Madelyn's features warped into a hideous mask of unadulterated, feral wrath.
The very atmosphere surrounding her shrieked, violently cracking as she channeled an absurd, world-breaking strength into her right arm.
"I'll crush you into a friggin' bloodstain!"
Twisting her waist, she unleashed the Flying Winged Blade.
It was a weapon that defied logic——a slab of metal so preposterously dense it rivaled the melted mass of ten greatswords. Its sheer, ungodly weight should have rooted a person of her small stature firmly to the earth. Instead, it tore from her grip with the devastating velocity of a cannon shell.
The wind howled in agony as the crooked blade spun, carving a violent vacuum in its wake. It did not merely cut the air; it crushed it. The cobblestone pavement beneath its trajectory was violently ripped upward, pulverized by the sheer, overwhelming pressure of its passing.
Yet, facing this incoming devastation, Priscilla Barielle did not blink. She did not even take a single step back.
Instead, she gracefully raised the Yang Sword, catching the apocalyptic strike squarely on the flat of her crimson blade.
A shockwave exploded outward. The sheer force instantly vaporized the surrounding debris and shattered every remaining pane of glass in the plaza. The earth beneath Priscilla's feet surrendered, cratering deep into the city's foundations in a spider-web pattern that stretched for dozens of meters.
Even so, amidst the swirling dust and apocalyptic fury, Priscilla stood exactly where she had been. Her vibrant orange hair whipped violently around her flawless face.
"Such crude, unrefined weight," Priscilla mused, her voice perfectly steady despite holding back a grinding, spinning mass of iron. "Is this the extent of the Empire's Divine Generals? A tantrum thrown by an undisciplined child?"
With a sudden, elegant flick of her wrist, Priscilla flared her mana. The Yang Sword erupted in a blinding display of crimson heat, violently repelling the heavy blade.
The deflected weapon careened wildly off its path. It scythed through a three-story building to Priscilla's left, effortlessly shearing the stone structure in half before carving through the city wall and arcing back through the sky like a boomerang returning to its master.
Madelyn caught the massive blade without a flinch, though the sheer momentum forced her boots to slide half a meter across the earth.
Behind Priscilla, the severed building finally groaned and collapsed into a mountain of rubble, adding a thunderous crescendo to the battlefield.
"Don't act so high and mighty, girl!" Madelyn roared.
Refusing to grant her opponent even a fraction of a second to breathe, the dragonkin kicked off the ground. The stone shattered beneath her feet as she closed the distance in a terrifying blur. She didn't throw the blade this time; gripping the crooked hilt with both hands, she brought the massive weapon down in a brutal overhead cleave designed to split Priscilla from crown to heel.
Priscilla merely stepped forward, meeting the strike head-on.
The Yang Sword swung upward in a flawless, crimson arc. The two weapons collided once more, but this was no longer a mere clash of steel——it was a contest between raw, physical monstrosity and absolute, divine heat.
"——Burn."
Flames surged violently from the Yang Sword, coiling up the length of Madelyn's iron weapon like starving serpents. The intense heat instantly warped the air, melting the cobblestones beneath their feet into bubbling slag.
Madelyn gritted her fangs. Her muscles visibly bulged under her skin as she pushed down harder, attempting to force the searing blade into Priscilla's shoulder through sheer, stubborn willpower.
"You're just a friggin' human!" Madelyn snarled, spit flying from her lips as her golden eyes burned with rage. "I am a dragon! The sky is mine! Everything is mine!"
"Then how pitiful that truly is! A lizard that hoards dirt and calls it treasure. Allow mineself to educate you on the nature of the world!"
Mid-sentence, Priscilla casually shifted her footing. The Yang Sword pulsed with a catastrophic surge of fire, its deep crimson light transmuting into a blinding, incandescent brilliance.
"The sky does not belong to you!" Priscilla declared, her voice echoing with the absolute authority of a monarch over the roar of the flames. "It exists solely to frame mine brilliance!"
With a devastating surge of power, Priscilla broke the deadlock. She swung the Yang Sword in a wide, horizontal sweep, unleashing a torrential wave of solar fire at point-blank range.
Madelyn had only a fraction of a second to cross her arms, pulling her massive blade flush against her chest as a desperate shield.
