Rainier turned his head around, his eyes wide with horror. "No..." He mumbled in a low tone.
Screams tore through the air as flames roared skyward.
The Eiffel Tower itself seemed to tremble from the shockwave.
Panic exploded across the wedding.
People ran in every direction, trampling each other in blind terror.
Across Paris, similar explosions and dark portals began tearing open.
Cultists in black robes poured out of the portals.
The Demon Cult's long-planned assault on the French capital had officially started.
Red Alarms was everywhere across Paris.
The explosion at Champ de Mars had been only the opening for the cultists to simply add to the chaos.
Now the symphony of destruction roared across the Paris.
Gray smoke wailed at the sky while sirens in French, echoed from every corner city: "Red Alert! Demon Cult had invade the city! All citizens, take shelter immediately!"
"Dark portals are multiplying across the city. Evacuate the area as soon as possible!"
Tourists who had been snapping photos moments ago now screamed and ran, only to be cut down by black-robed figures pouring from rifts that tore open.
The Demon Cult had come wearing smiles of holy madness.
At the ruined wedding marquee, Rainier stood amid the smoke and overturned chairs, fists clenched so hard his knuckles cracked.
Blood trickled from a gash on his forehead, his eyes burned with cold fury. "These bastards… using my stepsister's wedding as a slaughterhouse?!"
A black-robed cultist lunged at him, dagger dripping with cursed energy.
Rainier simply stepped forward, mana flaring dark around his body.
One punch is all it took—The cultist's chest caved in with a sickening crunch; the man flew thirty meters and smashed through a row of floral arches.
"Helios Guild, respond!" Rainier barked into his earpiece, voice steady even as civilians fled past him in panic.
"This is Rainier Laurent, Paris is under full assault, demon cult cells are confirmed to be set all across the city—Request immediate operation!"
He looked at his surroundings and the 3 Cultists from earlier seems to vanished. "Tch, they've escaped?"
Across the Seine, in the shadow of Notre-Dame, three more portals ripped open.
Cultists flooded out in waves, chanting in an ancient, guttural tongue.
Their eyes glowed crimson. Innocent Parisian families, street performers, lovers holding hands were cut down without mercy.
A mother shielding her child was impaled by a spear of black mana.
The child's scream was swallowed by the roar of fire.
High above the city, emergency alerts blared from every speaker and screen: "Attention! Paris is in a state of war! All available adventurers are tasked to protect the city!"
The call reached the adventurers instantly.
In a café near the Louvre, a silver-haired swordsman in a red coat.
Upper-A Rank, Grade V sorcerer, Ilbert 'Flashblade' —slammed his rapier onto the table, eyes narrowing. "These fanatics picked the wrong day to play apocalypse."
He stood, coat flaring dramatically as mana ignited around his blade. "Time to remind them why Paris still stands!"
Beside him, his partner—a petite Low-A Rank, Grade Vl mage named with twin floating orbs of azure light orbiting her—clenched her staff. "The portals are multiplying too fast."
"If we don't seal the main rift near the Tower, the whole city will become a battlefield."
Ilbert smirked, the classic anime-protagonist grin that said he was about to do something insanely reckless. "We cut the head off their leader!"
Further north, near Montmartre, Benoît Tremblé roared as he charged out of a guild safehouse, massive shield glowing with golden runes.
"For the people of France! Not one more innocent dies today! We will not let them do the same to what happened to Dieppe!" Behind him, a squad of twenty adventurers formed up, thier weapons drawn.
Then, Ives Thibault whispered: "Well... thousands of people are probably dead already."
Regis Bernard walks forward and asked, "Have you seen Gul?"
Ives answered his left eyebrow raised "About that..."
Military helicopters—emblazoned with the French flag and the Adventurer Association crest—ropes dropped down.
Elite soldiers in tactical gear slid down in perfect sync, rifles humming with anti-mana rounds.
