Silence.
Aside from the crackling flames, not a single living creature could be heard screaming.
With a deafening crash, the metal door of the wrecked Cadillac One, which had automatically welded itself shut after entering emergency mode, was kicked open from the inside. Jovian climbed out with Erii, followed by his bodyguard and driver.
"Whew."
Looking at the shattered bridge before him, Jovian pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat. He found one that was still mostly intact, lit it with the sparks still burning across the pavement, and calmly began smoking.
It was as though everything that had just happened had nothing to do with him.
Beep, beep, beep…
While Jovian smoked, the phone in his pocket suddenly began vibrating and ringing.
"Whew."
Jovian calmly finished his cigarette, pulled out his phone, and pressed the answer button.
"Is Erii all right?"
The moment the call connected, Chisei Gen's anxious voice came through the speaker. He was speaking Japanese, but fortunately, Jovian could understand him.
"Erii is right beside me. Would you like me to let her say something?"
Jovian held the phone away from his ear and allowed Chisei to shout for a while before finally responding.
"My apologies. I lost my composure. Since both you and Erii are unharmed, that is truly wonderful."
"As for today's attack, Genji Heavy Industries and the Yamata no Orochi are willing to accept responsibility."
Hearing Jovian's calm voice, Chisei restrained his agitation. He steadied himself and spoke with complete sincerity.
"Accept responsibility? Genji Heavy Industries couldn't possibly bear the consequences!"
"The Supreme Commander of U.S. Forces Japan was nearly assassinated by a mob of street thugs, and you think you can settle this by simply saying you'll accept responsibility?"
Jovian's expression turned cold. His eyes became as sharp as those of an eagle soaring through the sky, and his icy voice transformed into countless steel blades that pierced Chisei's heart.
"I…"
Chisei felt an enormous headache coming on.
Jovian was right. Accept responsibility? Neither Genji Heavy Industries nor the Yamata no Orochi could bear that responsibility.
It was not merely beyond the Yamata no Orochi. If Jovian had truly been injured in the attack, all of Japan would have been unable to bear the consequences.
"Send me a list of every person involved in attacking me. Immediately."
Jovian gave Chisei no opportunity to explain. His words were delivered as a direct order.
"Please give me a chance. We will deal with this matter internally…"
Chisei pleaded with Jovian.
Of course he knew who had attacked Jovian. It was precisely because he knew their identities that he wanted the Yamata no Orochi to handle the matter internally.
"You have thirty seconds. If the information I want isn't on my phone by then, everyone inside Genji Heavy Industries can go straight to hell."
After saying that, Jovian immediately ended the call.
The moment he hung up, another call came through. This one was from the military base.
"General…"
A hoarse but efficient voice came through the phone. It belonged to Jovian's second in command at the base.
"Transport the prototype we prepared to my current location. Then notify the Japanese police that the bridge was destroyed by a gas leak."
"And make sure they understand that they are not to ask why a bridge without any gas pipes suffered a gas explosion. Understood?"
Jovian spoke coldly to his subordinate.
"Understood, General!"
His second in command responded with practiced efficiency.
"Good."
Jovian quietly acknowledged the response and ended the call.
Then he lit another cigarette and resumed smoking.
As Jovian smoked, Erii lifted the hem of her shrine maiden dress and sat beside him. She took out her small notebook and held it in front of him.
"Will a lot of people die?"
Jovian looked at the words she had written and smiled.
"Only bad people will die. Good people definitely won't."
After hearing his answer, Erii nodded thoughtfully.
Neither of them spoke afterward.
Erii quietly considered his words while Jovian smoked one cigarette after another. During that time, Chisei sent him the complete list of every known member of the Oni Clan.
Before long, several armed helicopters approached with a thunderous roar. Their rotors shook the air as they landed on a relatively intact section of the bridge behind Jovian.
However, Jovian paid no attention to the helicopters.
His eyes were fixed on the modified fighter jet that had not yet officially entered combat service, an experimental aircraft equipped with an entirely new system.
"General!"