The blast struck her like a falling star. The Ninth Divine General was blown violently backward, her small body skipping across the molten plaza like a stone skipping over a lake of fire.
As the roar of dragons and the crackle of burning rubble reclaimed the silence, the sky above turned a bruised, darkening violet. The sun had finally dipped below the horizon.
Priscilla let out a sharp, deeply annoyed sigh.
The Yang Sword in her hand flickered. The overwhelming, familiar heat rapidly died down, the divine flames guttering out until the sword simply dissolved into the air, leaving her completely empty-handed.
"To think the sun would dare set before mineself had finished being entertained," Priscilla scoffed, resting a delicate hand on her hip. "Truly, the celestial bodies lack basic manners."
From the smoking wreckage of the plaza, a raspy, grating laugh echoed.
Madelyn pried herself out of the bent steel and rubble. Her clothes were scorched and smoking, yet she rose with terrifyingly minimal damage. Her golden, reptilian eyes locked onto Priscilla with a feral, murderous intent.
"Your fire went out, human!" Madelyn spat, hefting her massive blade with ease. "The sun ran away. Now you're just friggin' meat waiting to be chewed!"
Priscilla's expression remained an mask of supreme indifference.
"Do not mistake the setting of the sun for mine weakness, lizard. It merely means the heavens decided you aren't worth the light."
"Tch, then die making excuses!"
Madelyn lunged. She swung the crooked blade to mercilessly cleave the unarmed woman in two. Without the Yang Sword to parry it, the crushing weight of the metal descended entirely unopposed.
In an instant, Priscilla shifted her stance, leaping backward. The massive slab of metal crashed down, missing her by a hair's breadth and pulverizing the stone where she had stood just a millisecond prior.
Surprisingly, the raging dragonkin did not overcommit. Twisting her wrist, Madelyn let the momentum of the miss carry her into a brutal backhand swipe with the blunt edge of the blade. Priscilla leaned back—the wind of the strike violently ruffling her dress—but Madelyn was already following up, launching a snapping kick aimed directly at the Princess's ribs.
Priscilla caught the dragonkin's boot squarely in the center of both palms, expertly redirecting the force.
Yet, the sheer, absurd weight of Madelyn's superhuman strength sent her skidding backward across the earth.
"You're fast for a human, but you're still just crawling!"
Madelyn hurled the Winged Blade once more. It flew forward for only a moment before hooking into a tight, lethal arc designed to cleanly decapitate.
Dropping into a low crouch, Priscilla evaded as the heavy metal sheared the top off a nearby stone pillar. But before the blade even finished its rotation, Madelyn was already upon her, her hands curled into vicious claws.
As Priscilla side-stepped, Madelyn's fingers raked across her forearm.
Red droplets sprayed vividly onto the white marble.
Madelyn grinned, baring her fangs in triumph.
Despite the sharp pain lancing through her arm, Priscilla's expression did not waver. Instead, her crimson eyes darkened with a cold, terrifying light.
"A scratch from a stray cur. You grow increasingly tedious, lizard."
"Shut up and die!"
Catching her returning blade mid-air, Madelyn slammed it down with both hands.
Priscilla had no choice but to throw herself backward, lest she find an untimely, messy death beneath the dragonkin's wrath.
The impact sent a violent tremor through the plaza, physically opening a fissure in the earth between them.
Madelyn didn't stop. She kept swinging—horizontal, vertical, diagonal—a relentless, suffocating storm of heavy metal that forced Priscilla into a desperate, retreating dance. Each strike from the Ninth Divine General left a crater in the earth. Priscilla was being systematically hemmed in, her back forced toward the flaming, collapsed remains of the city hall.
Raising the blade for a final, crushing overhead strike, Madelyn's golden eyes dilated with the pure kill-drive of an apex predator.
"This is the end of your friggin' story——!"
——But then, the temperature plummeted.
The residual heat radiating from the molten cobblestones vanished instantly. Puddles of liquid slag turned to brittle rock in a heartbeat. Madelyn's breath hitched, a puff of stark white mist escaping her lips as a biting, unnatural gale slammed into her, stalling her unstoppable momentum.
Her muscles seized for a fraction of a second. The sudden, biting cold leached the kinetic energy from her dragon-blood. Confused, she looked up.
