[Rewrite]Chapter 0: Ruin

Rain hushed the countryside, a steady veil that flattened color and mood alike. Far from the city and its attention, an old mansion sat sagging and silent. Deep inside the ruined hall, four figures stood amongst the dust and rot.

Three seemed to be human. The fourth, a silver-haired elf in a light green dress trimmed in gold, a twine necklace at her throat bearing a wooden pendant that breathed a faint blue glow. She crouched beside her hovering staff and traced white sigils in clean, interlocking arcs around a larger red array already set onto the floor.

CREAK. CREAK. CREAK.

Across the room, a red-haired warrior paced. Her greatsword rode her back; the braid down her spine tapped the leather of her armor with each turn. The floorboards complained in low, damp groans beneath her boots, the sound swelling the nervous air.

“Stop doing that,” another woman said, voice clipped. She had short black hair, hawk-yellow eyes gifted by her goddess, and wore light leather with a bow and a full quiver at her shoulder. “You’re making everyone more uneasy.”

“Stop?” the warrior shot back. “Why are we even here? This is foolish. We don’t know the level, don’t know the laws, and have next to no more information. And why are we following your orders? We should-”

“My orders?” the archer said, mockery neat as a knife. She angled her chin toward the tall blond young man by the back wall. “Our leader approved of this plan. Levels are unnecessary, laws are unnecessary, and information? Unnecessary. As long as he’s here, we can kill anything within our realm of power.”

The red-haired woman turned to him. Damien, her childhood friend. A familiar face currently making unfamiliar choices. She crossed the distance and laid both hands on his shoulders, the plea in her eyes evident.

“Please. We shouldn’t do this. We have no instructors here. And ambushing… one of them will only invite a war we can’t pay for. This is a bad plan. I think w-”

He peeled her hands off without looking up. His gaze fixed on the arrays.

“No. Enough is enough. It ends here.” He slid his hand to the new holy sword at his hip, a relic few living had seen drawn. He had been chosen, and that choice demanded use.

“Our ranger is right about one thing,” he added, stepping toward the circle. “It hasn’t reached it’s true form yet. My system will fill the rest.”

He left her standing there, the argument dying on arrival. She clenched her fists. Ever since she reunited with him at the academy, she had noticed his change. At first she blamed the capital, its layers and games, something she had no experience with out in the sticks. She decided to just take his lead in the beginning. But later, after certain events, the doubt within her shifted. And she began to wonder who among them were really counted as the fool.

In the end, she didn’t call the instructors, she didn’t call her master; Fear of slipping further from his favor stilled her hand over the comm-crystal at her hip.

Damien then strode forward and stopped by the elf. “Finished?”

She drew the last glyph, rose, and smiled up at him. “It’s done, my love.” She leaned in, giving him a peck on the cheek. He smiled and accepted the contact; and behind him, the other two women watching this offense swallowed their rage and said nothing.

He then took out a small vial from his spatial ring, red liquid swirling inside. It had cost favors and a bit of effort to obtain this. He pulled the cork and poured the contents over the center of the array.

The sigils awoke. A red light bled outward and climbed the hall’s worn columns. He needed no chant this time. The catalyst he had gotten was enough.

A pressure rolled from the floor and pressed the air around the large hall. The house answered in a chorus of strained timbers; the few intact glass panes surrendered to the weight, and burst outward. Chaos energy began to jostle the walls, then settle.

Damien drew his group back as black mist began to gather and rise from the array’s core. The outer white sigils held the fog in a rigid boundary, the black mist rose toward the ceiling, funneled by an unseen chimney.

“Layer yourselves with chi or mana,” Damien said without looking back. “Don’t let that mist touch you. When the beast arrives, limit your eye contact, and keep your layers dense when it speaks. Its words can affect the mind.”

They heard and obeyed, tightening their defenses until their skins hummed with a sheen of energy.

The pressure then eased. The smoke began to knit to itself, condensing and refining into a slimmer volume. Then from within…something emerged.

The figure that stepped out moved without sound at first, then with a soft rhythm of small metal sounded as she approached the edge of the circle. 

Jingle - Clack

The music of anklets, followed by the clean report of geta touching down on wooden boards.

Pink hair swayed to her shoulders. Two slender, black horns with a red tint curved skyward. Petal irises, the same pink as her hair, turned clockwise in black sclera. A black kimono scattered with rose petals opened and closed with the motion of her voluptuous hips; a choker tethered sleeves that hung loose from porcelain shoulders, showing divine skin and matchless seduction. A beauty both natural and inconvenient.

She stopped at the border of the red summon circle. 

The veil over her mouth couldn’t hide the smile of amusement on her delicate face when her gaze found the four standing before her. She then locked her eyes on the singular man standing at the front.

“Oh? So it was you… boy.” The setup told her everything, and none of it impressed her.

Anger rose in Damien’s chest at the sight of the creature's untroubled tone and casual demeanor. But he swallowed it down. Here, now, with these arrays and his holy blade, he held advantage.

“Devil!” he shouted. “This ends now. Cancel the contracts you've forced on others, or you die here.” He drew the holy sword. Light climbed the blade, purity bright enough to wash the walls with its splendor.

