9 Holy Scotland 1

'So you've seen how far you have to climb if you hope to accomplish your goal,' Vritra hummed, 'As you are, you know how far those of my strength range eclipse you, and you will need to be at least that strong if you hope to fight your way through to Cao Cao and claim his head."

Walking through the streets of Kuoh towards the hotel he had booked for the night, Yarden grimaced at the black dragons words.

He was naive. He'd never seen Serafall fight, only had here say which painted her as a wizard and let it cloud his judgement. But even then, he had certainly not expected how easily she could overpower him when it came to physical strength.

It smarted his pride quite a bit. The only solace he had in it, was that he was not using his Balance Breaker or Sword to overpower her casual hold on him.

If he hadn't humbled himself, she certainly would have. Irritating, but there was only one thing to do. Get stronger.

'Fortunately for you, you have quite a few avenues to grow stronger open to you,' Vritra chuckled, 'While we have no idea where the Shadow Prison Sacred Gear is right now beyond possibly in the hands of the Grigori, we do know exactly where Absorption line is and I can easily claim back my soul fragment and grow even stronger, in turn making you even stronger.'

That was an option. Quick, easy and immediate. 'But also a route that could get me into shit with Serafall.' he pointed out.

Vritra scoffed, 'I will merely take back the fragment, I don't need to reclaim the Absorption line ability when I made it in the first place,' he replied, 'Besides, he will be unable use the fragment without my consciousness even should he unlock Balance Breaker, he will never notice the difference.'

Hmm, well that was good then. Yarden was completely up for it. They could search for Saji in the next few days. And it shouldn't be hard to find him considering he should be getting dragged around by Issei Hyoudou and Koneko to help Kiba Yuuto destroy the Excalibur Fragments.

'One path decided, yet another is open to you at any time,' Vritra said in approval, 'Have you decided when you will give a part of your body up to me?'

Sacrificing one of his body parts to Vritra in order to draconify it. Among other things, it would give an immediate boost to his abilities even from just one limb and enhance his connection to Vritra.

The problem was, until he learned to control it, power would well up within the limb and turn it into a dragons limb. And he would be unable to revert it without having the excess power drained from it or learning how to manage the transformation himself.

The end goal of course, would be becoming a dragon himself. Thus, cementing himself as a devil dragon of godly descent.

'Admittedly learning to control it would be a problem,' Vritra mused, before snorting, 'If not for you having me that is. Once we reclaim my soul fragment from Absorption Line, I will recreate the ability and you can then use it to transfer your excess power out to another, not only helping you, but allowing for their own growth as well.'

'That'll be incredibly useful, except the only one I could really do that with right now is Serafall, and she doesn't exactly need a power up,' Yarden rolled his eyes, 'Best wait on that front until I get my own evil pieces then and can recruit someone useful.'

Serafall had returned to the underworld not long ago. And tomorrow, she would put the paper work through for getting him the evil pieces and he should have them within a few days.

In the mean time, she had asked him to stick around Kuoh and keep an eye on things, specifically Kokabiel and make sure her sister didn't come to harm.

Which was fine with him. Because it just so happened, a pair of useful recruits for his own future peerage happened to be in town this very moment and Kokabiel would provide the perfect opportunity to sway them.

Yarden paused as he turned a corner and a familiar holy aura washed over his senses. Compared to Grian, it was pitifully weak, not even radiating a tenth of the strength of his own blade.

But, there was no mistaking the aura of a Holy Sword.

Twin figures stood at the end of the street dressed in white cloaks with green trim. The second his eyes strayed over to them, both of their heads snapped towards him.

Irina and Xenovia. 'Well well, looks like the blessing of Scotland are heavy tonight.' his lips quirked up into a smirk.

And here he was just thinking of them. Scotland truly did provide all he needed.

Without much thought, Yarden made his way over to the cloak clad girls and approached them, "Well now, that's quite the holy power I can sense from you both." he praised, tossing them a little wave in greeting.

Massively weaker than Grian or not, it did not change the fact the holy aura emanating from those sword fragments were each on par with a six winged angel.

All together he could truly believe Excalibur had the power to almost stand up to Grian. Sadly, as amazing as Excalibur was, it was a purely Brittish weapon, merely only part Scottish. Unlike Grian that was a full Scottish holy sword. As such, it would never be a true match for Grian.