Chapter 36 - Alliances and Boldness

Cthylla was on a journey.

A journey to find something important for the sake of defeating her rival Cebrail. Although of course Cebrail didn't consider her a rival… yet! Yet! Indeed they would be rivals soon enough once Cthylla acquired her weakness.

That was why she journeyed to Romania, the territory of the vampires. Or more specifically the territory of the Vampire princess, Gwyneth Carmilla the leader of the Carmilla faction and the up and coming leader of the entirety of the Vampire race.

Her campaign was quite widely known as after she was born the tides of the battle between the Tepes Faction and the Carmilla Faction changed dramatically. So much so that now after just 13 years the Tepes Faction was all but in shambles and the Carmilla Faction was on verge of becoming the true rulers of the night.

This was the power of a reincarnator and thus the power of one of Solomon's King candidates.

Though Cebrail rejected her privileges and even only used anything related to Solomon sparingly, Gwyneth Carmilla could be called the exact opposite. She completely embraced the authority she gained and loved using her power to be above everyone else. She is a narcissist to the utmost degree and is noted to be the one out of all ten of the chosen with the most contracts.

Though this was true Cthylla held no fear as she strolled towards the castle that the Vampire called her base.

Two vampire guards attempted to stop her on the way inside, rushing her with weapons drawn only to have two tentacles wrapped around their neck before snapping them, killing the two guards instantly.

"Out of my way~"

She stepped over their fallen bodies casually, as of course they were just mob characters, little fish without any idea of exactly how little they truly are.

"Fufufufu~" Cthylla chuckled before blasting open the front door and stepping inside. "I have arrived in a mildly flashy manner!"

Originally she wanted to enter the castle by flying straight through the roof however Gwyneth wasn't without caution and foresight. She placed anti-flight magic that stretched for miles preventing such a thing, and since vampires don't particularly like windows that was a no go as well.

"You black winged nitwit." A voice echoed throughout the vast main hall of the castle. As the words echoed every light in the castle went out one by one before the doorway itself, which was letting in the bright moon light, was also covered by darkness.

An oppressive and distressing darkness settled into the room making it impossible to see and forcing your mind to compensate, to fill in the blanks, to enhance your other senses making even the smallest of sound deafening.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of a visit from the daughter of Cthulhu?" The voice echos reaching Cthylla's ears several times before stopping.

"My dad doesn't actually go by that name officially." Cthylla responds casually.

"And yet you call yourself 'Cthylla,' that's a bit odd."

"Well It's better than 'Kraken' and it's a super cute name, my dad gave it to me you know? So of course it would be great." Cthylla then pauses for a bit after her joke to listen for a laugh but hears nothing much to her chagrin. "Plus it's a name that draws faith from several places. The Lovecraftian Mythos, Greek mythology as the monster Scylla, and the modern mythology of the Kraken. Giving me this name when I was born guaranteed a stable source of faith and power."

"So simply with a name you can be strong? That seems rather convenient indeed." The sound of footsteps began appearing around Cthylla haphazardly as though a great many people were present. First from the left then from the right then from in front of her and then from behind.

There was nothing connecting the sounds instead they simply appeared.

"Not really. Just as it is relatively easy to gain, it's just as easy to lose~ that's why I can't rely on that kind of power the way Angels do. Since I'm a Fallen Angel I can't call back on a halo connecting me to the faith in God." Cthylla said with a big sigh.

Indeed the power of faith was great but also rather flimsy. People lose faith over even the most simple things, and with the rapid advancement in technology people are too comfortable to need to have faith in anything.

"I see. You must really have it rough huh~" Gwyneth said sarcastically, "I can guess what it is you came here for~"

"Yup, it's pretty simple. I want an alliance between us. I'm sure you've heard of it already, Rizevim and Merlin have teamed up and they're the two strongest among the King Candidates."

"..." Silence filled the room as a presence made itself known right in front of Cthylla.

("Cthylla I don't think she wishes to listen to reason.") Shiroyasha said in Cthylla's head. She was already preparing to save her reckless partner if things grew dicey, but was putting her faith in the Cadre Princess as she had indeed defeated Walburga despite it seemingly being impossible.

(Just wait a second.)

"With them being aligned it also means that the Khaos Brigade won't be interfering with Cebrail."

"I wouldn't call it an alliance so much as a cease fire between the Khaos Brigade and the Church." The sound of footsteps slowly closed in on directly in front of Cthylla as they grew closer and closer and the darkness grew.

"Even still don't you think it's important to make sure we also-" Cthylla was interpreted in her words as the footsteps rushed forward before stopping directly in front of her.

A spotlight came down revealing that she was nose to nose with the vampire princess herself. "Ah~ but why would I want to align with a slow witted pig such as yourself? Do you think of me as desperate?"

Her red eyes glowed dangerously. "Are you underestimating my ideal? My pride?"

Her perfectly kept long blonde hair flowed behind her sparkling like the sun.

"Of course not! I just need some help and don't have any friends!" Cthylla said loudly her sharp teeth showing dangerously like that of a shark with her wide smile. "I've got something valuable though!"

