Inside the barrier, an utterly surreal scene was unfolding.
The surrounding space looked as though it had been cleaved cleanly into two separate worlds.
Between them lay an invisible boundary—an unseen line that divided the two realms perfectly, keeping each on its own side.Though their styles were completely different, the two worlds coexisted within the same space without the slightest sense of discord.
On Abe no Seimei's side, the night sky glittered with countless stars. Heian-kyō below was ablaze with lights, prosperity and splendor stretching as far as the eye could see, as if the world itself were at the height of its golden age.
On Ren Kuroda's side, however, the ground was littered with dead trees and bleached bones. Black dominated everything—an all-consuming darkness steeped in malice. Evil, gloom, and terror were the only colors that existed there, forming a stark, almost absurd contrast to Seimei's radiant world.
Standing like this, side by side, most onlookers would instinctively assume that Ren Kuroda was the villain—and that Abe no Seimei was the righteous one.
"I have to admit," Abe no Seimei said calmly, his gaze fixed on Ren, "I didn't expect that as a half-demon, you would not only possess onmyoji techniques, but have achieved such depth with them.To think you could even manifest a power so similar to a Grand Barrier…"
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"However, I can also sense that your barrier is incomplete for some reason. Escaping the effects of gravity is likely already its limit."
A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"But the stars are far more complex than that. The forces between celestial bodies influence far more than just gravity.I wonder—will you still be able to block my next attack as calmly as before?"
As expected of the man hailed as the strongest onmyoji in history—despite Ren Kuroda's Innate Domain being a power foreign to this world, Abe no Seimei was still able to discern that its strength was not whole.
Of course, it wasn't impossible that Ren was deliberately holding back.
But Abe no Seimei didn't care.
Once he unleashed his true specialty, no enemy remained an enemy for long.
With the amplification of the Demon King's Mallet in his hand, Abe no Seimei's demonic power surged once more, climbing another step higher. He tilted his head back, gazing into the star-filled sky as though searching for something.
Moments passed.
Then, as if he had finally found his target, Abe no Seimei suddenly broke into a radiant smile.
He reached forward and clenched his hand in the empty air.
The next instant—
The ground shook violently.
Every being within the barrier stared in stunned disbelief at what unfolded before them.
"This is insane…! This isn't something that can be done with sheer power!""How are we supposed to stop that?! Whether you're human or yokai, in front of something like this, you're nothing more than an ant!"
Their shock was understandable.
What they were witnessing now wasn't merely unbelievable—it completely shattered common sense.
At Abe no Seimei's gesture, a star had been dragged down from the heavens.
Manipulating the heavens by human will alone was already outrageous—but this man was now pulling down a celestial body itself.
He wasn't a god—
—but this was something only a god should have been able to do.
In the face of such a disaster, what difference was there between humans and yokai?Both were equally insignificant.
And against a calamity of this scale… could anyone truly survive?
"So-called Astral Manipulation," Abe no Seimei said calmly, "is nothing more than understanding the patterns of the heavens.Once you grasp their trajectories and make use of them, feats like this are not impossible."
The star—initially no larger than a millstone—grew rapidly as it fell.
Soon, everywhere the crowd could see above them was filled with that endlessly expanding mass.
When it descended to within a hundred meters of the ground, its size had already expanded hundreds of times over. Its radius alone spanned tens of kilometers.
If such a celestial body struck the ground—
Forget Nijō Castle.
All of Kyoto would be wiped from existence in an instant.
Though it was "only" a small planetoid, the destructive force generated by its gravitational acceleration was beyond imagination—a true natural disaster capable of erasing all life within its range in the blink of an eye.
Some yokai, witnessing this apocalyptic scene, turned and fled in terror, desperate to escape this cursed place.
But more of them understood the truth.
Even if they weren't trapped inside the barrier—where could they possibly run?
Unless someone could escape beyond Kyoto's borders instantly, death was inevitable. Run anywhere else, and the result would be the same.
Faced with such annihilation, a handful of yokai and humans scattered in panic, while most collapsed to the ground, their legs giving out beneath them.
Even the elites—executives from the Nurarihyon Group and Kidōin—felt a profound sense of powerlessness as they stared at the descending star.
