Dashing forward in a sudden blur of motion, Gojoru closed the gap before Ezo could even register his presence. A heavy fist slammed directly into Ezo's skull, driving his head violently into the concrete floor with bone-shattering force.
"You think you know me...?" Ezo spat, blood instantly pooling beneath his cheek as his face pressed against the dirt.
Gojoru looked down at him, his expression completely frozen in a cold glare. "I think you're about to learn the taste of asphalt." A brutal boot crashed into Ezo's face, fracturing his nose and silencing him instantly.
Desperation clawed at Ezo's chest as a suffocating fear of death crept into his veins. Trembling violently, he tried to scramble backward to escape the crushing pressure, but Gojoru was already looming directly over his shadow.
Winding back his arm, Gojoru unleashed another ruthless strike.
[Lighter Flash]
The heavy punch caught Ezo dead center, rattling his ribs. "No one is coming to save you," Gojoru whispered, his voice completely devoid of empathy.
Seizing Ezo by his hair, Gojuro yanked him off the ground, suspending his battered body helplessly in mid-air. Light yellow energy surged violently down Gojoru's arms, gathering into his clenched fist with a low, menacing hum.
Ezo stared blankly at the glowing fist, his pupils dilating in pure, unadulterated shock.
Gojoru drove the charged punch forward.
[RUSH CALLS]
An invisible shockwave rippled outward, bending the air like shattered glass and leaving a tail of space-melting light in its wake. For a fraction of a second, the entire mall fell into a terrifying, dead silence.
Exactly 0.3 seconds later, the delayed acoustic boom detonated with apocalyptic energy. The entire floor erupted into a blinding flash of yellow light, obliterating the ground beneath them.
The immense kinetic impact launched Ezo's body like a cannonball. He smashed through a first concrete wall, tore straight through a second, pulverized a third, and shattered a fourth, completely blasting out of the building's infrastructure.
Flying out into the open street, Ezo crashed straight through the display window of a nearby bookstore. The heavy wooden shelves collapsed over his ruined frame, burying him under a shower of books as his lungs locked up, completely unable to draw a single breath.
Lying paralyzed on the shattered floor, Ezo stared blankly ahead, his eyes wide with unadulterated shock. Crimson tracks of blood began to seep from the corners of his eyelids, mixing with the thick fluid pouring from his ruptured mouth.
He strained violently to lift his torso, but his body completely refused to obey. The internal shockwaves of the previous strike had literally reduced his skeletal structure to ash from the inside out, leaving him as nothing more than a hollow shell of flesh.
Footsteps echoed softly through the smoke as Gojoru closed the distance, standing directly over the ruined hunter. Looking down with a flat, merciless expression, Gojoru delivered a cold demand. "Who sent you?"
Ezo parted his bloody lips to answer, but his vocal cords were utterly shredded; he had lost his voice entirely.
"I won't ask a second time," Gojoru warned, his gaze digging into Ezo like ice. "Who sent you?"
A choked, desperate gasp rattled in Ezo's throat. Without an ounce of hesitation, Gojoru reached down, seizing Ezo by the jaw and squeezing with a brutal, crushing grip that forced fresh streams of blood to burst straight from the hunter's ears.
Convulsing violently under the intense pressure, Ezo suddenly retched onto the cracked pavement. Along with the dark, ruined bile, a massive, writhing black worm spilled out from his throat, twisting frantically on the concrete.
Gojoru's eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the parasite. The grotesque creature began to slither away, instinctively dragging its dark body toward the crackling embers of the nearby fire to warm itself, completely under Gojoru's unblinking gaze.
"Eh... Gojo...ru..." Ezo wheezed, his blood-shot eyes bulging as the last remnants of life leaked out of him. "I'm not... a devil hunter..."
Gojoru paid him no mind, his unblinking gaze locked onto the black worm as it dragged its writhing flesh directly into the crackling embers. Instead of burning away, the parasite seemed to feast on the heat, its skin bubbling and expanding.
"What kind of creature is this?" Gojoru demanded, his tone dropping into a dangerous, chilling register.
"It's... it's the Flame Devil..." Ezo choked out before falling completely silent.
Who the hell is turning humans into vessels for high-ranking devils? Gojoru wondered, his knuckles whitening as a dark anticipation filled his chest.
Suddenly, the worm violently convulsed, tearing itself apart as a massive, nightmarish entity burst from the ash. Sprouting first were long, segmented legs that pierced deep into the asphalt, followed by a towering, colossal torso that blotted out the ruins.
