(Third Person POV)
The spatial vortex that opened in the center of the Jura Tempest Federation did not scream or violently tear the fabric of reality. It unfolded with the silent, majestic grace of blooming velvet, casting a regal tapestry of purple and gold light across the polished cobblestones of the central plaza.
It was long past midnight, yet the city was not asleep. Thousands of monsters—goblin riders, high orcs, dragonewts, and the elite Fair Oni—stood in perfect, disciplined formation, waiting for the return of their sovereign. The scent of ozone and the heavy, intoxicating density of sovereign magicules preceded the travelers, announcing to the very earth itself that a True Demon Lord was stepping back into her domain.
Rimuru Tempest emerged from the portal.
She did not stumble, nor did she look weary. The silver-haired Queen of the forest walked with a posture forged in the fires of Megiddo and tempered by the absolute dominance she had displayed at the Walpurgis. Her midnight-blue commander's coat whispered against the cool night air. Her golden eyes, deep and crystalline, swept across the sea of kneeling monsters. She was undeniably beautiful, holding the matured, feminine grace of Shizue Izawa's legacy, yet her aura—a dense, suffocating blanket of Silver A-Rank energy—reminded every soul present that she was an apex predator capable of unmaking armies.
Behind her, Shion marched with her chest puffed out, her massive odachi strapped to her back, practically vibrating with pride. Ranga slipped smoothly from the portal directly into Rimuru's elongated shadow, a silent, lethal guardian returning to his post.
And finally, stepping out of the collapsing portal, came the shadow that permitted the light to shine at all.
Nova walked onto the cobblestones, his boots making absolutely no sound. He wore his tailored black coat, his hands resting casually within his pockets. The Genesis-Class item, The Veil of Silence, sat immaculately upon his face. The white porcelain fox mask, adorned with its sweeping, predatory red runes, completely nullified the apocalyptic void that was his true nature. To the magical sensors of the city, and to the ambient magicules of the world, he simply did not exist.
'Ciel,' Nova commanded internally, his mind a flawless expanse of frozen logic.
<
'Good. Let the Queen claim her welcome.'
"Rimuru-sama!"
Benimaru, his red hair catching the moonlight, stepped forward and dropped to one knee, bowing his head in absolute devotion. Following his lead, Souei, Hakurou, Geld, and Rigurd bowed so deeply their foreheads nearly touched the stone. Behind them, the thousands of assembled citizens of Tempest echoed the gesture, a unified wave of unwavering loyalty.
"We rejoice at your safe return, our Liege," Benimaru intoned, his voice rough with emotion. "The army under my command successfully intercepted and utterly destroyed Clayman's forces in Eurazania. We suffered zero casualties."
Rimuru looked down at her commander. A soft, genuine smile graced her lips, briefly breaking the icy facade of the Crimson Monarch. She raised her hand, signaling them to rise.
"You have all done flawlessly," Rimuru declared, her voice carrying a hypnotic, melodic authority that echoed across the plaza without the need for shouting. "The traitor Clayman has been executed. The Octagram has been formed. And the Great Forest of Jura is now officially recognized by the highest powers of this world as our sovereign, inviolable territory."
A roar of triumph erupted from the crowd. It was a deafening, joyous sound—a celebration of survival, of power, and of the unyielding strength of their liege.
Nova stood slightly apart, remaining within the periphery of Rimuru's shadow. He observed the cheering masses, his mismatched eyes—one crimson, one teal-blue—scanning the celebration through the slanted slits of his mask. He felt no surge of joy. He felt only the cool, clinical satisfaction of a complex mathematical equation resolving itself exactly as he had calculated.
"They cheer because they do not see the storm gathering on the horizon," Nova murmured, his voice completely trapped behind the porcelain muffler, unheard by anyone but Ciel.
<
'Then we will prepare the anvil,' Nova replied silently. 'Let them bring their hammers. We will see which breaks first.'
The Crimson Monarch's Court
The following morning, the administrative heart of Tempest was a hive of controlled, lethal efficiency.
Within the grand confines of Rimuru's office, the morning light streamed through the reinforced glass windows, illuminating the sprawling maps of the Western Nations spread across the heavy oak desk. Rimuru sat in her high-backed leather chair, her fingers steepled before her, her golden eyes focused and sharp.
Standing poised in the corner of the room, impeccably dressed in his dark butler's uniform, was the Primordial Black, Diablo. He was pouring a cup of Earl Grey tea with such flawless precision that not a single drop disturbed the air.
