The moment Hikaru activated his transformation, it caused an uproar outside the arena.
Riser's peerage inside the arena was no exception.
Although they had never heard of a Forbidden Form—or anything about a Longinus or the Red Dragon Emperor—the aura now surrounding Hikaru was completely different from before.
Riser keenly sensed the fluctuations of magic in the air.
Upon hearing additional reports from his peerage, he slammed the table with a loud bang.
"Don't think I'm scared of you just because you have a Longinus!"
Despite saying so, Riser was still uneasy inside.
Now he finally understood why the Lucifer Maou had allowed that one person to challenge him and his entire peerage.
It turned out that Lucifer already knew the other side was the host of the Red Dragon Emperor.
So they were the true challengers all along!
"All of you, attack at full strength! Don't hold back at all!"
But Riser's order received no response.
And in the very next second, he heard a voice from outside the window.
Beneath a fabricated moonlight, a crimson figure shone brilliantly.
Even though there was no magic power swirling around that figure, it still gave Riser a tremendous sense of pressure.
Faced with this, how could he not realize what was happening?
Now, only he and his younger sister Ravel remained on the field.
"Ravel, support me from nearby," he said.
But once again, there was no response.
He instinctively turned around, only to see his sister staring blankly at the figure in the sky.
After all, his family had merely placed her here to fill a slot and gain experience for future Rating Games.
"Get down here!"
Suddenly, scorching magical flames rose around Riser.
Crimson fire rapidly consumed the surrounding oxygen and formed into the shape of a phoenix around him.
"Go!"
The phoenix flapped its wings, scattering sparks toward the figure in the sky. It then collided fiercely, bursting into dazzling flames overhead.
The entire school building shook.
"S-Success…?!"
Riser froze for an instant, but then his expression lit up in excitement.
The Phoenix family's immortal flames not only grant eternal life, they're also intensely hot—strong enough to severely injure even a high-class devil if struck.
So what if it's a legendary Longinus?
His Phoenix clan was also one of the ancient pure-blooded devil families!
Rias and Sona Sitri, watching this, both grew tense.
Though the power of the Two Heavenly Dragons is famed worldwide, that doesn't mean you can just stand there and get hit. After all, it's still a human who's wielding the Sacred Gear.
Yet when the flames dispersed, the crimson figure continued to hover in the sky, utterly unmoved.
Smoke drifted away from Hikaru, revealing not a single wound on him.
"Impossible! It's not supposed to turn out like this! How can this happen?!"
Riser couldn't fathom it.
Even if he couldn't severely injure Hikaru, he should have dealt at least some damage.
How could it be that absolutely nothing happened?!
Riser summoned his phoenix flames again, this time even more of them, and sent them surging toward Hikaru.
"What a petty trick," Hikaru said calmly.
He raised his right hand and made a casual slash; three of the flaming phoenixes disappeared in an instant.
"H-How is that possible?!"
Riser was on the verge of breaking down.
He had used his full strength, yet he couldn't even touch his opponent.
How was he supposed to fight this battle?
But with everyone watching, he had no choice but to grit his teeth and charge.
The Forbidden Form of a Longinus should consume a huge amount of energy. As long as he could rely on his immortal body to outlast it, he would win in the end. It wasn't exactly an honorable plan, but all that mattered was the result.
"Are you planning to exhaust my strength by relying on your immortality?" Hikaru asked in a mild tone.
"It's not impossible, but you're not strong enough to pull it off."
"Don't underestimate me, you bastard!" Riser roared. Flames surged from him as he flew toward Hikaru; never before had he been belittled like this.
Hikaru still did not move. He only remarked calmly, "I could keep killing you over and over until your magic is depleted, but that's too much of a waste of time… Let's do this instead…"
In the blink of an eye, Hikaru vanished from where he'd been, leaving only an afterimage.
He reappeared directly in front of Riser, gathering magical power into his arm and slamming it into the very space Riser occupied.
Boom!
His crimson power shook the atmosphere, instantly shattering the battlefield's space. Riser, badly injured, tumbled through the resulting rift—falling from the alternate dimension back into the real world like a broken rag doll.
Though his immortal magic began to repair his body, it did so far more slowly than usual.
Looking at the rift between dimensions, Riser reached out, but fell unconscious before he could do anything more.
Rias and Sona Sitri were both stunned.
"Incredible… He even destroyed the space itself?!" Rias murmured.
Adjusting her glasses, Sona Sitri added, "It is indeed a way to win, but… nobody in the Rating Games could normally pull something like that off."
"As expected, trusting Hikaru was the right decision," Akeno Himejima said, smiling with narrowed eyes.
Back in the arena, Hikaru hovered in silence. He glanced upward. "If a participant falls outside the arena, that counts as a loss, right?"
After a few seconds of tense silence, as the alternate dimension was about to collapse, a voice finally announced:
[Riser Phoenix has been forced out of the battlefield. The winner of this match is Hikaru, the human contestant.]
~~~
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