A pale violet moon dominated the horizon.
The invisible, crushing pressure in the air made the atmosphere suffocatingly tense. Every faction craved the heart of the Chainsaw Devil, and assassins threw themselves into the fray one after another. Santa Claus's ability was simply too terrifyingly unique; ordinary humans required only a single touch to be permanently converted into puppets bound to her whim. By now, the streets of Tokyo had been completely swallowed by a torrential tide of puppets.
Deafening roars and violent tremors reverberated through every street and alley.
Meanwhile, the only "good woman" who held absolutely no interest in the Chainsaw Devil, but cared deeply for Denji's heart, was currently cradling herself in Chainsaw Man's arms.
Fleeing for their lives sounded brutal, but amidst a storm of flying limbs and severed tissue, it carried a strange, unexpected note of romance.
Reze's cheeks flushed a bright crimson.
Both she and Denji were fragile individuals who had spent their entire lives starved of a sense of existence and security. Yet, never had that sense of being alive felt so incredibly intense.
Denji had completely succumbed to the thrill of slaughter.
He had no idea where he was heading, nor did he even care who he was anymore. The only absolute certainty in his mind was that anything daring to stand in his path had to be sawed into microscopic dust.
It was time for a massacre!
A dense wall of puppets choked the street directly ahead.
"Dammit! These pieces of trash just keep coming!" Denji roared, plunging headfirst into the tide of puppets.
Countless puppets swarmed him like flesh-eating maggots, clinging to his torso and driving their blade-morphed arms deep into his flesh. Denji bellowed in agony as his body was pierced so many times it practically resembled a hornet's nest.
Yet, from within his embrace, Reze yanked the cord on his chest again and again. The roar of the chainsaws exploded over and over, reviving him from the brink of death every single time.
Pochita! The elegant silhouette of the devil from the previous night flashed through Denji's mind. This is our final battle, Pochita!
Sprinting through a deluge composed of grotesque puppets and his own cascading blood, Denji lowered his voice, his tone a mix of a sob and a battle cry:
"Pochita is willing to sacrifice everything for my dream... and I will absolutely not drag Pochita down!"
Reviving once more in a spray of blood, Denji suddenly felt his arms go light as a powerful recoil pushed against him.
It was Reze.
Using Denji's chest as a springboard, she launched herself outward, hurtling directly toward the blocking puppets.
Mid-air, she violently yanked the pin at her neck.
A blinding, cataclysmic explosion ripped through the sky. Reze transformed into the Bomb Devil mid-flight, utilizing the explosive kinetic backthrust to stick a perfect landing.
The violent shockwave of the blast whipped up the hem of her coat, briefly revealing her flawless silhouette.
"A dream meant for two people... obviously has to be achieved by both of us together," she said, her voice trembling slightly.
Extending her hands, she unleashed a localized detonation directly over Denji, blowing the puppets surrounding him to smithereens and leaving Denji himself a mangled mass of flesh and bone. Then, Reze reached out and yanked his starter cord once more, pulling Denji right back to life.
This was the combined might of the Chainsaw Devil and the Bomb Devil—bloody, merciless, and yet breathtakingly romantic.
It was a beautiful flight beneath the violet moonlight.
They were both beautiful lunatics!
Meanwhile.
The chaotic din of the battlefield failed to penetrate the shadows of the secluded alleyway.
Makima felt as though she were genuinely trapped.
For the first time, a profound sense of revulsion toward the extradimensional devil before her began to take root in her heart.
The entity plainly knew every facet of her plan.
Her goal was to drive Denji into absolute despair, cultivating the true Chainsaw Devil to be subservient to her will. With that power, she intended to exterminate every single devil in existence, achieving her grand, noble ideal of forging a flawless new world.
But the entity had thrown a wrench into her grand design.
He had allowed Reze to escape, and now Denji was fleeing alongside her. The pieces on the chessboard were scattering in all directions; her perfect game had been utterly derailed.