A small, pristine white speck drifted past Priscilla's face.
The Princess caught it in her palm, calmly watching the crystal melt against her warm skin. She looked up at the darkening, cloudy sky, her bleeding arm held casually at her side as if the wound did not exist.
Madelyn froze, her blade lowering as she blinked in sheer bewilderment.
She stared at the flakes landing on her skin and the ruined earth around her.
Thousands followed that lone flake. Thick and sharp, a sudden, violent flurry descended upon the burning remains of Guaral. Beneath the sudden frost, the roaring fires hissed and died. The air turned so brutally cold that even the dragons circling above began to scream.
However, while a normal person would be crippled by this extreme freezing cold——Madelyn Eschart was a dragonkin. She could drastically elevate her own body temperature to the point where such icy weather should have been useless.
But...
"Snow in Vollachia? That's impossible... I, the dragon, have never seen anythin' like this before... what is going on!?"
"It appears that quite the bothersome winter has intruded upon this stage."
Madelyn's golden eyes snapped through the white haze, glaring toward Priscilla in confusion as she took a singular, heavy step toward the Princess.
"——Vita."
What Madelyn believed to be impossible had suddenly come to pass.
Her stance violently gave way, as if the gravity in the surrounding space had suddenly multiplied tenfold. The ground beneath her boots instantly fractured, cratering further down than the surrounding area under the sheer pressure.
What is this...?! Magic, this is magic?!
Her golden eyes darted around in absolute bewilderment and disbelief, desperately trying to process the circumstances through the haze of her rage.
With a guttural growl, her muscles bulged and stiffened. She forcefully straightened her posture against the crushing weight, raising her massive sword, fully prepared to hurl it at the unseen coward who had cast the spell. After all, the chances of her Flying Winged Blade being affected by this gravity magic once it left her hands were extremely slim.
"You mock this friggin' dragon?! Stop hiding from me!"
"That's enough!"
The moment she adjusted to the abrupt shift in gravity, something equally forceful and heavy crashed violently into her flank, sending her tumbling across the icy ground like a skipping stone.
Amidst the swirling snow, the ruin of Guaral, and the apocalyptic chaos, another fighter had walked onto the stage.
Ever since the harrowing events at the besieged city of Priestella, she had caused quite a stir following the sudden, inexplicable disappearance of her one and only knight.
Taking to heart the advice of Satoru Gojo who had guided her growth, she had made the resolute decision to cross the border and slip into the Vollachian Empire to find Natsuki Subaru.
Though she was not the only one desperately searching across the continent, she was the very heart of it all.
The Witch of Glaciation had arrived at the center of the Rebellion.
Madelyn crashed brutally against the base of a collapsed watchtower after tumbling across the frozen cobblestones, her scales sparking against the ice. Under the oppressive domain of the spell, every step she took felt like wading through deep, viscous mud.
"D-Dammit... you friggin' bugs just keep crawling out of the woodwork!"
Madelyn snarled, spitting a mouthful of hot blood and snow onto the ground.
With an outraged scowl, she forced herself to her feet, fighting the magical pressure remarkably well for someone her size. Her burning eyes locked onto the new arrival.
Standing amidst the swirling flurry was a girl with flowing silver hair and brilliant amethyst eyes. Her breath hitched slightly as she took in the horrific sight of the scorched plaza and the mounds of dragon-slain bodies.
"I've been in a bit of a hurry, but I can't just ignore what's going on here."
Emilia declared, raising her hand as the mana in the air hummed in violent agreement.
"This city and your dragons are already hurting so much. Please, stop this."
Priscilla stood nearby, partially covering her face with her fan. She looked at Emilia with a sharp, utterly bored gaze, completely unimpressed by the dramatic rescue.
"The half-devil. To think you would crawl all the way into the mud of the south just to interrupt mine entertainment. Your timing remains as atrocious as your cursed lineage."
"Priscilla-san! You're hurt..."
Emilia noted, her amethyst eyes falling on the blood dripping steadily from Priscilla's sleeve.
She moved to step forward, but a small, frilly figure stomped indignantly out from the shadows of a nearby alleyway, delicately holding the hem of her extravagant dress.
"Don't ignore Betty, in fact!"
