"You truly are naïve Marid, you are good at your feet, but you never truly understood how to play the long game"
Rias taunted back as she unleashed the first attack of the battle when Marid was close enough to not be able to dodge the attack or so she thought.
As the attack incorporated with the legendary power of destruction neared him, Marid didn't show any signs of weakness as he fluidly dodged the attack by clever use of his wings, continuing his pursuit.
Marids calmness and absolute fluidity, for someone as young as him, caught Rias off guard as she couldn't defend herself from his punch incorporated with lighting.
Due to the power behind the punch and the potency of lightning within the attack, Rias was knocked out of the air.
She struck the ground with some force as her body twitched a little.
"As you said, Rias, I am always good at my feet. Perhaps you are the one who can't play the long game.
Well, we can talk about that later, but for now, do you yield?" Marid asked with absolute calmness as he landed gracefully in front of her.
Private box
"Well, that's what I am talking about," Sairaorg roared in approval as his best friend took the first clean strike of the battle.
"Now, the real battle begins," Serafall Leviathan added her two cents.
"What do you mean, sister," Sona asked, bewildered, having not yet understood subtler forms of battle.
In response to her sister's question, Mao Leviathan turned to her with a beaming smile and explained that while the match had officially started a while ago,
it is after the first hit that the battle truly begins on both fronts, with one's mind and battlefield.
"There is a famous quote among humans Sona, 'everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face'
This could be taken figuratively as well literally" Serafall, acting as a good big sister, educated her sister and her friends who could only sagely nod at her explanation.
While the kids were impressed with her sound advice, the adults were bewildered at her Buddha-like attitude as this was not something like her.
"That does make sense, thank you onee-sama" Sona gave her sister a slight bow.
"No-Problem So-chan" Serafall replied now all giddied up, hugging her sister tightly earning a massive blush.
"ONEE-SAMA" Sona screamed from pure embarrassment.
"Well there is the Serafall we know and love" Sirzech, her fellow Satan, chuckled as his wife sighed at Serafall's antics while keeping a keen eye on the match.
Inside the match
"Turns out that strike did a number on you Oba-san. You sure you want to continue?" Marid chuckled as he waited for his opponent to rise from the crater, he sent her in.
Within the next few moments, another Power of destruction attack came his way.
The suddenness and subtleness of the attack caught Marid off guard, forcing him to retreat after making several layers of ice walls to stop the attack.
"You may have caught me off guard with that punch, but it's going to take a lot more than that to put me down,"
Rias replied to her nephews taunting with a barrage of attacks made up of elemental magic and Power of destruction.
'Ah looks like she is trying to play too long a game here. Not going all out with her precious power of destruction means using that power takes more out of her than she lets on.
Well, exhausting her now is going to be a pain' Marid quietly noted as he took to the sky, bobbing and weaving through her attacks.
Some of them came close to hitting him, but he could not get hit at the expense of not being able to close the distance between him and her.
Suddenly noticing a small window of opportunity for an attack, Marid quickly rotated his body to dodge another ball of power of destruction only to cast a barrage of ice spells at the fire ball Rias just threw at him.
A sudden collision of ice and fire magic made a makeshift smokescreen around Rias. Now expecting a sneak attack from Marid, she closed her eyes and focused her senses on locating Marid.
Her focus soon paid off as she felt a change in the movement of air surrounding her someone was closing in on her and sounds of devil wings zipping through the air behind her all but confirmed her suspension.
"Gotcha!" Rias screamed confidently as she casted a massive ball of power of destruction when she felt that her opponent was close enough not able to dodge her spell this time.
"Shit!" Marid cursed as he braced himself for the pain he was sure would follow. In the few milliseconds he had before the attack hit, he started creating walls of ice magic to prevent him from taking too much damage or, worse, retired.
The very second the attack, there was a boom signifying Rias's attack hit her mark. Rias took it to air again to start another wave of bombardment with a mixture Power of destruction and elemental magic within.
Within the next few seconds sound of ice cracking went throughout the stadium, that Marid's last line of defense had indeed fallen.
Taking it to advantage, Rias increased her bombardment spells to retire her nephew quickly.
While she believed this was a coward's way to win this battle, this battle was pushing her to her magical limit, and she didn't like it much.
She knew if this battle didn't end quickly, she would be in big trouble.
Private Box
"She truly is going for the win, isn't she" Sairaorg commented with disapproval.
While he understood a win is a win, especially in a public setting like this one, but as a martial artist, he couldn't help but disapprove of her cousin's path to win this match.
While many in the room may agree with him, unfortunately, others did approve of the brutality of the attack.