Becoming a Shadow in the New World

It's better that he was reincarnated and gained magic, which brought his fantasies into reality; otherwise, he would just be a crazy, eccentric person with a screw loose.

"But thank you anyway, Asia!"

Chapter 83 Destructive Magic

What exactly was Asia imagining?

Lying in bed, Sid became curious about this idea.

After he said those words, Asia's maternal instincts were practically overflowing. She went on to express her determination, saying she would always stand by his side. Women's imaginations can be this terrifying.

Well, it's none of Asia's business how she imagines things. All he needs to know is that Asia is currently very enthusiastic and shouldn't be like Alpha and the others for a while.

Speaking of which, it seems I actually lost a little money today; he paid for the sandwiches... Oh well, it doesn't matter.

After lost in thought for a while, Sid managed to pull himself together, raised one hand in front of him, and a chess piece emerged from his palm.

This is the demon chess piece that Rias gave him yesterday, which she wanted to use to transform him into a demon.

Fortunately, he managed to come up with an excuse in time to get away with it without actually merging with Rias, otherwise there would have been five or four more corpses lying in that conference room that day. Yes, fortunately, it was Rias and her familiars, not him.

He didn't look at the Devil Piece closely at that time, but with his decent knowledge, he still managed to guess its general meaning based on Rias's words.

Rias said at the time that the number of pieces consumed by the Demon Chess Piece depends on the user's potential; the higher the talent and the stronger the user, the more pieces are consumed. This sounded reasonable and logical.

So here's the question: what if someone with such talent or strength that they couldn't complete the transformation even after using up all the demon pieces appeared, and the owner of the demon pieces hadn't realized this beforehand, and forcibly started the demon transformation ritual?

There are five possibilities.

The first scenario is the best outcome, where the transformation ritual automatically terminates and all the absorbed demon pieces are ejected.

The second possibility is that the ritual ends with the death of one of the two parties involved in the transformation, and that person is most likely the one who absorbed the demon chess piece. This is also the most theoretically plausible scenario.

After all, modern medical surgeries have a relatively high mortality rate, so how can a ritual that alters race be stopped so easily?

The third possibility is to extract the life force of the demon chess piece's owner to forcibly perform a reincarnation ritual, sacrificing part of one's life to obtain a powerful familiar. This is the least likely scenario.

The fourth option is to terminate the reincarnation ritual at the cost of a small backlash from the owner of the demon chess piece, which is theoretically the best possibility in terms of benefit.

The fifth scenario, which was the situation Rias and the others faced yesterday, was due to the vast difference in their abilities and the slight peculiarity of his body. Rias's life was drained in the opposite direction of the Devil Piece by his body, and after that, the life of her familiars was drained in the same way that Rias, as the Queen, was drained.

The probability is 100%, because it triggered his body's defense mechanism. If he hadn't specifically stopped it, Rias and her familiars would have been doomed.

Of course, there's no point in saying all this, since it hasn't happened yet. I'm just curious about how Rias's soldier pieces change races. I didn't have time to look at them yesterday because of some problems in my inner world, but I have nothing important to do today, so I'll study them.

Thinking about it carefully, although he often heard about this kind of thing at school and on TV, this seemed to be the first time he had ever seen the actual chess piece.

The magic within him surged into Sid's eyes, and his vivid crimson pupils stared at the demon chess piece.

"Oh...so that's how it works...interesting...no wonder it's a demon."

After looking at it carefully for a while, Sid withdrew the magic from his eyes and casually tossed the chess piece onto the table.

It's not even as good as half a flawed system or a scaled-down version of the Magic Network. That's how Sid described this demonic chess piece.

But you can't say it's bad; you can only say that he saw a bunch of things that were better than this and subconsciously compared them.

Strictly speaking, this thing is a small local area network. A set of demon pieces is the line, and the followers in the circle are each computer connected to the king.

By the way, this thing is truly insidious, as expected of something made by a demon.

He took a quick look and found that the reincarnation ritual of the demon chess piece did not require the reincarnated person to be voluntary. In other words, the two parties in the reincarnation ritual were not equal. As long as the owner of the demon chess piece was willing, he could forcibly convert the race of the person whose strength was below his to serve him.

Of course, his knowledge of this matter did not mean that he would go and uphold justice. It was boring and unsuitable for someone with the strength of a shadow, and doing such a thing was quite in line with his stereotype of demons.

He was now more interested in the other things in the chess piece, a drop of blood from Rias, which was the key to transforming the demon chess piece into a demon.

Dark purple magic appeared in Sid's hand. In contrast to its usual peacefulness, the dark purple magic now in Sid's hand was unusually violent, and just looking at it gave off a sense of destruction.

If Rias were present, she should be able to recognize the characteristics of this magic power; it is the destructive magic power unique to the Baal family of the Demon World, which is the talent inherited by Rias and her brother.

The reason why Sid could create destructive magic is actually quite simple: he just extracted Rias's drop of blood and found the inheritance within it.

The inheritance of bloodlines can be described by a quote from a netizen from a previous life: the ancestors of the demons engraved them in their DNA.

Looking at this destructive magic, Sid fell into deep thought.

Of course, he wasn't worried about what would happen if things were exposed; he was wondering what the use of this thing was.

Chapter 84 The Ranking Game Goes Wild

"Cool!"

Sid lazily got up to get dressed and assessed his current mental state, finding himself refreshed and full of energy.

