The alarm bells tore through the city in uneven waves.
By the time the sound fully carried, smoke was already rising from the inner district. Fire licked up wooden frames. Stone streets were scarred with claw marks and gouges where something heavy had been dragged through them.
This wasn't a breach.
It was a message.
Lesser demons flooded the avenues in scattered packs—horned, thin-bodied creatures with jagged teeth and glowing eyes. They overturned carts, shattered doors, and chased fleeing civilians into side streets. Panic spread faster than the flames.
"Evacuate the east quarter!"
A sharp voice cut through the chaos.
"Form corridors—move the civilians first!"
Four figures dropped into the street in near-perfect unison, their landings cracking stone. The pressure that followed made nearby demons hesitate.
S-ranks.
They didn't charge blindly. They pointed, commanded, divided the battlefield with practiced authority.
A-ranks and B-ranks surged into motion at once—raising barriers, dragging the wounded, forcing civilians toward safe routes. Healers knelt where they could. Mages reinforced buildings instead of attacking. The city moved like a machine under stress, but it moved.
The lesser demons never stood a chance.
Steel and spell erased them with ruthless efficiency. Black mist rose and burned away before it could settle.
Then the street went quiet.
At its center, something taller stepped forward.
The evolved demon moved with infuriating calm, hands folded behind its back as it walked over scorched stone. Its hide was layered and ridged, grown thick with age and blood. Its eyes—sharp, amused—tracked the retreating civilians with mild interest.
"So orderly," it said pleasantly. "You humans have improved."
One of the S-ranks stepped forward, blade raised. "You're done here."
The demon smiled.
The clash came fast.
The S-ranks attacked together—clean, precise, overwhelming by any normal standard. Ice locked joints. Mana spears tore through flesh. Blades struck at angles meant to cripple.
The demon barely staggered.
It laughed as it tore free, movements suddenly too fast, too heavy. One S-rank was hurled through a stone wall. Another was driven to the ground hard enough to shatter pavement. Blood hit the street.
Arrogance bled into the demon's posture.
"This city isn't the point," it said, casually deflecting a spell. "I came to see him."
Then—
The air changed.
It didn't explode. It didn't roar.
It pressed down.
Every fighter on the street froze as a presence rolled outward like a slow tide. Mana faltered. Even the demon's smile thinned.
Whispers spread—not panic, but awe.
"That aura…"
"It can't be…"
"The Guild Master."
The evolved demon straightened. "So the legend still breathes."
Yatomoshi arrived without spectacle.
An older man, broad-shouldered, one arm already resting near his blade. His eyes were calm. Tired. Dangerous.
The only man who had fought the Second General of the Demon King—and lived.
Their clash erased sound.
Steel met claw. Mana screamed. The street fractured beneath their feet as they traded blows that bent air and stone alike. Yatomoshi fought with brutal efficiency, every strike measured, every movement honed by decades of survival.
Still, the demon adapted.
A feint. A twist.
A tearing sound.
Yatomoshi staggered as his left arm hit the ground behind him, severed cleanly at the shoulder. Blood poured freely.
The demon laughed. "Even legends age."
Yatomoshi did not fall.
He advanced, gripping his blade with one hand, aura flaring hard enough to force the demon back.
"If this were my prime," he said evenly, "I wouldn't lose even a toe for your life."
The killing blow followed immediately.
A step inside the demon's guard. A precise strike driven straight through its core.
The demon froze.
Cracks raced across its body.
As it dissolved into smoke, it spoke—voice wet with satisfaction.
"The bounty stands," it rasped. "Stronger ones will come. Crueler ones. This won't stop… unless he is dead."
Silence reclaimed the street.
Healers rushed in. Fighters lowered their weapons.
At the edge of the ruined avenue, Shinji turned away.
He had watched everything—without tension, without movement. The demon's words reached him clearly.
So that's why, he thought calmly. That's how he saw through my aura.
A small smile touched Shinji's lips.
Then he walked on, disappearing into the city's veins.
Only after Shinji was gone did the Guild Master notice it—the crushing pressure had lifted, and the street could finally breathe again.
Part Two: What Victory Costs
Yatomoshi did not fall.
He swayed once, boots scraping stone, before planting himself upright. Blood ran freely down his side, soaking into the cracked street where his severed arm still lay.
Only then did the pain arrive.
A healer was already moving.
"Clear space!" she shouted, dropping to her knees beside him. Her hands glowed green as she pressed them against the wound, mana flaring violently as she fought to seal torn flesh and shattered bone.