On the plush sofa across the room, Veldora Tempest was currently sprawled horizontally, completely engrossed in volume forty-two of a replicated manga, occasionally chuckling and muttering about "spiritual pressure."
And directly behind Rimuru, gazing out the window with hands folded behind his back, stood Nova.
<
A holographic interface, visible only to the Editor, cascaded across his vision, utilizing the newly implemented Omniversal Existential Hierarchy.
[Target: Rimuru Tempest] -> [System: Material] -> [Rank: Silver A+]
[Target: Veldora Tempest] -> [System: Material] -> [Rank: Gold C]
[Target: Diablo (Noir)] -> [System: Divine (Suppressed in Material vessel)] ->[Rank: Demigod (Suppressed to Silver S)]
[Target: Nova Tempest] -> [System: Standard] ->[Rank: Human C (Masked)]
"Your tea, Rimuru-sama," Diablo purred, sliding the porcelain cup onto her desk without a sound. "I took the liberty of infusing the water with a trace amount of calming spiritual energy. To ease the burden of your new cosmological weight."
"Thank you, Diablo," Rimuru said, taking a sip. It was, impossibly, the best tea she had ever tasted. She set the cup down and looked at the Primordial demon. "Give me your report. What is the status of the Kingdom of Falmuth?"
Diablo's golden eyes curled into crescents of pure, sadistic amusement. The pitch-black sclerae seemed to swallow the light around him.
"The situation proceeds exactly according to your brilliant design, Rimuru-sama," Diablo bowed deeply. "King Edmaris returned to his capital a broken, pathetic wretch. The sheer psychological terror instilled in him by Shion's... culinary interrogations, combined with the loss of his twenty-thousand-man vanguard, has shattered his political fortitude. He has agreed to abdicate the throne in favor of his brother, Edward, while signing over ruinous war reparations to Tempest in the form of star-gold coins."
Diablo straightened, a dark chuckle escaping his lips. "Furthermore, I have begun laying the groundwork for the human champion, Youm, to rally the dissatisfied peasant factions. Within the month, Falmuth will devolve into a civil war, which Youm will miraculously 'win' with our discreet backing, effectively turning the kingdom into a vassal state of Tempest."
Rimuru nodded slowly, the tactical gears of [Raphael] turning flawlessly behind her eyes. "Good. If they are busy fighting themselves, they cannot direct their greed toward the forest. But Falmuth was never the true threat. They were merely the muscle."
"Indeed, Chancellor," Nova's voice cut through the room.
The low, resonant sound—even muffled by the Genesis-Class mask—instantly caused Diablo to stiffen. The Primordial's golden eyes darted respectfully to the floor, terrified of meeting the masked gaze of the entity who could erase his concept from reality. Even Veldora paused his reading, his draconian instincts prickling uncomfortably at the sound of the Editor's voice.
Nova slowly turned away from the window, his white fox mask glowing with an eerie, clinical detachment in the morning sun.
"The true threat is ideologically bound, not economically motivated," Nova stated, pacing slowly around the perimeter of the room. "The Western Holy Church, under the guidance of the Holy Empire of Ruberios, operates on the doctrine of absolute human supremacy. They do not view you as a rising nation, Rimuru. They view you as an existential heresy. You are a monster who speaks like a human, thinks like a human, and commands the power of a god. To them, you invalidate the necessity of their faith."
Rimuru's expression hardened. "Hinata Sakaguchi."
"Precisely," Nova confirmed. "The Captain of the Crusaders. Shizue Izawa's former student. She is a zealot, bound by a uniquely twisted morality that equates the death of monsters with the salvation of humanity. She will not accept the surrender of Falmuth. She will view it as a demonic manipulation."
Rimuru leaned back in her chair, the memory of Shizu's dying request weighing heavily on her newly ascended soul. "I promised Shizu-san I wouldn't give up on her students. Hinata is one of them. But if she marches an army of Paladins into my territory..."
"You must break her blade, or she will use it to cut the throat of your city," Nova said, his voice stripped of all empathy. "There is no diplomacy with a falling guillotine, Rimuru. You must dismantle her ideological foundation through absolute, overwhelming violence. Only when she is broken will she be forced to listen."
Rimuru looked at her hands. They were unblemished, yet they carried the conceptual blood of an entire army. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, mourning the last remaining slivers of her human pacifism.
When she opened them, the golden irises were cold and absolute.
