never takes place as she observes the adoptive father daughter duo bonding.

While she observes the duo, Raynare realizes that Cheshire never grew at all and remained the same since the first day they met. Like a child her age should have grown in height but Cheshire remained exactly the same as the first day Raynare saw her. Exactly the same.

Though, the thought didn't stay long in her mind and she easily let it slip off her mind as the mind was occupied with other important matters like the training etc.

———

Since the defeat of evil dragons, the situation has become peaceful again. Everyone falls into their usual routine as they all aim to further their goal to prepare for the inevitable conflict against Khaos Brigade.

Another month passed, and the army finally finished their first set of preparation which is laying the foundation. They had been adequately trained and all reached the goal set by Azazel. Half reached Mid Class while a portion reached High Class. The remaining one stayed in Low class but it isn't a problem since those almost fully consist of a Logistic unit and a partially Support unit. They will have no substantial strength to join the battlefield but their job is equally important which is self explanatory, handling the army's logistics.

Now they are focused more on gaining real experience in the battlefield as they are deployed in smaller sizes ranging for a hundred to several thousands. They are sent as a peacekeeping force or reinforcement. There might be no major war or battle breaking out right now but smaller conflicts or skirmishes are fought all over the place between the Alliance and Khaos Brigade. It's not uncommon to see an army of a few hundreds to thousand enemies come knocking at the border of Underworld.

Though the death toll is near negligible it usually ended with major injury but rarely any fatal one. The battle in a sense isn't a real battle and just probing from the enemies to find weaknesses on the Alliance which the Alliance responded with equivalent force. However the Alliance will be severely undermanned if they have to respond to each and every probing since unlike their enemies, the Alliance's territory is big and there are never enough men to defend every corner of their territory without being stretched extremely thin. The scenario is what they tried their best to avoid after the evil dragon incident. Knowing their enemies can create evil dragons as foot soldiers is very demoralising due to their gap in power. No one willing to participate a suicidal mission after all.

There's where the army comes into play as they can be trained to standard very fast and rapidly grow in power due to Ray's ability. The soldiers finished their training and deployed immediately, then the base received another batch of recruits and few of their graduated seniors will act as instructors. Ray will rinse and repeat the process until the three leaders tell him to stop or slow down. Though it will be in the far future.

The second batches now have volunteers from all three factions unlike the first batches that almost 90% are devils. The volunteers from Heavens however are majority former Church members that reincarnated into angels using Brave Saint system which is similar to peerage system but for angels which were created in collaboration of Ajuka and Azazel. The brightest minds of the alliance join hands to help the Angels to tackle their population problem since they couldn't reproduce at all to maintain their purity as angels unlike Fallen and Devil that simply have very low birth rate.

Majority of the Church's core members are reincarnated as angels and many of them volunteered to join the army during the second recruitment. The ratio is splitted to 2:3:5 that respectively is Fallen Angels, Angels and Devils.

Then the official joining of the Norse mythology is in two days as preparation for the party and celebration already going for a few days now. Mostly security issues with the recent bolder attack from a small group of Khaos Brigade members due to the approaching event of Norse joining the alliance.

———

Present time, it's a day before the day Norse mythology joined the Alliance as the fourth member.

Ray was summoned by Azazel to the R&D department suddenly while he was busy trying to finish the paperworks for the upcoming event. He is basically swamped with paperworks for the past three days that he could only rest 5 hours a day which included his nap, meal and bath time. The remaining time he will either spend doing mountains of paperworks or doing inspection on the venue along with Baraqiel and Falbium that he now works very closely with.

Arriving at the R&D department through convenient teleportation magic, Ray saw a lot of angels, fallen and devil in scientist coats working on computers or inside a fully enclosed lab where Azazel and surprisingly Ajuka is. Ray greeted the working people that look very exhausted like they are rushing yet another project.

Ray sighed as he felt pity for them as their work condition is even worse than him and that it's unusual for the R&D guys and girls to work for a few days without rest to finish their project on time.

He slowly walked toward the lab through an elevator which was guarded by a security officer who is the only person allowed to activate the elevator. The guard hastily went to open the elevator door and urged Ray to enter.

"The two lords are expecting your arrival, Lord Ray."

Ray nodded and enter the elevator that bring him to the lab where team of hundreds is working with Azazel and Ajuka, seems to be doing a final adjustment on a piece of armor similar to Balance Breaker: Scaled Mail form but it was black and gold theme instead of red and green like Issei's. The armor also looks significantly bulkier instead of sleeker design and filled with similarity to the Divine Dividing, Boosted Gear and Down Fall Dragon Spear Scaled Mail form.

