Chapter IV

Shula stood firm before Orochi Hanzo.

Her warhammer remained poised over one shoulder, its black flames twitching hungrily as she studied the broken elder standing before her.

What Hanzo had just revealed was a truth known to no one.

Not Hosanna Sun.

Not the royal court of House Galan.

Not even previous Demon Lords who had fought beside him for decades.

Blood spilled from Hanzo’s lips as a quiet chuckle escaped him. His body trembled from exhaustion, and his right eye had swollen completely shut. Still, an unsettling calm settled over his battered face.

“I am one hundred and sixteen years old.”

He wiped the blood beneath his sealed eye with the back of his hand.

“When I was twenty-five, I was young, arrogant, and foolish enough to believe strength alone made me worthy of command.”

His faint smile deepened.

“I traveled into the most savage reaches of the Yasei Exotica and challenged Ballinger Oldfren for his position as Head Demon Lord of House Galan.”

Shula said nothing.

She tightened her grip on her warhammer but refused to attack. Curiosity had reached her, yet caution held her in place.

Hanzo laughed again.

“Believe me, Shula…”

“Ballinger beat me far worse than you have today.”

For the first time, something resembling nostalgia entered the elder Demon Lord’s voice.

“He left me broken.”

“My bones were shattered. My flesh was torn. I could barely remember my own name.”

“I was no more than a breath away from death.”

Hanzo slowly raised his head.

“And then…”

“Something opened inside me.”

Shula’s crimson eyes narrowed.

“It was like discovering a door buried within my soul—one that had always existed, yet refused to reveal itself until death had placed its hand upon me.”

His remaining eye fixed upon her.

“I suspect you felt something similar.”

“Didn’t you, Shula?”

A flicker of uncertainty passed through her thoughts.

Was he attempting to distract her?

Was this another strategy?

Another deception created by a dying old man desperate to delay the inevitable?

Hanzo recognized the doubt in her expression.

He smiled knowingly.

“Special Style…”

The flames of the Ninth Floor recoiled.

“…Devil’s Djinn.”

A small shadow appeared between them.

At first, it resembled little more than a stain spreading across reality.

Then it rose.

The being possessed no true shape. It was an outline carved from absolute darkness, no larger than a child, with two green eyes burning within its featureless face.

Yet its presence was immeasurable.

The fiery throne room bent around it.

The walls groaned.

Even Roxanne Roseburn’s infernal construct seemed to lower itself before the entity.

Shula took a cautious step backward.

Hanzo gazed upon the creature with weary familiarity.

“After the first time I summoned you…”

He coughed, sending fresh blood across the floor.

“…I swore it would also be the last.”

A faint laugh escaped him.

“I am pleased that promise became a lie.”

His eye returned to Shula.

“The shadowed figure turned toward Hanzo.

When it spoke, two voices emerged simultaneously—one deep and ancient, the other soft and almost childlike.

“Orochi Hanzo.”

“You possess one wish.”

The weight within the throne room increased.

Shula’s knees nearly buckled beneath the pressure, yet she forced herself upright.

The Djinn’s green eyes burned brighter.

“The greater the tribute…”

“…the greater the wish.”

Shula attacked.

She lunged forward with a roar and swung her warhammer directly through the creature’s body.

The weapon met no resistance.

It passed through the Djinn as though striking an empty shadow.

The being did not move.

It did not even acknowledge her.

Hanzo understood.

There was no time left.

He drew in one final breath.

“My tribute…”

The trembling in his body stopped.

“…is my life.”

The Djinn became perfectly still.

Hanzo smiled.

There was neither fear nor hesitation in his expression.

“I offer my life to you.”

“In exchange…”

His gaze moved first to Shula.

Then to Roxanne Roseburn, who was coming out of her prayer sustaining Dante’s Inverted Tower.

Hanzo’s voice softened.

