The Throes of Prophecy

[The Bhalian Empire]

A beam of iridescent, drilling force erupted from the vortex of the strike. ..It didn't just travel toward G'hor; it erased the distance between them as if the space in between had never existed, as though the universe itself decided that the Mazoku's existence and Kin's attack should occupy the same moment in time..

The attack carried the compartmentalized weight of G'hor's own power, multiplied by the soul-eating hunger of the Void Pyre and the kinetic snap of the universe itself returning to its natural state. It was betrayal weaponized, art perverted into annihilation...

..and as the spiraling beam of Judgment converged on the Mazoku, Kin opened his eyes. The cyan and fuchsia light reflected in his violet pupils—a cold, ancient gaze witnessing the exact moment a legend met its match. Should the blow land, G'hor would find that even his mighty physical form would be decimated from the chest down...

The spiraling beam of Judgment descended upon G’hor like a celestial spear cast from the hand of a wrathful god, erasing the distance between predator and prey in a single impossible instant. The atmosphere shrieked around the blistering vortex of Kin's abyssal strike, roaring with the concentrated force of G’hor’s own power turned against him.

Yet even then—G’hor stood firm.

Not because he lacked the speed to evade.. Though truthfully, even the mighty Executioner barely had enough time to comprehend the horror racing toward him before it arrived.

No, G'hor remained where he stood because to retreat from an enemy’s attack would have been an admission of weakness.. And Mazoku did not yield ground before lesser beings.

Instinct alone drove his massive arms upward moments before the arcane strike collided against him. And the world buckled beneath the apocalyptic force of impact.

A colossal pillar of cyan, fuchsia, and abyssal black erupted across the battlefield as shockwaves tore over the continent in oscillating rings of annihilation. Mountains were torn apart beneath the pressure while the heavens overhead were peeled open in spiraling layers, exposing glimpses of the dark void lurking beyond the atmosphere itself.

All of Qiyoto vanished beneath the radiance.. And all the while, G’hor suffered at the epicenter of the hellish light show.

The beam drove him downward with enough force to rupture the crust beneath the city before hurling his colossal frame violently across the ruined districts. His body skidded along its back through shattered towers and collapsing streets, carving an enormous blood streaked canyon through the remains of Qiyoto while molten debris erupted skyward in his wake.

Then—Silence.

Nothing but smoke and ash rose from the ruined trench where G’hor finally came to a halt. The Executioner’s armor had been almost entirely obliterated. Ancient plates once forged to withstand cataclysmic impacts now hung melted and ruined from his frame like smoldering slag. One of his massive arms had been pierced clean through, exposing shattered bone and torn sinew beneath ruined flesh.

Entire portions of his torso had been blasted away altogether, revealing mangled organs and steaming musculature beneath layers of charred fur.

Hardly a groan escaped his muzzle.. but still, he didn't move. His injuries were.. significant. Any other creature that chose to challenge Kinslayer's unmitigated wrath would have been reduced to vapor. And yet, as he remained still— his body fluctuating with residual bolts of dark energy from the Void Pyre, Ghor's flesh began to move on its own.

Muscle fibers slowly began reconnecting strand by strand beneath the open wounds. Fractured bone regenerated with violent audible cracks while rivers of naten surged upward directly from the ashened soil beneath his feet and through his veins like molten steel.

Through Shinjutsu, the planet itself nourished and restored his monstrous physiology at a truly terrifying speed.

And then, G’hor stood..

Slowly and calmly, as though the devastation inflicted upon his body had merely been an inconvenience. But even still… the metaphysical scars he endured couldnt be ignored.

Kinslayer’s attack had not merely wounded flesh. It had carved into the Mazoku’s spirit itself.

And for the first time since arriving upon Edo, Rao's lips curled into a smile. It was faint. Subtle smirk, but his amusement was unmistakable.

"Unprecedented…” Rao murmured, his deep voice reverberating through the shattered skyline like distant thunder. To wound a Mazoku Executioner to such a degree—even accounting for their regenerative capabilities—was a feat so absurd entire civilizations would immortalize it in scripture.

But Kinslayer had accomplished something even greater than physical injury. Rao could sense the scars left upon G’hor’s spiritual body. The invisible lacerations still festering beneath the surface of his soul. It was enough to force the mighty titan of war into a defensive, almost vulnerable position.

