The Seven Demon's Tamer

For the first time since the clash between the summoner and the black-marked familiar began, Valachi showed fear.

The emotion was so strange to his face that for a moment, even Master Sung—battered, bloodied, and kneeling on the devastated ground—couldn't comprehend what he was witnessing.

Fear wasn't an expression that belonged on the face of a creature that had descended from the black-marked section of Astral Shadow Plane, especially on someone like Valachi who had the confidence of a god among mortals.

Yet there it was, unmistakably clear across Valachi's pale, scaled face.

The fear wasn't radiating from Valachi simply because Ryder was the Dracogon's soon-to-be summoner—though that alone should have been enough to make any black-marked familiar reconsider their actions.

However, this terror was something he was feeling from Ryder himself. It was because of Ryder's very core at this moment—his aura was... inhuman.

Ryder, who had appeared ordinary throughout their entire encounter, who had exuded an aura that couldn't even come close to matching any of the black-marked beasts that had descended upon planet Terra, was suddenly exuding this overwhelming presence.

His human form remained unchanged, still bearing the same body features, the same build that had seemed so ordinary just moments before. Yet everything about him had shifted in a way that made the very air around him feel dense.

His aura alone was suffocating Valachi, pressing down on the black-marked familiar like the weight of a boulder on an ant.

It was a pressure that went beyond mere gamma energy—it was a crushing force, the kind of overwhelming presence that made every instinct in Valachi's body scream at him to run and avoid death.

Just moments ago, Ryder had appeared from nowhere, undetectable even by Valachi's enhanced senses that could track movement faster than light itself.

The black-marked familiar's perception had completely failed to register Ryder's approach until it was far too late.

*Slash.*

That singular sound cut through the night air with finality.

Valachi's hand—the same hand that had been reaching toward Master Sung's face with killing intent just a heartbeat before—was now spinning through the air, spraying black blood.

Master Sung, still kneeling and struggling to process the sudden shift in the battle, found his gaze drawn upward to the figure who had so suddenly appeared between him and unavoidable death.

He saw Ryder with his fist covered in blood—Valachi's blood—slowly dripping from Ryder's fingernails, and no weapon was visible in his hands.

He had severed the black-marked familiar's hand with nothing more than his bare fingers.

"We have to retreat," Valachi spoke, his voice carrying none of the arrogant confidence that he had all these while.

In fact, the words came out as a harsh whisper, forced through his throat that was suddenly tight with fear. Survival had become the only priority, and remaining in Ryder's presence would result in death.

*Vwoom.*

Without a moment's hesitation, Valachi launched himself away from Ryder with urgency, his remaining hand pressed against his severed wrist in an attempt to stop the flow of blood that was rapidly weakening him.

His speed, which had seemed so overwhelming when facing Master Sung, now felt like it wasn't enough as he pushed his body to its limit.

He moved faster than sound, faster than light, creating sonic booms that would have shattered the guild's infrastructure if not for the fact that the entire Red Eastern Guild base was already a wasteland.

As he fled, Valachi's head turned slightly, catching sight of Ryder with the corner of his eye. What he saw sent fresh waves of terror coursing through his already panicked mind.

Ryder wasn't pursuing him with even the slightest effort. Instead, he was simply walking, his pace casual and unhurried, yet somehow managing to maintain perfect distance between them despite Valachi's desperate escape attempt.

The distance between them and the other battles was significant—several miles of devastated landscape stretched between Valachi's position and where the other black-marked beasts were engaging the other humans.

Despite this distance, the quietness of the night and the abnormally sharp senses possessed by all black-marked familiars allowed his voice to carry clearly across the expanse when he screamed his warning.

"Change of plans! We have to retreat!" Valachi's voice cracked with desperation as the words tore from his throat. "There is someth—"

*Thwack.*

The sound of impact was followed immediately by an explosion of pain that rippled through Valachi's internal organs. While he had been running at speeds that supposedly exceeded the movement of light itself, Ryder had somehow caught up to him mid-flight and thrust his arm completely through Valachi's torso.

