That night in Nagazora City, the moon hung high and bright. There was no rain—yet everyone who vaguely remembered what happened swore there had been rain.
People felt that a night like that, an event like that, ought to come with a torrential downpour, washing clean everything vile and everything noble alike.
Have you ever seen a demon?
Not the kind with goat horns, a pitchfork in hand, always trying to trick people into signing contracts—some red-skinned freak out of a cheap fantasy novel.
Those only existed in third-rate stories or the mouths of charlatans.
And not the so-called "demon in the human heart," either. That was too poetic, too self-indulgent. Cocolia scorned that sort of thing.
A real demon was something that could blot out an entire city's night sky.
Like this.
Next, she saw blue fire—cold netherflame—erupt from beneath that boy's feet and swallow the entire office building in an instant.
Then something crawled out of the blaze.
A colossal shadow devoured everything. Nagazora's proud ocean of neon lights, even the moon itself, vanished behind it, smothered completely.
A demon king in heavy armor, crowned with six pitch-black wings vast enough to cover the heavens, looked down upon the world from on high.
Cocolia—who had once stood at the very top of the city and gazed down with contempt—was an ant now.
In its hand was a rapier.
And in that rapier… was a gun barrel.
It pointed straight at the ME Corp tower.
At her.
Crack.
A sharp, brittle sound.
The expensive crystal wineglass in Cocolia's hand—imported from Bordeaux—shattered into glittering fragments across the floor.
Dark red wine splashed out, spilling over the legs she'd always taken pride in.
She didn't care.
She didn't even look down.
She only stared—stared at the monster occupying half the sky, lips trembling, the lipstick she'd applied so carefully now looking almost ridiculous.
"A Honkai beast…? A Herrscher…?"
Her brain froze.
Decades of research. Her understanding of Honkai energy. Her knowledge of Titan mechs—every bit of it turned to worthless paper in a single heartbeat.
There was no Honkai energy reading at all.
On the massive monitoring wall behind her, the data streams that should've been screaming alarms were flat and calm—steady as a dead man's ECG.
It didn't fit her worldview.
And yet it was there, real as reality could possibly be.
"Holograms—yes. It has to be a hologram!"
Cocolia stumbled back so hard her waist clipped the edge of her desk. She clung to that thought like a lifeline.
"Trying to scare me with theatrics—"
She fumbled for the communicator on the desk, nails scraping across marble with a shriek.
She would call security, have them shut down this damned projector, then unleash the Titan squad to drag that little punk off his rooftop and—skin him alive.
But—
The immense demon outside, as if it had heard her thoughts, shifted slightly.
Those burning red eyes turned.
Its gaze pierced straight through the glass… and locked onto her.
In that instant, Cocolia felt like she'd been dumped into liquid nitrogen. Her heart stopped for half a beat—then slammed into motion, ramming against her ribs like it was trying to burst out through her throat.
This wasn't a projection.
A projection didn't look at you the way you'd look at a corpse.
A projection didn't make every hair on your body stand on end, didn't turn a mind built on calculation into pure mush.
On the rooftop, Bai Qian slowly slid the gun back into his coat pocket.
He didn't look at Cocolia.
He simply turned around—his back to the ME Corp tower, his back to that towering demon god, his back to the iron-willed woman now slumped by her desk.
He snapped his fingers.
Crisp. Casual. Like calling for the check at a restaurant.
He still didn't look at her.
Someone like her wasn't worth the effort of watching.
He was feeling.
Feeling the boiling, violent power surging through him—power that wanted nothing more than to tear everything in sight to pieces.
[Sparda's Blood] was burning.
Why come here alone if not to see what kind of spectacle this new power could make?
A man in fine clothes never walks at night—that's the saying. And he was here for a bright, shameless, public execution of Cocolia. He wanted it loud. He wanted it grand.
His cringe phase had never ended.
He wanted, just once, to tell the world he existed—not as a passerby, not as a nameless extra.
No one truly wants to be just a passerby.
"Devil Trigger—POWER!"
His heartbeat thundered like war drums. Black light poured over Bai Qian. Congealed darkness wrapped around him, hardening his skin.
