POV: Cao Cao
We were born to inherit the stars.
No one more than Cao Cao understood how much humans suffered under the creatures of myth and fairy tale. No one more than he understood how little the so-called gods, devils, and dragons valued human life; how none of them would blink at killing a nation of humans for the simple fact that they were bored that day.
Humans were weak, this was an established fact. They did not wield magic instinctively like the other races, and thus they were destined for lives of hardship and suffering beneath those who were born blessed.
But weakness was not the same as worthlessness.
Humans endured.
They clawed forward through mud and blood and ash while the immortals played their endless games above them. Empires rose and fell, entire civilizations burned, and still humanity crawled back from the ruins with stubborn, defiant hands.
They were fragile, yes, but like tempered steel, their strength came from the very fires meant to destroy them.
And no one understood that truth more clearly than Cao Cao. And no one was more suited to change it.
To save humanity from an eternal life of suffering and slavery beneath supernatural power. To tear down the false order that had bound mankind since the dawn of history.
He had looked upon humanity as it was meant to be, as the rightful inheritor of the infinite sky, as the species that fate itself had chosen to rise above the stagnant tyranny of immortal monsters who had grown complacent in their ancient thrones.
The stars themselves had never belonged to the gods or the dragons, and the vast silence of the universe had never sworn loyalty to any supernatural race, for the heavens were waiting patiently for the one people who possessed the relentless will to claim them.
Humanity was destined for greatness.
The reason they could not reach that greatness was because history had not yet delivered the man who would awaken the species to the truth of its destiny.
That man was Cao Cao.
He was chosen by fate itself to save them.
The proof of that destiny lay in his hand.
The True Longinus.
The ultimate Sacred Gear, the spear capable of killing even gods. A weapon born from humanity itself, a power that could only ever belong to mankind. The supernatural races could covet it, fear it, scheme around it, but they could never inherit it.
That alone was proof enough of the truth they refused to acknowledge.
The greatest power capable of ending the rule of gods had been placed solely within human hands.
What clearer message could fate give?
He, like the many great men before him - be it Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Caesar, Alexander, was destined to change the course of history.
He did not see this as arrogance, nor as ambition, nor even as personal triumph. In his mind there existed no separation between his will and the will of humanity itself.
He had been chosen because he alone possessed the clarity to understand what must be done.
He alone was willing to bear the burden of leading mankind through the fire that would cleanse the world of its ancient oppressors.
The creatures who ruled over myth believed their dominance eternal, believing that humans would forever kneel before the pests that had ruled since the dawn of history, but Cao Cao saw the inevitable end of that era as clearly as a prophet reading the final page of a sacred text.
Humanity has been patient for too long.
Every generation of humans had suffered beneath supernatural rule while praying for salvation from the very beings who enslaved them, clinging to the hope that gods might show mercy, that devils might grant favor, that dragons might allow them to exist in quiet servitude beneath immortal wings.
Cao Cao considered such hopes the greatest tragedy of human history. They revealed just how thoroughly the supernatural world had broken the spirit of mankind, teaching humans to beg for kindness from those who viewed them as livestock.
A species destined to inherit the stars could not afford to kneel before creatures that feared nothing more than the rise of human ambition. He will not stand for it.
The supernatural races realized this long ago.
They understood that humanity was dangerous.
They understood that a species capable of surviving centuries of oppression without losing its hunger for progress could one day become something greater than any immortal monster bound by ancient tradition and stagnant power.
They understood that human innovation, human defiance, and human ambition formed a force that could reshape the world itself if it were ever allowed to grow without restraint. The supernatural world had always kept humanity weak out of fear of what humans might become if they ever realized their rightful place in the cosmos.
Cao Cao had realized it.
And once such knowledge had taken root in his mind, the path forward became inevitable.
Humanity would never be free while supernatural tyrants existed to remind them of their supposed inferiority, and the dream of inheriting the stars could never be fulfilled while ancient monsters still clung to their crumbling empires upon the earth.
The liberation of mankind required more than resistance, more than rebellion, more than temporary victories in a world still governed by supernatural law.
It required the complete and irreversible removal of every race that believed itself entitled to rule over humanity simply because it had been born with powers humans lacked.
He understood the truth that others feared to speak aloud: coexistence was a comforting illusion. The supernatural races did not see humans as equals. At best they were tools, at worst they were livestock.
And yet humanity still clung to the naïve hope that mercy would one day be granted to them.
Cao Cao did not believe in mercy.
He believed in destiny.
Humanity had been given a choice written into the very fabric of existence: rise, or be erased. Conquer the heavens, or forever live beneath their shadow.
There could be no compromise between predator and prey.
That was why the Hero Faction existed - as the vanguard of mankind's rightful future.
Let the supernatural call them extremists. Let them call them monsters. The gods had slaughtered millions without a second thought. Yet when humans finally chose to fight back, they were condemned for their hubris.
The hypocrisy was almost laughable.
No, Cao Cao understood the truth far more clearly than the trembling masses who feared to grasp it.
History belonged to those chosen by fate to seize it.
And fate had chosen him.
The spear in his grasp was the declaration written across the stars themselves. A sign that humanity's chains were meant to be broken. A promise that the age of gods and monsters was nearing its end.
The heavens had ruled long enough.
Now it was mankind's turn.
They would rise from the mud of the earth and claim the cosmos itself. They would carve their dominion across the stars until no supernatural tyrant remained to threaten them.
Humanity would be free.
Even if the path to that freedom required the extinction of every god, dragon, devil, and spirit that dared stand in their way.
Cao Cao smiled faintly at the thought.
After all, destiny was a heavy burden.
And it was only natural that the man chosen to lead humanity to the stars would be the one strong enough to bear it.
…
Cao Cao looked at the boy whom he had once forced into submission with nothing more than the weight of his gaze, and for the first time since that day he found himself wondering whether such a thing would even be possible again.
In those days Haruki Yamashiro had been merely troublesome, a sharp-tongued youth with too much defiance in his eyes and too little understanding of the forces that ruled the world. A single look had been enough to cow him then.
Now Cao Cao found himself staring at that same boy and feeling something very different settle over his bones.
The figure standing before him carried no outward display of force. Haruki Yamashiro stood quietly, almost serenely, his grey coat shifting faintly in the slow currents of air that moved through the island. His posture appeared relaxed, his face calm and composed, yet Cao Cao felt every hair along his arms and neck rise in violent alarm, his entire body reacting with an instinctive terror that he could neither silence nor explain.
