Chapter 309: Wait for My Signal

Yuuta’s expression hardened.

Zeri laughed softly.

"You two are already becoming annoying together."

Yuuta and Raven said nothing. Both were breathing heavily now, their eyes fixed on the High Demon standing between them. Raven’s injuries were beginning to affect her movements, while Yuuta could already feel the temporary energy from the recovery potion being consumed far faster than he wanted.

They couldn’t afford to drag this fight out.

Across from them, Zeri’s eight tentacles slowly rose behind his body. Their tips twisted through the air like snakes preparing to strike, each one moving independently as they waited for either Yuuta or Raven to make the first move.

For several seconds, no one moved.

Then Yuuta stepped forward.

Zeri’s tentacles attacked immediately.

Three of them shot toward Yuuta from different directions, one aiming for his chest while the others curved toward his sides to cut off his escape. Yuuta pushed aura through his legs and accelerated, narrowly slipping past the first before twisting away from the second.

The third followed.

Yuuta ducked.

The tentacle passed above his head and smashed into the remains of a building behind him.

That was the opening Raven had been waiting for.

She dashed forward.

Zeri noticed her approaching and turned, but Raven was already within range. Her black-covered sword flashed across his side, cutting through his skin and leaving another shallow wound along his hip.

Zeri’s smile disappeared for a moment.

Two tentacles immediately curved around from behind him.

Raven saw them coming.

She didn’t attempt to block.

Her body sank into the shadow beneath her feet just as both tentacles slammed into the place where she had been standing.

BOOM!

The road collapsed beneath the impact.

Cracks spread outward like a massive spiderweb, tearing through the already damaged pavement while chunks of stone were thrown several meters into the air.

Zeri stared at the empty shadow.

"Again?"

His eyes quickly moved across the battlefield, searching for the place Raven would emerge next.

Something small flew toward his face.

Zeri noticed it immediately.

He turned his head.

A stone.

For a second, he simply stared at it.

Then he saw Yuuta several meters away, already reaching toward the broken road for another piece of rubble.

Zeri almost laughed.

"Uncle, are you really throwing stones at me now?"

One of his tentacles casually moved in front of him.

The stone struck it.

Zeri expected it to bounce away.

Instead,

PSSHT!

The stone punched straight through.

Zeri’s eyes widened.

A small hole appeared in the thick tentacle as the projectile continued forward without losing enough momentum to stop. Zeri jerked his head aside at the last possible moment.

The stone passed across his cheek.

A thin line opened in his skin.

Blood appeared.

Zeri froze.

Yuuta was already throwing another.

Zeri immediately moved his head.

The second stone screamed past him and buried itself deep inside the wall behind him.

His eyes flicked toward the hole.

Then back toward Yuuta.

Another stone was already in Yuuta’s hand.

But this time Zeri saw it clearly.

A faint layer of aura covered the broken piece of pavement.

Yuuta tightened his fingers around it.

The technique wasn’t something he had invented in that moment. His body remembered it from those endless nightmares, the strange trials that had forced him to fight, fail, wake, and return again. He had learned there that aura didn’t necessarily need a sword or some special weapon.

Anything could become dangerous if enough power was concentrated into it.

Even a stone.

Yuuta pulled his arm back and threw with everything he had.

The stone vanished from his fingers.

Zeri reacted instantly.

Two tentacles crossed in front of him.

The aura-covered projectile struck the first.

It pierced through.

Then the second.

Zeri’s expression changed.

He threw himself sideways.

The projectile tore past his shoulder and disappeared into the ruined street behind him.

Yuuta grabbed another piece of rubble.

Then another.

He didn’t stop.

His arm snapped forward repeatedly as aura spread across each stone moments before release. The broken pieces of the battlefield became crude projectiles in his hands, flying toward Zeri with enough force to tear through the same tentacles that ordinary Shadow Corps weapons had struggled to damage.

Zeri jumped backward.

One stone pierced a tentacle.

Another barely missed his ribs.

A third struck the road beside his foot and shattered the pavement.

"What the...."

Zeri twisted aside again.

A stone grazed his arm.

For the first time since the battle began, he was being forced backward by Yuuta from a distance.

Raven remained hidden somewhere within the surrounding shadows, meaning Zeri couldn’t focus entirely on Yuuta either. Every time his attention lingered too long in one direction, he risked Raven appearing behind him with the Aesthor-covered sword.

Zeri’s jaw tightened.

Another projectile came.

He tried to knock it aside with a tentacle.

The stone punched through the flesh again.

Zeri immediately pulled the injured limb back.

His smile was gone.

"How?"

His eyes dropped toward the hole in his tentacle.

These weren’t special weapons. They weren’t Agency equipment. They weren’t made from some rare material.

They were pieces of the road.

Zeri slowly looked toward Yuuta.

A faint aura surrounded another stone in his hand.

"What power is that...?" Zeri whispered.

Yuuta didn’t answer.

He threw again.

Zeri moved.

The stone passed close enough to cut another thin line across his cheek.

