"It began many years ago, with Izumo's mother, Tamamo," Mike squeaked, hovering in the air and keeping his snout respectfully lowered. "The Kamiki women are from a sacred line of powerful mediums descending from the Byakko. For generations, it has been their duty to suppress the Nine-Tailed Fox Spirit through a ritual dance called the Divine Summoning."
The fox spirit shifted uncomfortably, his ears drooping against the fabric of the doll.
"Tamamo was the 64th head priestess. But... she was weak. She fell in love with a human man—Izumo's father. But when he found out about her duties, he rejected her. He wanted nothing to do with the shrine or their children. He made Tamamo choose between him and her own flesh and blood. And she ultimately chose poorly."
Choosing a deadbeat over your own kids? I scoffed internally, my disgust mounting. I guess she wasn't going for any mother of the year trophies, huh?
"The rejection broke her mind," Mike continued sorrowfully. "That mental instability was all the Nine-Tails needed. It possessed her, leading to a massacre at the shrine. That was when the Illuminati appeared. A man named Michael Gedoin had been coming around under the guise of 'protection,' but his true intention was to experiment on Tamamo and Izumo to harness the Nine-Tails' power."
"That bastard," Bon growled, his fists shaking. "So they've just been holding her hostage this whole time?"
"Worse," Mike said. "They use this entire town as a harvesting ground. The food here is drugged to brainwash tourists. Once they are docile, they are taken to the 'Inari Dream Palace' beneath us to become human test subjects for Gedoin's twisted mind. Even Tsukumo, Izumo's little sister, was taken away to an unknown location to be used as leverage."
"An unknown location?" Yukio repeated, his jaw tight. "If they have her sister, Izumo will never leave willingly."
I tuned out their worries, closing my eyes. I sank into my conceptual senses, pushing my clairvoyance out to search for the sister's spiritual signature. A second later, an image flashed in my mind.
I opened my eyes and casually pointed a finger at Takara.
"She's with his family," I said flatly. "The Takara estate. They adopted her to keep her hidden from the Illuminati."
Takara's body went completely rigid. He kept his eyes firmly shut, but his usual sleepy composure was entirely shattered. The pink bunny puppet in his hand let out a strangled, glitchy squeak before its fabric jaw fell open, going dead silent. For the first time since I'd met him, the First Class Exorcist was utterly speechless. I had just effortlessly bypassed layers of ancient, top-tier warding magic with a two-second meditation.
"Don't look so surprised, puppet boy," I smirked. "Now come on. I've got a mad scientist to crush."
We moved quickly through the shadows, approaching the dense forested area surrounding the apartment complex. Through the trees, we could see dozens of heavily armed Illuminati guards patrolling the perimeter.
Shura crouched behind a bush, her phone pressed to her ear.
"Mephisto says backup is at least an hour out," she cursed, hanging up the phone. She grabbed a stick and began rapidly sketching a tactical map in the dirt. "Alright, listen up. We have to breach quietly or they'll lock the place down. Yukio, you take the left flank. Bon, you and Shiemi cause a distraction near the east gate so I can slide in and disable their comms—"
I let out a loud, exaggerated yawn. I stepped out from the bushes, casually snapping my fingers.
FHOOM!
Fifty heavily armed guards didn't even have time to reach for their weapons. In the blink of an eye, they were instantly vaporized into fine, drifting ash.
The forest was completely silent.
Shura slowly dropped the stick. She stared at the empty, ash-covered courtyard, then looked up at me with dead, utterly exhausted eyes. Bon and Yukio just swallowed hard, the terrifying reality of my "stealth tactics" settling over them.
"Flank secured," I smirked. "Let's go."
We breached the main doors of the apartment building, descending into the dark, sterile metal corridors of the underground lab. The moment we crossed the threshold, two distinct sensations slammed into my conceptual radar.
The first was a deeply familiar, decaying light far below us. Lucifer was here.
The second was a massive, rushing tide of rotting signatures.
"Get back!" Yukio yelled, raising his gun.
From the darkness of the corridors ahead, a horrifying swarm poured into the light. There were hundreds of them—ghoulish, decaying humanoids with advanced necrosis, bulging veins, and emaciated frames. They wore tattered hospital gowns bearing identification tags like Experiment Body 6411.
"Welcome, welcome, True Cross rats!" a grating, sweaty voice boomed over the facility's PA system. It was the man Mike had told us about, and the ugly bastard I'd seen in my vision. Michael Gedoin. "I see you've met my ultimate masterpieces!"
Yukio fired three rapid shots, blowing the head off the nearest zombie. It hit the floor, but then, a spark of blue fire ignited in its neck wound. In seconds, the flesh rapidly knitted back together, and the monster lunged forward again. Bon slammed a talisman onto another's chest, shouting a fiery aria, but the zombie just absorbed the blast and kept coming.
