Chapter 2
It was a boring party.
Serafall Sitri could admit that much. She didn't even understand why she had to come instead of her parents. The Satan Descendants as usual were going on and on about how they were the superior race and the world deserved to bow at their feet, blah blah blah blah.
Honestly, the only solace in this that she could take was that were friends Sirzechs Gremory, Ajuka Astaroth, and Falbium Glasya-Labolas were also sent by their parents.
Quite frankly, if it wasn't for the fact that the other attendees at this party were also heirs and heiresses, Serafall would have thought that her parents didn't want to deal with this nuisance.
"I wish I could just go home."
She elbowed Sirzechs for saying what she wanted to.
"Be quiet, and don't say something like that again. You don't know if the Descendants will hear you."
"I think you're worrying a bit too much Sera. We aren't that close and the others who have grouped up are whispering too."
She was about to correct him, but Falbium beat her to it.
"That's not what she means. The waiters at this party are all hired by the Satan Descendants, there's no doubt that they're listening in on the conversations as they pass by. Those who are saying something against the Descendants will likely be going through some hard times after tonight. And I don't mean as an individual, but rather their clan."
"Oh."
Sirzechs paled a little. As easygoing as he is, Sirzechs won't do anything to endanger his family.
"Yes 'oh,' and it doesn't help that our table is where two of its occupants are devils who were born with abnormal levels of power and the other two occupants are devils who reached Ultimate-Class when they were 19. Most of the attention has been on us since the start of this party. Even as the Satan Descendants speak, everyone else has been glancing at us now and then."
All four of them sighed at that. Their friend group had always been relatively tight as they had known each other since Ajuka and Sirzechs were nine and Serafall and Falbium were 14. Of course, at first, some would talk about Falbium and her behind their backs. Saying how they were trying to latch onto Sirzechs and Ajuka, it was even worse for her since a lot of people were saying how she was trying to seduce them. Serafall would later come to learn that those rumors began from the rivals of their clans to sow discord into the little alliance that the four families had.
But that changed three years ago. The Sitri Clan were always water specialists, but Serafall had a slight mutation in her clan trait which allowed her to specialize in Ice Magic to an extreme level. It was to such a level that she was only matched by a Lucifage, one who was similar to her in age.
This normally wouldn't have amounted to much, after all, being able to wield such power meant nothing if the user wasn't powerful enough to do anything with it. But when Serafall had just passed her 19th birthday, she did something unexpected. She had reached Ultimate-Class, and Falbium had too, reaching it only a few months after she did.
After that, praises were being sung about Serafall and her friends, and it was nothing but happy times from then on.
Or at least that was what she would like to think.
Everything was going well at first, but then the praises and looks changed again. It began from the Satan Descendants. How they would look at us and seemingly think that we were going to be a threat to them and their power. Almost as if we were going to rebel against them, which was ridiculous in her opinion. It felt degrading to her personally, considering how hard she had to train to reach that level.
Serafall got it the worst from the Leviathans due to their clan traits being so similar. It didn't help that Tsufaame Tereaku Leviathan was gathering support to officially rise to the position of Satan Leviathan. Quite frankly at this point, only Rizevim Lucifer was the closest thing to an official Satan due to how many people obey him, but he doesn't care about running a government.
She hopes that the four children of the Original Satans would hurry up and assume their positions so that all this talk of rebellion would go away, but unfortunately, that won't happen anytime soon. The reason is that they want their rise to power to also be at the same time that they restart the Great War to truly defeat the Angels and the Fallen, all so that they can recreate the world with their ideal vision. Right now, they were trying to gather resources to start the next battle in full swing.
Thinking about that made Serafall even more annoyed. After all, it's as if they ignored the fact that there are other pantheons and if they tried something like that, then those gods won't just sit back and watch.
"They're right Sirzechs. Even as uninterested in politics as I am, my father has recently been telling me to pay more attention and to be more careful."
Hearing Ajuka agree with us made Sirzechs sigh even more.
"I know Ajuka, but I didn't think that things were this bad."