"Then we prepare for the Crusade," Rimuru declared. "If the Church wants a holy war... we will give them hell."
The Night Palace of Ruberios
Far to the West, beyond the mountains and valleys of the continent, the Holy Empire of Ruberios stood as a shining beacon of human piety. Its grand cathedrals and white-marble spires scraped the heavens, constantly echoing with the hymns of devout worshippers praying to their god, Luminous.
But beneath the pristine marble, deep within the subterranean Night Palace, the true god of this nation was currently wrestling with a profound, terrifying headache.
Luminous Valentine—True Demon Lord, Queen of Nightmares, and the secret absolute ruler of the Holy Empire—sat upon a throne of crimson velvet and obsidian. She pinched the bridge of her nose, her mismatched red and blue eyes squeezed shut.
[Target: Luminous Valentine] ->[System: Material] -> [Rank: Silver S]
She had just returned from the Walpurgis, and her entire cosmological worldview had been deeply, violently shaken.
It wasn't Rimuru Tempest that terrified her. The slime was formidable, yes—an Awakened Demon Lord possessing rapid evolutionary growth and dangerous Ultimate Skills. Luminous acknowledged Rimuru as a legitimate peer within the Material System.
What terrified Luminous was the shadow standing behind the slime.
"That mask..." Luminous murmured to the empty throne room, her fangs lightly pressing into her lower lip. "What in the name of the ancestors was that thing?"
She remembered the fleeting fraction of a second at the obsidian table. She remembered Guy Crimson—the pinnacle of demonic power, a being who possessed [Pride King Lucifer] and cosmological weight so dense it warped reality—physically flinching. Luminous had felt the ambient magicules of the Ice Continent suffocate for exactly one millisecond.
That shadow in the white fox mask didn't just suppress his power. He suppressed his concept. He was an entity that fundamentally did not belong in the established systems of their universe.
The heavy, gilded doors of the throne room creaked open, breaking her troubled reverie.
Footsteps, sharp and perfectly metered, echoed across the polished obsidian floor. A woman walked into the chamber, her short, pale-moonlight hair contrasting sharply with her cold, emotionless heterochromic eyes. She wore the shining silver armor of the Crusaders, a holy rapier resting at her hip.
[Target: Hinata Sakaguchi] -> [System: Material] -> [Rank: Bronze A (Saint)]
"You summoned me, God Luminous," Hinata stated, dropping to one knee with robotic, fanatic precision. She did not display fear, nor awe. Her devotion was an algorithmic certainty.
Luminous opened her eyes, looking down at the ultimate weapon of her Church. For the first time in centuries, Luminous felt a pang of genuine, strategic hesitation.
"Rise, Hinata," Luminous commanded, her voice elegant but laced with unseen tension. "I have returned from the Walpurgis. The geopolitical landscape of the Great Forest has reached critical mass. The slime, Rimuru Tempest, has formally ascended to the rank of True Demon Lord."
Hinata stood up. Her face remained a flawless mask of ice, but her hand instinctively tightened around her hilt. "Then the reports from the Eastern spies were accurate. The monster slaughtered the vanguard of Falmuth. Archbishop Reyhiem is disgraced, babbling madness about a rain of unholy light."
"It was not madness, Hinata. The slime cast a spell of absolute efficiency, reaping twenty thousand souls to fuel her awakening," Luminous said, watching her Crusader closely. "And she is now recognized by Guy Crimson and the rest of the Octagram."
Hinata's eyes narrowed into slits of pure, righteous contempt. "If the rest of the Demon Lords are blind enough to accept a murderous beast into their ranks, then it only proves that the eradication of all monsters is a divine imperative. Teacher Shizu's will has been soiled by this creature. I request permission to mobilize the Paladin Crusade. I will march on the Jura Forest and excise this heresy myself."
Luminous let out a long, slow sigh. She stood up, walking down the steps of the dais, the train of her Gothic dress trailing behind her like spilled blood.
"You do not comprehend the board you wish to step onto, Hinata," Luminous said softly, stopping mere inches from the Crusader. "The slime is a Silver-tier entity. She has ascended beyond your calculations. But it is not the slime that concerns me."
Hinata frowned, a rare crack in her stoic demeanor. "What could be more threatening than an Awakened Demon Lord mobilizing an army of monsters?"
