The Parade of a Hundred Cuts and the Will of Iron.

Ken and Tanimoto struggled to their feet, coughing blood, leaning on each other. The thrown stone had served its purpose: the Regent had forgotten his sword for a moment.

But the price of his attention was high. The armored giant slowly turned his massive body toward them. The temperature in the street seemed to drop. Kazuha and his squad, still paralyzed near the embedded sword, heard Tanimoto's shout cut through the rain. "RUN! GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!"

The authority in Tanimoto's voice broke the trance of fear. Kazuha, with tears of frustration, gave the order, and the squad retreated into the shadows of the ruined buildings, leaving the two warriors alone facing the approaching storm.

The punishment was just beginning.

This time, the Regent didn't charge like a furious bull. He didn't try to wrench his Odachi from the ground. Instead, he planted his feet wide and lowered his center of gravity. He crossed his empty arms in front of his chest in a strange, almost ceremonial posture. Tanimoto's eyes widened in recognition and horror. "That stance... it's Kasumi no Kamae (Mist Stance). But... without a sword?"

Before they could process it, the ground beneath the Regent's feet changed. The wet asphalt darkened, as if a stain of black ink rapidly expanded from his boots. The stain grew, covering ten, twenty, thirty meters, swallowing the entire street where Ken and Tanimoto stood. And upon that darkness, an image began to glow with a spectral, grayish light.

Ken looked down and felt a nauseating vertigo. It was a gigantic insignia. A stylized skull wearing an ancient kabuto (samurai helmet). But the most unsettling part was that within the skull's empty sockets and in the helmet's design, the unmistakable silhouette of Mount Fuji flashed intermittently—not as a symbol of pride, but as a corrupted mountain wreathed in purple flames. It was a heraldry that belonged to no human clan, past or present.

"What the hell is this?" Ken whispered.

The Regent gave them no time to admire his handiwork. His arms began to move. First a quick motion of the right hand. Then the left. Then both. They weren't physical strikes. They were swift, precise gestures, like a conductor directing a symphony of death.

Just as the Regent completed the eighth motion, the air in front of Ken exploded. THUD! Ken saw nothing. Only a curved streak of pure purple energy that appeared from nowhere and struck him in the chest with the force of a truck, sending him flying backward, the wind knocked out of him.

"Ken!" Tanimoto shouted, trying to move to cover him. THUD! Another purple streak hit Tanimoto's right shoulder, dislocating it instantly. The samurai gritted his teeth, falling to one knee.

They were under attack from the Regent's signature technique. The Hyakki Yagyō (The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons). Even in this incomplete version, performed without his sword and using only his hands to project Essence, it was devastating. The Regent was unleashing a hundred slashes of pure energy in any direction he wished, without the need for physical contact.

"Move!" Tanimoto yelled.

They tried to dodge. Ken rolled across the ground, Tanimoto leaped. But the attacks grew faster, more lethal, and came from all directions. The purple streaks didn't just strike flesh. They whizzed past them and sliced through the buildings behind. Concrete facades disintegrated like wet paper. Parked cars were sectioned into perfect slices.

It was a bombardment. Ken took another hit on the leg, then another on his back. Tanimoto used his broken sword to deflect one, but two more struck his side. The noise was deafening. A hundred consecutive impacts. A hundred explosions of power. Finally, the Regent lowered his hands. The hundred cuts had been unleashed.

There was a total, sudden silence. Only the sound of rain hitting the smoldering rubble. The street was unrecognizable. The Regent surveyed his work. He gave a small, almost childish hop of joy, and his shoulders moved as if he wanted to dance. The two nuisances who had dared to wound his ego had finally fallen.

And indeed, amidst the smoke and wet dust, the bodies of Ken and Tanimoto lay face down on the ground, motionless.

Satisfied with his achievement, the Regent walked calmly to where his Odachi remained embedded. He gripped the hilt with one hand and, with an effortless pull, freed it from the asphalt. The dark rain fell upon him. He was alone. Victorious. It seemed the Japanese had completely lost the Kanto region to the Calamity.

However, what the entire world and the Calamity did not know was that Japan possessed a special gift. A gift forged through centuries of disasters, tsunamis, and wars. A gift every survivor carried in their DNA: an iron will that refused to break, even when all was lost.

An explosion shook the entire street. Kazuha and his squad had not fled. They had used Tanimoto's distraction to enter the ruined apartment building right next to the Regent and had placed all their remaining explosive charges on the load-bearing pillars. The five-story building groaned and then collapsed, burying the Regent under tons of concrete and steel.

An immense cloud of dust rose. "NOW!" shouted Kazuha's youthful voice.

From the shadows, the squad came running. They knew the explosion wouldn't kill the monster, but it was their only chance. They attacked the mountain of debris with the little strength they had left, thrusting their spears into gaps. Even Kazuha wielded a katana too big for him, striking the concrete with fury.

The weapons clanged against something metallic beneath the stones. Suddenly, the mountain of rubble exploded outward. The Regent emerged, shaking the dust from his intact armor. He was tired of these games. With a fluid motion of his Odachi, so fast it seemed like a ghost, he traced a horizontal arc.

Three squad members on the front line simply ceased to exist. Their bodies were reduced to a carmine mist and pieces of armor that flew through the air.

The Regent slowly turned towards Kazuha and the two remaining soldiers. They could see his eyes were smiling. One soldier, in a mix of panic and bravery, tried to jump from a piece of elevated debris to attack the Regent's head. The monster didn't even look up; he simply raised his fist and struck the soldier mid-air, shattering his ribcage and sending him flying lifelessly.

Only Kazuha and one last veteran soldier remained. The Regent raised his giant sword to cleave them both. The veteran looked at Kazuha, then at the monster. He violently shoved the boy backward. "RUN, BRAT!" were his last words.

He threw himself against the Regent's legs in a futile attempt to stop him. The Odachi came down, and the sacrifice ended in a second.

Kazuha fell back onto the wet ground. He was alone. His entire squad had been annihilated in less than ten seconds. Fear paralyzed him. His legs wouldn't respond. His throat was closed. He could only watch as the mountain of black death approached him, step by step, without a shred of mercy. He wanted to cry, to scream, to call for his mom. But he could only tremble.

The Regent stood before him. He raised his blood-stained sword, ready to finish the job and clear the street of the last nuisance. The shadow of the blade covered the boy's face.

However. Something whistled through the air. A silver chain, with a heavy steel tip at its end, crossed the distance and struck the side of the Regent's helmet with precision. The impact was so strong the giant's head snapped violently to the side. The Regent roared in genuine pain, taking two steps back and lowering his guard.

Before the monster could regain his balance, a swift shadow passed in front of him. An arm wrapped around Kazuha's waist and whisked him out of the danger zone in a blink.

Even though all had fallen, even though hope seemed dead under the black rain, in this world there would always appear someone else willing to stand in the path of the Calamity, regardless of age, rank, or era.