"Huh? What is that?"
Having just recovered from the suffocating pressure of the Darkness Devil, Denji stared blankly at the rapidly expanding shadow looming overhead, muttering to himself.
The Darkness Devil had retreated into the deep recesses of Hell's shadows, having absolutely no desire to take a direct hit from an attack driven entirely by Kobeni's astounding wisdom. This human was a complete and utter lunatic.
Amused, Kobeni stood with her hands on her hips, her voice ringing with pride. "Hiding won't save you!"
Beside her, Reze had finally snapped out of her stupor, staring up at the sky in a daze. She couldn't wrap her mind around what was happening. But, for all intents and purposes, the moon appeared to be falling.
Suddenly, a massive pulling force yanked at them. It was Kobeni, grabbing both of them and bolting toward the side. In stark contrast to her fragile appearance, Kobeni possessed a terrifying amount of brute strength.
She dragged Denji and Reze to a relatively safe distance. Immediately after, a dome of purplish-black Moon Demon Chi enveloped the trio, sealing them away from most of the outside world.
Kobeni wasn't foolish enough to go down in a double suicide with the Darkness Devil. The Demon Chi bestowed upon her by Mr. Demon was incredibly useful; even the Darkness Devil's absolute slashes had been unable to breach its defenses. Though, as to whether it could withstand the shockwave of a literal lunar impact... she wasn't entirely certain.
The crushing weight of the atmospheric pressure grew closer. A pale purple light completely illuminated every single crack and crevice across the surface of Hell.
The moon fell.
Within the protective shroud of Moon Demon Chi, the three of them clasped their hands over their heads.
"What did you do?!" Reze screamed at Kobeni over the deafening, resonant hum.
Kobeni covered her ears, looking thoroughly delighted. "I pulled the moon down!"
"What?!!!" Reze was completely dumbfounded.
Denji, on the other hand, actually seemed a bit better off. After all, this wasn't the first time Kobeni had pulled a stunt like this. Back in the hotel during the operation to eliminate the Eternity Devil, she had almost dragged the moon down once before. As the saying goes, the first time is awkward, but the second time is routine.
And this time, there was no one around to stop her.
Amidst the heart-stopping suspense of a celestial body crashing into the earth, the pale purple full moon finally made contact with the surface of Hell.
At the exact instant of impact, an uncontrollable wave of purple light surged outward in all directions, a cataclysmic shockwave sweeping across the entirety of Hell. The realm had never experienced a tremor so profound.
The moment it touched down, the ground sank deep into a massive crater, while the surrounding earth buckled, fractured, and surged upward. It was like throwing a boulder into a perfectly still lake, sending violent ripples tearing across the entire surface. And at this moment, Hell was that lake.
A vibration capable of annihilating all signs of life instantly reverberated through every corner of the realm, the colossal roaring sound causing the ears of weaker devils to rupture and bleed.
Through Kobeni's eyes, alongside the violent earthquake, a blinding, dazzling pale purple radiance erupted across the terrain. Looking at the impregnable barrier of Moon Demon Chi, she let out a sigh of relief.
Seeing her finally relax, Denji wiped away the trail of blood leaking from his ears and remarked with complete nonchalance, "Hey, Higashiyama, you actually had zero confidence that this black stuff could block a moon, didn't you?" He gestured toward the purplish-black Moon Demon Chi.
Kobeni pouted slightly, tilting her chin up with an air of indifference. "Well, it blocked it, didn't it?"
She had only been testing it out. After all, besides pulling down the moon, she couldn't think of any other move capable of defeating the Darkness Devil. If the Moon Demon Chi had failed to block the shockwave... well, she would have just met a tragic end alongside her beloved sedan!
As the apocalyptic tremors gradually subsided, Kobeni excitedly dropped the protective barrier of Moon Demon Chi and looked around. In an instant, she froze.
Though less than half a minute had passed, the Hell before them had completely transformed.
"Whoa! Is this the apocalypse?! Are zombies gonna show up?" Denji exclaimed.
The previously somewhat orderly landscape of Hell had vanished without a trace. Fractured earth, deathly silent air, and even the very topography beneath their feet had undergone a drastic overhaul. Originally, they were supposed to be standing on a vast plain. But now...
"We're standing inside a giant bowl!" Denji noted in awe.
Reze nodded silently, murmuring, "A very big bowl indeed."
"It's not a bowl, it's a basin! A basin!" Kobeni corrected them with an exasperated sigh.
"Sorry, I never went to school," Denji and Reze replied almost in perfect unison.
Kobeni smacked her forehead. Right, she forgot that these two were essentially semi-illiterate.
The destructive power of the falling moon was immense, a terrifying sight to behold. However, what caught Kobeni by surprise was that she couldn't see any physical remnants of a moon anywhere. If she recalled her school textbooks correctly, the moon was supposed to be a gray sphere covered in craters. Yet, the center of the impact zone was completely empty.
Kobeni suddenly shuddered as a realization struck her.
In other words, the moon she had just dragged down from above wasn't the actual, physical moon. Mr. Demon had stated that the celestial body was merely his gaze; she had simply pulled his "gaze" out of the sky. The moon just now was nothing more than a fraction of power left behind by Mr. Demon before his departure.
She clapped her hands together. That explained everything. No wonder the sheer scale of destruction felt slightly less intense than what she had unleashed back at the hotel.
"So it wasn't the real moon! Still super awesome, though."
Inexplicably, a tiny hint of disappointment lingered in Kobeni's heart.
Nevertheless, under Mr. Demon's flawlessly comprehensive arrangements, the Darkness Devil's arrogance had finally been thoroughly crushed!
Kobeni quickly scanned the area. Just a fraction of a second before the moon hit, the Darkness Devil had hidden itself. As a Primal Devil, it possessed an incredibly troublesome trait: born from humanity's primal fear of the unknown and the dark, as long as it embedded itself within the darkness, it was virtually immune to harm.
The commotion just now had been catastrophic, and Kobeni wasn't sure if she had managed to one-shot it.
As she pondered, a wisp of darkness slowly coalesced not far away.
This time, the Darkness Devil no longer had the luxury or energy to orchestrate its elaborate astronaut entrance. As if to validate Kobeni's theory, it materialized from the gloom, carrying a distinct air of frailty.
Kobeni's realm-spanning ultimate attack was something that even an entity merged with the shadows could not completely evade. Its dark cape hung in tattered shreds, the vertically arranged skulls on its chest were completely shattered, and the skeletal framework constructing its body was fractured and falling apart. A faint, pale purple luminescence was clinging to its form, causing bone dust and fragments to continuously flake off its body with every passing second.
"Whoa, look at that! The boss dropped loot!" Denji pointed at the Darkness Devil with pure excitement. He genuinely felt like he was playing a video game. Kobeni was the hard carry, while he and Reze were... well, the cheerleaders.
Meanwhile, within the malevolent aura exuded by the Darkness Devil, which the trio had now completely learned to ignore, a distinct trace of fury flared up.
Since the moment it was born from human terror, it had never suffered injuries this severe. If its instincts hadn't warned it to hide in the deep dark beforehand, it would likely be dead right now.
The seemingly cute, naive girl standing before it...
Was truly an entity capable of instilling fear... even within a devil.
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