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Chapter 267 ~ The True Primordial Oni

The warm hues of the afternoon sun slowly faded, painting the sky in streaks of orange and crimson before surrendering to the velvet embrace of night. Stars began to pierce through the darkening canopy above, their twinkling light reflected in the polished surfaces of the estate’s grand windows as serenity settled over the forest-shrouded haven.

After hours of discussion and meticulous strategy, the group had finally reached a pause in their planning. Despite their brilliance and overwhelming capabilities, no definitive course of action had been set—each mission was too dependent on timing, on the alignment of events that were not entirely within their control.

Sure, with their might and influence, they could have orchestrated those scenarios, bent the world to their will with minimal effort. But that path was paved with casualties—innocents caught in the crossfire, chaos unleashed where none needed to exist. And so, they chose patience.

If this world mirrored the path of the anime’s timeline, then the opportunities would come. And when they did, they would strike—precisely, and without hesitation.

Amid their deliberations, another matter had been settled: after the conclusion of Rias’s rating game, Yuuji would summon Semiramis—the Queen of Assyria, their poised and deadly ally. Aika had already made a promise earlier that afternoon to aid Rias and her peerage in their training, and tomorrow marked the beginning of that endeavor.

Following that pivotal event, with time on their side, they would proceed with establishing Semiramisʼs dominion—the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. A sanctuary, flying fortress, and throne of their own making, to loom above the world.

Their conversation lingered well into the night, well past dinner time. So, they decided to have their first meal together in this world. 

But just as Yuuji, Aika, and Albedo stood from the long, woodentable—ready to prepare dinner for their comrades—a shift came.

Subtle, yet undeniable.

A prickling sensation at the nape of the neck. A sliver of discomfort at the back of their mind. A ripple in the natural flow of energy around Kuoh.

A malicious aura—faint, restrained, but unmistakable—crept into the edge of their perception.

The air itself seemed to pause.

“…Did you feel that?” Aika’s voice, usually playful and lilting, now carried a cold sharpness.

Yuuji’s eyes narrowed, his eyes shimmering with quiet intensity. “Yes. Something just stirred. A stray?”

The nature of the aura was that of a devil, but it didn’t belong to any of the devils they knew that were supposed to be in this town. 

Within a second, the cheerful atmosphere evaporated. The once cozy estate was now bathed in the weight of anticipation. C.C. frowned and glanced at Lelouch, who immediately used his divination magic to get answers. 

Erika stood up and walked out towards Yuuji and the others and looked up, her eyes turning crimson into that of a Shura as she tried to sense the source of the malicious aura. 

Tatsuya stood up with practiced precision, grabbing his custom CAD, while Suzuki was already giving silent orders to his deployed Phantoms.

“It’s in the eastern quadrant of Kuoh,” Lelouch reported after receiving his answer from his divination magic. “An abandoned warehouse zone at the edge of the town. It’s sparse, but there are still a few people living near it.”

Yuuji fell into thought, when Albedo stepped towards him. “Shall I dispose of it, Yuuji-sama?”

“Ah, I want to do it!” Erika volunteered, earning her looks of shock from her friends. 

“I’ve never been able to use my SSR in my world, so I want to try it out and get used to it! After all, I’m going to be using it a lot from now on for the missions in this world, so might as well, right?” Erika grinned, her eyes brimming with anticipation as she looked around at her friends. 

“I don’t mind. Judging from its magical signature, it’s quite weak. There’s no need for all of us to go.” Tatsuya nodded and holstered his Silver Horn back. 

“I’ll cast Telepathic Bond between all of us so you can keep in touch.” Lelouch waved his hands, and all of their minds were connected. 

“Sure. Just be safe.” C.C waved her hand as well as it glowed with golden light and cast [Death Ward] on Erika, before relaxing back on her seat, hugging her massive Cheese-kun plushie. 

“I’ll have my Phantoms surround the area so no innocents would enter it. You can rest easy.” Suzuki nodded with a reassuring smile. 

“Then, Albedo and I will get started on dinner~ Hubby, you should go and accompany Erica!” Aika winked at her beloved as she linked her arms with Albedo. 

“Eh? It’s fine! I can do it alone-” 

“No, I’ll come as well.” Yuuji interrupted Erika mid-sentence, making her look at him in shock. 