The presence pressing down upon the world felt immense, a pressure so vast and incomprehensible that Cao Cao struggled to even form words for it in his mind. His heartbeat quickened, each pulse sounding loud in his ears. His breath slowed despite the urgency running through his veins. Every sense sharpened until the smallest details appeared painfully clear to him.
The being before him, the one whispered about in the supernatural world with the half-fearful title of the God of Devils, did not simply possess power. Power alone would not have stirred this kind of reaction.
What Cao Cao felt was the presence of something vast. Something that did not belong among ordinary gods.
The air itself seemed to thicken around Haruki Yamashiro, as though the world had grown subtly heavier in acknowledgement of him. Even the distant wind had stilled, and the faint sound of shifting rubble beneath Cao Cao's boots carried with unnatural clarity in the sudden quiet.
Cao Cao had stood before gods before. He had fought beings worshipped by entire civilizations. He had faced dragons and monsters who ruled ancient legends. Yet the presence before him awakened a deeper fear, something primal that seemed to echo from the oldest instincts buried inside the human mind.
Every part of him screamed at him to leave.
To turn and run before something terrible happened.
Yet the spear in his hand trembled with something entirely different.
The True Longinus vibrated faintly, the sacred weapon humming through the grip of his palm like a living creature that had just scented blood in the water. The ancient spear was not frightened. It was exhilarated, eager in a savage and reverent way that only a weapon forged to slay gods could be.
Cao Cao tightened his fingers around the shaft and forced his breathing to steady.
The spear might be eager.
He was not.
Without allowing any of that unease to reach his face, Cao Cao prepared himself and quietly sent the emergency signal to his partner. The act left a bitter taste in his thoughts, because it required him to admit something he had never imagined needing to acknowledge.
He could not defeat Haruki Yamashiro alone.
The realization gnawed at his pride, yet he did not allow it to linger long. Pride had no place in the battles the Hero Faction fought. They had stood before beings who declared themselves supreme, creatures who boasted of limitless strength and eternal dominion, and each time those same creatures had eventually been brought down despite their arrogance.
The reason for that is simple.
The supernatural world possessed overwhelming power, yet it had never understood power in unity. Devils betrayed devils in pursuit of ambition, gods warred endlessly over authority and worship, and even the oldest dragons trusted only their own hoarded strength.
Humanity, by comparison, revealed its greatest strength when individuals stood together and allowed compassion, loyalty, and shared purpose to bind them into something greater than the sum of their parts.
The Hero Faction embodied that belief more than anyone else, for from the greatest of their members to the lowest initiate they fought side by side, each warrior compensating for the weaknesses of the others while amplifying their strengths until obstacles that seemed insurmountable alone could be broken together.
It was a principle that had carried their ancestors through centuries of struggle.
And Cao Cao refused to believe that Haruki Yamashiro would be any different from the countless monsters that had fallen before them. Heroes had risen against such creatures before. Heroes would rise again.
Cao Cao would make certain of it.
This creature who called himself Haruki was merely another beast in the long and bloody history of mankind's enemies, another adversary who would eventually be struck down by heroes as countless others had been before him.
Yet when the moment of confrontation came, Haruki did not attack.
To Cao Cao's surprise, he did not even acknowledge his presence.
Haruki's attention rested entirely upon the girl standing behind them.
Hikaru.
The world around him might as well have vanished. Cao Cao could feel the indifference radiating from the god before him. The Hero Faction, the island, the tense air around them, none of it seemed to exist within Haruki's awareness. His gaze remained fixed upon the young woman who had once been his sister.
For a long moment his face revealed neither joy nor anger, nor even surprise. The expression upon his features had been wiped clean in an instant, leaving behind a stillness so profound that it reminded Cao Cao of a warrior who had received a mortal wound in the midst of battle and had not yet fully realized that the strike had landed. His eyes burned steadily with an intensity that did not waver, and his mouth remained set as though holding back a thousand unspoken thoughts.
It was the face of someone who had searched endlessly for something that had once seemed impossible to find, and who had suddenly discovered it standing before him in a form greater and more overwhelming than he had ever dared imagine.
Cao Cao felt a strange flicker of anxiety stir within him as he glanced toward Hikaru.
What he saw there unsettled him even more.
The same expression had appeared upon her face, mirrored with such perfect symmetry that it seemed as though the two siblings were reflections of one another. Wonder and disbelief mingled with a fragile hope that trembled behind her eyes, as though she feared that the figure standing before her might disappear if she blinked too quickly.
Slowly, almost unconsciously, Haruki began walking toward her.
His steps were careful, deliberate, and his gaze never once left Hikaru's face.
For several heartbeats Hikaru did not move.
Then, when he had drawn within a few paces of her, something within her seemed to break.
She stepped forward suddenly.
Cao Cao barely saw the motion.
Haruki closed the distance between them in a single fluid movement and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him with a fierce urgency that left no room for hesitation. His hands tangled tightly in the folds of her dark robe as though anchoring her in place.
Hikaru stood stiff with shock at first, her body locked in disbelief. Then her arms slowly rose. She clung to him.
The two siblings remained locked in that embrace before the gathered warriors as though time itself had ceased to matter, as though they would stand there until the sun set and rose again if no one dared interrupt them.
Cao Cao watched Hikaru carefully.
She stared at her brother with an expression that blended awe and disbelief, as though she could not quite accept that the person she had missed for so long now stood before her.
A brother she would never have seen again if Cao Cao had succeeded in his plans. And yet, when Cao Cao looked into her eyes, he understood immediately that there had never been any possibility of her betraying him.
The admiration and love shining there were far too strong. The realization irritated him more than he cared to admit. What had Haruki Yamashiro done to deserve such devotion?
A bringer of discord and ruin. A traitor who had abandoned humanity. A manipulative schemer whose actions had left chaos in their wake.
And yet Hikaru looked at him with tears in her eyes as though he were the most precious person in the world.
Haruki held her fiercely, as though afraid she might vanish at any moment, and when Hikaru finally broke down into quiet sobs Cao Cao noticed that Haruki's shoulders trembled as well.
He was crying.
Even Cao Cao felt a strange stirring in his chest at the sight of the siblings clinging to one another after so many years apart, a warmth he crushed quickly before it could take root.
Had I misjudged him? he wondered briefly. The thought lasted only a moment before he hardened his resolve. No, that can't be. He sold his soul to the devil. This must all be an act, yes it must be. He is nothing but a liar.
"I'm so sorry… brother," Hikaru sobbed, clutching his clothing as though terrified he might disappear again. "I'm so… sorry."
"Shh," Haruki murmured softly while holding her close. "It's alright… I'm here now."
