Serena Snape: Love of Magic - chapter 85

Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.

March 28 - Serena Pov .

"A little more tea, Ravel?" I asked placidly as I magically poured myself another cup. Ravel in front of me sighed and nodded.

"Please," she said faintly. I laughed softly as I waved my hand, and the pot poured another cup of tea. Ravel grabbed the cup and brought the drink to her lips, closing her eyes in pleasure as she sipped the warm beverage before sighing. "Are we really going to do this for the rest of the day?" Ravel asked simply, and I shrugged.

"Do you have anything better to do here?" I asked curtly. She grimaced and directed her gaze away from the gazebo where we were quietly sipping tea. I followed her gaze.

"Just die, you damn vampire!" Riser growled from a distance as he threw fireballs at Bella.

"Try harder chicken, this barely tickles!!" Bella yelled with a crazed grin as she quickly regenerated and swung her spear in Riser's direction.

A Rating Game was exactly what was happening. In fact, it was my fourth Rating Game against Riser, and my seventh overall. I'm actually pretty sure Riser had a lot to do with my other Rating Games going so fast that Riser could basically face me once every two weeks. Lucius had all but confirmed it with his power.

Along with the other mandatory Rating Games, I was involved in one Rating Game per week. But… the less said about the other contestants, the better.

I knew I was on the lowest possible rung as a newly promoted High-Class Devil and a new participant in the Rating Games. But the other Devils' levels were practically ridiculous. In no Rating Game did I have to get involved; Bella did all the work and barely moved.

It's true that Bella is ridiculously strong. But the rest were so weak that even Bella, who was craving a fight, felt completely disappointed in them. In fact, Riser's Peerage these days caused Bella more trouble than those devils we were fighting.

So far, we've had a perfect record in terms of wins. 6 wins in a row, three with Riser, and this would be our fourth.

I still remembered the previous two fights. The second time we fought Riser, we played in Lightning Fast mode. A very limited battlefield, and a much shorter time. A direct confrontation. Whoever defeats the opponent's king first wins. Or whoever gets rid of the most enemy pieces by the end of the time also qualifies as the winner.

That said, we just had to eliminate the rest of Riser's pieces and wait an hour for our victory. But obviously, I wasn't going to wait that long, so I placed Draught of Living Death on the ends of Bella's stakes and she attacked Riser. Riser, confident in his regeneration, didn't dodge them. The sleeping potion entered his body once more, and he fell unconscious just like the first time.

Victory for us.

The third time was in a board collapse game mode. Basically, the terrain shrinks to reduce the playing field where they can hide and escape. An inevitable battle. So it was also a direct fight. once again.

As always, Riser's Peerage was quickly defeated. Riser was more careful with Bella's stakes this time, almost to the point of paranoia. He burned and destroyed all the stakes in his direction without any problem, so Bella was faced with direct combat with Riser. At one point, Bella pierced Riser's chest with her hand, summoned a vial of Draught of Living Death into her hand, and shattered the vial.

Riser fell unconscious again with a completely disbelieving look on his face.

Furious was an understatement. Riser was completely incensed as he gritted his teeth. And here we were, our fourth confrontation. The game mode I'm playing this time is One Day Long War. Just like the name suggests, a fight that lasts a full day if necessary. A fight of endurance.

Something Riser thought he had the advantage over. He'd been fighting Bella for an hour at this point. Her fire was always on, trying to burn everything in range, which was working. Bella was able to keep hitting Riser, with blows that would be fatal to any other devil, but Riser was simply regenerating, but his fire was burning all the poison before it could get close to Riser.

And judging by Riser's cocky smirk, that was exactly the plan. Rather than lose to my potions, Riser was fully confident in his stamina to sustain a long fight. And maybe if he were facing other people, he might be right, but against us? Definitely not. Bella and I practically had infinite stamina between our physiology and metals.

The remaining four of us were in my designated territory. While Riser was dueling with Bella, Ravel had approached me like the last two Rating Games to pass the time; she really didn't want to get involved in that kind of fight.

"Honestly, I thought he would have some sort of mental breakdown after losing his first Rating Game." I said truthfully, which was what had happened in canon after he lost to Issei. Ravel sighed before looking at me suspiciously.

"Father said the same thing… so did Mother… and our siblings." Ravel sighed tiredly. I chuckled . "I think it's the way he's losing, he doesn't see it as a loss to lose to your potions." Ravel shrugged , and I hummed softly.

"Draught of Living Death isn't the only trick up my sleeve," I said simply. Ravel snorted.

