Long Live, Long Live!

Boom!

The armored vehicles that had rushed to the scene roared in unison. Grenades launched from their launchers struck the monster with deadly accuracy, their force driving it back again and again. Shrapnel tore into its body, spraying flesh and blood.

Specially made rounds poured from the helicopters' autocannons, leaving rows of holes in its body. Blood so dark it was almost black streamed out.

"Hurts, hurts, hurts..."

Takuto Mizuno, transformed into a monster, cried out, his pale face twisting. His body had grown stronger after the Transformation, but it still couldn't stand up to modern weapons.

Seeing the armored vehicles and helicopters pin the monster down with their firepower, Norio Kitagawa, who was commanding the operation from far behind the lines, finally felt his anxious heart settle.

Ever since the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons and the descent of Yomi in Eastern Heijō-kyō, Prime Minister Tagawa Masamune had ordered the creation of the Seventh Investigation Division to investigate and handle supernatural incidents.

And Norio Kitagawa was its newly appointed deputy chief.

He might have had "deputy" in his title, but he was effectively the chief. The actual position was still vacant.

The higher-ups had promised that if he did well, they would make him chief. They hadn't said what would happen if he did badly, but he knew well enough: he would be sent back where he came from. And if someone else took his old post, he would be shunted into a dead-end job to await retirement.

That was why he had treated this supernatural incident as a grave threat from the moment it occurred.

He had brought in every armored vehicle and helicopter recently assigned to him and set up remote links with several renowned shrine priests, Onmyoji, and Buddhist monks, hoping for guidance.

He was