A Demon King.
The condition Hayato had explained to Satoru only a few hours earlier had stopped belonging to some uncertain future and suddenly appeared in the middle of an emergency.
Could that really be a coincidence?
The thought left him with a strange feeling for a moment before he pushed it aside. Seiryuu was under attack. Everything else could wait.
Hayato raised the communicator again and contacted his companions. He gave them a familiar meeting point in the capital, confirmed that the alert was real, and ordered them to arrive with all their equipment ready to face this "Demon King."
Satoru listened to the exchange while reviewing his own resources.
"I can take you directly there."
Hayato ended the call and looked at him.
"To Seiryuu?"
"I have been there before. I can open [Gate] once your group is assembled."
"Do it."
There was nothing more to discuss.
It did not take them long to reach the agreed meeting point. Ringrande was among the first to arrive, followed by Maryest, Loreiya, Rusus, Fifi, and Wiyaryi. The group's demeanor made it clear that Hayato had already told them enough during the call. No one wasted time asking why Satoru was there.
"Ready?"
Their answers were brief.
Satoru extended one hand and opened [Gate]. He chose a large plaza in Seiryuu that he remembered from his previous stay, spacious enough for the entire group to cross without emerging inside a building or narrow alley.
Hayato went through first.
The noise reached him before he could take in the entire city.
A column of smoke rose several streets away, and a nearby building had lost its upper floor. Soldiers ran in different directions as they tried to keep evacuation routes open, while groups of civilians moved toward areas where the defenses were still organized. Farther away, an explosion rattled windows and sent dust rising from several rooftops.
People lay on the ground without any visible injuries. Others wandered around in a daze while those still able to move tried to get them off the streets.
The rest of the group crossed through, and Satoru closed the portal behind them.
Hayato looked toward the district where the concentration of energy was impossible to ignore.
"That way."
They did not have to go far before they saw her.
The figure stood in the middle of a wide avenue that had been partially destroyed, surrounded by the remains of carts, chunks of stone, and several unconscious bodies. She was easily more than two and a half meters tall, but her body was too thin to simply resemble that of an enormous human woman. Her arms and legs were unnaturally elongated, and a dark dress fell from her shoulders almost to the ground, torn in several places from the fighting that had already taken place.
Purple hair hung down her back in long, disheveled strands. Beneath the shadow covering her face, two violet eyes were visible, along with several black lines running from them down her cheeks like smeared makeup or dried tears. The grayish tone of her skin made it even harder to recognize anything human in her features.
Ringrande tightened her grip on her sword.
"She looks like a witch."
More than a dozen people stood around the figure, and none of them appeared unconscious. Some were soldiers, while others wore ordinary clothes. All of them stood with empty expressions, facing anyone who tried to approach.
Hayato focused [Analyze] on the figure.
The ability was one of the innate advantages that came with being summoned as a hero. Useful as it was, it was not infallible. When he had tried using it on Satoru during their first encounter, he had been unable to see anything about his status. This time, it returned only two useful pieces of information.
"So she really is a Demon King… and she uses mind magic. Well, that last part was pretty obvious."
Her level, statistics, and everything else remained hidden.
The title [Demon King], however, was clearly visible, almost as though it existed specifically to erase any lingering doubt. More than that, from the moment he saw her, Hayato had felt an instinctive certainty that was difficult to mistake.
He was standing before a natural enemy.
The purple hair and eyes stirred an old association in his mind, accompanied by a sense of familiarity that had no reason to be there. He dismissed it before the thought could fully take shape. There were people in front of him who were still breathing and a Demon King standing in the middle of a city.
That was enough.
At one side of the avenue, several soldiers were trying to lift a beam that had fallen across the entrance of a house. Satoru looked toward them, then toward the other areas of destruction spreading beyond the sector occupied by the Demon King.
Hayato briefly followed his gaze.
"Satoru, can I ask you for help?"
"With the city?"
"Yeah. We'll handle her. There are too many people trapped, and I can't split the group any more than I already have to."
Satoru looked over the battlefield one more time before nodding.
"Go. Your group is responsible for defeating the Demon King. I will handle the city."
Hayato needed nothing more.
"Rusus, Fifi, get the controlled civilians out without killing them! Loreiya, take them as soon as they're clear! Everyone else, with me!"
"Got it!" Rusus and Fifi answered almost at the same time.
