「 ✦ Rimuru Tempest ✦ 」
The massive claw was inches from Shizuku's face when I materialized from the shadows.
Shadow Motion deposited me directly between her and death, my hand closing around the wolf's claw with enough force to make the bones crunch audibly. The creature had maybe half a second to register confusion before I squeezed.
The flesh exploded like an overripe fruit.
As the wolf howled in agony, I opened my mouth and activated Gluttony. The massive creature—easily the size of a small building—was sucked into the void of my stomach dimension so quickly it didn't even have time to finish its scream.
"Shizuku." I glanced back at her, noting the shock and relief warring in her dark eyes. "You alright?"
She had a million questions flashing her face, but she just nodded mutely, still processing what had just happened.
Time seemed to stretch as I took in the scene around me.
Kouki bloodied but conscious against the far wall. Kaori kneeling beside him, her healing magic activating weakly. The other students clustered together like frightened animals, their faces painted with exhaustion and despair. Their equipment was battered, their faces hollow with exhaustion and despair.
Meld hanging limp in the grip of that horse-faced monstrosity.
My gaze moved to the demon woman. Her confident smirk had faltered slightly at my sudden appearance, but she was already recovering, reassessing the new threat. And beside her were the dozens of enhanced monsters arrayed around the chamber like pieces on a chess board.
But it was the other figures that caught my curiosity.
Among the monsters were unmistakably human—or what had once been human. Twisted, deformed, their flesh warped into monstrous configurations while their eyes retained enough awareness to show the agony they were experiencing. Transfigured humans. Still alive, still conscious, but transformed into weapons for someone else's use.
<
Great Sage's clinical assessment made it worse somehow.
Then I saw a dude.
The gray-haired figure and purple-eyed figure standing still like death incarnate. The horn marking him as something far beyond a mere demon. The aura radiating from him was familiar in the worst possible way—divine, ancient, and utterly contemptuous of mortal life.
Another god.
I was still processing all this when something hit me like a freight train.
The impact sent me flying across the chamber to crash into the stone wall with enough force to crack the masonry. Dust and debris rained down as I slid to the floor.
Well. That was embarrassing.
I heard someone scream—might have been Kaori Shirasaki. The despair that washed over the students' faces was almost palpable. Almost funny, really, how quickly hope could turn to—
Wait. Shizuku wasn't looking hopeless at all. She was watching the rubble where I'd landed with complete calm. Of all the reactions I could have expected, absolute trust hadn't been it. Smart girl.
I looked up to see the gray-haired figure lowering his fist, a satisfied smirk playing across his features. The speed of that punch had been incredible—not gonna lie.
"Lord Nelson," the demon woman called out. "It seems we have an unexpected guest."
Nelson. God of War.
I dusted myself off as I stepped out of the crater I'd made in the wall, rolling my shoulders to work out the kinks. "Hey," I called out to him. "Who's tougher, you or Hel?"
The question seemed to catch him off guard, but his smirk widened nonetheless. "So you're the pup Hel's been in heat with lately?"
The crude comment was barely out of his mouth when five lances of combined Black Lightning and Black Flame materialized around me. I sent them forward faster than thought, the weapons streaking across the chamber in lines of crackling darkness.
Nelson's eyes widened slightly as the lances impaled him from multiple angles, pinning him against the far wall like an insect in a collection.
It wouldn't kill him—gods, even fake, were annoyingly resilient—but it would definitely get his attention.
"You jealous?" I said, walking closer as he struggled against the lances. Nelson's healing factor was already kicking in, ripping away the dark plasma and forcing the lances from his body. He dropped to the ground, his wounds closing as if they'd never existed.
"Cute trick," he said, rolling his shoulders. "But I'm afraid you'll have to do better than—"
My blade—concentrated and sharpened to a monomolecular edge—sliced through his wrist. His hand hit the floor with a wet thud, fingers still twitching.
"You're definitely jealous." I stepped back as he stared at his severed appendage. The rage that flashed across his features was almost worth the incoming violence. Almost.
"You little—"
He lunged forward with inhuman speed, his remaining hand wreathed in crimson energy that screamed of violence while his severed one was already regenerating. I met his charge head-on, our collision sending shockwaves through the chamber.
We fell into a clash that would have been beautiful if it weren't so deadly. Nelson fought like warfare incarnate after all.
