Ethan carefully lifted the unconscious woman into his arms and nodded toward the exit. "Come on."
Asia followed him out of the ruined church without a word. She glanced back once at the gaping hole in the roof before pulling the heavy doors shut behind them.
Finding a hotel didn't take long. Kuoh wasn't a particularly large city, and within the hour Ethan had rented a room for the night. The receptionist asked a few questions after spotting the unconscious woman, but a simple explanation that she had fainted after a morning accident was enough to satisfy her.
They laid the woman gently on one of the beds. Asia pulled a blanket over her, then turned to Ethan.
"Thank you."
Ethan shrugged. "It would've been troublesome to leave her there."
Asia glanced toward the door. "Are you going back?"
Ethan looked toward the window. "I think it's time I knocked some sense into whoever thought it was a good idea to send devils after me."
Asia lowered her gaze, her expression tightening with concern. "Please… be careful."
Ethan gave a faint smile. "Don't worry. I'll be back."
Asia nodded softly. "I'll wait here."
He gave a small nod and left the room.
A few minutes later, his scooter rolled into the parking area outside Kuoh Academy. The school grounds sat unusually quiet. He parked and climbed the familiar staircase to the Occult Research Club, knocked once, and received no answer. After a few seconds, he pushed the door open anyway.
The room was empty. The tea set still rested on the table, while a stack of documents had been left neatly on a nearby desk, as though everyone had cleared out in a hurry.
He closed the door and checked the Student Council room next. It was empty as well.
Ethan stood in the silent hallway for a moment before pulling out his phone. Only a handful of contacts were saved. He picked one and called.
The line connected almost immediately.
"What is it?" Azazel asked.
"I need to know where the Phoenix family is."
Silence stretched for a beat. "What happened?"
"Four of their people attacked me this morning."
"And?"
"They're dead. Their masters aren't."
Azazel let out a long sigh. "So now you want me to hand you their address so you can go finish the job."
Ethan didn't deny it.
"If you're planning a killing spree," Azazel said, "I don't think I can help you. The last thing I need is to assist someone going after the Gremory and Phoenix families."
"They attacked me first."
"I understand that," Azazel replied evenly. "Doesn't mean I'm handing you the address."
Ethan stared at the phone for a second, then ended the call without another word. He slipped it back into his pocket and stood there in the empty corridor.
If nobody was willing to point him toward the Phoenix family, he'd just have to do it the old-fashioned way.
He turned and walked back to the parking lot. Minutes later, his scooter carried him through Kuoh's streets toward the church.
Inside, he walked past the wreckage and disappeared into a storage room without hesitation. He returned a few minutes later with an old leather suitcase and a long kitchen knife that had somehow survived the destruction. He set the case down beside the nearest body and got to work.
The church stayed quiet except for the dull scrape of steel and the occasional thud. By the time Ethan closed the suitcase, four headless bodies lay scattered across the sanctuary, and whatever he had packed away sat hidden beneath the worn leather lid.
"…Guess that'll do."
He picked up the suitcase without a final look at the ruins, locked the front doors behind him, strapped the case to the scooter, and rode back toward the hotel.
Evening had started creeping in by the time he arrived. He carried the suitcase upstairs without a word.
Asia looked up as he entered. "The woman still hasn't woken up."
Ethan nodded. "That's fine."
He set the suitcase in the corner, shrugged off his jacket, and dropped onto the empty bed.
Asia watched him curiously. "You're going to sleep already?"
He closed his eyes. "…Gonna grab a quick nap before I go kick some ass."
The room fell quiet again.
When he opened his eyes, the endless darkness had already given way to the familiar desk and battered computer waiting in the center of the void. Without a word, he pulled out the chair and sat down.
