Flame Demon Assault

"Flame Demon?!"

The two words exploded beside Silence's ears like thunder.

She shot up from her chair so violently that she nearly knocked over the equipment cart beside her.

Her pupils contracted sharply behind her round glasses, and all color drained from her face.

The Sarkaz girl under Silence's care—the Ifrit she regarded as her own daughter—had an unstable Flame Demon consciousness sealed inside her, one that frequently ran wild!

All this time, Silence's job had been to suppress the Flame Demon within Ifrit and prevent it from completely devouring the girl's mind.

Now that she had suddenly learned a living, breathing "Flame Demon" had appeared at Rhine Lab, Silence's first reaction was a fear born of protectiveness.

"Flame Demon... did it come for Ifrit?!"

Silence instinctively looked toward the door, as though that terrifying monster might burst in at any moment and take away the child she had fought so desperately to protect.

Seeing Silence lose her composure in an instant, Saria's heart tightened.

She extended her uninjured left hand and gently pressed it against Silence's trembling shoulder, trying to calm her down.

"Silence, calm down." Saria's voice remained steady, carrying a reassuring strength.

"There's currently no evidence that its target is connected to Ifrit. It appeared far from Ifrit's ward."

"And... after gaining the upper hand in our battle, it disappeared in an eerie way... into thin air."

"Disappeared?" Silence froze, looking at Saria with uncertainty and alarm.

"Yes. There were no Originium Arts fluctuations at all. It was as if... it had been erased directly from this world."

As Saria described that incomprehensible scene, her brow furrowed deeply.

"We've sealed off the scene and are doing everything we can to search for it and analyze the traces it left behind."

"Until we find out what's going on, I'll assign additional personnel to protect the area where Ifrit is staying. You can rest assured of that."

Despite Saria's assurance, the unease in Silence's heart did not lessen in the slightest.

A mysterious, powerful Flame Demon had appeared at Rhine Lab. Whatever its goal, she could not possibly feel at ease.

Silence tightly clenched the hem of her clothes, her gaze behind the lenses becoming utterly resolute.

No matter what, she would never allow anything to hurt that child again.

Seeing Silence so worried, Saria was about to offer further reassurance.

However, just as she was about to speak—

"RUMBLE!!!!!!"

A dull, colossal boom suddenly rose from beneath their feet, followed by violent shaking that seemed ready to tear the entire building apart.

The earth groaned, the walls moaned under the strain, and the ceiling lights swayed wildly, flickering on and off.

"Ah!"

Silence cried out as the violent shaking threw her off balance, sending her falling toward Saria.

Saria reacted instantly. Her uninjured left arm shot out and caught Silence firmly, shielding her in front of herself with her own body against the falling debris.

"What's happening?! What happened?!"

Silence's voice was filled with undisguised panic as she clutched Saria's sleeve tightly.

Piercing alarms instantly resounded throughout the Rhine Lab facility, one after another, so urgent they made one's heart stop.

At almost the same moment, a terrified, cracking cry came through the communications earpiece by Saria's ear, mixed with the sounds of violent explosions and collapsing structures:

"Director Saria! It's that monster! That Flame Demon! It's appeared again! It's already in Sector B7! It—Aaaah!!!"

The transmission cut off amid a shrill scream and an even more deafening explosion. Saria's expression immediately turned incomparably grave.

Just as expected, it had not left!

And this time, it had appeared even deeper inside. Sector B7... was already close to the core area!

"There's no time to explain!"

Saria made her decision at once, scooping up the still unsteady Silence in her arms.

"I'll get you to the nearest secure isolation zone first!"

Before Silence could react, Saria carried her out of the infirmary and into the noisy, chaotic corridor outside.

"BOOM—!!!"

Another devastating impact rocked the building. The metal corridor walls let out piercing sounds of distortion, while the lights flashed wildly.

Saria planted her feet as though rooted to the ground, shielding Silence tightly in her arms. Ignoring the researchers and security personnel fleeing around them, she sprinted toward the nearest entrance to a secure passageway.

