The night air in the downtown district was thick, choking on a cocktail of smog, humidity, and the palpable tension of civil unrest.
Damien stood on the sidewalk, the collar of his coat turned up against the wind. In front of him loomed the headquarters of the Crutian Guild—a monolith of glass and steel that pierced the skyline like a jagged obsidian knife. It was a monument to avarice, built on the broken backs of the lower class and funded by the blood money of illegal dungeon trades.
Floodlights bathed the building in an arrogant white glow, illuminating the massive guild crest: a golden lion devouring a serpent.
Around the perimeter, a sea of people surged against the police barricades. Hundreds of protesters held signs, their chants rising into a cacophony of rage. "JUSTICE FOR THE MISSING!" "ABOLISH THE GUILDS!" "HUNTERS ARE NOT GODS!"
Damien watched them with a detached curiosity.
"So this is the HQ of the Crutian Guild, huh," Damien murmured, his voice barely audible over the shouting crowd.
He looked at the towering structure, calculating the structural integrity, the mana shielding woven into the glass, and the patrol routes of the S-Rank guards stationed on the balconies.
"Too bad it will be full of flames soon."
He adjusted the heavy strap on his shoulder. The weight on his back was immense, enough to crush a normal man's spine, but to Damien, it felt like a feather. It felt like purpose.
'Even at night, they still protest?' Damien thought, scanning the faces of the crowd—tired, angry, desperate. 'Damn, these people are more resilient and fearless than those politicians hiding in the Capitol. Oh well. They were hired by the Hunter Association to stir the pot anyways, but the anger... the anger is real.'
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone and a pair of high-fidelity wireless earbuds. He scrolled through his library, ignoring the classical playlists he usually used for sniping missions. Tonight wasn't about precision. Tonight wasn't about silence.
Tonight was about a message.
He found the track. "Make It Bun Dem" by Skrillex & Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley.
It was a relic from his childhood, a song he remembered hearing while playing Far Cry 3 in the orphanage rec room before the world went to hell. It was chaotic, aggressive, and perfect for burning things down.
He pressed play.
The reggae beat started, the bass line thumping a slow, ominous rhythm against his eardrums.
"We mash up the place, turn up the bass, and make them all have fun..."
As the lyrics kicked in, Damien reached behind him and unclasped the stealth covering on the device strapped to his back. The metal gleamed menacingly under the streetlights.
It wasn't a gun. It wasn't a sword.
[System Analysis]The Cataclysm Flamethrower: Pyroclast Regalia
[System Classification: Strategic Extinction Armament]
[Threat Level: World-Annihilation Class]
[Usage Authorization: Forbidden]
To call it a flamethrower was an insult born of ignorance. It was like calling a nuclear warhead a firecracker.
The Pyroclast Regalia was a relic of annihilation, a weapon forged not to burn enemies but to erase them from the tapestry of existence. Where conventional flames consumed flesh and steel, this inferno devoured reality itself, reducing even SS-SSS Rank Hunters to ash before their enhanced instincts could register the concept of pain.
At its core burned an artificial star-heart, a condensed furnace of volatile mana and exotic fuel compressed beyond natural law. The fuel canisters weren't filled with napalm; they were filled with liquefied, unstable magical cores harvested from Red-Zone dungeons.
The flame it produced was not orange or red. It was a shifting spectrum of violent colors—white-hot at the center, edged with violet and a sickly, radioactive blue. It looked like the color of a dying star. Witnesses from the few recorded uses claimed the air screamed when it was fired, collapsing inward as the temperature surged past survivable thresholds.
When unleashed, the Pyroclast Regalia did not simply project fire. It commanded it.
The torrent poured forth in a roaring arc, stretching dozens of meters. Wherever it touched, the world failed. Reinforced dungeon stone vitrified instantly, flowing like molten glass. Adamantine armor—armor that had tanked dragon strikes and city-level spells—softened, folded, and ran off its wearer like hot wax. Defensive barriers shattered not from impact, but from overload, their mana structures destabilizing and detonating under the overwhelming thermal pressure.
