"Damn it! Those bastards from Bal Masqué…"
The one growling with clenched teeth was a male Flame Haze who had lost an arm.
Not long ago, they received intel that Bal Masqué, the largest organization of Crimson Denizens, had begun significant movements, turning their sights toward this far-eastern island nation. According to investigations, Bal Masqué had been continually sending Searchers and Wanderers into this country.
The Flame Hazes had long despised this vicious organization, responsible for the deaths of countless of their kind, and had always sought its complete annihilation. Bal Masqué held similar sentiments toward the Flame Hazes, given their leader, the Snake of the Festival, had been sealed precisely because of the Flame Hazes. Back then, the Snake of the Festival had planned to create a paradise exclusively for the Crimson Realm's inhabitants, even inviting Flame Hazes to witness the dawn of this new world. Yet the Flame Hazes, after accepting the invitation, had immediately turned around and sealed the Snake away. It would have been strange for Bal Masqué not to hate them.
Bal Masqué's members thought like this: In the new world created by our leader, you'd benefit as well. Why wouldn't you accept it? Even if you didn't accept, why seal our leader who extended goodwill to you? You're like dogs biting Lü Dongbin—unable to recognize kindness!
But to Flame Hazes, the Snake of the Festival planned to enclose and isolate 129 cities, four great plains, and everything within them into an independent, self-sustaining sealed realm. Within that place, Crimson Denizens could freely wield their powers and feed without restraint, an act that would inevitably cause immense distortions and ultimately destroy the world. Hence, it had to be stopped.
This irreconcilable hatred had existed ever since the sealing of the Snake of the Festival, and since then, skirmishes between these two factions never ceased, piling new grievances atop old ones at every moment.
Therefore, although the Flame Hazes didn't yet know what exactly Bal Masqué was scheming this time, it didn't prevent them from disrupting their plans and making trouble.
Their mentality could be summarized as: I might not win, but you must lose. Even if I lose eight hundred, as long as you lose more than me, I'll still be satisfied.
This one-armed man had come to Japan precisely because of this mindset. Yet shortly after arriving, he'd encountered multiple Crimson Denizens. The hatred between Flame Hazes and Crimson Denizens was unresolvable; at the moment they met, their eyes were instantly dyed red by hatred.
The man originally had two companions with him, yet both were killed in battle, and he himself had lost an arm, now trapped in dire circumstances.
"Damn it… the intel was wrong! Bal Masqué has sent far more Denizens into this country than we realized! Just what are they planning?! Mobilizing so many Denizens at once—are these lunatics intending to launch an all-out assault?!"
His face was twisted with rage, eyes bloodshot, as though if given the chance, he'd bite those Crimson Denizens to death himself.
Bal Masqué usually operated in pairs: one Wanderer paired with one Searcher. The three Flame Hazes had encountered exactly one such duo.
Since there were three of them versus two enemies, and a Searcher wasn't even considered a proper combatant, they had confidently rushed into battle.
And then they fell into an ambush. Four other Crimson Denizens suddenly attacked, leaving him as the sole survivor at the cost of one arm. His two companions had fought heroically, sacrificing their lives to buy him time. If he could have chosen, of course, he would have preferred to stay behind rather than becoming a deserter… But he had no choice—Bal Masqué was surely plotting something major this time. He had to deliver this news to other Flame Hazes; he had to make sure others learned of the situation here.
However, he had still been found…
"I smell it! I smell it! It's the stench of those filthy Flame Hazes! How pathetic, hahaha! Weren't you loudly boasting about exterminating us? Why are you hiding now?"
"Damn it… is that one of the Searchers?"
The one-armed man recognized this voice. Among the three Wanderers they'd faced, all were quiet types. Only the Searcher had a mouth full of venom, weak but extremely provocative, easily stirring their rage into madness.
He looked toward the source of the voice. On a sturdy, towering old tree, he saw an incredibly ugly flower—with a giant eyeball growing where its stamen should have been. He could even detect contempt and mockery in that gaze.
He instantly understood. This flower was the Searcher's Unrestricted Spell; his position had been exposed!
After burning away that unbearably ugly flower, he looked around, seeing clearly the six Crimson Denizens quietly encircling him. Despair surged into his heart.
He saw it clearly—there was no turning the situation around.
