NAKIME'S POV
My hands were shaking as I plucked the biwa strings. I couldn't make them stop trembling no matter how much I wanted.
I'd served Muzan Kibutsuji for centuries. Watched him slaughter entire families. Seen Upper Rank demons tear through Demon Slayer Corps members like they were made of paper. Witnessed Muzan himself in rage so terrible it made the air itself feel like it was burning.
This was worse.
Far worse.
The thing in red and white tearing through my Infinity Castle. It was a force of nature wearing human skin, and even that skin was barely holding together after what Master and those heroes had done to it.
His life energy dwarfed anything I'd ever sensed. Lord Muzan, at his peak, was a candle beside this monster's bonfire. And the raw physical prowess of his speed and strength, he was destroying halls faster than I could rearrange them, smashing through walls I'd reinforced with my Blood Demon Art like they were made of rice paper.
I plucked the biwa again, shifting an entire corridor into a pit that dropped into nowhere. The monster fell for maybe three seconds before he just... flew back up, covered in dust and blood and absolutely consumed with rage.
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"WHERE ARE YOU, BUG?!" His voice screamed into the infinite castle. His voice echoed through dimensions. "I'LL TEAR THIS ENTIRE BUILDING APART! I'LL FIND YOU! I'LL RIP YOUR TONGUE OUT-"
I shifted him three hundred miles away mid-sentence, warping space so he ended up in an entirely different section of the castle.
It bought me maybe thirty seconds before he resumed tearing through walls again.
My single eye tracked his movements through the castle's spatial awareness. He was coughing blood, the shallow wound Master had given him still bled down his side, refusing to close. That woman's divine mace had cracked multiple ribs of his, as I could see the way he favored his left side. Not to mention, friction burns that covered his entire chest in angry purple bruises that looked almost black.
He was injured, weakened and slower than he'd been at the start.
Yet "slower" for this monster still outpaced even Upper Rank One at full sprint.
And his senses were sharper than Kokushibo's. Every time I opened a portal to redirect him, he'd sense the dimensional shift before it fully formed. Every trap I constructed, he'd either avoid through instinct or just smash through with brute force.
The only thing keeping him from finding me was the infinite nature of the castle itself. I could keep rearranging, keep shifting, keep him chasing shadows forever.
Theoretically.
But in practice, I had another problem.
I was hungry.
My face heated with shame even as I plucked the biwa to shift another section of castle between us. Demons didn't blush, but if we could, I would be.
I hadn't eaten since Master summoned me. And maintaining this level of spatial manipulation, constantly warping an infinite fortress while a what was it that master called him… a Viltru…? Yeah, a Viltrumite tore through it, burning through energy I didn't have.
My stomach cramped. The demon hunger, that terrible gnawing need that had driven me to cannibalism in my previous life, was starting to claw at my concentration.
But I couldn't leave to hunt. Couldn't risk opening a portal to the real world while this monster was hunting, because he'd sense it, follow, and find Master.
Master was still unconscious in that massacre hall. I could see him through my detached eyeball that remained in the real world, watching over his knocked-out body surrounded by corpses and blood.
I could take him back here to safety. Pull him into the Infinity Castle, where I can protect him properly, while he heals.
But doing that while the Viltrumite was actively hunting would expose Master. The monster would sense the portal opening and then nothing would stop him.
The curse binding them together made the monster hypersensitive to Master's presence.
I'd rather die again than lead this thing to my Master.
At least if the monster killed me, he'd be trapped here forever. The Infinity Castle was bound to my existence - if I died, it would collapse into dimensional void, taking everything inside with it.
Including him.
Master would be safe in the real world, and this monster would be banished to nowhere forever.
But I didn't want to die.
I'd already died once, and given a choice between oblivion and service, I chose service—chose Master. And I would serve him properly, which meant surviving this and solving my hunger problem before it became critical.
I plucked the biwa, opening the smallest door I could manage - just barely large enough to poke my hand through into the real world.
The portal appeared in that massacre room, in the far corner where Master lay unconscious. My hand reached through, fingers closing around something cold and wet.
The upper half of that hero in blue. The Immortal, they'd called him. His severed head stared at nothing, eyes glazed, mouth frozen in whatever last word he'd tried to speak before the monster had decapitated him.
Even by demon standards, this was disturbing. We ate humans, yes, but we didn't usually take trophies like this.
I pulled the corpse through quickly, sealing the portal before the monster could hear my Biwa's pluck.
The Immortal's torso felt strange in my hands. Still warm.
I could ration it, make it sustain me for days, maybe weeks if I was careful.
I took a small bite, just enough to quiet the hunger, and felt strength return to my limbs.
I heard the monster roar somewhere three sections away, smashing through another wall.
I plucked the biwa and shifted him five hundred miles in the opposite direction.
This was going to be a long night.
GUARDIANS OF THE GLOBE HQ
The pneumatic doors hissed open.
Agent Marcus Roth, the first GDA agent through the entrance, immediately threw up in his helmet.
