The yōkai, treated like venomous insects in a sealed jar, slaughtered and devoured each other. Those who survived had, without exception, absorbed parts of their kin, leaving them either muddled in the head or grotesquely deformed; the very essence of their individual lives had been defiled.
The only upside to this was that the final survivors were exceptionally vicious and battle-hardened—as blades, they were of the sharpest caliber.
"So, you're saying there's some shady bastard hiding in the back?" Sū ěr rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache coming on.
He hated these "shadow-dwellers" the most. If it were a yōkai that charged straight at you, you could just kill it and be done with it. But how do you flush out an old fox who knows how to hide behind other monsters, or even blend in among humans?
"I will help look into it... to the best of my ability," Yakumo Yukari said after a brief pause. She then stood up. "I'll take my leave for now... I want to spend a little more time with Yuyuko."
"…Yeah," Sū ěr replied, his voice a bit low. He watched Yukari's lonely figure before she stepped into a gap, then turned his gaze toward Think. "Is there really no better way?"
If possible, he didn't want to see a tragedy unfold.
Think simply rolled her eyes at him in response.
Setting aside the frazzled Think, who was neck-deep in the problems of the two overlapping eras, and the idle Sū ěr, who was forced to stay here with her—the battle in the city had reached a point where both sides had nearly exhausted their first wave of cannon-fodder.
Nura Rikuo's once-elegant blue-and-white haori was inevitably stained with blood. The "Fear" [Osori] swirling around him had also shifted its form, perfectly demonstrating the unique privilege of the Lord of Pandemonium—even the strength borrowed from his subordinates during battle could be swapped out at will.
"Koyomi!!!"
"Got it!"
Upon hearing Rikuo's call, Araragi Koyomi—who had developed a perfect, unspoken chemistry with him through long hours of training—gritted his teeth and hoisted a massive slab of a collapsed wall. The sheer strength of his vampire bloodline allowed him to hurl the building wreckage at high speed, instantly crushing his target into a pulp.
Rikuo would engage the enemy with his striking looks and sharp-tongued trash talk, while his unique Nurarihyon abilities made him nearly impossible to hit. Eventually, the enemy would be provoked into a mindless rage, providing Araragi—who had been lurking in an unguarded spot—the perfect chance to launch a sneak attack.
Whether it was crushing them with giant boulders, using his vampire abilities to drain the enemy's demonic power, or simply lunging out with a brute-force punch... all in all, this duo's tactics were yielding impressive results.
When facing weak yōkai, they would compete to see who could rack up a higher body count; but when they hit a "tough nut to crack," they would coordinate with seamless precision. This fluid combat style naturally caught the eye of many yōkai in the city, and quite a few began to follow in their wake.
Even though these yōkai had integrated into human society, the blood of their kind still ran through their veins, driving them to follow the strong. As this instinct took hold, their demonic aura and "Fear" began to extend outward, eventually linking themselves to Rikuo and Araragi at the front.
Araragi curiously touched the streamers of demonic aura extending from his shoulders to his arms. He knew what "Fear" was, but he hadn't expected the stuff to actually bridge the gap between East and West and manifest on a vampire like him... after all, whether a vampire even counted as a yōkai was still an open question.
"Hey, Rikuo, look! I've got some too!" Araragi joked, gesturing to the wisps of Fear.
"Heh, you're acting cocky with just that little bit? Come along when the Old Man gives his lectures later—RUN!!!"
In an instant of focused intensity, Araragi clearly saw the sudden tension on Rikuo's face and saw him lunging forward with his blade. But faster than that was the warning from his own vampire instincts—a sharp, stinging premonition of an imminent impact.
BOOM!!!
Caught in a sudden sneak attack, Araragi was smashed directly into a nearby building that hadn't yet fully collapsed. The structure, which had somehow remained standing since the start of the war, finally gave way, burying Araragi completely. Buried along with him was the culprit behind the assault.
It looked like human skin, yet no human limb could ever stretch into such a distorted, tentacle-like shape—deformed and elongated, with an unknown liquid pulsing in bulges beneath the white skin.
It all happened too fast. By the time the weaker yōkai realized what had happened, a deep purple gas began to seep from the gaps in the rubble. It was clearly a highly toxic miasma. Rikuo's face darkened as he watched the surface of the concrete shards corrode, forming countless tiny holes upon contact with the gas.
The solid concrete was shrinking and melting; in just a few breaths, the outer layers dissolved into a puddle of purplish-black sludge that hissed as it flowed onto the road.
"M-Miasma?!" In the crowd of yōkai, an elderly demon's pupils shrank to the size of pinheads as he muttered to himself.
"Koyomi! Araragi Koyomi!!!"
Ignoring the miasma for the moment, Rikuo slashed his blade toward the grotesque pillar of flesh. Surprisingly, the sharp edge met almost no resistance and sliced through it easily. One end retracted, while the severed piece fell to the ground, leaking purple toxic gas from the cut.
Now, it might sound cold, but Rikuo wasn't actually that worried about Araragi being crushed or poisoned to death. He had a very thorough understanding of the vampire's vitality. How could a vampire who was initially terrified of the sun end up being able to stand under the high noon sun after some training?
The sun couldn't even melt him as fast as he could regenerate!
According to Nura Rihyon's assessment, Araragi Koyomi needed nothing else; his sheer regenerative ability alone was enough to earn him a spot on the grand stage of Great Yōkai—he could probably even dance a samba while he was at it.
"Stop shouting, I'm not dead yet."
Sure enough, Rikuo didn't have to wait long. Araragi's voice, somewhat muffled from being buried under the debris, drifted out from the wreckage.