Horseman of War (High School DxD SI)

“If you hold a gun and I hold a gun, we can talk about the law.” I recited the quote I had practically burned into my brain over the last three nights. “If you hold a knife and I hold a knife, we can talk about rules. If you come empty handed and I come empty handed, we can talk about reason. But if you have a gun and I only have a knife, then the truth lies in your hands. And if you have a gun while I have nothing, then what you’re holding isn’t just a weapon anymore. It’s my fucking life.”

“Good work, kiddo. How long did it take you to memorize that?” A tall man asked with an easy grin that carried the exact same warmth as a guillotine. 

The bastard was enormous, easily six and a half feet tall, with long gray hair hanging over broad shoulders that looked carved out of stone. Everything about him screamed violence in its purest and dumbest form.

“Leave the boy alone, Heracles,” a bespectacled blond young man said sharply. A loose strand of hair fell across his face while he rested both hands on the hilt of the holy sword planted before him. Even sitting down, Arthur somehow managed to look like a knight straight out of a painting. 

“He clearly has something he wishes to say, and considering the amount of effort it took him to find us in the first place, I think hearing him out is the least we can do.”

 “Everybody has something to say, Arthur.” Heracles snorted and shrugged lazily. “Drunks have something to say, politicians have something to say, every angry idiot on the street has something to say. Most of it is worthless. Stop trying to play leader every time some stray human wanders into our hideout looking for salvation. It’s getting irritating.”

I gave the bastard a murderous glare that would have made my old middle school principal schedule me a year long therapy session. The interruption pissed me off more than it should have because I had rehearsed every part of this speech obsessively, whispering it to myself at night like a schizophrenic prophet trying to prepare for judgment day. 

I had practiced the cadence, the pauses, the posture, even the fucking facial expressions because this meeting mattered more than anything else in my miserable second life. And now this oversized Viking reject kept interrupting me every thirty seconds.

The Hero Faction was one of the only human organizations in the world with enough power to stand toe to toe with the supernatural (relatively speaking). They have numerous Longinus class Sacred Gear wielders, and if they manage to fully unlock the true power of those artifacts, then even gods themselves could be beaten into submission.

If I wanted even the slightest chance at accomplishing my goal, I needed them to listen to me seriously.

“Nonetheless, we will hear him out,” Arthur said firmly while tightening his grip on Excalibur’s hilt. “The boy managed to track us down despite all the barriers and precautions surrounding this place, which means he is either resourceful or has good connections. Either way, he earned the right to speak. If you have a problem with that, Heracles, then we can settle it outside.”

The room fell silent. Arthur and Heracles stared at each other like two teenage boys measuring dick size behind the school gym.

Honestly, it was surreal. I didn’t remember there being this much friction inside the Hero Faction in canon. Then again, what the fuck did I know anymore? It had been eight years since I woke up in this reality. Eight years. 

Long enough for anime bullshit to become my daily life. At this point, if a dragon walked through the wall wearing lingerie and asking for a suncream, I’d probably just sigh and ask her to wait her turn.

I had barely stepped into adulthood in my previous life before waking up in the body of a ten year old boy inside the human farms owned by Duchess Drusilla Velouris. There were probably philosophers who would describe reincarnation as profound or enlightening. Those philosophers had clearly never woken up in a child’s body wearing slave rags while a vampire maid checked their teeth like livestock. 

The sensation alone was horrifying. My limbs felt too short, my voice too high, my balance completely wrong. Then came the realization that I was technically cattle, property for a race of immortal leeches who drank human blood to survive. It was hard to maintain mental stability after learning your legal status ranked somewhere between furniture and livestock.

“Gentlemen, please, let us avoid starting another fight again,” a black haired man said in a tired voice. His blue eyes swept across the room calmly, and his handsome face looked worn by the kind of exhaustion only leadership could produce. “Arthur is right, Heracles. Finding us is an impressive feat, especially for someone so young, and he deserves the chance to speak his mind. If you are unwilling to listen, then leave, but we’re not turning away a fellow human. If humanity can’t voice its grievances before the heroes who claim to protect it, then who exactly are we protecting?”

Heracles, the fat fuck, grunted irritably but did not move again.

Damn. Was this what max charisma looked like? The guy practically radiated protagonist energy.

Cao Cao turned toward me with an apologetic expression. “Now then, with that distraction dealt with, please continue…? I apologize, I didn’t catch your name earlier.”

I literally introduced myself five minutes ago, but since I was the one asking for their help, I decided to be the bigger man and swallowed the retort that was already sitting at the tip of my tongue.

“My name is Nathaniel,” I replied evenly. “No family name.”

The fucking leeches forbade us bloodstock from carrying surnames names. What use does cattle have for identity? They said, I’ll be sure to ask them that when I piss in the burnt remains of their civilization.

“You may continue, Nathaniel,” Cao Cao said with the air of a benevolent king addressing a peasant petitioning the throne.

“Thank you. As I was saying before this fat fuck interrupted me,” I said while deliberately looking directly at Heracles.

“What did you just call me?” Heracles barked, half rising from his seat.

“Are you deaf?!” I asked calmly while my hand drifted toward the semi automatic pistol holstered at my waist. “I called you a fat fuck! Do you need me to repeat it slower? Maybe use smaller words?! Now please shut the fuck up before you make me forget the speech I spent days rehearsing.”

Was insulting a member of the group I desperately needed help from strategically wise? Absolutely fucking not!

Unfortunately my patience had reached its limit because the bastard would not stop interrupting me, and I hated the way the others kept looking at me. You know, that smug adult expression people used whenever children talked passionately about something the adults considered cute and meaningless. 

Every single member of the Hero Faction besides Arthur and Cao Cao looked at me like I was an amusing little mascot playing revolutionary for attention. I despised being patronized. I did not escape slavery from immortal bloodsucking leeches who literally farmed humans for blood just to get mocked by privileged assholes born with silver spoons shoved so far up their asses they probably jingled when they walked.

Before anyone could respond, Heracles exploded from his seat with monstrous speed.

One moment he was across the room. The next thing you know, his fist was inches from my face.

I did not dodge.

“Arctic Coffin.”

An emotionless feminine voice decreed. Right before impact, a wall of crystalline ice erupted between us with a deafening crack. Heracles’ punch slammed into it hard enough to shake the room, yet the ice did not shatter. Frost instantly spread across his arm, racing over his body before he could retreat. In the span of a heartbeat the giant was completely frozen inside a towering crystal of pale blue ice like some poor caveman dug out of Antarctica.

The other members of the Hero Faction immediately rose to their feet. Cao Cao’s expression hardened and Arthur drew his sword halfway. Georg, Jeanne, Leonardo, and Le Fay prepared themselves for battle.

“Your friend was being terribly rude,” the woman responsible for the ice said in a cold voice sharp enough to cut steel.

Standing beside me, Lavinia Reni met the wary gazes of the Hero Faction without the slightest hint of fear. Snowflakes drifted lazily around her fingers despite the lack of wind.

“So I put him in timeout,” she continued casually. “Otherwise this discussion was never going anywhere. Now then, Nathan dear, you were saying?”

God, she was so cool. Both figuratively and literally.

One of the perks of having a genius magician and wielder of [Absolute Demise] backing you up was that people suddenly took your opinions very fucking seriously.

“Now where was I?” I muttered while trying to recover my train of thought. “Right. The concepts of law, morality, and justice only function when the people involved stand on relatively equal ground. The ugly truth of this world is that whenever money speaks, truth quietly crawls into a ditch and dies a dog’s death. Whenever power speaks, even money shuts the fuck up and kneels. Every good thing humanity possesses was fought for by force because the strong never willingly loosen their grip around the weak. The masters of this world are competing viciously over power, and resources while ordinary humans sit around praying their oppressors leave them enough scraps to survive another generation.”

Fuck.

I definitely messed up the delivery.

That was what I got for trying to sound cool instead of speaking naturally. I could practically feel Lavinia smirking beside me because she had repeatedly warned me to stop memorizing dramatic speeches like an idiot and simply speak from the heart. Unfortunately I had ignored her because somewhere deep inside me lived the soul of a cringe teenager who still thought monologues were peak communication.

“And the gun in your analogy is?” Arthur asked curiously. His hand remained on his sword while his eyes flicked warily toward Lavinia’s frozen sculpture of Heracles.