Scales emerged. An exoskeleton formed. His frame rose taller. Black wings tore free.
And in his place stood a second demon king.
Now two "Sataniel" figures hovered side by side above Nagazora's night.
The one behind was massive—an immense phantom.
The other was smaller… and somehow even more vicious.
That was Bai Qian.
His whole body was covered in obsidian-like armor. Sleek, powerful muscle lines rippled beneath the plates. Six ragged wings stretched from his back, each feather as though forged from pure night itself.
He looked almost identical to the giant Sataniel silhouette behind him.
One large, one small—two demon kings—both staring down at the woman below.
He pulled out the long gun he'd prepared.
Whisper.
Long. Elegant.
Its body was engraved with intricate patterns, and in his hands it felt weightless—like holding a feather.
Sparda's blood surged in his veins like magma. Every beat of his heart pumped that scalding urge through his limbs.
It felt too good.
Good enough to make you want to scream.
Power.
But he didn't.
He only braced the stock hard against his shoulder. The obsidian exoskeleton locked the weapon in place like a clamp—like a muzzle, restraining a beast about to break loose.
The wind stopped.
Not truly—
It was being suppressed.
Behind him, Sataniel slowly raised an arm.
The rapier. The gun.
Both aimed at the same single point.
The barrel rose.
He could see every muscle in that woman's face twitching.
That was fear.
Someone always has to ring the bell. And every time the bell tolls, the one who hears it wonders—
For whom does the bell toll?
It tolls for you.
Whatever she might be thinking no longer mattered.
"Sin—armor-piercing rounds!"
Devil Trigger + Perfect Finale + double Sin AP rounds!
"Goodbye."
No speeches. No verdict. No final sermon.
He pulled the trigger.
Bang!
Bai Qian's gun fired first.
Then the world changed.
Sataniel's rapier fired its bullet—
BOOOOOOM—!!!
Black lightning tore a wound through the night sky. It was so fast Cocolia didn't even have time to blink.
All she saw was white.
Or black.
She couldn't tell anymore.
Otto Apocalypse liked this kind of height.
From up here, even the clouds were beneath his feet.
Down below was the world of mortals—busy, chaotic, drowning in pointless noise. He didn't need to look. Every time he simply felt that he stood here, his heart calmed.
He didn't crave power. He didn't need money. Everything—everything—was for a single goal.
He swirled half a glass of red wine in his hand. The liquid clung to the crystal like a thin film of blood.
The voice came from the communication terminal on his desk—Amber, as calm as always, unlike his granddaughter.
"Your Grace."
"ME Corp headquarters has been confirmed destroyed. Our recovery teams are investigating."
Otto's fingers paused.
The wine's surface trembled once, then settled.
"Destroyed?"
He repeated the word.
Not damaged. Not attacked.
Destroyed.
"Yes," Amber said. "Gone in the physical sense. The only confirmed fatality is Cocolia, Executive of Anti-Entropy. The rest of the researchers were in the underground levels and are now being transferred to Schicksal custody."
"And the killer?"
"They were wearing a mask, and… they're unusual."
Otto set the glass down. Marble clicked softly under crystal.
"What a pity," he said—
without a shred of pity in his tone.
"I told her to manufacture a Herrscher, not to get herself killed."
He shook his head, blond hair brushing his collar.
"The Third Eruption hasn't even started, and the director has already taken their bow. That script can't be performed."
Everything had been proceeding according to plan.
Cocolia was a fool—ambitious, yes, but conveniently easy to steer. As long as she believed Schicksal knew nothing, she would obediently plant the seed known as the Gem of Conquest.
Then the Third Herrscher would awaken.
A necessary step to awaken that person.
Everyone had ambition. He merely pretended not to see it, waiting for the harvest.
But now someone had flipped the table.
"Do we have footage?" Otto asked.
"We do, but…" Amber hesitated.
A holographic projection unfolded in the center of the room—satellite-captured imagery.
Otto narrowed his eyes, stepping closer as if trying to make out the blurred silhouette.
Even at this resolution, the oppressive pressure was unmistakable.
Six wings?