"I killed them," she said through tears that would not stop falling. "I didn't mean to… I didn't know what was happening… everything felt like it was breaking and when it was over they were lying there and I was so scared that I ran away. I left you behind and I thought that if you ever saw me…I could not bear the way you would look at me."
Haruki slowly lifted her face so that their eyes met, his own gaze filled with a sorrowful tenderness that made her voice falter.
"I searched everywhere for you," he said quietly as he brushed away the tears running down her cheeks. "There were nights when I thought the world had swallowed you forever and mornings when I woke up believing I had simply dreamed that I ever had a sister, yet every time that doubt crept into my heart I remembered the way you used to smile at me when we were children and I knew that I could never stop looking for you."
Hikaru shook her head weakly as more tears slipped down her face. "You should hate me," she whispered. "I'm a …murderer."
"It's not your fault, sister," he replied sadly. "There are many things I could have done differently… many choices I wish I had made with greater care. I-I carry more regrets than you can imagine, yet speaking about paths that were never taken will not change what happened. What matters now is that you are safe and that we have found each other again."
"Never," Hikaru said with fierce denial. "You have done nothing wrong, you are blameless in all of this. I never believed otherwise for even a moment. I know you would never allow something like that to happen willingly. I'm the one who destroyed everything… I don't deserve your forgiveness."
Haruki gently pulled her back into his arms, holding her with a warmth that carried none of the bitterness she feared.
"You are my family," he said softly while resting his cheek against the top of her head. "There is nothing in this world that could ever change that, and there is no mistake you could make that would make me abandon you."
Hikaru's sobs grew stronger as she buried her face against him. "I thought I had lost you forever."
"You never lost me," Haruki replied quietly while tightening his embrace. "I'm sorry..for being such a terrible brother..."
Then he wrapped both arms around her once more and wept openly, laughter and tears mixing freely in a raw display of emotion. The two siblings swayed together gently, whispering old endearments to one another while fragments of childhood memories slipped into their broken conversation, accusations and forgiveness mingling together in soft murmurs that only they could fully understand.
"Of that at least we can agree," Cao Cao sneered, his voice cutting through the fragile silence that had formed around the siblings.
A vast creature of shadow rose beside him in response to his will, its enormous body swelling upward like living darkness gathering into shape. Tendrils of black mist twisted around its limbs, forming claws and jagged armor that shifted and reshaped themselves constantly. The air around it thickened under the weight of its presence.
Cao Cao felt a familiar surge of confidence returning to him.
The siblings turned toward him together.
Hikaru's expression tightened with concern when her eyes moved toward the shadow beast looming beside him, her shoulders stiffening with clear unease. Yet much to Cao Cao's growing irritation, Haruki Yamashiro showed no trace of alarm whatsoever.
The devil simply regarded the monstrous entity with mild curiosity, his calm expression unchanged.
"Cao Cao," Hikaru said anxiously, stepping slightly forward. "You have to listen to me… My brother is not who you think he is…He is not the monster you believe him to be."
"And how would you know that?" Cao Cao replied coolly. "You didn't even know he had become a devil until moments ago, and yet you rush to defend the very man who bit every hand that once fed him. Who betrayed every trust placed on him"
"Hand that fed me?" Haruki repeated with mild amusement.
"Did you not destroy the underworld?" Cao Cao demanded. "Did you not earn the trust of the Satans only to engineer their downfall and bring ruin upon their legacy?"
Haruki laughed softly. "I sometimes wonder whether you believe the stories you tell others... though I suppose it hardly matters now. The point at which words could have changed anything passed a long time ago."
"I am glad you finally recognized that," Cao Cao replied. "I should have ended your life the first time we met."
The True Longinus appeared within his grasp in a flash of silver light, the ancient spear manifesting in his hand with a familiar surge of power. The weapon hummed faintly, its divine energy rippling along the shaft like restrained lightning.
"We all wish we had made different choices back then," Haruki replied quietly. "I guess we have that in common."
"Brother, Cao Cao is very powerful," Hikaru said urgently, her voice trembling through lingering tears. "We should try to reason with him. Please…try to explain everything to him. He will understand if you tell him the truth. I know there must be reasons behind everything you have done. Please, Haruki. I cannot lose you again."
"I beg to differ, sister," Haruki answered gently, turning his eyes toward Cao Cao again. "Cao Cao and I started long ago a fight we never got to finish. and I suspect he would find it deeply unsatisfying if we ended things any other way. Isn't that correct, Cao Cao?"
"Yes," he said. "The only thing left between us is your death. Destiny has delayed this moment long enough. You should curse whichever gods you offended in your rise to power. A punishment like me does not appear without divine displeasure guiding the way."
"Became an errand boy of the gods. Haven't you?" Haruki said with faint amusement. "I expected better from you."
The shadow creature beside Cao Cao shifted violently, its enormous head lowering toward Haruki while a voice erupted from its depths.
"Haruki Yamashiro," the monstrous figure declared, its voice rolling across the battlefield like thunder echoing through mountains, "by the authority granted to the protectors of humanity, for the crimes of treachery, devastation, and the threat your existence poses to the future of mankind, you are hereby condemned to death."
Haruki regarded the creature with mild interest. "You must be the wielder of the Annihilation Maker. It seems we finally meet, Leonardo. I see that it's only the two of you today. That will prove insufficient."
Before Cao Cao could respond, something strange occurred.
A sudden stillness swept through the world.
Cao Cao felt it first as a faint pressure brushing against his senses. The wind stopped moving. The distant echoes of battle vanished completely. The subtle vibrations of life surrounding the battlefield fell silent.
He turned his head slowly.
Everything around him had frozen in place. One moment the battlefield existed in motion, and the next every fragment of it had frozen as though reality itself had been sealed inside a crystal.
The drifting dust in the air hung motionless like scattered stars. A fragment of shattered stone that had been tumbling down the slope remained suspended halfway through its fall. Even the distant clouds above had halted their slow passage across the sky.
Every living creature had stopped moving entirely.
Everything had been placed on pause.
Charlemagne stood locked in the middle of a step, one foot lifted slightly above the ground, her cloak frozen behind her in a half flowing wave that would never finish its motion. Other members of the battlefield remained trapped within the final gestures of their movements.
The girl, Miyamoto, held her sword halfway through a swing. Perseus leaned forward while shouting an order that would never reach completion.
The entire world had become a silent painting.
"Time has stopped, Cao Cao. Be careful," Leonardo's voice boomed from within the shadow creature.
Cao Cao stepped forward cautiously and reached toward Charlemagne's shoulder.
His fingers passed through empty air.
The sensation startled him.