At this point, I decided to speak up.
"It wasn't always, but recently things have been getting much worse. The Descendants have been getting more and more tyrannical as of late. The children of the Satans are bad enough, but the grandchildren of the Satans are even worse. And it doesn't help that the one who can do anything about them, Rizevim Lucifer, just doesn't care."
As bad as Tsufaame Tereaku Leviathan, Bidleid Bashalun Beelzebub, and Damaidosu Zereikel Asmodeus were, Serafall knew for a fact that Shalba Beelzebub, Katerea Leviathan, Creuserey Asmodeus, and Razevan Lucifer were much worse.
"Serafall," Falbium hissed at her to be quiet.
"Don't worry Fal, right now they're paying attention to Tsufaame's bragging," she said while pointing with her jaw in another direction.
The other three looked over, and sure enough, the daughter of the Original Leviathan was regaling about how her mother killed a group of six wing angels on her own during the Great War.
"Is it wrong to hope that we don't have to go to war again?"
At Sirzechs' question neither Serafall, Ajuka, nor Falbium said anything, but they silently agreed that they too did want to go to war.
"While that's a nice sentiment Sirzechs, we can't afford to always be so kind, not in this era. Maybe in the future kindness like that would be acceptable, but not now," she told her gentle friend.
"I know Sera, my father has already taken me to skirmish with the Fallen near the borders."
We once again, fell into silence as we each were likely thinking about the time our parents took us to battle. This kind of thing is a way of initiating heirs and heiresses, after all, even if we don't start the attack now, the clan heads all knew that it was only a matter of time. Because of this, our parents decided to let us have our first battle in a controlled environment with them close by. Their parents were a bit protective in that sense, especially since they had participated in the tail end of the Great War, and they knew how intense war could get.
"Let's move onto an easier topic rather than wallowing in negativity," Ajuka suggested, to which we all nodded.
"Sera, I heard your parents are getting you an escort?"
Serafall rolled her eyes at that.
"Fal, all of our parents are getting us escorts," before Falbium could refute, Sirzechs jumped to respond first.
"Yes, but ours are still looking through the possible candidates, while yours have already decided on who they want."
It was a given that as heirs and heiresses, the clan heads would often find the best way to ensure their legacies. One method in specific was the escort. Escorts were often found from retainers who were of similar age so that way a bond was easier to form between the two. And as time goes on, an heir would have a loyal ally and friend to rely on.
Escorts were also used as a way of bragging and gaining prestige for both escort and heir. The best example at the current time would be the Lucifers and the Lucifages. So, getting an escort for an heir was a big deal.
"I too, am curious Sera," Ajuka spoke up as well.
Sigh. "Well, I haven't met him yet, but my parents have told me about him," she started "supposedly he is the son of two devils from one of our guard squads. From what I was told he focuses on wielding a sword rather than using magic."
That got looks of surprise from her three friends. It was expected, she also had the same look when her father told her the same. After all, devils highly regarded magical might, especially after the whole Solomon fiasco before the Great War. Magical might became even more highly regarded during the Great War when the counter to the Angels' and the Fallens' magic light spears was even more magic of our own.
"Swords?" Sirzechs asked. He didn't look down on sword users, no one in the three factions did after Arthur and Excalibur, but it was unheard of for a devil to focus on sword over magic. Devilkind just didn't process using something over our magic or clan traits. Sure, they had experimented on such things now and then, but even those were all created from devil magics.
"Father, even said that his talent for magic is the poorest that he's seen in a devil."
Serafall could see the increased confusion on the faces of her friends.
"Do you know his parents?" Ajuka questioned.
She nodded, "They're both High-Class devils, and they've even guarded me before."
"Well, I'm sure that your parents know what they're doing."
The conversation from there delved into who they thought might become their escorts for the rest of the party.
As the party came to an end, Serafall bade farewell to the hosts, the Satan Descendants, and she didn't miss the dirty looks that Katerea sent her. She merely gave her politest smile to that and walked away to her family's butler that came to teleport her home.
"I hope that things will get better soon."