"Oh~ valuable you say?" Gwyneth said, putting her fingers on her lips and moving backwards out of the spotlight and back into the darkness. "What do you have to offer me?"

"Solomon likes talking to me a lot, he's always spilling secrets to me. He told me about Cebrial's super secret weakness!" The strange fish-like eyes poorly disguised as hair ribbons suddenly went on alert as their pupils moved honing in on a single point in the darkness.

"And if we can capture or defeat Cebrail we'll be capable of making a deal with Merlin~ ohhh~ I think I'd like that. Yes I'd love watching such an important girl groveling at my feet!" Gwyneth clapped twice and instantly all the lights turned on revealing a grand hall and the up and coming queen of the Vampires sitting on a golden ornately carved throne that had several naked and beaten men groveling at her feet. "My feet are dirty from walking over to that girl."

Gwyneth lifted her bare foot and immediately one of the men crawled over painfully to lick it clean.

"Cadre Princess Cthylla, you have my undivided attention."

–

"The rules for this game are simple. There are two ways of winning. First, taking the head of the enemy king, which means defeating one of the team leaders." Roygun begins explaining as Sona took her place on the opposite side of Rias. "The next way to win would be whoever has the most flags by the end of the game."

Roygun hands Sona a four small pieces of blue chalk, "The defenders will get ten minutes to place five flags wherever it is that they want, however once they place the flag they must mark the area. Once the flag is there you may not move it unless it's to bring it back after regaining it from an attacker."

"Now both of you pick the members of your group while taking turns."

"I'll go first!" Rias says without letting any fair decision come about. Since she was destined to be a great it was obvious that she would go first and it was doubly obvious who she'd pick. "Seekvaira! I choose you!"

She pointed to her friend and with a small smile the greenish blonde haired girl walked over to stand next to Rias.

Seeing that Rias hadn't picked who she wanted, Sona didn't care at all about Rias going first. "Cebrail."

Cebrail hearing her name being called came to Sona and stood by her without any resistance.

"Alright, next I'll pick Ronalld."

"Latia." Sona was a bit worried that Rias might pick her but it seemed the red head was looking down on the young Astaroth due to her being a part of a branch family.

The blonde haired girl opening her ornate fan covered her mouth to hide her smile at being chosen so early on and stood next to Cebrail.

"Fufufu~ You black haired Angel boy!" Rias pointed to Azril who frowned, but still walked over with an incredible amount of reluctance.

She picked him because he looked a bit edgy and cool like Sasuke so she assumed he must be pretty strong. A rather simplistic way of thinking but not entirely wrong as there was no doubt that he at very least was stronger than Puriel.

"Gadreel." The young brown haired boy seemed pretty surprised to have been chosen so early on. While he wasn't weak, unlike Puriel who specialized in raw strength, and Cebrail who specialized in overwhelming skill, he specialized in the utilization of Light Power meaning he couldn't fight properly against these Devils without hurting them pretty badly. This was basically crippling to his fighting capabilities.

Still he made his way over standing beside Latia while fidgeting a bit.

Sona looked to Cebrail who looked back at her then she smiled and came to a bold decision. Before Rias could even announce her next choice she said it.

"That will be all for the defender team." Sona announced boldly.

"What?" Rias said, confused.

"You can take everyone else, our team is just fine with only the four of us."

"HUHHHHH!?!?!?!" All of the other students including Latia and Gadreel exclaimed.

"Teacher is that alright?" Sona ignored them and asked Roygun who looked at her with a glint of amusement in her eyes.

"That's perfect." She snapped her fingers and the defending team disappeared as a magic circle enveloped them transporting them to the throne room of the castle.

"Ms. Roygun! You can't be serious!" Rias said. She didn't like unfair advantages, she wanted to win properly as a truly powerful Devil, but Roygun simply shook her head.

"Of course I'm serious."

It was easy for her to tell why Sona took on such a choice. Though Cebrail didn't exude the raw power of Rias the way she carried herself spoke volumes of her confidence in her own power.

They were all just mobs and grunts. Although perhaps now that she was a teacher Roygun shouldn't be thinking of her students in such a rude manner. It was the truth, if one were to gather all of the students left here besides the two Angel and the two Devil heiresses, even all of them could not stack up to one Cebrail.

In essence they were complete non factors in the grand scheme of things and Sona saw this easily. She saw that in the end it would all come down to a four on four.

Rias, Seekvaira, Azril, and Puriel against Sona, Cebrail, Latia, and Gadreel.

The line up on her side, even not counting Cebrail, was quite good as well. Gadreel while meek was still chosen by Uriel who's known to be rather stingy and childish meaning he must have some potential. Then Latia who while not inheriting much did still gain the Astaroth family's ability to tame snakes, one of the enemies to Angels. Perhaps not that powerful now however... there are a lot of serpents in a lot of different mythologies.

"She has good eyes." Roygun mumbled a bit impressed, she had been looking at Rias as someone to watch out for in the future despite her immaturity because of her overwhelming Demonic Power for her age and her ability to use the Power of Destruction. Now she realized that perhaps there was more to the little sister of Serafall than she initially thought despite her average levels of Demonic Power.