As for the Rat Demon King's desperate attempt at provoking him, Ren Kuroda didn't even bother responding.
What did the pride of "demons" have to do with him anyway? He wasn't fighting for some grand ideology. He was fighting because he liked fighting. Picking a battle you couldn't win and calling it courage? That wasn't bravery—that was plain stupidity.
Besides, he wasn't even a full demon. Just a half-demon.Why would he care about "demonic dignity"?
The Rat Demon King's wails tore through the night, but Ren could feel its aura weakening.It knew its life was bleeding away fast. Pitiful, really—so much stronger than him physically, yet doomed to die in such an undignified, humiliating way.
If things had continued like this for a bit longer, Ren definitely could have worn it down to the brink.
But fate, as always, had other plans.
Thanks to the exceptionally powerful Demon-Aura Talismans Ren had given them, Kujo Hinano and Gouda Yusaburō had managed to wipe out several waves of lesser rat yokai. Just as they'd finished, they moved toward Ren's position to see whether he needed backup.
What they saw instead was a nightmare the size of a minibus.
A rat the size of a car—its blood-red eyes as big as headlights—turned toward them.
Gouda Yusaburō and the others had already thought the hound-sized rats were horrifying enough. But this?This monster made all the previous yokai look like harmless garden mice.
Meanwhile, atop the creature's back, Ren went pale the instant he spotted Hinano and Yusaburō arriving.
To make matters worse, the group—still riding high after their easy victories using Ren's talismans—were now dangerously overconfident.Moments ago they'd been trembling before rat yokai the size of dogs. Now, seeing the Rat Demon King looming over them, they boldly drew their pistols and began firing like action-movie heroes.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The crisp metallic sounds rang out with every impact. To their credit, Yusaburō's team were excellent shots; almost every bullet hit its mark.Then again, with a target this enormous, it was nearly impossible to miss.
But the results were obvious.
As the monarch of the rat horde, the Rat Demon King was in another league entirely.The bullets sparked harmlessly off its fur, producing metallic tones like pebbles hitting steel plating.
The pistols that could dispatch ordinary rat demons didn't even scratch its hide.
Worse—Yusaburō's "helpful" gunfire did nothing except enrage the monster even further.
Already furious at Ren's relentless stabbing from behind, and driven past sanity by blood loss, the Rat Demon King completely lost control.It didn't think. It didn't hesitate.
It simply charged toward Hinano and the others with raw, instinctive bloodlust.
Its massive, blood-soaked body tore through buildings and fences without the slightest regard for obstacles. It crashed straight ahead, determined to drag as many humans as possible into death with it.
A creature's final charge is always its most terrifying—and the Rat Demon King was no exception.
Even if it couldn't kill the half-demon clinging to its back, it could still tear apart a few humans before dying. That was enough.
Its monstrous size, coupled with its frenzied death throes, was unlike anything Yusaburō's team had ever seen. Their legs instantly froze with fear.
Not that running would've helped.
Even wounded, the Rat Demon King was far faster than Ren—let alone ordinary humans like Hinano and the others.
"Damn it! This is exactly why I told you all to stay back—now look what you've done!"
Ren had no choice but to abandon his assault and evade the monster's wild charge. His voice was harsh, but he couldn't just stand by and let them die.
Wrenching his demon blade free from the Rat Demon King's back, he triggered another torrent of blood. The monster shrieked again but didn't slow down.It was dying, yet somehow still relentless—charging at Hinano and the others with suicidal determination.
Ren leaped off the monster's back and sprinted toward its head, gripping his sword with both hands—one on the hilt, the other pressing down on the blade's spine. He caught the Rat Demon King's fangs head-on, using Oni-Shō to block the deadly bite.
Metal shrieked against enamel as the demon blade clashed with the monster's fangs. Sparks exploded in the dark, accompanied by a force so intense the ground cracked beneath Ren's feet.
The Rat Demon King had always been physically stronger, and now, in its last, desperate burst of rage, its power was terrifying. Ren's legs were driven deep into the concrete as the Rat Demon King bulldozed forward, carving two long trenches into the street.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Ren was thrown backward, crashing through several half-collapsed buildings. Pain ripped through his back, blood spraying from his mouth.
But behind him—just meters away—Hinano and the others were frozen in terror.
He couldn't let this thing reach them.
Ren snarled, his teeth grinding. He hadn't wanted to use this. Not again.
But he had no choice.
A guttural roar tore from his throat.
A surge of black energy erupted from Ren's body. Two horns erupted from his scalp, his pupils shifted from black to glowing crimson, and his demonic aura skyrocketed to a terrifying level.
The Rat Demon King's suicidal momentum suddenly halted—the sheer pressure of Ren's unleashed power forcing it to a stop.
Even in its berserk state, the monster's survival instinct kicked in.For the first time, it felt fear.
It tried to recoil.It never got the chance.
Ren's demon blade, now saturated with overwhelming demonic power, plunged straight into the Rat Demon King's eye—
—and the resulting blast of yokai energy split its skull clean in half.
The demonic strike didn't stop there. The unleashed force carved a massive, half-meter-wide trench into the street behind the monster, gouging the earth like a vertical scar.
"Trash," Ren snarled, his voice twisted, feral. "Who gave you the right to scream in front of me?"
He glared at the bisected corpse with wild, bloodthirsty eyes. Oni-Shō hummed in his hand, as if celebrating the kill.
But before he could even begin his usual corpse-finishing routine, the demonic power inside him collapsed. His horns shrank back into his skull. His crimson eyes dimmed, returning to normal.
Ren staggered. Leaning on his blade, he heaved for breath.
"I… almost lost control of the demon bloodline again." He forced out a shaky laugh. "But at least I didn't black out and wake up in a pile of corpses this time."