“Magic, obviously,” I answered immediately. “Think about it for two damn seconds. What is the one thing separating humans from every supernatural race in existence? What is the one advantage those monsters possess that gives them the ability to walk all over humanity whenever they feel like it?”

Nobody answered. It was a rhetorical question anyway.

“Magic!” I repeated. “Magic is the gun. Magic is the great equalizer. Devils have it. Angels have it. Vampires have it. Yokai have it. Dragons have it. Gods have it. Fucking incubi probably use it to magically enlarge their dicks before raping women. Every supernatural species in existence possesses some bullshit mystical power capable of flattening buildings or rewriting reality itself while ordinary humans are expected to survive using kitchen knives and blind faith.”

I stepped forward slowly, feeling years of resentment bubbling into my voice. And there was lots of it, I despised all of them dimwits. The vampires, the devils, the gods and every other thing in between.

“Humanity is never going to be free as long as power remains monopolized by the supernatural. We are cattle because we lack the means to resist. We can’t talk about coexistence and peace and mutual understanding while pretending there is not a massive fucking power imbalance hanging over every interaction between humans and the supernatural.

“You know why laws exist between nations? Because nations possess weapons. You know why diplomacy works? Because both sides understand war would destroy them. The reason the Cold War between the superpowers never erupted into full scale conflict was because both sides possessed enough firepower to guarantee mutual destruction. Nobody pulled the trigger because everyone involved understood the world would burn if they did.”

I was in the zone now, delivering my heavily practiced but still form the heart rhetoric. I have seen it all. 

I was born in a human blood farm older than nations, raised among a people bred for centuries beneath the rule of the vampire houses that kept us penned behind walls so high and ancient that no living soul remembered what lay beyond them, and from the hour of our birth we were measured and catalogued like livestock, our blood weighed for purity, our bodies examined for health, our futures decided by pale nobles who regarded mankind with the same gaze a shepherd grants his flock before the slaughter.

“Nuclear weapons are horrifying,” I continued, “yet ironically they are one of the greatest reasons large scale wars became harder to start because every major power suddenly carried a giant fucking stick capable of ending civilization. When everyone has the ability to retaliate, people become much more interested in negotiation.”

I spread my arms.

“Do you get it now? Humanity needs its own fucking gun!”

“We have lots of magicians and it makes no difference,” Arthur frowned thoughtfully. “Unless you mean..?”

“I want every human to be able to use magic,” I declared firmly. “If all of us possessed widespread access to magic, if ordinary people could fight back against vampires, fallen angels, gods, dragons, and every other supernatural bastard infesting our planet, then the entire balance of power changes overnight. Suddenly humans stop being prey. Suddenly every supernatural faction has to think very carefully before exploiting us because retaliation becomes possible.”

I laughed bitterly as the faces of all my prison mates came rushing back into my mind. ‘You’ll be our hope, Nathaniel!’

“I would love to see how arrogant those vampire nobles remain after an armed human village burns their castle down with magic artillery. I would love to see devils continue treating humans like expendable pawns once humanity develops enough magical firepower to slaughter entire houses. I would love watching incubi, werewolves, ancient gods, oni, kitsune, dragons, and every other mythological parasite realize humanity can finally punch back hard enough to break teeth. The only way to guarantee peace is by making the prospect of war seem hopeless."

I grinned darkly as the image of Duchess Drusilla flashed through my head, imagining that smug bitch gasping for air while clawing desperately at her throat beneath my hands.

“Because funny thing about monsters, they suddenly rediscover manners once the prey starts carrying bigger guns.”

After delivering my passionate speech, I regarded my audience calmly expecting them to…I don’t know what exactly I expected. But it certainly wasn’t for any of these dickheads to look at me the same way normal people looked at homeless crackheads screaming conspiracy theories outside gas stations at two in the morning.

What the fuck is up with this lackluster reaction?!

I had expected arguments. Maybe fear, I don’t know. Something dramatic. This was supposed to be the part where the room exploded into heated debate because my ideas threatened the foundations of the supernatural world.

“Let’s set aside the ridiculous logic behind your arguments for the moment,” Cao Cao finally said in an almost diplomatic tone while folding his hands together. “How exactly do you intend to achieve this goal of yours? Giving magic to all of humanity is not a small undertaking.”

“It’s simple,” I replied with a shrug. Then I smiled. “We kill all the vampires.”

The room exploded into laughter like I told the funniest joke ever. Cao Cao laughed loudest and he sounded like a dying walrus having a seizure. 

Only Lavinia stayed composed, although the slight twitch at the corner of her lips told me she was enjoying this disaster immensely. God bless emotionally unstable women with big tiddies.

“What’s so funny exactly?” I asked genuinely confused. “Seriously, let me in on the joke because I clearly missed the punchline somewhere along the way. It’s pretty fucking rude to laugh this hard while leaving the guest out of it.”

“You are the joke,” Cao Cao finally replied after calming down enough to breathe normally again. He wiped the corner of his eye before looking directly at me. “You walk in here wearing a cheap black suit like this is a corporate interview, deliver an absurd speech about elevating humanity through magic, and then casually announce that your master plan involves committing genocide against an entire species.”

“If you would actually let me explain it properly, it makes perfect fucking sense,” I replied frankly while realizing these idiots somehow needed additional clarification.

Honestly, I had expected a little resistance. I had even expected them to call the plan unrealistic.

What I did not expect was for the Hero Faction of all people to react like I had proposed drowning puppies for fun instead of exterminating an entire species of immortal bloodsucking parasites who, I repeat, literally farmed humans like livestock.

What kind of backwards clown world was this?!

“I think we have heard enough,” Cao Cao said dismissively while the amusement slowly left his expression. “I’m certain you have personal reasons for hating vampires, and judging by your emotional investment I suspect those reasons are severe, but the Hero Faction is not some convenient tool for every unstable lunatic with a tragic sob story and revenge fantasy to use. There have been countless people before you who had the same brilliant idea of giving humanity magic, only for them to eventually realize how fundamentally impossible that goal truly is. You would need the cooperation of multiple pantheons or someone on the level of Ajuka Beelzebub just to have the slightest chance of even attempting something so absurd.” 

“It’s not impossible,” I interrupted immediately.

“You may attempt it on your own then,” Cao Cao continued evenly. “The Hero Faction will not involve itself in your mad quest. Even assuming you possessed a reliable method of achieving your goal, do you seriously believe the powers that govern this world would simply sit back and allow you to do as you please while handing billions of humans access to magic? What exactly do you imagine the gods would do in response?” 

What is he talking about???

“If the gods have an issue with it,” I said, confused by why he was overcomplicating something so straightforward, “then we kill the gods too. It’s really not that complicated.”

“You’re completely delusional,” Arthur muttered while rubbing his forehead in frustration. “Do you even have the slightest idea whatsoever of what would happen if every human being suddenly gained access to magic?”

“Celebration at their newfound freedom?” I offered.

Arthur stared at me for several long seconds before sighing deeply. 

“No,” he said firmly. "Chaos is what would happen. Catastrophic chaos on a scale humanity has never experienced before.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but Arthur raised a hand. Well fuck you too! And I was beginning to think he was a cool guy since he verbally bitchslapped that fatfuck.

“You fundamentally misunderstand why human civilization functions at all,” Arthur continued. “Modern society works because no individual human possesses enough power to completely dominate society through force alone. Laws, governments, justice systems, economies, all of it exists under the basic assumption that one man can’t casually overpower thousands of others by himself whenever he feels like it. The moment you give humanity access to magic, that balance collapses instantly.” 

“That balance already sucks,” I pointed out. 

“You’re missing the point entirely,” Arthur snapped. “Right now, most people are relatively equal in terms of physical capability. There are differences, yes, but not enough for ordinary society to completely break apart. The existence of magic changes that permanently because some people will inevitably possess vastly greater talent, power, and potential than others. A serial killer with a knife eventually gets stopped. A terrorist requires enormous infrastructure to cause mass destruction. A tyrant requires armies and institutions supporting him. A powerful magician may require none of those things.”

“And?” I asked. “That already happens now. The supernatural races already lord over humanity like we’re cattle too stupid to realize the slaughterhouse exists. The difference is that humans right now are completely fucking helpless.”

“And after your brilliant little revolution they still would be helpless,” Arthur shot back harshly. “Except this time the monsters would not merely be hidden supernatural races manipulating things from the shadows. Imagine a single unstable individual awakening magic capable of controlling minds. Imagine dictators gaining immortality through magical research. Imagine cult leaders wielding literal supernatural miracles over desperate populations.”

