"Do you see it?!" Gedoin's voice boomed over the speakers, practically vibrating with hysterical glee. "This complex is just one of many facilities dedicated to developing the ultimate Elixir of Immortality! And I must thank you, Sovereign! Ever since Saburota Todo consumed the Karura infused with your divine fire, our research advanced by decades! I've used countless human trash from this town for my experiments, and the failures became these glorious, ever-expanding masterpieces! And—"
I completely tuned him out.
The Inflazombie let out a deafening roar, its bloated, liquefied mass violently absorbing a steel support beam. It was growing exponentially by the second. I could feel the density of the corrupted magic inside it.
I'm gonna have to output a lot more power to completely incinerate that thing before it absorbs the whole damn place, I thought, clicking my tongue.
"Aye, listen up," I called back to the group, keeping my eyes on the towering mass of flesh. "Porky up there's just trying to stall us so they can finish that ritual thing on Eyebrows. Y'all go on ahead and find her, while I deal with this."
"Are you crazy?! Look at the size of that thing!" Yukio yelled.
"You're wasting time, go!" I barked, my tone leaving zero room for argument.
Shura grabbed Yukio by the collar, dragging him toward the connecting corridors, the rest of the Exwires following close behind.
I turned my attention back to the Inflazombie. Across its bloated, distended surface, several screaming human faces and skulls were visible, acting as anchors for the mass.
Weak points, I deduced internally.
I reached back and unsheathed the Kurikara.
Instead of gripping it like a sword, I held it horizontally in front of me. I pushed my divine energy into the blade. An ethereal, massive bow made entirely of pearl-white and sapphire-blue flames manifested around the steel. I reached back, pulling an invisible string, and a searing arrow of absolute heat formed between my fingers.
ZCHING!
I let the arrow fly. It struck the largest visible head on the creature's mass.
I immediately drew back and fired again. And again. I peppered the monstrosity's weak points with arrows of pure, concentrated sunfire. The moment the arrows embedded themselves, they detonated. The pearl-white flames began to violently spread, engulfing its entire body and instantly incinerating any debris it tried to absorb.
Thermal Deconstruction.
The heat rapidly intensified, breaking down the zombie at a molecular level. But the sheer output required to outpace its regeneration took its toll. I felt intense heat wash over me in waves as the skin on my arms and neck began to char and crack, my physical body adapting to contain the constant increase in godly output.
I slightly lowered the intensity of my flames, letting my hyper-regeneration instantly knit my burnt skin back together as the Inflazombie finally collapsed in on itself. With a final, blinding flash, the massive creature dissolved into thousands of glowing souls that drifted peacefully toward the ceiling.
Be at peace, I took a breath, sheathing the Kurikara. Now for the others.
I pushed my senses out, locking onto the Exwires' energy signatures deep within the facility. As I advanced, I felt a massive buildup of demonic energy, followed instantly by a deafening explosion that shook the walls.
BOOM!
I instantly flared my flames, engaging my Sky Step to cross the distance in a fraction of a second.
I burst into a massive, ruined ritual chamber. It was absolute chaos.
The Exwires had been separated. Illuminati soldiers were swarming the room. Near the altar, a horrifying bio-weapon—a Zombie Cannon, essentially a chimera with heavy artillery fused into its rotting flesh—was smoking from a fresh discharge.
Shura was on her knees, clutching a severe, bleeding wound on her abdomen from the blast. Bon was leaning against a pillar, blood streaming down his face from mild head trauma. The others were panting, completely slowed by exhaustion. And in the center of it all, Izumo was screaming, her body violently convulsing as she fought off the demonic possession of the Nine-Tailed Fox.
"Enough," I commanded, holding up a hand.
A shockwave of pearl-white and blue fire exploded outward from my body. In mere moments, the Zombie Cannon and every Illuminati soldier in the room were reduced to drifting ash.
The sudden silence in the room was deafening. I walked past the exhausted Exwires, my eyes locked on the altar.
Izumo had also collapsed. The possession she was going through had been broken while I took care of the pests. Now here she was, sobbing uncontrollably, clutching the frail, bandaged up body of a woman with fox ears and long, white hair.
That's her mother Tamamo, right?
The Exwires slowly gathered around them in a solemn, heartbreaking circle as Tamamo gasped for her final breaths, her body giving out from the years of torture and the extraction of the Nine-Tails.
I stepped forward. I didn't say a word. I just knelt beside Izumo, gently placing a hand on her mother's chest. I ignited a tiny, incredibly warm ember of pearl-white fire. It spread over Tamamo, a gentle purification that eased her pain, allowing her body and soul to peacefully fade into beautiful, glowing light.