He wasn't afraid of dying. He just felt regret… that he'd failed to seize the opportunity his companions bought with their lives.
"Come on, then! Bring it!"
Holding his cross-shaped spear with his remaining hand, the one-armed man unleashed a roar filled with bestial madness.
At this moment, he no longer cared about life or death. He just wanted to take a few enemies down with him before he died. Otherwise, how could he face his companions on the road to the underworld?
Sharp, mocking laughter filled his ears. The surrounding Crimson Denizens seemed to be sneering at his futile struggles… Even when there had been three of them, they'd still been utterly defeated—now he was alone. What could he possibly do?
Seeing their hated enemy fall into such an ugly state only made these Crimson Denizens more excited.
"Raaaaahhhhh—!"
His howl was like thunder.
A suicidal strike was about to be unleashed in the next second.
The Crimson Lord he'd contracted with didn't stop him, merely watching silently, observing his chosen contractor until his very last moment of life.
Yet, in the end, his strike was never unleashed.
The dark-red sky of the Fuzetsu suddenly darkened further, becoming even more gloomy—as if colors had been stripped away, as if time had frozen, leaving behind nothing but dead, suffocating grey silence.
The one-armed man clearly saw a figure slowly approaching him.
A single glance was enough to understand…
This was someone who walked with death. Someone who brought death.
That person… was death itself.
Ah… Has the Grim Reaper come for me?
This was the only possibility he could imagine.
Facing six Crimson Denizens alone—if it wasn't he who died, could it possibly be those six Denizens instead? Such things could only happen in dreams.
It was just a shame he couldn't drag anyone down with him.
At the very end, his only wish was that after their contract ended, the Crimson Lord he partnered with would choose someone more talented as their next Flame Haze.
With that, he closed his eyes, waiting for Death to take him…
But the one-armed man woke again to the voice of the Crimson Lord contracted with him.
"I… I'm still alive?"
If not for his injuries and missing left arm, he'd almost have thought everything that happened was just a nightmare.
Now, the Fuzetsu covering the forest had vanished, revealing the starry night sky. He remembered clearly—it was just sunset when they'd encountered the Denizens, the sky still ablaze with the sorrowful red clouds of dusk.
The three Searchers and three Wanderers from Bal Masqué had all vanished. Beneath the night sky, even the wind carried an eerie, deathly silence. For a brief moment, he thought he'd entered the afterlife… But the voice of his partner from the ring on his right hand told him clearly that he was alive.
The Crimson Lords contracted with Flame Hazes slept in their true forms, communicating through vessels carrying their will, which meant a Flame Haze's death wouldn't affect them—they'd simply find another contractor.
Thus, hearing his partner's voice meant he wasn't dead yet.
"What happened just now? Where are those bastards from Bal Masqué?"
Unclear about the situation, the one-armed man could only ask the Crimson Lord's will residing within his ring.
The entity within the ring remained silent for a long time, seemingly digesting its shock, which naturally aroused curiosity and astonishment—just what kind of unimaginable scene had it witnessed?
"…I saw a monster."
Indeed, it was a monster.
It had cracked, blackened armor, and dark crimson flames surged out from those cracks.
Its head resembled a crocodile, its upper body a lion, and its lower half a hippopotamus.
It had no eyes, yet possessed a mountain-sized body and sharp fangs capable of effortlessly biting Crimson Denizens to death.
The presence within the ring clearly saw how, in one moment, the six Crimson Denizens had victory firmly within grasp; in the very next, all had been utterly destroyed by that suddenly appearing monster.
That beast raised a claw and crushed one Denizen, opened its blood-filled maw and bit down two others, and instantly incinerated the remaining three with a dark crimson flame it spewed forth.
As a Crimson Lord himself, he had witnessed too many changes—and too many constants—in this world.
Yet, facing that monster, he couldn't suppress the terror continuously surging within his heart.
Thus, he called it a "monster."
After describing what he had seen, the ring's voice fell silent briefly before posing a question back to the one-armed man.
"And you? What did you see?"
At this inquiry, a vague figure suddenly emerged in the one-armed man's mind.
"I… saw the Grim Reaper."
...
Nitocris wasn't feeling particularly pleasant.