"I doubt you want to give him your love potion, he's not a defenseless woman," she replied mockingly, I grimaced.

"I already apologized for that." I pouted. She smiled and tossed her hair back.

"And I was magnanimous and accepted your apology, but I never said I'd forget it," she said haughtily. I sighed tiredly. Just as Enid had obliged, I apologized the second time we had our Rating Game, something she accepted more readily than I expected. But since then, she always found an opportunity to mention it.

"We'd better get this over with," I said wearily, looking back at the confrontation. The entire ground was shaking and shattering around us. If it weren't for the wards I'd put up around the gazebo, we'd have been feeling the repercussions for a long time. I placed my hand over my throat and cast a Sonorus . "Bella, you can let him come now," I said simply.

That stopped both combatants. Bella clicked her tongue in annoyance, but put away her spear and approached us. Riser was slower, but also lowered his flames and approached us.

"Have you finally decided to face me head on like the king you should be? Your potions are no longer a problem, witch," Riser said arrogantly as he plopped down next to his sister peacefully. He stole his sister's half-eaten sandwich and threw it in his mouth, moaning loudly as Ravel glared at him sharply. I smirked at both siblings.

"That was poisoned." That stopped both Phenex as they paled horribly before gagging and spitting out what they had already swallowed. I burst out laughing. "Just kidding, just kidding." I said quickly between laughs as I looked at Riser with his fingers at the back of his throat trying to throw up. Both Phenex glared at me, almost bordering on hatred.

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you, witch," Riser spat out as if it were an insult. I rolled my eyes. I'd really been earning that title lately. With Sirzechs's secret help, and Ajuka's not-so-secret help, the potion sales were booming. Lucius was handling practically everything, from logistics to distribution, with some help from Enid. And with every victory against Riser, the number of orders increased.

Apparently, having a seal of approval from Satan Beelzebub himself was all that was needed to be completely legitimate. Something that was working out in our favor. According to Lucius's calculations, without that "seal of quality," it would have taken us months to get to where we were now.

The only thing we were missing at the time was a physical place to sell the potions . At this point, our only point of sale was online, a website that Lucius had designed with the help of Enid. A skill I didn't really know they had, well, at least Lucius did, Enid was the one who was in charge of mainly the design, since she was the one most familiar with that type of pages.

Well, there were also some families or individuals who sent letters, but that rarely happened.

The good thing is that even with a dozen orders a day, I wasn't really struggling to keep up with the amount of potions I had to make. I was simply cheating. Creating potions in bulk in a much larger cauldron was doable and easy. I just had to make small variations to the way I brewed the potions, and that was it. Then using time bubbles to get everything done as quickly as possible was practically cheating.

So we were fine for the time being.

But speaking of time bubbles, that's exactly what I was about to do.

"All right Riser, let's have a showdown." I said simply, Riser's eyes widened and glowed slightly.

"Finally!" Riser exclaimed happily and stood up. I just raised my hand. I took out my pocket watch and looked at the time. It really was a small work of art now. The watch was still the same watch as the State Alchemists, but this time it had some small additions. The large clock with the larger hands that spanned the entire clock that marked the hour and minutes as it should, and three smaller clocks with their respective hands.

The one below, the one that was already on the clock, had a single hand and was the one that marked the seconds of the larger clock. But the two new ones were placed at the top right and left, forming a triangle. The small clock on the right had two hands; these also marked the hour and minutes, but in a more unique way.

They were connected by a variant of the Protean Charm to a clock in my house. Outside the influence of the time bubbles. Strange things might happen to physical objects when interacting with things outside the bubbles while I'm inside. But magic? Magic could twist, jump, and flip, and it would still be the same. Magic was timeless. And it was one reason prophecies existed, so this? This didn't cause any problems at all.

Therefore, the small clock on the right worked exactly as it should, marking the time elapsed outside the time bubbles. It wasn't really necessary when compressing the bubbles with bendalloy, where days could pass inside the bubble while only a few minutes passed outside.

No, it was for cadmium. Where a few seconds inside the bubble could equal days outside, and that was the reason for the last clock, at the top left it showed the days outside the bubble. It was also linked to the same clock outside the time bubble. And that's exactly what it was doing right now.

The fight had barely begun when Riser had gotten into a direct fight, so he quickly submerged himself in my territory. Bella and I had waited calmly for them. Once Bella had taken care of his peerage, the fight was simply Riser vs. Bella. I had swallowed cadmium and created a temporary bubble that completely enveloped them.