He attempted to touch the ground beneath his feet. His hand met no resistance whatsoever. The earth appeared solid to his eyes, yet his fingers slid through it without encountering anything tangible.
The experience disturbed him deeply.
It felt like trying to touch the reflection of an object within a mirror, the illusion of reality present before him yet completely unreachable by physical contact. He moved his hand through the surface of a stone fragment and watched it pass through the object without resistance.
The battlefield still surrounded him visually, yet the world itself had become unreachable.
He had never experienced anything like it.
"In consideration of the damage our battle might cause," Haruki's calm voice echoed through the stillness, "I decided it would be wiser to create a space where we could fight without destroying the world in the process."
Cao Cao frowned, annoyance flickering through his mind. He struggled to comprehend what Haruki had done. Had he transported them into another dimension entirely?
A mirror world existing alongside the real one? Some strange pocket of reality where time had been halted?
"You look tense, Cao Cao," Haruki said lightly, watching his confusion with quiet amusement. "There's no reason to worry. I merely removed us from the normal flow of space and time."
The words struck Cao Cao like a physical blow. "What?!"
"I suppose you could describe it as a separate dimension," Haruki continued thoughtfully. "Although that explanation would not be entirely accurate. We remain within the world, yet also exist outside the structure of time and space that governs it. In this state we may fight without limit and the material world will remain completely untouched."
Cao Cao felt a growing unease coil through his chest. He did not like the sound of that explanation at all.
"You are awfully talkative," Cao Cao said, tightening his grip on the True Longinus. "Do you think we pose no threat to you even after revealing the nature of your ability to us?"
"Think?" Haruki repeated with a faint smile. "I know with absolute certainty that neither of you pose any threat to me whatsoever. Everything that is happening now serves only as a formality before the inevitable conclusion."
Cao Cao had fought gods before and he had known fear. He had learned to control it and use it. Fear could sharpen the mind and steady the hand if a man mastered it.
What he felt now was different.
Haruki Yamashiro stood across from him in the silent, unmoving world, smiling calmly while the sky and dust remained frozen in place. Cao Cao felt a deep and unpleasant awareness creeping through his mind. It was the feeling of standing too close to something that should not exist.
He had already seen impossible things. Time had stopped. The battlefield had turned into a lifeless image. Even after witnessing all of that, Cao Cao realized he still had not grasped the true scale of the being standing before him.
He would understand soon enough.
Leonardo's vast shadow form rippled beside him, the hulking silhouette giving off a pressure that would have crushed the courage of lesser men, and Cao Cao took some grim comfort in that terrible presence.
The [Annihilation Maker] was the one Sacred Gear Cao Cao considered the most dangerous of all. It did not matter if its wielder was weak, frail, or even crippled. As long as that person could imagine, could think, it was enough to turn them into one of the most dangerous beings in the world.
Leonardo was the greatest user of that legendary Sacred Gear. Even that did little to ease Cao Cao's mind while he faced the monster standing before them.
If Haruki Yamashiro could be brought down at all, it would only happen through flawless coordination and teamwork. They would have to assault him relentlessly together, forcing him to respond to attack after attack until, eventually, he revealed a weakness that could be exploited.
That was how humanity won its battles.
Long before kingdoms and armies existed, the first humans had already learned that truth. A lone man with bare hands could not defeat a beast larger and stronger than himself. Early hunters had discovered that weakness could be overcome through cooperation. One man distracted the animal while another struck from the side. Stones and sharpened sticks turned fragile bodies into weapons.
That was how humanity had always fought. And that was how humanity survived.
Haruki looked from Cao Cao to the writhing shadow and then back again, his expression almost amused, as though the two of them had arrived late to some private entertainment he had already exhausted.
"Shall we begin?" he asked lightly, "or would you like a few more minutes to encourage each other."
Cao Cao answered by thrusting his spear forward and unleashing the first treasure without warning.
[Hatthiratana: Throne of the Firmament.]
The halo of nested rings behind him brightened, one segment flaring gold-white as dominion over weight and elevation flooded the false battlefield, and in an instant the ground around Haruki ceased to obey natural law.
Great slabs of stone ripped upward in jagged columns, the air thickened into crushing pressure, and invisible heavenly weight descended from above like a mountain lowered by the hand of a tyrant. The localized sky seemed to groan beneath the force.
At the same moment Leonardo moved.
The shadow at Cao Cao's side burst outward, dividing into twelve hulking [Bandersnatch] and a single towering [Jabberwocky] whose horned silhouette unfolded with regal menace, and before Haruki could be buried under the descending gravity field the beasts were already in motion, their limbs compressing black force beneath themselves before launching in a storm of sonic impacts.
"[Supreme Demonic Beasts of Ruin]," Leonardo's voice thundered through the pack. "Tear him apart."
Haruki sighed. That was all he did in response to their coordinated attack.
He sighed, raised one hand, and the crushing force of [Hatthiratana] simply slanted away from him, as if the pressure had simply lost its hold on him.
Two [Bandersnatch] reached him first, claws extended, jaws splitting wide to reveal rows of predatory teeth, and Haruki stepped between them with such negligent ease that Cao Cao's eyes barely tracked the motion.
A palm touched one beast lightly beneath the jaw and red spikes erupted from inside its body in a blossom of internal impalement, chest and throat bursting outward in sprays of shadow. Haruki's elbow then flicked backward into the second with almost lazily, and that one convulsed as jagged spears tore from its ribs, shoulders, and skull from the inside out.
He had barely moved.
The remaining [Bandersnatch] landed in a circle around him, their hollow eyes blazing as they recorded every movement, while above them [Hatthiratana] pressed down with increased mass and attempted to drag him into submission.
Haruki looked up, then clicked his tongue.
The gravitational field split, as though some invisible fracture had been placed into the structure of the technique. Cao Cao felt [Hatthiratana] hold become unstable, its force leaking out along an unseen fault line.
What did he do now? Cao Cao frowned and began analyzing. I see, he created localized tears in the structure of my technique. As soon as that tear was created, whatever was holding my technique together became unstable and started leaking. It's similar to the [Crack] trait of house Belphegor. How annoying!
The realization tightened his chest, feeling his unease growing. It seems, I won't be able to use [Hatthiratana] for a bit, he concluded calmly. Well, no matter, he will find himself disappointed if he thinks that will be enough to stop me.
[Maniratana: Jewel of Reflected Providence.]
A web of mirrored force spread outward from Cao Cao in overlapping waves. The air around Haruki twisted with invisible pressure. The change was immediate.
