The flickering violet light in Lucy's hand began to stabilize. The jagged, unstable energy she had pulled from the air and her own wounds ceased its frantic pulsing, cooling and hardening into something permanent. Within seconds, the ethereal glow solidified into a physical weapon: a heavy, ornate blade of obsidian-like glass, its hilt etched with silver filigree that mirrored the patterns of her family's crest. It was cold to the touch, a solid artifact born from demonic essence and human will.
Lucy gripped the hilt, the weight of the sword grounding her as the world around her continued to dissolve into a symphony of screams.
The lobby of the Azure Heights was no longer a room; it was a throat, and it was swallowing everyone Lucy had ever known.
Across the blood-slicked marble, she saw Sarah, the girl who had sat behind her in math for three years, disappear under a swarm of clicking, insect-like demons. To her left, the student council president was silenced mid-plea. Lucy's breath hitched. She was the "White Devil," the prodigy who could solve any equation and win any game, but her mind was hitting a wall of cold, horrific mathematics.
There were too many monsters. She was bleeding. Her leg was weak.
The realization hit her like a physical blow: She could not save everyone.
"Lucy! Please!"
Amy's voice broke through the static of Lucy's panic. Her best friend was backed against a decorative pillar, a Hell Canto raising its rusted cleaver above her head.
The arrogance that usually defined Lucy White shattered, replaced by a singular, desperate clarity. The guilt of what she was about to do—the people she was about to leave behind—burned worse than the demonic essence in her veins. She turned her back on the rest of the lobby, ignoring the cries for help that would haunt her for the rest of her life.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice lost in the chaos.
"AMY!"
Lucy didn't just run; she ignited. The power she had absorbed flared through her nervous system, numbing the pain in her leg. She swung her newly solidified obsidian blade in a violent arc. A shockwave of force erupted from the strike, slamming into the demon threatening Amy and shattering its ceramic face into a thousand pieces.
Lucy reached her friend in a blurred streak of movement, her hand clamping onto Amy's wrist. Her grip was unnaturally firm, her skin deathly cold.
"Don't look at them," Lucy commanded, her blue eyes now fractured with a ghostly, electric light. "Don't look back. Just look at me."
"But Sarah... and the others—" Amy sobbed, her eyes fixed on the carnage behind them.
"They're gone!" Lucy roared, her voice vibrating with a power that wasn't human. The obsidian blade hummed, thirsty for more. "I'm getting you out. Only you. Do you understand?"
The hotel groaned as the obsidian spire in the center of the room began to pulse. The main exit didn't just lock; the metal fused with the mountain stone, sealing the lobby. The resort was transforming, its luxury hallways stretching into a vertical fortress of bone and shadow.
Lucy pulled Amy toward the only path left. They couldn't go out, so they had to go up.
The grand elevators stood at the far end of the lobby, their gold-plated doors a distant, shimmering mirage behind a wall of smoke and monsters.
"Don't look at the floor, Amy! Just run!" Lucy screamed.
She moved like the track star she was, but her rhythm was broken. Every step sent a jolt of agony from the stab wound in her thigh, and her shoulder burned where the demon had sliced her. Yet, she didn't slow down. Her left hand was clamped onto Amy's wrist so hard her knuckles were white, while her right hand gripped the solidified obsidian blade, swinging it in desperate, wide arcs to keep the smaller demons at bay.
They reached the elevator bank. Lucy's free hand slammed into the 'Up' button, her eyes fixed on the floor indicator.
THWACK.
The sound was sickeningly wet. Lucy felt a sudden, violent jerk on her arm. She turned, her heart stopping. A Scudo Angelo—a towering, armored knight—had materialized from the shadows. Its jagged, black-steel lance was buried deep in Amy's back, the tip protruding through her chest.
"Amy...?" Lucy whispered.
Amy didn't scream. She simply looked at Lucy, her blue eyes wide with a sudden, hollow confusion. With a bored, mechanical grunt, the armored demon twisted the lance and flicked its arm, tossing Amy's limp body across the floor like a discarded rag.
The world went silent. The "White Devil" looked at her empty hand, then at the broken girl lying five feet away. The guilt of the choices she had made, the pain of her wounds, and the raw, protective fury she had held back finally collided.
Lucy didn't cry. She erupted.
A pillar of blinding violet and white light exploded from her, scorching the ceiling. Inside the light, Lucy's human form shattered. Her skin hardened into a sleek, ivory-white organic armor, glowing with violet veins of pure energy. Her white hair elongated into a mane of silver light, and two massive, leathery wings of jagged shadow tore through her back. Her face was obscured by a draconic, porcelain mask, her blue eyes now burning like twin stars behind the visor.
This was her Devil Trigger—her true demonic form.
With a roar that shook the very foundation of the mountain, the demonic Lucy vanished. She reappeared in a blur of white light directly in front of the Scudo Angelo. Her obsidian blade had transformed into a massive, pulsing Greatsword of Bone and Light. She swung. The blade cleaved through armor, bone, and demonic flesh in a single strike. The knight vaporized into a cloud of violet ash.
The surge was too much. The armor cracked and dissolved. Lucy's human form fell from the light, collapsing next to Amy's still form. Her vision tunneled into blackness as she slipped into an unconscious state.
As her eyes closed, a pack of lesser demons crawled toward her.
REV-REV-REVVVV!
The roar of the Red Queen engine screamed through the lobby. A blur of blue and silver moved through the monsters.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
The demons were blasted back. A young man with messy white hair stepped over the wreckage. His right hand was human, but it was encased in a metallic, high-tech Devil Breaker power arm that whirred with electrical charge. He looked at the unconscious girl, then at the charred remains of the elite demon.
"Not bad, kid," Nero muttered. He stood over her, and for a brief second, two massive spectral wings of blue light flickered into existence behind him—his Devil Bringer wings—ready to shield her if more enemies appeared. He holstered his revolver, Blue Rose, and shook his head. "But you're lucky I was in the neighborhood."
He reached down, his physical hand lifting Lucy with ease, slinging her over his shoulder as the Devil May Cry van screeched to a halt outside.