A vast surge of demonic power exploded from Ren Kuroda's body.
In an instant, a suffocating aura flooded the battlefield, rolling outward like a tidal wave. The very air seemed to warp beneath its pressure. And at that moment, the presence surrounding Ren underwent a drastic transformation.
As his yokai energy climbed higher and higher, his appearance shifted with it.
Dark markings traced across his skin like living flames. His pupils sharpened, glowing with a feral crimson light. A single horn curved subtly from his temple.
He had entered his half-oni transformation.
Gasps rippled through the onlookers.
Until now, Yō and Asuka had assumed Ren was just another human like them. But this—
This was clearly something else.
He looked no different from Black Rabbit in that sense—a being from a world far beyond their understanding.
"Oh?" Shiroyasha's golden eyes narrowed with interest rather than shock. "So he's a half-blood. Fairy and human, perhaps? Though even pure fairies aren't especially powerful in Little Garden… and a hybrid even less so."
Ren's lips curled upward.
"Yokai. Not fairy," he corrected coolly. "Don't get it twisted."
Ten minutes had already passed since the Gift Game began.
Unlike Izayoi—who had been brutally suppressed by the Ox and eventually forced out of the fight—Ren had also been pressured from the start. But compared to Izayoi, he had remained far more composed.
By the fifteen-minute mark, the Ox had unleashed most of its power, and Izayoi had finally been overwhelmed and knocked out of the match.
When the Horse Star Beast grew fully enraged—its body radiating heat equal to the surface of the sun—Izayoi had assumed Ren would soon follow.
But instead—
Ren had transformed.
His power surged dramatically.
And frankly—
He looked terrifyingly cool doing it.
Now, facing the blazing inferno galloping toward him once more, Ren's expression was wild, almost defiant.
He yanked Kamuyō—the divine blade—from the earth.
With a stomp that shattered the ground beneath him, Ren launched forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.
The Horse's body temperature had risen to absurd levels.
Each hoof strike melted stone into flowing magma.
Yet Ren coated his body in dense yokai energy and charged straight into the torrent.
When molten rock cascaded toward him like a tidal wave—
He tore it apart with clawed fingers, ripping through magma as though shredding wet paper.
The wall of flame surrounding the Horse collapsed.
Furious, the Star Beast reared up, lifting its blazing forelegs high.
It meant to crush Ren's chest beneath a sun-forged strike.
But Ren was faster.
While one hand shredded the last remnants of flame, the other had already wrapped around Kamuyō's hilt.
The blade trembled violently.
Its spirit was ecstatic.
Ren felt it clearly.
"Yeah," he murmured. "We've cut down meteors before… and now we're cutting the sun itself. Of course you're excited."
He drew the blade.
"Then lend me your strength, Kamuyō."
"Even if it's the sun—"
"We'll split it in two."
The instant he swung, he activated Blade Spirit Release.
A dazzling silver arc carved through the air.
For a heartbeat—
Time seemed to freeze.
"So swift as the wind—Piercing Army!"
The Horse remained reared back—
But the blade had already passed.
Not just through its body—
Through space itself.
Wind gathered silently, guided by the edge of Ren's strike. Unlike his blazing or thunderous techniques, this one made almost no noise.
It was precise.
Elegant.
Unseen—
Until it was too late.
Crack.
A sharp, crystalline sound echoed.
Behind the Horse, the earth began to collapse in a straight line.
Then—
As if a chain reaction had triggered—
The fissure extended outward for kilometers.
Mountains split cleanly in half.
Ancient trees were sliced apart.
Massive boulders separated as though gently parted by an invisible hand.
Every surface along the path of the strike had been cut with surgical precision.
Izayoi and the others stared in complete disbelief.
They knew Ren was strong.
They had expected him to grow stronger in this transformed state.
But this?
This was absurd.
He hadn't just cleaved the Star Beast—
He had bisected everything behind it for kilometers.
Was he secretly carrying the divinity of some Sword God?!
Even Shiroyasha was briefly shaken.
But unlike the others, she saw more.
"That blade… interesting. It's a spiritual weapon, though its Divinity isn't fully complete," she murmured. "That final strike borrowed heavily from the blade's spiritual rank."
The Horse Star Beast had been cut cleanly in two.
And yet—
Shiroyasha did not announce the end of the Gift Game.
Black Rabbit opened her mouth to protest—
But Shiroyasha spoke first.
"I didn't expect him to reach this level," she admitted. "That final strike would be considered powerful even among four-digit existences."
Her fan snapped open.
"But if you think that alone is enough to defeat a Star Beast summoned through a Sun Authority…"
She smiled faintly.
"Aren't you underestimating the power of the sun?"
Everyone froze.
They turned back toward the battlefield—
And saw something impossible.
The Horse's bisected body—
Was rejoining.
The severed halves merged seamlessly, as though the cut had never existed.
When the wound fully vanished, the Horse let out a triumphant neigh.
It had revived.
"Star Beasts don't possess true physical forms," Shiroyasha explained. "What you see is merely a manifestation shaped by the Sun Authority."
"Unless you can truly split apart a stellar-class sun—"
"How could you possibly kill one?"
Black Rabbit raised her hands in protest.
"That's absurd! How could anyone split the sun?! That's completely unfair!"
Shiroyasha shrugged lightly.
"Killing the sun is impossible, which is precisely why I changed the victory condition to surviving thirty minutes."
She glanced skyward.
"Twenty-five minutes have already passed."
"If he lasts five more minutes, you win."
Her tone sounded reassuring—
But her smile was anything but.
Black Rabbit, however, didn't notice.
Given Ren's current displayed strength—roughly four-digit level—holding out for five more minutes should be manageable.
Shiroyasha's eyes gleamed.
"Now then. The real highlight begins."
"Can that boy truly face the sun?"
On the battlefield, Ren stood firm, red hair whipping in the scorching wind, blade in hand.
The fight shifted instantly.
After regenerating, the Horse became even more violent.
Its aura intensified.
The temperature rising from its body became so extreme that Ren could no longer approach directly. He was forced to rely on ranged slashes and high-level Kidō techniques.
But even those proved nearly useless.
Spells melted before reaching the Horse.
Blade strikes passed through without meaningful effect.
Realizing defeating it was impossible—
Ren changed tactics.
He would stall.
The Gift Game required only survival for thirty minutes.
Twenty-seven minutes had passed.
Three more.
Just three.
But reality rarely cooperates with optimism.
With only three minutes remaining, the Horse seemed to lose patience with Ren's evasive maneuvers.
It neighed sharply—
Then ran upward.
Into the sky.
Despite being a horse, it galloped through the heavens as if racing across solid ground.
The faster it ran, the smaller it appeared.
Soon, it was nothing more than a black speck.
At that moment, a terrible premonition gripped Ren's chest.
He glanced around—
And realized Shiroyasha had already relocated the rest of No Name far from the battlefield.
Ren exhaled slowly.
"I knew it wouldn't be that easy…"
"Judging by the distance they retreated—this is a large-scale ultimate move."
From above came the shrill cry of a warhorse.
Ren looked up.
The tiny black speck began to expand.
Rapidly.
Violently.
It swelled into a blazing orange sphere—
No.
Not a sphere of flame.
A sun.
A colossal, burning sun.
And when Ren saw that enormous star forming overhead—
A sinking feeling clenched his heart.
"…You've got to be kidding."
But as the saying goes—
The thing you fear most is often the thing that happens.
And as the blazing sun grew larger in his vision—
Ren realized the horrifying truth.
It wasn't just forming.
It was descending.
..
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