After clearing out the ghouls guarding the main entrance and the central underground space, before stopping his acceleration mode, Raize condensed two masses of sacred energy in his hands. Under his control, the two golden orbs compressed continuously, eventually forming two light blades with irregular serrated edges around their circumference.
The serrated light blades quickly became circular, finally forming two golden light wheels.
As his mentor, Sei had taught him angelic combat techniques from the Heaven. Possessing the power of God's sacred radiance, Raize was naturally able to use holy power in battle. He could even wield angelic light spears.
But whenever he thought about fighting with light, certain Ultramans or some flashy light-fruit user came to mind, so he naturally adapted and innovated.
The Eightfold Light Wheel, a light-attribute slashing technique, was something Raize was using against enemies for the first time.
He raised both hands and hurled the light wheels toward the six targets he was determined to kill.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
The two light wheels flashed and vanished in an instant, their speed clearly visible. In the blink of an eye, two streaks of light swept across the thighs and arms of the six ghouls.
At this point, the acceleration mode temporarily ended, and Raize's thoughts and senses returned to normal.
Everything resumed to normal operation, including the screams that followed.
"What?!"
"This—!"
"Ah!"
Screams echoed through the underground space.
Along with them came blood splattering everywhere, the symbol of life itself.
Some of the ghouls only managed to turn toward the sound of the explosion before the next instant went blank. When the explosion sounded, many ghouls were still conscious as Raize cut them down.
Their vitality far exceeded that of humans. Even severed ghoul heads could still feel pain, simply because their enemy was too fast.
Raize was kind enough to grant them the right to scream.
"Who are you!?"
The strongest presence there—the stray devil, the spider—fixed Raize with a vicious crimson glare. An extremely bad premonition rose instinctively in his heart.
Behind Raize lay severed limbs everywhere, corpses and heads scattered all over the ground.
The remaining living ghouls also noticed the sudden appearance of the swordsman. Without thinking, they revealed their kagune. Those ghouls with firearms aimed their sights directly at him.
Raize ignored the surrounding enemies. He coldly glanced at the six ghouls not far away who had collapsed helplessly on the ground, reduced by him to limbless stumps, and did not answer the stray devil's question.
The sword shone again in his hand. Lightning burst from his body as he transformed into an untraceable bolt of lightning, moving at extreme speed.
He charged straight into the ghouls. His ice-blue eyes, filled with twisted killing intent, swept across them, locking onto every fatal point. The moon-like blade in his hand became thousands of flashes of steel, erupting endlessly around him and slashing in all directions, landing on ghoul after ghoul.
Splurt, splurt, splurt!
The sound of blades piercing flesh rang out without pause.
"Ahhhhh!"
The ghouls' screams echoed endlessly.
Every ghoul Raize approached screamed in agony, all of them sliced cleanly in half like paper by slashes too fast for the naked eye to follow, blood spraying as they wailed.
Blood-soaked heads flew into the air. Ghoul bodies split from the neck downward, turning into piles of mutilated remains.
To the humans staring wide-eyed from inside the cages, it looked as if a meat grinder had charged straight into the ghoul crowd.
Before, only human blood and corpses filled this place. Now that Raize had arrived, countless ghoul corpses were added. The already gruesome underground space was transformed, in the eyes of those in the cages, into a true hell of blood.
Acceleration mode ended once more. The remaining ghouls, suffering from another gap in perception, could only see that the number of their companions' corpses had skyrocketed again.
"Ah…"
Because Raize was too fast, even their reactions and pain receptors couldn't keep up. The ghoul remnants, already effectively dead, let out agonized wails.
It was like countless broken corpses piled together were crying out in pain. Whether ghouls or humans in cages, everyone who saw it felt a chill down their spine.
Tap…
Raize, masked and unstained by even a drop of blood, walked forward step by step toward the stunned stray devil.
"S-Stop… Don't move!! Otherwise these humans, they…"
The ghoul guarding the massive iron cages holding the humans stiffened. Seeing Raize approach, his face twisted as he reached toward the humans inside, trying to take them hostage to force Raize to stop.
It was too terrifying. In just two blinks of an eye, heaps of ghoul corpses were already wailing behind Raize.
Who knew whether the next instant, he himself would join them?
This feeling—that life was no longer in one's own hands—filled every ghoul with terror.