So for the last hour while Riser was playing with Bella, Time outside the bubble passed much faster, Only 1:24. If I wanted to, I could have pushed much faster, a few seconds for a whole day. But I didn't want to reveal my upper limit right away, so I limited it just enough.

At this point, Riser and Ravel were the only remaining members of Riser's peerage, and victory was decided by the number of points calculated according to the number of pieces each side had claimed from the other. Since Riser had a full peerage and I had absolutely none, it was an automatic victory for me once the timer ran out.

Was it dishonest to take advantage of such a loophole? Absolutely, but it's not like I really cared. This would only annoy Riser even more, and that was the important thing.

Still, this wasn't something everyone could accomplish. Entering the Rating Game with fewer members always put that person at a disadvantage. Even more so if they were at similar power levels, it wasn't something that could be easily replicated. And then there was the matter of surviving long enough to finish the fight without being defeated. Something that was also difficult to do if you weren't a Phenex.

"What are you doing?" Riser asked suspiciously. I ignored Riser and watched the hands move. I watched the day change outside the bubble, and once we reached the exact time I needed, I broke the time bubble while closing the pocket watch. I smiled widely at Riser.

"Good Rating Game." I said happily. Riser frowned.

"TIME!!! With a crushing victory again from Lady Prince's Impaling Queen , she takes 36 points for her side!! While unfortunately Riser and his Peerage once again could not defeat any member of Lady Prince's party so they have 0 points."

"with a decisive 36-0 in favor of Lady Prince. Lady Prince is the winner of this fourth Prince-Phenex Rating Game!!! A round of applause!! "

With the referee's final words, a smile spread across my face as I watched the completely disbelieving faces of both Phenex before we were teleported away from the battlefield.

"Wait! That's not possible! There were still hours left in there! " Riser exclaimed, completely furious.

"Big brother is right! Where is that completely inept referee! " Ravel exclaimed indignantly.

"Actually Riser-chan, I really did spend a whole day away from the battlefield." Sirzechs said appearing along with a sullen looking Lord Phenex accompanied by the rest of Riser's peerage.

"What?" Riser asked foolishly, Lord Phenex clicked his tongue.

"That witch created a temporal barrier, time passed slower inside it. I don't know how long you were fighting, but while you were distracted fighting the impaler queen , a whole day passed out here." Lord Phenex confirmed while glaring at me.

"What? It can't be, we were only inside for an hour." Ravel said in a daze, Sirzechs hummed amusedly.

"A 24-1 difference? Impressive, can you do it the other way around? " Sirzechs asked curiously in my direction.

"Of course I can, it would be stupid not to be able to." I said dryly. Sirzechs just laughed and nodded before looking at me, his eyes shining.

"You wouldn't have anything to do with the Agares, would you? " Sirzechs asked directly and I frowned slightly.

"Wait! What are you talking about! A time barrier like the Agares?! Are you serious?! " Riser asked quickly as he looked at his father and the rest of his peerage. His peerage nodded resignedly. Riser growled before glaring at me.

"This isn't over, witch!" Riser hissed angrily, I just smirked at him. Riser snorted before turning around and walking over to his peerage before leaving. Riser's father sighed before disappearing as well.

"Goodbye, Lady Prince, see you in two weeks." Ravel said as he bowed, I snorted in amusement.

"See you later, Ravel." I waved playfully as she too disappeared.

Well, that was easier to do than I thought. Maybe because Lord Phenex and Sirzechs were present, but I honestly expected more of a fight from him. I guess I'll have to wait another two weeks to see if he's finally given up.

Now I looked at Sirzechs, who still had a smile on his face.

"So, Agares?" he asked again, I shrugged.

Agares. They had the unique ability to manipulate time. The only one I really knew was Seekvaira , the mecha lover. I remember she could do something similar to my time bubbles, but no, they definitely weren't the same. I still shrugged.

"I have no idea, my mother is a succubus and I don't know who my poor bastard of a father is, but he definitely wasn't an Agares, my ability to manipulate time has nothing to do with a unique trait, it's part of another ability." I said simply, before humming as I remembered a previous conversation. "Although, this is definitely a hereditary ability, it's very likely that my children will keep this ability." She said honestly. I could hear Bella sigh. I looked at her as I tilted my head in confusion.

"Is it hereditary?" Sirzechs asked seriously.

"Yes, it is-" I stopped stiffly before looking at Sirzechs robotically. "Are we still on live?" I asked with a nervous smile. Sirzechs smiled as he nodded.

Okay. Shit.

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