"Argh... haha.... hahaha! Cough! Cough!" - During his evil laugh, Ogai spat out thick red blood from his mouth. It was blood so thick that it came from his internal organs, devoured one piece at a time by Kenji's immortal flames.

"You can't save him. The dark lord's power is trying to take over his weak body, and it's destroying him from the inside. Just as you are doing to me," Ogai added, enjoying the future death of his victim. "Do you think that by killing me, you have won the war, you brat? You and your comrades are just poor deluded creatures!"

​​

Yoichi did not immediately respond to that statement. The young man moved even closer to the rhino demon, now immobilized by the flames inside his body. Unafraid to step into the range of those four mighty arms, Yoichi lowered himself towards Ogai's chest.

The flames spilling from his forearms lessened their intensity and, beneath the reptilian scales, moved stealthily toward the claws of his hand. Yoichi's long draconic claws seemed to accumulate the heat energy of fire without ever burning.

As if they were made from a durable metal alloy, they overheated, becoming fiery blades. "Stop, stop! Don't try to... AARGH!"

Without a second thought, knowing that his time was getting shorter and shorter, and sensing that his body wouldn't be able to control the flames much longer, Yoichi slid two fingers inside Ogai's abdomen, piercing his skin and digging deep.

Taking advantage of the point of weakness created by the first superficial wound, Yoichi was able to penetrate that hard armor with no problem, breaking through Ogai's defense. Amidst the demon's heartbreaking screams, which had now saturated the air, the young Nightblades warrior turned his hand and deepened the wound with the sole intent of causing his opponent suffering.

"Just fucking stop this! I... I... I'm not the only Void Summoner! You... you can't... argh!" Ogai quaked, no longer able to hold back the truth.

"What?! What did he say?!" Shioko asked from a distance, hoping she hadn't heard correctly. The archer walked up to Enatsu and grabbed his wrist, trying to feel his pulse.

"You're not the only one? What does that mean? Speak! Get a move on!" Yoichi commanded. The third red-hot claw pierced Ogai's abdomen, tearing through his organs.

After that, Ogai's eyes suddenly changed. Two pupils appeared inside two white eyes, focusing on the image of Yoichi. The young warrior felt a strange sensation as if the demon's identity under his hands had abruptly shifted.

"There's no way out...you're all going to die! The Dark Emperor has sent dozens of Void Summoners to Tentochu and yearns to create an army of slaves ready to sacrifice their lives to conquer the enemy faction! The Blackblood will never stop. Fighting is futile!" - Ogai's baritone voice restored some of his humanity.

The demon's legs instantly caught fire. "Oh fuck! Fuck!" Yoichi gulped, pulling his claws out of his abdomen and standing up. The dragon flame was slowly consuming the Kamakiri sorcerer's body, and he himself also had stopped struggling, surrendering to his fate.

"Dozens of Void Summoners?! Do you mean that a drop of his blood flows in each one of them?! This is madness! They must be stopped! The black mud is capable of destroying the Crimson Lotus plantations and making settlements vulnerable! Immortal demons will attack the unprotected areas scattered across the land!"

Intense anxiety traveled inside Yoichi's body in the form of cold chills. After the last use of the dragon flames, his power suffered a sudden collapse: part of his left arm was extinguished, giving off grayish smoke.

In a few seconds, as Ogai's helpless body burned before his eyes, his other arm stopped emitting flames as well. The energy needed to control that power was gone, and Kenji's draconic skill was fading like a candle in the wind.

When the black scales on Yoichi's arms became visible again under the flaming layer, the power that had defeated the most powerful enemy he had ever encountered was deactivated.

One foot instinctively moved sideways, preventing his body from falling down. His eyes narrowed, alternating between moments of clarity and the profound fatigue that enveloped his muscles and bones.

"You have no escape. No one can counter the power of the Emperor of Kamakiri... no one can... aargh! AARGH!" - the sorcerer could not finish his last sentence. The rhino demon's chest exploded, and its charred organs spattered all over the place.

The flames that were burning anything under his skin, using his body's internal gases to grow ever larger, devoured his face and limbs. The shockwave of the explosion destabilized Yoichi's precarious balance, and he took a step backward.

Step by step, his legs trembled with exhaustion until they fell off. His blurred gaze looked for a moment longer at the flaming corpse lying helpless in the center of the cave and slowly framed the room's ceiling.

As the back of the young warrior's head touched the muddy floor, his mind collapsed, and his senses stopped working, switching off the light before his eyes.

Shioko's indistinct screams accompanied his subconscious back to the dream world. On the other side of the room, Kenji was lying on the floor, unconscious.

As they disappeared, the reptilian scales left superficial wounds on Yoichi's arms. His upper limbs were bruised and tired: the anger of losing his friend had not been enough to handle such ancient and immense power.

When Yoichi fainted, a vision similar to Therion's Tear appeared in his mind's eye. The giant black dragon flew roaring towards him, lifting the sand of the desert and grazing the dunes with its abdomen.

The roar of that divine demon culminated in a blaze, coming from the center of his chest. In the vision, he was nothing more than a powerless human being in the presence of the undisputed ruler of the magical world of Lumya.

As Therion's flame enveloped the young tamer's body, Yoichi fell asleep.