"I'll take care of them." Loreiya was already moving toward a protected section of the avenue.
Ringrande drew her sword while Maryest and Wiyaryi took position on either side of Hayato.
The figure in the dark dress raised her head and let out a harsh shriek when she saw them advancing.
One hand rose.
Several translucent violet spheres, each about the size of a human head, appeared around her and began circling before shooting toward the group.
Wiyaryi reacted first. Her bowstring snapped, sending an arrow across the avenue toward the Demon King's face. The witch moved her free hand, and an invisible force knocked the projectile aside just before impact. The arrow changed direction, tore through a nearby wall, and ripped away part of the masonry on the other side.
Hayato had already activated his flight boots.
He surged forward while Maryest extended both hands and unleashed magic at the spheres heading toward the rest of the group.
"Shining Blade!"
Arondight carved an arc through the air in front of him. The projected slash destroyed two of the spheres coming his way and continued toward the witch.
She turned her palm toward the attack. Violet energy gathered in front of her fingers, and the slash struck it with an explosion that scattered dust and fragments of stone.
Hayato flew through the cloud before it had finished spreading.
That was when the pressure surrounding the Demon King became impossible to ignore.
With every meter he closed, something pressed behind his eyes and tried to force foreign thoughts into his head. His equipment rejected most of the effect, but fighting beneath that pressure was still uncomfortable.
The witch saw him approaching and extended one arm toward him.
An invisible blast struck him head-on.
Hayato did not use a defensive ability.
This was his first time fighting a Demon King, and he wanted to know how much power was behind a direct attack.
He raised his shield and took the impact while his flight boots corrected his position.
The force pushed him back several meters, but it did not break his stance.
The result was less impressive than he had expected.
Leaving Satoru out of any reasonable comparison, Hayato had imagined a Demon King would be clearly stronger than the Yellow Demon, the high-ranking demon that had forced him to retreat years ago.
That blast did not feel like it.
Its power was comparable, perhaps even weaker.
Mind Magic could explain part of the difference. An enemy capable of attacking the mind did not need to concentrate all of its danger into brute force.
Even so, it was far too early to draw a definite conclusion.
Hayato regained the lost distance and watched the enemy's reaction. Every time he or Ringrande tried to get too close, the witch devoted power to forcing them back. She wanted to maintain her distance.
For now, that suited him.
Rusus and Fifi were still removing the controlled civilians. If the Demon King wanted to focus on someone and keep that person away from her, Hayato could give her a target that did not put anyone else at risk.
He drew a breath and let [Provocation] carry through his voice.
"I'm Hayato Masaki! The hero who came to stop you!"
The Demon King turned fully toward him and answered with a roar that made the broken glass in the nearby windows tremble.
Hayato smiled faintly as he felt all of her attention settle on him.
That was exactly what he needed.
***
Satoru left the combat zone by rising above the rooftops.
From that height, he could distinguish the parts of the city where some semblance of order remained from those where the attack had completely disrupted the usual routes. There were small fires, partially collapsed buildings, overturned carts, and groups of soldiers trying to clear paths through the rubble. Farther away, the detonations from Hayato's battle continued to echo through the city.
There were monsters as well.
An undead wielding a rusted sword struggled against two soldiers in a nearby street. Satoru descended far enough to extend a hand toward it.
"Magic Arrow."
The projectile pierced the creature's skull and dropped it before the soldiers could finish reacting. Satoru had already moved on by the time the body hit the ground.
He next descended beside a group trying to pull two people out of a shop whose roof had partially collapsed. With a casual motion, he lifted a beam that four men had barely been able to move and shifted it far enough for them to drag the trapped people free.
On another street, he found a wall leaning over a family who could no longer leave through their front door. Satoru destroyed the section blocking their path, removed the largest pieces of rubble, and continued on before they could finish thanking him.
A wounded soldier lay beside an overturned cart. Satoru carried him to a group of priests treating other injured people, then rose into the air again.
As he moved through the city, he saw more scattered fights. Most involved undead, though he also spotted a few animal-like creatures among them. None posed a serious threat on their own, but they forced the defenders to divide their attention at the exact moment the city needed soldiers to evacuate civilians, contain fires, and pull the wounded from damaged buildings.
The next problem caught his attention because of movement rather than size.
Three young beastfolk were running down a side street behind a human woman. Two had feline ears, while the third had a short tail that Satoru associated with a canine tribe. Their clothes had been patched far too many times and none of them wore shoes. They looked like children who had already been living on the streets before the attack began.
