Regarding Michael’s offer of help, Roy didn’t hesitate and took Ascalon with complete composure.

===

Item: Holy Sword Ascalon

Quality: B

Effect: A rare sword forged from ancient metals, imbued with holy and dragon slaying properties. It is extremely lethal to Devils and Dragon creatures.

===

The moment Roy received Ascalon, he used his system to check its attributes.

With a thought, Roy temporarily fused Ascalon with his Boosted Gear armor, attaching the blade directly to his right gauntlet. The holy sword possessed excellent malleability, and with Roy’s deep knowledge of Sacred Gears, achieving this level of integration was effortless.

The next moment, Roy flew into the sky to confront Katerea. The surrounding mages and the alliance forces of the three factions tacitly cleared the area, leaving them a wide berth for their duel. Whether they were mages or soldiers, they knew they might survive fighting each other, but getting caught in the crossfire between Katerea and the Sekiryuutei was a death sentence.

“Ascalon?”

Seeing Michael gift the sword to Roy, Katerea couldn’t help but sneer. “Do you think I’m some low class? I possess the blood of the Old Leviathan, the highest existence among our kind! What’s more, I have the power of Ophis! Even Ascalon, is a mere toy to me. It is wishful thinking to believe you can defeat me with such a thing.”

Katerea’s arrogance was absolute. Of course, her point wasn’t entirely wrong; once strength reaches a certain threshold, elemental advantages lose their effectiveness. It ultimately came down to a gap in magnitude. If one’s power is vast enough, restraint can be ignored entirely.

“Why do you talk so much more than I do?” Roy’s tone was frivolous, his words were short but perfectly calculated to irritate her.

“Since I gave you a few more minutes to live and you’ve chosen to waste them, I’ll send you to hell now,” Katerea snarled, her demonic power soaring.

At this moment, she no longer concealed the power within her. Her powerful aura oppressed the atmosphere, making the nearby mages and alliance soldiers feel as if they were suffocating.

“Behold! This is my true strength!” Katerea wore a manic, smug smile.

“The power of the Ouroboros?” Roy raised an eyebrow.

Now that Katerea had fully released her power, the aura of Ophis was revealed without reservation. It was this power that gave Katerea an aura even more terrifying than a veteran Maou class powerhouse.

“It really is strong,” Roy admitted. Ophis’s power was truly terrifying if it could so easily bolster a person’s level. Katerea was already at the Maou level; with Ophis’s blessing, her strength could climb straight to the peak of that class.

The next moment, the two clashed.

A battle between two Maou class entities with the intent to kill produced a level of destruction that humans couldn’t even fathom.

Every time they collided, a massive shockwave of power rippled outward. The surrounding armies scrambled to escape the battle space. A few unlucky souls who were too slow were instantly obliterated by the stray energy.

If not for the protective barrier, the entire Kuoh Academy would have been reduced to ruins. Even so, the barrier covering Kuoh Town was trembling, on the verge of collapsing under the repeated stress of their attacks. The gaps created earlier by the mages were now widening into cracks.

“What a troublesome power. If Katerea had actually ambushed us on the way home like Roy predicted, I might have actually died at her hands,” Azazel remarked, clicking his tongue as he watched the sky.

“If she had teamed up with the Hakuryuukou, a fall on the journey home would have been a very real possibility,” Michael agreed, nodding solemnly.

Katerea alone was difficult enough; adding Vali to the mix would have made a retreat incredibly dangerous.

“Let’s focus on maintaining the barrier first. The battle between these two is pushing it to its absolute limit.” To prevent the battle from spilling over into the rest of Kuoh Town, Serafall began channeling energy to reinforce the barrier. Michael followed suit. With two leaders focusing on defense, the crumbling barrier finally stabilized.

“Damn brat… he’s even more difficult than I imagined!”

As the battle dragged into a stalemate, Katerea grew increasingly irritable.

Most importantly, several superficial scars had begun to appear on her body, wounds left by Roy during their exchange. Although these injuries were minor, the fact that she hadn’t landed a single hit on Roy infuriated her.

Doesn’t this mean I’m weaker than him? she thought bitterly.

“You’re just as tough as I expected,” Roy chuckled. He remained calm and indifferent, observing Katerea from across the sky.

In his mind, he couldn’t help but compare Kokabiel to Katerea. He realized that even though Kokabiel had more combat experience, if he had possessed this same level of Maou strength, he would have been easier to handle than the current Katerea.

—

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