Beatrice huffed, her butterfly-patterned eyes narrowed in utter irritation. She stood proudly beside Emilia, her small hand tensed and crackling with the dark remnants of the Yin magic she had just unleashed.
"Maintaining Vita on a creature with that much brute strength is rather difficult, I suppose. And this nation is far too hot and dusty for Betty's liking."
"Who cares about your liking, brat?!" Madelyn roared.
Ignoring the crushing gravity, the dragonkin's muscles flexed as she viciously wrenched her Flying Winged Blade free from the earth. With a wild, primal scream, she swung the heavy weapon, producing a vacuum that literally sucked the falling snow toward her.
"I, the dragon, am the one who decides when it's over! I'll grind you all into friggin' paste!"
Madelyn lunged. Even burdened by Beatrice's gravity magic, she closed the distance with the terrifying, explosive speed of a predator. She swung the crooked blade in a wide, horizontal arc aimed to cleanly bisect both Emilia and Beatrice.
Emilia didn't flinch.
"Beatrice!"
"I know, in fact!"
Beatrice snapped her fingers.
"——Murak!"
The gravity anchoring Emilia and Beatrice simply vanished. The two of them floated upward with the grace of falling leaves, the massive, lethal blade whistling harmlessly mere inches beneath their feet.
While suspended mid-air, Emilia gestured sharply with both hands.
"——Ul Huma!"
Massive shards of ice, sharp as refined diamonds, materialized in the air around Madelyn. They shot forward like heavy artillery. Madelyn swung her massive blade to shatter the first few, but the sheer, overwhelming volume of the icy barrage forced her to retreat, her boots slipping on the frost-covered stone.
"Ice... and shadows...?"
Madelyn muttered, her breath catching in the freezing air.
Glancing up at the sky, she saw her dragon army still circling the city. However, many of the beasts were visibly lethargic, their cold-blooded bodies heavily sluggish under the unnatural, magical blizzard.
"You're trying to freeze my kin? You're trying to freeze a dragon?!"
"I'm trying to protect my friends," Emilia stated firmly, landing softly on a patch of fresh snow. Her expression was solemn and unwavering. "Natsuki Subaru is in this nation. And if he saw what you were doing, he'd be very, very sad and angry. I won't let you make things worse before I find him."
Priscilla let out a sharp, mocking laugh from behind her fan.
"How incredibly sentimental. To cross a national border for the sake of a single servant... your foolishness truly knows no bounds, half-devil."
"It's not foolishness," Emilia countered, meeting Priscilla's crimson gaze with a newfound spark of unyielding confidence. "Gojo-san told me that if you want to be the one who stands at the top, you have to be the one who decides what's important. And Subaru is the most important thing to me."
Madelyn bared her fangs, her golden pupils dilating in pure rage.
"I don't care about your 'important' things! I'll just kill all of you!"
The very next instant, a blade—the Flying Winged Blade—spun wildly through the air, violently gouging out the exact location Priscilla had been standing as it arced like a boomerang toward Beatrice.
Emilia reacted instantly, grabbing the Great Spirit and diving to safety just outside the weapon's lethal range. The blade's keen edge hacked a massive chunk out of a battered wall, which miraculously managed to stay upright.
Priscilla, having effortlessly evaded the blade, landed gracefully near Emilia, the hem of her crimson dress fluttering in the wind.
Exhaling deeply and carefully setting Beatrice down, Emilia looked at her contracted spirit.
"I might not be as in sync with you as Subaru is, but I'll do my absolute best not to hold you back, Beatrice!"
"Hmph. Betty never considered that a possibility, in fact. Just focus your attention on the dragon girl, I suppose."
Freed from the lingering suppression of Beatrice's Yin magic, Madelyn caught her returning weapon with a single hand. Her voice, thick with killing intent, cut through the freezing air.
"One after another... who the frig' are you people?!"
Emilia pointed a finger directly at the dragonkin.
"My name is Emili——Emily! My name is Emily, a Spirit Arts user who came to stop the commotion in this city!"
Madelyn's brows furrowed deeply.
"'Spirit Arts'...? Are you sayin' you're the same as that damn wild girl?"
"...Wild girl?"
Emilia tilted her head, genuine confusion crossing her features.
