The truth was laid bare in an instant—no matter how deep or terrifying one imagined the abyss of hell to be, it could never hope to contain the endless desires of humanity… nor the boundless darkness born from them.
The chasm, vast as a canyon and bottomless as eternity, was swiftly flooded by a surging tide of black mire. The wailing spirits within it scattered in panic, fleeing as though escaping some catastrophic force of nature.
Yet after the black sludge roiled and churned for a time, it began to shift.
It gathered. Condensed.
And then—one after another—it took on humanoid forms.
Facial features emerged, growing clearer by the second.
Before long, the long-absent army of oni—formed from "All the World's Evil"—stood once more upon the battlefield.
And the moment they appeared, they charged.
With savage ferocity, they pursued the fleeing spirits that had escaped from the Abyss of Wailing, hunting them down without mercy.
"Pathetic wretches of shadow and spite! You dare harbor malice toward our sovereign?! Within this domain, we are both blade and shield—none shall stand before our lord!"
Hearing the thunderous roar of the Five Oni Generals, Ren Kuroda instinctively covered his face in exasperation.
Same as always…
Every single time, their over-the-top, chuunibyou-style declarations filled him with secondhand embarrassment.
Back when Ren had first lost himself to corruption, these oni—his army within the Innate Domain—had sacrificed themselves, transforming into the very force that resisted the erosion of his sanity, merging into his body to help him regain control.
It wasn't until recently, when Ren finally gained a measure of control over the power of "All the World's Evil," that they were able to return—reborn within his domain.
And honestly… while their personalities leaned heavily toward the dramatic, there was no questioning their loyalty.
It was absolute.
Moreover, as Ren's own strength had grown, so too had theirs. Even the most basic oni soldier now possessed power that easily reached the A+ tier.
Though they wore the form of oni, their true essence remained that of "All the World's Evil." It was precisely this that filled the wailing spirits with overwhelming terror.
And the oni showed no mercy.
Whenever they caught a spirit, they would either tear it apart with their bare hands—or swallow it whole.
Enma, as the apparent ruler of the Root Country, possessed authority over the dead. Yet she had never imagined that the spirits she summoned would not only fail to achieve anything—but would instead become prey for another's army.
Whether in quality or quantity, the oni forces Ren had summoned far surpassed her wraiths.
Ordinary people already struggled to deal with incorporeal spirits.
And yet these oni—radiating the same sinister aura as the domain itself—could grasp, rip apart, and devour them with ease.
Soldier against soldier. General against general.
Even as Enma was still grappling with the question of what kind of existence could summon such an army so effortlessly—
Ren moved.
With a single step, he drove his foot into the ground, leaving behind a deep crater. The distance of several hundred meters vanished as if it were nothing, and in the blink of an eye, he appeared directly before her.
"Fūrinkazan Style—Swift as the Wind: Breaker Legion!"
The divine wind howled.
A raging gale followed the arc of his blade, slicing through the earth in an instant and unleashing a crescent-shaped slash of azure light that shot toward Enma.
For a fleeting moment, Enma's mind faltered, captivated by the sheer brilliance of his swordsmanship.
But in that razor-thin instant before impact, she reacted—channeling the majority of her yokai power into the kiseru in her hand, raising it to block.
The crescent slash collided with the pipe, wrapped in dense yokai energy.
The clash of power twisted the surrounding space itself.
But the outcome was clear.
Though it was a collision of yokai force against yokai force, Ren's attack—charged and unleashed with intent—far exceeded Enma's hastily raised defense.
The impact drove her back over a hundred meters.
A deep trench carved through the ground in the wake of the slash. And when the attack finally shattered, the scattered fragments of wind blades blasted outward—knocking the ornamental hairpin from her head and severing several strands of her hair.
All things considered, the attack hadn't inflicted serious damage.
But it had left her disheveled.
Gone was the composed, regal air she had carried before.
In its place… a faint but undeniable unease.
The overwhelming power and combat skill Ren had displayed earlier—those hadn't even been his specialty?
Judging from that strike alone, he was unmistakably a true master of the blade.
"That surprised you? That won't do, Lady Enma," Ren's voice rang out lightly. "We're still in the middle of a fight. Losing focus can be fatal."
The sudden voice snapped Enma back to reality.
A flash of silver exploded through the air—
She barely managed to evade another slash by the narrowest of margins.
And in that very instant, as Ren's strike missed its mark, Enma countered.
From beneath the slit of her fox-fur cloak, that long, elegant leg—stretching nearly 1.2 meters—lashed out like a whip toward his head.
"Enma Style—Soul-Shattering Kick!"
Ren's blade had missed, but instead of retreating, he raised his left arm to block the incoming strike.
Her pale leg struck his arm.
A thunderous sonic boom exploded through the air.
With both Half-Oni Transformation and Drunken Frenzy active, Ren was confident that in terms of raw strength, he surpassed Enma. That was why he chose not to evade her attack.
And the reality seemed to support his judgment.
The force behind her kick was immense—easily enough to kill an SSS-tier yokai with a single blow.
But Ren caught it.
Solidly.
Yet the moment Enma saw her attack successfully blocked, she showed no frustration.
Instead…
A faint, alluring smile curled across her lips.
The instant Ren noticed it, a sense of danger flickered in his mind.
And then—
His consciousness wavered.
Just for a moment.
At the same time, the arm that had blocked her kick was suddenly wracked with intense pain.
Not pain of flesh.
Not even of bone.
It was something deeper.
Something that struck directly at the soul.
Before Ren could even process what had happened—
Enma's other leg was already in motion.
It drove straight into his abdomen.
With his mind momentarily unsteady, he failed to react in time.
The blow connected.
And in the next instant, his body shot backward like a meteor—faster than the breaking of the sound barrier, tearing through the air in violent bursts.
His body smashed across the ground, carving a trench nearly a thousand meters long, before finally crashing into a pile of shattered debris and coming to a stop.
Enma wasn't a strength-type yokai.
But she was still a being of planet-shattering class.
Given that Ren had been caught completely off guard, the sheer destructive force of that kick… was hardly surprising.