A feat that earned recognition from both of these foreign juggernauts.. whether their mouths confessed it or not.

Far across the ruined battlefield, G’hor rolled his shoulder once as the last of his wounds sealed shut beneath regenerated flesh. Dark currents of power still curled from his body in thick bolts while remnants of ruined armor fell from his frame in burning fragments.

Then, slowly, his freshly massive hand rose toward the metallic muzzle covering his maw.

Immediately, Rao’s expression shifted.

“Oh…” he muttered beneath his breath as his smile widened into something restrained and wicked. "..so you have decided."

Rao understood the meaning instantly.

Once he removed his restraints, Ghor's muzzle fell away from his face with a heavy metallic clang that echoed across the broken remains of Qiyoto. And revealed beneath it rows upon rows of monstrous fangs lining a maw seemingly built not for speech, but slaughter and destruction. The very air around G’hor’s grizzled jaw distorted faintly, as though reality itself anticipated what was coming next..

The Primordial Roar.

The Mazoku’s greatest weapon.

A force so devastating that its invocation rendered conventional combat meaningless. A single scream possessed enough destructive force to reduce cities to ash, rupture souls from bodies, and transform entire regions into spiritual wastelands..

But among the Mazoku—To invoke it in single combat carried far deeper meaning than devastation alone.

It was.. symbolic. An act of acknowledgement and recognition.

G’hor hailed Kinslayer as a foe worthy of nothing short of his absolute, full strength.

Rao’s golden eyes narrowed with visible intrigue. “…At last,” he said slowly, his voice tinged with something dangerously close to admiration. “A worthy opponent.”

The pressure around Rao thickened as his gaze remained fixed upon Kin across the devastated battlefield.

“You should feel honored, outsider,” Rao declared. “Your strength will be immortalized in B’halian scripture.”

Rao’s eyes narrowed with visible intrigue, and a faint grin spread across his face. “As will your death.”

However, just as Rao's fixation upon the unfolding confrontation began to peak, something else began clawing at his senses— a violent spike of naten that erupted across the horizon.

Rao’s gaze begrudgingly shifted at last toward the distant ruins where he had discarded Hiroshi Yaarou moments earlier. And a flicker of confusion spread across his expression.

Impossible.

He had killed the human.. The wet streaks of crimson stained along his knuckles gave proof to the fact. Yet the energy rising from the city below continued multiplying at an exponential rate.. mocking him further and further.

Then, as Rao focused more carefully upon the source of this violent gesyer of power— a faint crimson glyph silently manifested across the center of his forehead. It settled into his flesh without resistance and entirely beyond his knowledge, but it was at that moment that his gaze finally caught him.

Hiroshi Yaarou was alive and well, and the Mazoku's expression darkened immediately. "Incessant creature."

He exhaled slowly through his nose before flexing one of his massive hands into a fist. A benign gesture that seemed to affect the atmosphere around him, as if it were threatening to collapse inward from the sheer pressure of his intent alone

“You will learn your place,” Rao said quietly before he launched forward at miraculous speeds— slicing through the heavens themselves as he tore toward Hiroshi’s position like a living comet of murderous intent.

And this time, his strike would not be casual. His fist not curbed by boredom or mercy.. This time, Rao intended to rip the sorcerer’s head from his shoulders, and crush whatever remained within his fist.

[Kinslayer]

When the beam of "Judgement" made landfall, the city of Qiyoto ceased to be a geographical location and became a memory etched in fire. Then came the sound—not of one body breaking, but of an entire city block vaporizing. The impact crater spread outward from G'hor's position like a flower of annihilation, consuming the structures of Qiyoto in a sphere of pure destruction. Stone dissolved. Steel evaporated. The very earth itself was reduced to atomic debris, carried away on winds that had become blades. Kin, suspended in the roiling thermals of the aftermath, watched the conflagration with a detached, divine coldness. Where Kin half expected G'hor to find some method of fleeing, some way of avoiding the piercing beam of devastation, instead, he watched the Executioner meet the full force of his technique head on.

No shield.

No sidestep.

No desperate last-minute deflection.

