The expressway was a battleground right out of a nightmare scape, reeking of sulphur and burned metal. Hellish portals flapped like raw wounds across the horizon, belching an eternal flood of devils—took-like brutes with twisted horns, black illusions with slashing claws, winged monstrosities screeching challenge at the heavens. Earth shook beneath their feet, a scrunched-up metal chaos of smashed cars hurtling before the tides of advancing hellish flesh, aglow with an eldritch hunger.
Yura's voice rose over the din, full of panic but with a snag of steel.
"Oh, crap! How in the world are we supposed to take down so many demons?"
She clutched AZIMIS so tightly that her knuckles turned white, her eyes wide with terror as a sea of demons engulfed her.
Lint moved forward without pause, his lanky body making a resolute figure against the crimson light. He turned to Lucarious—the mysterious fallen angel standing nearby, his very presence a conjuring of black wings and potent history.
"Can you lend me your strength?" Lint asked him, his voice steady with desperation, the thrill of combat dancing across his eyes.
Lucarious shook his head, his voice was apologetic but firm, like a teacher rejecting an impetuous pupil.
"I had given my essence to Vernon. I can only give my power to mortal once. i can't give to someone else until that mortal die."
Lint's lips traced a small, enigmatic smile. "As I thought. Very well—give me a weapon, then. Something with which I might kill these monstrosities born of the depths."
Akira interrupted, his mocking laugh echoing through his booming voice and through the snarling of the approaching demons, his extroverted energy suffusing like a bolt of lightning.
"Oh, oh, oh, look at that! My cute detective friend wants to play hero? Finished with your little detective work, yes? About to get your hands good and bloody?"
His eyes locked on Lint, a small smile playing on his lips, his voice barely there but inexorable, invested with the weight of conviction.
"I'm just doing what feels right."
Lucarious raised one hand skyward, open palm facing the heavens, calling upon the wrath of the gods themselves.
Blazing light exploded from his open palm, cutting through the scarlet veil like he's talking to heavens. He glanced at me, and flashed a sly, knowing smile, the sort shared by none but older, fallen brothers.
And I knew just what I was hearing. The light solidified into a sword of dazzling white light—LIBRIS, known and fabled throughout all realms as the sword of divine making, forged from the very fire of the skies to smelt the heart of hell's own minions. Lucarious held it aloft towards Lint.
"Across all of heaven and all of earth," he proclaimed loudly and gorgeously, "I award to you this holy sword: LIBRIS!"
Lint sized up the dagger, its handle a perfect fit for his hand, as if the instrument was fate itself.
"Perfect,"
he whispered to himself, his eyes shining with a wild joy.
Not stopping to draw breath, he dropped low and burst forward,charging towards a giant demon with an organism of pulsing eyes for its head and standing ten feet tall like a nightmarish sentinel.
As Lint charged, he felt an injection of supernatural speed course into his limbs—legs streaking out of focus, his long coat flapping around him like a cloak.
He sprang—eleven feet of pure impossibility—landing full force right atop the hideous demon's head.
With a bellow of rage, he drove LIBRIS home deep into the tangle of eyes, hitting it right through to its spine. Black fluid erupted with tremendous force as he hacked it downwards, splitting it right down the middle.
The monster fell apart in either half with an avalanche of gore and meat that poured across the asphalt pavement above its own entrails and caused cracks to form in the impact zone.
Akira looked at me shockingly. His masked face was aghast.
"Lint doesn't possess any powers from Lucarious—how in the world is he able to move like that?"
I leaned on a broken pillar, speaking in a deep, serious tone, tinged just a hint of wry mirth.
"He now wields LIBRIS—the most destructive sword ever created in heaven. But I'm just as baffled as you are, Akira."
I folded my arms, grinning.
"LIBRIS decides whom it wants to be wielded by. It's just a very sharp sword to an ordinary mortal. It could slice through stone in a casual motion. But to its wielder?! It's a conduit for celestial rage coursing through every nerve, every muscle—while it's in their possession."
Lint was a whirlwind of death, cutting effortlessly through the demons. Each movement was a fluid paradox: dodging claws that sliced the air in furious arcs, plunging his sword into chests that exploded with great gouts of dark blood, amputating arms that thudded forgotten to the earth.