The woman glanced back every few steps to make sure they were still following her.
A crack came from the building above them.
The upper section of a facade, weakened by an earlier impact, broke loose and fell toward the street.
Satoru descended before the woman could even look up.
He caught the slab with one hand and stopped it above her head. The stone cracked around his fingers, but did not descend another centimeter.
The three children froze.
Satoru moved the block aside and dropped it where it could not hit anyone. Only then did he look at the woman.
He recognized her almost immediately.
"Martha."
She took a little longer.
"L-Lord Satoru? When did you…?"
Her surprise lasted only a moment before one of the children clung to her clothes. Martha looked back toward the street she had been trying to reach.
"I found them alone when all this started. I'm trying to get them somewhere safe."
Satoru looked over the route. Two overturned carts blocked part of the exit, while a collapsed section of wall had sealed the other side.
He moved them one after the other.
"Continue down that street. The soldiers are evacuating people from the next intersection."
Martha looked at the cleared path and then back at him.
"Thank you."
"Do not stop here."
"Yes."
Martha opened her mouth as though she wanted to say something else, but ultimately nodded and led the children away.
Satoru waited until all four of them were moving before rising into the air again.
Another undead appeared at the end of the same street. Satoru destroyed it before it could reach a group of civilians, then looked up and spotted two more creatures approaching from the same direction.
This no longer looked like a series of isolated encounters.
He knew the likely source too well.
After stopping the Eyeball Demon, Satoru himself had raised the labyrinth beneath Seiryuu, and he knew that most of the creatures inside it were undead.
The number reaching the surface did not match its normal behavior.
Satoru focused on the miasma. Its density increased toward the same area the creatures continued to emerge from.
He changed direction.
The trail led straight toward the labyrinth.
***
The witch repeated certain patterns, though not simply enough to make them harmless.
The mental pressure remained around her at all times and intensified whenever someone tried to approach. When Hayato, Ringrande, or any of the others closed the distance too much, the Demon King responded with invisible blasts aimed at the attacker or filled the space with violet spheres to force them off course.
Then she used any hesitation to search for an exposed mind.
Rusus and Fifi continued working around the controlled civilians without using attacks that might kill them.
"One more!"
Fifi knocked a soldier's sword aside with one of her own blades, struck his wrist with the hilt, and brought him down before grabbing him by the neck of his armor.
"Got him!"
Rusus rushed past her, caught another controlled man around the waist, and dragged him beyond the witch's reach despite the blows he tried to land on her.
"Over here!" Loreiya called from the protected area.
The two fighters delivered the civilians one after another. Loreiya quickly checked them for serious injuries, restrained those who continued trying to return to the fight, and prepared healing magic for anyone who needed it.
That left Hayato, Ringrande, Maryest, and Wiyaryi keeping the witch occupied.
Wiyaryi fired from the far end of the avenue. The Demon King raised one arm and knocked the first arrow aside with an invisible blast, but the second came from a different angle and grazed the side of her head before burying itself in the pavement behind her.
The figure shrieked, and several violet spheres appeared above her shoulders.
Maryest did not wait for them to be launched. She extended one hand and fired a mass of energy that exploded in front of the witch, engulfing her position in dust and fragments of stone.
Hayato did not use the cover to rush in for the kill.
Rusus and Fifi still needed time to remove the remaining controlled civilians, and as long as the Demon King focused her attacks on him and the fighters keeping her busy, the rest of the avenue remained relatively safe.
A sphere shot out of the cloud of dust.
Hayato split it apart with Arondight.
Another flew toward Ringrande and was deflected by her sword. Wiyaryi destroyed a third with an arrow before it could reach Maryest.
Every exchange reinforced the impression Hayato had formed when he took the first blast head-on.
At first, he had assumed the complexity of Mind Magic explained the difference. Perhaps this Demon King sacrificed direct power in exchange for abilities that could control people, disrupt concentration, and turn allies into threats.
But the longer the fight continued, the less convincing that explanation became.
The witch was dangerous. A mistake could cost them dearly, and none of her attacks could be ignored.
But she did not carry the same weight Hayato remembered from the Yellow Demon. Even after all these years, that battle remained vivid in his memory.
Even accounting for the Mind Magic, there did not seem to be some hidden second layer of power waiting to suddenly make the fight impossible.
