sentinalslice said:
Why is he calling Rias: Buchou again? He didn't join the club right?
We've had this discussion before and I can't be bothered to look up the quote right now, but long story short is because she asked him to call her that in one of their earlier meetings.
Scrimshaw said:
sometimes girls seem to just trip and fall on his dick.
Now there's a mental image that'll live in your head rent-free.
Scrimshaw said:
I would agree that it being relative is a good point. But that just means Issei stands amongst the top of the middle ranks, roughly what he did when he had Boosted Gear and eight pawns in canon.
I would disagree with that assessment unless you just automatically count 'is a Campione' as 'top of the middle ranks'. Because among Campione, I'd actually argue that Issei is currently the weakest Campione, assuming the canonical six are all still the same. Because Issei's Authorities are just not that impressive offensively. Unlike every other Campione, Issei lacks a finisher, he (currently, if Ddraig ever bothers waking up that would likely change) has no real way of inflicting a lot of direct damage on an enemy. Heck, what does it say that the most effective way to inflict damage on an enemy Issei currently has is to basically ignore his Authorities and rush in to beat them up using his enhanced Campione-physiology? Even Aisha has Jabberwock Slayer, plus Live or Die can be used to restrain enemies more effectively than anything Issei has. Issei's Authorities just don't really measure up right now when used against something on the level of a Heretic God or stronger.
Mineral Garden has great versatility, but the fact remains that so far the marble it creates is weak by God and Campione standards. As we saw in the last two chapters, a Subordinate God who was further weakened by his summoning being botched and another Subordinate God sucking up most of the power that was supposed to go to him, was able to effortlessly smash through all of it, never mind someone like Luo Hao. Now that doesn't mean it can't be dangerous, just because you can snap a wooden chopstick in half with one hand doesn't mean someone can't stab you to death with one if they hit the right spot, like what I'm assuming Issei did by going through the eye and then letting Akeno's lightning and Rias' Power of Destruction blow away the top of Bai Long Ma's skull. But even here it's implied that most of the actual damage came from Rias and Akeno rather than Issei himself. Ultimately it's an Authority that hinders the enemy more than it hurts them.
Screech Wail can momentarily stun an enemy on the Heretic God/Campione-level as Luo Hao proved, however as she also proved someone on that level can shake off the effect after a few seconds. It otherwise does no direct damage, possibly barring fighting an enemy who has superpowered hearing like Six Ears, who I could imagine being hit harder due to narrative interaction, which is in fact a thing in Campione, like Voban's werewolf-transformation being able to catch and eat Godou's Stallion-Authority due to the fact they're both Sun-based despite the fact that in no legend I remember did Apollo ever actually try to eat the sun.
Finally Doctor Venom, which is actually the best option Issei has to do actual damage considering how potent the venom was in even trace-amounts on Luo Hao. It's the best thing Issei has to a finisher...or it would be if he actually had an effective method of delivery. So far the venom was shown to be effective when ingested or injected, though what this chapter hints at for next chapter suggests it'd also work as a trap or assassination-tool by lacing food and drinks with the venom and having someone ingest it that way, but otherwise Issei still has the problem of getting his blood, while all bodily fluids do supposedly work the venom is most potent when blood is its medium, into the enemy.
So in summary, Issei is currently a debuffer who has a number of ways to create an opening in the enemy he's facing, but doesn't really have an effective way to exploit any opening he makes. So he's good at getting his foot in the door, but he can't close the deal. I have to admit, part of me is a bit worried that should Issei unlock the Boosted Gear we might end up with 'basically canon-Issei but he sometimes does some Authority-stuff too', simply because Boosted Gear is a more effective combat-tool than what Issei has in terms of Authorities.
Scrimshaw said:
No kidding, she beat him like a drum. On the bright side, Issei did manage to get what I'm fairly confident is Luo Hao's first kiss from her, so that's something I suppose.
Scrimshaw said:
Plus, with what we have in mind, Issei's going to really, really, really need to train.
I don't disagree, but with Issei's current skillset I'm honestly not sure what exactly he should train in. Because as I mentioned a bit above, his current skillset is honestly designed more towards support so that someone else can get the kill rather than doing it himself. What should he train in? Screech Wail does what it's supposed to and I don't see a way to up its effectiveness right now. Doctor Venom's problem is not potency, it's delivery to the target, and that's not something Issei can really train unless he learns to somehow aeorsolize the venom into a toxic mist/cloud he could exhale, and even then it'd probably weaken him greatly since it'd be a cloud of his own blood he's spraying there. I suppose he could train Mineral Garden to create a Marble hard enough to not simply break against enemy blows, but that'd probably be time-consuming and difficult to test. You know, the most training I could advise Issei to do right now is learn Martial Arts or another way to fight, because that'd be the most helpful right now. And that's kinda a sad statement, because you're basically telling a Campione 'If you want to be better, ignore all your Authorities and just learn how to pummel your enemy to death with your bare fists. It's the most effictive thing you can do.'
