Hearing Luca's voice over the comms, Green Bull instinctively shrank his neck.
But seeing his captain already charging out with the massive shield raised, Green Bull hurriedly followed close behind, gripping his giant axe.
However, faster than Green Bull was the sudden roar of machine-gun fire erupting beside him.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT—
Thresh, whose barrels were already pre-heated, pulled the trigger the moment Shield stepped forward.
Tongues of fire instantly spewed from the high-speed rotating barrels.
But this roaring Demon Gatling wasn't firing ordinary bullets. If someone could cast a stasis field over the area right now, they would clearly see that what shot out of the muzzle were translucent, crystal-like red shards.
When these shards rained into the bodies of the encroaching demons, the crystals—already unstable from the high-speed friction with the air—instantly detonated with blinding red light.
BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM—
The continuous explosions drowned out even the roar of the gun and Thresh's maniacal laughter.
However, not all demons were instantly harvested by this reaper-like assault.
As swathes of demons fell, three ugly demons resembling pangolins with heavy armor plating leaped out from the rear.
Curling into balls, they tanked the explosive fire and launched a counter-charge straight at Shield's trio.
Seeing the three pangolin demons rushing toward them, Thresh didn't waste ammo on futile attacks. He completely ignored the hard targets, swinging his gun to continue clearing out the squishier demons.
Just as the three pangolin demons—and the swarm they were shielding behind them—were about to reach the squad...
Shield, standing at the very front, suddenly slammed his massive shield into the ground. The bottom third of the shield sank directly into the floor.
The magma-like crimson veins on the shield suddenly seemed to come alive, spreading instantly from the shield onto the ground on either side.
Then, the red veins on the floor erupted like a real volcano, shooting lava skyward which instantly solidified into a sturdy black-and-red wall.
In the blink of an eye, the already massive, person-sized shield expanded rapidly into a veritable shield wall, five or six meters wide and over three meters high.
CLANG—
Three crisp, heavy impacts rang out almost simultaneously.
The three pangolin demons leading the charge slammed headfirst into the sudden lava shield wall.
But the lava wall Shield created wasn't just for defense.
The instant it was struck, the shield wall flashed with intense red light, and countless streams of scalding magma surged out from the shield's surface.
In a split second, the gushing magma covered all the demons charging behind the vanguard.
"ARGHHH—"
The screams and roars of demons filled the air. Even the three pangolin demons at the front, who could ignore Gatling fire, had their shells melted by the scorching lava—let alone the squishy ones hiding behind them for cover.
However, the magma disappeared as quickly as it came.
In the blink of an eye, the scalding lava solidified back into black-and-red rock similar to the shield's surface.
Many demons didn't even have time to fully melt before they were firmly encased in the solidified rock.
Only then did Green Bull, who had been a step slower to charge, leap over the shield wall with his giant axe on his shoulder.
But when his feet landed on the solidified lava...
He looked left and right at the piles of demon corpses mowed down by the machine gun, then looked straight ahead at the field of twisted "artistic sculptures" trapped in rock. He scratched his head helplessly.
"Captain, you could have left some for me!!"
Despite his complaint, Green Bull hefted his axe and charged toward the thicker swarm of demons deeper in the hallway.
Leaving the three-man squad to their slaughter...
Almost at the same time, outside the building, Tony—who was intercepting the escaping demons—exclaimed in surprise.
"F! Luca, what kind of toys did you secretly build this time?"
Of course, Tony hadn't noticed the commotion caused by Shield's team inside.
Nor was he surprised by the simple muscle-enhancement armor worn by the Aurantius Tower security team.
What caught Tony's eye was Samira, who was leading the ground interception team.
She had pulled a massive gauntlet from her silver-white suitcase. With every punch, she whipped up a tornado that tore the charging demons to shreds.
Luca, who was assisting the battle and observing the entire field through drone feeds, naturally knew what Tony was asking about.
He replied with a smile.
"Just some little gadgets I threw together a while back. Quinques. Or... you can call them Demon Arms~"
Yes. Shield's trio's demon weapons, the Storm Gauntlet in Samira's hand...
And the demonic sniper rifle in the hands of Longbow, who was crouching on the opposite roof—the one he had personally named "The Silent Roar of Gloomy Radiance"...
They were all experimental products Luca had casually created while researching the Hell Gate before Tony arrived.
Essentially, these weapons relied on the "Ascension Ceremony – Weapon Demonification" technology he brought back from the Devil May Cry world.
After all, the success rate of the "Ascension Ceremony" for human modification was low and controllability was poor. So for Luca, who wanted to harness demonic power, demonizing weapons was the obvious priority.
However, aside from being more effective against mystical enemies, demonized weapons didn't have a huge advantage over conventional tech weapons.
So when Luca built these, he naturally aimed for upgrades.
He wanted to retain the special abilities of the demons used as materials, while also gaining growth potential, adaptability, controllability, and so on.
The result was that while these living demon weapons possessed those traits, they needed to be kept in special magnetic field culture dishes daily. They also required long-term contact with their users to continuously increase synchronization and adaptability.
Weapons with these characteristics naturally weren't suitable for the "Dehydration Gun compression" method of portability.
Left with no choice, Luca spent some effort designing portable magnetic field generator cultivation dishes—conveniently shaped like suitcases.
As for why he made them look like white suitcases and named them "Quinques"... well, that was just Luca's chuunibyou acting up, mixed with a little wishful thinking.
If relying on these knock-offs triggers the System to give me an original item, that wouldn't be bad either~
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