The cloud created by Maryest began to clear.
Hayato saw the violet eyes before the rest of the body.
They were not looking at him.
A bad feeling ran down his back.
Then he heard the air split behind his shoulder.
He turned his shield on pure instinct.
The arrow struck with enough force to numb his arm and force his flight boots to correct his position in the air.
Hayato looked back.
Wiyaryi already had a second arrow against the string. Her eyes were open, but there was nothing behind them.
"Wiyaryi!"
The archer did not respond.
Her bow turned toward Ringrande.
"I've got her!" Ringrande shouted as she broke into a run. "Don't take your eyes off the witch!"
The string released before she could reach Wiyaryi.
Ringrande raised her sword and caught the arrow while still running. The impact threw her arm to one side, and the deflected projectile struck the wall of a house hard enough to punch a hole through it and bring down part of the facade.
Ringrande did not waste time looking at the damage.
She closed the remaining distance and lunged at Wiyaryi before the archer could prepare another shot, knocking the bow upward with her sword guard.
Hayato had already turned back toward the Demon King.
The witch looked away from Wiyaryi and raised another hand to attack the others.
"Shining Blade!"
The projected slash crossed the avenue and forced her to defend herself. Violet energy appeared in front of her torso too late. The attack cut through part of the protection and opened a long wound across her gray skin.
The Demon King roared in pain and staggered back two steps.
Behind Hayato, Ringrande brought Wiyaryi to the ground and pinned her with one knee against her back while restraining the arm trying to reach for another arrow. With her free hand, she pulled a potion from an emergency pouch on her belt, removed the stopper, and forced the archer to drink it.
Wiyaryi struggled for several seconds.
Then the tension left her shoulders and focus returned to her eyes.
"I'm fine now."
Ringrande did not release her immediately.
"Say it again."
"I'm fine! Now get off me!"
That was enough.
Ringrande stood, and Wiyaryi recovered her bow without wasting time complaining. When she aimed at the witch again, the precision of her stance showed no obvious lingering effects.
Hayato felt a brief smile trying to surface.
The battle was not over, but by now the conclusion was becoming difficult to dispute.
With the entire group together, along with all the experience and coordination they had built over the years, they had the advantage.
The certainty came with a clarity that had nothing to do with optimism.
They were going to win.
And if they won, this battle could bring an end to something far greater than the attack on Seiryuu.
***
The entrance to the labyrinth had become another front.
Satoru arrived from above and found improvised barricades, soldiers covered in dust, and enough undead corpses to make it clear they had been holding the creatures back for some time. Broken shields leaned against the stone, men struggled to catch their breath, and priests tended to the wounded behind the line.
The concentration of miasma inside the entrance was abnormal.
Satoru still could not determine what had altered the labyrinth's behavior, but he could see the result clearly enough: creatures were trying to reach the surface in numbers far beyond normal.
A soldier at the front shouted.
"Get ready! Another wave is coming!"
Something moved in the darkness beyond the entrance.
Humanoid silhouettes appeared first, followed by more bodies crowding behind them as the sound of bones and claws scraping against stone grew louder.
The defenders readied their weapons.
Satoru descended between the two groups.
His feet cracked the pavement on impact and sent up a short cloud of dust in front of the barricade. Several heads turned toward him, but he did not stop to see whether anyone recognized him.
He raised a hand toward the creatures still pouring out.
"[Widen Magic: Fire Storm]"
Fire erupted across the entire entrance.
The first undead vanished into the flames before they could finish advancing. Those behind them crashed into their bodies and became trapped in the same storm, while more creatures tried to force their way through the fire only to collapse into ash.
The heat reached the soldiers like a wall, but the flames stopped before touching their line.
When the spell ended, the entrance was clear.
Satoru lowered his hand.
"[Summon Monster 6th: Elder Drake]"
A magic formation appeared across the ground, producing a four-legged creature with a long body, thick scales, and a head large enough to fit a man between its jaws.
"[Summon Monster 6th: Chief Gigant Basilisk]"
A second formation lit up beside the first. The basilisk stood lower than the drake but was considerably heavier. It planted its legs against the pavement and raised a broad head covered in hard plates while its tail struck the ground behind it.
The soldiers remained silent for several seconds.
They had just watched Satoru eliminate with a single spell the same creatures they had spent so long struggling to contain, and the two summons standing before them carried a presence far beyond that of the monsters that had crowded the entrance.
