—The Innermost Sanctum of the Mayura Evil Palace
"..."
The evil among evil, Anra Mainyu—one of the Six Great Generals—sat with his mouth hanging open in a daze, leaning forward in his chair to stare fixatedly at the massive double doors of the Mayura Evil Palace's innermost chamber.
An extraordinary power had suddenly erupted just outside those doors. It was an absurdity beyond all reason, the likes of which even Anra Mainyu had never experienced in his life.
"What was that just now...?"
As Anra's confidant, Mānāf of the Six Great Demon Gods, muttered with a face as hard as stone, Saur, the slender, pitch-black evil god, blurted out a ridiculous piece of nonsense:
"It's an impossible level of pressure! One of the Six Heavenly Gods must be attacking in person!"
"Indeed," Zarutch added, crossing multiple pairs of arms with an optimistic assessment. "Though even one of the Six Heavenly Gods would hardly pose a threat to Lord Anra, would they?"
It was a remark made in total ignorance of the critical crisis they were actually facing.
"I doubt one of the Six Heavenly Gods would attack all alone without bringing subordinates," Mānāf barked in a booming, fractured voice, issuing a senseless order. "This is total war! Summon Badrag and the others idling outside to this chamber at once!"
"Yes, sir!"
The guards standing at attention on either side of the innermost sanctum broke into a jog toward the great doors.
"Stop! Do not open those doors under any circumstances!"
Anra's voice broke in an unseemly shriek as he shouted to stop them.
"Y-Yes, Lord Anra!"
Frightened by his wild intensity, the guards froze in their tracks before the doors and snapped to attention.
"Lord Anra?"
To Mānāf, who hesitantly questioned his intent, Anra answered:
"The one beyond those doors isn't one of the Six Heavenly Gods! It's something far more horrific!"
A spine-chilling sense of despair washed over him. The entity outside the doors, a Heavenly God? Don't be ridiculous! It was nothing so tame. Even as one of the Six Great Generals, Anra Mainyu could not envision the slightest shred of a victory against whatever lurked out there. In fact, judging by this abnormal pressure, if they clashed head-on, it wouldn't even qualify as a fight.
(I see! So this is the one who took down Azi Dahaka!)
That wave of absolute terror that had flowed into him from Azi Dahaka... Now, he understood all too well what his subordinate had felt in his final moments. Forced to confront such a being face-to-face, any of the Six Great Generals would surely have felt the exact same way.
"Something far more horrific, you say?"
Judging by Mānāf's parroted response, he was undoubtedly half in doubt.
Well, to mere Demon Gods, there probably wasn't much difference between the Six Heavenly Gods and the genuine monster beyond the doors—both were absolute, unreachable powerhouses. In a sense, their reaction was only natural.
"That's right! I would rather avoid fighting a monster like that at all costs, but with our communication to Asura severed, all our escape routes have almost certainly been cut off. If that's the case, our best choice is to make our stand right here."
This chamber was the territory Anra had created. In a sense, they were inside Anra's belly. It was isolated from the outside on a spatial level, making intrusion virtually impossible. Even on the off chance an intruder managed to break in without Anra's permission, every single one of their stats would be reduced to a fraction of a thousandth of their original strength. As long as he remained in this room, Anra's victory was absolute... Or so he thought, at that very moment—
A single thin line slashed across the great doors of the innermost sanctum. Right in front of them, one of the guards let out a stunned, squeaky noise:
"H-Huh...?"
He stared blankly as his own body split cleanly in two. Then, a heartbeat later, the great doors crashed to the floor with an earth-shaking thud. Catching sight of what stood beyond the ruined threshold—
"―?!"
Anra gasped, seized by a blood-freezing horror unlike anything he had felt since the day he came into existence.
There stood a black-haired man holding an unnaturally long blade in one hand, staring straight at Anra with eyes as cold as ice.