DxD: Gambling With Fate

For the first time in DxD, a chill ran down his spine.

Before 'Lavinia' could even do anything, Noa raised a hand and shot a deafening burst of Holy Flames at 'Lavinia,' instantly disintegrating her.

Dulio stood up in alarm, but Noa looked back at him. "This is a fake. We're under attack." Using Furthest Earth, Noa instantly walked in front of Lavinia's room door, before ripping the door off its hinges.

Swiftly entering the room, thankfully Lavinia was in the room, now looking at Noa with narrowed eyes, raising a drowsy hand in defense, Absolute Demise manifested right behind her.

Realizing it was Noa, Lavinia lowered her hand, her head tilting in confusion.

"...What?"

With the materialization of Absolute Demise, it confirmed that it was the real Lavinia. Noa lowered his hands. "There was just a fake version of you right in front of our room. We're under attack." Lavinia opened her mouth to question further–

*BANG!*

The building rumbled, as if it was only a few steps before breaking down like a late game of Jenga.

Dulio! Having forgotten that he had left Dulio by himself, swiftly picked up Lavinia into his hands and walked back to his room, where he saw Dulio fighting against a masked assailant in close quarters.

Noa teleported right behind the assailant and grabbed onto the man's head, instantly burning the man. However, instead of turning into ashes like Noa had expected, the masked man burst into a flash of light.

Their surroundings morphed, blocks of old stone blocking the room, slowly transforming the setting.

Noa reacted a little slower, but as he made a step to pick up Dulio as well, he was teleported into a completely different area.

Disoriented at the sudden change in setting, Noa quickly looked around, and so did Lavinia. What the fuck just happened?

Where was Dulio?

Panic settled in for the first time in his new life, his thoughts racing. However, just before he was about to take a step and try to find Dulio, Protection of the Faith created a new blessing.

[Protection of the Faith generates [Panic Resistance]]

Noa's thoughts slowed, and he finally took the opportunity to calm down, taking in the environment, hearing Lavinia call for him.

"Noa! Noa, are you okay? Noa–" Lavinia put in effort to try and shake Noa, to no avail, the difference in physical ability being extremely apparent.

"I'm all good. Perfectly fine." Noa spoke, taking a small breath. "Light work, no reaction."

"...Are you sure?"

"Yep."

Noa didn't put Lavinia down yet. With no idea where he actually was, Noa couldn't make any rash decisions. The fact that the masked man attacked Dulio meant that he was probably the goal of this operation.

Well, with the Longinus Zenith Tempest it wasn't a surprise that people would be aiming for such a weapon. The problem was the goal.

With Dulio disappearing the moment that it was deployed, whatever the masked man activated, it had to do with 'Space.'

First thing was first. Noa needed to know how to navigate this fucking hallway.

Noa put his palm against the wall, and a burst of flames hit the stone wall, breaking it. Behind it, was another hallway. Was this a fucking maze…? He pointed his hand to the ceiling of the hallway, another burst of flames emanating from Noa's hands. But instead of the flames breaking through the roof, it was suddenly displaced, sent to an unknown location.

…So the space was distorted.

The priority was to somehow be able to navigate this space without changing locations every step they took. Experimenting, Noa tried to move using Furthest Earth, only to end up in a different location, the broken wall no longer there.

Still holding onto Lavinia, Noa manifested his wings and trumpets, casting a bright glow in the otherwise gloomy dark hallway. Activating Philadelphia, a large white gate appeared, but before Noa was about to step into it to teleport out, Lavinia stopped him.

"Wait. Noa are you sure you can come back here after you leave…?"

…That made Noa pause.

Noa hadn't experimented with Nephilim of Revelation much mainly because there weren't many opportunities to, but he truly didn't know if he could come back or not.

"...Damn, good catch."

That was Noa's best attempt at trying to get to Dulio. But if Dulio also disappeared, it meant that he was also in the maze. It wasn't like he could do any large scale moves for fear of unexpected collateral either…

However, Noa didn't dematerialize Nephilim of Revelation. After all, other than the wings and trumpets, there was one more option. The Halo of Gabriel.

Well, for the fancy name all it did was summon Gabriel, but for now, that was all Noa needed. With so little information to go off of, it would be better to summon Gabriel.

"With this treasure I summon…"

The prismatic halo above Noa's head shined with a kaleidoscopic light, and as the light faded, Gabriel appeared, looking at Noa in confusion.

"...Little Noa, what's happening?"

Lavinia looked at the appearance of the Angel in confusion. Who was this woman? And why was she calling Noa 'Little Noa?'

Noa went straight to the point. "Gabriel, I need your help."

Gabriel may be innocent, but even she knew the times to be serious, and with Noa's tone, this might be one of them. "What's wrong?"

Noa quickly explained to her the reason behind them leaving the Training Institute, and what happened after they arrived at the inn.

"So now you're trapped in this alternate dimension…?"

Was that what it was called? "This is an alternate dimension?" That actually made so much sense now that Noa thought about it.

Gabriel nodded, scanning the surroundings. "The magic traces here… they feel foreign."

Noa waited. That didn't sound great.

"But there's a hint of Greek origins," she added. "If this were a few thousand years ago, I'd assume this was the Labyrinth."