Luminous turned away, pacing back toward the shadows of her throne. "The one who stands silently behind the slime. A man wearing a white porcelain fox mask with red runes. He possesses no magicule signature. He does not project killing intent." Luminous swallowed hard, forcing the words out. "But when Guy Crimson looked at that masked man... Guy Crimson sweated, Hinata."
Hinata's eyes widened infinitesimally. The concept of the Lord of Darkness expressing fear was a paradox her mind struggled to parse.
"I... beg your pardon, my Goddess. Are you suggesting there is an entity in the forest that surpasses the First Demon Lord?"
"I am suggesting," Luminous said, her mismatched eyes glowing with a warning that bordered on pleading, "that you are walking toward a cliff edge while blindfolded. If you march the Paladins into Tempest, you are not merely fighting a nation. You are poking a sleeping leviathan that resides entirely outside of our cosmological understanding."
Hinata's jaw clenched. The warning was clear. The tactical analysis demanded caution.
But Hinata Sakaguchi was not built on caution. She was built on faith, logic, and extreme, unyielding trauma. She had survived this world by believing in the absolute supremacy of her own blade and her own calculations. To back down now would invalidate everything she had sacrificed.
"With respect, Goddess," Hinata said, her voice dropping into a register of frigid, unbending fanaticism. "My unique skill, [Usurper], and my [Dead End Rainbow] are absolute against any conceptual entity. God does not suffer errors in His creation. If this anomaly exists... we must delete it."
Luminous stared at Hinata, reading the absolute, suicidal determination in the Crusader's eyes. The Vampire Queen sighed, realizing that stopping a falling stone was impossible once gravity had taken hold.
"Very well, Hinata Sakaguchi," Luminous whispered, returning to her throne. "Prepare your Crusaders. But know this: if you engage the masked shadow... do not expect the heavens to answer your prayers."
The Integration of Layer 3
Night had fallen over Tempest. The city was quiet, recovering from the emotional highs of the recent victories and the ongoing industrial expansion.
High above the silent streets, Nova stood on the balcony of his private quarters within the administration building. The cool nocturnal breeze ruffled the hem of his black coat. He lifted his hands and unclasped the white fox mask, removing the Veil of Silence.
Instantly, the suppression collapsed.
His true form did not physically alter, but the aura that suffocated the space instantly ascended beyond the mere constraints of the Material System. The ambient reality around the balcony warped, twisting into impossible geometric fractals as the universe struggled to contain the existential weight of a Divine/Unknowable entity standing casually on a wooden deck.
Nova did not look at the moon. He looked past it.
'Ciel,' Nova commanded, his mind extending through the firmament, bypassing Layer 1 and Layer 2, reaching directly into the conceptual scaffolding of the omniverse. 'Open the local channel to the Tribunal. Do not leave the universe. Anchor their domain to this balcony.'
<
The space on the balcony fractured.
The air did not tear; it pixelated. Without physically moving, the meta-layer was forcefully superimposed over the reality of Tempest.
Suddenly, sitting in three impossible, shimmering thrones that hovered just beyond the balcony's railing, the Meta-Gods manifested. They were no longer speaking outside the story—they had been pulled intimately into the narrative's active parameters.
To the left, JACW materialized, his armor of chaotic timelines shifting like oil on water.
To the right, The One Above All (TOAA) sat at a pristine desk floating in the void, a glowing quill in his hand.
In the center, The Presence loomed, a titanic visage of beard and starlight, his eyes holding the silent birth of nebulas.
"You summoned the writers to the stage mid-scene, Editor," TOAA observed, adjusting his glasses, his voice echoing perfectly within the constrained space of the balcony. "You risk destabilizing the narrative immersion."
"I am adjusting the script in real-time," Nova said coldly, leaning his forearms against the wooden railing, completely unaffected by the sheer presence of the three ultimate gods. "Immersion is a luxury reserved for those who do not know they are in a book."
JACW leaned forward in his throne of chaos, a massive, thrilled grin on his face. "Oh, this is going to be good! What are we tweaking? I saw Luminous making her dramatic speech. Hinata is mobilizing. She has an anti-magic barrier that rivals Falmuth's, plus an army of zealots!"
"Hinata Sakaguchi is a Bronze A-Rank entity utilizing Faith as a conceptual battery," Nova stated analytically. "She commands [Usurper], which allows her to force highly-ranked opponents to her level by severing their connection to their skills. In canonical timelines, this mechanic caused Rimuru significant distress."
"It gave her a run for her money," JACW laughed. "But Rimuru is a Silver A+ True Demon Lord in this timeline now. The power gap is enormous."