The Mazoku stood as the cataclysm struck his massive frame, and for one breathless moment, the world became nothing but light.

As the dust began to settle, revealing a landscape of molten glass and weeping shadows, Kin saw him. G’hor’s ancient, ornate armor—forged in the crucibles of a forgotten age—was sloughing off his frame in glowing, liquid sheets. Massive portions of his physical form had been vaporized; ribs of obsidian-like bone were exposed, and his left arm was nothing more than a charred stump trailing wisps of ethereal smoke.

"He actually... tanked Judgement?" Kin whispered.

The word 'tanked' felt inadequate. What Kin witnessed defied his understanding of durability. The Executioner's ancient armor—the same armor that had survived eons of conflict, that had crushed civilizations beneath its weight—had been stripped away like moth-eaten cloth. Where the dense metallic plating had once covered G'hor's form, now there was only scarred and smoldering flesh, exposed to the acrid air. The right arm hung at an impossible angle, the bone clearly shattered in a dozen places. Half of the horned helm had been sheared clean away, revealing beneath it flesh that was already bubbling and reforming, knitting itself back together with sickening rapidity.

It was mind-boggling to say the least. Kin knew of the power of regeneration; he himself possessed an uncanny divine means of restoring his form after fatal injury. But he had also quite literally devoured a god to obtain that perk—a bargain that cost him nearly everything, a sacrifice that had forever altered the architecture of his soul. Something that he had fought for, bled for, damned himself for came so naturally to the Mazoku. As if they had been chosen by the planet itself, as if the world itself bent to preserve their existence.

Their power he could respect.

Their resolve he could admire.

Had they chosen any other land to sully than Edo, the one he called home, he might have actually applauded their strength. But something...something nagged at Kin the moment he laid eyes on the two executioners. After the mires of dirt and rubble were cleared from G'hor's rambunctious landing. The way they refused to speak with Hiroshi, barely acknowledging his existence, and yet spoke to Kin with something akin to recognition—something that could be mistaken for respect.

Something...something infuriating about that interaction disturbed him in ways that reached his bones, a feeling he could not shake.

It was the same look of dismissal, of devaluing another based on prejudice, on bigotry. The same expression Zeroken and his son Iwa had worn in their final moments. The way the Owaki once looked at the Shi clan...the very same way the Yaarou continued to look upon him, even as they cowered away in fear of his power. Still, that look of 'less than' could not be warded off from their eyes. As if by coming here, he proved them all right, that the Shi were dangerous and should've all been slain without fail.

Once he recognized that glint of xenophobic ideology, he was forced to glance at his own hand, outstretched before him. B'halia's entire war campaign had been based on their hate of humanity, the view that humans were a stain ruining the planet—specks of filth deserving nothing but total eradication. That they would ignore Hiroshi and address him would mean only one thing.

The confirmation of something Kin had thought he had made internal peace with.

The Mazoku did not see Kinslayer as human.

That was the point, wasn't it? Of everything he had done up until this point...wasn't it? Merging with Kuroi Ryu, embedding the AIONS into his very bones...Yin's death...

Kinslayer, even as a child, when the Nether Serpent was sealed behind the myriad mental and spiritual seals in place to keep it bound—still, Kin had always been regarded as a monster, as something other than human. The very notion of what it meant to be a Shinobi was to shed the things that connected one to their humanity, to become the weapon or tool needed to accomplish the mission.

This he had always known, this he had had engraved into him since birth.

And yet.

The gaze of dismissal that the Mazoku so casually wore, that glare of entitlement and old pride, perturbed something in him that he could not ignore. Power had blinded him...his sudden rise to divinity had eroded the lens from which he had always looked at the world. It was a look he nearly adopted himself when he first descended upon the Yaarou when this fray first began.

Like they were insignificant.

He was becoming the very kind of being he hated.

A pondering for another time, for as he lamented the state of his being, Kuro sent a warning of a mass of congregated naten swelling in G'hor's throat as his faceplate hit the ground with a thunderous thud. The hair on Kin's neck stood up; whatever this was, it was far different than the massive wave of chi G'hor had shot at him earlier. This was something else—for the first time since he arrived here, Kinslayer felt that his life was truly at risk.