They had always believed themselves strong, proud of their standing among yokai.
Now they realized that, in front of this overwhelming force, they were no different from ordinary fodder.
And it wasn't just them.
The yokai who had defected to Abe no Seimei's side earlier were completely breaking down.
They screamed and begged for Seimei to stop, crying that if the star fell, they would die as well—along with everyone else.
But Abe no Seimei showed no intention of halting the spell.
After witnessing Ren Kuroda's ever-escalating power—especially that profoundly evil aura—Seimei had already decided that Ren would eventually steal his role as the ultimate boss.
And that was unacceptable.
To eliminate that threat, Abe no Seimei had resolved to kill Ren Kuroda here and now.
As the caster, he was confident that he could protect himself even when the star fell.
As for everyone else?
That wasn't his concern.
Losing a few newly recruited subordinates was regrettable—but if it meant erasing Ren Kuroda, it was well worth the price.
They were nothing more than chess pieces.
This world held no shortage of yokai. Once he left Kyoto, with his power and reputation, Abe no Seimei could easily assemble a new Hundred Demons force.
"After gravity… now it's attraction, huh?" Ren Kuroda muttered, looking up at the falling star. "Using a planet as a weapon—this really reminds me of a certain chunni idiot.Or is it that anyone who wants to rule the world ends up pulling this kind of stunt?"
Before the star even hit the ground, a violent storm swept through the battlefield, tearing up everything in its path.
Ren Kuroda calmly reached out and brushed his fingers along the blade of Shin'yu.
Can we cut a star? —Ren Kuroda
Idiot. Of course we can. —Shin'yuI am Shin'yu. As long as you still have something you wish to protect, there is nothing I cannot cut.
Ren laughed loudly.
"Hah! The glory of cleaving a star—something not even so-called divine weapons could accomplish.Then let's fight side by side once more and split the heavens apart!"
His eyes blazed.
"Wrath of flesh-touching divine thunder,Momentum of the Thunder Star—Move Like Lightning · Thunder Star!"
From everyone else's perspective, Ren Kuroda looked like he was muttering to himself—then suddenly he grinned wildly.
In the next instant, violent lightning erupted from his body.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!
Thunder roared endlessly as the lightning grew more violent than ever before. In the pitch-black world, the sky took on the appearance of doomsday itself, streaked with forked bolts of violet lightning.
When the lightning struck downward, it didn't hit the ground.
Instead, every bolt was drawn toward a single point—
toward the blade in the hands of a lone少年.
All the lightning converged.
As the earth collapsed in wide swaths, scorched black by thunder, Ren Kuroda vanished.
Then—
He reappeared.
His figure flashed into existence directly in front of the descending star, and he swung his blade in a strike so brilliant and violent it stole the breath from all who witnessed it.
The moment the blade left its sheath, a storm of lightning flooded the sky like a thunder domain, condensing into the form of a roaring purple thunder beast.
The beast burst forward, its hooves hammering the air with deafening thunder. Its eyes looked down upon all life with absolute disdain.
With a long, defiant roar, it charged fearlessly into the falling star.
BOOOOOOM—!
A blinding white light swallowed the world.
An earth-shattering explosion followed, accompanied by devastating shockwaves that ripped through the battlefield.
Wrapped in crackling lightning, the purple thunder beast slammed head-on into the descending star.
The star shattered on impact—
—but its immense mass meant that even in pieces, the falling fragments carried catastrophic force.
Each blazing fragment slammed into the ground like a meteor, carving crater after crater into the earth.
With so many fragments scattered across such a vast area, it was impossible for all of them to land harmlessly in empty ground.
Almost immediately, the yokai and Hoshina family members who had been watching from afar were hit by this second wave of disaster.
Some didn't even understand what had happened—only to have their bodies pierced straight through by incoming meteor fragments, dying instantly.
"Deploy defensive talismans and shikigami!" someone shouted urgently. "The fragments are moving too fast—don't even think about dodging!"
The Hoshina family scrambled to organize a defensive line as casualties mounted.
Yet despite the chaos—
most eyes remained fixed on the sky.
Because everyone wanted to know the answer to a single question:
Had the falling star truly been stopped?
And in this world—
did someone who could cut down the stars themselves really exist?