And before Erika could even think that he was doubting her strength, he explained himself. 

“Rias and Sona might’ve sensed it as well, and one of them would definitely go there to take care of the stray. It’ll most likely be Rias and her peerage. They would definitely take this chance to train.” Yuuji hypothesized, “If they come, I’ll take care of the talking and make sure they don’t disturb you.”

A look of understanding finally appeared on her face, and Erika nodded with a smile.

“Alright!”

With a wild, toothy grin, Erika unleashed a surge of pure, primordial magic. A violent burst of dark energy erupted from her form like a detonated star, swallowing the room in a vortex of jet-black flames. The air twisted and howled around her, shrieking under the weight of power so ancient and unrelenting it made even the seasoned warriors flinch. For a moment, her figure vanished within the cyclone of darkness.

Then—silence.

The flames dimmed, not extinguished, but restrained, coiling around her like loyal serpents. From within the swirling shadows, her figure emerged anew.

No longer the girl clad in a casual hoodie and tank top.

Two curved, crimson-red horns now protruded from either side of her forehead, just above her temples—each one glowing faintly, veins of fiery power pulsing beneath the surface. Her once-orange hair had deepened into a blood-red hue, longer now, cascading down her back like a river of molten rubies.

Her skin had turned a hauntingly pale shade, the color of moonlight reflected on bone. Her eyes—once soft and amber—were now piercing crimson beacons, glowing with a malevolent radiance that seemed to pierce the very soul. Her fangs were slightly bared, elongated and razor-sharp, matching the claws that now tipped her fingers.

Her new attire exuded both elegance and danger—a white and crimson kimono that clung to her body, leaving much of her skin exposed in deliberate, provocative confidence. The long red hakama flowed around her legs, the front open in a way that revealed her toned form. She looked like a deity from a forgotten myth—terrifyingly beautiful and utterly unstoppable.

At her hip rested a blade unlike any other—a long, black-and-crimson katana, wrapped in a coiling aura of flickering dark flames. It pulsed with hunger, as if eager to taste blood.

This was Shura, the True Primordial Oni.

An incarnation of ancient wrath and boundless might, cloaked in raw, unfiltered power. And Erika stood at its center, not consumed by it, but commanding it with absolute sovereignty.

The wooden floor, enchanted by magic, cracked for a moment under the sheer might of her aura, before repairing itself. 

And if not for the multiple magical barriers of concealment around them, her aura would’ve been like a sun in the middle of the night. 

She looked at them—at her comrades— then turned towards Yuuji with that same grin, her voice both teasing and deadly.

“Let’s go!”

Her form dissipated into darkness, falling into the shadow, and rushed towards the location of the stray. 

Yuuji also changed his appearance, adorning the usual outfit of his Devil Prince persona with the added mask of the Black Knights to conceal his face, and flew invisibly to follow Erika. 

They arrived at the abandoned warehouse in mere moments, cutting through the stillness of the night like shadows chasing the wind.

Erika arrived first.

Her form melted seamlessly into the darkness, traversing the thick folds of night faster than even Yuuji’s top-flight speed. Her connection to the primordial shadows allowed her to slip through the tiniest cracks in reality, bypassing the locked steel doors without even a whisper.

Inside, the warehouse yawned like a decaying beast.

The cavernous interior was bathed in an eerie half-light—moonlight filtered through shattered glass panes and jagged holes in the rusting roof. The dim glow barely reached the far corners of the vast, empty space, casting long, contorted shadows over the skeletal remains of scaffolding, broken machinery, and heaps of forgotten scrap.

And then, from the floor itself, Erika emerged.

She rose soundlessly from the shadows like a phantom, her glowing crimson Oni eyes slicing through the gloom like blades. They shimmered with a deadly brilliance—twin rubies set in the pale sculpture of her otherworldly face.

Immediately, the thick, metallic tang of blood hit her nose.

Her enhanced senses flared. The scent wasn’t just strong—it was fresh. And it didn’t come from the rusted nails or corroded steel beams scattered across the derelict interior. No, this was something alive, something vile.

With the unholy perception of the Shura, darkness was no obstacle. Where others would see vague outlines, Erika saw everything.

Blood.

