North America, Washington D.C., the Presidential Residence.
The once-majestic White House was now nothing but a pile of rubble.
While it was already night at the Holy Cross Group headquarters in Tokyo, it was still daytime in Washington D.C.
And yet, the entirety of Washington D.C. was shrouded in darkness.
This wasn't due to the weather or any natural cause. A wall of shadow, like an opaque, hemispherical shield, had enveloped the entire district.
The panicked populace could easily flee the shadowed area, but no one could get in from the outside—not even the military.
This sudden, bizarre phenomenon was quickly classified by North America as a terrorist attack.
However, despite deploying the army and even using a vast arsenal of military-grade weaponry, they still couldn't breach the shield of black shadow.
The seat of the highest authority in all of North America—a place arguably vital to the global situation—had been attacked by an unknown entity and cut off from military protection. News of this spread rapidly across the internet.
The existence of a power that even the highest authorities could not defend against suddenly leaped into the public consciousness, profoundly impacting the views of all humanity.
The fact that all modern weaponry was ineffective led people to either view it as a miracle or covet its power.
The very thing Izayoi had worried about had now come to pass.
Just as he had said, attacking the highest authority was not as simple as just killing someone. It was a challenge to the very consensus that held human society together, one that could drastically change the public's perception of the power of the Third Stellar Particle and profoundly affect the future of humanity.
And now, thanks to Saigō Homura's reckless actions, this impact had become inevitable.
If not for the lack of reliable intelligence on the situation inside, leaving things in a state of suspense, a storm would have likely already swept across the entire Earth.
Now, as military forces from all sides watched with predatory eyes but were completely unable to break through, a sickly boy with brown skin, white hair, and wearing a hospital gown ignored all attempts to stop him and walked right up to the shadow-covered domain in front of everyone.
When military personnel tried to stop and question him, the frail-looking boy simply raised his fist slightly. With a posture that looked like he couldn't even win a fight against a duck, he struck the shadow wall that even missiles couldn't shatter.
And in the next second, something happened that shocked every ordinary person present.
The incredibly tough black shadow, with a defensive strength thought to be capable of withstanding a nuclear bomb and made of a material utilizing the strong nuclear force, shattered instantly from the boy's casual punch, revealing the scene within.
Typhon dragged his sickly body inside.
His aura was faint, but his eyes were exceptionally bright. His expression no longer held the furious hostility from before; instead, there was a hint of resolve.
He parted the walls of shadow and soon arrived at the center of the White House ruins.
The building that symbolized the highest authority of a bygone era was now completely and utterly shattered.
And at the peak of a small white hill formed by the rubble, a boy who looked no older than eleven or twelve was sitting on the ground, his eyes closed as if waiting for something.
After the massive black shield shattered, the dark shadows converged, flowing like water into the boy's own shadow.
In the end, they formed a pair of pitch-black shadow blades dozens of meters long.
Beneath the sun, the boy with pitch-black wings on his back sat atop the ruins of the White House. Sensing that the barrier he had erected had been shattered, he slowly raised his gaze. His ruby-red eyes, symbols of hell, met Typhon's directly.
"Why is it you?"
Saigō Homura was somewhat surprised.
"I thought for sure the first one to arrive would be Izayoi."
Although he was in his red-eyed state and his aura overflowed with a king's majesty, the boy's tone of voice was unmistakably Saigō Homura's.
"Izayoi is waiting for his companions. He'll probably be here soon."
Typhon looked up, gazing at the son of Saigō Tōya, and at this Human Final Trial.
"For now, it's just you and me," he said.
Sensing the fighting spirit radiating from Typhon, Saigō Homura felt a flicker of panic. But the composure of the Absolute Evil Demon King and his firm belief in his own path quickly allowed him to steady himself.
"You want to fight me?"
With no intention of de-escalating, Saigō Homura asked bluntly, a faint smile playing on his lips as if he found the situation amusing.
"Don't you hate the gods and your tormentors more than anyone? Why would you want to stop me now? Big Brother Izayoi isn't that persuasive... Who talked you into this?"
"Before I came, I was summoned by Lord Mo," Typhon said with complete honesty.