"Surprised?!" Gedoin cackled gleefully over the speakers. "They are invincible! Thanks to the blood we retrieved from Saburota Todo, I was able to synthesize the residual flames of the Sovereign standing next to you! My super zombies possess hyper-regeneration powered by divine fire! You are fighting a God's power!"
The Exwires backed up, panic setting in as the seemingly immortal horde closed the distance.
But I didn't move.
I stared at the rotting, agonizing corpses. I looked at the faint, corrupted embers of my blue fire keeping them trapped in a state of eternal, decaying torment.
The apathy I had felt on the plane vanished, replaced by a cold, quiet, fury.
"You took my divinity," I whispered, my voice echoing unnaturally through the metal halls, slicing right through Gedoin's laughter. "And corrupted it like this?"
The ambient temperature in the room plummeted, paradoxically replaced by a blinding, holy pressure.
"How dare you."
My blue flames shifted violently. They erupted into a brilliant, blinding pearl-white fire. Above my head, a radiant halo manifested—a conceptual ring of pure energy. Two distinct segments of the ring lit up brilliantly, one glowing sapphire blue for Destruction, and the other shining pearl-white for Purification.
Behind me, Yukio dropped to his knees, shielding his eyes from the blinding, holy light. Shura's jaw went slack, her sword lowering as the sheer divine pressure suffocated the corridor.
I swept my hand forward.
The pearl-white flames washed over the Exwires and Shura. For a split second, they screamed, bracing for the heat. But the fire didn't burn them. It felt warm, comforting, and intensely holy, forming a protective barrier around them.
Then, the white fire hit the zombie horde.
There were no screams. There was no scent of burning flesh. It was a mercy by fire. The moment the pearl-white flames touched the decaying bodies, the corrupted blue embers within them were cleansed. The zombies simply dissolved into beautiful, drifting motes of pure light, their souls finally freed from Gedoin's blasphemous torment.
Within seconds, the entire corridor was empty.
"N-No! Impossible!" Gedoin's voice shrieked over the PA system, the cocky, grating tone completely shattering into hysterical terror. "My masterpieces! H-How did you?! W-What in the world are you?!"
"I'm your executioner," I stated, looking at the nearest security camera, my pearl-white eyes glowing in the dark. "And you have a lot to answer for."
"SEND IN THE RESERVES! OVERWHELM HIM!" Gedoin shrieked.
Heavy metal blast doors at the end of the hall violently hissed open. A second, even larger wave of rotting zombies poured into the corridor, easily numbering in the hundreds, roaring and scrambling over each other to reach me.
I clicked my tongue in annoyance. I flew forward, raising both hands to unleash a massive wave of pearl-white fire to cleanse the new horde.
But as I moved away from the group to intercept them, Gedoin seized his chance.
"TRAP THEM! DUMP THEM INTO THE FEEDING PIT!"
A massive mechanical grinding sound echoed beneath us. Without warning, the entire metal floor of the corridor split down the middle and rapidly retracted into the walls.
"Wha—!" Bon yelled.
I glanced back, suspended in the air by my divine energy, as the ground vanished beneath their feet. Shura, Yukio, Bon, Konekomaru, Shiemi, and Takara plummeted into the dark, yawning abyss below, their shouts echoing down into the pitch-black depths.
"Kuro," I called.
From inside my jacket, the small cat spirit materialized, leaping out into the open air. In a flash of spiritual energy, he instantly shifted into his massive, two-tailed nekomata form, his giant claws catching the edge of the retracting metal walls.
"Go with them," I commanded, gesturing down into the darkness where the Exwires had fallen. "Keep them alive until I get down there. I've got a score to settle with the fat man."
Kuro gave a fierce, rumbling roar of acknowledgement, diving headfirst into the abyss to protect the others.
With a casual wave of my hand, the second wave of zombies instantly turned to holy ash, joining the others as drifting lights. I slowly turned my attention back to the reinforced steel doors at the far end of the hall. My halo burned brightly above me, casting long, divine shadows across the metal walls as I floated forward.
Then, I paused and looked down into the void. Gedoin was cackling frantically over the speakers, desperately hoping the fall or whatever was at the bottom would finish the job.
I sighed, my pearl-white halo burning brightly above my head, illuminating the metal walls.
Looks like I'll have to wait to evict porky in a minute, I thought, angling my body downward and diving into the abyss like a comet of pure light.
I landed deep within the subterranean feeding areas, the concrete cracking under my feet. The area was dimly lit and smelled distinctly of iron and rot. I flared my conceptual senses and immediately locked onto a familiar signature nearby.
