"Uh..."
A thick line of black sweat hung over Himeno's forehead.
In all her years as a Devil Hunter, this was genuinely the first time she had ever witnessed an individual acting so utterly subservient to a contracted entity.
"That doesn't even feel like a contract anymore! It feels like you're straight up summoning an Outer God!" Power bellowed at the top of her lungs, pointing a dramatic finger at Kobeni.
"What do you guys know?! When you invoke someone's power for the first time, you have to be formal enough!" Kobeni pouted, shouting back at them defensively.
What she kept to herself, however, was that based on her fleeting interactions with the entity, the Moon Demon clearly possessed a strong vanity for this exact brand of theatrical deference.
She might not have attended college, but that didn't mean she was a complete simpleton like Denji or Power. Just because she was easily panicked didn't mean she lacked functional survival instincts.
Right on cue, a familiar, smooth voice echoed directly beside her ear.
"You lack true devotion, but your flattery is acceptable." Zoran's detached, clinical commentary floated into her mind.
"You're finally speaking to me again!"
Kobeni's eyes lit up instantly. Her mind had already mapped the conceptual correlation between the moon and the absolute authority over gravitational force.
She thrust her arm outward, her slender finger snapping into alignment with the massive silhouette of the Eternity Devil.
A look of profound bewilderment flitted across the entity's distorted countenances.
An eerie stillness enveloped the entire interior of the hotel.
Finally, Kobeni began to mumble, her voice trembling slightly as she articulated her demand: "In the name of... uh, the Moon... let gravity descend, or whatever!"
She officially broadcast her desire.
"Boo! What kind of lame line was that?! Come on, let's just butcher Denji instead!" Power yelled boisterously.
Himeno could only shake her head with a helpless sigh.
Meanwhile, completely hidden from their line of sight.
In reality, Zoran was simply observing her with icy detachment, making no move to intervene personally.
The moment the contract had been officially finalized, a portion of the Moon Demon Chi residing within him had already permanently seeded itself within her biology. What Kobeni was currently manipulating was merely that small, localized reservoir of Moon Demon Chi inside her own flesh.
As for the actual output threshold? That was entirely dictated by the magnitude of her own mental visualization.
Zoran never had any intention of exerting his own strength.
This was precisely why, during their brief exchange back in the room, he had informed the others that the final outcome would rest entirely upon Kobeni's own discretion.
Therefore, while Kobeni appeared to be offering a desperate prayer to Zoran, she was in actuality merely throwing open the floodgates of the Moon Demon Chi that she already possessed.
And so.
A fraction of a second later.
Amidst the mocking laughter of her peers, a cataclysmic tremor descended upon reality.
The hotel, which had been locked in an unbreakable, infinite spatial loop, suddenly had every single floor above the eighth level completely ripped away by an invisible, cosmic hand. The gloomy, claustrophobic stairwells vanished into nothingness.
The world was abruptly flooded with brilliant illumination.
It was a piercing, blinding glare, akin to the sensation a sewer rat experiences when suddenly dragged into the midday sun.
Kobeni remained frozen in her stance, her finger still pointed stiffly ahead. Her slender frame trembled violently with raw anxiety.
The solitary thought consuming her mind was a desperate curiosity to gauge exactly how terrifying the power she had bargained for truly was. Consequently, her subconscious setting for the energy deployment was dialed to the absolute limit.
Maximum output. One hundred percent.
A sudden, inescapable cosmic hum reverberated through the air, forcing everyone to instinctively wrench their gazes upward toward the newly exposed expanse above.
In a single, terrifying heartbeat, the heavens underwent a violent transformation.
An unnatural, pitch-black shroud of night crashed down upon the landscape.
High up in the firmament, the originally pristine, silver moon abruptly twisted into a corrupted hue of purplish-black. The celestial body, which had previously appeared no larger than a clenched fist, began to expand at a visible, terrifying velocity, ballooning across the sky.
Power's eyes bulged to the size of saucers as she cheered in sheer exhilaration, "Whoa! The moon is coming straight for the Great Me!"
Himeno's jaw dropped in absolute horror. The realization hit her like a physical blow; without a second thought, she lunged across the floor, tackling Kobeni violently into the dirt.
"Kobeni!" she shrieked, her voice cracking with terror.
"Huh?"
Kobeni blinked in complete confusion, entirely oblivious to the gravity of what she had just set in motion. Her attention had been entirely locked onto the Eternity Devil, whose massive, fleshy architecture was currently trembling as every single face across its body contorted in raw, unadulterated panic.
"Stop it right now! You're going to destroy the entire world!" Himeno screamed, exerting every ounce of physical strength she possessed to pin the girl down.
"Himeno? What do you mean?"
"The moon is about to collide with the Earth!" Aki Hayakawa reacted with identical, split-second speed, rushing forward to assist Himeno in completely neutralizing Kobeni's movements.