Senior Agent Vasquez behind him couldn't really blame the kid.
The room was a slaughterhouse. Blood had foud its way everywhere. The walls were covered in it, the floor slick with it, even the ceiling dripping with it, imitating a grotesque art installation.
Bodies.
Or pieces of bodies.
Or what used to be bodies before something terrifyingly strong had torn them apart.
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"Sweet Jesus Christ," one of the paramedics whispered, his voice barely audible through his respirator.
Agent Vasquez's GDA team had gotten the alert seventeen minutes ago. Emergency beacon from the Guardians of the Globe headquarters, every alarm screaming priority one, and then complete radio silence.
They'd expected bad.
But not this.
Aquarus was paste against the far wall. Like someone had flung him at such speeds that the impact had just... liquefied him. Blue scales mixed with red pulp, and there was a man-shaped impact crater in the reinforced steel that should've withstood tank rounds.
Darkwing lay in another crater, his back bent at an angle that would've been impossible if his spine hadn't snapped in multiple places. His utility belt was still beeping, some gadget still trying to deploy even though its owner was gone.
Green Ghost II had a fist-sized hole through her stomach, clean through. Guts and bile visible, and her signature jade glow extinguished completely.
Martian Man was in pieces scattered across the room. Grey chunks of alien flesh, some still twitching as his elastic body tried to pull itself back together through sheer biological stubbornness.
War Woman's neck was broken, head lolling sideways. Her divine mace lay three feet away, still crackling with residual divine energy.
Red Rush's legs were crushed flat. Bone protruded from one leg. His fists were burned down to bone, flesh completely seared off from the friction.
And right there in the center of the massacre was the Immortal or parts of him.
His legs near the entrance.
His upper body missing.
"Sir," one agent called out, voice shaking. "The Immortal's torso is gone. Someone must have taken it."
The senior agent processed that information.
'Someone had taken half a corpse. Why? Trophy? Evidence? Some sick fuck's idea of a souvenir?'
Then he heard it.
"WAIT! This one's breathing!"
Heads snapped toward the paramedic crouched over Red Rush's broken body.
"What?"
"He's alive! Barely, but alive! Get me a stabilizer, NOW!"
Another paramedic scrambled over. "War Woman too! She's got a pulse!"
"Green Ghost is breathing!"
"Darkwing's spine is shattered, but his breathing is stable!"
"Martian Man's core is intact! He's already regenerating!"
Hope surged through the room like electricity, cutting through the horror. They were alive.
Barely hanging by a thread, but alive.
But five survivors was a miracle in itself.
CECIL STEDMAN
I stood in the GDA war room staring at the live feed from the Guardians' headquarters, and I felt something I hadn't felt since the terrorist attack that melted half my face off.
Absolute helplessness.
Seven heroes. Earth's premier superhero team. The people who'd saved the world a dozen times over.
Dead in their own headquarters.
My fist slammed against the tactical table hard enough to make the holographic displays flicker. The impact sent pain shooting up my arm, but I barely felt it through the artificial skin.
"I've never seen anything like this," I said, my voice coming out rougher than intended. The scar tissue on my jaw burned.
Donald stood beside me, face pale but professional. Kid had seen some shit working for the GDA, but this was testing even his limits.
"Sir, preliminary analysis indicates-"
"SIR!" An agent's voice cut through the war room like a gunshot. "Red Rush is still breathing!"
My head snapped up so fast my neck cracked. "What?"
"War Woman too! She's alive!"
"Green Ghost has a pulse!"
"Darkwing's breathing is stable!"
"Martian Man's core is intact!"
Five survivors.
Five miracles.
"GET THEM TO OR STAT!" I roared, my voice carrying across every comm channel. "I want every doctor we have, every piece of medical equipment, EVERYTHING focused on stabilizing them! MOVE YOUR ASSES!"
The feed showed paramedics swarming the bod... survivors deploying emergency medical tech, stabilizing vitals and preparing for emergency transport.
In a situation that should've been Seven funerals, we might only have two.
Still two too many.
"Sir," another agent approached, younger, nervous. "You need to see this."
I followed his gesture to the feed, focusing on the far corner of the massacre room.
There, half-hidden in shadows and blood, was another body.
The body was in a white suit with an expensive-looking overcoat that was almost a cape. And most importantly, a fedora covering the face.
"Who the hell is that?" I demanded.
The agents on scene moved carefully, one of them removing the fedora with gloved hands.
A kid? Couldn't be more than eighteen, maybe nineteen. Blonde hair with Caucasian features.
But more interestingly, his injuries were a joke compared to everyone else in that room.
A few flesh wounds that looked painful but survivable. Bruising around his throat with purple marks clearly showed fingers, as if someone had tried to strangle him.
But compared to the Guardians? This kid looked like he'd gotten into a bar fight, not a superhuman massacre.
The discrepancy was screaming at me.
"What are you all standing around for?!" Donald snapped at the agents on feed. "Get him medical attention! Now!"
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