The city was not sleeping. It was groaning. Shattered glass and broken towers reflected the pale light of the moon, and every street carried the stench of ash and smoke. Kaien Draven walked those streets with Oblivion Fang at his side, the blade humming faintly as if it too hungered for battle. His body still ached from the previous fight, the phantom burn of claws across his chest refusing to fade, but there was no time to rest. The night was alive, and he could feel them. The demons. Three presences, each radiating malice stronger than anything he had faced before. He was being hunted. Not by strays or fragments but by creatures that knew his name. Demon Slayer. They were hunting the hunter.
Kaien stopped in the center of a ruined plaza. The silence pressed against his ears. The wind stirred, carrying a low whisper, almost a giggle, and then they appeared. The first emerged from the shadows of a broken tower, a hulking beast armored in jagged bone plates that jutted from its body like a fortress forged from corpses. Its eyes burned red, and its maw dripped with black ichor. The second was different, lean and insect-like, crawling along the walls on six twisted limbs. Its arms ended in hooked claws, clicking against stone as it moved with grotesque speed, the body twitching with unnatural hunger. The third was the smallest, and yet the most terrifying. A child's frame draped in a tattered dress, its face hidden behind a porcelain mask cracked with black veins. The mask tilted to one side, and a whisper escaped from behind it, the voice soft and broken. "Slaaayer… Slayerrr…"
Kaien's grip tightened on his sword. His breath left him in a slow, measured hiss. These weren't the same as before. These weren't accidents leaking into the human world. They had come for him deliberately. And as they circled, their movements patient and deliberate, Kaien realized the truth: the demons were no longer testing the city. They were testing him.
The hulking beast was the first to move. Its footsteps thundered, cracking stone beneath its weight as it barreled toward Kaien with its claws raised like hammers. The air shook as it brought them down, and Kaien's blade barely caught the strike. Sparks flew, the weight of the monster's power forcing him to his knees for a moment before he twisted free, slashing across the creature's chest. The blow carved a scar across its armor, but the beast only roared, its laughter guttural and mocking. Before Kaien could recover, the spider-thing leapt, its six arms slashing down in a frenzy of claws. Kaien rolled, twisting into an upward slash that severed two of its limbs in a spray of black smoke. The demon shrieked, writhing in pain, only to regenerate instantly as two more arms burst from its body, wriggling like serpents.
Kaien gritted his teeth. "So you get stronger… just like that."
The porcelain child did not move. It only hummed, a soft, sickly tune. And with every note, the shadows deepened. They curled around Kaien's ankles, creeping higher, slowing his movements as if the night itself sought to chain him. His lungs grew heavy. His arms felt sluggish. The voice from the mask whispered again, chilling him to the bone. "Do you hear it? The Abyss sings to you too, Slayer. It sings through me…"
For the first time that night, Kaien felt something worse than exhaustion. He felt fear. The hulking beast charged again, the spider circling, waiting for the kill, and the child only stood there, humming its dreadful lullaby. Kaien's heart thundered. His blade shook. Against one, maybe he could win. Against three evolving nightmares? He would be torn apart.
The whisper came back to him then, not from the demons but from the sword. Deep, guttural, alive. You cannot win like this. Draw deeper. Call the Abyss. Let it guide your hand.
Kaien's jaw clenched. He didn't trust it, not the voice, not the shadows. But his options were gone. If he didn't accept it now, he would die here, and the city would burn without him. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, drawing the shadows inward. The power responded instantly, like a storm he had been holding back with a fragile dam. Darkness exploded around him, tendrils of mist swirling from his skin, and purple lightning crackled across his blade. His eyes opened again, blazing with violet fire. The demons hissed in unison, their bodies recoiling. For the first time since their arrival, they feared him.
Kaien lifted his sword. "Now you're mine."
The armored beast bellowed, charging once more, its claws raised high. This time Kaien didn't dodge. He moved to meet it. His blade carved through the air, striking with shadow flames that split its plated chest in half. The roar turned into a scream as the beast's armor shattered, fragments exploding outward before its body crumbled into smoke. Kaien spun just as the spider lunged, claws descending in a blur. He was faster now, the shadows pulling him forward like wings. His sword cut once, and all six arms fell, severed in a single arc. The creature writhed, shrieking, trying to regenerate, but Kaien's blade burned with shadowfire. He slashed again, splitting its torso, and the demon disintegrated into ash.
Only the child remained.
It tilted its head. The humming stopped. The silence was worse. Then the shadows surged, all of them at once, rising from the ground, from the broken walls, from the sky itself. They wrapped around Kaien's limbs, his chest, his throat. He dropped to one knee, choking, his power flickering as the tendrils dragged him down. The voice behind the mask whispered, sweet and poisonous. "Do you feel it, Slayer? You are not its master. The Abyss is your master. You are no different from us."
Kaien roared. His body burned, every muscle screaming, but he forced the shadows back with his own. Lightning exploded outward, purple bolts tearing the plaza apart. The tendrils shattered, the bindings ripped away. With a scream that echoed like thunder, Kaien dashed forward in a blur. His blade struck the mask dead center.
The porcelain cracked. Splintered. Shattered.
Behind it was no face. Only a void. A writhing mass of tendrils, countless mouths shrieking in unison. Kaien's sword burned through it, shadowfire consuming the writhing flesh, until the child-shape collapsed in on itself and dissolved into nothing.
Silence fell. The mist receded. Kaien dropped to one knee, his breathing ragged. His sword trembled in his grip. His reflection in a broken shard of glass stared back at him — and for the first time, it wasn't just his face. His eyes glowed faintly violet, and the shadows still clung to his skin like they didn't want to leave. His chest rose and fell with ragged breath, and a whisper escaped his lips. "…What am I becoming?"
The plaza remained silent, but far away, hidden in a chamber of stone and smoke, cloaked figures watched through the surface of a black crystal. Their voices echoed softly. "He grows too quickly. If he continues like this, he will not remain human." Another figure leaned forward, their tone almost amused. "And that is why he may be exactly what we need. Against the King of Demons… we cannot rely on men. We need a monster who hunts monsters."
The leader's smile flickered beneath his hood. "Let him struggle. Let him bleed. Every battle only brings him closer to the destiny carved into his soul. The Abyss has already chosen him. And when the final war begins, Kaien Draven will not be a boy, or a man… he will be our weapon."