And here she was, confronting the root cause of the chaos.
Yet, she couldn't do a single thing to him.
No matter how powerful the Control Devil was, how could she possibly match the monster standing before her, a being who had remained completely unbothered from the very beginning?
He was a true Devil.
He was nothing like the devils of this world, whose strength relied entirely on the fleeting fears of ordinary mortals. This entity behaved more like a cosmic observer, quietly watching a theatrical play unfold on a stage.
"Why are you helping him?" Makima asked, her voice dropping to a freezing temperature.
"Helping? No, this is a transaction," Zoran replied with a faint, amused smile.
He casually lifted a finger. The Repulsion Slash manifested instantly, severing Makima's right arm.
The speed was so absolute that it completely defied counter-analysis.
To Makima's perception, her severed arm began falling to the ground before her brain could even register the movement of his hand. The limb was already mid-drop, yet the entity had only just raised his fingertip.
"Do not attempt petty parlor tricks in my presence. It is entirely meaningless," Zoran warned smoothly.
There was no blood. The wound was perfectly smooth and immaculate, sealed clean as if wrapped in an airtight film the exact millisecond it was cut.
"A transaction?" Makima's expression remained completely unbothered as she watched her falling arm disintegrate into fine dust. Suddenly, the realization struck her, and she stated coldly, "The Chainsaw Devil."
"Precisely. Pochita, the Chainsaw Devil. The very prize you covet happens to be the dish I intend to consume."
Zoran kept his two pairs of hands folded casually in front of him, speaking with absolute serenity. "It appears our interests clash slightly. I suppose we will just have to see whose capabilities reign supreme."
His tone sounded almost apologetic.
However, Makima's heart progressively sank into an abyss.
She was utterly outmatched by Zoran; there wasn't even a mathematical probability of a successful clash. The devil standing before her was an entity capable of altering planetary phenomena with a mere thought. Facing Zoran, she possessed a zero percent chance of victory.
"Then kill me, or kill every single devil in this world!" Makima demanded heavily.
"Are you attempting to dictate my actions?" Zoran replied, a smirk playing on his lips.
"There are always individuals who foolishly believe that if you simply erase every unpleasant element from existence, the world will magically enter a state of eternal peace. How utterly juvenile," he remarked, his face twisting into a mask of pure disdain.
"Why is it that every antagonist with an 'ideal' feels compelled to righteously construct a flawless new world?"
Zoran's silhouette floated soundlessly toward Makima, his gaze locking directly with hers.
"It sounds like a grand, sweeping ambition, but in reality, it is deeply childish. Don't you agree?" he chuckled.
"Even insects devoid of malice will slaughter one another to the bitter end over a scrap of food. Humans, devils… at their core, they are all merely insects."
"A world of absolute perfection does not exist. You sorely require a few more centuries to mature your wisdom."
Makima's expression remained rigid. Even as the entity thoroughly dismantled her life's ambition, she remained entirely unswayed.
"In reality, there is only one place in existence that is eternally peaceful and devoid of conflict," Zoran added, his lips curling into a dark smile.
"Where?" Makima questioned.
She was genuinely curious if such a sanctuary actually existed.
Zoran tilted his head back, gazing up toward the celestial canopy, and whispered with a soft chuckle: "On the dark side of the moon."
Makima opened her mouth to speak, but her words were permanently cut short by his very next sentence.
"Regrettably, you are not worthy of seeing it."
She froze.
The next fraction of a second, her physical form shattered.
An abrupt, completely detached, and emotionless slash cleaved through her entire body. It pulverized the physical vessel completely, before tracing back to the very source of her existence.
Under the absolute laws of this world, the Control Devil was violently recycled, sent straight back into the reincarnation pipeline to Hell.
The absolute final sight before her consciousness dissolved was the gentle, elegant flutter of Zoran's robes.
He had executed the kill with effortless grace, as casual and poetic as plucking a flower from a garden.
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