The Presence's voice rumbled, shaking the very concept of the air around them. "Do not underestimate the power of fanatical conviction, Nova. Faith, within this cosmology, is an energy that briefly touches the Divine System. Her Holy Disintegration sword technique isolates the target's spirit and destroys the fundamental particles of their soul. If it strikes effectively, even a True Demon Lord can be permanently erased."
Nova closed his mismatched eyes. "I am aware of her mechanics."
"So, what is the play?" TOAA asked, tapping his glowing quill against a metaphysical clipboard. "Do you step in? Do you unlatch the mask and delete the Holy Empire before they even cross the mountains?"
"No," Nova said, opening his eyes, the crimson and teal irises burning with calculated apathy. "The Chancellor must fight her. Rimuru must test her new Silver-tier body against a combatant who fights with absolute, suicidal precision. It is a necessary leveling mechanic."
Nova stood up straight, his gaze locking onto the three gods.
"However," Nova's voice dropped, carrying the absolute, uncompromising authority of the Editor. "I will not tolerate narrative plot armor for the antagonists. In a standard confrontation, Hinata's holy field would suppress Rimuru's subordinates, artificially elevating the stakes to create drama. I am striking that scene."
JACW's eyes widened. "Hold on, you're editing the battlefield before the battle?"
"I am establishing the rules of engagement," Nova said. "Rimuru deals with Hinata. But if the Crusader Paladins attempt to intervene... if they attempt to construct holy barriers to trap my people, or if they rely on divine intervention from Luminous... I will intercept."
Nova raised his right hand, his fingers tracing invisible lines in the air.
"I am designating the upcoming clash not as a duel, but as a test of absolute sovereignty," Nova declared to the Unknowable Tribunal. "I will permit the Crusaders to march into the forest. But they will find themselves fighting in a sandbox of my design. If they break my rules, I will not treat them as characters in a story. I will treat them as a corrupted file."
TOAA wrote furiously on his clipboard, archiving the new reality rules. "The localized causality has been rewritten. You are effectively neutering the holy barriers of the Church. The Paladins will face the Fair Oni of Tempest on mathematically even, purely physical ground."
"Exactly," Nova nodded. "Let the slime face the Saint. But let the fanatics face the monsters they so deeply underestimate."
The Presence offered a slow, majestic nod of approval. "The stage is set to your specifications, Editor. Let us see if the Crimson Monarch can break the holy blade of Ruberios."
Nova swiped his hand.
The pixelated distortion snapped off. The three thrones vanished, retreating back into the absolute depths of Layer 3. The balcony returned to its serene, nocturnal state.
Nova picked up the white porcelain fox mask from the railing. He stared at the slanted, empty eyes of the Genesis-Class item for a long moment, before pressing it back against his face.
Click.
The terrifying, omniversal weight collapsed instantly, hidden once more beneath the guise of a Suppressed Human C-Rank.
"Come then, Hinata Sakaguchi," Nova whispered to the whispering wind, staring toward the Western horizon. "Bring your god. Let us see how long your faith lasts when you realize the heavens are empty."
The Destroyer's Report and the Idiots of Tempest
The following morning, the heavy, oppressive tension that had settled over Tempest regarding the impending Holy War was abruptly shattered by the sheer, unadulterated chaos of an unexpected arrival.
"WAHAHAHA! I HAVE RETURNED VICTORIOUS!"
The roof of the administration building exploded in a shower of splintered wood and crushed tiles.
Rimuru, who had been quietly reviewing trade reports with Benimaru, leaped over her desk just in time to avoid being brained by a falling beam. The dust settled to reveal Milim Nava, the Destroyer, standing in the center of the office, striking a heroic pose, her twin tails bouncing energetically.
"Milim?!" Rimuru yelled, brushing dust from her coat. "Why didn't you use the door?! Or literally any other normal form of entry?!"
"Doors are for people who can't fly, Rimuru!" Milim chirped brightly, dusting debris off her frilly gothic dress. "And besides, I had to make an entrance! I just completed the most incredible, top-secret, highly dangerous spy mission in the history of Demon Lords!"
Veldora, having heard the crash, busted through the actual door to the office, a half-eaten bag of chips in his hand. "Ha! Spy mission? Please! You merely sat in a crumbling castle and broke some furniture!"
Milim spun around, pointing an accusing finger at the Storm Dragon. "I did more than break furniture, stupid lizard! I punched a mountain! And I successfully fooled that idiot Clayman into thinking I was his puppet! It was a masterpiece of theatrical genius!"
