At that moment, Akira found himself surrounded—each threat not random, but symbolic.
He was facing the Seven Deadly Sins… all at once.
In a head-on battle, he never feared.
But this time, he had a child in his arms—fragile, innocent, and wholly defenseless.
So he made a choice he rarely made.
He chose to run.
Just as he took a step, trying to flee with the child in his arms, a wild boar launched toward him at lightning speed—light as a feather, yet forceful like a hammer. Its tusks missed him by an inch but slammed into the wall behind, shattering it like glass. Akira landed on the rubble, cradling the child, and leapt skyward to escape.
But the seemingly slow snail warped ahead as if cheating time itself. It teleported directly in front of them. Akira crashed hard against its thick shell before he could even react. Instinct took over—he unleashed a Blacklight Step, a flash-speed movement technique, and darted to catch the child falling through the air. But no sooner had he secured the child, a goat sprang upward and rammed into him.
Akira twisted midair, shielding the child from the blow. The impact wasn't too powerful… but then came a sudden burst—like a flashbang—blinding his vision. A bird swooped down through the dazzle, its talons slashing across his cheek and ear, drawing blood.
Still gritting his teeth, Akira braced himself to launch again, only to see a serpent waiting where he was about to land. It lunged at his legs.
He tucked in, rolling midair. The snake clamped down—onto some nearby debris instead—and lightning exploded from the impact. CRACK! The object sizzled and burned on contact. But there was no time to breathe. A massive toad lunged into his side, swelling midair like a balloon, turning into a wall of flesh that crashed into him at close range.
He was hurled into a stone wall. Bones ached. Muscles screamed. He hadn't even gotten up when a lion sprang from the dust, its jaws open wide.
Akira crossed his twin blades just in time to block. The lion's saliva sizzled like lava, its fury blazing. It struck again and again with icy claws, furious and relentless. Sparks flew as steel met frost and fire. Fragments of molten heat and freezing shards exploded into the air.
The child clenched tight, screamed through closed eyes, tiny hands over ears—paralyzed in terror.
Akira inhaled sharply. Focus.
In a blur of motion, he twisted to counter the lion's next swipe, sending the beast staggering backward. With no time to lose, he seized the moment and carried the child in his arms again, trying to flee.
But there was nowhere to run.
The seven chaos beasts didn't just attack randomly anymore. They were adapting, coordinating. Trapping him. Herding him toward a dead end—pushing him against a narrow rock crevice. And to make matters worse… the goat wasn't just a brute—it had started healing and buffing the others, like some twisted support unit in a battle designed to overwhelm.
And all the while, he had to protect the child.
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He was surrounded.
At the very front stood the teleporting snail, acting as the team's living shield. Then came the wild boar, hurling itself forward with gravity magic. The crazed toad lunged and swelled like a spring-loaded battering ram. The snake coiled, ready to strike and shock with lightning. The bird flared with blinding light, diving in and out. The goat danced in the back, healing and buffing the others nonstop.
And worst of all… was the lion behind them all—fangs of fire, paws of frost, a beast of molten rage.
The situation was dire.
Akira was panting, drenched in sweat. Sure, he had fought monsters more powerful than these. But those were battles where many heroes fought a few enemies.
This time… it was the reverse.
He was alone. And they were many.
With a calmness born of sheer will, Akira gently placed the little girl down at the crevice between rocks. He readied his twin blades. His mind raced—plan, calculate, anticipate.
But the chaos beasts didn't wait for plans.
The boar charged first, tusks pounding the ground—spikes of earth burst upward like jagged fangs. Akira twisted aside, dodging by a hair, and turned to draw their attention. The others gave chase… except the snake.
The snake slithered straight for the child.
But Akira had counted on that.
The snake probably didn't expect a so-called hero to use a child as bait.
Akira vanished in a Blacklight Step and reappeared—twin blades piercing the snake through its mouth and belly in one clean motion. He pinned it down like a skewer of grilled eel, stabbed straight into the earth. He released the hilts.
The goat rushed to heal it.
But just before death, the snake unleashed one final, furious surge of lightning. It traveled down the metal blades and grounded out—just enough to shock the goat mid-cast and stun it briefly.