ArcanaVitae said:
True. At this point I'm kinda half-expecting that in order to give Issei any chance of winning Sanzang is going to do the transfer-information-via-kiss-thing to teach Issei the Headache Sutra, and Issei will be really apologetic when he uses it.
The Lion of York said:
Assuming the next one is Zhu Bajie as they seem to expect, the end of the chapter suggests that the plan is to cook up a really scrumptuous-looking meal, lace the whole thing with Doctor Venom, and when the gluttonous pig inevitably follows its nature and gobbles up the whole thing either let it succumb to the Divine Poison or put it out of its misery. Which Issei is going to feel really bad for, because it looks like this Zhu Bajie will look like Cho Hakkaimon, meaning Issei will be killing another girl.
On a unrelated note, I'm kinda wondering what Authority Issei would get from Wukong. I could actually see it being a combo-Authority similar to Godou's Persian Warlord where Issei gets five different abilities, one for Wukong and then one each for each of the Companions. Bai Long Ma's could actually simply being summoning the Dragon Horse as a Divine Beast, both for combat and as a mount, while I could see Sanzang's ending up being similar to Verethragna's Youth where it gives his comrades Divine Protection (and at the same time basically deputizes them so that them helping Issei like Rias and Akeno did against Bai Long Ma would not count as third-party-interference and thus deny Issei an Authority) since Sanzang was the one who the whole Journey to the West happened for, it was his journey, he wanted to get the Sutras, and technically the Three Brothers were his disciples and served as his guards for the journey. As for what abilities Zhu Baije and Sha Wujing might give, we haven't seen them in action yet, so who knows. Wukong has kinda the opposite problem, so many options, who can tell which one it'll be.
Slightly related, but while I'm still not really convinced on the whole 'the Gorgons can give Authorities because they're not Subordinate Gods (which I think would only work if you argue they were Divine Beasts, a step below that, due to the scarcity of the legends for Stheno and Euryale at least)', I have no problem with Issei not getting any Authority from Bai Long Ma here. For the simple reason that Issei didn't win by himself, arguably it was Rias' and Akeno's power that killed the Dragon Horse, Issei only helped aim the power with his marble spear. He had help, help that arguably did most of the work for him, so he doesn't get an Authority out of it. Basic Campione-rules there.
As for the Gorgons, I still don't see the logic. Because for all intents and purposes, they were all Subordinate Gods involuntarily summoned by the botched summoning of Athena that ended up shattering the goddess into multiple avatars. It's the same thing that happened to Verethragna in his fight with Melqart when he was fractured into his Ten Avatars. They were all portions of the same deity, as are the Athena-fragments called Gorgons, it'd be like arguing if Godou had somehow managed to kill the Boar when he first met it and the piggy decided it liked this mortal's spunk, that would have been enough to make Godou a Campione because the Boar was not a Subordinate God at the time since Verethragna hadn't intentionally summoned it as one. The divide between what's a Subordinate God and what isn't seems very arbitrary, especially since if you argue that if it's an accident like with the Gorgons Authorities can happen while if it's a purposeful summon it can't, considering that Wukong's summoning of his comrades had been an accident, so they'd at best count as Half-Subordinate Gods. Heck, Sanzang is actively working against Wukong here by helping Issei. Not to mention that canonically Ame no Murakumo no Tsurugi is a Subordinate God of Susanoo and it still granted itself to Godou when he beat it.
Honestly with the Gorgon-precedent the only explanation that makes sense to me is whether a 'Subordinate God' gives an Authority or not depends on two factors: How the Subordinate God feels about its vanquisher, and distance to the rest of its divinity. The first is obvious, if the vanquished being wants to give an Authority then it can push for it to help make it happen. The other part is my guess here, but even if Issei had beaten Bai Long Ma by himself he probably wouldn't have gotten an Authority even if the Horse in the end appreciated Issei simply because Wukong was close by and reabsorbed the energy invested in Bai Long Ma before it could be harvested by the Ritual of Pandora. We know something like that can happen because canonically Guinevere used the Grail to absorb the Monkey King's power and thus prevented the Campione from gaining an Authority. So Issei managed to become a Campione by slaying Medusa, an Avatar/Subordinate God of Athena, because Medusa liked him and at the time of her death no other Avatar of Athena was close enough to absorb her energy before Pandora could channel it into Issei. When Issei killed Stheno and Euryale, the Athena Issei met probably could have prevented Issei from gaining Authorities from the Gorgons by absorbing their power first but chose not to, out a mixture of respect for the wishes of the Gorgons and the fact at least in this fic Issei's Harem-Aura has been shown to be Super-Effective on Athena-based Goddesses.
![Re degli Harem - [High School DxD / Campione!] (2024)](data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAQAAAC1HAwCAAAAC0lEQVR42mP8/h8AAvMB+NzmkbcAAAAASUVORK5CYII=)