“Imagine millions of people suddenly gaining access to powers they are psychologically unequipped to handle.” Cao Cao added with a somber tone.

I crossed my arms stubbornly. “Sounds like a skill issue, honestly.”

Leonardo laughed at that and I nodded at him for being the only person with a sense of humour in this building.

“Do you honestly think every person would use magic responsibly?” Arthur said, ignoring both of us.

“No, obviously not,” I answered. “Humans are fucking awful.”

“Then what exactly is your argument?” Arthur demanded.

“People still deserve the chance to defend themselves instead of spending their entire existence bent over with their pants around their ankles and spreading their asscheeks waiting to get fucked!”

“And how many millions would die while society tears itself apart adjusting to this new reality?” Arthur asked angrily. 

I scoffed loudly, the sound sharp with disbelief and frustration. These motherfuckers!

“Fuck that theoretical bullshit. Why do you even care what happens afterward anyway? Who the fuck gave any of you the right to decide whether people deserve power or not?” I demanded angrily while glaring at every single one of them in turn.

“We care because we are the heroes of humanity,” Cao Cao replied calmly, almost solemnly, as though the answer should have been self explanatory.

I nearly laughed. 

Heroes of humanity!!

What a fucking joke. How was I supposed to make them understand?

How was I supposed to explain to people raised in comfort and power that there were still millions suffering in silence beneath the feet of the supernatural world, millions of men, women, and children who had been born into cages and raised from infancy to exist as nothing more than Capri Suns for immortal parasites? 

And the worst part was that vampires were only one faction among countless others in the supernatural world. Granted, the vampires were among the absolute worst of the lot because blood dependency naturally encouraged the development of horrifying systems of exploitation, but the rest of the supernatural world was hardly some enlightened paradise either.

During the four years since my escape from the Velouris human farm, I had spent almost every waking moment researching the supernatural world in obsessive detail. Devils manipulated humanity through contracts and temptation. Fallen angels treated mortals like disposable pawns in their endless ideological wars. Stray supernatural creatures hunted isolated communities like predators feeding on livestock. Everywhere I looked, I found the same rotten pattern repeated endlessly in different forms.

And these people sitting in front of me either failed to grasp the scale of the problem or had simply grown numb to it. Maybe both.

How could I possibly explain what life inside the farms was actually like to people who had never experienced true helplessness?

How could I explain the smell first?! Because that was what I remembered most vividly.

The human farms constantly reeked of sweat, blood, mildew, piss, vomit, and the metallic stink of industrial disinfectants that never fully masked the underlying rot. Hundreds of humans packed together in enclosed concrete facilities created an odor that crawled into your lungs and stayed there permanently. Even after escaping, I sometimes woke up in cold sweats because my brain imagined I could still smell the feeding chambers.

The rooms were deliberately built too small because cramped bodies required less heating and discouraged physical activity that might waste calories. Entire families slept pressed together on mold stained floors while the vampires above us lived in palaces large enough to house hundreds. We slept on dirty piles of hay crawling with insects because proper beds were considered unnecessary expenses for livestock 

We were weighed regularly…Examined regularly. Children with healthy development were marked as high quality future stock.

Sickly children quietly disappeared. Nobody ever explained where they went. I learned very young that asking questions only earned beatings.

Food distribution was carefully controlled to maximize long term blood quality while minimizing costs. I still remembered the gray slop they fed us twice a day, if you could even call it food. Some disgusting paste made from leftovers and spoiled scraps that smelled like something dug out of a sewer. Sometimes there would be bits of rotten vegetables floating inside it if the vampires felt particularly generous that week. 

Meat so questionable that people stopped asking what animal it originally came from because knowing the answer would probably destroy whatever appetite remained.

I still remembered watching my own mother pretend she was not hungry while secretly pushing portions of her ration toward me with trembling hands because there was never enough food to fully feed both adults and children. I remembered waking up in the middle of the night and hearing people crying quietly from hunger because loud crying irritated the overseers.

Reading was forbidden for most bloodstocks because literacy encouraged individuality, critical thinking, and organization. Children were raised ignorant on purpose. We were taught basic obedience, basic hygiene, and enough language skills to follow instructions during feeding sessions. That was it. Ignorance created the perfect livestock.

I remembered seeing old men and women with blank expressions standing in line waiting for feeding rotations while vampire nobles inspected them the same way wealthy farmers inspected cattle before slaughter. Sometimes the vampires discussed humans in front of us like we were furniture.

“This batch has good iron levels.”

“That girl matured nicely.”

“This one has weak circulation.”

Imagine hearing someone casually discuss the quality of your blood while you stood three feet away trying not to cry. The punishments were even worse. Anybody who resisted too much got dragged into the correction rooms and nobody returned from those rooms unchanged. And some simply vanished permanently while the overseers told everyone else they had been “reprocessed.”

Reprocessed!!

Like fucking meat. 

And the breeding. God! The fucking breeding.

Humans with desirable traits were paired together like farm animals because stronger bloodlines produced better quality blood for the nobles. Women were monitored constantly for pregnancies. Infants judged weak or sickly were quietly removed because maintaining defective livestock was inefficient. Women who produced healthy children received slightly better treatment because breeding stock had value.

I once overheard a vampire noble complaining that human mothers became emotionally attached to their children too often and that separating families earlier might improve productivity.

And the truly horrifying part was how normal all of it became after enough years. Human beings could adapt to almost anything eventually. That was probably the cruelest thing about humanity. Our ability to survive horrors long enough for them to become routine.

I remembered children laughing while playing beside drainage channels stained red from feeding overflow because they genuinely did not understand there was anything abnormal about rivers of diluted blood running beneath their home. Some of them genuinely thought the vampires were gods. I remember one little girl crying tears of happiness because a vampire noble patted her head once after feeding from her mother. That memory still made me sick.

I remembered my family dying so I could escape. I remembered the screams. I remembered the smell of burning flesh. I remembered my mother pushing me toward the escape route while smiling through tears and telling me to live.

And these self-righteous idiots sitting in front of me wanted to lecture me about responsibility and the dangers of giving humanity power. How could I explain the guilt of surviving when so many others remained trapped down there waiting endlessly for rescue that would never come? 

Heroes of humanity?! BULLSHIT!!!

“So you will not help me?” I finally asked quietly while forcing my tone back under control.

“No,” Cao Cao answered without hesitation. “Your goal is simply too insane and I will not risk the people who chose me as their leader for empty revenge.”

The room fell silent afterward. There was really nothing else left to say. I stood up slowly from my chair, straightened my cheap black suit out of pure habit, and offered polite farewells despite the boiling resentment clawing at my chest. 

Then I motioned for Lavinia to follow me. And she did.

…

We arrived in Cologne, Germany, to proceed with plan B.

Well, technically it was not really plan B because this had always been part of the original plan from the very beginning, although I had hoped to secure the cooperation of the Hero Faction first before resorting to the more dangerous route. Unfortunately, the self proclaimed heroes of humanity turned out to possess all the revolutionary spirit of a parliament, which meant I was now forced to rely on the backup option involving significantly more murder and property damage.

Honestly, I should have expected this outcome.

I glanced toward my companion as we stood atop one of Cologne’s towering buildings overlooking the city below. Lavinia observed the sprawling urban landscape with quiet fascination, her blond hair dancing softly in the wind while the evening lights reflected faintly in her pale eyes.

She was my savior.

No matter how many times I tried to rationalize my survival through logic, preparation, or personal strength, the truth remained embarrassingly simple.

I survived because fate randomly decided to throw her into my path.

After escaping the Velouris human farm through what could only be described as a miracle soaked in blood and suffering, I had wandered half dead through forests and abandoned roads while the vampire hounds hunted me relentlessly. I remembered collapsing repeatedly from exhaustion, drinking muddy rainwater from roadside puddles, stealing scraps of rotten food from trash bins, and sleeping inside drainage tunnels because every village terrified me. I was starving, dehydrated, feverish, and one infection away from quietly dying in some forgotten ditch where nobody would ever find the body.

If Lavinia had not found me collapsed in the snow that night, I would have died there alone like a stray animal discarded at the side of the road. But every once in a while fate reaches down and extends its hand toward someone.

“So what are you going to do now?” Lavinia finally asked while turning toward me, her blond hair swaying gently in the wind.

“The plan stays the same, Nothing has changed.” I answered before jumping off the rooftop.