"She is by no means a 'Spirit Eater' like Arakiya, Madelyn Eschart. Do not make such a foolish comparison ever again," Priscilla interjected casually, dismissing the dragonkin's assumption with absolute contempt.
Emilia frowned at the term. 'Spirit Eater' carried a deeply ominous, unsettling ring to it.
"Regardless," Priscilla continued, glancing at Emilia out of the corner of her crimson eye. "This dragonkin is far too arrogant to listen to reason. Save your breath and focus your efforts on taking this General down alongside mineself."
"Are you ignoring this friggin' dragon?! How stupid!"
Madelyn's pupils narrowed into reptilian slits. With a ferocious roar that shook the plaza, she hurled the Flying Winged Blade once more. The massive weapon tore toward the trio with world-ending momentum.
Beatrice furrowed her brows. Extending a small, delicate hand, mana surged rapidly around her small frame.
"——El Vita."
Super-heavy gravity coalesced directly around the flying Winged Blade, instantly killing its insane kinetic energy. While destroying the monstrous weapon itself was nearly impossible, smashing it violently into the dirt mid-flight was child's play for a master of Yin magic.
"A level of skill befitting a Great Spirit, I shall admit,"
Priscilla noted with a tone of mild, rare approval as she watched the heavy sword crater the cobblestones beneath its sudden, massive weight.
"Naturally. Betty is well aware of her own mastery, in fact." Beatrice replied, proudly lifting her chin.
"Turning your back on a dragon is the worst mistake you can make!!"
Madelyn didn't wait for her weapon to recover. Using the distraction, she kicked off the ground, crossing the distance in a blur of speed with her bare claws extended, aiming straight to eviscerate the Great Spirit who had dared to ground her blade.
A flash of silver hair cut through the snow. Emilia stepped directly into the path of the strike, catching the massive weight of Madelyn's claws on the flat of a freshly conjured, thick ice sword.
The refined ice held, but the sheer physical force behind the blow was monstrous.
"Hhrk——!"
Emilia's boots skidded forcefully across the frosted cobblestones, carving deep grooves into the ground as she was violently shoved back several meters.
"Out of my way, girl!" Madelyn snarled.
With her main arm locked against Emilia's blade, the enraged dragonkin raised her off-hand, fully prepared to tear straight through the silver-haired girl's guard.
Before the claws could fall, a sharp clack echoed through the plaza.
"You lack elegance, mongrel."
Even without her divine flames, Priscilla's motions were lethal. Spinning gracefully into Madelyn's blind spot, the Princess drove the heel of her red-and-black shoe violently into the dragonkin's stomach.
While the damage was far from fatal, the sheer precision of the strike forced Madelyn to growl and disengage.
"Two against one? How cowardly!"
Madelyn spat, landing lightly on a pile of rubble. She glared fiercely at Priscilla, whose hands were currently empty of her weapon.
Priscilla scoffed. Looking at her empty palm with a flash of genuine irritation, she smoothed the fabric of her dress.
"Mineself remains the center of the world, sun or no sun. Yet you have come here with an army of dragons to whine about cowardice? How utterly laughable."
Emilia took a quick, stabilizing breath, her arms still trembling from the violent vibration of the block. She looked at Priscilla, then down at the ice sword in her own hands.
"Priscilla-san! Here!"
With a fluid, practiced motion, Emilia conjured a second blade of ice and tossed it directly toward the Princess.
Priscilla caught the freezing hilt without even looking. She gave the ice blade a few test swings, a smirk forming on her lips.
"A crude offering, but it will suffice for a secondary tool," Priscilla noted, testing its balance. "Do try to keep up, half-devil."
"I'm not a half-devil, I'm Emilia——I mean, Emily!"
Emilia corrected, puffing her cheeks slightly before dropping back into a serious fighting stance.
"Whatever you call yourselves, you're both dead!" Madelyn roared.
The dragonkin charged. Abandoning her fallen blade entirely, she relied on her raw, superhuman speed, becoming a terrifying blur of claws and scales.
"——Minya!"
Beatrice's voice boomed. Dozens of purple, crystalline stakes materialized in the air, screaming toward Madelyn. The dragonkin was forced to violently pivot in mid-air, her charge broken as she desperately wove through the Yin assault.
The stakes that missed her violently struck the ground, instantly crystallizing the stone and transforming the battlefield into a jagged, purple minefield.