"Ah, Ray. Great news!" Azazel said after someone notified him of Ray's arrival. "We finished creating your new armor. It was a week after the deadline because of some issues but it's done."

Azazel proudly showcases the fruit of his, Ajuka and whole R&D labors. It was here Ray is reminded that he ruined his Hardplate set. The Adamantine infused armor didn't survive the battle and so does the gatling gun which Ray only have one repair kit in hand that he obviously used to rescue the gun.

"Let me present to you the Ladon Series MK VII or Dragon Devourer raiment. Now, before you criticize my naming sense, I have a reason to come out with that name." Azazel said before called Ajuka who was staring at a screen and his hands blurred while typing at high speed.

"Got it, just another fiv- no, three minutes before we can do the test. Just show the parts first." Ajuka said with his full concentration on the screen, typing at speed where his hand is basically afterimages.

"Right." Azazel nodded and led Ray to a big metal box that was plugged with a lot of wires. "Let's explain about the new function compared to the old prototypes."

"See these orbs?" Azazel pointed at the orbs that littered all over the armor in blue and green colour.

"Isn't that the orb of Divine Dividing and Boosted Gear?" Azazel nodded and explained while Issei willingly contributed to help build Ray an armor, Divine Dividing orb was secretly stolen by Azazel from way back when he was developing Down Fall Dragon Spear. "Don't tell this to Valina and keep this a secret between us."

"You do realise that she can recognise the orb and knew its Divine Dividing orb right…"

"Anyway…" Azazel said in a slightly loud tone to divert the topic. "The orb allows you to have limited ability of the original gear but only affects the armor. For example Divine Dividing can half any energy of an attack that hits its barrier then reroute the energy into the Boosted gear orb to boost your armour or attack. How many stacks is unknown since it wholly depends on the user."

Azazel then proceeds to point at the parts and explain its functions. In the end, he explained the armor he named as Dragon Devourer because Azazel and Ajuka basically use one Ladon evil dragon clone as base to create the armor and force it to consume and assimilate other evil dragons like Grendel to increase its parameters. Then it is also added with parts from other dragons like the orbs.

The armor consumed a total of 11 clone Ladon, 3 clone Grendel and the orbs from Divine Dividing and Boosted Gear. The armor is made fully out of a dragon that later has been fed other dragons, hence the name Dragon Devourer.

"So, this armor is basically a living dragon turned armor?" Ray turned his head away from the armor and stared at Azazel.

"Yes and No. The body is used to make the armor then the soul is added later. But the soul is inert and the only purpose is to store abilities like the two orbs." Azazel assured Ray he isn't wearing a living creature like clothes.

"Done… Let's start the live test." Ajuka said as he dismissed the screen and walked toward the armor and pressed his hand on a nearby terminal which Azazel also did before a loud hissed was heard from the lock being released from the armor.

Ray has to manually equip the armor above the exoskeleton suit before a notification pops up, asking if Ray wanted to convert the armor into system equipment to gain the benefits of being able to augment the armor. He selected Yes instantly and so does the armor which now will behave like gears from the system.

The assimilation of Grendel makes the armor extremely sturdy just like the real evil dragon. While Ladon assimilation allow the usage of its Barrier magic which not even Super Devil like Sirzech can break easily however the skill come from Ladon clone which made it inferior than originally but Azazel and Ajuka used more than one Ladon clone to increase the Barrier power as much as they can and resulted with half the sturdiness of the original. Divine Dividing orb automatically divides the energy contained in the attack that connects and absorbs the energy. Then the Boosted Gear orb will use the user or the absorbed energy to apply Boost to either the user, armor or weapon and the Boost stack is maximum ten.

"So, who is the tester this time?" Ray asked as he flexed his grip and body, trying to get used to the new armor.

"The usual." Azazel replied before flicking his fingers to create a magic circle that threw him into Familiar forest. "Good luck as usual." Azazel said before he used the teleportation magic to leave immediately before a loud roar is heard.

"*Sniff* *Sniff* Ddraig? Ddraig!" The female dragon king roared and charged toward him only to stop again then exclaimed in confusion. "Eh, Albion… Ladon… Gretel…" Tiamat muttered before she calmed down and moved out of her lair to greet the guest.

"Oh, It's you again, Ray. Sorry, I always lose control when sensing Ddraig, that damn thief. Damn that Sirzech forbade me from seeking Ddraig's wielder." Tiamat proceeded to rant for a bit more before she stopped and huffed.

"Right, you're here to test armor again?" Tiamat asked as she lowered her head to slightly above Ray's level. Ray nodded to her question which led Tiamat to bring Ray to an empty area, no monster lived in.

"You sure it won't break again this time?" Tiamat asks before they start as she remembers the scolding she received by Ajuka and Azazel after their hard work turns into a pile of scrap.