The space around Haruki became unstable in a way that was difficult to read and even harder to trust. Attacks no longer traveled cleanly from one point to another. A strike aimed at Cao Cao twisted aside halfway through its path and reappeared from another direction.
A burst of force that should have scattered harmlessly into empty space might suddenly veer toward the nearest target able to receive it. The battlefield turned unstable due the the True Longinus reflecting every attack that might harm its wielder. The attacks moved through the field like water poured over uneven stone, always slipping toward somewhere else.
Even Haruki had to account for it now.
In that same instant, Cao Cao vanished.
[Assaratana] teleported him upward in a flash, placing him high above the battlefield for less than a heartbeat before it tore open another path and dropped him back into the fight from an angle that wouldn't be possible normally. He reappeared behind Haruki's left shoulder with his spear already in motion.
Leonardo attacked at the same time.
The remaining [Bandersnatch] came in together from every side, their massive bodies compressing gravity beneath them before they launched. Each leap struck with crushing force, their timing precise enough that Haruki was given no easy lane to slip through.
One came low for his legs, another dropped from above, two more closed from the flanks, and all of them hit in perfect coordination with Cao Cao's thrust.
[Assaratana: Path of the Divine Steed.]
He thrust True Longinus into Haruki's blind spot, the holy spear shrieking through altered geometry while [Maniratana] ensured any evasive aggression would attempt to fold back into him.
Leonardo added to the assault without wasting a breath, the [Jabberwocky] opening its maw and firing a lance of condensed energy of annihilation that sealed every straightforward avenue of escape.
For the first time Haruki's smile widened.
Now, Cao Cao thought, now he had to respect it.
Haruki vanished.
There was no build-up and no visible displacement. One instant he stood in the center of converging death and the next he was crouching atop the energy beam itself as though the destructive torrent were a road of polished stone.
Cao Cao's spear struck empty air, Leonardo's beam passed beneath him, and [Maniratana] twisted the chaos into a rebounding force that should have engulfed Haruki anyway, yet Haruki merely glanced over his shoulder and time around him cracked.
The reflected blast hung still.
The pouncing [Bandersnatch] froze in midair.
For one impossible fraction the world stuttered around Haruki alone, and he stepped leisurely out of the converging kill-zone before normal motion resumed and the redirected torrents of attack smashed into Leonardo's own pack.
Three more [Bandersnatch] died in the blast.
Haruki laughed softly and dusted off his sleeve. "Is that all you got, champions of humanity?" Haruki said grinning.
Cao Cao's teeth clenched. Leonardo's beasts did not waste time; they adapted. Through the shared telepathic network the surviving Bandersnatch had already recorded Haruki's movement and the strange temporal irregularity.
They spread out and shadow spawn began to pour from beneath them in waves, first dozens, then hundreds, lean black copies racing in all directions to create attack layers, distractions, and sensory saturation. The air filled with clawed silhouettes. The false ground became a sea of darkness.
Cao Cao rose higher and invoked another treasure.
[Gahapatiratana: Legion of the Witness.]
Radiant warriors of pure light erupted into existence across the battlefield, their golden forms bearing lances, shields, chains, and circles of judgment. Each of these warriors summoned by the True Longinus embodied one aspect of judgement.
Binding Witnesses cast layered anti-flight nets. Revealing Witnesses marked distortions in space and gathered data on every movement Haruki made. Executing Witnesses formed spear arrays in the sky while Pursuing Witnesses dived through the swarms of shadow spawn, forcing Haruki into increasingly narrow lines of movement.
Cao Cao saw the effect of synchronized assault and smiled. For the first time since the start of the fight Haruki was pressed. Though he remained frustratingly unharmed.
He wove through Bandersnatch and Witness lancers with the fluid, insulting ease of a dancer moving among clumsy admirers, parrying a holy spear here with two fingers, sidestepping a gravity-sheathed pounce there, letting a shadow claw graze his sleeve while a reflected lance from [Maniratana] came screaming in from a new angle.
Cao Cao was already upon him.
True Longinus split into overlapping luminous afterimages as he layered treasure upon treasure, weight and displacement and reflected intent flowing through each thrust.
[Cakkaratana: Wheel of Ruin.]
A pulse of disarmament burst from the spearhead, meant to make all effort itself fail around Haruki, meant to strip his conjured powers and any weapon he summoned of their defining purpose.
Haruki finally raised a proper guard, demonic energy rippling over his forearm as Cao Cao's spear struck. A ringing shock tore through the suspended world. Haruki's sleeve disintegrated. His skin split.
Blood appeared.
For the smallest instant Cao Cao nearly forgot to breathe. "HAHAHAH! You can bleed!"
Leonardo saw it too and roared through the [Jabberwocky]. The commander beast crashed in from above, claws enlarged and layered with fresh adaptation rings, while the surviving [Bandersnatch] pinned the surrounding space with Dimensional Anchoring, denying teleportation routes and reinforcing reality against any form of teleportation.
A hundred shadow spawn hurled themselves bodily at Haruki to clog every line of retreat, and the Witnesses closed ranks to form anti-regeneration circles.
Cao Cao drove forward mercilessly.
[Parinayakaratana: Condemnation Mark.]
Parinayakaratana represented the final authority among the Seven Heavenly Treasures of the Twilight Holy Spear and embodied the principle of judgment. Its function resembled a process of evaluation and sentencing that unfolded over the course of a battle.
The ability observed the actions, conditions, and qualities of a target while Cao Cao engaged them through the other Treasures. Each interaction contributed evidence. Each exchange accumulated weight within the system of judgment built into the holy will of the spear.
However, the treasure required conditions to be satisfied before it could impose its verdict. Those conditions varied depending on the nature of the opponent. For example, resistance against Cao Cao's authority counted as defiance within the trial. Hostility directed toward him within the domain created by the Treasures counted as aggression before a judge.
Being a being steeped in corruption, demonic power, stolen divinity, or acts of destruction added additional grounds for condemnation. Once the accumulated conditions reached the threshold required for judgment, [Parinayakaratana] marked the target.
The mark itself remained invisible to ordinary sight. The effect manifested within the very being of the target's existence. The target became the focus of an execution order woven into the authority of the spear. Every wound on the marked target began to worsen gradually because the mark weakened the stability of the body and spirit that carried them.
Damage that would normally remain superficial deepened under the influence of the sentence. Injuries spread slightly wider and refused to close with the same efficiency as before. Regeneration slowed because the verdict interfered with the target's ability to maintain cohesion under stress.
Power became less stable. Techniques carried a faint delay or distortion because the condemned state interfered with the target's ability to sustain perfect control.