Satoru pointed toward the labyrinth.
"Go inside. Do not allow any monster to leave."
The Elder Drake roared first. The Chief Gigant Basilisk answered with a low growl, and both entered the labyrinth without paying any attention to the humans around them.
A few seconds later, a heavy impact came from the depths, followed by the sound of something large being dragged across stone.
Satoru turned toward the defenders.
"They will handle this front. Focus your men on evacuating civilians and locating the wounded."
He did not wait for an answer.
Satoru rose into the air again and left while the soldiers continued staring at the entrance.
***
When Rusus and Fifi returned to the main battle, the difference became immediate.
The controlled civilians no longer surrounded the witch, and Loreiya had managed to move everyone who needed attention to safety. The moment Rusus and Fifi confirmed they could attack without having to fight through anyone to reach the Demon King, they stopped holding back.
Rusus went in first from the right.
Two violet spheres shot toward her. She knocked one aside with her sword, leaned away from the second, and used the same charge to cut into the outside of one elongated leg.
The witch roared in pain and turned toward her.
Fifi was already coming from the opposite side.
The Demon King extended one hand to push her away with an invisible blast, but Ringrande came in from the front and knocked the arm aside before the attack could line up. The force exploded harmlessly into the pavement and opened a crack several meters away.
Fifi reached the exposed flank and opened another wound across the gray skin.
The witch stumbled backward with a shriek and raised both hands.
"Now!" Maryest shouted.
Wiyaryi fired at the same instant.
The arrow buried itself in the Demon King's shoulder, twisting her torso just as Maryest's magic struck the opposite side. The explosion tore pieces from the dress and forced the figure to brace one leg behind herself to avoid falling.
Hayato went straight through the center before she could recover her balance.
The mental pressure grew stronger as he approached. It was the same sensation he had endured since the beginning, a persistent force behind his eyes that made concentration more difficult the closer he came.
His equipment prevented it from becoming direct control.
That did not make fighting inside it pleasant.
The witch tried to regain distance with a blast aimed at his chest.
Hayato twisted in the air and let the attack pass beside his shield. Arondight came down across the creature's torso and opened a diagonal wound before he pulled away again.
The figure tried to follow him with her eyes.
"Hey! I'm still here!"
[Provocation] reinforced the shout, and the violet eyes returned to Hayato.
Ringrande took advantage of the shift in attention. She entered from the flank and struck the arm the witch was raising. Rusus appeared from behind, while Fifi held position on the opposite side and waited for the reaction.
The Demon King released a burst of power toward Ringrande and Rusus to force them away.
Both gave ground, but Fifi was already moving through the opening they had created. Her sword cut into the back of the other leg, and this time the witch made a harsh sound before dropping to one knee.
None of them needed Hayato to explain what came next.
Wiyaryi kept up the pressure from range. Maryest punished every moment the witch raised a defense in the wrong direction, while Loreiya continued monitoring everyone from the rear. Rusus and Fifi alternated their attacks without getting in each other's way, and Ringrande filled any opening that might leave Maryest or Wiyaryi exposed.
The Demon King remained dangerous.
Any hit she landed carried enough force to injure them, and the Mind Magic could turn a single lapse in attention into an immediate problem.
But Hayato no longer needed to wonder how the battle would end.
Another question had begun occupying his thoughts.
Could it really end today?
The thought came as he watched his companions move around the witch with the coordination they had built over years of fighting together.
Returning to Japan meant leaving them behind.
And Japan was not simply the place he called home. His family was still there, along with the people he had cared about before being summoned and the life that had been interrupted when he was fourteen.
Even after all the years that had passed, that part of him had never disappeared.
He wanted to go back.
That had not changed.
But he could not pretend he had built nothing here either.
Ringrande, Maryest, Loreiya, Rusus, Fifi, and Wiyaryi were not temporary companions. He had spent years beside them. There were people he protected, responsibilities he had accepted, and a life that had eventually become his as well.
A violet sphere formed in front of him, and Hayato pushed the thought aside in time to cut it apart with Arondight.
He did not need to decide anything while the Demon King was still trying to kill them.
The fight continued.
Satoru crossed his mind not long afterward, not because he was there to witness the battle, but because of the conversation they had shared only a few hours earlier.
Satoru was the kind of person who, once he accepted a responsibility, saw it through to the end.
