The ruined streets of Zou echoed only with the viscous sounds of extrinsic creatures. Tentacles dragged along blood-stained stones, leaving black trails that burned the ground. The air stank of rotting flesh and distorted energy.
The blue portal pulsed at the city's center. Each beat spat out new abominations, rejects from a world that should not exist.
ZUUUUM
The vortex of Kamui opened above the massacre. The distortion tore through space, spilling light and shadow until Riser's body emerged from the void.
The ground shook at his arrival. The intense red of his eyes glowed in the gloom, and his presence compressed the air.
The creatures turned at once. Multiple eyes blinked in erratic directions. Jaws snapped open with grotesque cracks.
GLUUURP
SKRREEECH
The charge was immediate. Tentacles lashed through the air, jaws slammed against the ground with wet cracks, black liquid splattered onto stone, corroding it like acid rain.
Riser raised his arms slowly. The red flame beneath his skin came alive.
FWOOSH
Wings of fire burst from his back. Heat expanded through the dead city, and the creatures shrieked, reaching for him with twisted limbs.
'System... are there other places where portals like this have already opened?'
[Answer: Tracking possible. Cost: 2000 luck points.]
Riser's gaze narrowed at the response.
"I accept."
[Confirmed. Deduction: 2000 luck points. Current balance: 29,500.]
A glow surged through the void in his mind. Red and blue lines overlapped like living maps. The System projected the new points.
[First point: Mary Geoise.]
Riser kept his eyes on the portal ahead. The name carried weight. The Holy City, heart of the Celestial Dragons.
[Second point: isolated maritime region. Coordinates unknown in official routes. Extrinsic activity expanding.]
Silence lasted only a moment.
"Mary Geoise... if even there the world's fabric is tearing, the sea should be in chaos. Unless those worms calling themselves gods found a way to use it to their advantage."
His voice echoed low, heavy with calculation.
On the ground, one of the closest creatures rose on multiple limbs, a mass of bones and misshapen flesh. Tentacles lashed toward the Emperor.
SHLAP
SLUUURP
Grotesque appendages whipped upward, slashing through the air with violence. The sound was wet, sticky, dripping acid that burned the stone.
Riser did not need to move. The air around him remained untouched, as if space itself rejected their approach. Every tentacle stopped short, bending erratically, unable to touch his presence.
Other creatures surged forward, mouths opening in all directions. The sounds overlapped in grotesque echoes.
KRRRRAAAHHH
BLORP
The misshapen mass filled the square, but Riser's body floated still, held aloft by the slow beat of flaming wings. Heat radiated in steady waves, forming an invisible circle of denial.
Stones beneath melted in glowing lines. The bodies of Minks burned in silence, reduced to ashes carried by the heavy wind.
Tentacles lashed again, cutting through space in reckless strikes.
SHLAP
CRACK
SLUUURP
None reached him. The abominations had no logic, only instinct. And before him, instinct was nothing.
The blue portal pulsed again, spitting new forms. Its glow swelled, cracking the ground in luminous veins across the city.
The creatures charged in waves, tentacles slashing, mouths opening in unison like a choir of nightmares without a conductor. The city of the Minks drowned in chaos, but above it the sky was ruled by one figure alone.
Riser raised his hand slowly. The red flame beneath his skin glowed like a living ember, expanding in circles that lit Zou's night.
"Enough."
The word rang firm, louder than any monstrous roar.
FWOOM
Demonic energy gathered above his palm. His fiery wings beat once, scattering embers in whirlwinds. At the center, a sphere of fire was born, growing fast, fed by his very essence.
The heat surged brutally. The air trembled, distorted, as if reality itself recoiled before the gathered energy.
The creatures wailed in despair, tentacles lashing toward the blazing sphere.
SHLAP
BLORP
Nothing reached the height where he hovered.
The fireball grew on, swallowing the darkness. First the size of a house, then of a tower. Red, black, and gold blended in layers of compressed demonic energy.
Riser's skin shone with flaming runes, pulsing in rhythm with the sphere.
Heat melted the stones below, turning streets into rivers of makeshift lava. The smell of burning iron and charred flesh filled the air.
He aimed his arm downward.
"Your end begins now."
VOOOOOOM
The giant fireball fell in a slow descent, yet with absolute weight. Its impact was not only physical, but dimensional. The ground roared beneath its approach, as if Zou itself struggled to endure the sentence.
The creatures screamed louder, hurling themselves at the sphere like desperate moths to the flame.
KRRRRAAASH
BOOOOOM
The explosion was overwhelming. A blinding flash swallowed the city, fire spreading in circular walls that swept away houses, temples, and bodies. The air vibrated as if split in two.
Waves of heat scoured every corner, melting flesh and stone alike. The abominations cried in dissonant chorus before dissolving into ashes mingled with black ichor.
FSSSHHHHH
A rain of embers fell over the ruins. The blue portal wavered violently, sparks bursting in every direction.
Riser still hovered above, unmoving, his gaze fixed on the devastation. His outstretched wings held his presence like a verdict, fire reflecting in his red eyes.
The streets of Zou now burned in unrestrained flames. Massacre had been replaced with purification by fire.
The heat did not fade. The scattered fires answered his will, rising in living columns that moved like flaming serpents. The embers on the ground gathered, forming incandescent waves that swept through the ruined streets.
FWOOSH
Flames surged in all directions, guided by absolute control. His Observation Haki stretched their reach, pinpointing every abomination hidden among rubble and shadows.
Twisted limbs rose from debris in a desperate escape, but fire engulfed them instantly, burning flesh and bone into gray fragments.
SKRREEECH
SLUUUURP
KRRRHHH
The creatures' screams echoed across the dead city, drowned by the roar of the blaze. Flames consumed every alley, every corner, leaving no space for survival.
Misshapen bodies tried to climb the walls, but fire—black and red—covered them, reducing everything to dust before any height was reached.
CRACK
BOOOM
A larger group hurled from the portal in frenzy, falling en masse upon the city. Their colossal forms barely touched the ground before fiery columns rose like living towers, crushing and incinerating at once.
The stench of burnt flesh and evaporated ichor thickened in the heavy wind, cloaking Zou in choking smoke.
None survived. Every creature was reduced to ash and scattered wisps of corrupted energy fading into the air.
The city was now only ruins in flames. The bodies of the Minks were gone. Only silence remained, broken by the crackle of fire.
At the center, the blue portal still hung open. Unstable, spitting dimensional sparks, still linked to the unknown.
Riser descended a few meters, his gaze locked on the rift. The flame beneath his skin still vibrated, but the massacre was over.
"Now... how the fuck do I close this portal?"
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