Izumo wept, clutching the fading motes of light.
"So What?!"
Everyone's heads snapped up. Standing on a ruined balcony overlooking the altar was Gedoin, his face twisted in a mask of absolute hatred.
"Every day hundreds of thousands of people are born and die like trash!" he spouted. "Don't cry a river just because one died, scum!"
He's losin' it. Damn shame,I thought internally, shaking my head.
"I'm different! I'm special! I'm not scum like you!" he shrieked, his delusions of grandeur peaking.
Then, he slammed a bizarre, mechanical apparatus over his face.
"What're you doing?!" Bon questioned.
"I'm going to use the mask of the chosen to force a demon to possess me," he replied, hitting buttons on a handheld device.
"That's insane! Why would you subject yourself to that?!" Konekomaru questioned.
"Because I'm the chosen one!" Gedoin replied. "Did you think I hadn't already experimented on myself?! Of course I did and I survived. And now I can set it so anything at all might possess me! I'm sure it'll be a beautiful demon that's perfect for me!"
The helmet started up and his body violently mutated. His lower half tore open, bursting into multiple, massive tentacles tipped with grotesque, finger-like projections. His jaw unhinged, transforming into a massive, jagged maw. His skin turned a sickly, papery white covered in red geometric patterns, and his eyes shrank into bright red, contracted dots. He let out a monstrous roar, summoning a fresh horde of rotting zombies around him.
"It looks like a Necrophager—a mid-level demon that feeds on human obsessions—has possessed him," Yukio observed.
Whatever the hell he is now, it's honestly an upgrade, I thought, staring at the repulsive, tentacled monstrosity. He was way uglier before.
I raised my hand, preparing to turn him into an afterthought.
"Wait," Izumo rasped.
She stood up, her eyes burning with a hatred that rivaled my flames. "Let me defeat him."
I lowered my hand, offering her a nod. "You heard her. Keep that freak off her."
"On it," Bon grunted, wiping blood from his eyes and raising his prayer beads.
Yukio laid down heavy suppressing fire. Bon and Konekomaru stood back-to-back, chanting overlapping defensive arias to project kinetic shields that deflected the sweeping strikes. Shiemi commanded her familiar to sprout massive, thick roots from the stone floor, tangling the incoming appendages so Takara could blast them apart with weird, explosive toy blocks. Even Shura, coughing and clutching her bleeding abdomen, managed to stay kneeling, slicing through any straggling tentacles with vicious, glowing arcs of her demon sword.
And me? I just casually burned any tentacle that got within ten feet of us to a crisp.
In the center, Izumo stood tall. She pressed her hands together, her voice cutting clearly through the chaos as she performed a complex, ancient chant. Beside her, the two small fox familiars exploded with spiritual energy.
FWOOSH!
Mike and Uke finally manifested their true, humanoid forms. They stood tall and regal, draped in flowing traditional garments.
"At your command, Priestess!" Mike declared, drawing a massive, gleaming spirit sword. Uke stepped back, manifesting an ethereal bow radiating with holy light.
With a scream of pure vengeance, Izumo directed them.
Uke fired a blinding arrow of light that pierced straight through Gedoin's chest, pinning the massive demon to the far wall. He shrieked, his tentacles flailing wildly. A second later, Mike closed the distance. With a single, devastating swing, he unleashed a sword strike that cleaved Gedoin's highly durable demonic form right down the middle.
The mad scientist let out a pathetic, gurgling scream, his mutated body began to shrink and crashed to the floor in a heap of blood and severed tentacles. The Necrophager possessing him was instantly exorcised.
Suddenly, a blur of motion darted out of the shadows.
Renzo's familiar scooped up Gedoin's twitching, half-dead body.
"I gotta hand it to you guys," Renzo said, throwing the group his usual, lazy smile. "But, we're enemies so I shouldn't stand around being impressed. Ha ha ha. Better not stick around. Catch ya later!"
He leaped up towards a massive hole in the ceiling, attempting to escape into the collapsing facility above.
My expression went completely dead.
Nah, you ain't getting away.
I raised my hand, pointing a single finger towards his direction. A condensed, intensely compressed arrow of sapphire-blue fire formed at my fingertip.
Renzo glanced back. His fake smile instantly shattered. He broke out in a cold sweat, his eyes widening in pure, primal terror as he recognized the condensed energy pointed directly at him. He knew, with absolute certainty, that he couldn't deflect or outrun it.
"Wait! Okumura, stop!" Bon screamed, his voice cracking in sheer panic.
"Please! Don't kill him!" Konekomaru begged, dropping to his knees.
