Some time before...

-

"What the hell is happening?" Kazuhiko asked. He was in his office organizing some documents; however, he suddenly received a report of a massive attack by Nightwalkers.

"President, several big cities were attacked by nightwalkers." The assistant responded.

"Nightwalkers?!" Kazuhiko was confused. Nightwalkers have never made a mass attack before. Generally, they attacked with significantly low numbers, as it was unusual for some spatial interference to be caused near the portals.

"How the hell didn't we have any sign of this?!" Kazuhiko asked, with an angry expression.

"President, we haven't figured out the reason for this. They apparently appeared out of nowhere." The assistant responded.

"Out of nowhere?..." Kazuhiko muttered, with a thoughtful expression.

"Send in the rescue squad immediately. Help the wounded and support the population."

"Understood!" The assistant went to fulfill his request.

'I will solve this myself.' Kazuhiko put on a black cape and left.

-

Kazuhiko decided to go personally to solve the Nightwalkers problem. He was going to find out who the hell had done this. Firing at a very fast speed, he flew towards the closest attack site.

'The believers?!' Kazuhiko thought, with an expression of anger.

'What is their goal?'

While he was thinking about it, he arrived at the place that was attacked. The area was close to the gym; however, the academy was not attacked as its defenses were too strong.

'That…' Kazuhiko was shocked when he saw the amount of destruction the attack had caused. The buildings, houses and buildings were all destroyed. Dozens of people were dead in the middle of the street. Cries of crying flooded the street. People hugged their loved ones who were killed, with a desperate expression and a face covered in tears.

'Damn you! Damned! Damned!' Kazuhiko clenched his fists in anger. His expression was pure hate this time.

"President, we received the report." The assistant said over the voice communicator.

"Say it!" Kazuhiko took the voice communicator, with an apprehensive expression.

"The dead count is…" The assistant hesitated to speak.

"SAY IT!" Kazuhiko spoke, shouting.

"More than 50,000…" Only the death toll was over 50,000. The number of injuries far outweighed the number of deaths.

"..."

'Shit!' Kazuhiko clenched his fists. The situation was worse than they imagined.

"The city of Shibuya (the city they were in) had the fewest casualties; however, we still had some problems." This town was protected by the academy, so reinforcements arrived much faster; however, the other cities did not have immediate support.

"Did you locate the people who did this?" Kazuhiko asked.

"We don't know who did this; however, we found a high concentration of Mana in one place."

"Tell me the location. I'll check in myself."

"Understood."

(...)

After hearing the location, Kazuhiko left.

-

'It seems to have been this artifact that made it possible for them to manipulate the Nightwalkers' Shin thought, as he watched the Dark Orb.

'It seems to have a function to store shadows too.' Shin surmised that this function enabled the believers to cause a surprise attack.

'Well, let's go.' The sky was already dark. Night had come. Shin burned the bodies of the people he killed and decided to go back to his room; Nonetheless…

*BAM!*

Kazuhiko appeared and launched a kick towards Shin's neck; however, Shin defended the kick with his right hand.

*BOOMM!*

The kick was so strong that the shock wave destroyed the surroundings.

"Damn! Don't think you can run away after everything you've done!"

Kazuhiko distanced himself and attacked Shin's blasts of flame; however, he was holding back in the fight, because he didn't want to carelessly harm innocent people.

"I think we have some misunderstanding here." Shin said. He doused Kazuhiko's flame blasts easily; however, he did not fight back.

"We can talk-"

*BAM!* *BAM!*

Kazuhiko didn't wait for Shin to finish his words and attacked again. He clenched his fists and threw dozens of punches at Shin.

*BAM!* *BAM!* …

Kazuhiko's blows caused some illusions to confuse the senses; however, this was useless against Shin.

Shin defended Kazuhiko's punches with an impassive expression. He felt that this guy had no bad intentions, meaning it was all a misunderstanding.

"Looks like I need to calm you down." Shin said. He clenched his fists and punched Kazuhiko in the stomach.

*Bam!*

"Ahh!"

Kazuhiko spat blood and held his stomach with some pain. He didn't expect Shin to be strong enough to hurt him.

"Listen to me." Shin said.

"You… why the hell should I listen to you?" Kazuhiko asked, with an angry expression.

"I imagine you are looking for the people who caused this mess; however, they are already dead by now." Shin replied.

"Look." Shin Tossed the dark orb to Kazuhiko.

"This…" Kazuhiko took the orb and watched with a wary expression. He didn't feel any mana fluctuations in the orb, so he didn't think it would be a bomb. After analyzing it for a while, he realized that it was similar to an artifact.

"Serves to store and control nightwalkers." Shin said, arms crossed. "I got it from those people."

Kazuhiko became a little calmer after analyzing the situation.

"So who are you?" Kazuhiko asked. He had received a report with the names of promising students; however, the report contained only the names of the students and their information. It did not contain photos. Kazuhiko had never seen Shin's face.

"Well, my name is Shin Akash. How about we chat?"