Another adventurer tore off his cloak and wrapped it tight above the shoulder, hands shaking despite years of experience. "Pressure—keep pressure—"
Yatomoshi exhaled slowly through clenched teeth.
"Don't waste mana trying to regrow it," he said calmly. "Stop the bleeding. That's enough."
The healer hesitated. "Guild Master—"
"That's an order."
The glow softened. The bleeding slowed, but the damage remained. The stump was scorched where the demon's power had cut through, the flesh uneven and ruined beyond simple healing.
Around them, the street was a wreck.
Shattered stone. Burned carts. Demon residue evaporating into nothing. Adventurers moved methodically now—checking the wounded, lifting the unconscious, escorting civilians who had been hiding back into the open.
No one cheered.
No one celebrated.
This was victory, and it was heavy.
Yatomoshi finally allowed himself to sit.
His face was pale, but his eyes were steady as he looked down at the space where his arm had been.
"If this were my prime," he said quietly, mostly to himself, "I wouldn't lose even a toe for a creature like that."
No one contradicted him.
They didn't need to.
⸻
Two days later, the guild's strategy chamber was full.
Maps covered the long table—cities circled in red, routes marked with sharp ink lines. Mana signatures, demon sightings, casualty estimates. The air was thick with tension.
Four S-ranks sat already, armor stripped down, expressions grim.
Shinji stood near the far wall, arms crossed loosely, gaze unfocused.
He listened.
"They're probing," one S-rank said, tapping the map. "Small groups. Testing response times."
"The bounty changes everything," another replied. "This isn't random. It's organized."
"Demons don't hunt like this unless commanded."
Shinji said nothing.
His presence was quiet. Controlled. If anyone noticed the way the room subtly avoided his space, no one mentioned it.
The door opened.
Conversation stopped instantly.
Yatomoshi entered without assistance.
His cloak was pinned neatly at the shoulder where his arm should have been. His posture was straight, steps measured. The room shifted as every S-rank stood without being told.
"Sit," he said.
They obeyed.
Yatomoshi took his place at the head of the table, eyes scanning the room. He paused briefly when his gaze passed over Shinji.
There was no accusation in it.
Only recognition.
"The demon was not the threat," Yatomoshi said. "The announcement was."
He placed his remaining hand on the table.
"This city was not an attack," he continued. "It was a signal."
No one argued.
Shinji remained silent, watching, listening—his expression unchanged as the world began to organize itself around a war that had already chosen him as its center.
Part Three: The Breaking Point
The strategy chamber was suffocatingly still.
Maps lay spread across the table like open wounds—red markings, shattered routes, cities circled as if already condemned. No one spoke. Even the torches along the walls burned lower than before.
Yatomoshi's gaze lingered on Shinji a heartbeat too long.
The silence snapped.
A fist slammed into the table hard enough to rattle the ink bottles.
"Why is he even in here?"
Asuka rose halfway from his chair, broad shoulders tense, the massive claymore on his back humming faintly in response to his anger. His glare cut past Yatomoshi and locked onto Shinji.
"We're discussing threats that can wipe cities off maps," Asuka growled. "And we have a newly promoted S-rank scout standing around like this is a lecture hall. It's a liability."
Yatomoshi didn't blink.
"He was present when the signature first spiked," the Guild Master said calmly. "He has eyes where you did not."
"He has luck," Asuka snapped. Heat rippled subtly from his aura, deliberate this time. A challenge. A test. "And I'm supposed to trust luck when the demon king has put a price on our heads?"
his aura flaring just enough to make the air shimmer with heat. He wanted to see Shinji flinch. He wanted to see the "newly S-rank" tremble.
Shinji didn't move.
He leaned against the wall, arms loose at his sides, expression unreadable. To the others, he looked detached—almost bored.
Inside him, Apex Devour barely stirred.
Asuka's aura felt like a candle trying to threaten a storm.
"You got something to add?" Asuka pressed, hand resting near his blade. "Or are you just going to stand there while this city becomes ash?"
Shinji tilted his head slightly.
"The city isn't burning yet," he said, voice even. Empty of emotion.
"But if you keep shouting, you might miss the sound of the gates breaking."
The room tightened.
Asuka's chair scraped back violently. "You little—"
"ENOUGH."
Yatomoshi didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
The pressure behind the word crushed the room into silence. Asuka froze where he stood, aura collapsing instantly.
The Guild Master turned to Shinji, his remaining hand gripping the table's edge.
"What do you hear?" Yatomoshi asked.
Shinji's gaze drifted toward the window—past rooftops, past the city walls, toward the far horizon where the light was thinning.