Valachi's mouth opened in a soundless scream. Black blood, thick and dark, began pouring from his mouth in steady streams, painting the ground beneath.

Valachi's survival instincts finally overcame his shock and terror. With a desperate burst of energy, he swiftly turned around for retaliation, his remaining hand forming a tight fist as he prepared to unleash every ounce of power at his disposal into a heavy punch.

His knuckles cracked as black energy began swirling around his clenched fingers, the same devastating power he had been gathering to use against Master Sung earlier.

But as his fist moved toward what should have been Ryder's face, something impossible happened. Instead of connecting with his target, Valachi felt his own full-power punch slam into his own features with bone-crushing force.

*Wham!*

He did this subconsciously at the last moment as he remembered who Ryder was—the Dracogon's soon-to-be summoner.

The purple lightning surrounding Ryder's form intensified as he withdrew his arm from Valachi's torso, bringing with it several of the black-marked familiar's internal organs that dissolved into nothing the moment they were exposed outside.

Ryder was definitely hurting him, and he needed to retaliate at this point even though he knew he might not stand a chance.

Every instinct was telling him to fight, to unleash the full extent of his power in a desperate attempt to destroy this human who was humiliating him. His pride as a creature from the Astral Shadow Plane demanded that he respond with overwhelming violence, to demonstrate why black-marked familiars were feared.

However, deeper than his wounded pride was the cold assurance that attempting to harm Ryder would result in consequences far worse than he could ever imagine. The Dracogon—his leader—had made its interest in this human abundantly clear.

Any action taken against Ryder would be interpreted as a direct challenge to the Dracogon's authority, and the moment he stepped into the Astral Shadow Plane, he would be hunted by every creature the Dracogon ruled over.

The only path to survival—if such a thing was even possible at this point—was somehow escaping without further provoking the monster that Ryder had become.

"Draki! Two-head! Retreat immediately!" Valachi screamed, his voice carrying across the miles of devastated landscape with desperation.

Veins bulged visibly in his one eye as he poured every ounce of his remaining energy into his voice, to ensure the warning carried with assurance. "We won't be able to survive if we stay longer!"

*Slash.*

Again, another limb was severed from Valachi's body, this time without him even seeing how the attack had been executed—he only saw his limb flying away.

The severed limb hit the ground with a thud, blood gushing from the clean cut while the limb itself began to dissolve into nothing.

This time it wasn't his hand—it was his left leg. The leg had been severed at the mid-thigh.

Valachi gritted his teeth against the pain he felt, but he never stopped moving, couldn't afford to stop moving, because he understood with certainty that pausing even for a moment could quicken his death.

With just one functional leg remaining, controlled movement should have been impossible, but desperation gave him access to a capability he hadn't known he possessed.

He began hopping on his single remaining leg, each leap carrying him hundreds of meters across the devastated landscape as he continued to scream warnings to his comrades.

At a distance measured in miles, the double-headed dragon that had been engaging Zhou and the now-deceased Ryomen suddenly stopped its combat entirely.

Both heads turned simultaneously toward the source of Valachi's desperate cries, their enhanced hearing easily picking up the urgency in his voice.

Without hesitation, the massive creature spread its wings for the first time since the battle had begun. The dragon's takeoff created a crater where it had been standing, the ground unable to withstand the incredible force generated by its departure.

On the devastated surface below, Zhou stood alone. His massive panda form was covered in scorch marks and dirt, his black and white fur matted with both his own blood and that of the dragon.

"The hell do you think you're going!" Zhou screamed upward at the fleeing dragon, his voice carrying a special kind of madness that hadn't been present in any of his earlier battle cries.

The words emerged from his throat as something between a human shout and a beast's roar. "No matter what, I assure you that at least one of you must die here!"