Ichor lashed down like a monsoon, drenching him with slicking-black ichor, and he was untouched, a god of vengeance sweeping through the battle.
Akira turned to me with interest.
"But why did LIBRIS select him?"
I caught a look at Lucarious, grumbling, "Lint is doomed for it—and Lucacious knew all along."
In that one moment, a snarling demon rushed Akira with claws outstretched, like scythes. Akira flipped backwards with flawless grace, his devilish katana flashing through a deadly circle.
The blade bit through the demon's head in a spray of blood and bone that spattered onto nearby cars. The body stiffened and fell in a convulsive heap, cratering the road.
Akira pushed to Lint's side with gusto, his voice daring and exhilarating.
"Lint! The eastern gates are yours, Yura, you take the western! These are mere giants, and I will take them down!"
Yura unleashed the AZIMIS with the ferocity of a precision-guided missile, fireballs streaking across the sky like comets, reducing demons to smoldering rubble—echoes of thunder shattering every window block.
Lint waved the LIBRIS access card like a feather in the wind, dancing among the mob with a destructive intent— slashes to exposed cores spewing forth geysers of juices, stabbing to split skin to spill warm entrails onto concrete.
One of the demons stood still beside a gateway, unmoving among the throngs of its kin. Akira spotted it, leaping high, plunging his blade deeply into its skull – the blade dissolving flesh at the touch, the head exploding in a volcano of blood and brain. The gateway shook and closed with a deafening crack, sucking the surrounding darknesses down into abysses.
Akira yelled through the din, his voice melodramatic and assured. "Find the demon resting idle by every portal—the guardian! Kill it and the gate will be closed!"
"Sounds like a foolish plan—but we've no choice. I trust you!"
Lint yelled back, evading a swipe of claws that scored the ground below him.
His eyes scanned the chaos, fixing on a second guardian. He jumped through the air, thrusting downward—the head of the demon splitting like ripe fruit, a jet of blood squirting as the portal exploded, pinning demons beneath it in a whirlwind of dust and screams.
Akira grinned behind his mask, mocking arrogance in his voice. "Well, now who's the fool, eh?"
Lint looked back over his shoulder, a small smile evident beneath the blood on his lips.
"You'll never change, Aira."
Only two portals were left in Yura's area, and they had guardians who lay concealed in thick crowds of snarling demons.
She jumped onto a smashed car and then launched herself to an awning of a window, leaping even higher to a balcony of an nearby apartment building. From her elevated position, she fired AZIMIS, launching two blazing fireballs that hurtled through the air like rampaging dragons.
Both hit their marks, crashing into the guardians' heads. Their skulls burst like volcanoes, spewing blood and bones in a shower of ghastliness, while the force of the explosions sent nearby demons crashing. The last portals collapsed with deafening roars.
The rest of the demons, just echoes and copies of the slaughtered guardians, disintegrated into clouds of dust that were sucked away on the wind.
Exhausted, they flopped onto their backsides, laughing, amidst the wreckage.
"Finally finished,"
Akira breathed, his voice vibrating with excitement. Yura, Lint, Yuna: all chests still heaving.
Meanwhile, I walked towards Lucarious, shadows snaking around me like hungry serpents
. Yuna stood by, nervously aware of the impending tempest.
I met his gaze.
"You know everything, don't you? You're here for a reason."
I spoke low and menacing. Lucarious looked away,
mute as a statue.
Rage flared. I grasped his neck and pulled him close. I clenched teeth and bared lips.
"What do you want? Stop playing tricks with me, Lucarious! The most powerful fallen angels all gathering in Tokyo, bound to mortal who all are connected together by past. "
I smashed his face with a punched, with all force of bone and muscle. His head reeled backward with impact, but I held tight. I bellowed with all the fury of damnation.
"You're violating the Code of the Fallen--and receive no repercussions!"
I thrust an accusatory finger at Yuna, who stood frozen with wide eyes.
"You see her? Twice she broke rules—lost invisibility and then immortality! You—untouched and unmended!"
"Yes. because I'm not a fallen angel," Lucarious smiled, meeting my glare finally, a hint of blood seeping from his lip, as if the mere act of speaking was painful.
These words lingered in the bloody air like a chilling revelation that was both poetic and frighteningly portentous.