The cold wind rushed past me for several seconds before I landed smoothly onto the street below with practiced ease. I immediately began walking toward my destination without slowing down.

“Your confidence would be far more reassuring if you actually possessed a coherent plan, Nathan,” Lavinia giggled softly as she descended beside me with graceful ease. “At best, what you have resembles several fragments of completely unrelated bad ideas stitched together by sheer delusion. Also, if you had bothered making even a few normal friends like I advised you to do literally hundreds of times already, perhaps you wouldn’t have needed to march into the Hero Faction headquarters begging for help.”

“I was not begging,” I corrected her immediately. “I was attempting to negotiate with people I mistakenly assumed were serious individuals. It’s hardly my fault they turned out to be a bunch of self righteous clowns cosplaying as heroes while jerking themselves off over philosophy lectures. Also, I do have friends.”

“You do?” she repeated with visible confusion before her expression suddenly shifted into horror. “Wait! You can’t possibly mean that lunatic. Nathan, please tell me we’re not actually going to him.”

“Elijah is a cool guy,” I defended my best friend in this world and perhaps the only person who genuinely understood me on a spiritual level. “I honestly don’t understand why you dislike him so much.”

“Have you actually looked at him?” she asked incredulously. “The man would enthusiastically burn entire villages after declaring them spiritually contaminated. He’s an insane religious fanatic who kills anyone he considers heretical. Then again, I suppose birds of a feather truly do flock together.” 

“First of all, neither of us are insane,” I replied, mildly offended by the accusation. “Second of all, Elijah primarily hunts devils. He has very clear standards about who deserves violence. He would never intentionally harm innocent humans.”

Lavinia stared at me silently.

“What?” I asked defensively.

“You say that as though it somehow improves the situation.”

“It does improve the situation,” I argued. “The guy is literally a man of God specializing in devil extermination. That’s his profession. And he’s really fucking incredible at it too. What the fuck is he supposed to do? Politely ask stray devils to reconsider their life choices?”

“He makes me uncomfortable,” Lavinia finally admitted quietly. “And I fear, your friendship only encourages the absolute worst aspects of each other’s personalities. Why can’t you spend more time around people like Tobio or Samejima instead? They are both responsible, emotionally stable, and genuinely kind people.”

“They’re cool,” I admitted honestly. The members of Slash Dog had always treated me surprisingly well whenever our paths crossed. “But we’re fundamentally too different to become truly close friends. And, I prefer it that way.”

I left the fact that I did not want people like Tobio infecting me with things like optimism, restraint, emotional health, or common sense unsaid.

It was not as though I had never tried letting go of my hatred.

I had tried.

God, I had genuinely tried.

There were moments where I convinced myself revenge would only destroy whatever remained of me. Moments where I thought perhaps surviving should be enough. Moments where I almost believed healing was possible. Then the dreams always returned. 

I remembered sharing scraps of stale bread with people who smiled despite starvation because mutual suffering was the closest thing we had to love. I dreamt of people secretly teaching one another songs, stories, and dances despite the overseers forbidding unnecessary cultural expression because preserving humanity itself became an act of rebellion in those places.

I dreamt of my father.

And then I woke up and remembered Drusilla Velouris smiling while snapping his neck after draining him dry directly in front of me. 

That fucking sneer! 

The amusement in her eyes while one of her leeches drank from my friend’s neck as casually as someone sipping wine at dinner.

Every single time those memories resurfaced, the old fury returned with them hotter than before, boiling through my veins until it felt like my ribs could barely contain it anymore.

We called each other family in the farms because family was the only thing keeping people alive psychologically. Thousands of people trapped together inside endless suffering still found ways to laugh, sing, and protect children because humanity clung desperately to itself even while being systematically reduced into livestock.

Most of them were probably dead now. Dead because they chose my freedom over their survival.

The absolute least I could do was honor their final request. ‘Let it all burn. Let them suffer exactly as we suffered.’

And there existed absolutely nothing on this earth capable of stopping me from fulfilling that promise.

“You’re not planning to return to the Grauzauberer, are you?” Lavinia asked quietly.

“Not anymore,” I answered truthfully. “I learned everything I needed from them. It’s about time I started doing what I actually want instead of endlessly preparing for it.”

As we walked further through the city, I eventually saw it rising above the skyline.

The Cologne Cathedral. Even from a distance it dominated the horizon like something pulled straight from myth. Its twin spires pierced upward into the darkening heavens with such impossible scale that they almost looked unnatural, like gigantic black lances stabbing directly into the sky itself. The cathedral dwarfed every surrounding structure effortlessly, and the closer we walked toward it, the more overwhelming its presence became.

“You don’t have to come with me, you know,” I told my blonde companion, who still seemed stubbornly determined to chain herself to my side despite everything. 

“I want to stay,” Lavinia answered with a soft smile. “In some strange way, I think finding you that day was fate. I believe I was meant to stand beside you, whether your path leads somewhere beautiful or somewhere catastrophic. Besides,” she added dryly, “if I leave you unattended for longer than five minutes, you will almost certainly provoke an international incident or get yourself killed.”

I did not respond.

Truthfully, I felt conflicted about her decision.

Part of me felt genuinely happy knowing she remained beside me despite understanding the full extent of my goals and hatred. Lavinia was my mentor, my rescuer, and perhaps the single person most responsible for shaping me into who I had become after escaping the farms.

Another part of me felt guilty. Because she was wasting her life babysitting a deeply damaged idiot marching enthusiastically toward self destruction.

After several more minutes of walking, we finally arrived before the Cologne Cathedral itself.

And holy fucking shit!

Pictures genuinely did not do this place justice. The cathedral towered above us with impossible grandeur, every inch of blackened stone covered in elaborate carvings, statues, arches, saints, gargoyles, biblical imagery, and intricate gothic detail crafted so perfectly it almost hurt to look at directly. Standing before those enormous doors made me feel microscopic in a way that was strangely humbling.

For the briefest moment, I understood why ancient people believed structures like this brought them closer to God. It felt like standing before the physical manifestation of humanity’s desperate desire to touch the divine.

The church stood almost entirely empty now because visiting hours had long ended, leaving only silence, candlelight, and the distant echo of footsteps across polished stone floors. The interior somehow surpassed the exterior in grandeur. Massive columns stretched upward into vaulted ceilings so high they vanished into darkness while colored light poured through towering stained glass windows depicting saints and biblical scenes in breathtaking detail.

At the far end of the cathedral, kneeling before the altar beneath the towering image of Christ crucified upon the cross, was the man we came to see.

Elijah…Wait! Now that I think about it, I had absolutely no idea whether Elijah even had a surname. Huh! I should probably ask him that eventually.

The idiot was praying again despite the fact that every single prayer gave him horrible migraines and headaches due to his nature. But he continued doing it anyway because apparently sheer religious autism outweighed physical suffering. And because he was not a little bitch!

“Why did you come here, Nathan?” Elijah finally asked while standing from his knees and turning toward us.

Every time I saw him praying beneath a crucifix, I nearly burst out laughing at the sheer cosmic absurdity of it all. Because who the fuck would ever expect one of the most devout Christians alive to also be a devil?

And to put the chery on the cake, Elijah looked exactly like what humanity imagined the Devil to look like. 

If somebody asked an artist to paint the lord of hell itself, Elijah would probably come disturbingly close to the final product. His skin possessed a deep crimson tone reminiscent of burning embers beneath ash, while long dark horns curved upward from his head with an almost regal appearance. His black hair framed sharp inhuman features illuminated by glowing golden eyes that seemed almost molten under certain lighting. Behind him, a long tail flicked lazily through the air with subtle movements that somehow made him appear even more dangerous.

And despite all of that, the bastard wore priest robes while praying beneath the cross.

Honestly, if Elijah was not proof that fate possessed a twisted sense of humor, then nothing else in this universe qualified either.

I still remembered my first meeting with him vividly.

A devil working for the Church. A devil hunting other devils in the name of the Lord. The entire thing sounded like the setup to some terrible theological joke.

“Want to help me kill all the vampires?” I asked with a grin because I already knew exactly what his answer would be.

Elijah’s smile immediately widened into something genuinely demonic.

“It’s about damn time you finally said those beautiful words aloud,” he declared with visible excitement. “Honestly, I was preparing to ask you myself if you delayed any longer. Those parasites have already been judged and found wanting in the Lord’s eyes. Their reckoning is long overdue.”