For the first time, something unfamiliar appeared behind Zeri’s expression.

Not pain.

Uncertainty.

His fingers slowly curled as his teeth clenched together. He understood Raven’s weapons now. He had watched her long enough to recognize that the strange black aura surrounding her swords was what allowed them to damage him.

But this was different.

Yuuta had picked up an ordinary stone and somehow turned it into something capable of piercing his tentacles.

Zeri had never seen this before. He didn’t understand what kind of power Yuuta was using, and after what the black aura had forced him to experience earlier, encountering yet another ability he couldn’t understand was no longer exciting.

It terrified him.

That fear quickly turned into aggression. Zeri’s expression twisted as several tentacles rose behind him, their movements becoming noticeably more violent than before. One suddenly snapped forward with enough force to tear through the air, heading directly toward Yuuta before he could prepare another stone.

Yuuta saw it coming and immediately tried to move, but his exhausted body failed to respond as quickly as his mind demanded. The recovery potion had restored enough energy to keep him fighting, but it hadn’t healed his injuries or erased the exhaustion accumulated throughout the night.

Realizing he couldn’t dodge in time, Yuuta crossed both arms in front of his chest.

The tentacle struck him with tremendous force.

"Ghh...!"

Pain exploded through both arms as Yuuta’s feet left the ground. His jaw tightened while the impact launched him several meters backward, his body spinning uncontrollably toward the remains of a nearby building.

"Sir!"

Raven emerged from a shadow behind him and caught Yuuta around the torso before he could slam into the structure. Even after catching him, however, she couldn’t completely stop his momentum. Both of them crashed onto the pavement and rolled several times before finally stopping, leaving fresh cuts across Yuuta’s arms and Raven’s already damaged armor.

There was no time to recover. Raven saw Zeri’s tentacles changing direction toward them and immediately expanded the shadow beneath their bodies.

"Hold on."

Yuuta barely had time to react before Raven pulled him into the darkness. The two disappeared just as another tentacle smashed into the pavement where they had been lying, shattering the road and spreading cracks through the concrete.

Zeri stared at the empty crater before looking toward the surrounding shadows. His smile twitched with obvious frustration as the tentacles behind him moved restlessly in different directions.

"This again? Come on, Captain! This is getting annoying!"

His voice echoed through the ruined street, but Raven and Yuuta were already several dozen meters away.

Inside a partially constructed building, the shadow beneath one of the unfinished concrete pillars stretched unnaturally before Raven emerged with Yuuta. Bare concrete walls surrounded them, exposed steel rods extended from unfinished sections of the structure, and abandoned construction materials were scattered across the floor.

Raven released Yuuta and immediately checked him.

"Sir, are you okay?"

Yuuta lowered his arms carefully. Both were still aching from the impact, and his fingers trembled slightly when he moved them, but nothing seemed broken.

"Yes, I’m okay," Yuuta replied, breathing heavily. He moved toward an opening in the unfinished wall and looked outside at Zeri.

"But we have to find some way to deal with those tentacles."

Raven moved beside him and followed his gaze. Zeri remained in the middle of the street, searching the nearby buildings while all eight tentacles shifted constantly around his body.

"I know. Those things are becoming more troublesome the longer we fight him." Raven tightened her grip around her swords. "He can attack in several directions while keeping the others around himself for defense. Even my shadow technique isn’t enough anymore because he’s beginning to understand how I use it."

She paused, watching the tentacles carefully.

"If I could get one proper opening, I might be able to land a serious attack. I just need those tentacles away from him for a few seconds."

"An opening..." Yuuta murmured.

He continued watching Zeri while thinking about everything that had happened during their short fight. Raven could damage Zeri with the black aura surrounding her swords, while Yuuta’s aura-covered stones had unexpectedly been powerful enough to pierce his tentacles. Neither method alone had been enough, but perhaps that wasn’t the point.

Yuuta lowered his gaze as his hand accidentally brushed against the sword Raven was holding.

He stopped.

His eyes settled on the blade and the faint black aura still flowing across its surface. Then he looked outside again, studying the tentacles surrounding Zeri before returning his attention to Raven’s weapon.

Raven noticed the sudden change in his expression.

"Sir?"

Yuuta didn’t answer immediately. His mind raced through the possibilities, connecting what Raven had just told him with what he had learned from his nightmare trials. She didn’t need him to defeat Zeri by himself.

She only needed an opening.

Yuuta slowly nodded to himself.

"Yes... this could work."

Raven frowned. "What could work?"

Yuuta finally looked at her.

"You said you only need an opening, right?"

"Yes, but getting through all those tentacles is the problem."

"I have an idea."

Raven’s attention immediately sharpened. "What kind of idea?"

Yuuta looked back toward Zeri, carefully studying the High Demon’s movements before answering.

"I’ll create the opening for you, but you can’t attack immediately. No matter what happens, wait until I give you the signal."

Raven stared at Yuuta for a moment before glancing toward Zeri outside.

The High Demon was still searching the surrounding buildings, his tentacles moving restlessly around him as he waited for them to reappear.