He had heard whispers. The growing tension and unrest in Edo's underworld carried with their anxiety the angst of the Mazoku's abilities, but the technique always eluded him; folks were too scared to even speak of it. Perhaps...this was the moment they had dreaded.

The very arbiter that solidified B'halia's dominion. Something that the world still did not know how to address. Even as he stood here, a wellspring of power and ability that could move the very stars above him should he truly willed it, in the face of something as plainly powerful and ancient as the Executioner, Kin caught himself being...concerned.

"A pondering for another time," Kin muttered, his voice echoing in the vacuum of the ruined city.

The warning from Kuro, his internal system, spiked into a red-line frenzy. G'hor's throat was swelling, a mass of congregated Naten—primordial energy—pulsing with a sickly, rhythmic light. The air around the Executioner began to liquefy. This wasn't the Chi-wave from before.

"No...there is no room for doubt," Kin thought, a manic edge creeping into his psyche. "I've...never been human to begin with.."

"Tell me, Mazoku, you all are the philosophical sort?" Kin called out, his voice cutting through the ambient silence, "What matters more to you? The form of a thing? Or is it nature?"

G’hor didn't answer. He didn't need to. The answer was in the way the space around his open maw began to collapse into a singularity.

Kin didn't hesitate. He wove a blur of hand signs, his fingers moving so fast they seemed to exist in multiple positions at once. Darkness pooled at his feet, bubbling like a mire. This was not normal dark naten; however, it was a pool of unformed AIONS. By design, the AIONS were self-replicating machines, able to form endlessly. Kin had to admit, he knew very little about the Mazoku. Hyperia neglected to tell Eridn just whom these weapons were supposed to be used against in length. But Kin had come to understand, just by the gaze of the Executioner alone.

That they understood just as little about him as he did about them.

That was his angle

That mutual ignorance just might be his biggest advantage...

"Ephemeral Art: Black March."

This was the synthesis of his godhood and both Eridan's and Hyperia's engineering. From the shadow-mire rose the AIONS—self-replicating, liquid-metal machines that were now tuned to Kin’s specific spiritual frequency. Because of his unique nature, these weren't mere drones; they were extensions of his own ego. His black dragon armor dissolved, the particles raining into the pool to provide the raw materials for the manifestation.

One became ten. Ten became a hundred. In a heartbeat, a thousand Kinslayers stood in the crater of Qiyoto.

Each one bore his face. Each one exuded the suffocating aura of the Void. Each one held the stance of a master shinobi, ready to die and be reborn in the same breath.

"Umbral Sindicate..."

A legion of one. A man-made god and his army of ghosts.

Only the original Kin held the blade Hades, its edge humming with the hunger of a thousand hells. He stood at the head of his phantom army, looking into the gaping maw of the Executioner.

The pressure around Rao thickened as his gaze remained fixed upon Kin across the devastated battlefield.

“You should feel honored, outsider,” Rao declared. “Your strength will be immortalized in B’halian scripture.”

Rao’s eyes narrowed with visible intrigue, and a faint grin spread across his face. “As will your death.”

However, Rao’s amusement was suddenly severed.

A pulse of energy, faint but unmistakable, rippled from the direction of the collapsed palace. It was a human signature, stubborn and jagged like broken glass. Rao’s smile vanished, replaced by a mask of pure, vitriolic hatred.

He had beaten the human sorcerer into the dirt. He had crushed his bones and left him to rot in the wake of G'hor's arrival. That the 'stain' still dared to draw breath, to even attempt a surge of energy in the presence of his betters, was an insult Rao could not tolerate.

Rao growled. His body blurred, the ground beneath him shattering as he launched himself like a railgun slug toward Hiroshi’s location. He didn't care about the clash between G'hor and Kin anymore; he wanted to feel the sorcerer's skull give way beneath his grip. He wanted to ensure that the extinction of the human race started with the loudest voice of their resistance.

The Umbral syndicate crowded around Kin, each emitting a progressively growing aura. An Ephemeral Art of this magnitude would prove to be more draining than Kin liked to admit. But it was a needed precaution and testament to the danger the G'hor possessed. The key to his survival of whatever G'hor unleashed next would be found not in the iris of the Dankestu.