"They've stopped testing us," Shinji murmured.
A faint tremor passed through the stone floor.
Thump.
Thump.
Subtle. Rhythmic.
"The bounty isn't for lesser demons anymore."
Outside, birds took flight all at once.
Then silence.
The chamber doors burst open.
A messenger stumbled in, pale, breathless, boots skidding against polished stone.
"Guild Master—!" he gasped. "The scouts at the Northern Pass… they're gone. Not dead. Gone."
Yatomoshi straightened. "Numbers?"
The messenger swallowed hard. "One."
The room stiffened.
"A woman," the messenger continued, voice shaking. "Silver armor. She's standing at the main gate. She said she's here to collect a debt of blood."
Steel sang as S-ranks reached for weapons. Asuka's grin returned, sharp and hungry.
But Shinji did not move.
He knew that presence.
Silver armor. Controlled aura. The same restraint layered over something lethal.
The one who had stood before him in the dungeon darkness—and walked away.
"A debt of blood," Shinji whispered.
Azura hummed softly at his side.
The feast had arrived.
Part Four: Silver at the Gate
The city gates did not shatter.
They bent.
Iron screamed as pressure caved inward from the outside, stone blocks groaning under stress that wasn't explosive—but deliberate. Guards on the wall staggered as the vibration ran through the battlements and into the streets beyond.
Then the pressure stopped.
Silence followed.
When the gates were finally forced open, there was no army waiting beyond them.
Only one figure.
Silver armor caught the light without reflecting it, matte and seamless, etched with lines that carried no insignia. The woman stood just inside the threshold, helm tucked beneath her arm, posture relaxed—as if she had stepped into a hall rather than breached a city.
"So this is the capital," she said mildly. "Smaller than I imagined."
Four S-ranks moved at once, spreading out instinctively, weapons drawn but restrained. Civilians were already being evacuated behind them, lower-rank adventurers ushering people into alleys and reinforced structures.
Asuka stepped forward, claymore resting on his shoulder. "You're the one who erased the Northern Pass."
The woman inclined her head a fraction. "They resisted."
Her aura unfolded then—not outward, not violently, but inward. It compressed around her like layered plates, dense enough to warp the air.
A mage among the S-ranks hissed under his breath. "She's condensing her presence…"
"She's controlling it," the bowwoman corrected.
Asuka grinned. "Good."
He moved first.
The plaza cracked as his claymore came down, heat and force tearing through stone in a blazing arc meant to end the fight in one strike.
The woman stepped into it.
Metal rang once—clean, sharp.
She redirected the blade by inches and drove her fist into Asuka's ribs. The impact folded him mid-motion and sent him skidding across the plaza, armor screeching as it tore furrows through the stone.
The others reacted instantly.
Mana chains lashed out. Ice spread beneath her boots. Wind spears screamed from above.
She flowed through the assault with terrifying economy—breaking a chain with a twist of her wrist, shattering ice with a heel, catching a wind spear barehanded and hurling it back hard enough to collapse a watchtower.
"You're disciplined," she said, almost approvingly. "But you're still reacting."
The bowwoman fired.
Five arrows split mid-flight, each carrying a different enchantment. The woman raised her hand—
And the arrows stopped.
They hovered inches from her palm, vibrating violently as invisible pressure crushed their momentum.
Her eyes shifted.
"So," she murmured. "You're still alive."
The air changed.
Yatomoshi stepped forward.
His presence did not flare—it settled. The plaza seemed to lean toward him, stone dust lifting subtly as his aura pressed outward.
The woman's lips curved into a thin smile. "The one-armed legend."
"And you're far from home," Yatomoshi replied.
They collided.
No spectacle. No roar.
Just impact.
Their exchange was brutal and precise—short movements, ruthless timing. Each strike carried weight, each block cost ground. Cracks spider-webbed beneath their feet as power met power again and again.
A blade cut across Yatomoshi's side—shallow, but real.
He answered with a blow that sent her sliding back several paces, boots carving trenches through stone.
She laughed softly. "You're weaker than the stories."
"And you're not enough," Yatomoshi said.
She straightened, aura tightening further, silver armor humming as another layer of power locked into place.
"I didn't come to take your city," she said. "I came to confirm something."
Her gaze slid past the S-ranks, past Yatomoshi—
Into the city.
"I came to see if he was truly here."
From the shadow of a narrow street, Shinji watched.
He had arrived without sound, his presence folded so tightly it barely existed. He had seen her movements, her restraint, the way her power sharpened rather than expanded.
She was stronger than before.
Deliberately so.
