High atop the skyscraper, the wind howled as if mourning the city below. Akos stood at the edge, his fingers tightening around the hilt of his katana with a cold, metallic click. Beside him, Jin was struggling to keep his footing, his breath coming in sharp hitches.
Jin: "Akos, listen to me! We have to retreat! You just woke up minutes ago; your body is still broken. You can't fight a million of them like this!"
Akos (with terrifying calm): "Time waits for no one, Jin. It's either them or us."
He turned his head slightly, his eyes locking onto Jin's.
Jin (panting): "Fine... fine, damn it! But how? How do we stop a wave that big?"
Akos: "I don't know yet. But the pain in my head is gone. That means I can reach for something bigger. Jin, this world isn't for gangs anymore. We are the strong, whether we realize it yet or not."
Suddenly, a massive, hairy devil with a single, bulging green eye landed on the roof's edge. It ignored the two warriors, focusing instead on a group of terrified civilians huddled in the street far below. It coiled its muscles, ready to dive and crush them.
"SLASH OF THE ABSOLUTE VOID!"
In a flash of silver, the air itself seemed to part. The massive devil was sheared perfectly in half mid-leap. Its organs and black ichor erupted.
painting the sky dark as the two halves of its corpse tumbled toward the pavement.
Below, the civilians screamed as a rain of warm, thick blood washed over them. They stood frozen, drenched in the gore of the monster that almost ended them. But the nightmare wasn't over. A pack of wolf-like devils surged from the shadows, hungry for the survivors.
Jin didn't wait. He threw himself off the ledge, falling like a meteor. He landed in the center of the pack, delivering a devastating kick to the lead wolf, pinning it against a concrete wall until it exploded. Another lunged at his throat.
But Jin twisted his body with fluid grace. He caught the beast by its neck and slammed it into another.
With a roar of effort, Jin swung his fist. Suddenly, his hand ignited with a brilliant, pulsing blue aura. The impact was cataclysmic; both Devils disintegrated in a flash of kinetic energy.
The civilians stared in awe. Shaking, they bowed their heads low, whispering, "Thank you... thank you," their voices cracking with respect and terror.
High above, Akos leaned over the railing, a smirk playing on his lips. Akos: "Ohhh? What was that light on your hands just now?"
Jin (looking at his glowing palms, confused): "Eh? What... what was that?"
Akos (laughing): "Didn't I tell you? We are strong."
Jin: "I don't know how I did that... maybe it's just all those years of street fighting," he muttered, rubbing his head.
Akos: "Hahaha! Street fighting? Listen, do you remember our old deal? Whoever finished the job first had to buy the other a steak dinner."
Jin: "Yeah, what about it?"
Akos: "New deal. The first one to truly master this 'unknown energy' wins 50 steaks from the other."
Jin (grinning through the pain): "Fifty steaks? That's insane. You're on! I'm definitely figuring this out first, hahaha!"
In a high-rise building overlooking the carnage, Vsoko peered through the thermal scope of his sniper rifle. His finger was steady on the trigger, but suddenly, his entire body stiffened.
"What in the hell?!" he yelled, pulling his eye away from the lens.
Behind him, Asoka was lazily shoving a slice of pizza into his mouth. He looked up, grease on his chin. "What happened? What'd you see?"
"Those two... what are they doing down there?" Vsoko growled, pointing toward the street. "We've been scouring the city looking for them, and they're down there playing games?!"
Down on the pavement, Akos and Jin were moving like twin streaks of lightning. They were tearing through the Devil swarms with such insane speed and efficiency that it looked less like a struggle and more like a sport.
"Don't tell me they're actually competing against each other right now," Vsoko screamed, turning back to Asoka. "I'm going to lose my mind! And stop eating, you fat idiot! Where is Yizuri?"
Yizuri was slumped on a tattered sofa, his eyes fixed on a static-filled TV screen, looking completely bored.
"Yizuri! Talk to me!" Vsoko barked. "Akos is down there. Our mission is to get him out of Sinish alive, but look at the state of this place!"
Yizuri (without looking up): "Relax. I spoke with Itou. He can't get in. The city is completely encircled by a wall of Devils. We're boxed in."
"Oh, great! God help us," Vsoko groaned, pacing the room. "We're going to die here. When is the backup coming?"
Asoka: "No one is coming, man. No sorcerers, no devil hunters... nobody can break through that perimeter."
"That's a lie," Vsoko countered. "I spotted one Devil Hunter earlier. I know the face."
Yizuri suddenly sat up, his voice dropping to a low whisper as he spoke to himself. "Six Sorcerers... we know where six of them are. But there are fourteen others missing. All twenty of them are currently in this city with us."
Vsoko stopped pacing. "Can you name the six? I don't know every sorcerer on the roster."