"The medicine Ita gave me was really effective; my inner world calmed down immediately."

Stretching my arms and legs, I cheered myself up while marveling at how effective the medicine Ita had given me was. I experienced a perfect immersion into my inner world, and felt all the pressure of daily life vanish instantly.

It can only be said that he is indeed the most intelligent of the Seven Shadows. Even Sid himself couldn't understand his own body, but Itah understood it after only one look.

"He's truly... a genius!"

We have to consider the possibility that his body might automatically evolve immunity. It shouldn't be like that... right?

No matter what, he didn't have any aversion to the drug.

Ah... the desires and instincts of the flesh, and the reason and desires of humankind, are truly unfathomable.

Despite his thoughts, Sid's life as a background character with the strength of a shadow had to continue. After washing up, Sid prepared to head to school.

Before leaving, Sid used some magic to check on Asia's condition and only opened the door to leave after confirming that Asia was sleeping in her room.

It's normal to feel a little unaccustomed to suddenly having a roommate.

Nothing happened along the way. Somewhat unexpectedly, his sister, whom he had expected to block his door, did not come. Akatsuki Nagisa and Akatsuki Kojo were also not home... It seems they haven't returned since they went out yesterday.

He was a little curious, but it didn't matter. Ever since he learned that Kojou Akatsuki wasn't a Kage-level user, his interest in the Akatsuki siblings had plummeted.

"Is it him?"

"It should be him."

"That can't be right. Didn't you say Rias-senpai only had four familiars? How come there are suddenly two more?"

"I don't know, but Rias-senpai's combat roster does include six familiars, and the photo definitely shows him."

...Looking at the whispers and gazes of the people around him, Sid fell silent.

Okay, so the big one was waiting for him here. Pretending not to see Aiba Asagi's hint, Sid walked to his seat under the furtive gazes of everyone and immediately lay down, blocking the view of the surrounding classmates. He took out his phone, opened his messages, and found Aiba Asagi's profile picture.

Rebellious Fallen Angel: Asagi, what happened?

Why are all the students in my class staring at me? Is there something strange about me?

Electronic Empress: I also want to ask you, when did you become Rias-senpai's familiar? Wasn't it supposed to be whoever ran away first?

Rebellious Fallen Angel: What does this matter have to do with the current situation?

Electronic Empress: How could it be unrelated? Why do you think everyone is paying so much attention to you?

Rebellious Fallen Angel: ? Rias-senpai does have a considerable status in the Underworld, but there are so many nobles in the school. Not to mention other mythological figures, just the Baal family's successor, whom you mentioned the day before yesterday, has a higher status than Rias-senpai. Is it really necessary to make such a big fuss about Rias-senpai taking me as her familiar?

Electronic Empress: You still don't know?

Rebellious Fallen Angel: What do I need to know?

Electronic Empress: ...The Electronic Empress sent a link.

Electronic Empress: See for yourself (sighs) (speechless).

Following the link sent by Aoba Asagi, Sid was redirected to a webpage and browsed it carefully. He gasped in shock.

This webpage is nothing special. It's just that the Underworld Ranking Game announced the day before yesterday that Rias from the Gremory family of the Underworld will be playing a ranking game against Raiza from the Phoenix family. The Underworld and other forces are welcome to watch. Hmm, nothing special. If only things could be that simple.

First, news came that this ranking game would determine Rias and Raiza's engagement. Then, some unknown power-hungry person started boasting about the fighting strength of both sides, turning this battle into a duel between the strongest young generation in the Underworld, which was outrageous.

But what's even more outrageous is that Netheril's official account posted on the night before last that they would come to watch this battle of the strongest young generation in the Underworld, which triggered a chain reaction that a bunch of mythologies also said they would send people to watch the battle.

Things weren't really that bad up to this point, but once you start talking about "real," something unexpected must have happened.

I don't know if the official team of the Underworld Ranking game has lost their mind or what, but they've started to provoke us. They've publicly stated that the four great demons and most of the demon family heads will be present, and they hope that all the pantheons and factions will pay attention to the etiquette of the visitors to avoid being frightened and losing face.

This really angered the other pantheons, and a bunch of the world's top fifteen, who had just retired from the world battlefield or were still in charge of the world, came at the invitation.

Although these contents are actually Sid's unilateral interpretation after translation, the statements from various pantheons are quite euphemistic and not so explicit, but the meaning is still roughly the same.

In short, that's how it is. This ranking game went completely mad because it brought together a series of scenes that the masses love to see, including gossip-filled family marriages, the strongest gimmick of the younger generation, and a spectator lineup so luxurious it could start a world war. As a result, it spread throughout all pantheons in just one day.

In this situation, he became famous along with everyone else. After all, in the contestant list that Rias submitted, his art style was very different from the others and he stood out. Other people on the street might not have recognized him, but his classmates definitely did.

Electronic Empress: Have you finished reading? If you have, tell me how you became Rias-senpai's familiar. Didn't you say the other day that no one wanted you?

Rebellious Fallen Angel: This was purely accidental. Don't worry, I have experience. This relationship will be dissolved in two days at most.

Electronic Empress: You have experience?

Electronic Empress: Are you awake? Others would beg for this... The rest of Sid can't see because someone has arrived.

Looking at Himejima Akeno combing her beautiful hair, Sid put his phone under the table and exited the chat interface with Aiba Asagi.

As expected, his sister's list had quite a few unread messages...