However, in the very instant before they were about to round the corner into an intersecting corridor—

Saria's pupils suddenly shrank. A suffocating wave of heat surged from around the corner ahead like a tsunami.

"Back!"

She barked out a sharp warning and leaped backward with Silence in her arms.

Almost at the exact instant she retreated—

"WHOOSH—BOOM!!!!!"

A torrent of lava more than several meters in diameter swept across the corner they had been about to pass through.

The corridor floor, walls, and ceiling melted the instant they touched that flood of flames, like ice and snow beneath the sun.

All that remained was an enormous circular cross-section with edges smooth as a mirror, as if some colossal beast had bitten straight through it.

Scorching air swept through the entire corridor, hurling several security personnel who had rushed over into the air.

Saria landed steadily and protected Silence behind her, her gaze fixed on the cross-section that had been melted through in an instant.

Within the smoke and dust on the other side, a gigantic finger covered in thick molten armor was withdrawing through the opening.

That brief glimpse of a single finger was already larger than the Flame Demon's entire body had been during its previous battle with Saria.

Silence clutched the back of Saria's clothes tightly, her face white as paper and her breathing nearly stopped.

"W-What... is that?!"

A thunderous boom came from the ground again, as if a giant were trampling across it.

The surrounding temperature rose rapidly. The metal walls began to glow red and soften.

Piercing alarms and the groans of overloaded structural supports intertwined like a dirge of destruction.

Saria stopped looking at that despair-inducing sight. Carrying Silence, she turned and sprinted in the opposite direction.

"That's the Flame Demon!"

Saria's voice was somewhat blurred by the wind of their sprint and the roar of explosions, but it reached Silence's ears clearly.

"That's the Flame Demon?!"

Silence's voice was full of disbelief. Others might not understand Flame Demons, but she, who fought day and night against the consciousness inside Ifrit, knew better than anyone what a Flame Demon was supposed to be.

But that glimpse just now... the sheer scale of a single finger nearly filling the entire corridor... that was not a Flame Demon at all.

It was practically... a walking natural disaster!

Amid the chaos and terror, a thought flashed through Silence's mind like lightning, instantly plunging her into an icy abyss.

"Ifrit!" she screamed, her voice warped by extreme panic.

"That thing... it came for Ifrit! It must have sensed the Flame Demon fragment inside Ifrit!"

That realization gave her astonishing strength, and she began struggling in Saria's arms. "Let me go! Saria! I need to get to Ifrit! I have to go!"

"Don't move!" Saria's arm was as firm as an iron clamp.

"I know! I'll bring Ifrit back! But before that, I have to make sure you're safe!"

Her pace never slowed as she rushed through one corner after another, heading for the core secure zone on the lower levels, equipped with an independent life-support system and defensive fortifications.

"Trust me, Silence."

Saria's voice pierced through Silence's panic, carrying a steady calm that soothed the heart.

"I'll bring her safely to you."

Silence gradually stopped struggling. She looked up at Saria's profile, still calm and focused even in such a crisis, and the fear churning inside her seemed to ease a little.

She no longer fought, instead using all her strength to grip the front of Saria's clothes, as though it were the only piece of driftwood keeping her afloat.

"You... you'll come back with Ifrit... won't you?"

Saria lowered her head and met Silence's eyes behind her lenses, brimming with desperate pleading. Without the slightest hesitation, she made a firm promise:

"I promise."

Those two words weighed a thousand tons, carrying the will to protect and the determination to prevail.

The moment the words left her lips, Saria shoved Silence into the thick blast doors of the already-open secure isolation zone ahead.

Through the narrowing gap as the doors slowly closed, she gave Silence one deep look before turning resolutely away.

White calcified crystals covered her body once more. Like a knight charging toward her final battlefield, she rushed without hesitation toward the Flame Demon, into the aura of destruction flooding from the depths of the corridor.

Her promise had to be fulfilled through action.