SS-Rank Hunters, beings who could shrug off napalm and magma alike, lasted seconds at best. Their enhanced regeneration failed catastrophically; cells burned faster than they could replicate, nerves vaporized before pain signals could travel to the brain.
Because the Pyroclast Regalia did not just burn matter.
It burned mana. It burned the soul. It burned the concept of the target.
The flames latched onto internal energy reserves, igniting them from within. Hunters who attempted to counter with aura reinforcement or mana barriers only hastened their end, as their own power became fuel for the fire. Entire bodies detonated in silent flashes of white light, leaving behind shadows burned into the ground, permanent scars etched into reality.
It was banned in three continents. Sealed in two vaults. Erased from official records.
Damien shouldn't really have this. Only the Hunter Association possessed such atrocities, and they kept them locked in the Deep Vaults beneath the Pentagon, intending to use them only if an SSS+ Break occurred.
'Well, I shouldn't really use this,' Damien thought, feeling the weapon hum against his back as it synchronized with his mana. 'But who cares? I want to commit mass genocide to these motherfuckers anyways. Might as well do it in style.'
He checked the fuel gauge. Full.
"Gotta try the flamethrower," he whispered, a dark grin splitting his face.
The beat in his ears began to build. The drop was coming.
Damien walked toward the main gate. The protesters parted for him, subconsciously repelled by the aura of death clinging to him, or perhaps confused by the massive, industrial-looking tubing on his back.
A guard, an A-Rank Tanker wearing full plate armor, stepped out from the security booth. He held a stun baton that crackled with electricity.
"Hey! Where are you going?!" the guard shouted, blocking Damien's path. "This is private property! Also, what the fu—"
The guard's eyes widened as he saw the nozzle in Damien's hands.
"Run the fire, make it bun dem."
The beat dropped.
Damien squeezed the trigger.
-FWOOOOSH!
A lance of blue-white hellfire erupted from the nozzle.
It hit the guard before he could even raise his shield. There was no scream, not initially. The air around the guard instantly turned into a vacuum. His armor, made of high-grade mythril alloy, didn't just melt; it sublimated. It turned into gas.
Then, the biology caught up.
"AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"
The scream was a high-pitched, gurgling sound that lasted less than a second. The guard flailed, a silhouette caught in a supernova. His flesh stripped away from his bones, his bones turned to dust, and then... nothing.
Just a scorch mark on the pavement.
The protesters froze. Then, chaos erupted.
"RUN!" "HE'S KILLING THEM!" "MONSTER!"
The crowd scattered like ants under a magnifying glass, dropping their signs and trampling each other to get away from the heat that was already blistering paint on cars fifty meters away.
Damien didn't mind them. He didn't even see them.
He was laughing.
"Hahahahahahahahaha!"
He swept the nozzle in a wide arc. The heavy reinforced steel gates of the Crutian Guild melted like butter, dripping onto the concrete. The guard booth exploded as the fuel tank inside caught fire, sending a mushroom cloud of debris into the air.
"This is the first time I've felt so much excitement!" Damien yelled over the roar of the flames and the dubstep in his ears. "I should have done this before! When Mel was still alive! I bet she would love it if she saw me burning these bastards! She always said they needed a cleansing fire!"
He stepped through the molten remains of the gate.
Alarms began to blare throughout the Crutian HQ. Red lights flashed.
From the lobby doors, a squad of ten Hunters rushed out. They were the rapid response team—mostly B and A Ranks. A mix of Mages and Swordsmen.
"Stop him!" the squad leader screamed, casting an Ice Wall spell. "Don't let him breach the lobby!"
A massive wall of glacial ice, reinforced with mana, rose up to block the entrance.
Damien just walked forward. He didn't stop. He didn't strafe.
