DXD: Catalyst of Legends

Dohnaseek stared for a moment in surprise as the human brought his saber to bear. "A magician?"

"Magus," was the terse reply.

The Fallen's brow furrowed in confusion before he shook it off. He turned to his compatriots with a scowl.

"Hey! What are you waiting for?! Get over here and help me!"

"Why? You're the one he's after. " The blonde Fallen, Mittelt, was content to stand back and watch.

She must have been one of those people that got a kick out of seeing someone like Dohnaseek struggle, and found it even funnier since a human was making him do it.

"Get the fuck over yourself, Mittelt! The rest of you, too! I do not need to tell you what will happen if he leaves here alive! Now get over here, or I'll kill you all myself and write you off as dead weight!" Dohnaseek roared, pretty well fed up with everything and everyone.

Connor grimaced. Fighting one on one with a supernatural being was difficult enough as it was.

With four on one, his chances of survival hit rock bottom. No matter how many he could take down, there was no way he was leaving the park alive.

Unless…

As the argument ensued, no one noticed Connor quietly lower his weapon to hide his left hand as it rummaged through his pocket. From it, he retrieved a red runestone no wider than a 1 yen coin but as thick as ten of them put together.

It was only one of three he had on him, and this one was the only one of its particular function at the moment.

He had never tried using that before, but he had no other options now. It had to work!

"Hey!" he barked, grabbing everyone's attention. Taking advantage of the distraction, he flicked the runestone into the air between the Angels and ducked down, covering his ears and slamming his eyes shut.

All eyes were on the airborne stone for a half second until it erupted in a blinding flash of light and concussive burst of sound.

"AAAAHHH!"

"MY EYES!"

"WHAT THE HELL?!"

The blast from the magecraft equivalent of a flashbang grenade had hurt Connor's ears as well, though not nearly as bad as it would have been in a tight space, but now he had a window of opportunity. With all his assailants blinded and stumbling around for a good few seconds, he had bought himself time to enact his plan.

Fighting past the roaring tinnitus, he brought down his left hand and, using his index finger like a stylus, drew runes on the ground before him in rapid succession.

'Algiz! Nauthiz! Ansuz! Inguz!'

With a swipe of his hand, the effects of the sequence set in, and he felt himself freeze as a primal sense of fear took hold. Now he understood why his grandfather had expressly forbidden him from invoking this curse.

It felt like… something was standing right behind him, leaning over him and breathing down his neck, but even that seemed to downplay the sensation of terror. His whole body was screaming at him to fight and kill the black-winged man in order to make the thing behind him go away.

It took a considerable effort to stop himself from charging ahead and doing just that.

The Fallen all seemed to feel the effects, too. Dohnaseek tensed and he frantically looked behind him with widened eyes, and the women all jumped and scrambled away from them while dispelling their weapons.

Connor let out a shaky breath he didn't know he was holding. "It worked.

"

"What the hell did you do?!" the man yelled.

"Ath nGabla," he answered, his hearing slowly coming back to him. "A curse that invokes one-on-one combat, used among the Knights of the Red Branch.

With this, retreat is no longer an option, and neither is refusal to fight. You and I are in this to the death, with no outside interference.

" The magus then glanced to the newly made spectators. "Sorry, ladies.

"

As much as he wanted to make a break for it while they were impaired, he knew that any one of them could catch up and kill him from a distance. At least this way, he had a marginal chance of surviving the encounter by forcing them to fight one at a time.

'Although, Ath nGabla isn't supposed to make you feel like you're being hunted. Right? I must've screwed up somewhere in there.

'

The reactions were varied: Raynare and Mittelt were befuddled, Kalawarner was shocked that someone in this day and age even knew what Ath nGabla was, and Dohnaseek seemed within moments of going nuclear.

"Don't think that will save you. Know your place!" Dohnaseek bellowed as he surged forward.

Connor assumed a defensive stance and braced for impact.

Rias Gremory couldn't believe what she was seeing.

She had been summoned by the flyer in Issei Hyōdō's pocket, only to find him half dead with a hole in his chest while the sounds of steel clashing against steel rang throughout the park. Curiously, she went to investigate, and found a magic barrier of simple construction.

It took little effort to stealthily breach it, but she was not prepared for what was within. Like a sequence from an action film, the academy's American exchange student, Connor Lochlainn, was armed with a large red sword and trading blows with a Fallen Angel in a gray trench coat, both combatants tearing up the ground around them as they dueled.

Three other Fallen hovered around the pair, keeping their eyes both on the duel and the barrier they had set up. Luckily for her, they were more focused on the former.

As the fight carried on, she noticed something strange. Connor wasn't losing any ground to his opponent.

Based on what she knew about him already, Rias didn't take Connor to be anything special. It shouldn't be possible for a normal human to hold their own against a Fallen Angel.

Unless he was a descendant of a hero or something similar.

But then she saw, running along the length of his arms, symbols of some kind, glowing with all the colors of fire. Her eyes widened in realization; he was strengthening himself through rune magic!