Before this, she'd always been busy eliminating Crimson Denizens and using the Power of Existence they left behind to resurrect ordinary people. She hadn't paid much attention to the Flame Hazes, who persistently fought the Crimson Realm and preserved the world's balance. Until recently, she'd only met Shana and Margery Daw.
Now, as increasing numbers of Crimson Denizens arrived in Japan, Flame Hazes also began dispatching combatants here, giving Nitocris the opportunity to encounter more of them.
To be perfectly honest… in Nitocris's eyes, these Flame Hazes were also extremely dangerous.
Precisely because she was an Avenger, Nitocris was intimately familiar with the scent of hatred.
Perhaps not every Flame Haze was like this, but those she'd met thus far were essentially hollow shells barely propped up by the fires of vengeance—the day those flames went out would be the day of their self-destruction.
This was understandable. Driven by hatred, they possessed greater urgency, thus arriving in Japan ahead of other Flame Hazes.
The one-armed man she'd just saved earlier was already among the less severe cases.
Someone like Shana was ultimately an exception among Flame Hazes; what kept her fighting wasn't hatred but a sense of duty and the expectations of those around her.
Nitocris's goal was to drive all Crimson Denizens from the human world—that had been her agreement with the World Consciousness from the very beginning. However, once all Crimson Denizens departed, these Flame Hazes would then become the greatest destabilizing factor… After all, a Flame Haze's power also came from the Crimson Denizens.
She remembered quite clearly how the first Flame-Haired Burning-Eyed Hunter, Mathilde, had died: a Flame Haze had suddenly perished, causing her contracted Crimson Lord to lose sanity. Desperate to resurrect his partner, he attempted to enact an Unrestricted Spell called "City Devourer" to absorb enormous Power of Existence, which led Mathilde and other Flame Hazes to stop him—ending in Mathilde's death.
So, after expelling all the Crimson Denizens into another world, would she need to send all these Flame Hazes along with them? Of course, she could also nullify their contracts, turning them into ordinary humans, but… when that time came, could these former Flame Hazes really adapt to ordinary human life?
Erasing their memories seemed impractical, far too troublesome. Frankly, sending them to the underworld to reincarnate into better lives sounded easier—after all, she was a god of the underworld.
When Shana pushed open the door to Hirai Yukari's room, the sight that greeted her was Nitocris standing by the window, gazing up at the starry sky at a forty-five-degree angle, deliberately appearing melancholic.
Seeing Nitocris instead of Yukari, Shana blinked in surprise.
"How rare. You haven't returned the body yet. Aren't you afraid Miho-san might see you?"
"Miho has already returned to her room to sleep," Nitocris replied, turning around.
Shana stood at the doorway, wearing pajamas Yukari had picked out for her during their recent shopping trip. Her waterfall-like black hair hung damp, obviously still wet from the bath she'd just finished.
"Hmm? Why is your hair still wet?"
Nitocris found this puzzling. A Flame Haze's "Purifying Flame" could burn away not only impurities but also moisture, so they didn't actually need to bathe or worry about getting wet. Although Shana had recently developed a liking for bathing, she had always instantly dried her wet hair using the "Purifying Flame."
At Nitocris's question, Shana's cheeks immediately reddened:
"Urusai! Weren't you the one who said… if I'd already cleaned myself like an ordinary person, then… then shouldn't I also try drying my hair the ordinary way? Didn't you say something about seeing it through to the end…?"
"Hm… I did say something like that."
"And also…" Shana lowered her head, pinching a strand of her damp hair, her cheeks flushing redder. "That… thing called a hairdryer, I don't know how to use it… You need to help me."
"You don't even need to ask. Just sit here and wait; I'll get the hairdryer."
"Hehe!"
Shana was full of anticipation about what was about to happen. This expectation came from Yukari, who had once told Shana that having her mother blow-dry her hair from behind felt extremely comfortable. Yukari said it was the most relaxing time of her day.
Because of Yukari's words, Shana had taken this matter deeply to heart.
"Mmm… Kami-sama is so biased! Why does Kami-sama only dry Shana's hair and never mine?"
Rather than sounding like a complaint, Yukari's words came off more like spoiled whining.
Nitocris then replied, her expression full of confusion, "I'm using your body right now. How am I supposed to dry your hair? Wouldn't that just be drying my own hair?"
"…"
Yukari emitted a dejected sound as though deeply wounded by the sudden shattering of a beautiful dream.
---
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