Squads of heavily armed soldiers descended from the helicopters. They jogged over to Jovian, stopped before him, straightened their backs, and saluted.
Judging by their equipment, they could turn virtually any carbon-based life-form into a sieve.
"Protect this girl."
Jovian handed Erii over to the soldiers, then walked toward the F-35.
"General, what are you…"
The soldiers stared in surprise as Jovian climbed into the pilot's seat.
"I'm going to take revenge personally."
Jovian closed the canopy after speaking.
"Run a citywide database search for every person on the list."
Seated inside the fighter, Jovian issued the order through his radio.
"Understood."
Following Jovian's command, the soldiers began screening every person in every corner of the city against the list Chisei had provided.
Thousands of personnel and exactly one hundred satellites were mobilized for the sole purpose of helping Jovian find his targets.
For a time, even a popsicle stick casually tossed onto the street by some delinquent became the subject of military analysis.
"If a target appears in a crowded area, have the federal agents evacuate the civilians, then riddle the target with bullets."
"If a target appears somewhere isolated, such as an abandoned warehouse, send me the coordinates. I'll deal with them personally."
Jovian issued one order after another from inside the fighter.
Approximately half an hour later, precise targeting data appeared on his display.
The aircraft accelerated down the bridge and soared into the sky.
Today, Jovian intended to teach those little dragon people a lesson.
He was going to show them the power of a fifth-generation fighter jet.
The engines roared as the aircraft climbed above the clouds.
Inside an abandoned warehouse, countless beings known as Oni had gathered.
They were people who had been expelled from the Yamata no Orochi and could no longer live openly in the light. They were demons whose unstable bloodlines threatened to transform them into monsters.
Yet even demons sought salvation.
Since they could no longer remain human, they had decided to abandon humanity altogether. They intended to resurrect their god and have that great being transform them all into pure-blooded dragons, freeing them from the curse within their blood.
Unfortunately, many people in the world did not understand them. Those people kept interfering with their plans.
For that reason, the Oni could only apologize to those who stood in their way.
Everything obstructing their path would be destroyed.
At least, that had been true before they encountered Jovian.
"The ambush on the bridge failed."
"All one hundred and seventeen operatives were killed. There were no survivors."
The masked man leading them appeared to receive a message. His voice then became incredibly cold as he announced the death toll.
"If they failed, then it's our turn."
Despite hearing that more than a hundred of their comrades had died, none of the people inside the warehouse showed any fear.
They were Oni, and Oni never retreated.
They did not consider themselves truly alive in the first place. Their ultimate fate was to become mindless monsters. Dying before that transformation could occur was, in some ways, a form of liberation.
They had only one ultimate objective.
They would awaken their great god and allow the true god to lead them all into Heaven.
Just as the Oni eagerly prepared to act, their leader appeared to receive another message.
His expression suddenly changed as he stared at the screen.
"Run?"
The word left his mouth in confusion.
A humming sound came from above.
Before the leader could react, a missile tore through the warehouse's thin metal roof and landed directly among them.
Then blazing fire consumed everything.
The entire warehouse was reduced to nothing.
The enormous cloud of smoke rising into the sky could be seen clearly from several miles away.
At the same time, astonishing explosions erupted throughout the city inside empty houses, abandoned school buildings, and derelict warehouses.
According to the official explanation, they were all gas explosions.
Meanwhile, in a crowded section of the city, a masked man stood among the pedestrians while speaking urgently on his phone. He looked around nervously.
Federal agents in police uniforms surrounded the area and appeared to be evacuating the civilians.
Boom!
While the masked man argued anxiously with someone over the phone, a sonic crack split the air.
His upper body suddenly burst apart like a watermelon, scattering blood and chunks of flesh across the ground.
"Ahhh!"
Screams echoed through the plaza.
Fortunately, the federal agents had arrived in time and quickly brought the situation under control.
Similar incidents soon began occurring throughout the city.
People were suddenly being assassinated by sniper fire without warning.
Some witnesses recorded the killings, but unfortunately for them, the videos mysteriously deleted themselves shortly afterward.