*Affinity of the Cursed Panda: Bamboo Forest Dominion X Forest of Primal Predator!*

*Gamma energy infusion: Spiraling Helix of Panda Destruction!*

From the ground beneath the fleeing dragon, another wave of bamboo began erupting upward, but these weren't the ordinary green stalks like those from his previous attacks.

These bamboo shoots glowed with an intense purple light, each one infused with such concentrated gamma energy.

The purple-glowing bamboo resonated with gamma energy presence so intense that the double-headed dragon, despite being hundreds of feet in the air and rapidly gaining altitude, had to steal a glance downward at the approaching threat.

What it saw in that moment of observation made panic evident even in its draconic features.

The glance made panic evidence clear even in its draconic features. Unlike the previous similar attack Zhou had used, this one seemed like the main deal.

Unlike the previous bamboo attacks that Zhou had employed throughout the battle, this technique seemed to represent his absolute maximum capability, condensing all his power into a single devastating assault.

The advanced nature of this bamboo forest made his previous attacks seem like mere child's play compared to the destructive shoots now being unleashed.

Each individual bamboo stalk was as thick as a tree trunk. They moved like snakes through the air as if they were alive, bending and weaving around each other in patterns that made it clear the level of control Zhou had over this wave was far beyond the others.

The gamma energy infusion had given them properties that transcended normal plant matter—they were now more like constructs of pure spiritual force given semi-physical form.

*ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!*

The double-headed dragon retaliated with its usual sound attack, both heads opening simultaneously to release a loud sound wave. The combined roar was powerful enough to shatter mountains, level buildings, and kill any ordinary human who heard it.

This was the same technique that had been successfully deflecting Zhou's bamboo assaults throughout their battle, a sound-based attack that had proven capable of destroying even something made out of gamma-energy.

But this time, the sound assault had no effect whatsoever on the approaching bamboo forest. The purple-glowing stalks didn't even slow their motion, cutting through the sound waves as if they were nothing more than a gentle breeze.

This bamboo wasn't just made from gamma energy—it was infused with it.

As the bamboo forest closed in on the dragon with speed that exceeded that of its flight, the massive creature's movements became increasingly desperate.

It attempted to change its motion, spiraling upward in complex maneuvers like birds would, but the bamboo stalks adapted to each change instantly. They moved with a coordination that made it seem like they had consciousness, each stalk working strategically with all the others to ensure that escape would be impossible.

The glowing bamboo, filled with concentrated gamma energy, began wrapping around each of the double-headed dragon's legs and both necks separately.

As the binding tightened, the dragon's struggles became increasingly frantic, its massive wings beating against the air in futile attempts to maintain its flight, but unfortunately, the bamboo also wrapped around each wing, firmly holding it in place.

For a brief moment that seemed eternal, everything halted. The double-headed dragon hung suspended in mid-air, completely immobilized by Zhou's bamboo restraints, while the air itself seemed to pause. Even the sounds of distant battles—the clashes between the other Sen and their black-marked opponents—faded into background silence, and then...

*BAAAANNNNNGGGG!*

The impact as Zhou slammed the bound dragon into the ground did not only crater the ground where it had collided—it created a massive shockwave that could be felt for hundreds of miles in every direction.

The shockwave that radiated outward from the collision site was powerful; it sent out a massive gust of wind, carrying dust and debris like a sandstorm, spreading outward from the area of impact in all directions.

The air itself seemed to have been superheated by the force of the collision, sending the debris from their battle flying through the air like projectiles.

Everyone across the devastated battlefield felt the impact—Akira and Mikasa, locked in their desperate struggle against Draki; Master Sung, still trying to comprehend what Ryder had become; the various non-combatants who had been watching from what they hoped was a safe distance.

Even the black-marked familiars had been forced to turn their heads toward the area where the destruction had occurred.