Had they been even a fraction of a second slower, nobody in this room would ever have to stress about whether or not to continue working as Devil Hunters again.
"Eh?" Kobeni lay flat on her stomach, her expression entirely vacant.
"What do you mean... destroy the world?" She still hadn't fully processed the cosmic catastrophe occurring outside. "There are seven billion people on this planet," she mumbled inanely.
Power, mimicking their movements, flopped onto the floor as well, turning her head sideways against the concrete to peer up at Kobeni.
"Hey, the Great Me wants to see the moon come closer! Do it again! I'll even let you have my Nobel Prize if you do!" She uttered a thoroughly unhinged proposition.
With the entire hotel structure sheared open by the gravitational anomalies, the ambient sounds and lights of the outside world rushed into the space.
The deafening, mechanical wails of emergency sirens began to echo frantically through the streets and alleyways outside.
"Emergency broadcast from the Meteorological Agency. Emergency broadcast from the Meteorological Agency. Please evacuate all coastal zones and the Tokyo Bay perimeter immediately. A Category 4 megatsunami is currently making landfall along the coast, with maximum wave peaks projected to exceed forty meters..."
"Emergency broadcast from the Meteorological Agency..."
Amidst the chaotic, ear-splitting din of the sirens, a deeply dazed Kobeni was hauled back to her feet by Aki and Himeno.
"Power, muffle her mouth!"
The two veterans securely pinned one of her arms each, their countenances incredibly grim, while Power promptly lunged forward to clamp a hand firmly over Kobeni's mouth.
Aki and Himeno, the only two individuals in this entire squad who possessed functional analytical minds, looked as though they were utterly terrified that another prayer or incantation might slip past Kobeni's lips at any given second. Their hearts were hammering violently against their ribs, threatening to burst from their chests.
Himeno didn't find any of this remotely funny anymore.
She exchanged a horrified glance with Aki, a sudden, chilling epiphany dawning upon them regarding the identity of the devil Kobeni had contracted with.
It was an entity of absolute, apocalyptic terror.
If they had been even a hair slower just now, the resulting global devastation would have been mathematically unquantifiable. It would have completely eclipsed the historical casualties of the Gun Devil in a matter of seconds!
The Gun Devil, an entity universally dreaded and feared by every nation on Earth, would absolutely not even be worthy of wiping the boots of the entity Kobeni had just invoked.
Meanwhile, Kobeni stood entirely frozen, looking precisely like a clueless heifer that had stopped mid-chew to stare blankly into space.
"Push the moon back! Right now! Use whatever method you have to!" Himeno urged, her voice cracking with raw fear.
Kobeni nodded automatically in a numb daze, closing her eyes to project her compliance inward.
A few moments later, amidst a chorus of ragged, terrified hyperventilation, the group finally managed to steady their breathing enough to cast their gazes toward the Eternity Devil.
The entity had completely ceased its boasting and its mocking laughter. It kept its collective mouths tightly shut, remaining as completely silent and well-behaved as an elementary schooler caught misbehaving by a teacher during quiet study hours.
With the entire hotel infrastructure above their current floor completely erased from existence, escaping was now a simple matter of walking out.
The Eternity Devil's voice suddenly became incredibly small, cautious, and subservient, muttering one syllable at a time: "So... uh... I won't overstay my welcome. I'll just be going now, heh heh."
The massive, undulating mounds of flesh began to flow down the stairwells like a receding tide.
Simultaneously, the furious, mechanical roar of a chainsaw ripped through the air.
"You bastard!" Denji, fully transformed into Chainsaw Man, dove headfirst into the mass of shifting flesh, unleashing a violent torrent of crimson gore.
The Eternity Devil possessed neither the courage nor the physical capacity to retaliate; it could only emit a continuous string of agonized shriekings and pathetic pleas for mercy. Now that the pocket dimension it had constructed was shattered to pieces, even the concept of escape had become a luxury entirely beyond its reach.
The wet, rhythmic grinding of iron teeth chewing through muscle fibers echoed without pause, spraying bloody chunks of tissue across the ruined walls.
Kobeni was gently steered, or more accurately, heavily chaperoned, by Aki and Himeno through the wreckage.
Mr. Demon? With her mouth securely muffled from the outside, she could only scream frantically within the confines of her own mind.
Only now had the full weight of reality finally crashed down upon her, allowing her to realize exactly how monstrous of a cosmic blunder she had almost committed. A profound sense of dread gripped her, plunging her into absolute terror.
Speak, a single, monosyllabic response manifested in her consciousness, the deep tone carrying a distinct, highly amused undercurrent of someone watching a thoroughly entertaining comedy.
Are you... completely invincible?
Kobeni's cheeks flushed a bright, burning crimson, the terrifying awe of his power and a bizarre, underlying trace of exhilaration knotting together tightly within the depths of her soul.
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