“When exactly did your Lord judge them?” I asked seriously despite my amusement. “I thought he was currently too busy being dead.”

Most servants of God would probably react to words like that by collapsing into hysterical screaming, throwing accusations of heresy, demanding repentance, threatening holy punishment, reciting scripture aggressively, or attempting to exorcise me on the spot. 

Elijah did none of that.

“The Lord still speaks to those willing to listen,” Elijah answered calmly. “Only now He speaks through the world itself. Through stones and rivers and trees and light, and the vampires have long since been denied the warmth of His radiance, forever cursed to wander beneath the night while shrinking from the sun He created. What clearer judgment could possibly exist than that?” 

It was probably this absolute fanaticism that made Lavinia uncomfortable around him. 

Personally, I respected it immensely. Following the decrees of a dead God required a very specific kind of madness.

“Why begin with the vampires specifically?” Elijah asked curiously while carefully removing his priest robes and folding them away with surprising reverence before changing into a sharp black three piece suit that made him look more like a terrifying mafia hitman than a holy servant. 

“You remember my goal of giving magic to all humanity, right?” I asked while he nodded. “The key to achieving that lies with a dhampir currently imprisoned by the Tepes faction.”

“A half breed?” Elijah asked thoughtfully. “What’s so special about her?”

“She is the wielder of the [Sephiroth Graal],” I answered before bursting into laughter. “Isn’t that hilarious? A fucking vampire somehow ended up possessing one of the holiest artifacts in existence.”

“A half vampire,” Elijah corrected calmly. “That means she’s not entirely beyond redemption. The Lord truly does work in mysterious ways. Then your plan is to manipulate the souls of humanity through the Graal so ordinary humans become capable of using magic?” 

“That’s exactly right,” I answered proudly. “We rescue her first, slaughter the vampires afterward, and then we begin reshaping humanity itself. So tell me honestly. Am I a genius or am I a genius?”

“You might possibly have a three-digit IQ, unlike the two-digit one I was certain you had,” Elijah said, sounding faintly impressed by my genius.

“Do you even know where she is imprisoned?” Lavinia asked with obvious skepticism.

“Not really,” I admitted proudly. “I can make some educated guesses based on conversations I overheard back when I lived there, but none of it is particularly reliable since House Velouris belongs to the Carmilla faction while the Graal wielder belongs to the Tepes faction.” 

“I’m already going to regret asking this,” Lavinia sighed deeply. “But how exactly do you plan to locate her and rescue her?”

Elijah and I looked at each other simultaneously before turning toward Lavinia in perfect synchronization like she had just asked the dumbest question imaginable. Which she did.

“We systematically go through every noble house within Tepes territory and kill everyone standing in our way until we eventually find her,” Elijah explained while looking at Lavinia with the patient expression of a kindergarten teacher dealing with an especially slow child.

“Right,” Lavinia replied in the deeply disappointed tone of somebody realizing she had willingly attached herself to two homicidal lunatics.

“But there’s something I need to do first before I can come with you,” Elijah said while turning away from us and beginning to walk toward the altar again with measured steps.

“What do you have to do first then?” I asked curiously while watching him.

“There is a demonic plot unfolding within this city,” Elijah answered grimly. “My superior dispatched me here to investigate after reports surfaced regarding increased devil activity throughout Cologne. Can you imagine the sheer audacity of it? Devils infesting this city of all places. This cathedral has stood for centuries as a monument to humanity’s devotion toward the divine, and those infernal parasites dare crawl through its streets like cockroaches nesting inside a sacred temple.”

“Your hatred of devils is rather ironic considering you yourself are a devil and all,” Lavinia remarked dryly with obvious sarcasm.

Elijah stopped walking. For several seconds he remained perfectly still with one hand resting atop a wooden basket near the altar before finally speaking again.

“I am a half breed,” Elijah said quietly while emphasizing the word half with absolute conviction. “Half human and half filth. Half born from the image of God and half cursed by demonic corruption. I refuse to acknowledge kinship with that species of lying degenerates and backstabbing vermin.”

His voice remained calm, although the fury beneath it felt almost frightening.

“Being born partially devil is the cross I was condemned to carry from birth,” Elijah continued calmly while opening the basket beside the altar and retrieving several objects from within. “Every day of my existence serves as a reminder of impurity stitched directly into my flesh, a permanent mark of corruption carved into my very nature before I ever possessed the ability to choose differently. I didn’t ask to inherit demonic blood. I didn’t ask to share even partial ancestry with creatures I regard as fundamentally abhorrent. Yet the stain remains regardless.”

He stared down at one of his own clawed hands for several quiet seconds.

“So I compensate accordingly,” he said simply. “If poison exists within me, then I shall spend my life purging greater poison from the world around me until my existence possesses some measure of worth before the Lord. That is the burden I was given. That is the burden I shall bear.”

“And how exactly do you intend to redeem yourself?” Lavinia asked hesitantly, clearly uncertain whether she truly wanted the answer. “Please don’t tell me you are planning to commit genocide against the devil race as well.”

Elijah blinked at her in confusion. “Of course,” he replied as though the answer were completely obvious. “How else would I redeem myself?”

Lavinia looked genuinely exhausted now.

“That was the agreement Nathan and I reached long ago,” Elijah continued calmly. “I will assist him in exterminating the vampires, and in return he shall aid me in cleansing the world of devils.”

“Why?!” Lavinia demanded hopelessly while looking between us like she was desperately trying to understand what catastrophic sequence of events had produced two people like us.

“Because devils are an aberration,” Elijah answered with terrifying composure. “They are blasphemous malformed creatures whose existence itself offends both reason and morality. The world would objectively improve the moment the last devil finally dies screaming. Every day their species continues breathing is another day existence itself remains contaminated by their presence.”

He spoke with the certainty of a priest reciting sacred scripture.

“There was once a time when I foolishly attempted understanding them,” Elijah admitted quietly. “I tried acknowledging my demonic heritage. I tried believing those creatures could become something greater than selfish hedonistic parasites obsessed with power and indulgence. I gave them chance after chance to demonstrate even the smallest shred of dignity or virtue beyond hollow words and performative civility.” His expression darkened. “They disappointed me every single time.”

The fury in his voice deepened further. If I were as eloquent as he was, I would probably express my hatred of the vampires in the same articulate way he was doing now, but then again, those fuckers did not deserve a sophisticated language. 

“I witnessed greed, vanity, lust, sadism, arrogance, and moral cowardice elevated into cultural virtues. Their entire civilization worships selfishness while mocking concepts like sacrifice, discipline, and genuine righteousness.” 

His tail lashed sharply behind him.

“I, Elijah, servant of the Lord Most High, have reached absolute certainty that the crimes of the devil race will never be cleansed except through blood. They have buried themselves beneath mountains of corruption too vast for redemption. Humanity would know genuine peace only after the final devil finally collapses lifeless into the dirt where it belongs.” 

Lavinia looked genuinely horrified now. I, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised at all, since our mutual hatred of the supernatural is what made us friends to begin with.

“You need help dealing with this devil plot?” I offered casually since I had nothing better to do anyway.

“It would certainly become significantly faster with you assisting me,” Elijah admitted thoughtfully while carefully placing several silver knives, enchanted scripture pages, and holy water vials into the inside pockets of his suit.

I never actually asked Elijah about his past. I still didn’t know why a devil ended up serving the Church. I never asked what happened to his family or what experiences forged this terrifying religious fanatic standing before me now.

And honestly, I never particularly cared. We understood each other perfectly without all that emotional bullshit. That was enough.

I knew with absolute certainty that Elijah would never betray me. And he knew the same about me. Our bond went deeper than ordinary friendship.

We were something closer to family. Blood sworn brothers.

And that brotherhood had been sealed the moment we knelt together before the jet black God of Infinity and beseeched the idiot god for power.

…

…

“This is bullshit, why the fuck do I have to sit in the back?!” I complained for what was probably the thirteenth time in the last twenty minutes because the absolute traitor who claimed to be my best friend had decided to give the front seat to Lavinia, who could barely tolerate his existence for longer than five consecutive minutes.

“For one, she is older and therefore deserves basic respect,” Elijah answered calmly while keeping one hand on the steering wheel. “And for two, I don’t want your hideous face sitting beside me while I operate a moving vehicle because I would feel morally obligated to steer us into the nearest wall.”