Whoosh—
Crack, crack!!!
In the next instant, those ghouls outside the cages were not just terrified—their bodies were swallowed by bone-chilling cold.
An ice-blue aurora slammed into the ground in a flash. The aurora raced across the blood-stained floor, spreading rapidly toward the ghouls outside the cages.
As the ice-blue aurora advanced, frigid currents swept the ground. Towering ice pillars over four meters tall erupted from the earth, closely following behind the aurora.
The towering ice pillars formed a straight line, pressing tightly together into a massive ice wall.
What seemed like a spreading advance in Raize's eyes was, to everyone else, nothing more than a fleeting flash, far too fast to react to.
In an instant, the ice-blue aurora swept over the ghouls outside the cages. The freezing cold locked away their vitality, trapping them directly within the ice wall formed by the fused ice pillars.
"Yah!"
"Ah…"
The people locked inside the iron cages screamed in fear as they stared at the ghouls frozen outside.
Just a second ago, these terrifying ghouls had been about to use them as hostages. Now, their faces were still frozen in those same ferocious expressions, crimson eyes filled with fear toward Raize and malice toward the humans—yet they were sealed inside ice, all threat stopped.
The reason the people screamed was because of the ghouls' earlier threats.
In the next instant, they had turned into ice sculptures, frozen outside the cages.
In Raize's eyes, their movements were no different from standing still. The idea of threatening him with hostages was laughable.
"Bastard, don't get too arrogant!"
In just a few blinks, the spider devil was left alone, a lone commander. He roared in rage.
The unstoppable assault and killing intent filled the stray devil with terror and fury—terror from the oppressive presence Raize exuded, and fury from watching his subordinates slaughtered before his eyes while being completely ignored.
And his guess was correct. After sensing the stray devil's strength, Raize truly hadn't taken him seriously at all—only regarding him as the next corpse.
What he cared about more were the six limbless ghouls still wailing over there. After killing the stray devil, he was going to take those six guys away and properly "process" them.
"Watch me eat you!"
As the words fell, the gigantic spider devil suddenly moved.
Boom—boom—boom—boom—
The ground began to tremble.
That was the sound of the massive spider devil stomping across the floor.
The spider devil, carrying terrifying momentum, leapt straight upward, inverted itself against the ceiling of the underground space, and opened the enormous spider maw on its lower body, spraying out large quantities of pitch-black, purple-tinged demonic bullets. In the blink of an eye, they shot straight toward Raize.
At the same time, the spider devil spewed out large amounts of tough spider silk, sealing off Raize's escape routes. It had already realized that this opponent's speed was extremely terrifying, so it had to destroy that advantage.
"Die!"
With an enraged roar, the spider devil condensed two dark-purple magic circles in its hands, fully charged and ready. The moment Raize tried to dodge, he would be met with a storm of attacks.
The dark-purple demonic bullets, carrying the stench of rot and blood, fell like meteors. Sonic booms exploded in the void they passed through, crushing the air into fragments.
Facing the dark-purple devilic barrage filled with overwhelming force, the ice-blue eyes beneath Raize's mask showed no fluctuation at all. They were still filled only with savage, silent killing intent. He temporarily planted the sword into the ground.
"Use your disgusting, lowly life to witness… Eightfold Thunder Annihilation!"
As he spoke in a deep voice, Raize raised both hands and circulated his energy. Terrifying, dense thunderous energy spread around his body. Blue-white lightning condensed into a thunder armor, immense power surging into his chest. Raize drew in a massive breath, then—
[Eightfold Thunder Annihilation: Thunder Roar]
ROOOAAARRR——!!!!!!
A heaven-shaking thunderous roar erupted, containing thunderous energy and holy radiance. Like a furious thunder dragon exploding with rage, the sound waves controlled by Raize were released in a focused burst, instantly shattering the spider devil's devilic bullet attack. The thunderous sound then directly pierced into the stray devil's ears—and then into its brain.
"AAAAAAHHHH—!!!"
The stray devil, still inverted on the high ceiling, had the dark-purple magic circles in its hands instantly collapse. The spider devil clutched its ears tightly, its slightly blackened face twisting in agony as it screamed miserably.
Ahhh, is my brain shaking?
No! My brain is having an earthquake!!
