"I had a feeling this was personal."

In a blink, Rias was surrounded. The enemies made a wide oval around him.

Unnervingly enough, only the buildings in the far distance (all reserved for those who were allied with Pherdanta) and the five assailants poised to crush him were visible within the Territory. Rias could neither see nor sense the signatures of everyone else within the Territory.

'This is no ordinary Territory, is it? Even a Beyond The Veil Stager wouldn't be able to stage such something so…elaborate,' he thought to himself and stretched his arm.

"What is it that feels personal?" Pherdanta said to him.

"Truth be told, I feel a surge of emotion in every blow I've been taking from her – perhaps moreso than the actual physical impacts." The masked man pointed at Kintar, who sneered. He then turned to Pherdanta. "I've been feeling your intensity as well ever since being… invited into this little world of yours. I'm not sure I've impacted either of you personally. Or have I?"

Kintar let loose a short-lived laugh that stood somewhere between a bark and growl.

"You commit an atrocity so grand – so all encompassing – that it turns the entire world against you, and it doesn't cross your mind that you might have caught at least one person that fucking mattered in it?" she said.

Rias cocked his head to the right. "Hmm."

"It really doesn't matter whether you remember or not those you killed during your tirade," Pherdanta said, unsheathing her sword, Dance of the Necrotic Butcher. "You were going have to fight us even if this wasn't personal."

Kintar did not like that. She glared at Pherdanta and then Rias.

"Oh, it fucking matters that he remembers now. I've gone through all this trouble just to make sure killing you is satisfying. With your little upgrade, the amount of effort it's going to take to put you down has risen, which means I have to find an equal metric for compensation somehow."

Rias gave a few nods.

"The fact that I should remember is that important to you, is it?" he said. "Now that I think about it, if there was one death I recall vividly… Oh. Oh! That one must have stung." He slammed a fist in his palm. "I remember getting angry and killing someone. No." He considered Pherdanta. "I remember tearing you to pieces and obliterating the soul of one other… tall girl. You must have been acquainted. Your master definitely was quite heartbroken, I recall."

Genuine Divine energy burst out of Kintar wrathfully.

Pherdanta merely circled around Rias, Vali and Maxim following behind her silently.

Rias shook his head. His voice turned a bit deeper. "What are you all? Kids? What do you think war is?"

"Do we look like we need a fucking lecture about the principles of bloodshed from you?" hissed Kintar.

"Perhaps not. I'd say you need a little enlightenment instead," retorted Rias. "I've seen your kind many times before. Prodigies that grew rapidly while their minds trail behind. You haven't lived for long and yet you're already baring your fangs against death, and for what? Because some acquaintance of yours died in battle? Believe me. There are better, finer ways to die."

Before Kintar could hiss back, Vali chimed in.

"I suppose the Premium Age Royale was your version of a fine reward in death to the masses, was it? Prime dining, prime entertainment and then prime extinction."

"It was more than any of them deserved. Aigas is one of the few Rich worlds I know where 'commonfolk' exist. Most worlds that reach this level of quality are riddled with conflict. Life and death mean something. Everyone fights desperately – tooth and nail – for the right to live. Only then can death be rewarding."

"What exactly do you know about death?" Pherdanta said. Her eyes were sharp and her face still. "You boast about attaining enlightenment because you've died before, right? Twice, I think? Once when you died to be reborn on Aigas, and twice when my master killed you. Some of us have died more than twice – once even at your hand – and yet never has this faux enlightenment visited us. You are living of your own accord and ideals like the rest of us. There's nothing special about you."

"What she said!" Maxim chimed in with a stern-looking face.

Rias chortled. He looked at Kintar. "You have died more than twice as well?"

The Mage didn't bother answering with words. Her look of disgust was enough.

"I see," said Rias. "Then you are no more than fake apprentices of death. No one who truly knows the value of dying – of expiring permanently – would dare waste their lives for something as trivial as… revenge." His tone turned even colder. "But honestly, I'm glad I've met people like you. I've been feeling a rage I haven't felt as often in the past. I hope all your allies believe in the same nonsense you do. When I cut them down one by one just like that one sorry fool you've all turned sour for, I want to see if your reasoning ever equates to mine as it happens. If it doesn't…"

Rias raised his hand towards Aimon, and a single, large crow flew out of its mouth and landed on his wrist. There was a special symbol on its head, white and ominous.

As it turned out, with Rias' hand lifted, the same symbol could be seen in his palm as well.

Whatever it was made the masked man's enemies even more wary of him.

"…that will reinforce the sacredness of my creed all the more. Better yet, except for the tall alien," he said, pointing at Uyuniya, "at this stage, nothing is stopping me from turning you two into the first vessels for my Undead now, is there? First, I just need to kill your ideals and then your bodies."

"Stroke yourself however you like with bravado," Kintar hissed, and became the first to pounce. "Your head is mine!"