“Fuck you!” I replied immediately, even though the bastard was annoyingly correct. “Not all of us are born with bullshit racial traits that turn us into walking pornography. Frankly, being proud of something you were born with and did absolutely nothing to earn is fucking embarrassing.”

“Says every ugly person ever,” Elijah replied smoothly without even glancing at me. “You will never hear an actually attractive person make speeches about inner beauty and equality.”

Goddammit, he got me again!

Lavinia sighed quietly from the passenger seat while staring out the window with the exhausted expression of a woman contemplating murder.

“And you seriously call yourself a man of God?” I asked in complete disbelief while staring at him. “Jesus fucking Christ himself would be disappointed in your demonic ass.” 

“Nathan, I respect you and all,” Elijah replied patiently from the driver’s seat while keeping his eyes on the road, “but don’t ever use the Lord’s name in vain. I have told you many times that I deeply dislike that habit of yours. And I’m fairly certain the Lord would personally permit me to beat you unconscious if necessary.”

Then he glanced toward me briefly with complete seriousness.

“You must have committed some truly horrific sin in your previous life to emerge this physically unfortunate in your current incarnation.”

Lavinia, sitting in the backseat, slowly rubbed her forehead. “You two have been arguing about attractiveness for nearly an hour.”

“That’s because Elijah is spiritually incapable of humility,” I answered immediately without missing a beat.

“And Nathan is still deeply bitter about losing the genetic lottery,” Elijah added calmly.

“I swear to God, one day I am going to punch you directly in your stupidly perfect teeth.”

“You say that every single week,” Elijah replied smoothly, “and yet my face remains untouched.”

“That’s because your devil bullshit makes you unfairly durable. Your ancestors probably drank virgin blood and bathed in dog cum specifically to become prettier than normal people.” 

Elijah placed one hand dramatically against his chest. “I assure you my beauty is entirely natural.” 

“You literally have horns.”

“And despite that, I remain significantly more attractive than you.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“I pray daily for the Lord to spare me from ever experiencing something so horrifying.”

Lavinia groaned quietly in the frontseat.

Eventually I sighed and looked outside the car window toward the city lights passing by. “So, any actual information on our targets?”

“They are a group of devils affiliated with the Old Satan Faction,” Elijah explained while keeping one hand loosely on the steering wheel. “However, the devils themselves are not the primary concern. What interests the Church is the object they recently acquired.”

He paused briefly before continuing.

“A few weeks ago, a black market auction took place in Hamburg specifically catering toward creatures of darkness and supernatural nobility. Many influential members of vampire houses, devil clans, rogue magicians, fallen angels, and various other degenerates attended the gathering. According to several witnesses, even the pagan god Angra Mainyu himself was supposedly present. Our intelligence suggests that even Angra Mainyu himself may have appeared there.”

I frowned immediately.

The mention of vampires already irritated me enough, but that name genuinely caught my attention.

“Who the hell is that?” I asked honestly. “Is he some big shot or something?”

I could not remember anybody named Angra Mainyu from what little I knew about the anime. Then again, most of my knowledge about the supernatural originally came from anime and stolen fragments of occult books, so there were still massive gaps in what I actually knew.

Maybe he was one of those absurdly overpowered bastards who only showed up later in the novels.

“He is an evil god originating from the Zoroastrian pantheon,” Lavinia explained calmly from behind me. “And whenever Angra Mainyu becomes involved in something, destruction and chaos inevitably follows. You know about the evil dragon Azhi Dahaka, correct?”

“The name sounds familiar,” I muttered while trying to remember where I had heard it before. “That’s the giant three headed bastard, right? I think there was a statue of him inside one of those weird cult compounds we raided a while back. The thing looked stupid as fuck.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say an evil dragon of his caliber looks stupid,” Elijah replied calmly. “Azhi Dahaka is widely regarded as one of the cruelest and most cunning evil dragons in recorded history, and according to legend he was originally created by Angra Mainyu himself sometime in the distant past.” 

“For real?!” I asked, genuinely impressed despite myself. “That god created one of the strongest dragons in history? That’s kind of insane!”

“Indeed,” Elijah answered without emotion. “Which is precisely why the current situation concerns us. According to our informants, who are thankfully very reliable sources, the devils we are targeting purchased an artifact directly connected to Angra Mainyu during that auction.”

“Anything unique about the artifact itself?” Lavinia asked.

“Apparently a fragment of some ancient evil spirit was sealed within it,” Elijah replied with a shrug. “Unfortunately the exact details are vague because the Church only managed to intercept fragments of the transaction records.” 

“Well that sounds healthy and completely fucking safe,” I muttered sarcastically.

“Yes,” Elijah agreed calmly. “Which is why we’re retrieving it before whatever degeneracy those devils are planning reaches completion.” 

“So what exactly is our objective here?” I asked curiously. “Kill everyone present and take back the artifact?” 

That sounded straightforward enough. Violence was one of the few things in life I genuinely excelled at.

“Ideally,” Elijah answered with a calm nod. “Failing that, we shall settle for exterminating everyone present and destroying the artifact entirely.”

Perfect!

I was still irritated from the disaster with the Hero Faction anyway, and right now I desperately needed something to shoot, stab, shoot, or otherwise brutally murder before my frustration evolved into a psychological disorder even worse than the one I already clearly possessed.

We parked the car several streets away from the suspected meeting location before Elijah cast a concealment spell over the vehicle. The magic spread quietly through the air like distorted heatwaves before the car gradually blurred into obscurity until it became nearly impossible to notice unless somebody looked directly at it with supernatural senses.

Afterward we continued on foot through several darkened blocks.

The city streets had grown quieter by then. Most ordinary civilians had already retreated indoors while the distant sounds of nightlife echoed faintly from bars and restaurants further away. Streetlights illuminated wet pavement from earlier rainfall, their reflections shimmering across the roads like fractured gold.

Eventually we reached a narrow alleyway between two old buildings.

Without a word, Elijah leapt upward onto the fire escape with unnatural grace while Lavinia floated upward effortlessly behind him through magic. I followed moments later, using reinforcement magic to propel myself toward the rooftop.

From our elevated position we finally observed our targets. It was shaping up to be a pretty good night already.

Most wore expensive dark clothing, and their body language radiated the same smug arrogance I had come to associate with supernatural elites in general.

One devil with silver hair smoked casually while another laughed loudly beside him, entirely relaxed despite the horrifying artifact they were apparently transporting.

Fucking idiots!

I crouched near the rooftop edge while narrowing my eyes at them.

There were thirteen figures gathered within the abandoned warehouse office, and every single one of them possessed that unnatural inhuman beauty all devils seemed cursed with. It was honestly irritating how unfairly attractive those bastards tended to be. Their skin looked flawless, their proportions looked sculpted by horny artists with no understanding of moderation, and even the ugliest among them would probably qualify as a supermodel by ordinary human standards.

Of course, the illusion shattered the moment you looked closer.

Some possessed curved horns emerging from their skulls like demonic crowns. Others had slit pupils glowing faintly in the darkness. Another devil possessed elongated pointed ears like an elf while one massive bastard near the back had claws instead of fingernails and teeth too sharp to belong inside a human mouth. A few had tails lazily swaying behind their chairs while another figure possessed strange black scales creeping up his neck beneath his collar.

All thirteen sat around an enormous table that looked so absurdly theatrical it genuinely resembled something ripped directly from a supervillain convention. The table stretched across most of the room with massive black chairs positioned around it while a larger chair at the very head remained empty.

Interesting. Apparently whoever led these clowns had not arrived yet. Even funnier was the fact they all wore expensive business suits. Honestly the entire thing looked like a gathering of devils attempting to cosplay corporate executives after watching too many mafia movies.

And from what I could sense, none of them were particularly impressive either. The strongest among them barely reached peak High Class judging purely from demonic energy reserves.

Pathetic!

“This situation feels far too dangerous,” a blue haired woman said nervously while glancing around the warehouse. Her body fit this ridiculous hentai physics universe perfectly, complete with curves that probably violated several natural laws simultaneously. “We are inside Church territory. We should transport the artifact elsewhere as quickly as possible and leave this city immediately.” 

Too fuckung late for that! But at least she gets a C for using her brains.

“Why can we not simply teleport directly?” another devil complained. This one possessed long spiral horns and a deep voice dripping with irritation. “It’s humiliating enough that we were forced to use human transportation systems. Now we are hiding inside this disgusting warehouse like common criminals.”