"A Honkai beast?" Otto murmured. "Emperor-class? No—there's no Honkai energy signature. It looks like something that crawled out of Hell, but… does Hell truly exist in this world?"
It didn't belong to this world.
A word surfaced in his mind.
Demon.
Absurd.
Scientists didn't believe in demons.
And yet the thing looked exactly like a monstrum from some mythological illustration.
"Interesting," he said.
Something even he had never seen.
Cocolia was dead—so what?
Someone would always try to trigger the Third Eruption.
What mattered was this.
If it was a relic of the Previous Era… or some unknown power—
Then it had to belong to Schicksal.
"Amber."
Otto turned and walked back behind his desk.
"Where is Durandal right now?"
"Lady Durandal has just concluded her mission in North Africa. She is currently returning. Lady Rita Rossweisse is accompanying her."
"Excellent."
Otto lifted a feather pen and spun it between his fingers.
"Reroute them."
"To Nagazora City."
"And the reason?" Amber asked.
Otto tossed the pen onto the desk.
"Why?" He spread his hands, innocent to the point of offense.
"Tell her we've discovered a major Anti-Entropy secret base in Nagazora City. That damned Cocolia has been conducting inhumane human experiments there—she may have even summoned a pseudo–Herrscher-level monster."
"Our S-rank Valkyrie, Durandal—paragon of justice—can hardly stand by and do nothing, can she?"
The line cut.
The room fell silent again.
Otto lifted the unfinished glass of wine and held it up to the light.
Red.
"Nagazora City," he murmured.
"The stage is set… but the actors have changed."
"Then let me see how far this new play can go."
He tilted his head back and drank the wine in one swallow.
A little sour.
And it was precisely that sourness that made it feel real.
Thousands of kilometers away.
Ten thousand meters above the ground.
A Schicksal transport plane cruised smoothly above the cloud layer.
The cabin was quiet.
Durandal sat by the window, reading this week's newly released comic magazine. On the cover were heroes in absurdly exaggerated armor.
She was reading seriously.
So seriously her brows knitted together.
"This setting is unreasonable," she suddenly said.
Across from her, Rita was adding sugar cubes to her tea. At the comment, her silver spoon tapped the cup with a clear ting.
"Lady Bianca," Rita said with a smile, "manga isn't required to obey the laws of physics."
"But the protagonist is obviously just a normal human," Durandal insisted, pointing at a panel. "How can he lift a sword that big with one hand?"
She looked genuinely troubled.
For the strongest S-rank Valkyrie—someone who separated fiction and reality with almost painful precision—understanding artistic exaggeration was harder than soloing an Emperor-class Honkai beast.
"Perhaps it's because of his love for others," Rita offered, handing her the tea.
"Love?" Durandal accepted the cup and pursed her lips.
"Another metaphysical answer."
Just then, Rita's communicator buzzed.
An urgent mission notification.
Rita drew the device from her pocket and scanned the screen.
Her previously languid expression tightened, just slightly. Her dark red eyes narrowed.
"It seems your manga time is over, Lady Bianca."
"Hm?"
Durandal closed the magazine and slid it into the seatback net. In one second she was the girl arguing about comic logic—then, in the next, she was Schicksal's strongest S-rank Valkyrie again.
"A mission?"
"Yes."
Rita stood, smoothing her skirt.
"An order from the Overseer."
"Apparently, something very interesting has appeared in Nagazora City," she said, glancing out into the black night beyond the window. "Interesting enough that even ME Corp's headquarters was torn down."
Durandal rose and ran her fingers over Abyss Flower. The metal was cool under her touch.
"Anti-Entropy?"
"More or less," Rita said with a shrug. "That's what the Overseer claims. However…"
She gazed into the darkness outside.
"I have a feeling that what we'll be facing this time won't be mere scientists who only know how to build mechs."
"Whatever it is," Durandal said evenly, "if it's an enemy, then we defeat it."
Long ago—before she ever became a Valkyrie—people used to ask her that question again and again.
Will you win?
No one asked anymore. Her strength had become common sense.
But even if Durandal heard it now, she would still answer with the same three words:
"We will win."
-------
My : pat*eon*com/RuneA
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