The steaming hot water cascaded over his broad shoulders, washing away the grime and the faint, lingering scent of copper. It was incredibly comfortable, yet an unfamiliar, hollow feeling settled in his chest—a sensation that always seemed to follow the aftermath of a slaughter.
Finn had never once considered himself a saint. He knew perfectly well that he was a greedy, pragmatic Devil who relentlessly pursued power and prioritized his own selfish desires. While he hadn't felt a single shred of remorse or hesitation while systematically crushing the Hero Faction in that alleyway, standing here now, in the quiet solitude of the shower, the weight of taking lives briefly brushed against his conscience.
Still, I wasn't wrong. And technically, neither were they.
He was a Devil; they were humans. They were two fundamentally opposing species trying to survive in the same chaotic world. Unfortunately, resources and safety were finite. You either took from others, or others took from you.
Finn just wanted to live comfortably.
"I am not wrong," he muttered, letting the hot water run over his face.
If he had been weak, what would have happened to him tonight? What would have happened to Akeno?
In this brutal universe, there were only two options: be the weak who are stripped of everything, or be the strong who dictate the rules and protect what is theirs. Reality was exceptionally cruel, and empathy was a luxury only the absolute strongest could afford.
Because of that cold logic, he wouldn't take back a single action. They had put a bounty on his head and aimed for his life. In return, he would visit utter, suffocating ruin upon them tenfold. Let's see how boldly they preached about 'heroic justice' when they were the ones being mercilessly hunted.
Fortunately, he had the strength to back up his ruthlessness. He was rapidly growing stronger, especially now that the Manager allowed him to synthesize unique, cross-universal abilities that perfectly synchronized with his Balam bloodline.
Invisibility.
This was the mythological hallmark of the Balam Pillar, and he had finally achieved it by weaponizing his innate High Magic Resistance.
How did it work? Normally, High Magic Resistance acted as a passive outer shield that dispersed incoming hostile spells. Using the Manager's calculations, Finn had forcefully inverted that resistance. He created an internal magical 'Faraday cage' that trapped 100% of his own Demonic Power inside his body, preventing even a single microscopic particle of energy from leaking into the surrounding atmosphere.
Furthermore, the Manager perfectly suppressed his biological killing intent, allowing him to fight with the absolute, flat emotional baseline of an office worker stamping paperwork.
To complete the physical optical illusion, he had synced with the Naruto Suzuki's memories, flawlessly replicating the light-bending mechanics of ninja genjutsu using pure Demonic Power.
By combining all these overlapping systems, he couldn't be seen by the naked eye, he couldn't be sensed by Touki (life force) masters, and he couldn't be tracked by magical radar. He had achieved absolute, flawless Presence Concealment.
If someone could just teach me proper Senjutsu, my kit would be perfect.
As for Touki—the physical manifestation of pure life force heavily utilized by martial artists and Youkai—Finn could already use it naturally due to his overwhelming demonic vitality. However, his current application was incredibly crude. Previously, all he could do was blindly coat his fists or his torso to punch harder and take less damage.
But now? His horizons had expanded.
Through the Manager, he could see the infinite, cross-universal applications of life force. It was functionally identical to the Chakra used by the Naruto Suzuki, the Mana wielded by Kim Min-Jun in Solo Leveling, Cursed Energy, or the Haki utilized in the One Piece universe.
I should be able to refine it exactly like Haki, Finn calculated.
Finn was fundamentally a brawler. He relied entirely on his physical body. But raw, unrefined super strength was sloppy. To truly dominate, he needed to manipulate his Touki with the absolute, microscopic precision of an elite martial artist. If he could perfectly replicate Observation Haki using Touki, he would achieve true precognition—perfectly fulfilling the Balam mythology of 'knowing things past, present, and to come'.
"Finn-sama? Are you in there?"
"Did you just get back, Akeno?"
Finn blinked, snapped out of his intense power-scaling theories by her soft voice echoing through the bathroom door.
"Yes," Akeno replied. "I've settled everything with the clean-up crew. We are actively extracting every possible piece of intelligence from those humans. The astronomical bounties on the survivors have already been prepared, and our tracking teams will launch the hunts immediately."
"Thank you."
He wouldn't spare a single one of them. True to his word, the hunt had begun. If he was forgiving, those fanatical terrorists would simply regroup and strike again.
However, his calculated mercy toward the groveling survivors had already yielded an invaluable piece of intelligence regarding their true backing: The Khaos Brigade.
While Finn already knew of their existence due to his meta-knowledge, the broader supernatural world was still completely clueless about the massive terrorist organization hiding in the shadows. Finn didn't give a damn about preserving the 'canon plot.' Since they had dared to cause him trouble, he was going to make the first move and brutally drag them out into the light.
And then there was the Himejima Clan.
Did they honestly believe they could get away with constantly hunting his Queen?
Those who lived in the supernatural underground foolishly believed that revenge was only settled through physical violence—beating enemies to death with magic and swords. But Finn was a modern corporate mastermind. He knew of far more terrifying ways to destroy a legacy.
He was going to dismantle the Himejima Clan by ruthlessly robbing them of everything through economic means. He would quietly freeze their assets, bankrupt all of their businesses... and bleed their financial foundations dry until the modern, capitalized world they relied on completely betrayed them; as he had the entire human race to hunt them down with money. Let's see how long their Shinto pride lasted when they couldn't afford to pay their electric bills and defend themselves from those whom they wanted to protect.
As he planned their ruin, he mentally pinged the Naruto Suzuki via the Manager, urging his alternate self to aggressively acquire the Eight Inner Gates from Konoha's Green Beast.
This was the world of High School DxD. It was a completely absurd universe where a perverted teenager could eventually become the strongest entity in existence simply by groping breasts. If that was the standard, why couldn't Finn reach the absolute apex through relentless optimization and cross-universal skill sharing?
The sky was the limit. In fact, there was no limit at all.
However, his grand, ambitious thoughts ground to a sudden, absolute halt as the frosted glass door to the shower abruptly slid open.
"Excuse me, Finn-sama~."
Finn couldn't form a single, coherent word. He was standing directly under the showerhead, entirely naked.
Akeno stood in the doorway, the dense steam swirling around her. She was no longer wearing her conservative, elegant shrine-maiden attire that usually hid her devastating figure.
Instead, the only thing separating her from absolute nudity was a single, skimpy white bath towel desperately clinging to her wet, breathtaking curves. The thin fabric was losing a very rapid battle against gravity and her bombastic proportions.
Looking at her flushed face and heavily lidded violet eyes, Finn found it completely impossible to suppress the immediate, highly aggressive biological reaction occurring below his waist.
Akeno's eyes immediately flicked downward, a deeply satisfied, incredibly lewd smile blooming on her lips. She stepped directly into the shower stall.
"Let Akeno wash your body for you, Finn-sama~."
"...."
Despite how demure and elegant she usually appeared in public, Akeno Himejima was an absolute, irredeemable pervert.
Then again... so am I, Finn thought, finally surrendering to the genre of his world.