The Oni Clan, which had tormented the Yamata no Orochi for countless years, was losing members at an astonishing rate.
The Yamata no Orochi were delighted, but their delight was overshadowed by fear and awe.
For the first time, they truly understood just how powerful and violent the machinery of the United States could be.
They could never imitate the Americans' willingness to use Barrett rifles in the middle of a city and eliminate dangerous hybrids with a single shot.
It was a feast.
A feast opened with blood.
Masamune Tachibana, the High Patriarch of the Yamata no Orochi, stood with his brow tightly furrowed as cold sweat continuously ran down his body.
This was the first time in many years that he had genuinely panicked.
He could hardly believe that, merely to destroy the Oni Clan, that lunatic named Jovian had mobilized every federal agent in the city.
More than a hundred thousand people were searching the city like madmen, going from door to door and turning over every building.
At the same time, through some unknown method, Jovian had also mobilized a hundred thousand members of the Japan Self-Defense Forces.
The city was now under complete lockdown.
Every exit was guarded by tanks.
Helicopters constantly roared overhead, and smoke from explosions hung over the entire city.
What Masamune did not know was exactly what Jovian had said to the Japan Self-Defense Forces.
"If you refuse to go in, our military will."
"And once our military arrives, you'll have to rewrite your constitution again."
Those two simple sentences had sent the Japan Self-Defense Forces into a frenzy.
For the first time, Masamune Tachibana, or rather, Jung von Herzog, felt that he lacked manpower.
In reality, it would not have mattered how many people he controlled. He could never oppose the combined army of federal agents and Japan Self-Defense Forces, a coalition numbering two hundred thousand.
Furthermore, according to the intelligence Masamune had gathered, three American aircraft carriers and their carrier strike groups were approaching Japanese waters.
This was no longer an underworld dispute.
This was nothing like the gang wars they had fought before.
The two conflicts were not even remotely on the same level.
That lunatic Jovian was determined to exterminate the entire Oni Clan.
Masamune also began to regret his decision.
It was only Erii.
At worst, he could have waited a little longer and cultivated another suitable subject.
Why had he provoked a madman like Jovian?
As Masamune's body trembled uncontrollably, armored vehicles, tanks, and squad after squad of fully armed soldiers surrounded Genji Heavy Industries.
"Everyone inside, listen carefully! Lay down your weapons and surrender!"
Jovian sat atop an armored vehicle, holding a large bullhorn as he shouted toward the Genji Heavy Industries building.
"General, what is the meaning of this?"
Chisei and the other clan chiefs of the Yamata no Orochi emerged from the building together.
They stared at the armored vehicle beneath Jovian and the disciplined squads of American soldiers surrounding him. Their scalps tingled with dread.
The Yamata no Orochi had their own armed forces, but they were ultimately little more than underworld soldiers.
They could not possibly compare with a professional military, much less the elite forces of a global superpower.
"According to my investigation, Genji Heavy Industries is harboring a cunning and dangerous criminal!"
"Send him outside immediately to face justice."
Jovian looked coldly at Chisei.
"A criminal? General, could there have been some kind of mistake?"
"If you intend to arrest someone inside Genji Heavy Industries, surely you need evidence and a legitimate reason."
Chisei forced himself to ask the question despite his fear.
"What?"
"That's fucking hilarious. I'm the fucking world police."
"Since when have I needed evidence or a reason to arrest someone? Here, I arrest whoever the fuck I want!"
Jovian frowned after hearing Chisei's question.
He despised people who did not respect the law.
Someone in this country actually dared to question his decision. It was fucking outrageous. They were behaving as though there were no laws at all.
"You…"
Chisei's entire body went numb.
"Now hurry up and tell that Masamune Tachibana of yours to come outside and cooperate with the investigation."
"Do not resist lawful authority! Nothing good comes from opposing justice."
"And I am justice."
Jovian coldly shouted through the bullhorn.
Inside the building, Masamune suddenly panicked.
"Damn it. I've been exposed!"
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