Hours later, deep inside a shadowy cave, Paulo stirred awake on a crude bed. Towering beside her was the man who'd snatched her from safety, his gaze locked onto the infant as he loomed by a rickety chair. One wrong move and the rest of the syndicate would tear him apart, feeding him to the Demonic Beasts like scraps.
He couldn't lay a finger on her, not without paying the ultimate price. After a while, he leaned in, his voice dropped to a tense whisper, fingers tightening around his cloak.
"What am I supposed to do with you? You're just a baby… yet the fate of everything rests in your tiny hands." He muttered, pacing around the cave like a lunatic.
I am not a one year old mentally, I am seventeen mentally.
Back in the village, The Chief of the village Shinjiro had spotted Satsuki and Daiki tearing through the streets, sprinting toward the surge of chaotic mana.
He called out, but they didn't even flinch, no time for words. Their daughter's precious life hung in the balance of life or death.
"Not now, my child's in danger!" Satsuki snapped, already vanishing down the trail leading to the shadow cave, where the dark energy pulsed strongest.
Shinjiro froze. Why would anyone target a one-year-old? And why drag her into that cursed, pitch-black cavern?
"Wait, was Paulo the one in danger?" he shouted. Satsuki turned just long enough to nod.
"Yes, and if you stand in my way, you'll die too," she shot back, knuckles white around her crackling lightning blade, blood trickling from her grip.
Demonic beasts erupted onto the path just as they fled, someone had sabotaged the crystals shielding the village. No time to think.
Daiki exploded into action, launching a brutal kick that sent the creature flying like a meteor, slamming it into the nearest mountain with bone-shattering force.
Satsuki soared skyward, summoning a storm from thin air. A warning beam of light lanced down, harmless at first, then surged with raw electricity, expanding into a devastating blast that vaporized both beast and mountain in a single, thunderous strike.
"Now, we get our daughter back." Daiki growled, eyes blazing, and they ran, faster, fiercer, while fuelled by fury.
Deep inside a shadow-drenched cave, a cloaked figure stood over one-year-old Paulo. A father himself, he hesitated. Gently, he lowered his hood.
"I'm Gaku, I'll keep you safe… until the real leader comes." he murmured, brushing her hair with surprising tenderness.
But safety shattered in an instant. A deafening explosion ripped through the cave entrance. Smoke billowed. From the chaos stepped Satsuki and Daiki, faces like frozen steel, eyes locked on Gaku with lethal intent.
"GIVE HER BACK, YOU FILTH!" Satsuki roared, her lightning blade igniting the darkness, casting jagged shadows across the cavern.
The enemy froze. Gaku turned, smirked, unshaken.
"Who the hell are you?" He summoned a blade forged from pure chaos, its edge swallowing light, plunging parts of the cave into unnatural blackness.
Most could see through it with mana-enhanced sight, but not Paulo. Something about her… she couldn't.
"Do you know this name? Daiki. The Executor." Satsuki challenged, stepping forward despite her trembling limbs, blood trickled from her nose and lips as her last spell had nearly torn her apart but still, she stood.
At the name, Gaku's confidence wavered. Sweat beaded on his brow His voice cracked, but he didn't retreat.
"Wait… Daiki the Executor? The man who slaughtered 500 syndicate killers in one hour? Master of three blade styles… dragon-slayer?"
Silence crashed down. No one expected this revelation. Not even Paulo, crying now, confused, unaware her father was a legend drenched in blood. Her cries cut through the tension. Satsuki straightened. Fire reignited in her eyes. Daiki drew his sword fully, the steel singing as it left the sheath.
"Now, you pay. Fight me or you will die." he said, voice like thunder before the storm. In a flash, Gaku lunges, wrist-blade slashing toward Satsuki with deadly intent.
She barely intercepts the strike with her lightning-charged forearm, the collision shattering the stone beneath her and unleashing a shockwave that hurls Daiki and the others backward like ragdolls.
But something feels off, Satsuki senses an eerie pulse from the blade, not just mana, and instinct kicks in. She flips away just as the weapon slams into the ground, cratering the earth.
Hanging upside-down in midair, she doesn't miss a beat, her left fist fires off a blistering barrage of straight punches, hammering Gaku's jaw with electric precision.
Before her feet even touch down, she finishes the flurry by lashing out with arcs of lightning, slicing through nearby syndicate members like a storm given form.
Gaku collapses to one knee, his body raked with deep, bleeding wounds. Satsuki's eyes narrow, she recognizes the weapon now: the Chaos Katana, a cursed blade feared by magic wielders, dripping with unstable chaos energy.
Then the eight-spoked wheel behind his eyes spins clockwise. In an instant, his injuries vanish, regenerated as if they never existed.
She reacts instantly, launching another lightning slash, but this time, he parries it cleanly with the katana. A jolt of surprise hits her. He saw it coming. The game just changed.
"Seriously? That's it? I expected way more from the wife of Daiki the Executor. Is this really all you've got?" Gaku taunted, a sharp grin cutting through the tension, his words struck like sparks, igniting fury, fuelling her rage, pushing her to the edge.
He winds up for another bone-crushing strike, Satsuki braces, steeling her guard. This time, Gaku smashes through her defence like glass, hurling her through a storm of jagged stalagmites deep into the cavern's core. She slams into a hidden chamber, and in a flash, Gaku is on her, blazing in hot on her trail.
She rises, just as the Chaos Katana spears toward her face. In one fluid motion, she flips backward, evading by inches, then channels that momentum into a whirling kick that snaps Gaku's head sideways. Lightning-fast, she vaults onto his arm, locks it against his face, and floods it with cursed energy.
"This is my move now," she declares, and unleashes a colossal slash.
The cave splits diagonally in half, carved open like paper, and Gaku is cleaved down the torso. The force hurls him through the collapsing wreckage. Before he can recover mid-fall, Satsuki strikes again, a devastating axe-kick that drives him hundreds of meters into solid earth.
Convinced she's cracked his pattern, she calculates his next move: he'll rise, just like before, and heal. And right on cue, his eye wheel spins. Wounds vanish. He's whole again.
Satsuki supercharges her Lighting Shrine attack with a Mana Vow, engineered not just for destruction, but with a built-in escape path that keeps her safe from its devastating reach.
The pact doesn't just protect her; it amplifies the assault, expanding the attack's maximum radius to a staggering two hundred meters. But to shield Paulo, she tightens the kill zone to roughly 140 meters, precision in the midst of chaos.
Once unleashed, the Lighting Shrine becomes an unrelenting storm, obliterating anything infused with mana through brutal lightning slashes.
The result? Catastrophic.
Across the entire cavern, devastation unfolds like a tidal wave, Gaku is pummelled under a never-ending barrage, while everything within a one hundred radius is scoured clean. Allies once believed safe are wiped out in an instant, and the land surrounding Satsuki is left scorched and lifeless.
Just as the dust begins to settle, Gaku stumbles to his feet, barely standing, clinging to consciousness. Then, without warning, a masked figure emerges behind him, ready to vanish into the shadows.
Daiki races forward, but he's too late, the escape seems inevitable for them. Until Paulo steps in. In one cold, decisive move, he drives a jagged rock straight into Gaku's heart, ending him.