When the crimson bullet shot through the humanoid demon beast, it changed into pure white salt crystals and fell apart.
The Unknown’s magic resistance and regenerative abilities were meaningless in the face of that radiance. The humanoid demon beasts MAR had sent into combat were being erased as if they had never existed to begin with.
“O…oh my?”
Ladli Ren raised a bewildered voice when she saw which girl had destroyed the humanoid demon beast—a high school girl with a flamboyant hairstyle and a stylishly mis-worn uniform.
Surrounding her were countless floating bullets of light shaped like perfect squares. The humanoid demon beasts into which these bullets were shot turned into salt, dissipating one after the next.
“Asagi Aiba’s Cleansing?! Why did its strength spike all of a sudden?!”
Thrown for a loop, Ladli ordered her Spartoi to attack Asagi. Yet two girls with swords in hand stood before the horde of Spartoi once again.
“Lustrous Scale!”
“Hauras!”
Sayaka Kirasaka’s silver-colored long sword rent the resilient Spartoi exoskeletons like tissue paper. Also, Shizuri Kasugaya’s crimson long sword was pulverizing the Spartoi with brute force.
“Th…this can’t be happening…!”
Ladli took out her teleportation device from a side pocket, but the sorcerous device failed to activate. Yuuma Tokoyogi’s Guardian—her faceless blue knight construct—had prevented its activation using even more powerful spatial control magic.
“What is the meaning of this? You’d used up your strength mere moments ago, yes?”
Ladli looked over Asagi and the others out of sheer confusion.
Yuuma and Shizuri should have been depleted of strength, yet their demonic energy was as if they were well rested. Asagi and Sayaka’s heavy wounds had been completely healed. They’d been on death’s door from humanoid demon beast attacks, yet something had happened to the girls in less than a minute.
The girls had obtained a source of inexhaustible demonic energy and nigh-immortal regenerative ability. That simply wasn’t possi—
“The tables have turned, Ladli Ren.”
Asagi spoke while toying with the smartphone in her hand. Ladli’s face twitched with anger.
“…Do you truly think so, Priestess of Cain? You may have become a little perkier, but the tides are still against you.”
Ladli spoke with a theatrical tone as she turned her steel-colored stick toward the sky. Taking this as its cue, a giant sphere appeared over the sea near Itogami Island.
It was an enormous floating fortress, like a castle from the Middle Ages forced into a round shape.
“A Deva Necropolis…! You still had one of those blasted things?!”
Shizuri shouted as she looked up at the sky. She couldn’t hide her surprise at seeing another one emerge after they’d worked so hard to destroy the other Necropolises.
“This is my Castle Laren. Don’t you think this one is much cooler looking than my brother’s Castle Kalenaren, the one you destroyed? It’s a sphere…but it’s edgy.”
Satisfied with Shizuri’s pronounced reaction, Ladli delivered those words with her typical composure. Judging from her negotiating with Itogami Island not as one of the Devas, but as an employee of MAR to the bitter end, she really hadn’t wanted to send her own Necropolis into combat.
In other words, that was just how far into a corner they had driven her. From this point on, Ladli would probably attack without regard for the cost.
Though Asagi understood that full well, she smiled tightly out of pity for her opponent.
“I’m not sure about edgy, but you’re the one with the tides against you, Ladli Ren.”
“Eh?”
What do you mean? said Ladli’s narrowed eyes. The next moment, the Necropolis above the sea was engulfed in explosive flames.
The Necropolis was being attacked by a squadron of fighter jets diving from directly above. The models were fifth-generation stealth jets from the NAU. However, the flags painted on their gray fuselages were those of Japan. It was a fighter squadron from the Japan Air Self-Defense Force.
“Fighters…why are Japan’s Self-Defense Forces…”
Ladli murmured, eyes wide open in a daze.
Certainly, properly speaking, Itogami Island’s defense was under the government of Japan’s jurisdiction. Self-Defense Force craft attacking the Necropolis and MAR’s invasion forces made sense.
Yet the government of Japan had decided to destroy Itogami Island a scant twenty-four hours earlier. She didn’t understand why the situation had flipped on its head just then.
“Looks like we made it in time.”
Surrounded by wind like a tornado, Motoki Yaze leaped off a building and landed beside Asagi. Seemingly following suit behind him and his weary-looking face, large armored cars appeared one after the other. They were APCs of the Special Attack Mage Regiment of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Forces.
“Pretty good job you did there. Thank you for your hard work, President Yaze.”
Asagi waved casually as she spoke in a teasing tone of voice.
Taking his headphones off his ears, Yaze squinted at her with distinct annoyance.