"Now!" Priscilla commanded.
Emilia moved. Operating in perfect tandem, she and Priscilla launched a deadly pincer attack.
Priscilla's swordplay was a masterclass in lethality——her ice blade whistled as she lunged flawlessly for Madelyn's throat.
As Madelyn ducked to evade, she put herself directly in Emilia's path.
Emilia swung her ice blade in a wide, heavy arc. Madelyn desperately blocked it with her bare forearms, her tough scales shrieking against the magical ice. But the impact was all the distraction Priscilla needed.
The Princess responded with a lightning-fast stab. The ice blade caught Madelyn across the shoulder, drawing a faint line of crimson blood.
"Gah! Friggin' bugs!"
Madelyn hissed, stumbling backward in pain.
"You're wide open, in fact!"
Beatrice called out, her small hands glowing brilliantly.
"——Murak!"
The gravity surrounding Madelyn did not simply shift; it evaporated completely.
The dragonkin's very next step pushed her upward into the sky, her feet losing all grip on the earth. She flailed helplessly in the empty air, her golden eyes wide with a mixture of rage and utter confusion.
"What——whatwhatwhat is this friggin' trick?!"
"It is the end of your tantrum!" Priscilla stated coldly.
She leveled her ice sword at the floating girl. Beside her, Emilia's mana blazed to life, causing the very air surrounding her to crystallize as she prepared to deliver the final, finishing strike.
Madelyn did not withdraw. She did not beg for her life.
Instead, her expression became deathly, terrifyingly still. The furious, childish rage in her eyes vanished, replaced by something ancient, primal, and far deeper.
She opened her mouth, and spoke a single syllable. A name that carried the absolute weight of a catastrophe.
"Mezoreia!"
The very next moment, the earth-shattering roar of a Dragon from far above the clouds poured sheer destruction down upon the earth.
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Stepping from the pristine white tiles of the corridor onto the ash-stained balcony, the boy buried his hands deep into the pockets of his baggy trousers. Satoru Gojo tilted his bandaged head.
He could feel it——the lingering warmth of Yorna Mishigure's Soul Marriage technique, flickering faintly like a dying ember in the wind.
Yorna stood alone by the stone railing. The man calling himself Abel had already vanished elsewhere in the Castle, leaving behind only the scent of smoke and the suffocating weight of his true identity.
As Yorna turned to face the boy, her crimson eyes swam with an unfamiliar emotion——a deep, agonizing conflict.
To her compassionate heart, it was utterly incomprehensible. How could this child, this seemingly aloof boy, be the harbinger of a tragedy that threatened not just her beloved city, but the entirety of the Vollachian Empire?
"He talks way too much, doesn't he?"
Gojo remarked lazily, casually kicking a loose chunk of rubble over the balcony's edge.
"Guys who hide behind masks usually do."
"He spoke of things that are... exceedingly difficult to ignore, Satoru-san."
Yorna replied, her voice raspy, betraying her deep exhaustion.
Gojo's lips twitched, forming a small, utterly mirthless smirk.
"Right. That whole 'Great Disaster' speech. Whatever that's even supposed to mean."
——Before Yorna could offer a retort, a violent bang shattered the quiet. The heavy wooden doors leading from the courtyard had been thrown open.
Racing up the stone steps, despite the poor condition of her battered body from the recent assault on the city, was the young deer-demihuman, Tanza. Her normally unshakeable, stoic demeanor was entirely absent.
Her breath came in ragged, desperate gasps.
"Yorna-sama!" Tanza cried out.
She bowed hastily, her wide eyes darting between Yorna and the white-haired boy.
"An urgent report... It is... it concerns the Fortress City of Guaral."
Instantly, Yorna's posture straightened. The weariness plaguing her was momentarily banished, replaced by the sharp instincts of the ruler of Chaosflame.
"Report, Tanza. Has the rebellion reached the city?"
"No, Yorna-sama..." Tanza's voice trembled. "It is the forces of the Capital. The Ninth Divine General, Madelyn Eschart, has launched a full-scale assault upon Guaral. She brought a swarm of flying dragons with her. The city... it is burning."
At those words, the wind sweeping over the balcony seemed to die completely.
Yorna's eyes widened in sheer disbelief.