I rounded a corner and found Shiemi. She was passed out on the cold stone floor, completely unharmed but out cold from the sheer shock of the fall.
Looming over her was a nightmare.
It was a Chimera Zombie—a grotesque, misshapen mutant significantly larger than a normal human. It was a horrific, jumbled mass of different human body parts stitched together with abnormal, asymmetrical proportions. It had multiple arms fused into its back and a distended jaw dripping with acidic saliva.
The beast lunged, attempting to bite into Shiemi's unconscious body.
Sssssssss!
The beast shrieked, recoiling violently. The pearl-white flames I had cast on the group before they fell flared to life around Shiemi, forming a holy, protective barrier. The chimera's flesh sizzled and smoked where it had tried to bite through my divinity.
"Tsk-tsk. I know that shit hurt," I said, causing the chimera to whip its massive head toward me.
It let out a garbled roar before charging at me. I didn't even bother using a projectile. I crossed the distance instantly and drove my fist directly into its stitched-together sternum with bone-shattering force, slamming the massive creature into the ground so hard the entire cavern shook.
As it thrashed, I unleashed my pearl-white flames. The fire instantly engulfed the monster, disintegrating its grotesque body not with heat, but with pure purification.
Shiemi groaned, her eyes slowly fluttering open just in time to see the chimera's physical form turn to ash. In its place, several beautiful, glowing souls drifted upward into the dark ceiling, finally freed from their torment. She stared at the ascending lights, her green eyes wide with awe.
"Come on," I told her. "We've got the rest of the stragglers to find."
We moved quickly into the adjacent sector. The heavy scent of gunpowder hit my nose before I even saw him.
Bon was standing in the middle of a ruined chamber, panting heavily. Hoisted on his shoulder was a massive, smoking bazooka he must have summoned or packed specifically for this mission. On the floor in front of him was the blasted, twitching husk of another massive chimera.
"Hmm, interesting," I noted casually.
WHUMP!
I flicked my wrist, sending a wave of white fire over the twitching remains, purifying the husk and freeing the souls trapped within. Bon just stared at me, too exhausted and stunned to even ask questions.
A deafening crash echoed from the far side of the room.
Kuro was viciously wrestling a third chimera. Konekomaru was backed against a wall nearby, clutching his prayer beads and hyperventilating. Kuro had the beast pinned, his massive fangs sunk into its stitched shoulder.
"Kuro, move," I commanded.
The giant cat spirit leaped back. I pointed a finger, and a beam of blinding pearl-white light struck the chimera dead center, instantly turning the monstrosity into a cloud of glowing, ascending souls.
"Is everyone alive?" Shura's voice called out.
She and Yukio jogged into the chamber from a connecting tunnel, both looking bruised and winded, having clearly just subdued their own targets in whatever tunnels they had landed in. Takara was silently trailing behind them, his puppet unharmed.
"We're fine," Yukio breathed out, adjusting his cracked glasses. He looked around at the purified ash fading into the air.
Suddenly, a harsh, panicked grinding noise echoed from above.
We all looked up. High above the cavern floor, a massive, reinforced steel viewing window overlooked the feeding area. Standing behind the glass, clutching a microphone and sweating profusely, was Gedoin.
And standing right next to him, wearing a casual, arrogant smirk, was Renzo Shima.
"Renzo!" Bon roared, his voice cracking with a mix of fury and heartbreak.
"KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL NOW!" Gedoin shrieked into the PA system, completely ignoring Bon as he stared down at me in absolute terror.
Gedoin slammed a fist down on a massive red button on his console.
All around the perimeter of the feeding area, heavily reinforced gates blew open. Several more chimeras stumbled out into the open. But before they could attack, Gedoin triggered a protocol. Experimental Elixir capsules embedded deep inside the monsters' bodies simultaneously detonated.
The chimeras didn't explode. They melted.
Their flesh liquefied and rapidly fused together, absorbing chunks of concrete, metal piping, and whatever debris was near them. The mass expanded at an impossible rate, growing into a towering, bloated, distended mountain of grotesque flesh.
It was an Inflazombie.
The sheer size of the mutated beast blocked out the lights in the cavern, its constantly shifting, absorbing body letting out a deafening, multi-layered roar that shook the very foundation of Dream Town Inari.
The Exwires readied their weapons, their faces pale with despair at the sight of the towering abomination.
I just crossed my arms, my pearl-white halo glowing brilliantly in the dark.
"Is this really it?" I asked, completely unimpressed. "You threw something flammable at a God of Flames, and your best strategy was to make it bigger?"
I shook my head, my flames growing as my power started to ascend.
"I guess I really gotta show you the errors in your judgement."