"H-He disappeared?!"
"W-Where is he?!"
"D-Did he run away?"
When those last words were spoken, a collective, heavy sigh of relief rippled through the Hero Faction. They genuinely believed Finn had fled. And honestly, wasn't that the most logical outcome?
Finn was at a severe numerical disadvantage. He couldn't possibly fight against a dozen elite descendants of legendary heroes, all wielding powerful Sacred Gears! Furthermore, their leader, Cao Cao, possessed the True Longinus—the absolute strongest weapon in existence!
So, wasn't it entirely normal for the Devil to run away, knowing certain death awaited him?
"...What a coward," one of the swordsmen scoffed.
No one had actually expected a High-Class Devil to flee so abruptly, especially after he had so coldly executed one of their teammates. While they outwardly sneered and disdained Finn's 'cowardly' retreat, they were secretly profoundly grateful. Finn was utterly terrifying.
They had slaughtered countless supernatural creatures before, but they had always held the overwhelming upper hand. They fought as a pack. This time, however, they had faced a monster who wasn't afraid of them in the slightest—a monster who had casually ripped out a comrade's soul while entirely surrounded.
Even Cao Cao blinked in surprise, his spear lowered slightly. He hadn't expected Finn to run.
Cao Cao, should I pull everyone into the dimensional gap?
Georg, who had been securely hiding away in a pocket dimension created by Dimension Lost, communicated with Cao Cao via telepathy, assuming the battle was over.
Cao Cao opened his mouth to agree, but—
CRACK!
SQUELCH.
Without a single warning, the head of one of their vanguard members violently exploded like an overripe watermelon.
A geyser of boiling blood, shattered bone, and brain matter erupted outward, splattering the nearby members. The vivid, sickening heat of the viscera instantly snapped them out of their false security.
"....."
Everyone froze in an absolute daze. Their brains simply couldn't register what they were seeing.
Then came the sickening, wet crunch of another skull caving in.
POP.
Another member's chest was completely pulverized, his body flattening against the pavement as if he had been smashed by an invisible, hundred-ton hammer. They were being butchered like vegetables dropping onto a cutting board!
"RUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!"
At that single, terrified scream, the Hero Faction's absolute discipline shattered. Panic took over. Ignoring the mangled corpses of their friends, they scrambled frantically, desperate to save their own lives!
"DON'T RUN! HOLD YOUR FORMATION! IF WE SEPARATE, HE WILL PICK US OFF! THE ENEMY IS JUST INVISIBLE!"
Despite Cao Cao's desperate, roaring command, his words were meaningless. In fact, hearing that Finn's power was 'simply' invisibility only fueled their absolute terror!
With Cao Cao's genius-level intellect, it hadn't taken long for him to deduce Finn's ability. But even knowing the trick, what could he possibly do?
Invisibility was a classic, relatively common ability in the supernatural world. Assassins constantly developed techniques and artifacts to erase their presence. However, the golden rule of assassins was that they were 'glass cannons'—weak in physical confrontation, possessing low stamina, and entirely reliant on one-hit kills.
But what was Finn?
He was the heir of the Balam Pillar, a demonic bloodline famous for absolute superhuman strength and supreme magic resistance.
What happens when an indestructible, physically overwhelming juggernaut turns completely invisible?
Nothing can stop him. Even if they managed to randomly land a desperate attack in the empty air, his innate resistance would casually brush it off. And, realistically, could they even hit him?
With the Manager constantly feeding him kinetic trajectory predictions and spatial awareness, Finn had the equivalent of absolute foresight. Every single invisible punch he threw hit with the concussive force of a cruise missile!
Could a frail human properly defend themselves against an invisible missile? Absolutely not.
Their fate was sealed. They were being systematically decimated.
"YOU COWARD! FIGHT ME! I AM HERACLES! I CARRY THE BLOOD OF THE GREATEST HERO! FACE ME LIKE A MAN!"
Heracles, the largest member of the faction and the one possessing the highest physical endurance, screamed with all his might, his muscles bulging as he cursed the empty air.
"Come to me, Devil!"
Hearing Heracles's roar, the few remaining members rallied. Those who hadn't scattered gathered tightly around Cao Cao, forming a desperate defensive circle to ward off the invisible slaughter.
"Variant Detonation!"
"Stake Victim Dragoon!"
"Chaos Edge Asura Ravage!"