"A Divine General attacking a civilian fortress? That makes no sense whatsoever. The Emperor——"
"——So that's how we're playing this now, huh?"
The interjection was mild in volume, yet it carried an undeniable, absolute weight that instantly severed the exchange between Yorna and Tanza.
Gojo's voice was no longer lazy. It had become flat. Terrifyingly, unnaturally flat.
Both Yorna and Tanza froze, their gazes drawn to him. But Gojo was not looking at them. Behind the white bandages, his face was turned precisely toward the west——toward the unseen smoke of a burning metropolis far beyond the horizon.
The terms of the temporary, fragile armistice Gojo had struck with the Capital to act as their 'deterrent' had been explicitly clear.
In his mind's eye, he recalled the wrinkled, calculating visage of the Prime Minister, Berstetz Fondalfon.
That old man had looked him dead in the eye and given his absolute, unequivocal word.
The civil war will be contained. No civilian cities will be targeted by the Capital's forces or the Divine Generals. You have my word.
It was not out of compassion for the inhabitants of Guaral. Gojo did not know them. He did not care for them in the slightest.
No, the issue was singular: Berstetz had lied to him.
He had lied right past the omnipotent gaze of the Six Eyes. To think he had been so incredibly naive, placing even a shred of trust in a man like that. What an absolute snake.
Even after Gojo had waltzed straight through the Imperial Palace doors as if he owned the very air inside, the Prime Minister had looked at him and thought he could play his existence like a mere piece on a chessboard.
He truly believed he could pacify the 'child' with hollow promises, free to do whatever he pleased behind his back.
"Berstetz..."
Gojo murmured the name. It tasted like ash on his tongue.
Suddenly, the very air surrounding the boy began to hum. This was not the chaotic, explosive cursed energy he had unleashed in the restroom earlier.
Compared to that, this was something fundamentally worse.
It was a suffocating, crushing pressure. Tanza was instantly forced to her knees, the communication meteor slipping from her trembling grasp. Yorna furrowed her brow, desperately flaring her own technique just to prevent the physical space of the balcony from collapsing under the sheer weight of Gojo's raw emotion.
"Satoru-san...!"
Yorna cried out, her eyes wide with horror as she bore witness to it.
This was exactly it. This was the catastrophic psychological collapse Abel had warned her of just moments prior.
"He gave me his word..." Gojo said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly quiet pitch. "He told me he wouldn't touch the cities. He told me he'd play nice, as long as I played my part."
Slowly, Gojo tilted his head. The smirk returned to his lips——but this time, it was wrong. It was the hideous, predatory baring of teeth he had shown only to his own reflection.
"I guess the old man forgot who actually holds the leash."
Gojo pulled his hands free from his pockets.
If nothing in this world truly mattered, then overwhelming power was the sole, undeniable truth. And Berstetz Fondalfon had just grossly disrespected that absolute truth.
"Tanza," Gojo called out, not even sparing a glance down at the violently shivering girl. "Tell whatever scouts you have out there to stay far away from the Capital's forces."
"W-Why...?"
Tanza managed to squeeze the question past her constricted throat.
Turning his back to the railing, the azure hue of cursed energy began to spark around Gojo's boots, the power of Limitless warping the very space he occupied.
"Because the Emperor can keep his throne for another day..."
Gojo's voice dropped to a freezing whisper, one that bypassed Tanza's ears and sent a spike of primal terror straight into her core.
"——But Berstetz has to die."
"——Child, wait!"
Yorna's abrupt shout cut through the oppressive atmosphere, causing Gojo to pause his manipulation of space and glance back over his shoulder.
"I have no intention of trying to stop you... but," Yorna swallowed hard. "Is this... truly what you want to do?"
Beneath the bandages, Gojo's eyelids gave a minute twitch. Slowly, he averted his face.
The very concept of free will, of personal desire, was something entirely inexplicable to an existence that had been living solely as a slave to the ideals of a dead man.
"What I want to do... huh."
Gojo simply shook his head, offering nothing more than that cryptic, hollow response.
With a sharp, thunderous crack that shattered every remaining intact window in the surrounding area, Satoru Gojo vanished into thin air.
He left the Demon City of Chaosflame behind, traversing the sky to enforce the single, brutal authority he had left to his name.