Azura hummed at his side, runes glowing faintly, tugging against his grip as if drawn toward her.
Shinji's fingers closed around the hilt.
Across the plaza, the woman in silver turned her head—not toward the S-ranks, not toward Yatomoshi—
But toward him.
Her eyes widened, just slightly.
Recognition.
The city held its breath.
Part Five: Ants and Monsters
"You're all ants."
Kaelith's voice carried across the ruined square, calm and amused.
"Compared to the one I came for."
Her crimson eyes swept over the gathered S-ranks, lingering just long enough to make the insult sting.
"You call yourselves S-rank?" she scoffed. "You make me laugh."
She vanished.
A thunderous impact echoed as her fist collided with Yatomoshi's chest. The Guild Master was launched through the air like a broken weapon, stone shattering where his body tore through it.
Before he could crash, two S-ranks moved instantly, catching him mid-air and skidding backward from the force.
"G-Guild Master—!"
Asuka didn't wait.
He roared and surged forward, mana exploding around his massive blade. The sword came down in a killing arc, tearing the ground apart and kicking up a violent dust storm.
For a moment—
Silence.
Then the dust settled.
Kaelith stood exactly where she had been.
Unmoved.
Her right hand rested casually on the hilt of her blade. With her left, she had stopped Asuka's strike using only two fingers.
Asuka's eyes widened.
Too late.
Kaelith twisted her wrist and drove the sword's hilt forward.
The impact slammed into Asuka's stomach. Blood sprayed as his body folded around the blow, crashing lifelessly into the ground.
One strike.
Finished.
Terror rippled through the remaining S-ranks.
Before Shinji could move—
A new presence descended.
The air changed.
The ground trembled, not violently, but as if something vast had stirred from sleep. Even Shinji felt it—an old fear, one he remembered from before his death.
Yatomoshi staggered to his feet, blood running freely down his armor.
"I know I'm weak now," he said hoarsely. "I know my time has passed."
His single remaining eye burned with resolve.
"But I only needed to stall."
The pressure grew heavier.
"He was on a two-month mission," Yatomoshi continued. "And now—he's back."
One of the S-ranks whispered, voice trembling:
"…Is that him?"
Another swallowed hard.
"The sleeping monster… has awakened."
From the edge of the battlefield, Shinji smiled.
Part Six: When Monsters Collide
Isamu moved.
There was no warning. No buildup.
One moment he stood still, the next the ground beneath Kaelith detonated as his blade came down in a crushing arc. The impact tore the street apart, shockwaves ripping outward and shattering nearby structures.
Kaelith was forced back for the first time.
Steel screamed as their weapons collided again and again—each strike heavy enough to kill an S-rank outright. Isamu fought with terrifying precision, every movement economical, merciless.
He was not flashy.
He was absolute.
Kaelith blocked, twisted, retreated—her smile thinning as Isamu's pressure mounted. His sword carved through her defenses, forcing her backward step by step.
"You're slower than I expected," Isamu said coldly, driving her blade aside and landing a blow that sent her crashing through a collapsed building.
Dust filled the air.
For a moment, it looked over.
Then—
A second presence bloomed.
Darkness poured outward like spilled ink as Kaelith rose from the rubble, her second sword sliding free with a whisper that did not belong to steel.
The underworld answered her call.
Black veins of energy crawled across the ground, spiraling upward, wrapping around her form. The air grew heavy, suffocating, ancient.
"This is where you fall, human," Kaelith said calmly.
She moved.
The clash that followed split the sky.
Isamu was driven back as Kaelith's power surged, her twin blades weaving death and shadow together. Every strike carried the weight of the underworld itself, forcing Isamu onto the defensive.
The balance shifted.
Steel met steel in a blinding storm—neither yielding, neither breaking.
Evenly matched.
Then Kaelith twisted mid-strike, channeling the dark energy fully into her blade.
The impact sent Isamu flying.
His body tore through the air, blood scattering as his sword barely managed to deflect the killing blow. He would have crashed to the ground—
But didn't.
A hand caught him mid-air.
The world seemed to pause.
Shinji stood there, suspended in the sky, one arm steady as he held Isamu effortlessly. Wind curled around him, his presence pressing down like a silent verdict.
Together, they descended slowly.
Kaelith smiled.
"You finally came," she said softly. "Shinji Amaru."
Shinji set Isamu down behind him, never taking his eyes off her.
"Yeah," he replied evenly. "Guess it's been a while… assistant to the Third General."
Azura hummed at his side.
The air trembled.
Below them, monsters and legends alike understood one truth:
The real fight was about to begin.