Stains upon stains—old, dried, blackened blotches that crusted over concrete like scabs. Painted streaks on beams and walls where hands had once flailed in vain. And over that, newer splashes—fresh, glistening trails of crimson that formed chaotic rivers through cracked tiles.

Her gaze moved to the center of the warehouse.

There, amidst the squalor, the broken scaffolds, the torn tarps and soiled bags, lay a scene of nightmarish carnage.

Fresh blood pooled in a thick, wet basin of gore. Limbs. Bones. Half-torn faces. The remains of the forgotten—men and women whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A tangled heap of flesh and agony, mixed with the meager remnants of their lives: torn tents, dented cans, ripped clothing, and half-eaten scraps of salvaged food.

And at the very center of the massacre, crouched like a grotesque spider, was the source of it all.

A tall, unnaturally lanky figure hunched in gleeful madness.

Its skin was ghostly white, save for the streaks of crimson that painted it like war paint—blood that clearly didn’t belong to it. Its long limbs twisted and curled around its gaunt frame, its knees bent so far they rose past its head in an unnatural, bone-snapping posture.

It giggled.

A soft, deranged, bone-chilling sound that echoed through the warehouse like the laughter of a child in a graveyard.

Its face was stretched in inhuman delight—eyes narrowed into wicked crescent moons, glinting with unholy joy. Its mouth… no, maw, was torn open in a hideous grin that split its face from its elongated ear to ear, exposing a forest of jagged, yellowed fangs. Flesh had ripped at the corners, muscles torn, as though the smile itself had burst forth like a parasite.

In its elongated fingers, it held a limp, blood-slicked intestine, plucked casually from the disemboweled corpse of a frail, elderly man lying broken beside it. The creature’s tongue darted out to taste it, savoring the taste like a connoisseur would fine wine.

A nightmare given form. 

Seeing such a monster for the first time, Erika froze in place. 

The blood and gore did not shock her, for she had experienced her fair share of carnage and war. But her enemies back then were human. 

This was something else. Something that couldn’t be farther from “human”. 

‘Calm down, Erika.’

A soft, calming whisper entered her mind, and she instinctively looked up. 

Suspended silently in the night sky, Yuuji hovered above the warehouse like a shadow given form, the moonlight casting a silver sheen across his calm, unreadable expression.

But that calm was a mask—one forged through willpower and necessity, pressed over a storm of disgust and cold fury simmering beneath his skin.

His eyes, sharp as blades, fixed on the creature crouched in the center of the blood-drenched warehouse.

‘It didn’t sneak in… it appeared. A sudden, violent emergence—and within moments, it slaughtered them all.’

The creature’s chaotic aura pulsed like a diseased heart, spilling into the world without restraint. It made no attempt to conceal itself, no signs of control or sentience guiding its magic. It simply was—a mindless engine of hunger and death.

And that told Yuuji everything he needed to know.

This thing hadn’t been hiding. It hadn’t slipped under their radar.

They had felt its arrival the moment it tore through the veil between worlds—like a scream in a quiet room.

But by the time they reached the scene… the massacre had already been committed.

Blood, suffering, and silence now filled the space where frightened, forgotten lives once clung to warmth.

His fingers curled slightly at his side.

He exhaled slowly, letting the anger settle into cold focus.

‘Hah… This isn’t how I imagined the night would go.’

Erika sighed inwardly, a subtle breath escaping her lips as the crimson glow in her eyes flickered ever so slightly.

Disappointment, heavy and undeniable, settled in her chest.

She had hoped for a challenge—something worthy of testing the power thrumming beneath her skin in this true form of hers. A cunning devil, perhaps. One with pride, tactics, and at least a sliver of resistance that could make her blood sing with excitement.

Instead… she walked into a grotesque tableau of carnage and madness.

Her heels clicked softly against the stained concrete as she took a slow step forward, the sound sharp against the muffled silence of the warehouse. Jet-black flames curled around her katana, casting eerie shadows along the torn steel and broken scaffolding.

“A beast…” she muttered under her breath, eyes narrowing with faint disdain. “Not even sentient. No elegance, no restraint. Just hunger.”

The thing at the center of the carnage didn’t respond. It couldn’t. Its world was made of screams and meat.

She rolled her shoulders, loosening her stance. The long crimson hakama flowed like liquid fire as she shifted her weight.

