“Fuck!”
Ryoko Kusakabe was about to lose her mind.
“All units, fall back one thousand meters! Brace for impact!!!”
There was no longer any point in staying hidden.
The initial glee of seeing spirits fight each other had instantly turned into despair.
The reason?
A torrent of flames that seemed capable of incinerating space itself poured down without any regard for spirit power consumption.
The flame spirit burned all over, the flames swirling around her blade having more than doubled in size.
Sparks flew with every swing of the battle-axe.
Efreet was indeed an extremely powerful spirit.
Even though she had only appeared once before, her danger rating had already reached A.
And after this time, another A would probably be added.
But the one forcing Ryoko Kusakabe to take such drastic measures wasn’t her.
The ground was continuously sliced apart, extracted, and stained with blood-red spirit power.
Then, like pieces of a disassembled puzzle, chunks were grabbed by the purple-haired spirit, swung, and the moment they left her hand, they lost all color.
Beast’s attacks couldn’t penetrate the wall of flames, but her target had never been the flame spirit herself—it was always the ground beneath her feet.
Spirits could fly, but neither Beast nor Efreet was the type that moved faster in the air than on land.
This made the scale of their battle far surpass the vicious fight when the AST had tried to expel Princess, and that was exactly the problem.
Although they were in a park on the outskirts of Tenguu City, a normal fight would barely affect the safety of the urban area…
But that was under the premise of a 【normal】 fight…
Actually witnessing a struggle between spirits revealed it to be far more terrifying than any footage seen in the data.
Flames flashed.
The debris hurled at the flame spirit was cleaved apart by the giant axe.
There were almost no clean cuts—everything split the instant it made contact, glowing with searing heat before melting like cotton candy.
Her flames were special.
Even in pouring rain, drenched in mud, or thrown into the ocean, they would continue burning as long as her spirit power remained.
Yet the flames only danced around her body.
They didn’t spread outward to cause wildfires, nor did they ignite the scraps chopped apart by Scorching Annihilator.
Despite clearly being consumed by destructive impulses, she stingily kept all her spirit power concentrated in the battle-axe and the flaming feathered robe.
The culprit behind the flame spirit’s behavior, the target worth hoarding so much spirit power for, was what gave Ryoko Kusakabe a headache.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it a major earthquake.
With absolutely no concern for surrounding damage, hundreds of meters of earth and stone—forcefully glued together by blood-red spirit power—were once again used to smash the girl underground.
Even without displaying the indiscriminate destruction recorded in the past, the resulting shockwave still made the JGSDF captain, whose feet were still on the ground, stagger.
“Get the hell back! Judge the safe distance yourselves!!!”
Even through the communicator, she could hear the panicked shouts of her team members stumbling.
She had to yell over the explosion-like roar in the background, repeating the order.
Ryoko barely maintained balance by bracing her waist-mounted machine gun, but the ground’s wails grew louder.
This little hill, considered a tourist spot, was about to collapse.
“Origami! Retreat first—”
Without waiting for Origami’s reaction, Ryoko grabbed the girl by the scruff of her neck like a cat, hauled Origami Tobiichi up, and flew into the sky.
Breaking through such a wide blockade with just a battle-axe would be difficult.
Whether burning a path with flames or brute-forcing her way out of the earth, both carried greater risks.
Even if only destructive impulses were spreading, the flame spirit still retained extremely sharp combat instincts.
The moment she was buried, the ground emitted intense heat, like a volcano about to erupt.
“Camael (Scorching Annihilator)—Megiddo (Cannon)!”
A deep crimson beam that could incinerate the sky burst through the earth.
The ground was instantly vaporized, forming dark molten trenches along the edges of the massive opening.
The demoness raising the cannon barrel showed no hesitation.
She slammed the heavy cannon—still spewing heat and now connected to her arm—downward, deepening the already deep crater by another half meter.
Kyoumi was no longer on the surface, so the flame spirit’s judgment was easy to understand.
At the lower end of the cannon barrel being used as a hammer, four purple-red beams sliced across her chest.
Massive armor emerged underground.
The screech of metal burning violently howled between the purple-black claws.
Suddenly, the claws grabbed the spirit whose chest was already healing with white flames—cannon and all—twisted her, and smashed her down again.
“…You can find where I am…”
During the time the flame spirit was buried, she shouldn’t have been able to see Kyoumi slip underground.
Yet after firing that spirit-power-charged cannon blast, without even looking, she immediately judged and swung the heavy cannon down toward Kyoumi, who had intended to grab her feet and restrict her downward.
Was there some method to detect position? Or pure combat instinct?
It didn’t matter.
She had already used the cannon form’s thermal attack twice, plus continuously wrapping herself in the flaming feathered robe and nearly nonstop healing flames.
At this level, firing another concentrated flame blast meant she couldn’t immediately cover her body with flames again.
In other words…
“Got you—”
Using Seraphic Armor’s power to suppress a spirit whose strength was less than half hers in close combat wasn’t difficult, but to let Miss Flame Demon vent more spirit power, Kyoumi had deliberately let the girl go wild first.
Only when she clearly felt the other’s spirit power weakening did Kyoumi restrain her movements.
“Damn it—!”
She still retained speech, but showed no intention of trying to communicate with the girl.
Kyoumi said nothing more.
Beams shot from her pupils, striking the girl’s forehead.
The healing flames flared again, then slowly died out. The flame demon fell silent.
“…Ngh…”
Barely opening her eyes, stimulated by the soreness throughout her body, Kotori Itsuka groggily shook her head.
“Is it over…”
Recognizing the situation from the weight pressing on her, in Kotori’s vision, that rose-red single eye still glowed with dangerous red light…
“Hey! Wait, don’t attack—it’s me!”
Misinterpreting it as an attack signal, Kotori ignored her body’s exhaustion and struggled fiercely, but the purple-black giant claws remained unmoving on her body.
Even with healing flames, the damage received was real.
If necessary, fine—but nobody wanted to suffer unnecessary pain because of a misunderstanding.
“Oh? So who are you?”
“Kotori! Itsuka Kotori!”
“Who does Itsuka Kotori like?”
“Guh—!”
“Ara, looks like it’s still the disguised Flame Demon Miss after all?”
“It’s Shidou! I like Onii-chan, alright!!”
“Mhm~”
A somewhat tired breath brushed against the girl’s face.
In Kotori’s sight, Kyoumi’s expression softened.
The girl leaned down and gently pressed her forehead against hers.
“Welcome back, Kotori.”
“Ah… yeah, I’m back…”