"So this girl is Hellscythe, the center of the world? Fame doesn't do her justice."
Raize's gaze shifted upward. In the sky were several female fallen angels wearing extremely revealing outfits, like bondage lingerie. The decadent, filthy aura they emitted made Raize, whose sense of smell was sharp, feel nauseated.
There were six beautiful female fallen angels in the sky, all staring greedily at Eu behind Raize.
"Hehe, stealing her power would let us reach the top of the world. Such massive magic being wasted on a woman like her!" Several more shady figures appeared. With scythe-like, black, grotesque wings, a scar-faced, black-haired middle-aged demon at the lead stared fanatically at Eu.
These beings all emitted auras that displeased Raize. Among them were several whose presence far surpassed the stray devil he had previously killed.
"Why are fallen angels here!?"
A voice came from a distant rooftop. The black-robed figures gathered together, crimson eyes beneath their hoods warily watching the fallen angels.
They had been pursuing Hellscythe for a mission, never expecting to encounter fallen angels here. Judging by their auras, these opponents were no weaklings.
"Oh~ vampire ninjas? Know your place and get lost. This has nothing to do with you."
The squint-eyed fallen angel on the ground spoke calmly yet extremely rudely, making the vampire ninjas' faces turn ugly.
The male fallen angel then politely bowed toward Eu, completely ignoring Raize. With exaggerated respect, he said to her:
"The Khaos Brigade invites Lady Hellscythe to visit. Please do us the honor of coming with us."
The words sounded respectful, but the attitude was anything but. They clearly didn't care whether Eu agreed. They were simply being polite before resorting to force.
Raize and Eu both knew what the Khaos Brigade was—a gathering of dangerous individuals from various factions, terrorists who sought to bring chaos and destruction to the world.
Mages, yokai, vampires, Maou descendants, descendants of heroes, evil dragons—scum and extraordinary beings mixed together.
On the surface, the Infinite Dragon God Ophis was their leader, but in truth, she was just a power source.
Ever since the past, countless malicious and ambitious forces had targeted Eu, the center of the world, hoping to seize her power to fulfill their ambitions.
Because Eu currently couldn't control her massive magic, her true strength was less than one-tenth of its potential. Though she could still endure the pain to use Words of Death, she couldn't sustain it.
Moreover, despite her terrifying power, Eu was, in some ways, easy to bully.
In Raize's memories of the original story, the serial killer Kyoko once fought Eu. Eu killed her with a single word, but Kyoko destroyed her own eardrums to nullify the death word, then overloaded her body with magic and self-destructed, injuring Eu.
Even someone like Kyoko, whom Raize could crush with some effort, had managed to hurt Eu. Let alone others.
Someone so powerful yet so vulnerable—who wouldn't covet that power?
Even killing Eu would still allow others to use her power through her corpse. Greedy, power-hungry beings would find it hard not to harbor ill intentions upon learning of her existence.
Raize surveyed the hostile crowd, confirmed there were no more enemies, then turned to Eu, who was now holding a grotesque scythe taller than herself.
Looking into Eu's beautiful, radiant blue eyes, Raize saw a hint of loss and apology—directed at him. She felt guilty for dragging a kind person who treated her to food into her troubles.
Raize clearly caught that emotion, and it filled him with irritation—toward the eyesores surrounding them.
He knew Eu's personality well. Toward kind beings who hadn't conflicted with him, Raize would also treat them with courtesy.
Eu was a necromancer, close to death itself, but she wasn't indifferent to life. She hated death. Using Words of Death made her experience the sensation of dying herself, which was extremely unpleasant. She didn't want others to feel it either and hated even hearing the word "death."
"Haruna, get down first."
Raize set the frightened Haruna beside Eu, gently patted her head to reassure her, then lightly pressed down Eu's scythe. Pointing at the surrounding enemies, he spoke calmly and gently.
"These guys… they're all your enemies?"
Whoosh—
This time, Eu didn't use her notebook. Instead, she communicated directly with magic. Words formed from magical light appeared between her and Raize.
(The ones chasing me. I'm sorry for dragging you into this. I'm sorry.)
(You and her should leave. Their target is me. You shouldn't get involved.)