I ducked under a swing that would have decapitated a mountain, stepped inside his guard, and drove an elbow toward his solar plexus. He twisted away, my strike glancing off his flesh, then retaliated with a backhand that I caught on my forearm.
The impact sent shockwaves through the chamber, but I used the momentum to spin into a kick that caught him in the ribs. He grunted, sliding backward across the stone floor, then launched himself forward again.
This was going to be a problem.
Not because Nelson was particularly dangerous—though he definitely was—but because of the collateral damage potential. Every time he swung at me, I had to calculate the trajectory, the force behind it, how much of the chamber would survive if I didn't intercept it properly.
The students were still here, after all. And that demon woman was already moving her remaining monsters into position for whatever scheme she had cooking.
So I kept it to pure physical combat, catching Nelson's projectile attacks with Gluttony and responding with appropriate techniques.
And when Nelson hurled a spear of crystallized violence at my head, I couldn't simply dodge and let it take out half the back wall. Instead, I opened my palm and let Gluttony devour it entirely, the energy disappearing into the void of my stomach.
"Stand still, damn you!" Nelson snarled.
"Hard pass, man. Fuck you," I replied, dodging a punch while keeping one eye on Cattleya's positioning.
We were moving too fast for the students to follow now—blurs of motion that left afterimages and sonic booms in our wake. Nelson's fists carved through the air with enough force to burn the air, while I wove between his attacks effortlessly.
"You know," I said, ducking under a punch that pulverized the wall behind me, "Hel's definitely tougher than you."
Nelson's snarl was audible even over the sound of our battle. "As if. I am war itself made manifest—"
"You're also painfully ordinary compared to her," I continued, stepping inside his guard again. "At least she's got personality."
His swing went wide as something small and white flew between us—a roll dice, spinning end over end through the air. I watched in slow motion as his eyes followed the white object. The distraction lasted maybe a tenth of a second, but that was all I needed.
My blade caught him across the face, opening a line from temple to jaw. Before he could react, I'd severed both arms at the shoulders and sealed the wounds with Black Flame to prevent regeneration.
I caught the dice as I landed, examining it with mild curiosity. "Hm? Didja see something?"
Nelson roared in fury and pain, blood streaming down his face as he tried to process what had just happened.
That's when the entire chamber shook like an earthquake had struck.
The sound of grinding stone and metal filled the air as something massive punched through the ceiling. A figure dropped into the chamber amid a shower of debris—white hair, artificial arm, and an expression that only spoke of recklessness.
Hajime Nagumo had arrived, and he looked as ugly as ever—to me, at least. I couldn't help the feeling of annoyance washing over me at seeing his face once again.
Yue descended more gracefully beside him, golden hair floating on unfelt breezes. Shea followed not long after, and behind the three of them, looking like he'd rather be literally anywhere else, was someone I recognized.
Kousuke Endou. The hentai protag lookalike himself.
I couldn't help but grin as I looked at Hajime. "I'm starting to think you're stalking me."
The expression that crossed his face was priceless—surprise, recognition, and absolute fury all warring for dominance.
"What the hell are you doing here, you bastard?!" he snarled, his artificial arm already shifting into weapon configurations. "Of all the goddamn places in this shithole world, why the fuck do you have to show up everywhere I go?! Are you some kind of joke made to specifically to piss me off?!"
The creative string of profanity that followed was actually impressive. I was about to respond with something equally witty when I noticed Nelson doing something gross.
The God of War had bit his shoulder—the one I'd sealed with Black Flame to prevent regeneration—and was literally biting through the cauterized flesh. His teeth tore away chunks of his own seared tissue with animalistic desperation, spitting out the flame-tainted meat until he reached clean flesh underneath.
Fresh blood began flowing from the wounds, and his regeneration kicked back in with a vengeance.
Damn.
"Cool," I admitted, watching his limbs regrow with disturbing speed. "Disgusting, but cool."
Nelson spat out another chunk of his own flesh, his face twisted in pain and rage. "You think a little fire can stop a god from healing? I've been fighting since before your world knew war, boy."
That settled it, then.
"Hajime," I said, my tone shifting completely. The bickering edge disappeared. "Just focus on protecting your classmates."
"I don't take orders from—" Hajime started to snap back, but his words died as my aura began to flare.
My eyes blazed golden, pupils deepening to a rich crimson as I felt the sensation of power coiling in my stomach dimension. The technique I'd been theorizing, the one I'd never dared test in combat, began taking shape in the timeless void of my internal space.