But the devil was unfazed by the bright display, she didn’t cower from the holy rays shining across her jade-like skin. In fact, the overbearing glow didn’t even earn a squint from the being, let alone a wary glance.

Instead, she laughed. A scornful, derisive luster that carried throughout the large hall. It vibrated with the right amount of cruelty, followed by a playful lilt at the end. “Kikiki. Die? How audacious. Where did you even find a little toy like that? The heavens really have a strange taste for fools.”

She couldn’t believe it, the useless lout was threatening her with some old relic. Backed only by those three latrines shivering behind him. The arrogance was well past the point of offensive. It stepped thoroughly into the realm of pathetically humorous, like a jester strolling the courtyards in a squire's plate; announcing to the dragon their final day has come.

“Shut up!” he said, voice rising. “You have no power here. In this place you are no different than us mortals. The field is leveled. So change your tone, and free those you’ve coerced!”

He bellowed with conviction. A righteous command.

And her laughter only deepened at the words. “Kikiki! I can’t with you.” She put a hand to her stomach, head tilting back with the ease of a woman sitting high; looking down at a comedy. The warrior to the side felt every hair on her arms rise. Something was wrong, she could feel it. The woman was too calm, too unbothered. The devil in the circle didn’t read like she was cornered.

“No different from you? Like mortals?” the devil said, the smile returning beneath the veil. “Perish the thought. You lower beings always remain so fond of meaning,” She shook her head. “So haughty. So defiant.”

Damien ground his teeth as he gripped his sword a little tighter. He wouldn't let the beast lower morale, he repeated. “Last chance to-”

“Shut up, whore devil!” the archer suddenly barked, her voice cutting him off. “You think you monsters can decide our fates? Who matters? Who lives? Die!”

Light and wind magic wrapped the arrow she loosed. It sliced through the hall in a straight line. Seeing this, the devil lazily lifted a wrist. A thin wash of pink energy flowed out and intercepted, drinking the projectiles momentum. The shaft tumbled uselessly to the floor without ceremony.

She glanced at the archer once, then back to Damien with practiced pity. “Oh, poor boy. My contract forbids me from killing you...” Her eyes softened into a shape that lied quite beautifully. “But surely you know… you brought these women to their ruin, right?”

The petals in her irises brightened with cheerful malice. A clear devil tell.

Negotiations instantly died on Damien’s tongue. “Do it!” he snapped to the elf, and called his [Superior Appraisal] up in the same breath. Panels opened in his vision. Nothing beneath divine power hid for him. There had to be a seam to pry on the monster.

“Kikiki,” she laughed again. “They never learn, do they?”

The elf slammed her staff down. A white wave rippled from the impact and swept the hall, lighting the white sigils that ringed the red summon circle. Pillars of light rose and locked, a cage inside a cage.

The devil didn’t adjust her stance. She watched Damien with idle patience, pink petal irises turning.

The warrior lifted her sword and addressed the silence where strategy usually arrived. “Damien! What’s the plan?” She called out, readying her stance.

He didn’t answer.

The other three party members weren’t bothered by his silence; it usually meant the being was a bit stronger than expected, so extra time to analyze was needed.

So, they did what trained parties do when the leader needed time to think, stall and buy time.

“[Sacred Forest]!” the elf intoned, waving her hand with the shortened chant. Green projections sprouted around the circle in a sudden, fertile growth. An ethereal garden whose purity laws gnawed at demonic flesh began to rise around the Order cage.

She didn’t expect it to kill the creature, it should have at least hindered the devil. It didn’t.

Seeing this, the entity sneered. “Hot-keying a devil?” A clear offence.

The devil’s answer was a small, derisive snort in the elf’s direction. Pink energy spilled outward from her feet in a thin, fast-moving tide. The wave moved everywhere at once but bit deepest into the elf’s magical layer of protection. It slid through her mana skin like mist through open fingers and sank into her mana circuits.

A notification then chimed in the elf’s sight.

DING

[

Warning! You have been stricken with [???].

[???] - Debuff: Your mana has been [Disrupted]. Channeling disabled.

Duration: Calculating… 3 - 12 hours.

]

Her circuits spasmed and her mana ran wild. The estimate’s range made her stomach flip. Without an external cleanse, she was down for hours? She was horrified.

“Still not taking us seriously yet? Whore devil!” the archer shouted from the far line, ignorant of her ally’s collapse. She loosed another volley, light arrows stacking and racing toward their captive target.

The devil rolled her eyes at that limp wristed archer, it was clear who the weakest was. A small flick of her hand and momentum again bled from the incoming bolts; they fell around her in a loose clatter. But the aggressive pink energy continued past them this time, thinning and then piercing the archer’s chi barrier with needling precision. The layer frayed. She felt the texture of her defenses begin to unravel.

“S-shit!”

Was all she got out before the devil bent at the waist in a casual slant, one hand propped on her knee, the other resting under her jaw. The back of her fingers rested lazily beneath her jaw, the tips touching her throat.

FLICK 

And with a flick, she brought her fingers forward in a non mi interessa-like gesture. A rude taunt to many onlookers, but the action this moment served more than that singular purpose. 