“Well then,” she murmured, voice low and silken with cold resolve, “Guess I’ll just have to make the best of it.”

The darkness around her thickened, and the air shimmered with raw, violent energy. 

She drew her blade, and a crimson black blade wreathed in the eternal cursed flames of hells that burns even souls to ashes was drawn for the first time into reality. 

The cursed sword of absolute severance; Murasame. 

The mindless beast finally noticed her presence, its eyes, a pair of vacuous holes, dripping with black tar-like liquid, widened into saucers. 

It shot up into its full height, more than four meters high, stretched its long, thin, razor-like claws, and roared with an echoing shriek, shaking the air and ground. 

“How noisy… Just come at me, bastard.”

The monster lunged and the Shura danced in the darkness wreathed in the cursed flames of hell. 

--------------------------------X--------------------------------

Like a bolt of lightning shattering the stillness of a clear night sky, a sudden eruption of demonic energy surged across Kuoh, its malevolent weight sending shockwaves through the air.

Rias Gremory froze mid-sentence, crimson eyes widening as an oppressive, sinister aura washed over her like a tide of dread. Across the room, Akeno’s expression turned grim, her hand tightening around her tea cup until it cracked slightly.

“This presence…!” Rias breathed, her voice laced with alarm.

The two noblewomen stood abruptly from their seats, the tactical documents they had been reviewing scattered across the table. Even as seasoned devils, this was no ordinary disturbance—it was powerful, ancient, and horrifyingly primal.

“Akeno, gather everyone immediately! I’ll contact Sona!”

“Understood!”

With a burst of violet magic, Akeno vanished from the room, soaring across the night skies like a thunderbolt. She quickly located Koneko, Kiba, and Issei, who were cooling down after their late-night training session. The moment they saw her expression, they understood.

Within minutes, the group returned to the Occult Research Club room, tense and alert.

Meanwhile, Rias pressed her phone to her ear, calling her fellow heiress.

“Sona! Did you feel that?!” she asked, barely keeping the urgency from cracking her voice.

“I did,” Sona’s calm voice replied, but even she couldn’t hide the tight edge beneath it. “A stray devil… no, something worse. We’re on our way. I’ll bring my peerage.”

“Good. We’ll meet you at the scene. Let’s put an end to this before anyone else gets hurt.”

Just as Rias ended the call, Akeno reappeared with the rest of her peerage. The heavy tension in the room made the air feel like it could snap.

“President!” Akeno said.

Rias turned, her eyes hard with resolve. “You all felt it. That was no ordinary presence. It’s a powerful stray devil—or something even more dangerous. I’ve already contacted Sona. She and her peerage will meet us there. Stay sharp, and remember our training. We can’t afford mistakes tonight.”

““Yes!”” they answered in unison, determination burning in their eyes.

In that moment, the gears of fate turned just a little faster—pulling them closer toward a night none of them would forget.

The room pulsed with energy as Rias gathered her peerage at the center, her eyes narrowed with resolve. With a sweep of her arm, she summoned a teleportation circle—its brilliant crimson light casting dramatic shadows across the walls, bathing everything in a glow that seemed to pulse with urgency.

“Hold on tight,” she murmured.

The magic swelled, the symbols of the Gremory crest swirling beneath their feet. The light intensified—then, in a heartbeat, they vanished.

A moment later, a blazing red magic circle ignited against the cracked cement of an abandoned district at the edge of Kuoh Town. The spell sigils shimmered like blood under moonlight. Six figures materialized within its core—Rias, Akeno, Kiba, Koneko, Issei, and Asia.

The moment they arrived, the weight of the malevolent magic slammed into them like a solid wall.

“Uuuhh—!” Asia cried out, staggering as her knees buckled.

“A-Asia!” Issei gasped, clutching his chest. “W-What… What is this pressure?!”

The air was thick—oppressively thick. It clung to their skin like hot tar, choking and heavy, as if trying to drown them in miasma. The source of the aura was somewhere ahead, but even this close, it already twisted the world around them into a nauseating haze of spiritual pressure.

Just then, another spell circle flared to life beside them—cool and glacial, etched in elegant blue.

With a flash, Sona Shitori and her entire peerage emerged. But even the more disciplined student council members found themselves shaken.