Many of the combatants found themselves having to quickly cover their faces to prevent the dust storm from blinding them, while others had to brace themselves to avoid being blown away by the tremendous winds that followed in the wake of Zhou's attack—with the exception of Ryder.

Zhou didn't wait for the dust to settle or for the tremors to fade. With a gesture that seemed almost casual despite the tremendous power it represented, he stretched his massive arms apart and brought them together in a single, sharp clap.

***Kpa.***

The sound of Zhou's clap cut through the dust instantly, carrying with it a focused burst of wind from his raw strength that instantly cleared the entire vicinity of dust and debris.

All the obscuring material that had been kicked up by his devastating attack was swept away in an instant, revealing the aftermath of his assault.

The double-headed dragon lay sprawled across a crater that had to be over a hundred feet deep and nearly half a mile wide. Its massive form, which had seemed so intimidating just moments before, was now broken and twisted into unnatural positions. Both of its legs had been bent into angles that shouldn't have been possible, with its bones piercing through scales that had been harder than diamond.

One wing had been completely torn away from its body, while the other looked immobilized.

"You killed Ryomen," Zhou spoke, his voice carrying clearly across the devastated landscape. "Now you'll pay."

As he reached the edge of the crater where the dragon lay broken and helpless, Zhou stretched one massive arm to the side and grasped one of the bamboo stalks still sticking out from the ground.

The moment his fingers made contact with the gamma-infused plant matter, it began to reshape itself according to his will, transforming from its normal shape into something far more deadly.

The bamboo's structure flowed like a snake under Zhou's control, its purple glow intensifying as he poured more gamma energy into the transformation process.

What had appeared to have the shape of an ordinary bamboo stalk was now becoming a weapon designed for a single, specific purpose: to finish off the dragon.

The shape wasn't altered too greatly, but it was now a weapon—he had reshaped it into a spear.

The distance between Zhou and the helpless dragon was around twenty meters. Zhou readied himself into a thrusting pose as he prepared to deliver the killing blow that would avenge his fallen comrade.

***Exhales.***

Zhou's breath condensed, coming out like fog from his nostrils as he focused every ounce of his remaining strength into the spear. The purple glow of the weapon intensified until it was almost blinding, gamma energy concentrating at the tip the most.

At that exact moment, as Zhou began his final thrust, the dragon's half-conscious eyes—glazed with pain—suddenly snapped into sharp focus.

The orange-eyed head, which had been hanging limply just seconds before, gained full consciousness only to be welcomed by the razor-sharp tip of Zhou's bamboo spear penetrating directly through its eye socket and deep into the brain.

***ROOOOOAAAAAR!***

The thrust was fatal, but the creature wasn't quite finished yet. Even with one head damaged and its body broken, the red-eyed head still regained consciousness completely.

It struggled desperately against the bamboo restraints that continued to hold it in place, managing through sheer force of will to open its massive jaws slightly. From deep within its throat, the familiar gathering of red flames began to build as it prepared one final attack.

Zhou observed this from his position above the crater, his expression showing no surprise or concern at the dragon's ability to still attack.

The distance between them would normally have made such an attack problematic—he was far enough away that a flame blast would have time to spread and potentially catch him in its area of effect, while closing the distance to stop the attack would have exposed him to the full force of the flames at a deadly range.

"You know what I love most about fire breathing?" Zhou asked conversationally, his voice carrying clearly despite the sounds of the dragon's gathering flames.

"It is because it is too slow. And here in my Bamboo Forest of Dominion, that becomes a major disadvantage for you." Even as Zhou spoke these words, the attack was building to its limit within the dragon's throat.

The red flames had reached their limit and were about to explode outward in a final display of destructive power. However, Zhou had been counting on exactly this response.

The moment the attack was about to explode from the dragon's mouth, a single bamboo stalk erupted from the ground with perfect timing, rising up from the crater floor to clamp the creature's jaws shut at the right instant.

***BOOOOOOOOOOOOMMM!!!***