I held the arrow there for a fraction of a second. I kept my eyes locked on Renzo, my face completely unreadable. Then, with a subtle shift of my wrist, I shrunk the arrow down to the size of a needle and fired.
Fwip.
The arrow bypassed Shima entirely and embedded itself directly into Gedoin's unconscious body—my actual target. It didn't eviscerate him. Gedoin woke up screaming in fresh agony as a discreet, burn-like mark seared into his flesh. It was a specialized curse—one that would cause him immense pain, and one that I could track anywhere on the planet.
Shima didn't hesitate. He scrambled through the hole and vanished from sight.
Bon and Konekomaru collapsed against the floor, exhaling massive, shuddering breaths of relief. They looked at me, their eyes wide with the realization that I had actually listened to them.
Letting that freak go doesn't exactly sit well with me, I thought, lowering my hand. But Lucifer's presence vanished from the area not too long ago. And I bet Pinky and Porky are probably going to regroup with them. So it's better to let him live now as a tracking beacon so I can find their main base later.
"Secure the perimeter!" a booming voice echoed down the corridor.
Dozens of high-level Exorcists flooded into the ruined chamber. It was the backup from the Kyoto, Mie, and Matsue field offices that Mephisto promised would arrive on his phone call with Shura.
Too little, too late, I thought. They missed all the fun.
Yaozo Shima and his sons, Juzo and Kinzo, along with Mamushi, rushed into the room, their weapons drawn.
Kinzo stopped dead in his tracks, staring at my glowing eyes and the divine halo floating above my head. The other Exorcists halted, their weapons lowering in sheer awe at the sight of my ascended form.
"Shura!" Yaozo called out, running over to the wounded inspector. "We have the surface secured! We found a massive number of captives being held in the upper wards, all suffering from Illuminati afflictions and forced drug injections. We've also rounded up dozens of straggler zombies, but we don't have the medical personnel to—"
I didn't say a word. I simply stepped past them, walking toward the center of the room.
As I walked, Mike and Uke—proud, ancient familiars—immediately dropped to their knees, pressing their foreheads to the floor in absolute reverence as I passed. They weren't the only ones. All around the cavern, the summoned familiars of the Kyoto Exorcists—wolf spirits, birds, and minor deities—forcibly manifested and pressed their bellies to the stone, trembling in absolute submission. Whispers of shock rippled through the Exorcists.
I floated high up into the air, rising toward the hole in the ceiling until I was suspended above the entire complex of Dream Town Inari.
I closed my eyes and pushed my divinity to its absolute limit.
The halo above my head violently expanded. The blue segment of Destruction and the pearl-white segment of Purification flared brightly. Then, a third segment ignited—a deep, brilliant, majestic amethyst. The color of miracles and life.
I raised both hands above my head. A gigantic, swirling sphere of pearl-white and amethyst fire began to form, expanding until it dwarfed the apartment complex itself. The sheer heat and power of it caused the skin on my arms, face, and chest to instantly burn to a crisp, only for my hyper-regeneration to violently heal it a second later. I burned and healed, over and over, enduring the agony to fuel the miracle.
Below me, the Exorcists and the Exwires stared up at the massive, miniature sun in absolute, rooted terror.
I brought my hands down.
The massive sphere didn't explode. It cascaded. A tidal wave of amethyst and white light washed over the entire town of Inari. It swept through the underground labs, instantly purifying the remaining zombies into ash. It washed over the terrified, sickly human captives, burning away the demonic afflictions and euphoria drugs in their systems, leaving them completely cured and healthy.
Then, the wave hit the Exwires and the Exorcists.
Shura gasped in shock as the bleeding, severe wound on her abdomen seamlessly knitted itself closed, leaving unblemished skin behind. The dried blood on Bon's forehead vanished as his head trauma faded away. Every bruise, scrape, and ounce of physical fatigue plaguing the Exorcists was instantly washed away by the divine restoration.
The entire town was bathed in the light of a God.
The flames slowly faded into the night sky. The three-colored halo above my head flickered and vanished.
My highly adaptive biology had already finished rapidly knitting my charred skin back together, leaving me completely whole without even the slightest bruise. But the sheer, unprecedented toll of outputting that much conceptual power hit me like a freight train. My internal energy reserves were completely tapped out.
I slowly descended back down through the hole in the ceiling, landing softly on my feet in the center of the ruined chamber. I looked around at the stunned, silent faces of the fully healed Exwires and the other Exorcists.
My vision began to blur.
Without a word, my eyes rolled back, and I dropped into unconsciousness, hitting the cold stone floor.