This incomparably fierce thunderous roar was inescapable. Covering its ears was useless. It felt as though its brain had been thrown into a blender, or as if it were repeatedly slamming against the inside of its skull at extreme frequency.
The next second, the stray devil clutching its head and wailing in pain had blood burst out violently from its seven orifices like floodgates opening. It could no longer even cling to the ceiling and fell helplessly to the ground.
Boom!
The earth shook violently, dust flying everywhere.
"Aaah—!"
"Cover your ears!"
Raize had deliberately controlled the thunderous sound-wave attack so it wouldn't target the innocent people inside the cages, but even the residual waves were far more than ordinary humans could endure. Everyone inside the cages covered their ears, pain spreading across their pale faces.
These innocent people had still been caught in the aftermath. As powerless mortals, even though Raize had intentionally controlled the direction of his power output, they couldn't withstand even the slightest AOE splash damage.
After the stray devil crashed helplessly onto the ground, Raize stopped the earth-shaking thunder roar. If it continued, the underground space might collapse.
He coldly watched the stray devil bleeding from all seven orifices, the eyes of its spider lower body having been blasted apart, its face twisted like an evil ghost as it struggled to prop itself up with burning resentment.
"Human… I will cur—"
Clang!
Before it could continue its rambling, Raize swiftly brought his hands together in a sharp clap. His right hand shot upward, his left hand stretched sharply downward, and a golden vertical crescent-shaped blade of light erupted forth. In an instant, it sliced the spider devil in two and completely purified it with the supreme holy radiance contained within.
"…Holy… pow—"
The stray devil's body completely turned to dust and scattered, managing to leave behind only two shock-filled words before vanishing entirely—dead so thoroughly that not even scraps remained.
A single vertical execution slash finished off the stray devil. Raize cast a cold glance at the place where it had disappeared and said disdainfully, "Too slow with the talking. Killing you thousands of times wouldn't even be enough."
If the opponent had been ruthless and silent, launching a final counterattack before death, Raize wouldn't have reacted like this. But already at death's door and still babbling nonsense—did it really think Raize wouldn't react in time? What did it think it was?
Ridiculous.
Raize flashed forward and arrived directly in front of the six surviving ghouls. Beneath the mask, eyes brimming with savage killing intent stared coldly at these wailing figures.
Listening to their screams, Raize would never forget those voices for the rest of his life. He hadn't picked the wrong ghouls.
"L-lord, I—AAAH!!"
The ghoul closest to Raize writhed like a maggot, its limbless body squirming on the ground as it tried to move. Before its pitiful plea could even finish, a sharp pain erupted from its groin—the most devastating pain tied to the essence of male life itself.
Compared to the pain of childbirth, it was no less severe.
Raize lifted his foot and stomped down brutally on the groin. The moment his foot landed, his sharp ears caught a faint squelching sound.
The instant he heard that sound—one that triggered the most untouchable hatred buried deep in his memories—Raize's emotions spiraled completely out of control.
"…."
Listening to the fluctuating screams of agony, Raize felt no sense of revenge-driven pleasure, only deep-seated disgust and discomfort. The more the ghoul screamed, the more uncontrollable his emotions became. His leg lashed out in a storm of afterimages, faint lightning stimulating the ghoul's nerves.
The agony was so intense it made the ghoul regret ever being born male, forcing it to experience pain with the highest possible sensory clarity.
"AAAH!! Kill me! Kill me! Kill me already!!"
The ghoul, writhing like a worm, no longer even had the strength to move. Its hoarse throat screamed desperately, its eyeballs nearly popping out of their sockets.
Ghouls possessed powerful regenerative abilities. These ghouls, reduced to human sticks, wouldn't die from blood loss—their severed limbs had already stopped bleeding on their own.
Raize continued kicking until the ghoul could no longer make a sound. Its groin was reduced to a charred, bloody mess, tiny arcs of electricity occasionally flickering across the wounds.
After stopping his violence, Raize turned his gaze toward the other five ghouls lying on the ground, too terrified to make a sound. His vicious, brutal stare made all five lose control of their bladders instantly.
"I'll take my time 'processing' you maggots."
A chilling, savage laugh emerged from beneath the mask. Raize released his energy outward, wrapping it around the six human-stick ghouls and lifting them into the air. They floated suspended behind him.