But in the bloodline of the Ninneko Clan...

[The Yaarou Clan]

“You will learn your place,” Rao said quietly before he launched forward at miraculous speeds— slicing through the heavens themselves as he tore toward Hiroshi’s position like a living comet of murderous intent.

Rao crossed the ruined skyline like a murderous bolt of fire.

The atmosphere detonated behind him in spiraling shockwaves as his massive frame surged toward Hiroshi so quickly that the city below ruptured beneath the pressure alone. Towers folded inward. Streets cratered. Entire structures collapsed before the Mazoku had even reached them.

And still, Hiroshi did not move.

He remained suspended above the burning remains of Qiyoto with an unnatural calm while the glyph of the Crimson Orchid pulsed beneath his feet like an infernal engine.

His eyes were closed and his expression was still.. quiet. Almost peaceful.

Even as the giant grew closer.. and drew back his mighty fist.

Naten condensed around Rao's arm in violent torrents until the air itself screamed beneath the power gathering around his knuckles. And unlike before, Hiroshi could tell that this strike carried none of the casual dismissal of a superior warrior taunting lesser prey.

No, this blow carried enough force to vaporize mountains, rupture tectonic plates, or erase every cell in a human body.. and any notion of a soul that remained.

The Executioner made no sound in his approach, but Hiroshi could feel his rage and disgust taint the air like a putrid smog as he crossed the distance between them in fleeting moments. But just before impact, the Defiler licked his smiling lips.

“Crimson Orchid…”

He whispered softly as he opened his eyes, both blistering with a blinding crimson light.

“Full Bloom.”

Upon his command, the sigil emblazoned upon Rao’s forehead ignited instantly, mirroring the ominous scarlet glow radiating from the Yaarou warlock before sinking deeper—far deeper—than flesh alone.

Then it took him. Utterly and Completely...

The Mazoku’s thunderous haymaker stopped mere centimeters from Hiroshi’s smug face, halting so abruptly that the compressed force trailing the punch still erupted outward past him in a devastating cone of pressure that annihilated everything for miles behind the sorcerer.

What remained of the skyline vanished in a storm of pulverized stone and spiraling debris.

Yet Hiroshi himself remained untouched. Sneering and untouched..

His gaze widened with devilish glee as confusion flickered along Rao's face for the briefest moment, just before the Mazoku's golden gaze— along with every trace of his personality— was smothered beneath an endless vermillion light.

All at once, the fury twisting his features disappeared. The pride.. The arrogance.. The ancient conviction of a Mazoku Executioner.

Gone. All of it gone..

His face became empty and still.. Like a corpse suspended upright by invisible strings.

Hiroshi slowly lowered his hand, watching the transformation settle over Rao’s massive frame with quiet satisfaction.

“There,” he murmured softly. “Good boy..”

Rao did not respond. Not even as Hiroshi's fingers traced the faded scars along his face. He remained silent and docile.

The Crimson Orchid had not merely seized control of his body— But his mind, his will, his soul.. Everything that made Rao Rao had been submerged beneath Hiroshi’s command like a man drowned beneath black water.. And only obedience survived the purge.

"..."

The sigils across Hiroshi’s face pulsed once more, causing Rao to turn mechanically toward him. Though not with anger, but with the vacant stillness of a puppet awaiting instruction.

"..yes.." Hiroshi exhaled slowly, almost reverently. “..now then,” He hissed before raising two fingers toward Kinslayer and G'hor. “Cleanse my city..”

Rao vanished.

The Executioner’s body erupted forward at impossible speed, propelled by monstrous strength no longer restrained by thought, instinct, or hesitation. The air detonated behind him as he crossed the battlefield like a crimson meteor.

No battle cry.. No hesitation. No emotion whatsoever.

Only the silent, vicarious fury of his new master.

His crimson eyes glowed blankly as he descended upon his fellow Executioner with ruthless mechanical precision, each movement carrying the terrifying perfection of a body no longer burdened by fear, pride, pain, or self-preservation. Only a soul burdening duty.

And all the while, Hiroshi watched from afar with calm amusement as he tightened his grip along Shõsen Kobari. “..and upon your bones.. I will build my church.”

Then, Hiroshi vanished in a blistering bolt of red light.