Though, to her defence, Azazel told Tiamat to give her best strike since Azazel and Ajuka are confident that the MK VI prototype with Ladon's barrier could withstand the Dragon King's tail swipe.

"Yeah, no problem. If what Azazel explained to me is true, this one should be thousand times stronger than the last prototype. This prototype was made using Ladon clones, Grendel clones, Albion and Ddraig sacred gear orbs." Ray explained briefly as he pointed at the parts and talked about their functions.

"The frame of the armor is made using Grendel clone's hide and scales."

"Hmn, Grendel is known to possess the strongest and toughest scale among us dragons. I remember that mad dragon once took the strongest attack from Tannin in his peak and shrugged it off like nothing." Tiamat recounted before listening to Ray's explanation again.

"Then the core of the armor is made from Ladon clones." Ray points at the largest gem on his chest. "This allows me to create and use barriers like Ladon, although weaker than the original."

"Then the Albion and Ddraig sacred gear orbs allow me to use their abilities but as before, it's not as good as the originals."

"Let's test it out then." Tiamat said before she backed off a little to take some distance.

Ray gives Tiamat a thumbs up which means she can start the test. Tiamat didn't start from the bottom and immediately created a ball of energy in her mouth before unleashing it on Ray who created a barrier in the shape of a bubble that envelops him. A beam of raw mana smashed on the barrier and the barrier tanked the attack without any damage on it. Not even a fine crack.

Tiamat looked astonished. The attack just now is simply raw mana without any effect. It's like a beginners spell, magic bullet but it was casted by Tiamat, an Ultimate Class and a dragon. Even a simple mana beam can be devastating as seen by the ground around Ray that isn't shielded by his barrier. A 'U' shaped deep trenches dug out by the attack just now.

"Indeed as you said, this armor is very strong." Tiamat praised with a nod. "I see the Divine Dividing orb halving my attack and absorbing the energy in the beam to weaken it, then the Boosted Gear enhances the barrier durability twice to resist the halved beam."

"Yeah, I did ask Azazel to make me the sturdiest unbreakable armour and he came up with the idea of using Divine Dividing and Boosted Gear to use my enemies' attack against themselves." Ray replied to Tiamat's observations.

"Then, let's test the limit should we? My skill rusted after being forced to stay low in this forest by the Satans. Having a punc- *cough* a sparring partner should help me polish my rusted skills."

Ray looked deadpan at Tiamat because he heard her almost calling him a punching bag. Tiamat coughed to cover her slip of words and embarrassment.

"I will treat you to dinner later in the city." Tiamat tried to bribe Ray because she really does crave for a sparring partner as this forest didn't have anyone that can survive her punches and she is forbidden to have any fight unless the Satans allow her.

Ray is still looking at her with a deadpan face. Though she can't really see his face covered by the armor, the silence is enough to convey Ray's feeling.

"How about my egg? The unfertilised egg. They can't be hatched but are apparently valuable magical ingredients." Tiamat bargaining again but with some desperation since her unfertilised egg is indeed very valuable that one egg can buy a dozen Phenex tears.

Ray adopted a thinking pose which gave Tiamat some hope but she didn't expect Ray's next question.

"Does it taste good? I heard dragon meat is a delicacy but I never heard about eggs before."

Tiamat made a comical face plant on the ground before he looked at Ray in disbelief and some embarrassment that he thought of eating the egg.

"Who ever thought of eating the egg that can buy you a large territory with few flourishing cities inside it?" Tiamat retorted before answering his questions. "Though, I don't know since no lunatic ever tried to eat a precious egg of a dragon. My eggs are usually used in alchemy as an ingredient or research."

Tiamat explained that a dragon's egg, especially the strong one like her, contains immense vitality and a very sought after alchemical ingredient.

"So, it's extremely nutritious then…" Tiamat heard Ray definitely isn't giving up on consuming it even after she explained its value. Not that she cares what he would do with it. If he wants to eat it then so be it. All she wanted is a punc- *cough* sparring partner.

"I accept your offer then." Ray replied and Tiamat happily started their testing / sparring.

—————

Sorry for the sudden time skip but I realized I dragged this too long with the vampire arc. Now I want to quickly go into the latter arc where Ray will once again be close to the main characters.

Then a questions,

Do the readers like it if I add some small crossover like how I did with Krul Tepes? This time I did it for experimental purposes but didn't know if it was good or not.

Also she has her purpose in the story, although not directly. Since the Tepes clan is left without a capable leader to pacify the people, Krul will fill in the role since progenitor is a big shot and many will unify under her leadership and indirectly Ray. Hope this is enough to justify her addition though she will still seek her missing brother.