He turned the knob on the Pyroclast Regalia to 'High'.
-ROAR!
The stream of fire intensified, turning a blinding violet.
It hit the Ice Wall. Physics wept. The ice didn't melt; it flashed into steam instantly, creating a massive explosion of superheated vapor. The shockwave knocked the Hunters off their feet.
Damien walked through the steam cloud like a demon emerging from the underworld.
"Fire!" a mage screamed, launching a fireball.
Damien countered with a lazy flick of his nozzle. The Pyroclast flame ate the mage's fireball, consumed it, and grew larger, rushing back up the trajectory to engulf the caster.
"NO! MY MANA! IT'S BURNING MY MANA!" the mage shrieked as his own energy reserves ignited, turning him into a living torch.
Damien advanced into the lobby. It was a grand atrium with marble floors and expensive art.
"We mash up the place, turn up the bass..."
He held the trigger down.
The marble floor turned into lava. The expensive paintings curled and vanished. The reception desk disintegrated.
Hunters tried to hide behind pillars. Damien burned through the pillars. They tried to run to the elevators. Damien burned the elevator doors, sealing them shut with molten metal, trapping them inside.
It wasn't a fight. It was an extermination.
Forty floors up, the air was cool and conditioned. The sound of the slaughter below was just a faint vibration in the floorboards.
The main conference room of the Crutian Guild was a picture of corporate luxury. A long mahogany table sat in the center, surrounded by men and women in tailored suits. These were the Executives—retired Hunters who now managed the trafficking rings, the dungeon monopolies, and the bribes.
At the head of the table sat Steven Crutian. He was a massive man, an SS-Rank Berserker in his prime, with a scar running down his left eye and a demeanor of absolute arrogance.
"The protests are getting annoying," Steven grumbled, swirling a glass of scotch. "The noise is distracting. Have we paid off the Police Chief to disperse them with tear gas yet?"
"We tried, Boss," an executive replied nervously. "But the Hunter Association has eyes on us. If we use excessive force publicly, they might launch an audit."
"Audit?" Steven scoffed. "Let them audit. We have senators in our pockets. We have dirt on half the Association board. We are untouchable."
He slammed his hand on the table.
"Focus on the shipment. The 'cargo' from the slums. Are the kids ready for transport to the Chilean mines?"
"Yes, sir. We secured a new batch tonight. Though... David's team hasn't checked in yet."
Steven waved his hand dismissively. "David is probably playing with his food. He likes to torture the merchandise. He'll call in."
Suddenly, the heavy double doors of the conference room burst open.
-BANG!
A man stumbled in. It was Charles, a B-Rank logistics manager. His face was pale, sweating profusely, and his suit was disheveled.
"Boss! We got a problem!" Charles screamed, gasping for air.
The room went silent. Steven's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"What the fuck are you doing here?!" Steven roared, standing up. His aura flared, a heavy red pressure that made the air hard to breathe. "We are in a board meeting! You interrupt me for what? A shipping delay?!"
Charles shook his head frantically. "No! This is important, Boss! Some maniac... some maniac is trying to burn our HQ!"
Steven blinked. "Burn it? With what? A lighter? Security will handle it."
"No!" Charles yelled, his voice cracking with terror. "You don't understand! He breached the gate! He killed the Rapid Response Team in seconds! He's... he's turning everything to ash! The lobby is gone! The second floor is gone!"
"What?!"
Steven walked to the floor-to-ceiling window behind him. He looked down.
His eyes widened.
The bottom of his building was glowing. Not with electric lights, but with a pulsating, sickly violet light. Smoke was billowing up in thick, black columns. He could see tiny figures running out of the building, on fire, collapsing before they made it to the street.
'What the fuck is this?!' Steven thought, a chill running down his spine. 'Who is this bastard?!'
He turned back to the room. The executives were standing up, panic setting in.
"Charles!" Steven barked. "Gather our men! Call all S-Rank and SS-Rank Hunters that are available in the building! Get the Mercenary Division! Stop this bastard immediately!"