Hajime's artificial hand twitched toward his weapons, then stopped. He stared at me for a long moment, his expression shifting from anger to something approaching wariness.
Finally, he just clicked his tongue in irritation. "Tch. I'll deal with the witch and her pets. Yue, Shea—keep the morons alive."
"Understood," Yue's melodious voice carried absolute confidence as she began floating, golden magic circles blooming around her like deadly flowers.
It was then that the emotional dam finally burst among the students.
"N-Nagumo-kun?" Kaori's voice was barely a whisper. "Is that really...?"
"You two are as inseparable as ever," Hajime nonchalantly responded.
"Wait, huh?!" Shizuku breathed, her katana trembling in her grip. "You died. We saw you fall. Is that really you? Wait, really?"
"That's impossible!" Daisuke Hiyama's voice cracked with desperate denial. "He's dead! That weakling bastard is dead! There's no way—"
"It's him," Kousuke interrupted hastily. "That's really Hajime Nagumo. The same one from our class. I saw his status plate and everything!"
Whatever Hiyama was about to scream next was cut off as both Nelson and I let our auras fully manifest. The chamber began filling with our murderous wills, pressing down on everyone present like a physical force.
Nelson raised his hand, and crimson energy coalesced into a massive scythe that towered over his already impressive frame. I responded by super-condensing dark plasma into a long, straight sword.
We settled into our stances simultaneously.
Nelson's opening strike came like a crimson hurricane, the massive scythe carving through the air with enough force to split mountains. I met it with my plasma blade, the collision sending shockwaves throughout the floor.
He flowed from the deflection into a spinning strike that would have bisected me at the waist. I ducked under the blade's arc, my sword streaking toward his exposed ribs in a thrust that could pierce steel like paper.
Nelson twisted away, the plasma blade scoring a line across his flesh that immediately began regenerating. His counter-attack came as a downward chop that I caught on my blade's edge, the two weapons screaming against each other in a shower of sparks and discharge.
We broke apart, circled, engaged again.
His scythe work was flawless. This wasn't just combat, it was warfare distilled to its purest essence.
But I was learning his patterns.
When he feinted high and swept low, I had my blade catch his scythe's haft and redirected the strike into empty air. When he tried to overwhelm me with a barrage of overhead strikes, I shadow-motioned between them.
The battle was reaching its climax when I saw my opening.
Nelson had committed to a devastating horizontal sweep, putting his full strength behind the blow. For just a moment—a fraction of a second—he was overextended, his guard open.
I dispersed my sword and closed my hand to a fist toward him.
Inside my stomach dimension, in that timeless void where external causality held no sway, I had been preparing. Black Flames and Dark Lightning, two forces that should never coexist, held in perfect quantum resonance by Great Sage's calculations.
The moment had come to test my theory.
"Antithesis."
The moment my fist connected with the god's torso, the technique erupted not as an explosion, but as an implosion—a black nova laced with serpents of electric flame that drew the world inward before releasing the inverted waveform in silent, radiant collapse.
Nelson's eyes widened in the instant before the attack struck him.
When the light faded, I found myself standing over the God of War's broken form. His entire lower half had been erased from existence. Only his godhood kept him alive, his regeneration struggling futilely against wounds that defied the very concept of healing.
The technique's aftermath hit me like a drug.
Time stretched like taffy, each second feeling like an eternity. My perception sharpened until I could see individual dust motes floating through the air, could track the minute expressions crossing every face in the chamber.
Everything felt perfect, crystalline, like I was viewing the world through the eyes of causality itself.
A euphoric detachment washed over me, a sensation of being not just in control, but being control—a feeling of omnipotence.
I knelt beside Nelson.
"Any last words?" I asked, my voice sounding strangely distant even to my own ears.
Nelson's mouth opened, blood frothing at his lips as he struggled to speak his final defiant words—
"How dare—"
My blade took his head clean off before he could finish.
"Really..." I muttered, swaying slightly as the euphoric high continued to course through my system. A manic grin spread across my face as I stared at the corpse at my feet. "So much for wanting some semblance of normalcy."
The words came out slightly slurred, my perception still operating at a tenth of normal speed while my body moved with impossible precision.
Everything felt so incredibly, beautifully perfect that I couldn't help but laugh—a sound that was probably more unsettling than reassuring to everyone watching.
Thirteen seconds of being god.
It was intoxicating.