The archer, with her hawk-like eyes, watched as the gesture, ever so slightly; lifted the veil on the devil's face. Revealing a captivating smile and sharp gilded canines.

The beauty appeared, and gripped.

The archer froze, her eyes gone soft, mouth parted.

DING

[

Warning! You have been stricken with [???].

[???] - Debuff: [Hypnotized]. State: [Dazed], awaiting orders.

Duration: 5 minutes.

]

“Kikiki,” the devil giggled. “Whore devil you say? It took only a smile for you to switch to the other team.”

The archer didn’t blink. If the roof had collapsed above her, she wouldn’t have even turned her head. She kept her gaze fixed on the divine being in front of her. Only her. That's all that mattered.

Soon, boredom began to creep into the devil’s expression, to her, these ‘heroes’ were useless. Her thoughts drifted to the ‘others’, curious if they would fare any better against her.

But just as the question popped up, it slid away when red chi blurred behind her. The warrior had crossed the boundary. Opting for a direct, decisive strike.

Her first cut should have opened the devils spine. But the blade met fog; the body unspooled into dense black and parted around the swing. Presence bloomed at the warrior’s flank. Steel met steel in a sudden weight, a black serrated katana bit into her greatsword and shoved. The force drove her back, sliding across the floor into the safe outer ring of white. Her palms tingled from the shock, and her wrists throbbed.

The devil's strength was monstrous. It was nearly a crime that a body so soft looking carried that type of weight behind a casual swing. On top of that…

The warrior flared her chi, burning away the parasitic pink that clung to her skin of that swift exchange. She’d seen its effects and knew the danger.

The fog folded inward again, and pulled back into a lithe, feminine silhouette. The circle cleared.

“Courage,” the devil said, amused. “And skill. What is a competent fighter doing here with a bunch of dogs?”

The warrior didn’t answer. She reset her grip. She had already made the decision she feared. They needed to retreat. She would occupy. She would… likely die here.

Her eyes hardened in resolve as she raised her sword.

“Kikiki. Those are good eyes.” The devil’s tone warmed. Her spinning irises slowing a fraction. “Work for me.” The veil did little to hide her devious smile this time.

The warrior… ignored her, keeping her chi layer up and dense. She knew the rules of hearing the words of devils offering deals. She looked once to tally the field.

The archer, empty and docile, waited like a doll placed on a shelf.

The elf, hands trembling and legs shaking, had not accepted that a single snort had crippled her powerful magic for half a day.

Damien, their leader, was a statue facing a panel only he could see.

Anger turned her mouth tight. This wasn’t like him. Even if the status showed nothing exploitable, he had always found a plan. She drew a breath, ready to snap him out of it.

He beat her to the sound.

His knees suddenly hit the floor. The holy sword tumbled and slid. “W-what…” He stared through the panel, eyes taking in something that he refused to parse, then landing on a truth he had been avoiding for a long time.

He had seen it. During the creature's exchange with the warrior. A mark toward the base of her bare back where the sleeves hung low.

Recognition closed his throat. Despair moved in.

The warrior’s focus then sharpened with panic, not comprehension. Because movement caught the edge of her sight. She turned away from the slumped leader, whipping her head around to see…

Jingle - Clack

The devil stepping forward with an elegant sway. The holy pillars caging her within the circle hissed at her skin as she moved froward…and did nothing else. 

No screams of pain or crumbling pile of ash, just a light sizzle from the top layer of her porcelain skin.

The sound was a faint, continuous sear, like frost on metal. But that was it.

The warrior froze in fear, she didn’t understand what she was seeing. A devil touching Order Law. It was unheard of. Her body began to tremble, her resolve shattering. She couldn’t protect any of them with the devil free.

“Kikiki. If I had known you prepared such a light show, I would have worn sunscreen.” She walked through the order law as if it were warm rain and stopped over the collapsed hero Damien.

She breathed in, delighted. “Fresh despair,” she said, amused and sincere. “The natural scent of you barely sentient things.” Her head tilted. “Already done huh? Not very heroic you know.”

Damien didn’t lift his eyes from the panel. He thought the marking he saw on her back was too much, but this…

[Status]

[

Name: Hannya, 6th Luxuria

Aliases: Hannya, The Cannibal (Known), [???], [???]

Titles: [Kikikiki]

Lvl: [This was your plan?]

Stats: [Kikikiki]

Abilities: [Did you really think I’d let you?]

Boons: [Kikikiki]

Curses: [Your gods don’t have the authority.]

Possible Weaknesses: [Kikikiki]

Damien: [Know your place, boy.]

]

Hannya watched his eyes move and felt contempt rise. Grace had been offered. And insolence was answered. So consequence she would teach.

“I will make this quick,” she smiled. “Since it’s date night. Kikiki.”

She lifted her hand above the ruined hall.

The floor thrummed under their feet. Color drained and replaced itself with a blood red hue. The rules of the room leaned toward a new axis.

“Know the name of Hannya,” she said, her voice gentle and cruel. “The name of despair…” 

“The name of the devil.”