"Yes, Boss!" Charles saluted and turned to run back out.
Steven watched him go, then looked back at the window, biting his nails—a nervous habit he hadn't done since he was a rookie in the dungeons.
"I'm gonna fucking kill you," Steven whispered, his mana boiling. "You fucking bastard. You dare attack my kingdom?"
-BOOM!
A massive explosion shook the building. The coffee cups on the table rattled and fell.
"That came from the 20th floor," one executive shouted, checking his tablet. "Sensors are offline! The fire suppression system has melted!"
-BOOM!
Another vibration, this one stronger.
"30th floor!"
Steven's heart hammered in his chest. "He's climbing? How is he climbing that fast? It's been thirty seconds!"
The answer came not from the sensors, but from the floor.
The carpet in the center of the conference room began to smoke. Then, it turned black.
Then, the reinforced concrete floor beneath it began to glow cherry red.
"Move!" Steven screamed, diving to the side.
-KA-BOOM!
A geyser of violet flame erupted from the floor, punching through the concrete like a laser. It vaporized the mahogany table instantly. Three executives who were too slow didn't even have time to scream; they were simply erased, their silhouettes lingering for a fraction of a second within the column of fire before vanishing.
Debris rained down. Smoke filled the room.
Through the hole in the floor, a figure floated up. He wasn't flying; he was propelled by a concentrated jet of fire from his back, landing softly on the scorched remnants of the carpet.
Damien stood there, the Pyroclast Regalia hissing as it vented heat. His tactical shirt was untouched, protected by a thin layer of mana, but his eyes were wild, black voids of murder.
The song in his earbuds was reaching its climax.
Steven coughed, waving the smoke away. He looked at the intruder.
"Ho-how could this be?!" Steven stammered, his SS-Rank composure shattering. "You are not supposed to be here?! This is already the top floor of this building! How did you arrive on this floor so quickly?! There are fifty floors of security!"
Damien tilted his head. He looked bored.
A female A-Rank Hunter, one of Steven's personal bodyguards, screamed a war cry and lunged at Damien from the side, her daggers coated in poison.
Damien didn't even turn. He just aimed the nozzle blindly to his left and pulled the trigger for a split second.
-PFFT.
A short burst of white fire.
The woman disappeared. Her daggers fell to the floor, melted into slag.
Damien looked back at Steven.
"It doesn't matter," Damien said, his voice calm amidst the roaring flames eating the walls. "You will die anyways."
He reached into a pouch on his belt.
"Also... catch!"
Damien threw a round object at Steven.
Steven caught it instinctively. It was wet. And warm.
He looked down.
It was a head. The face was frozen in a rictus of terror.
It was Charles. The man who had just left the room two minutes ago to call for help.
Steven stared at the head, his brain struggling to comprehend. Charles had left through the door. Damien had come through the floor. That meant Damien had intercepted Charles in the hallway, decapitated him, kept the head, and then burned his way up here.
"You... you goddamn crazy psycho son of a bitch!!" Steven screamed, dropping the head. He drew his greatsword, a massive blade forged from dragon bone.
"KILL THE BASTARD!" Steven ordered the remaining twelve Hunters in the room—the elite guard. "AND GIVE ME HIS HEAD!"
"UNDERSTOOD!"
The Hunters drew their weapons. Auras flared—gold, red, blue. These were the best money could buy. Veterans of A-Rank and S-Rank dungeons.
They charged.
Damien watched them come. He smiled.
"That's a lot of Monkey Hunters, huh."
He tilted his head again, cracking his neck.
"Doesn't matter."
Damien adjusted his grip on the flamethrower. The song in his ears hit the final, aggressive loop.
"Make it bun dem."
He ignited the nozzle fully. The pilot light turned into a roaring sun.
"Let's burn these Monkey Hunters out of the Hornet's Nest!"