The monitor flickered to life.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**Host: Ethan Cross**
**Kill Points: 104**
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ethan moved the cursor straight to the abilities tab.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**Abilities**
Hellfire Manipulation — Low
Penance Stare — Low
Chain Mastery — Low
Infernal Regeneration
Hell Cycle
Daybreak Rider
Gates of Hell
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ethan didn't hesitate. Hellfire was the foundation of nearly everything in his arsenal—strengthening it meant strengthening almost every attack he had.
**Upgrade Hellfire Manipulation?**
**Current Rank: Low → Medium**
**Cost: 5 Kill Points**
He clicked **Confirm**.
The monitor flared brightly. **Hellfire Manipulation upgraded. Current Rank: Medium.** Kill Points: **99.**
The prompt immediately changed.
**Upgrade Hellfire Manipulation?**
**Current Rank: Medium → High**
**Cost: 10 Kill Points**
Ethan smiled. "So it can be upgraded multiple times."
He clicked **Confirm** again. **Hellfire Manipulation upgraded. Current Rank: High.** Kill Points: **89.**
Only then did he move on. **Penance Stare — Cost: 5 Kill Points.**
Click. A brief pulse of heat spread through the void.
**Penance Stare upgraded. Current Rank: Medium.** Kill Points: **84.**
Next came the chains. **Chain Mastery — Cost: 5 Kill Points.**
Click. The burning chain coiled beside his chair glowed a brighter orange before the flames gradually settled.
**Chain Mastery upgraded. Current Rank: Medium.** Kill Points: **79.**
Ethan leaned back in his chair. "That should make life a little easier."
His gaze drifted across the remaining abilities before stopping on one he hadn't examined closely yet.
**Gates of Hell.**
He clicked it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
**Gates of Hell**
**Rank: Basic**
*The Rider tears open a gateway to the Infernal Realm.*
**Current Functions:**
• Travel between places.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Ethan glanced over the description before closing the window.
"Well… at least it's still here."
It had been the reward from his previous mission. He still hadn't found a good opportunity to use it, but from the look of things, that chance might not be far off.
He leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping lightly against the desk.
"…Think."
His mind replayed everything that had happened since the attack on the church. People from the Phoenix clan. An order to remove him. All because of Rias.
He dug through his memories of the original story, trying to place exactly where things stood in the current timeline—Rias, the engagement, all of it.
"…The Rating Game." His eyes narrowed.
If his memory served him right, both the Gremory and Phoenix families would be busy preparing for it. Rias, Riser, their peerages, and every important member of both houses would have their attention fixed on the upcoming Rating Game.
A slow smile spread across Ethan's face.
"Which means… they'll all be in one place."
Satisfied for the moment, he leaned back and let his gaze wander across the remaining menus. It settled on one entry.
**[Zarathos]**
He clicked it.
The familiar message appeared again, but not quite the same as before.
**Zarathos Connection — Fragment Detected**
**Access: Limited**
**Connection: Stable**
Ethan raised an eyebrow. "…It changed."
The restrictions hadn't disappeared, but they had loosened. Whatever had happened over the past few days had strengthened the connection enough for the system to take notice.
"Wonder if I can feel anything now…"
He closed his eyes and focused inward, searching for the presence bound to his soul. There was nothing—no voice, no second heartbeat, no flicker of an old consciousness stirring beneath his own. As far as he could tell, the Spirit of Vengeance simply wasn't there.
After a long moment, Ethan opened his eyes and let out a quiet breath.
"Guess I'm really not the spiritual type."
Authors note: a little warning I am not thinking about starting to upload chapter twice a day it's just I have a schedule an in that schedule that dxd chapter can not be uploaded till next Friday so why decided to just uploaded now alongside the other i hope this type of happy problems would continue.
Author's Note: your thoughts will be appreciated and if you go to my profile in check out my other stories the story is uploaded as same day as Patreon so if anyone wants to tip they are welcome on Patreon and if you just want to check out for free it's also had great place in I have a new evil which is a brand FanFiction which will not be uploaded its free it just not on public platform