They didn't hold a single drop of energy back. Pushed to the absolute brink, they unleashed the hidden potential of their Sacred Gears. Several of them forcefully triggered incomplete Balance Breakers, burning their own life force and permanently decreasing their lifespans just to generate enough power to survive!
They had to give it their all, or they would die right here in this filthy alleyway!
Come on, Cao Cao! they prayed silently.
Cao Cao closed his eyes, hyper-focusing his senses, desperately trying to detect any fluctuation in the air to locate Finn. Beads of cold sweat rolled down his face—
STAB!
Fresh blood violently sprayed across the circle as Heracles gasped. He looked down in horror at the massive, gaping hole that had just been punched straight through his chest by an invisible fist.
Ah... it's useless...
Despair gripped the survivors. Nothing could be done. They were as good as dead. Yet, in that exact moment of absolute hopelessness—
"CAGE OF IRON!"
Suddenly, the ambient steel, iron scaffolding, and scattered machinery from the alleyway aggressively twisted to life, violently snapping together to form a massive, reinforced cage surrounding a specific radius of empty space!
"NOW! DO IT!"
"Thank you."
Cao Cao's voice was eerily soothing, echoing like a proud father praising his children for their ultimate sacrifice. In that same fraction of a second, an overwhelmingly pure, blinding holy aura erupted from his body.
He raised his spear and began the chant:
"O Spear. The true Holy Spear, which pierces through God."
"Suck the ambition of the King of Domination sleeping within me, and pierce through the gap of blessing and destruction."
"You. Announce the will, and turn into a glow."
The absolute will of the Biblical God seemed to resonate within the alleyway, answering the human's desperate plea to protect his comrades and purge the ancient evil threatening the world!
Cao Cao's body shone with the brilliance of a miniature sun. He was entirely cloaked in a divine, miraculous aura.
"True Longinus."
The blinding flash of gentle, holy light instantly healed the wounds of the surviving Hero Faction members. But for Finn—a Devil whose very biology was violently allergic to the holy element—the light was a localized apocalypse.
Damn, that really hurts, Finn grimaced.
As expected, direct exposure to the God of the Bible's holy light was agonizing. Yet, he knew he couldn't run away.
Why didn't he just dodge?
Because Cao Cao's ultimate attack moved at the literal speed of light. Was there anything faster than light in the physical universe?
Even entirely invisible, Finn couldn't outrun photons. The omnidirectional holy light slammed into the trapped space. Finn was instantly burned to a crisp. The divine energy aggressively stripped the demonic flesh from his bones, melting him down as the Absolute Redaction dropped, revealing his charred, skeletal form standing dead center in the iron cage.
As the excruciating pain washed over him, a strange, suffocating lethargy suddenly invaded his mind.
Well... I guess I'm tired too. Living like this is exhausting.
Immortality. The eternal destiny of a High-Class Devil. It was incredibly troublesome when he really thought about it. When he was reincarnated into this world, he had already possessed everything. He had wealth, status, and power. He didn't have any desperate, burning ambitions. His life was easy. So, if he just let himself die right here... if his death allowed these humans to become the hope of humanity... wouldn't that be fine?
Finn-sama!
Akeno's desperate, muffled voice echoed through the shadow dimension connected to his soul.
Simultaneously, a cold, mechanical voice overrode his fading consciousness.
[Alert. Intrusive divine cognitive manipulation detected. The host's mind is being actively brainwashed by the Holy Aura.]
[Action. Initiating neural purge to destroy the psychological pacification.]
[Notice. It is statistically premature for the host to expire.]
[Skill Activated: Self-Made (Adaptive Regeneration).]
[Analyzing the holy wavelength...]
[Adapting cellular structure to the attack...]
[Complete. The host has successfully adapted to the True Longinus's Holy Aura.]
"....."
As the notifications coldly flashed through his mind, the charred, holy-burned flesh on Finn's bones began to aggressively knit back together, regenerating faster than the light could burn it away.
Thick veins of absolute, unadulterated fury throbbed on his newly reconstructed forehead.
He realized with terrifying clarity that the 'peaceful' thoughts of surrender hadn't been his own. The relic of the Biblical God had actively tried to brainwash him into accepting his own execution.
Finn's golden eyes snapped open, blazing with pure demonic wrath.
---
Invisibility might be simple, yet it is one of the most lethal abilities.