Akos is clinging to a concrete utility pole with white knuckles. His breath comes in ragged gasps, and his vision is swimming in shades of red and grey.
Every nerve in his body is screaming, pulsating with the aftershocks of the Infinite Energy he released. He grips the cold stone of the pole as if it's the only thing keeping him from falling into an endless abyss of darkness.
A few meters away, the wreckage of the truck groans. Jack is still pinned underneath, his face streaked with tears and grease.
"Help me! I'm going to be crushed! My legs are going numb! Majo, do something!"
Majo slams his hammer into the ground, his veins popping with frustration. "Shut up! Just shut up! You are a Devil Transformation user, you idiot!"
"Just turn into something big! Turn into an elephant! A grizzly bear! A rhinoceros! Just grow and lift the damn truck off yourself!"
Jack wails in despair, "That's the whole problem! I can't transform because the weight of the truck is pressing directly on my spine and ribcage!"
"I don't have enough physical space to expand my mass! If I try to grow now, I'll just crush my own internal organs! Please, just lift it!"
Majo rubs his temples, his patience completely evaporated. "You are giving me a massive headache with your constant whining."
He turns his head to check on the vessel, but his eyes go wide. Akos has finally let go of the pole.
He is lying face-down in the dirt, motionless. "Are you kidding me? Hey! Are you fainting again?! All you do is pass out!"
Suddenly, a shadow sweeps over the debris. With a powerful gust of wind, Tenshi descends from the smoke-filled sky.
Her wings flare out like silver blades as she lands. She ignores the others and rushes straight to Akos, kneeling beside his limp body to check for a pulse.
Majo scoffs, leaning on his hammer. "Relax. He's alive. He just blacked out... again."
Tenshi turns her head, her eyes flashing with a cold, terrifying intensity. "If he dies, I will personally send both of you to the afterlife to accompany him."
"We do not want him dead, you morons. Now, tell that fool under the truck to close his mouth, and you—stop standing around and pull your friend out of the wreckage."
She looks at them with pure disdain. "I have no idea what Amaya was thinking when she sent you two."
"You aren't Hunters; you're a pair of circus clowns. I don't know why she wastes resources on such stupid, immature children."
Jack squeaks from under the metal, "Hey! I'm not a child! I've been a Hunter for years!"
Tenshi scowls as she carefully lifts Akos into her arms. "You don't need years; you need a new brain."
"Now, listen to my orders. Both of you are to head north immediately."
"There are other teams engaging high-level Devils, and they need reinforcements. I am taking Akos to a secure location for medical treatment."
"If I find out you stayed here to play around, you will answer to me."
Without another word, her wings beat against the air with the force of a hurricane. She carries Akos into the sky, disappearing into the thick clouds over the ruined city.
Jack remains under the truck, his voice echoing pathetically. "Wait! She left! Majo, please... get me out of here."
"I think I see a spider near my face! Someone help me!"
Majo's face turns a dark shade of purple. His temper finally snaps.
He walks over to the front of the truck and, instead of lifting it, delivers a brutal, lightning-fast kick directly to Jack's protruding head. "SHUT UP!"
Jack lets out a high-pitched sob, his head ringing from the blow. "Ow! Why?! My own teammate! My own comrade!"
He continues to cry like a baby while Majo finally grabs the bumper of the truck, his muscles bulging as he prepares to rip the metal apart.
High atop a jagged, half-destroyed skyscraper, the remnants of the ALPHA leadership stood looking down. Below them was a nightmare: a massive sinkhole, a literal "nest" in the earth, swarming with thousands of devils crawling over one another like insects in a jar.
Cairo (voice trembling): "What the hell are we supposed to do with that? There are too many!"
Luno: "I say we just drop a massive bomb on the whole hole and be done with it."
Naoto: "Guys, listen... I have a crazy idea. I saw this movie once where they poured lava on zombies. We should do that!"
Cairo turned to him, deadpan. "Are you stupid? Where are we going to find lava? Are we going to give birth to it? Is it going to just manifest because you want it to?"
Naoto: "Maybe... yes?"
Cairo slapped him upside the head. "Maybe yes?! You spend all day on your PC playing craft; you don't do anything else with your life! Get a life, stupid!"
Naoto (fuming): "Who are you to talk?! All you do every day is tell everyone else how useless life is!"