Nova stepped out of the shadows, having seamlessly avoided the falling debris without taking a single step. He remained masked, his hands resting naturally in his pockets.
"You did an adequate job of playing the fool, Milim," Nova stated dryly. "Mostly because it required very little acting on your part."
Milim gasped, placing a hand over her heart in mock betrayal. "Nova! So mean! I went undercover for you! I barely had any snacks! Clayman's cooks were terrible! They tried to serve me roasted spider legs! Spider legs, Nova!"
She bounds over to the masked entity, completely ignoring the fact that his aura was nonexistent. Milim was one of the few beings entirely unfazed by Nova's true nature, viewing his existential terror as a fun quirk.
"But I did exactly what you said!" Milim grinned, puffing out her chest. "I broke his communications, I scared his generals, and I made sure he marched exactly where you wanted him to! I was the ultimate saboteur!"
Veldora scoffed, tossing a chip into his mouth. "Bah! A parlor trick! The true power of tempest lies in the absolute, overwhelming presence of myself, the Storm Dragon! Are we not the greatest deterrent, Sworn Brother?" Veldora looked at Nova, seeking validation.
Milim's eyes narrowed into competitive slits. "He isn't your sworn brother! I'm his best friend! I punched Phobio into a wall for him! What have you done besides read comics in a cave?!"
"I am absorbing cultural lore to better understand the combat mechanics of this era!" Veldora yelled, lightning sparking in his hair. "Do not mock my training regimens, tiny child!"
"I am older than you, overgrown gecko!"
Rimuru buried her face in her hands, a deep, weary sigh escaping her lips. "I am surrounded by literal gods of destruction, and they act like middle schoolers fighting over a lunch table."
Nova slowly turned his masked face toward Rimuru.
"Boredom is the greatest equalizer of power, Chancellor," Nova noted cleanly. "When beings possess the capacity to destroy planets with a sneeze, standard geopolitical issues become monotonous. They require stimulus."
"So they argue over who is your best friend?" Rimuru asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I have no friends," Nova stated coldly, though a millimeter of amusement laced the masked voice. "I have assets with varying degrees of usefulness and neuroses."
Milim stopped glaring at Veldora and grinned up at Nova. "He totally loves us."
Veldora nodded sagely, crossing his arms. "Indeed. The Sworn Brother's tsundere act is highly predictable. Volume 12 of my sacred texts explains this archetype perfectly."
Nova stared at them. For three solid seconds, the Editor's mind processed the absolute audacity of the two calamities. He considered, briefly, unlatching the mask to 10% just to watch them sweat.
But then he sighed, the sound echoing softly from behind the porcelain.
"Ciel," Nova commanded internally.
<
"Remind me why I do not simply delete this planet and start over."
<
"Acceptable logic."
Nova turned his back on the bickering dragons and moved toward the doorway.
"Milim," Nova called out, silencing the room. "You may raid the kitchens. Shuna has prepared a new batch of honey-glazed pastries as compensation for your 'terrible snacks'."
Milim's eyes literally morphed into the shape of stars. "PASTRIES! WAHAHAHA! Victory!" She launched herself out the window she had just broken, soaring toward the cafeteria.
Nova paused at the door, glancing back at Rimuru, who was slowly organizing the scattered papers on her ruined desk. The comedic relief was over. The brief, chaotic moment of peace was fleeting, a small gasp of air before plunging back into the dark ocean.
"Rest today, Rimuru," Nova said softly. "Absorb the levity. Because the scouts report that the Holy Emissaries have crossed the western rivers. The Crusade is seventy-two hours away."
Rimuru stopped moving. She placed her hands flat on the desk, the silver-blue bangs falling over her golden eyes. The warmth of the moment vanished, replaced instantly by the freezing, uncompromising will of the True Demon Lord.
"Let them come," Rimuru whispered, her voice devoid of fear. "But tell Benimaru... I want the battlefield cleared. I will handle Hinata Sakaguchi alone."
"It is already done, Chancellor," Nova replied, the red runes of his mask glowing dimly in the shadows of the doorway. "The sandbox is prepared. The Editor awaits the final draft."
Nova stepped into the hallway, leaving Rimuru to sharpen her blades in silence.
The calm was dead. The massacre was walking up the steps. And Nova Tempest was ready to conduct the symphony of blood and holy fire.