Eu's icy blue eyes stared at Raize without emotion as she tried to sever their connection.
"If Lady Hellscythe is willing to leave with us, letting these two humans go wouldn't be a problem~"
Raize hadn't even had time to say anything when the young man behind him—wearing a nauseatingly fake smile with his eyes narrowed—spoke up first.
His calm, lofty tone made it clear he didn't put Haruna or Raize in his eyes at all. Originally, he hadn't cared about these two at all, but judging from the situation, Hellscythe seemed to care quite a bit about these humans. They could be used as hostages to threaten her.
As for whether they would let them go or wipe them out after using them—that would depend entirely on his mood.
"I didn't really want to get involved in your affairs before," Raize said softly. A trace of savage lightning flashed through his icy blue eyes. He raised both hands toward the air, and in an instant, cold air and lightning surged forth, forming two long blades.
Entering an accelerated state, the shadow beneath Raize's feet began to violently distort and ripple. Three black silhouettes identical to Raize appeared.
[Water Phantom!]
Raize and the three Water Phantoms, all entering super-acceleration together, charged toward the figures surrounding them.
The real Raize leapt into the air, appearing before the female fallen angels above. His cold gaze reflected their beautiful yet greedy faces as the lightning blade in his hand swept across their necks.
One Water Phantom on the ground rushed toward the squint-eyed young man, directly stabbing out his narrowed eyes, then punching straight through his heart.
Another Water Phantom ran toward the vampire ninjas cloaked in black. With a single punch, it pierced through one's chest and heart. Seeing the beautiful female face beneath the hood, the phantom raised its twin lightning-ice blades and mercilessly slit her throat.
Water Phantoms possessed the power of position-swapping. The phantoms inherited certain skill activations, and Raize himself could teleport to any phantom's location at any time.
This was equivalent to giving Raize—already capable of rapid movement—an additional spatial displacement ability. In terms of speed and evasion, it was like having Flying Thunder God-level support!
Buzz!
Raize spread his palm toward the demons clustered together. A water-blue circular magic array bearing a 卍-shaped sigil appeared before him. After infusing it with holy energy, it turned gold. In his accelerated state, he could clearly see the greed-filled faces of his enemies—utterly disgusting.
He already had no fondness for demons. Just looking at them annoyed him.
[Sacred Radiance: Water Demon Burst!]
A golden pillar of light imbued with merciful purification erupted forth, instantly engulfing the clustered demons. In a blink, their repulsive greedy expressions were reduced to ashes.
Before Eu's emotionless gaze and Haruna's shocked eyes, Raize's figure blurred and vanished. The tense, hostile atmosphere disappeared just like that.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
One fallen angel corpse after another fell from the sky. The vampire ninjas standing on the rooftop became headless bodies. Blood sprayed from their severed necks like fountains as the corpses tumbled off the roof.
Raize knew these vampire ninjas had some regenerative ability, but he didn't believe they could regenerate from decapitation.
Under Haruna's stunned stare, six glamorous corpses—black wings severed, heads gone—hit the ground heavily, blood splashing everywhere.
Earlier, the golden beam of light hadn't caused much collateral damage, yet it had directly erased the enemies who had made her tremble in fear.
"Ah… what!? I…!"
The only surviving male fallen angel let out a miserable howl. His eyes had been gouged into bloody holes, and his chest had been punched through, leaving a cavity you could see straight through.
With a twisted, disbelieving expression, he lowered his head to "look" at himself, even trying to reach for his shattered heart. As a transcendent being, a fallen angel differed from humans—he could still speak a few words after such injuries.
But with such fatal wounds, he only had time to mutter a few shocked, confused phrases. Raize stood there, holding a pile of heads in both hands, his gaze cold as he looked down at the fallen angel who lay weakly on the ground, still murmuring "impossible."
Honestly, Raize hated squint-eyed people the most. Their eyes weren't blind, yet they still squinted and pretended to be refined and gentle—it made him sick. Since you don't want your eyes, I'll help you destroy them!
Crack! Crack!
Raize crushed the pile of heads in his hands, freezing them with spreading cold until they shattered into icy debris.
In Eu's slightly widened eyes, she "saw" a strange force intercepting the laws of the world, forcibly drawing away the souls of the beings Raize had killed. Their wailing souls were mercilessly swallowed into Raize's body.