It was like everything clicked into Noa's head. The sudden change in locations, the domain over space. While not similar to Asterios' Chaos Labyrinthos, the setting was familiar.

Looking at the effects of this maze however, Noa could see differences. Asterio's Noble Phantasm created a Bounded Field similar to a Reality Marble, while this operated in an alternate dimension.

Gabriel inspected the surroundings once more, before tilting her head in confusion. "...Rather this feels like Innovate Clear…?"

Another Sacred Gear?

"Well, we have to find Dulio. I think that's their goal. But we don't know how to navigate this place." 

"So that's why you called me," Gabriel nodded. While it was disappointing that the reason behind Noa's first summoning was because it was one of his last resorts, Noa's safety was priority.

"Yeah… So is it possible?" Noa asked Gabriel. If even she didn't know how to navigate Innovate Clear's surroundings, then he was stumped.

Gabriel could only give Noa a wry look. Unable to lie, she shook her head. Innovate Clear, the Sacred Gear That Lets One Impersonate God. The Sacred Gear has the ability to create an ideal world in a completely different dimension.

If this Labyrinth was created using Innovate Clear, then that would complicate things. Furthermore, the easiest way to counter this was to destroy the entire dimension, which Gabriel was one hundred percent able to do. As the Angel of Revelation due to her new evolution, she in a sense embodied the authority of 'The end of the world.'

However, with Dulio as a hostage it made everything a lot more complicated. She inspected the surroundings once more. Due to the weight of Gabriel's existence being much greater than Innovate Clear, it shouldn't be able to affect her space.

Gabriel glanced at the unchanging walls. They weren't flickering, warping, or resisting her presence. That was strange. "It's not collapsing," she muttered. "That means... this Labyrinth might be real."

This gave her more insight into how this place was created.

Innovate Clear, despite being able to create anything, didn't allow its creations to exist outside of Innovate Clear's Domain.

Similar to how Emiya Shirou's projections were at maximum strength inside his Reality Marble Unlimited Blade Works, but deteriorated outside of the Reality Marble. But for Innovate Clear it just didn't allow any of it's creations to truly 'Exist.'

Innovate Clear operated on the basis of being a fully customizable Reality Marble. However, this ultimately was a weakness, as despite everything in Innovate Clear being 'Real,' inside, the essence lied in the entire world being 'Fake.'

Beings like the newly evolved Gabriel, who embody concepts such as 'Revelation,' naturally emanated a field verifying their existence onto the world, which would naturally destabilize the surrounding environment.

However, as the Labyrinth itself didn't deteriorate or distort due to Gabriel's movement, it could be seen that despite Innovate Clear creating a 'Fake' world which created 'Real' things inside the world, the Labyrinth was undeniably physically real.

This worked against Gabriel, because from her memory the Labyrinth also embodied a concept, the concept of 'Maze.'

Nonetheless, the fact that the Labyrinth itself was real gave another hint.

Normally, they would need something that distorted the concept of 'Maze' even for a little while to pinpoint Dulio's exact location, similar to a Reality Marble. Or use the counter in the same myth, Ariadne's String. That was how it was normally supposed to be countered.

"Little Noa, while I can't pinpoint Dulio's location right now, I might be able to remove the concept of 'Maze.'"

But Gabriel knew that it was impossible for the true Labyrinth to be inside Innovate Clear.

Afterall, the Labyrinth was under the Greek Pantheon's jurisdiction in Crete. It was impossible for it to be here, in Innovate Clear, as the Labyrinth was one of the Greek Pantheon's strongest and largest Artifacts.

This meant that even though it may feel and look similar, this was just a replica. 

Its concept of 'Maze' was entirely maintained through Innovate Clear. A clever combination of Fake and Real to create something that seems inescapable but isn't, allowing for Gabriel to snip the connection of Innovate Clear and the Physical Labyrinth if there was something that could create a disturbance, something that dominated space.

But Gabriel didn't possess anything that created a separate dimension.

"How are you going to do that…?" Noa asked. Noa was completely unfamiliar with stuff like this.

"If there was an opportunity where another dimension or something similar is manifested inside this Labyrinth, it could temporarily split the connection between Innovate Clear and the Physical Labyrinth, allowing me to fully destroy the connection."

Damn. He understood nothing of what she said, but something like a Reality Marble…wait.

Didn't he have something exactly like that?

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A/N: I don't think I explained how the Labyrinth worked properly. The Villain created a physical replica of the Labyrinth, but without the concept of 'Maze.' But after putting it inside Innovate clear and having innovate clear create the concept of 'maze' and implanting it into the physical labyrinth, it's something that's fake and real at the same time, which is why Gabriel can't effect it for now.

This is the 2000PS extra chapter

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New Powerstone Goals starting this week I changed them to make it realistic.

1500 PS - Extra Chap

3000 PS - Extra Chap

4500 PS - Extra Chap

Max is 3 extra chaps a week. My parents don't mind me writing, but they kind of want me to make money, so I'm going to 'try' and set up a patreon soon, and I need time to fill that shit up.

Extra chapters will be released the day after the goal is reached, from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM KST cause that's when I'm free. They'll also be generally shorter than normal chapters.

Normal Chapters will be released every day during the times from 8:00 PM to 2:00 AM KST cause I normally get inspo throughout the day.

Also, comments, powerstones, and reviews are always appreciated.