Inside the throne room, the appearance of the beautiful girl sealed within the crystal casket seemed to add an ancient solemnity to the air, as though some great history buried in darkness was quietly making itself known.
Under the weight of that atmosphere, Leo barely registered the girl's bare body, despite her figure being genuinely striking, on par with Rias or Akeno.
After confirming there were no signs of life from the girl, Leo turned his attention to an inscription carved into the side of the crystal casket.
"Stella Familion. Last princess of the Kingdom of Familion. Sealed here of her own will, to protect the final dragon bloodline and seek a path to survival. May the Dragon God watch over her."
The inscription confirmed her identity.
"So she really is the last of the Familion dragon bloodline."
Leo shifted his gaze to the sword beside the girl.
"And that must be the dragon treasure."
Unlike Stella Familion, who showed no signs of life and seemed to have died long ago, the sword still radiated a powerful draconic aura even through the seal of the crystal casket.
That draconic aura was peculiar. It pulsed in a rhythmic pattern, spreading outward in ripples rather than burning like a typical aura. It permeated the entire throne room, the entire castle, and radiated out into the Dimensional Gap beyond.
That must have been what kept Kanna, the lonely hatchling, anchored here for centuries, and what elevated her to Dragon King-class.
"A dragon bloodline and dragon treasure born from Great Red's blessing having that kind of effect isn't surprising."
Leo rubbed his chin, watching the naked girl in the crystal casket as his mind raced.
Ophis, meanwhile, had been staring at the casket since entering the throne room. After a long moment, she suddenly raised her hand.
A terrible power began gathering in that slender palm.
"What are you doing?"
Leo snapped to attention. Seeing what Ophis was about to do, a bad feeling washed over him.
His instincts were right.
"This is one of Great Red's kin and a portion of its power," Ophis said without looking at him. "I'm going to destroy it."
Her emotionless voice carried a matter-of-fact certainty.
She'd come here because she sensed Great Red's power. Now that she'd confirmed both a descendant of Great Red's blessing and a fragment of that power existed here, destroying them was the obvious course of action.
"Wait, wait, wait!" Leo moved to stop her. "This girl isn't Great Red's kin. She's just a descendant of a dragon bloodline born from Great Red's blessing, one that's been passed down for generations. She probably never even met Great Red. There's no reason to treat her as a threat."
If the Familion royals who had gone to such lengths to seal their last princess and the dragon treasure here knew that their final hope hadn't found the Dragon God they'd worshipped for generations, but had instead been destroyed by the other Dragon God, they'd be rolling in their graves.
Leo also felt it would be a waste to let Ophis destroy them, so he spoke up.
But Ophis disagreed.
"A dragon bloodline and power born from Great Red... if left alone, they may become my enemy one day."
That was all the reason she needed.
Leo knew that defeating Great Red was Ophis's sole purpose in life.
As a Dragon God, she'd been born in the Dimensional Gap just like Great Red. But Great Red had claimed the Gap as his own territory and driven her out, leaving Ophis with no way to return to her birthplace.
The Dimensional Gap might seem like a desolate void to anyone else, but to the free-spirited Great Red and Ophis, it was home. Their birthplace. Their domain.
So Ophis had always wanted to return to the Gap and reclaim the silence she'd once known.
But every time she tried, Great Red would sense her presence and come to drive her out again, denying her wish across the long ages.
That was why someone so innocent and naive had become the figurehead leader of the Khaos Brigade, an alliance of terrorist factions including the Old Maou Faction and the Hero Faction. They'd promised that in exchange for her power, they would help her defeat Great Red and return to the Dimensional Gap.
In other words, Ophis had never actually wanted to lead terrorists or plunge the world into chaos. Her wish was simple: defeat Great Red and go home. That was the only reason she'd accepted the Khaos Brigade's deal.
As for the consequences of lending her power to those factions, the threats posed to Devils, Angels, and Fallen Angels alike, none of that registered. Her pure, single-minded nature couldn't process such complexities. She had no concept of good or evil, only the desire to achieve her goal.
Given all that, encountering a dragon bloodline and dragon treasure born from Great Red's blessing naturally made her want to destroy them.
Of course, in Leo's view, the Khaos Brigade's promise to help Ophis defeat Great Red was laughable.
Great Red was the true strongest being in the world, someone even Ophis couldn't beat. Both Dragon Gods possessed the power to single-handedly take on every mythological faction combined. Even if the entire world united against them, victory wasn't guaranteed. What could a single terrorist alliance possibly do?
Unless they resorted to underhanded tricks. And Ophis was naive enough to believe their promises without question, which was exactly why she'd been manipulated into leading the Khaos Brigade.