The effect did not kill immediately. The purpose of the mark lay in narrowing the path of the target's future. Each additional wound gained greater significance than it normally would. Each strike delivered after the mark carried a higher chance of becoming decisive.
Escape became more difficult as the judgment pressed down upon the target's fate and reduced the number of possible outcomes that did not end in execution.
In Haruki's case the process had reached its end.
He had resisted Cao Cao's authority repeatedly during the battle. He had attacked within the domain created by the Treasures. He had been pierced and pressured by the sacred spear. He had engaged in direct hostility while carrying the power of a demonic god whose existence alone satisfied the conditions of corruption and transgression that [Parinayakaratana] recognized as grounds for condemnation.
The system rendered its verdict.
The God of Devils had been judged and found wanting.
Cao Cao felt the moment the sentence took hold. The invisible mark settled over Haruki with finality. The wounds Haruki had already taken began to deepen slightly under the pressure of the judgment. The stability of his power faltered in small ways that only a trained combatant could notice.
The trial had ended. The execution phase had begun. Cao Cao felt it take hold and his confidence surged like flame fed oil.
"Even the god of devils must have suffered damage from that," Cao Cao said, forcing a cold smile.
Haruki looked down at the line of blood on his arm, then at the healing flesh that had already almost sealed over it.
"Meh, It wasn't bad. But still too slow," Haruki mocked.
He moved.
Cao Cao's pupils constricted. He's fast. Insanely so!
Haruki burst through the converging net with no wasted motion whatsoever, and now he was no longer merely evading. One hand touched a Witness knight and black lances erupted from inside the construct, blowing it apart from within. His eyes met a cluster of shadow spawn and he smiled faintly.
"Why don't you all just die? Right now."
The smaller beasts shuddered. Their glowing maws curved into dreadful, obedient smiles. "As you wish."
They erased themselves.
What the hell was that? Cao Cao thought in horror. He can kill people with a single command? This is absurd…just how strong are you? Is there even a limit to what you can do?
Leonardo snarled in outrage as dozens of his own monsters dissolved willingly into nothingness, their forms annihilated under a compulsion too absolute to resist.
Haruki swept an arm and inextinguishable black-red flames manifested across another section of the swarm, beasts igniting without contact, burning with fire that clung to shadow and substance alike. Bandersnatch crashed through each other in an attempt to shed the blaze and only spread it further.
"If you can't put up a better fight than that, I'm calling it a breach of contract," Haruki said.
"You arrogant bastard," Cao Cao snapped.
The Hero Faction had faced gods before. Their history carried the weight of battles against ancient beings whose names filled myths. They had confronted dragons that ruled mountains and skies since the dawn of time, creatures whose presence alone could bend entire nations beneath terror.
Those battles had never required the full strength of the organization. Two members acting in concert had proven sufficient to break even legendary beasts and force them down into the dirt. Each of the seven heroes possessed strength that allowed them to stand against beings on the level of a Satan without support, and the moment they gathered together their combined might formed a force capable of crushing almost any enemy the world could offer.
Cao Cao had believed that truth with the calm certainty of a man who had seen it proven repeatedly.
Yet here he stood with True Longinus blazing in his grasp, the battlefield twisted by the power of his Treasures and Leonardo's monsters filling the sky in dark waves, and the creature they fought had not yet shown the slightest sign that the battle required his full attention.
Haruki Yamashiro moved through their attacks with careless ease, offering mockery and advice in the same breath, brushing aside techniques that had humbled gods and monsters alike. Every exchange hammered the same unbearable conclusion.
Haruki had not yet been forced to fight seriously.
The realization pressed against Cao Cao's pride with growing pressure.
The Seven Heroes stood at the summit of humanity's strength. They carried the legacy of countless generations who had hunted tyrants among the supernatural world and forced them to acknowledge the dominion of man. That belief had never failed him. It had formed the foundation of his identity, the quiet certainty that guided his decisions in battle and in leadership alike.
Haruki's indifference struck directly at that foundation.
The thought that their combined assault still failed to draw out the full measure of his power began to burn inside Cao Cao with an intensity that quickly passed the boundary of irritation and moved toward something far darker.
Pride demanded acknowledgement. Pride demanded resistance worthy of his effort. Pride demanded that an enemy recognize the weight of the spear he carried and the legacy it represented.
Haruki denied that recognition through the simple act of treating the entire battle as entertainment.
The insult burrowed deeper into Cao Cao's thoughts with every passing moment. The calm discipline that usually governed his mind tightened under the strain, and the quiet fury gathering within him found fertile ground in the ancient weakness that lurked inside every warrior who believed in his own strength.
The sin of wrath took hold of him.
The anger spread slowly through his chest and limbs like heat moving through iron placed in a furnace. His grip on the spear tightened until the muscles of his forearm trembled with the effort. Every movement of Haruki's body began to look like deliberate provocation. Every mocking word sounded louder than the clash of their techniques.
Cao Cao felt the growing fire within him and did nothing to suppress it.
If Haruki intended to treat the champions of humanity like toys placed before him for amusement, then Cao Cao would make certain that the next strike forced the creature to acknowledge the weight of the man standing before him.
Cao Cao attacked again before momentum could be lost. [Assaratana] repositioned him three times in one suspended breath, each arrival accompanied by a spear strike from a different impossible direction while Maniratana reflected Haruki's own killing intent back upon him.
The [Jabberwocky] joined the assault, claws now adapted against holy weapons, breath condensed into narrower lances meant to sever even demonic reinforcement.
Haruki caught Cao Cao's next thrust between two fingers.
The holy spear howled. "The light of your spear only makes it easier to see how pathetic you are," Haruki says to cao cao.
Rage flashed hot through Cao Cao, but training mastered it at once. He released the spear with one hand, pivoted, and struck Haruki with a gravity-loaded kick enhanced by [Hatthiratana] while simultaneously calling a ring of Witness executioners down around them.
Leonardo capitalized on it without wasting a single second. The [Jabberwocky] slammed both claws into the space around Haruki and unleashed an adaptive offense designed to drain Haruki's ability to regenerate while four remaining [Bandersnatch] locked on with coordinated pounces.
This time Haruki did not simply slip away.
He let the attacks land.
The kick drove him sideways. The Witness lances pierced his shoulder and flank. A Bandersnatch tore across his back. One of [Jabberwocky's] claws punched through his abdomen.
Cao Cao's breath hitched.
Haruki looked down at the claw protruding from his stomach and then back up with mild curiosity, as though this development were academically interesting. Dark blood ran down his side.