Akira didn't pause. He grabbed the hilts again, wrenched the skewered corpse free, and spun through the madness. The other beasts, blinded by fury, chased him blindly as he diverted their charge—straight at the snail.
The snail flinched and teleported aside in panic.
From behind it, the lion leapt in for the kill.
But Akira spun, parried the lion's strike with his blades, and used the impact to launch himself—toward the snail.
Still stuck in cooldown from its last warp, the snail couldn't teleport.
It was helpless.
Akira angled the snake corpse—its jaws still open, fangs venomous. The snake was dead, but the venom was very much alive. He drove the jaws straight into the snail's flesh.
"Shkkk."
The snail trembled, shell shimmering. The metal-like barrier began to dissolve. The goat rushed in again, but the snail, poisoned and disoriented, flickered around uncontrollably in a few last teleport attempts. The goat, still recovering from the lightning shock, couldn't heal it in time.
The snail collapsed and faded.
Akira picked up its remains and flung them to cover the girl.
"Hide behind that shell," he called out. "And be careful—not to touch the venom."
He kept moving, dodging the lunging beasts with split-second steps, drawing them away. The lion, he left for last. The others seemed too fixated on him to notice the child for now.
And that gave him space—just enough—to think.
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And then—
the moment he had been waiting for arrived.
The crazed toad, instead of inflating again, opened its mouth wide to unleash a burst of wind. That opening—right inside its gaping jaws—was the chance.
Akira struck.
He thrust his blade into the open mouth, embedding the snake's venomous fang directly into the toad's tongue. Then, without hesitation, he let go. The toad convulsed violently from the poison. The goat rushed to help—but the toad, in its death throes, ballooned one last time and blasted the goat away.
The toad collapsed, twitching, and went still.
But Akira had no time to breathe.
The bird was still harassing him.
He leapt—higher than ever before—propelled into the sky. The bird followed, the only one able to reach such altitude.
Normally, it attacked from above with blinding light.
But now, Akira was above it.
Its blinding trick failed.
At the peak of his arc, at the very tip of the projectile's curve, Akira spun—building momentum—and unleashed his skill:
"Starlit Sword Art — Crescent Flurry."
Waves of black and white energy shot out from him like curved moons, in rapid succession. Dozens of crescent slashes rained down, slicing through the bird, the boar, and the stunned goat below.
By the time Akira landed, the three had collapsed—done.
…Or so he thought.
The boar, stubborn and resilient, pushed itself up, using gravity magic to stabilize.
But the lion—furious, roaring—struck it with a devastating frost-laced paw.
Crack.
The boar crashed into a boulder and died on impact.
Only one remained.
The lion.
But it didn't flee.
It roared, spewing flames at Akira and lunging forward with a flurry of icy claws—sharp, fast, and brutal. Akira held his ground, parrying and countering with elegance and fury, the very style of twin blades shining through.
Still, the lion was relentless.
With a savage snarl, it opened its flaming jaws—ready to bite.
But that was exactly what Akira had waited for.
He drove his blade straight into its throat.
"Shkk."
The lion roared in pain, rearing onto its hind legs, clutching its bleeding mouth with a paw—exposing its vulnerable chest and belly.
Akira yanked his sword free and launched his second skill:
"Starlit Sword Art — Bladestorm Barrage."
Unlike the previous style, this was pure offense—no defense, no parrying, only relentless, blindingly fast strikes.
Enhanced with Blacklight Step, he vanished and reappeared over and over—slashing the lion dozens of times before it could even react.
And then… silence.
The seventh and final beast—fell.
Akira exhaled—just a flicker of relief—
But it lasted only three seconds.
Because the nightmare…
wasn't over.
From the corpses of the seven sins, a dark mist rose.
It gathered… swirled… and shot toward the child like a missile.
"BOOM! BOOM!"
The earth shook.
Akira's eyes widened. He sprinted forward to intercept—
But at the last second, something exploded nearby.
The snail.
Its corpse detonated at point-blank range.
"BOOM!"
Akira screamed, "NO!!"
Through the swirling smoke, something formed.
A black hole. Bottomless.
The child was falling in.
Akira dove in after her—no hesitation.
No plan.
Only instinct.
Only fear.
And in that moment—he leapt into the unknown,
into life… or death.
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