[Walter Park – Central Ruins |]
The air was thick with smoke, debris still crumbling from nearby buildings. Iruma stood frozen, his eyes wide as he looked over the ruined plaza, once vibrant and full of laughter. Now, only destruction remained.
He remembered the soft glow of lanterns, the music of the carousel, the laughter of children—all snuffed out in an instant.
"All because …" Iruma muttered, gripping his shirt. "…OF SIX FINGER."
Balam stood beside him, silent, until the murmurs of nearby demons drew their attention.
"Summoned monsters…" a voice whispered.
"A high-level summoning… That's illegal, right?"
A child's cry pierced the chaos:
"Help! My friends are stuck!"
Iruma turned. The kid pointed at a collapsed structure, smoke billowing from its side.
But the demons nearby stepped back, eyes averted.
"I'm not risking my life."
"There's no reward for this."
"Someone else will help."
Iruma's fists clenched.
"Why won't anyone—?"
Balam sighed deeply.
"This is the Demon World, Iruma. Acts of kindness are rare unless something is gained in return."
He approached a Walter Park staffer:
"Assist the boy."
"My orders are to evacuate only," the staffer said flatly. "That's not my problem."
Then, Alice approached Iruma and silently held out his phone. On it was a photo—Iruma smiling, laughing on a ride just an hour ago. The contrast was stark.
Iruma stared, his heart thundering in his chest.
"…I wasn't just having fun. I was mad. At them. At myself. At everything."
He looked at the rubble.
"No more."
[ Park Outskirts | Beast Migration]
Suddenly, the ground shook violently. Beast #2, which had been ravaging the JAlice, Gaap, and Camui area, turned sharply and vanished into the dust.
"Wait—where's it going?!" JAlice gasped.
From afar, Sabro watched the horizon darken.
"It's headed for the central zone."
Alice's eyes widened.
"Towards Iruma…"
[ Walter Park – Iruma's Area |]
Within moments, Beast #2 charged into the already ruined zone where Beast #1 — the Carmine Dragon — loomed. Their mana cores pulsed, resonating like twin drums of war.
The two monsters began circling, their bodies emanating sparks of unstable energy.
"They're trying to… fuse!?" Balam exclaimed.
"A combined core…" Alice's eyes narrowed. "That's a catastrophe."
Sabro grinned, cracking his knuckles.
"We'll handle it."
Balam nodded.
"You three can do it… but if they fuse, I'll intervene."
The beasts' cores connected, drawing toward each other with a deafening hum. Magic ruptured the sky.
Suddenly—FLASH!
A streak of purple lightning burst through the smoke.
Iruma, cloak billowing, eyes glowing fiercely, appeared mid-air.
In his hand — this sealed blade, Kusanagi , crackling with purple lightning energy.
He didn't hesitate. His form blurred past the cores, slicing between them with a single arc of his blade, a radiant crescent of lightning-infused magic.
CRACK—BOOM!
The merged core—split clean in half.
The beasts roared in agony, toppling in opposite directions.
For a second, all was still.
Then, the broken cores fell to the ground, still glowing—but not destroyed. The monsters twitched, their bodies reaching toward the fragments, starting to regenerate.
[ Park Edge | Balam's Realization]
Balam's breath caught.
"They're… consuming the cores. Regenerating."
Alice stepped beside him.
"If they merge again, we won't stop them."
Sabro smirked.
"Good. Then we'll just have to break them harder."
Balam, watching Iruma standing alone in the clearing, whispered:
"Iruma…Your technique is really Cool?"
---
[ Walter Park – Central Zone | Beast Incineration]
The ground trembled as both beasts reared their monstrous heads.
Then—BOOOOM!!
They each let loose countless beams of searing fire, streaks of crimson death ripping through the air, vaporizing everything in their path.
Demons screamed, families trying to flee—children clung to their parents, helpless.
But then—
Sabnock Sabro, standing firm amidst the chaos, reached toward his chest—where a golden cube-shaped locket hung.
He bit into it.
A pulse of mana surged, his bloodline trait awakening with full force. His eyes flashed crimson, teeth bared in exhilaration.
"SPECIAL ABILITY —DIVINE GATE!!"
A black-and-gold magic portal exploded open above him.
From it, an arsenal of weapons shot forth—not for offense, but defense.
Swords, lances, massive shields, war fans—all curved and spun through the air, forming an enormous magical dome of steel and flame-resistant weapons, shielding fleeing demons.
The beams collided with the weapon-wall—explosions rippling outward, but no civilians were harmed.
"HAAHAHA!! This is what I was born for!" Sabro roared, weapon after weapon responding to his will. "To become king"
Nearby, Alice narrowed his eyes.
"Well done, Sabro."
Iruma, hovering mid-air on a summoned flame platform, nodded.
"Now it's our turn."
He inhaled deeply. The temperature dropped a moment—then suddenly spiked.
Iruma's hands moved into the classic hand signs he had learned during his secret training. The aura around him blazed crimson.
"Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!!"
A tsunami of flame erupted from Iruma's mouth, spiraling outward like a living inferno, engulfing both beasts completely. The plaza lit up in an ocean of orange and red.
The beasts roared, thrashing inside the sea of fire.