Hayato still did not know what to do with that idea, but for the first time, he connected it with everything he might be leaving behind if he truly returned to Japan.
He did not need to resolve that yet either.
The witch raised one arm, and an invisible blast forced Rusus and Ringrande backward. Fifi moved aside before she could be caught in the same line, while Wiyaryi fired another arrow to keep the Demon King from taking advantage of the opening.
Hayato adjusted his grip on Arondight and advanced again.
***
From high enough above the city, Satoru confirmed that no new creatures were reaching the surface from the labyrinth.
That did nothing about those that had emerged before his intervention.
Most of Seiryuu's forces could defeat one or two enemies if given enough time and space. The problem was how many separate fronts had opened at once. One undead delayed an evacuation, another tied up several soldiers, and a beast forced the closure of a street the wounded needed to use.
Continuing to descend and resolve each fight individually was inefficient.
The best solution would be to eliminate all of them at once.
The problem was finding the right kind of attack.
YGGDRASIL magic alone did not offer him a spell capable of covering such a large portion of the city while also distinguishing between every target he wanted to destroy and every person he needed to leave untouched.
The magic of this world could reach much larger areas.
However, if he used the same principle he had employed against the demon army in Muno, he would destroy part of Seiryuu along with the monsters.
He needed range, precision, and target selection at the same time.
The standard magic he had possessed in the past could not accomplish that.
Satoru was no longer limited to it.
During his research into the interaction between YGGDRASIL's magical principles and those of this world, he had managed to develop an alternative. Until now, he had only tested it under controlled conditions.
The city offered a far more appropriate scale for determining its limits.
Satoru stopped above Seiryuu and extended one hand.
"[Consecutive Magic: Magic Arrow]"
The first mana arrows appeared around him.
The spell triggered again, adding another series of projectiles to the first. The sequence continued, each automatic repetition producing another volley.
Every repetition consumed mana as though he had cast the spell again, but [Magic Arrow] was inexpensive and Satoru's current mana reserves could sustain the cost for far longer than he required.
The arrows continued to accumulate.
Several dozen surrounded him.
Then more than a hundred.
Their numbers kept growing until hundreds of projectiles hung above Seiryuu, spreading around Satoru in a formation large enough to occupy a visible portion of the sky.
For several seconds, the city itself seemed to notice the change.
Soldiers lowered their weapons to look upward. Civilians running toward evacuation routes slowed their steps. Adventurers, priests, and guards raised their heads from different parts of the city, and even several monsters stopped moving when they sensed the concentration of mana above them.
Satoru finished identifying his targets.
He extended his hand toward the city.
Every arrow moved at once.
They did not follow a single trajectory.
Some descended in straight lines. Others curved between buildings, changed direction above the rooftops, or split away toward separate streets.
Each projectile followed Satoru's will toward one of the monsters still occupying Seiryuu's forces.
An undead lost its head before reaching a wounded soldier.
Another was pierced while trying to climb over a barricade.
Three creatures pursuing civilians fell almost simultaneously, while a labyrinth beast managed to look up just before an arrow entered through one of its eyes.
The impacts continued throughout the city.
The district where Hayato was fighting remained untouched.
Satoru had no intention of interfering in that battle.
The final wave of arrows changed direction above the rooftops and struck the remaining targets.
Within several seconds, the scattered fights across Seiryuu began disappearing one after another.
The soldiers and priests who were freed from combat could finally focus on fires, wounded civilians, and evacuation.
Satoru looked over the result once more.
The city still needed work, but it was no longer wasting resources fighting in too many directions at once.
He descended toward another column of smoke.
***
The witch was still standing.
Before Hayato could charge again, the light over the avenue changed.
Hundreds of mana arrows had appeared above Seiryuu.
For a moment, even the Demon King looked upward. Rusus stared into the sky with her sword still held ready, while Wiyaryi lowered her bow slightly.
"Is all of that Satoru's?" Rusus asked.
Ringrande watched part of the formation as the projectiles began splitting off toward different sections of the city.
"Who else could it be?"
Hayato laughed briefly as he watched the arrows disappear between the buildings in different directions.
"That guy really is ridiculous."
A series of distant impacts began echoing across Seiryuu.
Hayato raised Arondight again.
"Right. Then let's finish ours too."
Everyone's attention returned to the Demon King.
Her dress was torn, one arm hung uselessly at her side, and several open wounds crossed her gray skin. Even so, the mental pressure still weighed upon anyone who tried to approach her.
