"Heh. Thanks for shattering the array."
Renji didn't move. The colossal sword was a falling mountain of light, but he wasn't looking at the blade. He looked at the Sages.
He leaned back, his body a coiled spring, and channeled every drop of the Abyss into the chain on his right arm. He didn't try to slip the bond. He used it. With a violent, guttural wrench, he swung his entire frame, using the legendary iron as a parrying bar.
The collision wasn't a sound; it was an atmospheric displacement. The sword met the chain and the world went white. The shockwave hit the street below like a physical fist, tossing parked cars and sending the onlookers sprawling into the gutters.
The chain groaned. It didn't just glow; the metal began to bleed a sick, violet heat. Renji felt the vibration in his marrow. He gritted his teeth, his jaw muscles jumping, and gave the metal one final, impossible shove.
The iron didn't just break. It detonated.
Chunks of the legendary link, each the size of a man's head, hissed through the air and buried themselves in the asphalt below.
"Impossible," a Sage whispered. The light in his eyes flickered.
"If he moves," another rasped, the arrogance in his voice replaced by the dry rattle of a man realizing he's out of time, "we're dead."
Renji crouched in the empty air. His eyes were no longer human. They were two holes in reality, burning with a cold, focused loathing. The remaining chains still bit into his skin, but they felt like spiderwebs now.
He didn't speak. He roared.
"ABYSS!"
The detonation was absolute. His mana didn't just rise; it rewrote the local physics. The remaining chains disintegrated into grey ash, and the six Sages were tossed backward like dead leaves in a gale.
Renji was a blur.
He hit the nearest Sage before the entity could raise a hand. It wasn't a fight; it was a processing. His fists moved with the rhythmic, heavy thud of a piston, breaking bone, shattering barriers, and painting the sky with golden ichor. He didn't give them breath. He didn't give them a moment to pray.
"Anchor Dimension," Renji whispered.
Ten jagged, black slits tore open in the air behind the reeling Sages. They were windows into nothing.
Renji didn't use a sword. He used gravity. He seized the six Lords in a telekinetic grip that crushed their ribs and hurled them into the first rift. He followed.
He used the portals as accelerators. Out of the first, into the second. Every transition added a ten-fold multiplier to the kinetic energy of his strikes. By the ninth rift, the physics of the Sages' bodies gave up. Two of them simply came apart, their essences dissolving into salt and dust.
The remaining four were spat out of the final portal, falling toward the cratered streets of Kyoto. Renji was already above them. He descended like a falling star, his boots hitting their chests with enough force to liquefy stone.
The silence that followed was heavy. Renji floated a few feet above the rubble, his clothes remarkably clean, his breath coming in slow, jagged hitches.
Below, the survivors began to scream. It wasn't terror this time. It was a roar of relief so loud it hurt. They had seen their gods die. They had seen a King rise.
Renji didn't hear them. He was looking at the shadows.
A flicker of red light caught his eye—a dying ember in the corner of a collapsed market stall. He dropped. His boots hit the pavement with a sharp clack as he sprinted toward the light.
It was a portal, its edges fraying. Inside, two masked figures—broad-shouldered and silent—were dragging Shinjo and Hikari into the red dark.
"Help... brother..." Hikari's head lolled back, her eyes slipping shut.
Renji lunged, his hand outstretched, but the red light snapped into a single point and vanished.
The street was empty. The silence came back, colder than before.
"No... No!"
"Oh, poor little Mortal King."
The voice was a silk ribbon drawn over a razor. It came from the western edge of the ward. Renji spun, his knuckles cracking as he balled his fists.
"Who are you?"
"Already forgotten?" The voice chuckled. It was smooth, familiar, and thick with a rot that Renji recognized in his soul. "I am your old friend."
"Oni."
"In the flesh. Or what passes for it."
"Where are they?"
Oni laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound that echoed off the broken buildings.
"They're resting. If you want them, you'd better hurry. I have a sacrifice planned, and they're the centerpiece."
Renji lowered his head. The heat in his chest was a physical fire now, burning through his restraint.
"I will kill you."
"Then come," Oni mocked. "If you truly love them."
A new red portal tore open in front of Renji. It smelled of sulfur and old blood, flickering with a predatory invitation. Renji didn't hesitate. He stepped into the fire.
Obsidian Star Academy
The stone corridors of the Academy usually echoed with the dull drone of lectures. Today, they echoed with boots.
"Elder Kael! Elder Kael!"
George, a third-year, skidded around a corner, his face the color of chalk. He nearly collided with the Elder, a man whose presence was as cold and unmoving as the mountain the Academy was built upon.
"Control yourself, George," Kael said, his voice a steady baritone.
"I—I saw him," George gasped, leaning against the wall. "On the news. In Kyoto. Fighting Sages in the sky."
Kael's brow twitched. "Who?"
"Kerry. Kerry Fireborn!"
Kael went still. The air in the corridor seemed to drop a few degrees. "Kerry Fireborn has been dead for years, boy. Don't play games."
"Sir, I know his face! He was stronger than anything I've ever seen. They called him the King of Mortals. It was him!"
Kael stood in the silence for a long time. If the boy lived... if he was truly holding his own against the Sages...
"Gather the warriors," Kael commanded, his voice tight. "Alert the other Elders. Tell them to prepare for deployment. Now."
"Yes, sir!"
The Academy erupted. The sound of metal on leather and the sharp ring of sharpened steel filled the halls. The institution was moving.
Kyoto Bus Station
Hiroshi stepped off the bus and immediately nearly tripped over a snapped light pole. The station was a graveyard of twisted metal and shattered glass.
"What happened here?" Kenta asked, his voice small as he looked at a flattened car.
Hiroshi adjusted his coat, his eyes scanning the wreckage with the clinical detachment of a man looking at a math problem. "We both just got here, Kenta. Don't ask stupid questions."
"Right. My bad." Kenta tried to smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Move," Hiroshi said. "We need to find the Kurozawa residence. We're running out of clock."
Gehenna
Renji stepped out of the red light and onto a floor of grey ash.
The air was thick with the smell of burnt hair and old coins. He had been walking for miles through jagged canyons of obsidian, his eyes scanning the horizons for a palace he knew was there. The silence was the worst part—not a single demon had crossed his path.
"Well, well. You actually came."
Oni's voice boomed from the cliffs.
"Where are they?" Renji roared. He didn't care about the trap. He didn't care about the kingdom.
"In the palace. It's right in front of you, King."
Renji launched himself. He didn't fly; he tore through the air, a streak of emerald light. He saw the structure—a massive, sprawling fortress of black stone and gold.
He landed before the gates. They were fifty feet high, etched with the names of the damned and wreathed in a constant, roaring red flame. Skeletons and shadows writhed within the fire, their silent screams etched into the very metal.
Renji didn't knock. He didn't use his sword. He placed his palms against the gold and pushed.
The gates screamed—a long, mournful sound of metal on metal—and swung open into the dark.
Renji stepped over the threshold.