Cairo: "Say one more word and I'll cut your tongue out!"
Keal (coldly): "Will you two shut up?"
Sora (grinning wickedly): "Keep it up, boys. We might just throw you down there to see who the devils eat first. Hahaha!"
Cairo and Naoto looked down into the pit, turned pale, and scrambled behind Jin, who was standing silently, lost in his own thoughts.
Ronika stepped to the very edge of the roof, the wind whipping her hair. "There's no other choice."
Keal: "Eh? What do you mean?"
Ronika reached behind her back and gripped the hilts of her dual Spine Katanas. With a sharp shing, she drew the jagged blades, her aura beginning to sharpen like a razor.
Keal: "What exactly are you planning to do?"
Ronika: "Once I've slaughtered everything down there, I want you to throw Yuzana in after me."
Keal: "What?! Why throw Yuzana? And why the hell are you jumping?!"
Ronika didn't answer. She simply glanced toward a corner of the roof where Yuzana was hiding behind a crumbling wall, his eyes wide with fear.
Without a second of hesitation, Ronika leaned forward. She didn't fall—she launched herself. Like a black bolt of lightning, she dove headfirst into the pit of a thousand monsters.
A stray devil looks up, its pupils widening just as a silver flash splits the air. Before its brain can process the threat, it is sliced perfectly in half. Ronika has landed.
She hits the bottom of the pit like a meteor of blades. She plunges her right katana into the skull of one monster and the left into another.
A third devil, paralyzed by pure terror, stands trembling before her. Ronika rips her blades free and, in one fluid motion, decapitates it.
She is a whirlwind of steel. She sprints over the mounds of demonic flesh, using a giant devil's head as a stepping stone. Jumping high, she delivers a kick so infused with raw power that the target literally explodes upon impact.
She looks at the thousands of monsters closing in and whispers coldly, "None of you will be breathing in sixty seconds."
As the swarm lunges from all sides, Ronika stands still. "AURA NINJITSU."
In a fraction of a second, her entire body is enveloped in a violent, flickering purple energy. A massive shockwave erupts from her, making
The earth groans and cracks. Time seems to stretch. The devils caught in the initial radius begin to dissolve—their skin peels away in layers, their muscles turn to ash, and finally, their bones collapse into white powder.
A pillar of purple light shoots upward from the pit, piercing the dark clouds above.
On the rooftop, the others are nearly blown back by the pressure. Keal: "What the hell is that power?!" Jin: (Standing cold and silent, his eyes reflecting the purple glow).
The energy wave cuts through the wind itself, reaching fifty meters into the sky. At the bottom of the hole, Ronika stands amidst
the silence of the unmade. But the pit is deep—more devils crawl from the shadows for one last, desperate hope.
Ronika drops into a low crouch, spinning her body like a top. "SHINE FLAME! "Purple fire ignites along the serrated edges of her spine katanas.
As she spins, a tornado of violet flames carves through everything in a 360-degree radius. The explosion of heat incinerates the remaining stragglers instantly.
Ronika sheathes her blades and looks at the carnage. "Not bad," she mutters. With a single, explosive jump, she defies gravity, soaring out of the pit and landing back on the roof in front of her stunned team.
She doesn't look at Keal or Jin. Her eyes lock onto the wall. Ronika: "Get out here, you piece of trash. NOW, Yuzana!"
Yuzana crawls out from his hiding spot, trembling. "I... I'm sorry..."
Before he can finish, Ronika's fist connects with his gut. She grabs him by the throat and slams him toward the edge of the roof, forcing him to look down.
Ronika: "Look! LOOK AT THIS! This is your fault! If you hadn't hacked
The Holy Blood, none of this chaos would have swallowed Sinish! You hid and you trembled while the world burned! Look at how many innocents are dead because of us! Look to your right!"
Yuzana looks. He sees the huddle of homeless families and civilians, people whose lives were destroyed in a single night, shivering in terror.
Ronika: "This world isn't a game for you to play with! You want to 'help' us now? You can't even face the truth of what you've done!"
She releases his throat with a look of pure disgust and collapses against a nearby wall, sliding down to rest. The adrenaline is fading, leaving only the bitter taste of the blood on her hands and the weight of the city on her shoulders.