That kind of gaze—lofty, detached, bordering on absolute disregard—was something that usually appeared when a higher lifeform looked down upon a lower-dimensional being.
Never—never—had the Nightblade God imagined that one day, as a god, he would be looked at by a creature of the lower realm with that expression.
Yet there it was.
And while he was still reeling from the shock of Ren Kuroda's transformation, an overwhelming sense of danger suddenly surged toward him.
A suffocating premonition of death.
The sheer intensity of it dragged him out of his stunned daze and back into reality.
Ren's wild crimson hair—once his most striking feature—was gone.
Under the influence of the Evils of This World, his entire form had shifted into a monochrome of black.
Even the waist-length scarlet hair that had once blazed like a banner now flowed down his back in a glossy cascade of jet-black.
The blade Shin'yu, once radiant with divine blessing, was now completely smothered by the pitch-black sludge. Even the sword spirit dwelling within the blade had been corrupted—darkened along with its master.
With one hand, Ren caught the descending black scythe barehanded—an empty palm stopping the blade in a gesture so casual it bordered on contempt.
Then, expression blank and eyes devoid of emotion, he raised the mud-wreathed Shin'yu and brought it down in a simple, unremarkable slash toward the Nightblade God.
There was no grand flourish.
No roaring aura.
No visible build-up of power.
And yet—
That seemingly plain strike filled the Nightblade God with an overwhelming sense of mortal peril.
At the last possible instant, reacting purely on instinct, he used the scythe tip that Ren had seized as leverage, spinning his body sharply in midair. By the narrowest of margins, he avoided the descending blade.
The black slash grazed past him.
And then—
The disturbance behind him made him glance back.
What he saw froze him in disbelief.
Ren's swing had looked utterly ordinary—so calm it almost seemed lazy.
But the moment the slash left the blade, its cutting range began expanding infinitely outward. Unlike Ren's previous attacks, however, only the area of effect expanded.
The slash itself stretched vertically, thinning as though pulled from both ends—
Until the black line became as fine as a strand of silk.
And that silk-thin line—
Split the entire snow mountain range in two.
Not just a section of ground.
Not a single glacier.
Not one peak.
The entire sprawling expanse of ice and snow, stretching for hundreds of miles, was cleanly cleaved in half.
All of it.
One strike.
The Nightblade God's face paled.
He understood, in that instant, how wise it had been to dodge.
But he was given no time to process the horror.
Ren attacked again.
A crushing inertia suddenly gripped the Nightblade God's entire body. In the next heartbeat, he realized that the scythe he'd been holding—along with his own body—had been violently hurled away.
Spinning through the air, he forced himself into control and steadied his vision—
Only to find that Ren was no longer where he had been.
At almost the exact same moment, his sharpened battle instincts screamed once more.
Without hesitation, he swung the Black Night Scythe toward his flank.
"CLANG————!"
The shriek of metal colliding with metal split the air, sparks exploding in every direction.
Ren had appeared at his left side without warning, one hand gripping Shin'yu.
The blade was once again intercepted by the Nightblade God's scythe.
"I don't know what's happened to your body," the Nightblade God began coldly, "but I am a martial god of the highest order.
Hunting in the darkness is my specialty. The instincts I've honed—"
He never finished.
Because a fist suddenly filled his vision.
Apparently, a certain blackened, devastatingly handsome half-demon had no interest in listening to him brag.
Ren punched him square in the face.
With both hands locked on the scythe, the Nightblade God had no room to defend. The blow landed cleanly.
His body plummeted like a meteor, smashing through the earth and shattering vast stretches of glacier.
"You bastard—!"
The Nightblade God climbed from the crater, fury burning in his eyes. The curse on his lips barely had time to form—
Before a large hand engulfed his entire face.
An overwhelming force slammed his head back down into the ice.
Then—
With Ren sprinting forward at lightning speed—
The Nightblade God's formerly handsome face was dragged across the frozen ground for several kilometers.