“And as I have already explained several times,” a blond haired devil with a deeply unsettling smile replied patiently, “we require proper precautions before attempting to transport the artifact. If the seal reacts incorrectly during teleportation, the consequences could very easily include our deaths.”

“Still,” the blue haired woman muttered, “we could have selected any location outside Church controlled territory.”

“Those were Lord Shalba’s direct orders,” the blond devil replied dryly. “If you feel strongly enough about the matter, I would be more than happy to connect you directly with Lord Shalba himself so you may personally express your concerns regarding his judgment. I’m certain he would be absolutely delighted to hear your endless whining.” 

“That will not be necessary,” the woman answered quickly while visibly paling.

It was fucking hilarious watching her glance around nervously afterward like Shalba Beelzebub himself might suddenly emerge from the shadows because somebody mentioned his name too loudly.

“Did our glorious lord explain what exactly this artifact is?” another devil asked eagerly.

This one looked like a walking steroid commercial with a thick beard and muscles large enough to stretch his expensive suit dangerously tight. The artifact in question rested upon the center of the table, an old sealed urn covered entirely in carved laughing demonic faces twisted into expressions of mockery and agony.

And from the tone of this bastard’s voice, I instantly recognized him as a professional bootlicker.

“No,” the blond devil answered calmly. “Lord Shalba merely informed us that the artifact may contain something capable of helping our faction finally overthrow the false Satans currently dragging our race toward ruin.”

“Praise be the True Satans!” the bearded devil shouted immediately with fanatic enthusiasm. “How my old heart longs to witness the rightful rulers of the Underworld reclaim their thrones from those traitorous pretenders.”

“We shall not wait much longer, old friend,” the blond devil declared solemnly while rising slowly from his chair. “The promised hour approaches rapidly, and soon the Crimson Satan shall finally kneel before the might of the Great Prince forevermore. The current Satans have poisoned our race with weakness, compromise, and cowardice while disguising their failures as progress. And whatever lies within this artifact may finally provide the strength needed to restore our race to greatness once and for all.”

Yeah alright.

I had officially heard enough of this edgy anime villain bullshit.

I leapt downward through the warehouse skylight without hesitation.

Glass exploded outward around me as I crashed through it like a goddamn meteor, sending shards raining across the room while every devil jerked upward in shock. I landed directly atop the massive table beside the urn hard enough to crack the surface beneath my boots.

To their credit, the fuckfaces reacted instantly. 

All thirteen devils surged upward from their seats while demonic energy exploded around the room in violent waves. Magic circles ignited across the air, hands rose toward me, and spells began forming almost immediately.

Too slow.

Way too fucking slow.

I already had my Beretta 92 drawn before most of them fully processed what was happening. And then I started blasting.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

The enchanted bullets tore through the warehouse like thunderclaps.

The first devil’s head exploded instantly.

There was no dramatic anime injury or graceful death scene. One second the bastard existed and the next his skull erupted apart like a watermelon smashed by artillery. Bone fragments, teeth, gray matter, and blood sprayed violently across the room while his corpse collapsed backward into another devil.

The second bullet punched directly through a woman’s forehead before detonating inside her skull with explosive magical force, turning the upper half of her head into red mist.

The third devil lost most of his face.

The fourth lost everything above the jaw.

Blood splattered across the obsidian table in thick steaming arcs while chunks of shattered skull bounced across polished black stone.

And it looked beautiful.

For one glorious split second, I admired my handiwork. Then the remaining devils finally retaliated. 

A beam of concentrated demonic energy erupted toward me from the right like some anime protagonist firing a fucking Kamehameha while from my left another devil unleashed a massive fireball alongside crackling bolts of lightning that tore through the air toward my position. 

I backflipped off the table immediately.

And while midair, I started firing again while still upside down.

God I looked cool as fuck!

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Each shot rang like thunder through the warehouse. One bullet shattered through a devil’s eye socket before detonating out the back of his skull.

Another punched through a throat and exploded upward through the brainstem.

A third devil attempted raising a defensive magic circle only for the enchanted round to tear straight through the barrier and remove half his face anyway.

Before I even landed from my extremely badass backflip, five more corpses already crashed onto the floor.

Brains painted the walls. Blood pooled beneath shattered chairs and body parts twitched violently from lingering nerve reactions.

I had to admit the entire sequence probably looked unbelievably badass from an outside perspective.

I landed smoothly into a crouch before immediately raising my pistol again toward the final surviving devil. 

The blue haired woman.

She stared at the slaughter surrounding her with absolute animal terror. Pieces of her comrades literally clung to her clothing while shattered fragments of skull and brain matter covered the table nearby. Her pupils shook violently while her breathing became ragged and uneven.

Then her eyes locked onto mine. And the expression on her face genuinely looked like she was staring directly into the face of Satan himself. 

BANG!

I shot her leg clean off. 

The reinforced bullet obliterated the entire limb above the knee in a wet explosion of blood and bone. She collapsed screaming onto the floor while clutching the ruined stump desperately as blood pumped violently between her fingers.

The screaming was fucking embarrassing.

You would think I was skinning her alive instead of merely removing a leg.

“If you don’t stop fucking screaming,” I informed her calmly while pointing the gun downward at her face, “I’m going to blow your brains across the wall. Seriously, shut the fuck up already.”

There were few things on earth more annoying than loud screaming, especially when I was not even trying to torture her in the first place. I only removed the leg so she would not attempt something idiotic like escaping. 

“So,” I asked proudly while turning toward my companions as they finally entered through the shattered skylight. “How did I do?”

Lavinia stared silently at the massacre while Elijah slowly approached the surviving devil with complete calm.

“It was decent,” Elijah admitted thoughtfully. “The backflip was admittedly very impressive. However the overall operation would have proceeded more efficiently had you actually listened to the plan before launching yourself through the roof like a drunk.”

“This is the thanks I receive for helping clean up this trash?” I demanded in outrage. “How about something like ‘Wow Nathan, that was incredibly cool and tactically decisive, thank you very much for murdering everyone so efficiently.’”

Elijah massaged his forehead in visible exasperation. 

“I specifically intended to capture the blond one alive because he appeared to be the leader,” he explained slowly. “You would have known this had you listened for longer than seven seconds before initiating mass murder.”

“Whatever man,” I muttered dismissively before pointing my gun toward the blue haired devil. “Can I kill her then?”

“No, no, no please!” she sobbed desperately while dragging herself backward through blood. “Please don’t kill me! I can be useful! I know things! I have information! Please!”

Tears streamed down her face while snot mixed with blood across her trembling lips.

“I will do anything!” she sobbed hysterically. “Anything at all! Please, I can become your servant, your pet, your slave, your whore, whatever you want me to be! Just please do not kill me! Please! I don’t want to die!” 

Pathetic!

Genuinely fucking pathetic.

I looked at her with complete and utter disgust.

There was honestly nothing more revolting than watching somebody abandon every scrap of dignity purely to survive. Offering slavery voluntarily just to keep breathing for a few extra years disgusted me on a fundamental level. Offering her body voluntarily. 

Disgusting! Cowardly! Weak!

The desperation in her voice only made it worse.

She was a devil. Yet the second death stared her in the face, she immediately degraded herself into a whimpering animal begging to become property.

Before I could pull the trigger though, Elijah beat me by less than a microsecond.

BANG!

The woman’s skull exploded instantly.

Her corpse collapsed sideways onto the blood soaked floor while Elijah lowered his pistol calmly before looking toward the table and the urn resting upon it.

I holstered my Beretta carefully afterward.

Although not before kissing the barrel first.

Most people in the supernatural world are obsessed over traditional fantasy weapons because they suffer from terminal rule of cool syndrome. Swords. Spears. Axes. Holy blades. Legendary artifacts forged by ancient gods under moonlight while virgins sang or whatever the fuck.

Personally? I did not give a shit.

I held absolutely no romantic attachment toward weapons.

What mattered to me was efficiency. I wanted a weapon that allowed me to kill the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time while requiring the least amount of training. 

Which was exactly why I chose guns. Fucking pistols specifically.

To be fair, most supernatural beings avoided firearms for legitimate reasons.

Even low level stray devils possessed enough natural durability to survive ordinary gunfire without much issue, and traditional melee weapons like swords and spears naturally conducted magical energy extremely well due to their structure and materials. Guns on the other hand were terrible for channeling magic efficiently because modern firearms were not designed with mystical energy flow in mind.