The memory of the summons made him tremble with excitement.
"Lord Su Mo... Did Lord Su Mo send you to stop me?"
Hearing that name, Saigō Homura was slightly surprised. He hadn't expected his actions to draw his attention.
He recalled Canary's teachings and all the help he'd received from the Teacher's Group, and a wave of guilt washed over him.
Lord Su Mo spent so many resources on me, and in the end, I betrayed my mission and became an accomplice to the Demon King. This is so wrong.
At the same time, he prepared to resist to the very end.
After all, even his brother didn't want to see him walk this path, let alone the adults.
He just hadn't expected that Su Mo could command someone as stubborn as Typhon.
However, to his surprise, Typhon shook his head at Saigō Homura's words.
"First, it wasn't Lord Su Mo who sent me. This was an order from the Second-Generation Mother Goddess, and a command from Lady Algol."
"Second, I'm not here to stop you. I'm here to crush you!"
When speaking the first part, Typhon's tone was respectful, and his pace was slow.
But when he spoke the second part, his aura turned dangerous, and his eyes glinted with fighting spirit.
"Crush me?"
Saigō Homura looked up, and the shadows before him reared up menacingly, almost swallowing Typhon whole.
"I don't deny your wish, and I acknowledge your sense of justice," Typhon said calmly.
Ultimately, Saigō Homura was acting out of anger for the victims of human experimentation. With that as his motivation, Typhon couldn't have too bad an impression of him.
"Even if you fly the banner of Absolute Evil, it's still just another template for gods to rule the world. If doing this still can't destroy evil, then I will not allow a new god to rule this world!"
The evil god of Zoroastrianism is still a god.
Hearing this, Saigō Homura's expression froze. His face suddenly twisted into a wanton, ferocious mask.
"Are you saying you want to be my enemy?"
The icy tone and domineering gaze made it instantly clear that this was Azi Dahaka himself speaking.
Faced with such a fierce question, Typhon looked back at him and gave an equally fierce reply.
"To be precise, you want to be my enemy? You Zoroastrian brat!"
As the last son of Gaia, Azi Dahaka was a complete junior to Typhon. Facing this evil god, even knowing he was a Human Final Trial, Typhon had no intention of backing down.
"..."
With things having come to this, the two stared each other down, their gazes sharp as blades.
The atmosphere was thick with tension, ready to explode into battle at any moment.
At this most dangerous juncture, Typhon glanced around at the surrounding ruins.
Aside from the meaningless modern human weapons, there were no signs of resistance. The White House and everything else had been effortlessly sliced apart, creating the ruins.
In other words, Saigō Homura had used only the Dragon's Legacy Shadow to destroy this planet's highest command authority, and at almost no cost to himself.
Recalling how Saigō Homura had been sitting atop the pyramid of rubble at the beginning, waiting for something, Typhon paused, a thought striking him.
"One last question. What were you waiting for just now?"
"For the foolish resistance of those at their end."
Azi Dahaka answered impassively, then raised his head to look at the sky.
"It seems they've arrived."
Hearing this, Typhon reacted instantly.
He looked up. In the sky, a massive, dark swarm, like a flock of birds, was flying toward them from all directions.
However, with his excellent eyesight, he knew this was no flock of birds.
It was a swarm of dragons—and what's more, they were the same kind of dragons he had once annihilated with his Simulate Star Creation Chart.
"An entire legion of SATAN Evil Dragons?"
The moment he realized this, Typhon was astonished. Even in his long life as his original self, he had never seen an evil dragon legion of this scale.
"A number of this magnitude... Are they retaliating against you? No! That's not it. This is a warning from the true powers that be!"
The highest authorities in the most direct sense were already buried deep beneath the rubble, but behind them were even more deeply hidden powers.
It was these powers who, after their chosen stewards were utterly destroyed, had decided that Saigō Homura was an obstacle that must be eliminated.
And the SATAN Evil Dragons were the strongest weapon in their arsenal.
This was their true source of confidence, far more than any conventional army. And this was precisely what the Absolute Evil Demon King had been waiting for.
If one cannot utterly crush the enemy head-on, what right does one have to bear the banner of evil?