“Kuh…!” Saji gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his brow. “T-This pressure… what is happening?!”

“This… isn’t normal,” Tsubaki murmured, her hands trembling slightly.

Meguri and Nimura both looked pale, visibly struggling against the aura that threatened to smother their focus.

“Hah… Hah… P-President…!”

Sona, composed but serious, turned to her team. “Calm yourselves. Focus your mana and circulate it inward. Don’t let the foreign magic seep into your core. Breathe—regulate your flow.”

Her voice, calm and unwavering, helped ground her peerage. With a final glance to ensure they could stand on their own, she turned to Rias.

“Rias,” she said curtly.

Rias met her gaze and gave a firm nod. “Let’s move.”

Without another word, both peerages sprinted toward the source of the dark power, the night around them tense with expectation.

Each step brought them closer to a confrontation unlike any they had faced before.

The clashing sounds of steel, the crunch of shattered concrete, and monstrous, inhuman roars echoed through the night like a funeral dirge. The gathered devils no longer needed to rely on the thick, oppressive aura to lead them—sound alone drew them forward like a war drum.

Before long, they stood before an old, rust-covered warehouse, its large steel doors shut but clearly disturbed. Broken chains lay strewn across the ground like discarded snakes, a heavy lock snapped in half beside them. A common sight for a shelter claimed by the homeless… but the violent sounds within betrayed something far more sinister.

Rias and Sona exchanged glances—unspoken but clear. Everyone readied themselves for combat.

“Issei,” Rias called out.

“Saji,” Sona added firmly.

Both young men swallowed hard, their bodies tense, but they nodded in sync and stepped forward.

With shaky hands, they gripped the door handles and slowly slid them open. The doors creaked with a protesting groan as moonlight spilled into the shadowed interior—and so did the sight of chaos.

A grotesque figure thrashed inside.

The creature towered above the scattered wreckage, a pale, gangly monstrosity of twisted sinew and cracked bones. Its skin was white as chalk, smeared and splattered in crimson gore that wasn’t its own. Eyes like pitch-black voids bulged wide, and its mouth stretched with jagged fangs into a scream—of rage… pain… and, to their shock, unmistakable fear.

But it wasn’t alone.

Black flames flickered along thin, almost imperceptible cuts that crisscrossed its entire body. From those wounds, eerie characters—ink-like runes of an ancient, unrecognizable script—spread outward like tattoos from a nightmare, withering its flesh and eating away at its vitality.

The wounds came without warning. In a blink, more appeared on its legs. Then its arm. Then its face. The devil howled and lashed out wildly, claws slashing at air, swinging into shadow—only for one arm to suddenly recoil with a crack, as if it struck something solid.

“What the hell was that?!” Issei yelped, wide-eyed.

“I-I can’t see anything…!” Saji muttered through gritted teeth, straining to pierce the dark.

Sona’s voice was tight with astonishment. “This… This is not normal…”

“Kiba,” Rias turned sharply, “what do your eyes tell you? Can you see what’s happening?”

Her knight, usually confident, shook his head. “I… I can’t, President. It’s too fast—like shadows themselves are moving. But… I thought I saw a sword. Just for a moment. When the devil’s arm was thrown back.”

“A sword?” Rias echoed, disbelieving.

“I can’t be sure. I just saw a glint—and then nothing. Darkness.”

All they could do was watch. And in eerie silence, the monstrosity began to fall.

No defiant scream. No final howl. Only the soft crackle of black flames and the sickening sound of rotting flesh as the creature crumbled, piece by piece, into ash. Its limbs gave out. Its face collapsed. Its body blackened and disintegrated into silence.

Then, as the smoke thinned, they saw her.

A woman—no, something beyond human.

Of average height, clad in an elegant yet revealing kimono and hakama, her blood-red hair drifting in the wake of her presence. Twin horns curled from her forehead, and at her side rested a katana—long, ominous, and engulfed in the same black flames that had consumed the devil.

She stood there, a statue of demonic grace.

And then… she turned.

Her eyes—crimson, radiant, otherworldly—swept toward them. And in that moment, every member of both peerages felt it. A chill that bypassed the mind and struck the soul. A primal, bone-deep fear they hadn’t known they could feel.

The eyes of a predator. Of something ancient, wrathful… and utterly unbound.