Alice stepped forward, his own magic circle forming beneath his feet.
"Amplify—Flame Lance: Blooming Crimson Garden!"
From his hands, he unleashed spears of condensed fire, which pierced the air and ignited the perimeter of Iruma's inferno, causing the entire blaze to intensify tenfold.
The temperature soared—even stone began to melt.
The two monsters flailed, their limbs now sloughing off in charred chunks, their roars gurgling into desperate shrieks.
Their regeneration failed. The heat was too intense.
Their core tendrils withered, unable to reconnect or merge.
Alice, panting slightly, glanced at Iruma and gave a small smile.
"Well done, Master Iruma."
Iruma, eyes calm and focused, whispered:
"It's not over yet. Let's finish this."
Below, civilians began cheering, protected by Sabro's wall. Balam watched from the shadows, arms crossed, his expression unreadable.
"They're From Babyls School."
---
[ Walter Park – Central Arena | The Gluttonous Dragon Awakens]
The crowd of rescued demons began to whisper, then shout in awe.
"Wait… that's Iruma!"
"The one from the papers—Rank 5!"
"And those two are Rank 4 demons… the Royal-Class Misfits!"
Cheers rang out. Phones clicked. The name Iruma Suzuki surged through the nethernet.
But glory evaporated in an instant.
A heavy rumble pulsed beneath the earth.
Then—CRACK!!
The ground shattered, a massive pulse of purple-black energy erupting outward like a shockwave. A twisted magical pressure swallowed the air.
At the battlefield's core… two beast cores, scorched and beaten, now twisted together, reacting to an unholy force.
"What?! But we destroyed them!" Alice barked, eyes narrowing.
Iruma's Rinnegan spun coldly, tracking energy signatures invisible to others. His voice dropped to a razor whisper.
"No. We missed something… Someone did this."
A flicker of motion.
---
Balam vanished, reappearing near the ruined platform—where a cloaked figure finished pouring black liquid into the core crater.
A demonic ritual circle lit beneath him.
"Stop!" Balam lunged—but too late.
The figure vanished in smoke.
The fused cores ignited.
A roar—deep, ancient, monstrous—split the sky.
The ground split open, and from it emerged a titanic dragon—its wings stitched from bone, its body writhing with mouths, horns, and molten-red eyes.
The Gluttonous Dragon was born from a Ritual.
Its ability: Consume and Return.
Anything it devours… it fires back—twice as strong.
The beast swallowed the earlier fire jutsu, then blasted it back—a superheated firestorm hurtling toward the trio.
"DODGE." Iruma's voice was like a blade. Cold. Absolute.
They scattered—barely avoiding the blast as it left a crater of bubbling glass where they stood.
"Tch. Long-range attacks won't work." Alice clenched his jaw.
"Then we close in."
Iruma's black cloak fluttered as he stepped forward.
He unsheathed Kusanagi—now surging with violet lightning. The air warped around him.
"Time to end this."
He activated Amenotejikara, vanishing in a blur and reappearing midair—above the dragon's skull.
Sabro grinned. "Heh… Now we're talking."
Alice's fists blazed brighter. "Master's on the move."
--
[ Close-Quarters Combat – Gluttonous Dragon]
The beast roared again—mouths extending unnaturally across its back.
It fired a beam of devoured stone magic.
Alice redirected it mid-air, a burst of heat snapping the beam upward.
Sabro's portals opened wide, and dozens of weapons flew to form a shield around escaping civilians.
But all eyes were on Iruma.
High above, he flipped the blade of Kusanagi backward, free-falling toward the dragon's throat.
In a flash—he vanished again.
"Amenotejikara."
He swapped places with a rock at the dragon's blind spot—and slashed.
"Chidori Blade:Lighting Sever."
A thin arc of purple lightning lanced out, slicing through the beast's neck. Not enough to kill—but enough to stagger.
The dragon twisted, a hand-mouth erupting from its shoulder to catch him.
Iruma raised two fingers. "Infernal Style: Piercing Flame Shot."
From the tip of his finger, a compressed bolt of black-blue flame exploded point-blank, blasting the hand back in pieces.
Alice charged, fists blazing, and struck the dragon's gut.
"Flame Gauntlet: Spiral Break!"
The hit forced the beast to rear up.
Sabro opened a mid-air portal and hurled a massive war axe, which embedded into the dragon's left eye.
But Iruma wasn't done.
He reappeared again, above the beast's back, both eyes spinning—the Rinnegan in one, and Sharingan in the other.
"Time to cut your power source."
He stabbed Kusanagi into the dragon's spine, then layered binding sigils around the blade with his off-hand.
"Tsukiyo Kekkai."
A field of moonlight formed around the beast's upper body, nullifying its magic for a moment.
The crowd gasped as the dragon screeched, clearly weakened.
Alice looked up. "That's his sealing technique… he's pushing it already?"
Iruma landed on the beast's back, standing in the glow of the barrier.
The flames around him flickered with purple lightning.
He raised Kusanagi for one final strike—
"Infernal Art: Demon Moon Severance."
The blade came down—splitting the barrier, the scales, and the dragon's upper shoulder in one blow.
The crowd watched, stunned.