The souls of the fallen angels and vampire ninjas he had slain were all plundered by him!
[Mm~ Didn't expect a bonus meal tonight. These souls are pretty good quality—way better than those trash ghouls!]
The satisfied voice of the system spirit echoed within him. Raize replied inwardly, "Once I get stronger, I'll bring you more. Anyway, the members of the Khaos Brigade are just terrorists."
Raize himself wasn't bloodthirsty, but when it came to terrorist organizations like the Khaos Brigade that wanted to plunge the world into chaos, he didn't mind "acting on heaven's behalf" and earning some extra profit.
The system had said that high-quality souls were far better than faith or wish power. As someone integrated with the system, Raize naturally wanted more such souls—and the Khaos Brigade made a pretty good target.
"Wow~ I didn't expect you to be this strong. How did you deal with those annoying guys so fast?"
With the hostile magical presence gone, Haruna wasn't so scared anymore. She looked at Raize curiously as he disposed of the bodies.
Freezing the corpses into ice powder and dispersing them, Raize raised an eyebrow and looked at her. "Weren't you pretty scared just now?"
"Shut up! If this genius hadn't lost her magic, would I be afraid of those trash mobs!?" Haruna bristled at his tone, angrily insisting that if she still had magic and could transform, she could take on a dozen of them easily.
Raize ignored her tsundere outburst. He picked up the pink chainsaw for her, then squatted down with his back facing her.
Without magic, Haruna couldn't touch her Mystletainn—one touch would trigger the defense mechanism and electrocute her. Raize wasn't afraid, so he carried it for her.
Seeing Raize squat down considerately in front of her, Haruna snorted huffily, then slowly climbed onto his broad, sturdy back.
Being in such close contact with a member of the opposite sex, Haruna's cheeks puffed slightly, but a hint of shyness and awkwardness flickered in her large eyes.
No matter how carefree and willful she was, she was still a girl.
"Raize, did something happen here?"
Just as Raize was about to go talk to Eu, a familiar voice came from beside him.
His tense body relaxed as he turned to see Tohru, wearing a maid outfit and stepping out of a spatial gate with a worried expression.
He hadn't expected Tohru to appear suddenly, but she paid close attention to this area. Though she respected Raize's privacy and didn't constantly monitor him, the sudden burst of hostile, murderous power here had been impossible to miss.
Raize and Kobayashi were both her benefactors. Kobayashi had personally pulled the god sword from her body, and Raize had healed her with a mushroom like a holy medicine. Anyone who dared target them was touching Tohru's reverse scale!
In Tohru's eyes, Raize had some strength, but compared to certain beings from her memories, he was still too weak—someone who, like Kobayashi, needed protection.
Sniff… sniff…
Tohru's pale nose twitched. Her worried expression instantly turned cold. With a dragon's sharp sense of smell, she detected blood—more than one source.
"Raize, what happened here? And the girl on your back, and that one behind you… Hellscythe!?"
Seeing the girl on Raize's back made Tohru inexplicably unhappy. She was about to ask what happened, but when her gaze landed on Eu, her cold expression turned to shock.
Seeing Tohru's reaction, Raize knew she must recognize Eu. He sighed, steadying Haruna on his back. "Let's leave first. I'll explain everything slowly."
Then he looked at Eu, who had already put away her scythe. After hesitating, he said, "Eucliwood Hellscythe, right? Your name's a bit long. I'll call you Eu for now. You should come with us too."
"There might still be pursuers who haven't shown themselves."
No matter how much he hesitated, Raize couldn't just ignore a girl being hunted right in front of him. Doing so would feel too despicable.
Eu hesitated as well, then wrote in her notebook:
(Will I… be a bother to you?)
Raize gave a wry smile. "I don't mind. And please don't think of yourself as a burden."
Lately, too many people had been drawn here. He had already dealt with Magical Girl Kyoko, but the King of if the Night behind her hadn't appeared. As long as Megalo existed, opposing magical girls wouldn't be few.
Now that members of the Khaos Brigade had appeared, peace was no longer possible.
Since he'd made his decision, Raize didn't plan to run anymore. He needed to prepare more methods.