Yaze wasn’t just the director of the Gigafloat Management Corporation—he was also the president of Japan’s Yaze Consortium. Though internal divisions had weakened its power in recent times, the Yaze family’s pull with the Japanese government remained powerful.
Using those financial connections to the fullest, Yaze had made them rescind their order to destroy Itogami Island.
To the Japanese government, this proposal was a godsend. With the Beast Vassal Warheads already neutralized, the government of Japan had no reason to view Itogami Island as a threat anymore.
Also, Itogami Island was only three hundred and thirty kilometers from Tokyo as the crow flies. Military transports could cross that in a half hour. Supersonic fighters could cross that distance and land in less than fifteen minutes.
The Island Guard hadn’t fought a retreating battle for no reason. They’d been buying time for the Self-Defense Forces to arrive.
“To think you would negotiate with the government of Japan… You’ve certainly pulled out quite a card…”
Ladli’s face turned bitter as she gazed sidelong at the Self-Defense Force members beginning to engage the humanoid demon beasts in combat. Fighters were engaging the Necropolis over the sea. She had Spartoi left, but she was still running short on firepower.
“The government of Japan’s not the only one I negotiated with, though.“
Yaze casually shook his head. That instant, Ladli’s expression grew graver still. She’d noticed a fresh source of demonic energy emerging above her head.
“—Dance, Gula!”
A thousand pitch-black daggers poured down like a storm, stabbing and piercing the remaining Spartoi. Even the high regenerative ability that Spartoi possessed couldn’t stop the countless blades from pinning them to the ground. After that, they could be picked apart without any reservation.
Losing her backup in the blink of an eye, Ladli stood alone.
“Velesh Aradahl…!”
Ladli was shaken when she realized the identity of the dagger Beast Vassal’s master. Ladli used an invisible slice to fend off Beast Vassal attacks as she turned her steel-colored stick toward Aradahl.
“Sorry, but I’m sealing that nasty petrification device—”
A fist covered in silver-colored metal pulverized Ladli’s sorcerous device from the side. She’d dropped her bulwark to activate the device. It had left her open for a single instant.
“Zana Lashka…!”
With Ladli having lost her sorcerous device, a gorgeous, red-haired beauty pummeled her at point-blank range.
Zana slipped through Ladli’s invisible slicing attacks with overwhelming speed. Sliced hair and blood droplets danced in the air. Ladli displayed unexpectedly high-caliber combat techniques, but Zana still had the edge in hand-to-hand combat. Taking kicks from Zana reminiscent of dance moves, Ladli was finally blown into the air.
“…How did you revive yourself, Zana Lashka? My sorcerous device should have sealed you in a barrier of equal strength to a Beast Vassal Warhead.”
Glaring resentfully at Zana, Ladli wiped the blood trickling from her lips.
“If a barrier’s made with the same technology as Beast Vassal Warheads, can’t you remove it with identical technology in turn? For instance, yes…if one used the Beast Vassal Warhead maintenance equipment stored in Nod.”
Zana spoke with a tone of feigned innocence. Impossible, spoke Ladli’s shake of her head.
Surely Kojou Akatsuki and his allies hadn’t had the luxury of time to haul Zana and Aradahl into Nod. Ren and his MAR troops certainly had no reason to help the pair.
Yet the fact remained that the two had been revived. There was one other person besides Kojou and company who could have visited Nod and brought back the mechanism with which to save Zana and Aradahl—an ambusher Ladli had never expected.
“You couldn’t mean, the one who revived you was—”
“Oh, right, a message for you from my husband.”
Zana interrupted Ladli’s quivering voice and forced a change of subject.
“Message…?”
Ladli tensely went on guard. Zana was a Blood Servant of the First Primogenitor—in other words, her husband was none other than the Lost Warlord himself.
“He said, ‘Since the Fourth Primogenitor brat destroyed a whole Necropolis, he’ll show me up if I don’t put in some elbow grease, too.’”
Zana giggled with a teasing smile. High overhead was the Necropolis floating above the sea.
The SDF fighters furiously engaged in combat with it suddenly fled from the combat area for some reason. The Necropolis was floating by its lonesome when a hazy, black shadow floated up behind it.
This shadow took the form of a beast—that of a wolf so enormous, it could swallow even the Necropolis in one gulp.
This was the starving wolf that ate all dead, the wolf that would never be satisfied, the one that had consumed the sun and the moon to taint the heavens with blood. This was Beast Vassal Number One of Ki Juranbarada, the First Primogenitor—Parhelion.
“It can’t be…! Aaa…?! Wait, stop! I surrender! I surrender, I say! Let’s all be happy. At least let me surre…no, stopppp!!”
Ladli Ren raised both hands up, lamenting with a desperate look.
Crunch—
The next moment, an enormous sound of something being chomped echoed through the night sky.