So naturally, I decided to make that shit work anyway. 

Instead of merely enchanting the gun externally, I continuously coated both the weapon itself and every individual bullet inside the magazine with compressed magical energy beforehand. The moment mana infused the ammunition properly, each shot effectively transformed into a miniature magical projectile capable of bypassing supernatural durability entirely.

And once I began experimenting further, things became significantly more entertaining.

I learned how to reinforce the bullets mid flight, Increase velocity, increase penetrative force, enhance explosive impact upon contact and alter trajectory of bullet.

Condense rotational force inside the rounds themselves.

By the time I finished refining the process, my customized Beretta effectively qualified as a certified A rank magical weapon disguised as an ordinary firearm.

Most supernatural creatures never even understood what killed them before their skulls exploded apart.

I slowly approached the demonic urn afterward while staring at its grotesque carved faces curiously. The carved demonic faces covering its surface almost appeared alive beneath certain lighting, their twisted expressions shifting subtly whenever I looked away for too long.

“So this thing supposedly contains some evil spirit sealed inside it?” I asked while examining it from every angle.

“Apparently,” Elijah answered casually before snapping his fingers and setting every corpse inside the warehouse ablaze with fire. “Now let us leave before additional complications arise.”

But I barely listened. I found myself staring at the urn with growing fascination, slowly circling around the ruined table while examining it from every possible angle as flames crackled behind me and the smell of blood mixed with burned flesh thickened the warehouse air.

The thing looked profoundly wrong.

The carved faces decorating its surface appeared frozen in grotesque laughter, mouths stretched too wide and expressions twisted into something deeply unpleasant, and every time I looked away for even a second it somehow felt slightly different when my eyes returned to it, as though the carved features shifted subtly whenever attention wandered.

I crouched beside it.

The closer I held it, the more the warehouse around me seemed distant and muffled like I was slowly sinking underwater while the urn alone remained perfectly clear and sharply focused within my vision. The heat from the burning corpses behind me faded away. Elijah’s footsteps sounded strangely far off. Even the smell of blood and burned flesh began disappearing beneath some faint scent I could not identify, something ancient and dry like old parchment left buried beneath desert ruins for thousands of years. 

Honestly, the temptation became absurdly hard to ignore the longer I stood there.

I mean seriously, what was the actual worst case scenario here? Maybe there really was some evil spirit sealed inside. Maybe there was not. Either way, I highly doubted some spooky smoke ghost was suddenly going to leap out and rip my soul apart the moment I cracked the lid slightly open.

And even if something dangerous was inside, Elijah and Lavinia were both standing right there.

Worst case scenario, we beat the shit out of whatever came out and moved on with our lives.

Curiosity sharpened into need.

The urge to open the urn became almost physical, crawling beneath my skin and winding itself around my thoughts until every second spent resisting began feeling deeply irritating.

What kind of idiot finds a mysterious evil urn filled with forbidden nonsense and simply walks away without checking what is inside? 

My fingers moved toward the lid almost automatically.

“Nathan! What are you doing?!” Lavinia suddenly shouted in complete panic.

I turned slightly toward her, intending to reassure her that everything was perfectly fine and she needed to calm the fuck down because she was overreacting again.

Then the world vanished.

Everything disappeared instantly.

And suddenly I found myself suspended weightlessly within an endless expanse beyond comprehension while before me stood a white lamb possessing six horns and six eyes.

The creature looked simultaneously tiny and infinite, standing before me while somehow also towering beyond the boundaries of reality itself. Every one of its six eyes contained entire worlds turning endlessly within them, civilizations rising and collapsing in moments, stars being born and swallowed into darkness while time itself twisted into something incomprehensible.

Then the visions came. Vision of the past, present and future all at once.

I could not distinguish one from another.

I watched kingdoms yet unborn collapsing into ashes while ancient wars unfolded beside cities that did not even exist yet. Dead men walked alongside children who had never drawn breath. Rivers flowed backward while towers rose upward from ruins not yet destroyed.

And there before me appeared a white horse.

Its rider carried a bow.

A crown rested upon his head. And he rode forth endlessly through battle after battle conquering all before him until entire nations shattered beneath his advance.

But deep within my soul, I understood instinctively that this was merely preparation. This was not the true revelation.

Then the lamb unrolled the second seal and broke it open. And I heard the second living being speak.

“Come.”

And suddenly I understood. This was why I had been brought here. I had been brought here to witness His rise.

He rode no ordinary beast. I can only call it a red horse because mortal language failed me before the enormity of the thing, yet those who had truly seen the mount spoke afterward with their hair gone white and their mouths trembling of an animal vast as a siege tower with smoke pouring from its nostrils and iron plates grown into its flesh like scales hammered by some infernal smith, and beneath its hooves cities split apart and rivers turned muddy with corpses while the skies themselves took on the color of opened veins. 

The Second Rider of the Apocalypse, the Red Horseman whose coming stripped peace from the earth like flesh from a carcass left beneath summer flies. And wherever he passed there followed a carnival of annihilation beyond mortal comprehension, great companies of butchered kings nailed to the shattered wheels of chariots, and beasts with their entrails dragging through the mire still shrieking as they died. 

Rivers choked black with the swollen dead, and the air itself stained red beneath clouds of cinders and atomized flesh while armies numbering beyond counting broke themselves against one another in lunatic ecstasies of murder, hacking and trampling and devouring amidst the thunder of collapsing heavens while the horseman rode among them vast and blood soaked and laughing with a mouth filled full of ruin.

Legions followed in His wake.

A horde of ruinous multitudes clad in the remnants of a thousand eras and cultures, knights in mail blackened by dragonfire riding beside skeletal cavalry in uniforms rotted from forgotten revolutions, bronze armored hoplites marching shoulder to shoulder with child soldiers carrying rifles taller than themselves, samurai in antlered helms splashed dark with old blood beside gas masked infantry dragging artillery through fields of mud packed thick with severed limbs, and among them banners of every empire and ideology ever raised by human hands all mingling together in monstrous fellowship beneath the red gaze of the Rider.

They sang while they killed.

Songs of weddings and harvest and lullabies and anthems and funeral dirges, all twisted together into one vast screaming chorus rolling across battlefields drowned in smoke where the dead lay piled in windrows and the wounded crawled among them calling for mothers long dead themselves, and overhead the Horseman rode silent and immense with a sword in His hand long enough to bisect cathedrals and bright enough that men mistook its reflection for dawn.

Then He spoke to me.

His voice echoed across the battlefield from everywhere at once while endless armies continued slaughtering one another beneath Him.

“Go forth into the world and let no man speak to you of mercy, for mercy is the refuge of the defeated and peace is the lie men tell themselves between butcheries. The weak shall gather behind walls and altars and kings shall cloak themselves in laws and banners and holy scripture, yet all flesh is born for the same reckoning and every beating heart marches from its first breath toward the field upon which its worth shall be weighed in blood.

You shall walk the roads of ruin as my hand and my covenant, and where men cling to life without strength you shall cast them into the furnace of war that they may be remade or consumed according to the measure of their will. You shall suffer no poisoner of courage and no keeper of false peace to endure before you, for they are thieves who rob mankind of the only truth written into the bones of Creation.

And you shall strike down upon them with a wrath that shall darken nations and split the earth beneath marching armies, and in the hour when cities burn and the cries of the dying rise like hymns into the heavens, they shall know at last that War has passed among them, and that nothing beneath Heaven escapes my dominion.”

“Hell fucking yeah, I accept! I’ll spread your gospel across this entire fucking world!” 

I roared the very instant consciousness slammed back into my body, while my heart pounded like artillery fire inside my chest and every nerve in my body felt electrified by something vast and terrible that still lingered within my soul like the fading heat of a nuclear explosion.

AN: Haruki’s story was supposed to be updated today, but this story idea has been sitting in my head like a migraine for the past few weeks, so I decided to write it down just to make it leave me alone.

Whether I continue it or not will depend on your reception, but my other stories will still remain the priority. And if this fic does continue, I plan for it to be very different from my usual long-term, slow-paced stories. This one will probably have fewer than twenty chapters, and within that time we will, naturally, be committing several crusades against the supernatural races, as God intended.

I’m guessing around seven crusades or so, and you guys can suggest which races should be exterminated. Reasons would be cool, but are not required. Everything except humanity is fair game, and every pantheon counts as its own race just to make things simpler.

So yeah, let’s see how this goes.