“I wish for the deaths…”

“…of Demon Lord Roxanne Roseburn…”

His eye returned to Shula.

“…and Demon Lord Shula.”

Silence followed.

The Djinn raised one shadow-covered hand.

A thin black blade swept across Hanzo’s throat.

For an instant, nothing happened.

Then blood erupted into the air.

Hanzo’s body collapsed.

The elder Demon Lord struck the floor beside the Djinn, his remaining eye slowly losing its light.

The shadowed being looked down at him.

Then it began to sob.

Not with fury.

Not with cruelty.

Its grief was deep and unbearable—the anguished mourning of a mother lowering her child into the earth.

The sound echoed through every chamber of Dante’s Inverted Tower.

Shula refused to remain still.

She roared and attacked the Djinn again.

Her hammer passed uselessly through its body.

The creature slowly raised its hand.

Its fingers closed.

Shula froze.

Her eyes widened.

An invisible force compressed her from every direction.

Her clothing folded inward first.

Then her flesh.

Bones splintered beneath the pressure as her arms and legs twisted into the shrinking mass of her body. Her warhammer dissolved as her ribs collapsed and her skull cracked beneath the Djinn’s closing fist.

Shula attempted to scream.

No sound escaped.

Her body compressed into a grotesque sphere of flesh, cloth, and shattered bone.

Then—

It burst.

Blood and ruin exploded across the Ninth Floor.

The Djinn disappeared.

A heartbeat later, it stood before Roxanne Roseburn.

Her eyes widened.

She had very little time to prepare as the prerequisite of her A-style were met and Dante's inverted tower began to collapse.

She attempted to move.

Nothing responded.

The Djinn raised both palms and pressed them together.

Slowly…

It pulled them apart.

A brilliant white line appeared along the center of Roxanne’s body.

It was thinner than a strand of hair.

For one brief moment, she remained whole.

Then the line widened.

Roxanne Roseburn split vertically from the crown of her head to the base of her body.

The two halves separated with dreadful slowness.

Fiery blood poured across the throne-room floor as each half collapsed in a different direction.

Her prayer ended.

Dante’s Inverted Tower began to die.

The Ninth Floor fractured first.

The throne room of living flame broke apart into countless burning shards.

Then the Eighth Floor vanished.

Its solid orange realm cracked and collapsed.

The pale-red expanse shattered next.

The monochrome hills disappeared.

The great beasts of the artificial Yasei Exotica dissolved into smoke.

The ocean of liquid fire evaporated.

Three thousand flaming skeleton knights crumbled into ash.

Every chamber, beast, flame, and impossible horizon created by Roxanne’s Abstract Style collapsed at once.

Reality returned.

The ancient wilderness of the Yasei Exotica emerged beneath the ruin.

Massive trees swayed beneath the crimson sky. Smoke rose from the devastated battlefield as the remains of the six Demon Lords were returned to the mortal realm.

High above the jungle, the royal courts of House Galan and House Erembaur watched from their elevated observation platforms.

King Victorian Galan stood in stunned silence.

Across from him, the King of House Erembaur wore the same expression.

Neither court celebrated.

Neither House had won.

The War for the Gold Reserve had ended.

The official ruling was declared a no decision.

All six Demon Lords had perished.

House Galan had lost Orochi Hanzo, Hosanna Sun, and Archibald.

House Erembaur had lost Amir, Shula, and Roxanne Roseburn.

The rare reserve of liquid gold remained unclaimed.

Yet the battle’s political outcome would soon become insignificant.

The simultaneous deaths of all six Demon Lords had disturbed something far greater than the balance between two royal Houses.

The flames sustaining Enevol’s ancient order had been extinguished together.

Now the realm stood upon the threshold of a phenomenon so rare that centuries could pass without its arrival.

A calamity remembered only in forbidden records.

A rebirth capable of changing every bloodline, every throne, and every law governing Enevol.

The sixth Hexturnal Irregular would soon begin.