"So what’s the plan?" Raven asked.

Yuuta stepped closer and lowered his voice. He explained what he wanted her to do, where she needed to position herself, and most importantly, what he intended to do to force Zeri’s tentacles away from her.

Raven listened carefully at first, her expression filled with curiosity as she tried to understand where he was going with it.

Then the pieces came together.

Her expression changed.

The curiosity disappeared first, replaced by understanding. A second later, her eyes widened as she realized exactly what Yuuta’s role in the plan required.

"No."

Yuuta stopped speaking.

"No, absolutely not." Raven shook her head immediately. There was genuine panic in her voice now. "Sir, that’s suicide. I’m not allowing you to do that."

Yuuta remained surprisingly calm.

"I know it’s dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Raven stared at him as though he had lost his mind.

"You want to deliberately put yourself in that position against a High Demon. That’s not dangerous, that’s insane!"

"I know," Yuuta replied.

"But someone has to do it."

Raven’s grip tightened around her swords.

She couldn’t understand how he could say something like that so calmly when the person they were fighting had already slaughtered most of her unit.

Zeri wasn’t some ordinary demon they could afford to take risks against. One mistake in Yuuta’s plan wouldn’t mean a broken bone or another minor injury. It could mean his death.

"But why does that someone have to be you?" Raven demanded.

"If something happens to you, what am I supposed to do?"

Yuuta looked at her.

"What am I supposed to tell the Supreme Commander?" Raven continued, her voice becoming more desperate.

"That I let her husband deliberately throw himself in front of a High Demon because we needed an opening? Do you have any idea what she’ll do when she hears that?"

Despite the situation, Yuuta’s expression softened slightly.

"Just tell her that her idiot mortal did his own idiotic thing again."

Raven stared at him.

For a second, she genuinely didn’t know how to respond.

"Sir, this isn’t funny."

"I wasn’t joking."

"That makes it worse!"

Yuuta almost smiled, but the distant sound of Zeri’s tentacles smashing through another section of the street immediately pulled his attention back outside.

His expression became serious again as he watched the High Demon searching for them.

Raven stepped closer.

"Please, sir. Think about this again. That demon isn’t ordinary. He’s a High Demon, someone ranked above the Upper Blood Demons. You saw what happened to my soldiers, and you’ve already taken a direct hit from him. If anything goes wrong with this plan, I might not be able to reach you in time."

Yuuta remained quiet for a few seconds.

"I understand."

"Then..."

"But that doesn’t change anything."

Raven frowned.

Yuuta turned toward her completely.

"We can’t keep fighting him the way we have been. You’re exhausted, I’m exhausted, and he’s already learning how your shadow technique works. My stones surprised him once, but he’ll adapt to those too."

Yuuta glanced toward the unfinished opening in the wall.

"If we continue like this, we’re just waiting until one of us becomes too slow to dodge."

Raven knew he was right, and that was exactly what frightened her.

Yuuta continued,

"You said yourself that you can hurt him if you get a proper opening. So instead of both of us slowly exhausting ourselves trying to create one, I’ll force him to give you one."

"At the risk of getting yourself killed."

"Yes."

The immediate answer silenced her.

Yuuta didn’t pretend otherwise. He wasn’t claiming the plan was safe or that he knew he would survive it. He understood exactly what he was proposing.

"Just believe me this once, ma’am," Yuuta said. "This is the best chance we have."

Raven looked into his crimson eyes, searching for some sign that he was acting purely out of anger after seeing her soldiers die. She expected uncertainty, desperation, or perhaps the reckless confidence of someone who had landed one powerful punch and suddenly believed himself invincible.

There was none.

Yuuta was afraid. She could see that much.

But his eyes were steady.

Whatever he had planned, he genuinely believed it could create the opening she needed.

Raven lowered her gaze and clenched her jaw. Every instinct she possessed as a captain told her not to allow a civilian especially the Supreme Commander’s husband to attempt something this reckless. Yet another part of her understood that refusing wouldn’t magically give them a safer solution.

Finally, Raven exhaled.

"All right."

Yuuta watched her carefully.

"I’ll follow your plan," she said, though her expression made it obvious she hated every word coming out of her mouth. "But the moment I think you’ve lost control of the situation, I’m coming in. Signal or no signal."

Yuuta considered arguing, then decided against it.

"Fair enough."

Raven tightened her fingers around both swords. "And you’d better survive this, sir, because I’m not explaining to the Supreme Commander that I agreed to this madness."

This time, Yuuta gave her a faint smile.

"I’ll try."

"That wasn’t reassuring."

"It wasn’t supposed to be."

Raven sighed, but the fear in her expression remained.

Yuuta turned toward the opening in the unfinished building and looked down at Zeri. His smile disappeared as quickly as it had come, replaced by complete concentration.

"Remember. No matter what he does, wait until I give you the signal."

Raven nodded reluctantly. "I’ll wait."

Yuuta took a slow breath, curled his aching hands into fists, and stepped toward the edge of the building.

"Good. Then let’s make this count."

To Be Continued...