The biting cold of the snow.
The searing heat of friction.
Together, they delivered a brutal demonstration of what "ice and fire" truly meant.
The actual damage was minimal.
But the humiliation?
Immense.
Low damage. Maximum insult.
A god—pressed face-first into the ground and dragged like trash by a lower-realm creature.
If the other gods ever heard of this, how could he show his face again?
But the blackened Ren Kuroda had no concern for divine dignity.
Outwardly, he seemed calm—almost tranquil.
In truth, his inner world churned with violent destruction.
All he wanted was to annihilate everything within sight.
After being dragged for miles, the Nightblade God was thrown once more, smashing into a glacier.
Before he could even recover—
Ren's next wave of attacks arrived.
"Going dark doubles your strength"—it was practically a law of hot-blooded battle anime.
Ren was no exception.
Corrupted by the Evils of This World, his yokai power had conservatively reached SSS-rank—
And it was still rising.
The more power he drew from that abyss, the harder it would become to break free of it later.
Every physical parameter had skyrocketed.
And his other abilities had been amplified as well.
The Kidō techniques he now cast were on an entirely different level.
Kidō No. 31—Red Fire Cannon—in his hands now carried the destructive might of a fully chanted spell above No. 90.
Once named for its crimson fireballs—
It now manifested as spheres of pitch-black energy.
Faster.
Stronger.
Infinitely more lethal.
Worse still—
Corrupted by the Evils of This World, these projectiles possessed corrosive and devouring properties.
The very substance that even gods feared—
Now rained down upon the Nightblade God in the form of countless black orbs.
"Night Raid: Wall of Day and Night!"
Dragging the Black Night Scythe across the ground, the Nightblade God erected a towering barrier of intertwined black and white light.
Explosions thundered relentlessly against it.
The shield would not hold long.
Behind it, the Nightblade God racked his mind for solutions—
Only to realize bitterly that, with his strength not yet fully restored, he could not defeat Ren as he was now.
As a martial god, he was no minor deity.
In terms of combat ability alone, he was far from the weakest among the gods. Many more famous gods would struggle against him.
His wealth of battle experience, razor-sharp instincts, and ability to glimpse an opponent's intent had always allowed him to predict their next move and strike first.
But today—
For the first time—
That flawless fighting style had failed.
And against a lower-realm being, no less.
Blackened Ren no longer acted with thought.
He moved almost entirely on instinct.
When the Nightblade God attempted to peer into Ren's mind—
All he found was endless destruction.
Endless ruin.
His movements were unpredictable.
His attacks chaotic.
His regeneration absurd.
And his power not only undiminished—
But still increasing.
Even the Nightblade God felt a splitting headache coming on.
This mission had been supposed to be easy.
Who could have predicted that such a monster existed in the lower realm?
"…There's no other choice."
Though he knew that excessive use of divine power might cause the world's laws to expel him back to the higher realm—
He clenched his teeth.
"I am the Nightblade God. A deity of standing.
How could I allow myself to be humiliated like this by a mere lower-realm wretch?"
With a final barrage, the black-and-white barrier shattered.
Black Red Fire Cannons poured down upon him—
But before they could strike—
An overwhelmingly terrifying aura erupted skyward from the Nightblade God.
Night fell.
Not as a domain.
Not as a barrier.
But as a natural phenomenon.
The very heavens responded to his presence.
The bright sky was swallowed as though a black curtain had been drawn across it.
The Nightblade God was not Tsukuyomi. He did not command the night itself.
But he could briefly plunge the sky into darkness—
To begin his hunt.
The duration would be short.
Yet such a feat—
Was something only a god could accomplish.
As darkness descended, the aura around him thickened.
Behind him appeared the looming phantom of a grim reaper, scythe in hand.
When the Nightblade God raised his weapon—
The colossal shadow mirrored him perfectly.
And as he swung the Black Night Scythe—
The towering phantom behind him brought its massive, pitch-black blade down in unison.