To anyone seeing Ryuunosuke Uryuu for the first time, he appeared to be a cheerful and lively young man. In daily life, he seemed attentive to others' feelings, easygoing, optimistic, and constructive.
An unmistakably good youth who enjoyed life to the fullest—except his hobby was torture, murder, and corpse disposal.
If asked why he had such twisted preferences, he could hardly answer. He had not suffered a tragic childhood, nor was he bullied or treated unfairly.
"It's probably like how baby sharks start killing each other inside their mother's womb. They kill to survive physically, while I kill to satisfy my spirit."
By now, he had killed forty-two people. Yet strangely, not once had he fallen under suspicion. Why? Why ask about motives? Why search for murder weapons? And laughably, why conclude it must be revenge or acquaintance just because the victims' property wasn't stolen?
Was it really so hard to imagine someone killing simply because they wanted to?
Ryuunosuke couldn't understand. Wasn't he obvious enough? He left each victim with unique marks, carefully choosing their "brilliant" death, even hinting at using their organs as the weapons.
"And yet they claim I'm brilliant at covering up evidence and obstructing investigations?"
It was impossible to communicate with such people. All he wanted now was to hurry back to his "art studio."
With that thought, he quickened his pace toward his "stage of art."
Along the way, he stooped to pick up a dropped wallet for an old woman and returned it with a smile.
"These days, it's rare to find such a considerate young man," the elder said gratefully.
Her words still echoed as his thoughts drifted back to a few days ago.
That day, after returning from work as usual, an inexplicable restlessness stirred within him. He knew this feeling well. He selected a not-so-sharp blade and snuck into a secluded house.
It didn't take much effort before he stood, grinning with delight, before four trembling victims.
In the thick darkness, like heavy ink, the only light came from a flickering candle. In that wavering glow, Ryuunosuke sat cheerfully on a chair.
Before him, a family of four lay bound under his control. After two hours of torment, the father still managed to ask weakly: "Who are you? Why are you doing this to us?"
"Hmm?" A faint smile spread across Ryuunosuke's handsome face. "How can you accuse me so wrongly?"
"What do you mean, wrongly—" The man had no time to finish. A dull blade plunged into his chest, then ripped downward.
Blood and agony shattered his reason in an instant. He stared in terror and disbelief at the smiling face before him, blood seeping from his mouth.
"Ahhhhhh Murder! Murder!"
"Papa!"
...
The woman and a child shrieked and wailed in despair, even the infant sensing the impending doom, crying with all its might.
But this place was remote. Ryuunosuke always chose his targets carefully beforehand.
"To keep you honest, and so I won't be wrongly accused, now I've truly hurt him. A little deeper, and he would already be dead."
His blood-splattered face remained smiling as he turned toward the collapsing woman. A face only nightmares could conjure.
"See? Such a perfect compromise. You realize, killers like me aren't usually so considerate. This—this is all for your sake. Hahahahaha!"
Through his long history of killing, Ryuunosuke Uryuu had developed a deep understanding of the fragility of the human body. With each act of slaughter, this strange knowledge grew, granting him complete awareness of such weaknesses.
But now, with magecraft beyond imagination at his disposal, all those limitations were swept away. With it, Ryuunosuke could now spread his wings of twisted creativity and indulge without restraint.
Just as he was preparing to fine-tune the "tones of his organ," however, the air heavy with blood suddenly grew even thicker. The density of magecraft in the atmosphere deepened. All signs pointed to the return of this workshop's true master.
"Welcome back, great King of Kings."
In the candlelight, a tall figure emerged from the shadows. He remained silent, merely casting a gaze that mixed both disgust and faint admiration toward the creature before him—this man who could no longer even be called human. He found it beneath him even to insult him.
"An enemy approaches."
"Eh?" Ryuunosuke blinked in confusion. Small wonder—what meaning could pursuit by a Heroic Spirit possibly have to an ordinary man like him? No matter how many weaklings he tortured and killed, it would never make him strong.
That was undeniable fact.
But in the tall man's eyes glimmered a light of foresight—an ability beyond the reach of ordinary Masters. This was Clairvoyance EX, a miraculous sight that could perceive past and future alike.
"So it's them...?"
The tall, white-haired man swept his hand. At once, the dense magical energy around him became a raging inferno, burning everything in sight.
Then he turned his gaze toward the one who was nominally his Master. Though his current existence was supported by a system linking him to the distant power of Chaldea, this man still served as a necessary anchor point in time and space.
Otherwise, the King of Kings would never have tolerated such filth as his Master.
"If our previous strategy cannot stop them, then this time... let us summon demons to amuse ourselves."
At that thought, multiple vast summoning circles appeared around him. With the workshop's reinforcement, they drew forth terrifying torrents of mana. Were it left to Ryuunosuke alone to provide, he would have been reduced to a husk in an instant. Most of the energy instead came from another mechanism prepared by the white-haired man.
As the circles charged, their brilliance swelled. Finally, amid the inferno that transformed the room into a living hell, three towering demons emerged, reeking of brimstone.
Their arrival brought overwhelming waves of negative energy, a suffocating malice so dense it felt tangible. Their grotesque forms would freeze the heart of any who looked upon them.
The first bore the head and feet of a duck, the body of a lion, and the tail of a rabbit. He granted courage, action, and imagination, and could see past, present, and future—enhancing the white-haired man's own clairvoyance.
This was the Marquis demon Ipos.
The second was a man riding a great serpent, with three heads: human, serpent, and cat. Known as Aini, he granted his summoner the full extent of their abilities and knowledge, while bringing fire upon their enemies.
This was the Duke demon Aini, ranked higher than Ipos.
Both of these were renowned names even in Hell—but beside the third, they seemed weak.
The third was a minotaur clad in imperial robes and a crown, seated upon a throne summoned alongside him. This was no mere noble, but the commander of thirty legions of the fly-riders, a member of the infernal council, known as Moloch. The Bible itself recorded him—named as Molech in Leviticus and as Morax in Kings—a leader among demons.
Of course, even with all the power and authority inherited from his king, the white-haired man could not summon their true infernal forms. What he called forth were only the most basic projections, constrained by the mana available.
With a wave of his hand, the surrounding summoning circles shut down. Even with EX-ranked summoning arrays, what was possible in theory often could not be realized in practice.
In theory, the white-haired man—by virtue of his true identity—could summon all seventy-two pillars of demons. But that was only in theory. Among those demons were beings no weaker than himself, and their true loyalty was not to him. Their real master was one of the Seven Princes of Hell, the ultimate demon Belial.
He had merely exploited loopholes in the contracts to command their projections. Even so, that alone was already a tremendous force.
"King, what business requires our presence?"
The highest-ranked among them, Morax, slightly bowed his head and asked in a low voice.
"There are intruders outside. Kill them."
The three grotesque demons immediately accepted the command. Their bodies flashed with the light of teleportation and vanished.
Beside them, Ryuunosuke Uryuu had long since been terrified to the core by the aura of the demons. His eyes bulged, fixed on the spot where the monstrous forms had just stood, unable to form a single word. But after a moment, his expression slowly shifted—from fear to ecstasy.
That feeling just now—this was the ultimate goal he had been seeking all along.
In that instant, the mind of this already twisted murderer reached an epiphany: another's death would always remain another's experience. To truly understand death, to truly perceive it, one must personally embrace it. Only by experiencing death oneself could its true essence be grasped.