"GO GO GO!" a sergeant shouted. "Secure the perimeter!"
One helicopter hovered dangerously close to a massive portal above the Champs-Élysées.
A cultist high priest levitated within the rift, his arms spread wide, laughing maniacally.
"Behold the true glory of Beelzebub! Paris shall be the first sacrifice, the age of demons begins NOW!"
Suddenly a man leaped through a building and shouted, "Like hell it does!" Brown hair, scarry face... Baudin Beranger just below him is his supporting fan—Maugier Poirier arms stretched.
Baudin delivered a downward arc slash with the greatsword, the high priest snarled as the barrier cracked.
Rainier sprinted through the burning wedding grounds, leaping over fallen chairs and bodies.
His stepsister—lay unconscious but alive beneath a collapsed floral arch.
He carried her up with one arm, dark mana forming a protective cloak around them both. "Stay with me, sis… I won't let them ruin your wedding. Not while I'm still breathing."
From the rooftops, a cloaked figure watched the carnage unfold.
Beside him is another cloaked man with Talisman on the neck.
His lips curled into a satisfied smile beneath his hood, "Let the blood flow, let the fear spread. The Lord of Flies awakens… and the world will choke on its screams."
Loki took a bite, he munched at such speed, while staring at his phone.
An adventurer's mana flare lit up the horizon in a burst of azure light—someone was clearly fighting for their life a few blocks away...
Nyx lay sprawled across the opposite end of the couch, purring softly in deep, peaceful sleep...he didn't even stir when another explosion rattled the windows.
Loki swallowed another massive bite, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and muttered through a full mouth, "Man… this steak is actually fire been a while since I've cooked something good."
Rainier lowered his unconscious stepsister gently behind an overturned table, shielding her with a dome of dark mana that simmered.
His eyes narrowed to slits.
More cultists were already closing in—six of them this time—black robes fluttering like crows, cursed daggers and black-mana spears raised high.
"No more games," he growled, cracking his knuckles.
Aura around him exploded outward in a dark vortex, cracking the ground beneath his boots.
The first cultist lunged with a scream of holy frenzy.
Rainier met him head-on.
He sidestepped dodging the attack, grabbed the dagger and stabbed it to the man's face with brutality.
Two more came from the left and right, chanting in unison.
Rainier spun left hook—his fist connected with a jaw, dark mana detonating inside the cultist's skull.
The man's head whipped sideways with a sickening crack.
Right elbow smashed into the second attacker's throat, crushing windpipe and mana veins in one strike.
Both dropped before they could even finish their spells.
"These bastards just keep coming!" Rainier snarled, breathing hard, blood and soot streaking his face.
A fourth cultist hurled a spear of condensed black mana.
Rainier caught the shaft mid-air with one hand, snapped it in half, and drove the broken end straight through the cultist's shoulder.
The man howled as Rainier followed up with a palm strike to the chest—pure vibration force rippling through flesh and bone until the cultist's ribcage shattered from the inside.
A fifth cultist with glowing crimson runes on his robe—leaped from the smoke, dual blades spinning.
Rainier ducked under the first slash, drove an uppercut into the man's solar plexus, and followed with a spinning back kick that sent the cultist tumbling across the grass in a trail of black blood.
The sixth tried to flank him, chanting a curse that made the air itself rot.
Rainier closed the distance in a blur, grabbed the cultist by the throat, and slammed him into the ground so hard the marble tiles beneath the marquee exploded outward.
Dark mana pulsed twice through the man's body until every vein burst from within.
Rainier stood in the center of the carnage, chest heaving, fists dripping, six bodies lay broken around him.
But more portals were already flickering open at the edges of the wedding grounds.
Dozens more cultists poured through, eyes burning with fanatic glee.
"Damn it! Where the hell are they!? I'm getting swarmed over here!" he shouted into the earpiece, voice raw.
A lone figure was launching impossibly fast, his hand was on the hilt of the long épée gleaming at his side.