Leo strongly suspected she'd shown up in the Dimensional Gap today because she couldn't wait any longer and came to challenge Great Red on her own. The result proved that Great Red was still the stronger of the two, forcing her to retreat.
If she hadn't sensed Leo's presence, and the faint trace of Great Red's essence on him, she would have already returned to the human world to keep waiting for her unreliable subordinates.
Now that she'd found something connected to Great Red, wanting to destroy it was entirely in character.
"How about this."
Seeing that Ophis was set on it, Leo thought for a moment and made his pitch.
"I'll take her as my servant. She'll leave Great Red's side and join mine. That should be fine, right?"
Yes. Leo had his eye on the sleeping princess.
Setting aside the fact that she was the inheritor of a dragon bloodline born from Great Red's blessing and held a mysterious dragon treasure, the reaction in his Evil Piece storage space alone made it impossible for him to stand by and let Ophis destroy her.
Inside that space, one of his Evil Pieces was radiating brilliant light, telling Leo exactly how perfectly suited this girl was.
And it wasn't a Pawn. It was a Knight.
Leo's remaining Evil Pieces were one Queen, one Knight, and five Pawns.
If he could take this girl as his Knight, he'd only need a Queen and five Pawns to complete his full set.
He wasn't about to pass up this opportunity.
"...You want to take her as a servant?"
Ophis paused, lowering her hand, and looked at Leo.
"That's right." Leo produced the Knight piece directly, holding it up in front of Ophis. "I won't let her become your enemy. That removes your reason to target her."
Ophis fell silent.
Leo wasn't worried about her refusing.
If this pure, naive Dragon God could be talked into things by the Khaos Brigade's terrorists, then he could persuade her too.
Besides, he wasn't lying. As long as Ophis spared the girl, Leo could guarantee that when Ophis eventually clashed with Great Red again, his side would stay out of it.
At least, barring extraordinary circumstances, that was his intention.
Whether Ophis believed him or not, she was silent for a long while before walking to the crystal casket.
Just as she'd broken the seal on the door, Ophis placed her hand on the casket and released her black aura, the dragon-like, serpent-like energy covering the entire structure.
The crystal casket shattered. The girl sealed within was freed, her body slowly falling toward the ground.
Leo rushed forward and caught her.
The sensation of smooth skin against his hands nearly broke his composure.
This was a beautiful girl with nothing on and a figure that could stop traffic, falling directly into his arms. Any normal man would have reacted. Especially Leo, who was no longer inexperienced in that regard...
But he reined himself in quickly and glanced at Ophis, who was watching him silently from the side.
He knew. She'd given her tacit approval.
So Leo began the incantation.
"By the name of Leo Eligos, I command..."
"You, Stella Familion, let your soul return to this place, to become my servant."
"Be reborn as a devil, and rejoice in your new life."
The crimson Evil Piece shattered, dissolving into countless particles of light that flowed into the girl's body.
[Trait: Servant Conversion activating...]
[Base feedback acquired: Demonic Power (massive).]
[Advanced feedback acquired: Rank (Twelve Wings).]
[Extra feedback acquired: Trait: Flame.]
Another high-potential servant.
Reincarnating Kanna had already pushed Leo's demonic power to the threshold of Maou-Class. One more mid-potential servant would have been enough to break through.
Instead, he'd landed a high-potential servant. His demonic power surged instantly, blowing past the threshold with ease.
Leo's demonic wings unfurled behind him.
Twelve pitch-black wings. The mark of the highest-ranking devils.
Leo had officially reached Maou-Class.
"So this is what Maou-Class power feels like."
Leo took in the vast demonic power flowing through him.
He'd possessed this level of power before, but only by forcing it up through Balance Breaker. That hadn't come with any real sense of growth.
Reaching Maou-Class through his own strength was an entirely different feeling.
"And I gained another trait on top of it."
Leo channeled demonic power into his hand and ignited a blaze.
Just like the lightning trait before, the moment he acquired the flame trait, he could instinctively materialize his demonic power as fire. And the power behind it was incomparable to before.
Channeling this fire-attuned demonic power through Zenith Tempest to generate fire-element Nature's Hope multiplied its destructive force several times over.
"Another massive leap in strength."
Leo extinguished the flames, his mood excellent.
If before there had been any doubt, now he was confident he could match veteran Super Maou-Class beings like Serafall and Grayfia.
That meant in the entire Underworld, only Sirzechs and Ajuka, the two Super Devils, still stood above him.
His strength was enough to rank in the top three among all living devils.