“No matter. It’s idiotic, really. Calling down that much spiritual mass twice in such a short span? You’re flirting with death. Hell, forget death. Your mind could shatter from the strain. And you know that, don’t you? You’re a priestess, after all.”
Koharu let out a bitter laugh, nodding faintly. “Yeah. I know.”
The boy folded his arms, tilting his head. “So tell me then, what’s the point? You’ve already tried your strongest move. And I’m still standing here, untouched.”
But she only smiled with a dangerous, confident calm.
“If you’re going to mock me,” she said, slowly raising her hand, “then do it after you’ve dealt with this.”
Above them, the sky shimmered.
It wasn’t a flash of lightning; it was a storm of spears. Thousands of radiant lances hung suspended in the air, spanning a radius of nearly five hundred meters. They gleamed with divine energy, each one thrumming with the latent wrath of Take-Mikazuchi.
The boy’s grin returned, wide and sharp, like a cat playing with its food.
“Well now,” he chuckled, narrowing his eyes. “That does look fun. But just so you know… I am the apex of demonkind. Toughness and durability are kind of my thing. Can’t wait to see your face when none of them even scratch me.”
And then they fell.
The first wave, ten spears, came down like bolts from Olympus. He didn’t move. The next ten followed, delayed just enough. Smoke and debris flared up around him.
When the dust cleared, he stood completely unharmed. Not a hair out of place.
With a sneering smile, he looked up at her and shrugged. “That’s all you’ve got? Because so far, your precious divine lances haven’t even left a scratch.”
Koharu didn’t flinch. She met his gaze with a proud, unyielding smirk.
“Don’t start bragging just yet,” she shot back. “There are still nearly a thousand left to go.”
Koharu raised her palm once more. Another ten spears of divine lightning hurled themselves down from the heavens, aimed directly at the smirking boy.
“Oh? What’s this, still just ten at a time?” he taunted, letting the energy crash around him without flinching. “Don’t tell me that’s all you can manage. Honestly, this is starting to drag.”
“Then shut your smug mouth and wait till the end, you cocky little bastard!” Koharu barked, her glare molten. “Keep smirking like that while you can. I’m gonna wipe that grin right off your face.”
The boy’s smile only widened, gleaming with anticipation.
“Hah! I’m actually looking forward to that. I want to see what kind of face you make when every last one of your precious thousand spears shatters against me.”
“Oh, you’ll see a face all right,” she growled, raising her hand again. “Just make sure yours is still in one piece when it happens.”
She cast again. Ten spears descended, then ten more—each wave staggered by mere seconds, a relentless tide of divine wrath crashing down one after another. Explosions of thunder and dust rippled through the battlefield, the air thick with ozone and fury.
And yet, the boy remained untouched.
The minutes crawled by in a haze of light and sound. The storm of spears had stripped the sky bare, leaving only smoke and scorched earth in its wake. At the five-minute mark, only ten remained.
Still, the boy stood amid the wreckage, not a single thread of his clothes out of place. He dusted off his shoulder with exaggerated nonchalance.
“Well,” he drawled, as if bored. “I’ve let this farce go on long enough. All this effort, and not even a scratch? What did you think would happen, honestly?”
Koharu didn’t answer, her face unreadable as the final volley soared. Ten spears of thunder crashed down in a desperate cascade of divine retribution that cracked the sky and billowed smoke, but when it cleared, he was still there, laughing.
“Is that it?” he asked, spreading his arms in mock invitation. “Are we done here?”
His grin widened to a wolfish sneer.
“You sure talked big. Two divine descents, all that bluster, and for what? Five minutes of nonstop attacks, and you didn’t so much as bruise me. Not even a scuff. You’re all noise. All of this was completely pointless!”
He laughed, a shrill and grating peal of cruelty that echoed like mockery through the air.
But then, Koharu laughed too, not out of humor but out of something far darker that he hadn’t noticed yet.
“Well, well, thanks for playing along like the good little idiot you are,” Koharu sneered. “You actually stood there and took every last hit, just like I hoped. What a complete dumbass.”
As her words dropped like a hammer, the electric charge vanished, and her hair fell limp around her shoulders, no longer bristling with static.
The boy narrowed his eyes. “You ended the descent?”
“I did,” she said brightly, her tone chipper. “You were right earlier. About the toll it takes on the body. I didn’t see any reason to waste more of my strength once my job was done.”
He stared at her, finally rattled. “What job?”
Koharu raised her hand in front of her chest and flashed a grin.
“Oh, that’s right! You asked what someone like me could possibly do, didn’t you?” Then, with a dramatic flourish, she spun her thumb in a loop before pointing it sharply downward at the earth. “I stalled for time. That’s it. That was my job. And you? You stood there and tanked my weakest spell over and over for the sake of my plan. So thanks for that.”
Thud.
A sharp, meaty impact cracked through the air as the boy’s head snapped forward, a blur of motion catching him square in the back of the skull.
Koharu didn’t even flinch.
The boy—the Demon God—rocketed face-first into the ground with a deafening crash, dirt and debris exploding outward as a crater bloomed beneath him.
Planted head-down with his legs sticking stiffly into the air like some tragicomic monument was the Demon God himself, rammed into the ground like a broken nail.
“Well done, Koharu,” a calm voice said behind her. “I didn’t think you’d hold out this long. Honestly, I expected you to fold once Cordelia and Lilith went down.”
Koharu let out a shaky laugh, pride and exhaustion in her voice. “You told me, remember? You said you believed in me. That I could handle it. So I did.”
The newcomer grinned with a sunny, unshakable warmth. “That does sound like something I’d say. But you’re at your limit now, right? I’ll take it from here.”
And then, at last, the Demon God rose, dragging himself from the crater with a ragged cough, blood dripping from one nostril. His expression twisted, somewhere between outrage and disbelief.
“A sucker punch? Me? Bleeding? Who the hell are you?”
The boy who stood before him didn’t flinch. He cocked his head, scratched at his chin, and after a moment, shrugged.
“Who, me?” he said, eyes twinkling.
“I’m just your average, run-of-the-mill Villager, who happens to be the strongest man in the world.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Koharu collapsed where she stood, her legs giving out beneath her like a marionette with its strings cut. She sat dazed on the torn earth, eyes fixed on the back of the boy now standing between her and the Demon God.
“But seriously, are you really going to be okay?” she asked quietly, suspicion threading her voice.
She knew full well that Ryuto Maclaine was anything but ordinary. That was precisely why she had been willing to play her part in the desperate gamble—to burn her body, draw on divine power a second time, and hold out just long enough for him to arrive.
But now that he was here, her faith began to waver.
Because standing opposite Ryuto wasn’t just some strong monster. It was the monster. An entity whose mere presence warped the air with spiritual pressure, whose name could justifiably be uttered in the same breath as the word Demon Lord.
He was an apex threat, an existence marked for classification as a Catastrophe-Class, a being so overwhelmingly powerful that nations would be advised to flee rather than fight.
And Ryuto? He was a student. A misfit who spent his days lounging at the bottom of the academy rankings, playing the fool. Sure, there were rumors, whispers that he was stronger than Cordelia Allston herself, but still…
Koharu clenched her fists, doubt rising like bile. This time, maybe the enemy’s just too far beyond us.
Still, her eyes stayed locked on Ryuto’s back as he rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles with a sharp pop-pop-pop.