"A Podium?" Haruki thought, his mind racing even as his body screamed in agony. "You want to build a stage? Now?"
"Not a stage, kid," Rax corrected, his voice grim but focused. "A focal point. A place for the final performance."
The plan was insane. It was a suicide note written in flames.
"Here is the geometry," Sol cut in, projecting a wireframe overlay into Haruki's vision. It showed the room they were in—the spire hall. Four points. The cardinal directions. "Rico is a Great Demon. A Primordial. Modern magic, system skills, complex mana constructs—they slide off him like water because his existence predates the logic they are built on."
"So we hit him with something older," Haruki realized.
"Exactly," Rax said. "Fire. The first tool. The oldest weapon. It doesn't need logic. It just needs fuel. We use your SSS+ skill to saturate the room from four corners simultaneously. We compress the space. We turn this hall into a kiln."
"And if the fire doesn't burn him?" Haruki asked.
"Then we blast every scrap of remaining energy from your hand and vaporize the whole room," Sol replied coldly. "It is a binary outcome. Success, or ash."
"Great options," Haruki muttered. "But... I'm lying in a crater. How do I plant fire in four corners?"
"Leave that to us," Rax said. "We can manifest the flame remotely for a few seconds if we burn through your reserves. But we need time to position the packets."
"How much time?"
"Ten seconds," Sol estimated. "Maybe twelve."
Haruki looked up. Rico was shaking off the confusion from the earthquake. The Demon was turning back to them, the madness returning to his eyes.
"That's an eternity," Haruki whispered.
"There is a problem," Sol noted. "You have to distract him. You have to keep him from sensing the fire placements. And you have to not die."
Haruki coughed, the taste of copper filling his mouth. He looked to his side. Commander Vorian was unconscious, his breathing shallow, his legs ruined.
*I can't fight,* Haruki thought. *I can't cast.*
But he didn't need to fight.
He looked at Vorian's massive, armored form. Then he looked at the exit on the far side of the hall—a narrow archway leading to a lower catwalk.
"Haruki, what are you doing?" Sol asked, detecting a spike in his heart rate.
"Buying time," Haruki said.
He reached down, grabbing the collar of Vorian's breastplate. The man weighed a ton. The armor alone was over a hundred kilograms.
"Rax. Sol. Give me motor function override. Now."
"Your lumbar spine is—"
"I don't care about my spine!" Haruki snarled in his mind. "Override!"
[SYSTEM ALERT: MANUAL OVERRIDE ENGAGED]
[PAIN SUPPRESSION: 100%]
Haruki's body locked up, then surged with a desperate, jagged energy. He didn't stand up gracefully. He exploded upward, hauling the unconscious Commander onto his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Rico stopped. He stared.
"The... the Porter?" Rico blinked. "You're still moving? You have no arms, no mana, your bones are dust. Why do you persist?"
Haruki didn't answer. He didn't banter. He just ran.
He ran faster than he had ever run in his life. Not towards the exit. Towards the wall. He needed to move. He needed to be a blur.
"H-Hey!" Rico shouted, stunned. The audacity of it—a human, carrying a knight, running on broken legs—short-circuited his rage for a precious second.
Then, the Demon smiled.
"Running? Good. I love the chase."
Rico launched forward, gliding on strings.
"Sol, now!" Haruki screamed internally.
[DEPLOYING FIRE PACKETS: NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, WEST]
As Haruki sprinted, four small, glowing motes of white-hot fire peeled off from his body, invisible to the naked eye in the chaos of his movement. They darted to the corners of the room, embedding themselves into the obsidian walls.
But Rico was fast. Too fast.
He closed the distance in a heartbeat.
"Got you!"
Rico swung a kick, aiming to take Haruki's head off.
Haruki didn't dodge.
He dropped.
He dropped into a slide that would have made his high school gym teacher proud. He skidded across the polished floor, Vorian's armor clanging loudly, sparks flying.
*Rico doesn't know,* Haruki thought, a manic focus narrowing his vision. *He thinks I'm a Porter. He thinks I'm a desk worker.*
But in his previous life, in Japan, Haruki Sora had never skipped a single PE class.
He had practiced the 50-meter dash. He had practiced shuttle runs. He had perfected the art of efficient movement because he never had the energy to waste.
He slid under Rico's floating form.
"WHAT—?!"
Haruki kicked off the ground, pivoting on his heel, shifting Vorian's weight. He blasted toward the archway.
"Come back here!" Rico roared, spinning around.
He lashed out with a string.
It caught Haruki's ankle.
*SNAP.*
Haruki didn't stop. He dragged the string with him, the wire cutting deep into his flesh, but he refused to fall. He crossed the threshold of the archway.
"NOW!" Haruki screamed.
"DETONATE!" Rax roared.
Inside the hall, the four motes of fire ignited.
They didn't explode outward. They screamed inward.
*Solar Flare: Quadrant Convergence.*
Four pillars of white fire erupted from the walls, meeting in the center of the room, creating a crossfire of pure primordial heat.
Rico, floating in the center, was caught.
"AAAAAAARGH!"
The scream was deafening. The fire latched onto him. It was the primitive, hungry fire that Sol and Rax had promised. It didn't care about his ancient magic. It just burned.
Haruki collapsed onto the catwalk, dumping Vorian safely behind a pillar. He looked back.
Through the archway, he saw the inferno.
But he also saw the shadow.
The fire was burning him, yes. But Rico was still standing.
"It's not enough," Sol said, his voice tight. "His regeneration is keeping pace with the burn. We need more."
"We don't have more," Haruki wheezed.
"We have the last resort," Rax said. "The hand. The direct blast."
"If I do that, I'll blow the whole structure," Haruki said. "We'll fall into the abyss."
"We're falling anyway," Rax said. "Do it, kid. End the show."
Rico stepped out of the fire. His skin was charred black, his stumps were cauterized stumps of cooked meat. But his eyes... his eyes were glowing with a hatred that defied the heat.
"YOU... BURNED... ME..."
He raised his foot to stomp the ground and bring the ceiling down.
Haruki looked at his left hand. The one with the SSS+ skill. The one that held the power of a collapsed star.
He took a breath.
*Grandma. I adapted.*
"Haruki?" Sol asked softly.
Haruki stood up. He faced the archway. He aimed his palm at the ceiling above Rico—the keystone of the spire.
"Cataclysm Touch," Haruki whispered.
He released everything.
[MANA OUTPUT: 400%]
[WARNING: SYSTEM CRITICAL]
A beam of blinding, chaotic light shot from his hand.
It hit the keystone.
*BOOM.*
The dungeon roared.
And the world turned white.
TO BE CONTINUED...