Evacuate! Move, now quickly!!
"How long until they get here!?"
BOOM! CLANG!
The sounds of collapse and destruction echoed relentlessly as buildings buckled one after another, crumbling into ruins. Dust clouds rolled across the streets like choking fog.
The wait did not last long. From the torn air itself, severed hands pushed outward, gripping the very fabric of space and crushing loose embers into distorted streams of light.
The royal guards had arrived.
They were ordinary soldiers, most between Rank 5 and Rank 7, but they were numerous, disciplined, and perfectly drilled.
They reacted instantly.
Barely two minutes after the anomaly appeared, ten Rank 6 elites were already on site attempting to suppress it.
One soldier pulled out a flute while three others flicked open matchsticks.
"Draw the flame!"
At the command, the three soldiers raised the matchsticks to their lips and blew.
A spiraling vortex burst into existence, sucking in ash and sparks and compressing them into a swirling sphere of blackened red embers.
The flutist began to play.
His melody rippled invisibly through the air, manifesting an illusory cage of spectral hands that clamped down on the demon within.
Wrapped in the Eternal Flame, the demon opened its blank white eyes and stared at the hands restraining it.
Slowly, its body began to swell.
A guard hurled a trident crackling with white lightning straight into its torso.
The weapon pierced through and exploded into hundreds of smaller bolts.
From a single flicker of lightning, a metal hand materialized, bright, polished, impossibly smooth.
As the demon expanded dangerously, the lightning weakened and thinned.
At that moment, the metallic hand flared with power, expanding dozens of times its size and grasping the demon entirely in its colossal grip.
"Your turn."
At the signal, several figures shot into the sky, weaving seals of mana.
A giant cube of condensed mana crashed down around the firestorm, sealing it from every direction.
A complete prison. Tight, reinforced, inescapable.
Two silhouettes then walked straight through the mana wall as if it were water.
Phole, Vice Principal and Royal Supervisor of Blue Light Star Academy.
Tinkell, Deputy Master of Melody Academy's Sound Division.
"Flame Type Heavenly Demon… estimated above Rank 9?"
"Two Rank 10s against an over tier 9. Think it's enough?"
Crack… crack…
The gigantic hand gripping the demon began to fracture.
Blue flames sprayed outward like shrapnel before spiraling back in vicious arcs.
The metal hand desperately absorbed the flames, along with the demon's leaking mana, to repair its damage.
"Condense!"
"Intonation!"
Hundreds of radiant stars flared into existence, circling the imprisoned demon.
In an instant, an entire galaxy whirled around it, forming a celestial cage.
…
High above, an eye watched the world.
It was a grotesque mass of moss covered flesh, its cube shaped form twitching with every breath.
"Death Type Spirit Demon. Rank unknown. Likely above Rank 9. Recommendation: deploy royal emergency squad," a soldier reported anxiously, his face twisting under the oppressive aura radiating from the creature.
He was speaking to the city's security captain, who was already mobilizing reinforcements.
Strangely, the captain did not appear worried at all.
Because
A squad of silhouettes sprinted toward them.
Leading the charge was Euni, heir of the Xinsoi noble family.
He chanted a binding spell.
Chains spiraled around his arms and legs, all converging toward a single point, his heart.
"Spread out and protect the civilians!"
His voice cracked like a commander's order.
He then glanced toward a rooftop where a cloaked figure stood.
"We'll handle things here."
Euni lunged directly toward the demon.
The cloaked figure, dressed in black and wearing a white mask, drew a handgun from beneath the cloak.
Golden chains erupted from thin air, coiling tightly around the demon just as it began to move.
Then
BANG. BANG. BANG.
Bullet after bullet tore through the demon's head and torso, each detonation scattering scorching sparks like miniature fireworks.
"GRUUUUUU!"
Millions of eyeballs spilled from the shredded parts of its body, tumbling to the ground.
Each one exploded upon impact.
Euni grimaced, tightening the chains wrapped around his own body.
His pain fed directly into the spell, forcing the demon to writhe in agony.
At that moment, the masked figure sprinted forward and planted dark furred hands against empty air.
…
An unnamed entity suddenly appeared in the habitat.
It did not step out from anywhere. It simply existed, as if it had fallen from an invisible crack in reality.
The air around it twisted and warped, as though space itself was trying to avoid touching its existence.
It possessed a crude humanoid shape, pale pink like a fetus forced to grow in darkness.
Its limbs were unnaturally long and covered in swollen, blood red nodules of flesh. Each one trembled in rhythm with the body's subtle convulsions, as if breathing on its own.
Its mouth was not on its head.
Instead, on the right side of its abdomen, a gaping slit of flesh opened directly into the stomach, constantly dripping corrosive digestive fluid.
Inside, coiled intestines twitched slightly, like dying worms exposed to light.
The creature had no eyes, no nose, no ears.
Where a face should have formed was only smooth flesh.
Yet countless monstrous teeth sprouted from the surface like fleshy roses, opening and closing with irregular breaths.
Along its spine, instead of vertebrae, tiny infant like hands emerged.
Dozens of them, small and delicate, grasping blindly, as though searching for life to cling to.
Its real hands were mangled, the flesh peeled away from bone.
Clear human bite marks covered the fingers, as if the creature had devoured them itself in endless hunger.
No one knew why it had appeared.
But everyone felt the same thing.
This was not a being from the human world.
It came from somewhere deeper.
Older.
Darker.
Promet stood before it, gripping a bloodstained sword.
Behind him, more creatures like it crawled out from the shadows.
He lowered his stance.
He was only a second year student.
Facing even one of these things was already reckless.
"Now!"
Lightning crashed from the sky, engulfing the entire clearing.
The beasts recoiled from the deafening thunder, stumbling backward
Only to be ambushed from behind.
Students burst from their hiding places exactly according to plan.
One group created sonic agitation.
Another lured the creatures.
Another dealt direct damage.
Another scouted and shielded.
Dozens of trainees swarmed the monsters.
From the fading lightning strike, a blade thrust forward, aimed straight at the creature before Promet.
A suit of pale gray armor emerged from the smoke.
It was woven from bone like plates and reinforced with gleaming scales, like fragments carved from a dragon.
The one wearing it was none other than the protagonist
Promet.