The group had managed to confine her to a short stretch of the avenue.
Rusus and Fifi moved first.
The witch formed four violet spheres and launched them toward the pair. Rusus cut one apart and let another pass beside her shoulder. Fifi slid beneath the third, while Ringrande deflected the last before it could reach Maryest.
Wiyaryi fired over their heads.
The arrow struck the Demon King's good arm and knocked it backward. Maryest used the opening to release a blast against the ground beside her feet. The explosion threw up stone and made the figure lose her balance.
Hayato went through the center.
The mental pressure tried to push behind his eyes, and two new spheres appeared in front of him.
He knocked the first aside with Arondight, let his boots carry him above the second, and raised his sword.
"Shining Blade!"
The projected slash struck the Demon King's torso before she could recover her stance.
The witch shrieked and answered with an invisible blast aimed at Hayato. He crossed the shield in front of his body and took the hit directly.
The force pushed him backward, though considerably less than it had at the beginning of the battle.
She was tiring too.
Rusus used the moment when the witch followed Hayato with her gaze to attack the wounded leg. Fifi entered half a second later from the other side.
The Demon King blasted Rusus away with a surge of force, but the movement left Fifi open to attack and her sword cut into the gray skin again.
A roar louder than any before it swept through the avenue.
Ringrande advanced to keep the witch from attacking Fifi directly while Wiyaryi covered her approach with another arrow. Loreiya remained behind the group, watching for injuries and preparing magic so she could intervene the moment anyone took a serious hit.
Maryest stopped preparing her next spell.
Her expression changed as she felt the mana gathering around the Demon King.
"Hayato! She's concentrating almost everything she has left!"
He did not need to know what form the attack would take.
"Fall back!"
Rusus and Fifi immediately abandoned attack range. Ringrande retreated toward Maryest, while Wiyaryi moved beside Loreiya.
The immediate stretch of avenue emptied until only Hayato and the Demon King remained.
The witch raised both hands.
The air seemed to compress toward her body.
The pavement began to tremble, and the mental pressure that had remained concentrated around her until then spread outward with sudden speed.
Hayato could retreat with the others.
Or he could take advantage of the moment after an attack that was consuming almost all of the enemy's remaining mana.
He planted his feet, raised his shield in front of himself, and held Arondight at his side.
"[Invincible Shield]!"
Light wrapped around Hayato at the exact moment the witch released her attack.
The psychic wave exploded in every direction.
The pavement split around the Demon King. Nearby facades groaned, and clouds of dust burst from shattered windows.
Even at the distance they had taken, Ringrande and the others had to brace themselves as the blast swept through the avenue.
The wave struck Hayato head-on.
The impact that should have thrown him backward was negated by [Invincible Shield]. The air roared around him, but his feet did not move.
The witch had spent an enormous amount of mana trying to clear the space around herself.
She had failed.
Hayato's flight boots propelled him forward before the wave had even finished dissipating.
He flew through the dust while the Demon King struggled to recover her stance. Her violet eyes widened when she saw him crossing a distance the attack should have left empty.
The witch stepped back and raised her remaining arm.
One final sphere began to form beside her palm.
Hayato was already too close.
"Sing, Arondight."
The sacred sword answered.
Energy ran along the blade as Hayato accelerated until he was level with the neck of the towering figure.
The Demon King's arm came between them first.
Arondight passed through it without stopping.
The same motion continued through her neck.
Hayato flew past her before slowing in the air.
For a moment, the Demon King's body remained standing.
The head fell first.
The rest followed.
The mental pressure vanished from the avenue.
The silence lasted only long enough for Hayato to confirm that the presence before him was gone.
The notification appeared before he could give his next order.
[Congratulations! Your Hero title has evolved into Great Hero.]
****
Author's Note
Thank you very much for reading.
First, I apologize for uploading this chapter a little late. I forgot to properly schedule it yesterday, so it ended up going up later than intended.
This is another chapter from the buffer I have been working on during the break.
After quite a few quieter chapters, we finally have some action again. From here, we will gradually start moving into the final stage of this arc, although the heavier parts are still waiting a little further ahead.
I do not have much else to add about this chapter. It was simply nice to return to Seiryuu and write a proper battle again after spending so much time on the calmer side of the story.
That is all for now.
Thank you again for your support, and I hope you enjoy the chapters to come.