Its head was a grotesque, misshapen skull splitting open into a cavernous, predatory jaw lined with jagged, irregular teeth. A sharp, angular metallic crown clamped down over its brow, masking its eyes entirely and leaving only the hollow, fleshless lower half of its face exposed.
Long, emaciated skeletal arms extended outward, terminating in wicked, raptor-like talons that sliced through the smoky air. A heavy, tattered cloak woven from dense black feathers and shredded rags draped over its massive frame, making it look like a monstrous, towering crow.
A collar bristling with sharp, thorn-like spikes ringed its neck, pulsing with raw, malevolent energy.
"What the hell...?" Gojoru muttered, his stance instinctively dropping low as his combat senses flared.
Opening its massive jaw, the beast drew a violent, vacuum-like breath, inhaling every single scrap of fire across the devastated mall into its maw. The scattered inferno condensed rapidly, morphing into a highly concentrated orange sphere.
Tilting its skull completely back, the monster raised its skeletal talons, suspending the small, blazing orb of orange soul-fire directly above its gaping mouth, poised to swallow it whole.
Locking its hollow gaze onto Gojoru, the massive devil tilted its misshapen skull. "What century is it?"
"The twenty-first," Gojoru replied flatly. "January 16, 2014."
Warping under the weight of their overlapping auras, the surrounding atmosphere grew suffocatingly hot yet chillingly frozen all at once.
The creature exhaled a faint cloud of embers. "Are we still in the era of Jidai?"
"Yes," Gojoru answered, his stance remaining completely unbroken.
Turning its massive head, the beast slowly scanned the ruined, smoking landscape. "A long time, Devil Admin. A long time. Nine thousand years, yet the chaos remains exactly the same. It is coming... Kaien is coming. This era, this year, it will not be like the past. I can feel it. I feel your energy... the Chosen One."
Kaien—the ancient entity fully anchoring its consciousness into the space—faced Gojoru once more. "Everyone is here. I can sense them. Tell me... does the Uoki clan still endure in this era?"
Gojoru met the monster's predatory glare with absolute composure. "Yes. They are still here."
'Look at me,' Kaien commanded, his voice echoing with a heavy, hollow resonance. 'I am not here for war. I carry a sacred mandate from the era of the War of Extinction to protect the child born into this age. You are not my enemy, nor my target.'
Without waiting for a response, the monstrous entity turned and vanished into the swirling ash, completely abandoning the battlefield. Gojoru was left standing entirely alone in the sudden, dead silence, his hand still gripping Ezo's broken
Gojoru grabbed Ezo's body by the shirt and dragged him outside. He pulled Riko's body along with him, hauling them both out of the completely destroyed mall.
Outside, pure chaos awaited. Police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks surrounded the area, flashing their lights amidst crowds of shocked and agitated civilians.
Advancing through the commotion, Gojoru ran into Maria, who came rushing desperately toward them.
"Are you guys okay? No, no... What happened to Riko? How did his body get burned like this? Who is this guy? What exactly is happening? Tell me, Gojoru!"
Gojoru looked at her and said coldly, "Take these two and look after them. I have something to do."
He left them with her and turned to leave, but Maria screamed after him, "Where are you going?! You just got us out of the fake world, and now you're abandoning us again?"
"I'm not abandoning you," Gojoru replied without looking back. "But there is something I must do. Tell your team to hack every piece of technology out there to wake up the Sorcerers. I'm heading to Osaka."
"Osoka? WHY?!" Maria shrieked. "What reason could you possibly have to leave right now? We are in the middle of absolute chaos!"
Gojoru completely ignored her and vanished into the night.
TIME: 11:21 AM | 25 KM OUTSIDE TOKYO
Alexandra and Sora were walking when Sora suddenly grabbed her companion, forcing her to a halt.
"Look, look! We finally made it, Alexandra!"
They both froze in their tracks, staring in awe at the sight before them.
A massive, glowing barrier shaped like a triangular pyramid towered over the landscape. Spanning 40 meters wide and piercing 120 meters into the sky, it shimmered with a chaotic vortex of colors—radiating deep blues, crimsons, yellows, whites, greens, and purples.
"Are you ready?" Sora asked, urgency cutting through her voice. "We need to move fast; we don't have much time. Let's start searching for its core right away!"