The interior of the 'Reaper' Guild's branch office was a hive of activity. Members were scurrying back and forth with stacks of paperwork and equipment, looking exactly like the exhausted office workers I used to see during my corporate days. It was a scene of perfect, boring normalcy. I stepped deeper into the lobby, not to find the reception desk, but to confirm a chilling suspicion that had been gnawing at my mind.
"Arthur... Isn't this...?" Melchior's voice drifted through my consciousness, sounding unusually sharp.
He didn't need to finish the sentence. He was right. From the low-level receptionists to the high-ranking guild members, even the very air conditioning felt like it was circulating a faint, oily hint of 'Demonic Energy'. It was subtle, masked by the smell of coffee and printer ink, but it was there. The entire guild wasn't just working for a possessed master; the members themselves were already infested. Whether they had signed a blood contract or were being piloted like puppets by [Pandemonium], I no longer had any reason to hold back.
"[Activating the 2-Star Barrier, 'Mirror of Refracted Will'!]"
"[Activating the 3-Star Barrier, 'Triune Axiom Field'!]"
My 'Mana' flared, and the twin barriers snapped into existence, wrapping around the building like an invisible shroud. This place was now a spatial island, completely cut off from the outside world. Panic rippled through the office as the Guild Members realized they were trapped. An arrogant-looking man, likely a mid-ranker by his expensive-looking gear, slammed into me while trying to rush for the door. He didn't even apologize; instead, he grabbed my collar with a sneer.
"Move it, you brat! Do you have any idea who I—"
I didn't bother listening to the rest of his insults. I simply reached up and wrapped my hand around his thick forearm.
"[Activating 'Hell Flame' Lvl 1!]"
A deep, void-black fire erupted from my palm, its edges shimmering with a violent violet hue. The man didn't even have time to scream. The [Hell Flame] swallowed him whole, and in a heartbeat, he withered away into a pile of fine ash. The lobby went deathly quiet. Every eye in the room turned toward the black embers falling from my hand.
"That Flame... isn't that!?"
The shout came from the back of the room. I tilted my head. A normal human Ranker shouldn't have been able to recognize a legendary Flame from the abyss, yet these people knew exactly what it was. It was the final, smoking proof of their true nature.
"What? Do these flames remind you of home?" I taunted, a cold smile tugging at my lips.
"This bastard!! Kill him!!"
The mask of normalcy shattered. One by one, they drew their weapons and charged at me with a desperate, frantic energy. It was a bit of a drag to burn them all individually, so I decided to simplify things. I knelt down and pressed my palm firmly against the floor.
One of the beauty of 'Flame' series is its intelligence. It is a Flame that can burn even fire itself, yet it obeys the will of its master perfectly. I released a wave of violet heat that surged through the building like a tide.
In the 'Tower of Trials', there is a massive gap between the [Fire] series and the [Flame] series. While [Fire] is the basic version, [Flame] represents the pinnacle of evolution, and [Hell Flame] is one of the nine most terrifying series in existence. It flowed around the furniture and the infrastructure, consuming only the living 'Demonic Energy' in the room.
When I finally deactivated the barriers, I was standing alone in a building filled with nothing but silence and grey ash. Outside, the scene was pure chaos. Thanks to the [Mirror of Refracted Will], people on the street had only seen a peaceful office building until the moment the illusion dropped. Now, reporters, RMB staff, and members from rival Guilds were rushing toward the site. The news would be everywhere within minutes: the country's 9th S-Rank had just turned the Reaper Guild's branch into a cemetery.
The reporters were already shouting questions, and the RMB staff were moving in to detain me, but the air suddenly grew heavy. The piles of ash on the floor began to move, swirling together and emitting a pressure that made the ground groan.
"[Notice: The 'Status' of a Mid-Floor Being has been detected!]"
"[Notice: The 'Guardian of 12th Gate of Hell' is manifesting!]"
The shadows of the people I had just burned began to coalesce into something far larger and much more horrifying than any human.