Then his hand rose to his mouth in a casual half-cough, fingers curled before his lips in a strangely elegant gesture.
Something appeared.
A spear of purest light manifested in his hand with a low, murderous hum that made even Cao Cao freeze. Cao Cao felt Cakkaratana recoil in alarm at the presence of a weapon that understood piercing as something final.
Haruki turned his wrist.
The world screamed.
The [Jabberwocky's] claws sheared away. Every Witness within thirty meters split apart through center mass. A spear-line extended through them, through air, through force, through the very idea of opposition, and only [Maniratana's] frantic mirrored redirection saved Cao Cao from being bisected on the spot.
Even so, the reflected route burned his side open as the attack's force scraped past him and vanished into a distant horizon that did not truly exist.
Haruki stepped free of the [Jabberwocky's] impalement while his body healed visibly, flesh knitting faster than it could be damaged.
Cao Cao's mind raced.
The ability to stop time… Power of Destruction… Internal impalement… Absolute command over weaker beings… Illusions through eye contact…A spear that nullified forces… Perpetual flame… Regeneration. Gravity manipulation. That impossible crack effect. The trait-nullification he had glimpsed in their exchanges. How does he have so many abilities? And they're all-
The pieces slammed together.
"Wait," Cao Cao said, his voice rising as realization struck him. "The Power of Destruction of House Bael… The time manipulation of House Agares… The Crack of House Belphegor…You can use all of them. Every demonic ability belonging to every noble house. No!..Not just the clan abilities. Y-you can use any demonic power ever created by devils. That's your authority as the god of devils."
Haruki gave him a polite little nod, as though congratulating a student for finally solving an obvious riddle. "That took you longer than I expected."
Leonardo answered with fury. The battlefield darkened as more shadow flooded upward from beneath nothingness itself. The [Bandersnatch] that remained swelled, their armored hides thickening with immunity, while the [Jabberwocky's] central core brightened and rings of adaptation spun around it in violent succession.
"Supreme Demonic Beasts of Ruin: Monster Genesis." Leonardo shouted.
Hundreds became thousands. Winged hunters, armored quadrupeds, crawling predators, serpentine maws, all spilling across the halted terrain like a living catastrophe.
Cao Cao did not waste the opening. [Gahapatiratana] expanded in answer, multiplying Witnesses across the sky until radiant lancers filled the false heavens opposite the sea of shadow. Two armies formed around Haruki, gold against black, judgment against ruin.
"Come on, Leo, Cao Cao, surely you could entertain me a bit more than that?" Haruki mocks them.
The insult did what it was meant to do, because the two of them answered with everything.
[Hatthiratana] expanded into The Hanging Heaven, overturning local gravity across kilometers of frozen world. The battlefield became a three-dimensional execution chamber. Entire sections of terrain rose into the air. Shadow monsters were inverted and hurled upward.
Haruki himself was suddenly buried beneath continent-like weight from six shifting vectors while Leonardo's army rushed through the floating debris.
Balance Breaker: Polar Night Longinus Chakravartin
Cao Cao's Balance Breaker unfurled.
Six wings of white-gold light spread from his back. The halo behind him widened into a colossal wheel of seven nested rings. The sky above, already unnatural, darkened into black-gold twilight as divine law gathered around the spear. He looked less like a man than a herald of sacred disaster.
Leonardo's response matched it. The shadow ocean deepened, and through the [Jabberwocky's] command the beast-army attained a higher degree of coordination. Every monster shared information instantly. Every adaptation spread the moment it was acquired.
They struck together in the most beautiful assault Cao Cao had ever led.
Witnesses formed execution circles beneath Haruki while [Bandersnatch] pounced from blind angles generated by Assaratana's route shifts. [Maniratana] reflected Haruki's force attacks back into Leonardo's monsters so that the beasts learned faster.
The [Jabberwocky] fired successive beams calibrated to pressure regeneration, then shifted to anti-force claws, then to demonic energy-draining breath the moment resistance patterns emerged.
Cao Cao himself darted through fractured moments, appearing before, behind, above, and beneath Haruki with the elongated apocalypse spear tearing world-lines open wherever it passed.
This time Haruki's expression changed.
Not fear.
Something closer to interest.
He began to answer with greater seriousness.
A look from him sent an illusion roaring across the field and for half a second Cao Cao saw twelve Harukis instead of one, each moving with slightly different timing, each carrying a different spear, each smiling with a different degree of mockery.
Witness records broke into contradictions. [Maniratana] redirected against phantom intentions. Two [Bandersnatch] tore apart allies that were not truly there. Cao Cao burned through the deception by relying on [Parinayakaratana's] mark rather than sight and lunged for the one fate still narrowing toward execution.
Haruki rewarded the effort by catching the thrust on his palm and unleashing gravity from his own hand so violently that Cao Cao's wings folded inward under the pressure and his body cratered through three layers of floating stone.
Pain rang through him.
Before Haruki could follow up, Leonardo intervened. The [Jabberwocky] crashed down like a collapsing fortress, jaws closing around Haruki while [Bandersnatch] wrapped his limbs and shadow spawn swarmed every line of motion. A beam of darkness detonated point-blank. The explosion swallowed half the battlefield and stained the frozen air with a black sun.
For an instant Cao Cao could not see Haruki at all.
Good, he thought savagely, let him endure that.
The smoke split.
Haruki walked out of it with burnt clothing, fresh blood on his cheek, and flesh already reweaving beneath a skin of dying flame. One of his eyes was slightly narrowed now, almost offended by the inconvenience.
When Cao Cao met his eyes, he felt terror akin to a priest in front of the devil.
I knew..! I knew it, but I didn't think the difference would be this great, Cao Cao thought, horror pushing ice through his veins even as he rose again.
Haruki looked at the scorched wound on his side where the breath and holy judgment had combined deeply enough to harm him, then glanced toward Leonardo's army.
"Well done," he said, almost warmly. "You actually managed to hit me."
Cao Cao heard the hidden meaning and hated it.
Managed to hit me.
As though actual injury were still another league away.
He refused to yield to that thought. All seven treasures were active now, the trial nearly complete, the conditions converging toward final execution. If he could hold Haruki in place for one breath, just one, [Last Day- First Spear] could decide it.
Cao Cao and Leonardo changed tactics at once.
Instead of brute convergence they began to isolate and bait. Witnesses recorded every motion and passed those records through relay nodes while [Bandersnatch] adapted to Haruki's usual counters. [Maniratana] was used more subtly, reflecting intent at oblique moments rather than obvious ones, making Haruki's own dismissive attacks inconvenience his footing and sightlines.
