A low growl rippled through the crowd. Fangs gleamed in the shadows. The challenge had been accepted.
Quinn's smirk widened. "You've got a sharp tongue, boy. Let's see if it still works when you're screaming."
As if on command, the vampires on the dance floor moved as one. Their eyes glowed red, and in a single coordinated rush, they lunged. Claws tore through the air, hunger burning in their expressions.
Quinn stepped aside, watching with a cruel smile. He wanted to enjoy the spectacle — to see this arrogant stranger ripped apart, drained dry before his eyes. But Kurogai didn't move in fear. He watched their approach calmly, almost disappointed.
"It's really quite frightening," he said softly. "But only for ordinary people."
In a shimmer of scarlet light, a blood-red scythe materialized in his hand — the Demon Scythe, its edge humming with hunger. He gripped it effortlessly, stepping forward into the wave of predators.
The first vampire leapt, hissing, "Be my blood meal, human, or drown in—"
The creature never finished. The scythe flashed once. Its head flew from its shoulders, the body collapsing midair before it even hit the floor. The weapon pulsed faintly, absorbing the creature's blood in a dark glow. Within seconds, the corpse began to burn, flesh disintegrating until only a skeleton remained — which then crumbled into gray ash.
The bar fell silent for a moment. Then, chaos.
Kurogai moved through them like a storm. Each sweep of his scythe left behind a phantom arc of red light. Bodies dissolved into cinders as the weapon drank deeply, its blade thrumming with the essence it devoured. Every strike was clean, controlled — terrifyingly efficient.
Blood splattered across the floor, only to vanish as the scythe absorbed it. The vampires became frenzied, driven mad by the scent of death. They lunged faster, snarling, but none could get close. The air around Kurogai seemed to distort slightly, as if reality itself bent away from him.
To an observer, he might have looked like a dancer — each motion seamless, each strike deliberate. But his dance was one of death, his partner the Demon Scythe, and the music the screams of the damned.
As he fought, Kurogai could feel a familiar stirring in the depths of his power. The Ultimate Eye, sealed within him, pulsed faintly with energy — and a voice echoed in his mind.
[The conditions for unlocking the Seventh Pupil Ring have been met. Do you wish to activate it?]
"Yes," Kurogai answered without hesitation.
The moment the words left him, heat surged through his body. A current of power gathered beneath his skin, flowing upward through his optic nerves until it reached his eyes. The sensation was neither pain nor pleasure — it was transformation.
He opened his eyes wide.
Instantly, the world shifted. His once Amethyst-gold pupils darkened to an endless black, swirling like a bottomless vortex. The air in front of him shimmered and bent, ripples of distortion spreading outward. The scythe in his hand vibrated as if resonating with the new energy flooding his body.
"Seventh Pupil Ring: Twisted Eye."
Kurogai's gaze sharpened. He could feel the power's nature — not an element, but a concept itself. Distortion. A force that could bend anything it touched.
Light. Sound. Matter. Even gravity and energy itself.
He clenched his fist, testing it. The space around his hand rippled, warping faintly like heat waves over desert sand. One of the vampires screamed and charged, claws aimed at Kurogai's throat — but halfway through the leap, its body twisted violently in midair, snapping in directions that defied physics. It hit the ground in a broken heap, bones shattered by the invisible distortion.
"Impressive," Kurogai murmured, his voice calm. "A conceptual ability… distortion on every level."
He turned his head slightly, studying the subtle shifts in the air, the faint hum of vibrating energy. "Light bends. Sound muffles. Even force loses shape," he whispered. "Yes… this is power worth having."
For the first time since the fight began, Quinn's smirk faltered. "What the hell are you?" he growled, eyes narrowing. "You're no ordinary human."
Kurogai tilted his head. "No," he replied. "I'm not."
With a flick of his wrist, the scythe dissolved into red motes, replaced by the swirling darkness of the Twisted Eye. He looked at Quinn — and reality folded.
The walls of the bar rippled, bending inward and outward as if the building itself was unsure of its existence. Tables, chairs, and scattered bottles swirled in midair before shattering into fragments that hovered like suspended stars. The vampires shrieked, clawing at nothing, their senses overwhelmed by the warping of space around them.
Quinn stumbled backward, his eyes wide, the predator's confidence draining. "Impossible… this can't—"
Kurogai's voice cut through the chaos, calm and absolute. "It's already happening," he said. "And it will continue until nothing resists."
A tide of dark energy surged from him, and the remaining vampires were swept aside effortlessly, their bodies twisting unnaturally, some evaporating into ash before they even landed. The bar, once a den of hunters, had become a tomb of distorted reality.
And through it all, Kurogai moved like a shadow of inevitability, every step purposeful, every motion predatory, his black vortex eyes consuming the world around him.
___
Milestone
100 Powerstones = 1 Bonus chapter.
I've been getting little to no Powerstones, don't be greedy with them 😪