Yizuri reached into his pocket, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, and flicked it toward Vsoko. Vsoko caught it, smoothed it out, and read the names out loud:
AKOS TASAKU
JIN TORI
RONIKA ZADE
RIKO AIMI
SORA HAZE
MAJO ZADE
"Great," Vsoko sighed. "And the rest? It'll take us forever to find them in this mess."
Asoka: "And don't forget, there are fifty more scattered across Japan. I'm not talking about the old-school mages, either. I'm talking about active, high-level sorcerers."
"Good grief," Vsoko muttered, rubbing his temples. "Do we even have a count on the Devil Users and the Ninjitsu Users?"
Asoka: "No clue. But they're everywhere. Just like we're everywhere, they've blended into the world. It's a crowded house, Vsoko, and someone's about to start a fire."
Down on the blood-slicked streets, Akos was a blur of motion. He leaped onto the roof of a rusted car, but within seconds, over thirty Devils swarmed the vehicle, their claws screeching against the metal as they surrounded him.
High above, Tenshi hovered, her wings beating slowly as she monitored the battlefield. Suddenly, Akos looked up. With a violent heave, he hurled his sword straight at her.
"Akos! What are you—?!" Tenshi gasped, her eyes widening in shock.
She reached out and caught the weapon by the hilt just before it struck her. She stared down at the blade—the KATANA TOTSUGEKI FIELD—clutching it with trembling hands, completely confused as to why Akos would disarm himself in the middle of a swarm.
But Akos didn't need the blade for what came next.
He began to sprint, leaping from the shoulders of one Devil to the roof of another car, using the monsters themselves as stepping stones. Behind him, the ground erupted. A colossal, worm-like Devil with pale, fleshy white skin and red-veined patches burst from the asphalt. It had two abyss-black eyes and a mouth that looked like a cavern lined with thousands of needle-teeth.
The massive beast swallowed the car Akos had just vacated in a single crunch. Akos slid down the creature's slimy flank, narrowly avoiding the snapping jaws, and landed hard on another vehicle. The worm-devil didn't stop; it vacuumed up everything in its path—asphalt, cars, and smaller devils—as it barreled toward Akos.
Suddenly, the wall of a nearby building exploded outward. Jin came flying through the dust and debris, having leaped from the third floor. He wasn't alone. Chasing him was a second gargantuan worm-devil, identical to the first.
Akos looked at Jin and let out a wild, daring grin. Jin saw him and smirked back, understanding the plan instantly.
The two friends crossed paths in a high-speed X-pattern. The two massive Devils, blinded by their own hunger and momentum, lunged with their mouths wide open.
CRASH!
The Devil chasing Jin slammed head-first into the open maw of the Devil chasing Akos. The sound of grinding bone and tearing flesh echoed through the street as they collided, their massive bodies tangling together before smashing into a concrete wall with the force of a falling skyscraper.
Akos and Jin sprinted across the sea of rusted car roofs, their boots thudding rhythmically against the metal. Behind them, the million-man swarm was a wall of teeth and claws, closing the gap with every second.
Jin (shouting over the roar): "Hey! Can you even count how many are behind us?!"
Akos (glancing back, deadpan): "Are you stupid? What do I look like, a calculator?"
Jin: "You're the one who said we're 'the strong'! If we're so powerful, then what exactly is our power supposed to be?!"
Akos didn't answer with words. He came to a sudden halt, his body pivoting with the grace of a coiled spring. He raised his right hand, extending his index finger and tucking his thumb—a "finger pistol" aimed directly at the heart of the approaching wave.
At the very tip of his finger, the air began to scream. A sphere of pitch-black energy materialized, dense as a collapsing star, hissing with a terminal frequency that made the nearby glass shatter.
[ABSOLUTE Technique Deadly]
With a faint pop, the sphere vanished, streaking through the air like a needle made of shadows.
Jin: "What the hell was that? It looked like a pebble! What exactly did you just throw?"
Akos (smirking): "Just watch."
Jin: "Watch? Watch when?! We're going to be dead before I see anything!"
The swarm was only meters away. Jin couldn't wait. He planted his feet, grit his teeth, and lunged forward with a desperate PUNCH.
The moment his knuckles connected with the leading Devil, the world turned white. A brilliant, blinding energy exploded from his fist.
Upon impact, the energy shaped itself into a massive, jagged cross-burst of light that seared through the front lines of the horde. A shockwave followed, vaporizing dozens of Devils instantly.
Jin (staring at his glowing hand, breathless): "How do you like that, huh?! Did you see—"
He turned around to brag, but the spot where Akos had been standing was empty. Akos had already vanished into the distance, continuing his run toward the center of the city.
Jin (screaming at the empty air): "Hey! What are you, scared?! You just left me here alone! Get back here!"