[Assaratana] dragged monsters into sacrificial positions, forcing Haruki to either waste effort or give ground. Bit by bit, impossibly, they made him work.
Haruki smiled through it. Cao Cao trembled.
"You see," Haruki said while snapping a Pursuing Witness's neck and impaling two Bandersnatch from within with a touch to the ground, "this is much better. You almost look competent when you stop preaching…hmm, interesting. I had thought that Leornardo was hiding within his monsters, but it seems I was wrong."
Cao cao felt his blood still. Does he know?
"Very good," he said, turning slowly as the swarm surrounded him. "The summoner should always be somewhere the opponent won't find him. It's one of the first lessons anyone commanding monsters ought to learn. That part, Leonardo, you understand beautifully. The question is, where are you hiding?"
Leonardo remained silent. Good. Let Haruki think of it as mere observation.
Then Haruki tilted his head.
Too late. He already knows, Cao Cao despaired.
His eyes drifted past the visible field, into some angle of reality Cao Cao could not perceive. The faint amusement in his face sharpened into genuine appreciation.
"Oh," Haruki murmured. "That's actually clever. He is hiding in a different dimension. One that can't easily be accessed or found. Amazing!"
Cao Cao attacked immediately to break the moment.
Apocalypse Longinus: Last Day, First Spear.
All seven rings aligned.
The six wings folded inward. The halo became a singular black-gold sun. Every prior wound Haruki had sustained flared under [Parinayakaratana's] authority and for one grave instant judgment seized him. Time seemed to pause even within the stopped world as Cao Cao cast the spear through the center of divine verdict, world-line penetration erupting forward in a single absolute outcome.
Leonardo, understanding without words, committed everything to the opening. The [Jabberwocky] and every surviving beast hurled themselves into containment patterns, shadow and force wrapping the path so Haruki could not angle away cleanly. Even the lesser spawn died willingly to reinforce the corridor of death.
The blast hit.
It tore through Haruki and beyond him in a line that seemed to split the world itself. Light flooded the false dimension. For a brief, glorious heartbeat Cao Cao believed.
Then Haruki stood there with the spear-wound through his torso, one hand buried in the shaft of holy judgment, expression unreadable.
He coughed once, softly, blood at the corner of his mouth. Then his fingers tightened. "Worthless." Haruki declared.
Cao Cao felt it happen. Haruki had understood the mechanism, understood the gathered verdict, the fused trial, the converged authority that made the strike what it was, and he stripped away its defining property. The holy penetration that should have ended kings and devils alike became worthless.
Haruki broke the spear-line apart.
The backlash threw Cao Cao out of the sky, wings scattering light.
Leonardo launched the full swarm in desperate response, and the balance breaker of [monster genesis] answered, ten thousand lesser shadows pouring outward in shrieking waves while the Jabberwocky prepared another evolved kill pattern and the [Bandersnatch] boxed Haruki in through fixing him in his place, unable to move.
Haruki exhaled.
His hand covered his mouth in that same almost courteous gesture, and the black spear appeared again.
Across the ocean of shadow, inside ten thousand monsters at once, spears erupted from within. Their bodies burst in synchronized ruin, impaled from the inside out by invisible, inescapable lances that flowered through the chest, skull, spine, and gut. The false battlefield became a forest of internal executions. Thousands died in the same instant, their destruction so total that even Leonardo's network choked on the feedback.
The [Jabberwocky] roared and lunged, adaptation rings spinning wildly, claws now sharpened for anti-regeneration and anti-force penetration both.
Haruki met it head on.
For the first time his grin showed teeth.
He stepped inside the colossal swipe, laid one hand upon the commander beast's chest, and a pulse of raw [Power of Destruction] erased a massive circular section of the monster from existence. Shadow, armor, flesh, core casing, all gone as though they had never existed.
The [Jabberwocky] staggered, regeneration trying frantically to answer, and Haruki's second hand carved a structural tear across the wound. [Crack] spread through the beast's remaining cohesion. Its ability to hold itself together began to leak away.
Still it fought.
Cao Cao admired that even now.
He forced himself up through agony, summoned what remained of his light, and prepared one last coordinated rush, but Haruki was no longer watching him. Not fully. Some significant portion of his attention had gone elsewhere, reaching along dimensional seams that the Witnesses had never truly seen.
Cao Cao felt cold understanding dawn.
Leonardo had hidden himself outside the obvious field, tucked away in another pocket dimension created by George's Dimension Lost while commanding through shadow creatures. It had been brilliant. It had also just ceased to be enough.
Haruki's eyes tracked something invisible. His smile softened into delighted recognition.
Cao Cao launched himself anyway, spear blazing, because to do anything else would be surrender and he had never yet learned how.
Haruki batted him aside with insulting ease, neither cruel nor hurried, like a man absentmindedly moving furniture while thinking about something more interesting. Cao Cao crashed, rose to one knee, and saw Haruki turning, not toward any visible enemy, but toward a particular empty place in the frozen air where nothing at all appeared different to mortal senses.
Then Haruki chuckled. "Now where are you little Leo," he said, almost fondly. He took one step through nothing. Reality shivered around the point his gaze had fixed upon.
Damn it! Cao Cao cursed. I can't stop him.
Haruki's grin widened. "Found you!"
AN: This chapter was straight-up hell to edit, especially with all the names of the different techniques. Writing it wasn't easy either, because I decided to make things harder for myself by imposing a limit: I wanted to showcase as many abilities and skills from Cao Cao and Leonardo as possible.
Now, you may also be wondering why I chose to write the fight from Cao Cao's perspective when it would have been much easier to write it from Haruki's. Hmm, good question, my dear readers. The answer is pure ego. Since Cao Cao is the underdog here (in terms of raw power), I thought it would be more entertaining to experience the fight from his perspective. Unfortunately, I only realized the sheer difficulty of that decision after I had already started. By that point, my stubborn mind had already invested too much time, so I had to see it through out of sheer pride.
On a somewhat unrelated note, the True Longinus in canon honestly sucks. It's supposed to be the most powerful of all the Longinus, yet its actual showing is such a letdown. One of its abilities is to completely stop the special abilities of women for a short time. For fuck's sake, are you fucking kidding me? Why women specifically? And you're telling me the God of the Bible sat there and decided, "Yeah, that sounds like a fitting ability for the strongest Longinus of them all." I know it's a harem series, but come on. All the other Longinus have genuinely cool powers.
And I also can't wrap my head around the claim that the True Longinus is capable of destroying the world. That's probably hyperbole, but still. ..because of that, I decided to buff its abilities a bit so that it at least feels threatening.