Meanwhile, the golden divine flames were still surging in the sky.

They did not extinguish but instead gathered with a roar, coalescing into form within the pristine white firmament.

A figure emerged from the fire.

Flowing flames forged her armor.

Three pairs of light, sharp, crimson-gold wings stretched and unfurled from behind her.

A divine sword, the essence of fire and a weapon for slaying demons, burned intensely in her hand, radiating waves of heat.

Her long, crimson-dyed hair fluttered with the flames. In the sky where black and white converged, her eyes reflected the radiance of the heavens, sparkling with the light of a transcendental being.

Her aura was no longer that of a mortal, but rather—a mechanical angel.

—A mechanical angel?

How could such a thing exist?

However, this was not the first time Qi Xing had seen such a thing.

Weren't those Giant Spirits like Mahamayuri just pseudo-divine machines created by Sasa, who plagiarized powerful beings equal to her?

What did those angels—who were also victims of this plagiarism—actually look like?

Now, it seemed Qi Xing had a reference point before him.

"Jingo Rin?!"

Accompanied by a roar, thousands of Greed Demons throughout the Magic City Tokyo looked up at her in the sky, shocked and enraged!

"How is this possible? To think—that is something I already swallowed—she has long been a part of me!"

"That belongs to [me]!!"

Terror and shock instantly ignited into monstrous fury.

Anger erupted simultaneously from the mouths of every Greed Demon, a cacophony of ten thousand demons roaring.

Over the past ten years, the Greed Demon had devoured thousands upon thousands of lives—whether tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, it was at least that many.

Yet now, the mere stripping away and liberation of a single life was enough to make the Greed Demon fly into a rage!

This was greed.

Even if it were just losing a mouthful of excrement—even if that excrement never belonged to him in the first place—it was enough to make the Lord of the Flies suffer immensely and find it unacceptable!

Jingo Rin, however, couldn't be bothered with him.

She descended from the sky, landed in front of Qi Xing, and shielded him behind her. She spoke, "Qi Xing, do not bow for a momentary victory, and do not compromise due to a momentary indignation."

"That would only stain your own heart."

This remark—Eight-Tailed Cat's new work arrives, UU Library updates first across the web!—made Qi Xing feel a bit amused and exasperated for a moment: "The way you put it, it's as if my heart were very fragile."

Jingo Rin tilted her head and countered, "Is being able to kill anyone, being decisive in slaughter, the same as being strong?"

…Of course, one couldn't put it that way.

"Rest assured, Qi Xing."

Before finishing her sentence, Jingo Rin smiled gently and raised her flaming sword of golden divine fire, "I will not allow this evil path to spew malice toward you."

She swung her sword.

In an instant, the golden flames surged, as if the sun had exploded.

A storm of golden fire swept out from her blade, piercing through the darkness. Wherever it passed—all the Greed Demons touched by the golden flames immediately froze, their bodies trembling, and issued painful roars from their mouths.

Then, a miracle occurred.

The black sludge was stripped away, the pollution was excised.

Those twisted puppet organs, hideous modifications, tentacles, and flesh were all peeled from their bodies, turning into black ash and dissipating.

Emerging from the golden flames were bodies restored to normal humans!

There were old and young, men and women. Some wore casual clothes, some wore suits, some still wore damaged combat uniforms or student uniforms, and some even held supermarket bags in their hands.

They opened their dazed eyes, looking around in bewilderment.

But in the next instant, the golden flames guided them. Beams of light descended from the sky, gently enveloping them and sending them back to the real Tokyo—

With just a single sword strike, Jingo Rin had rescued and "resurrected" thousands of citizens, and even heroes, who had been devoured by the Greed Demon for who knows how many years!

"This… how is this possible?!"

The Greed Demon roared heart-wrenchingly, his tone filled with incredulous terror.

How could this be?!

But all of this was actually not complicated; it was much simpler than resurrection.

[I see—after all, the lives he swallowed were all still alive; they hadn't truly died in the first place.]

After calming down, Sasa, being the Dark Creator after all, immediately saw the principle behind it,

[The Fire of Goldenization is essentially the "purification" of Alchemy. Since they weren't dead yet, stripping away the impurities from the bodies and spiritual elements of the swallowed lives and restoring them—naturally, they would be the same as they were before being swallowed.]

…Is this really any simpler than resurrection?

Of course, the reason Jingo Rin could perform such an incredible feat was actually because the Greed Demon himself was too greedy.

He would not allow anyone to escape from him.

He would not allow the things he swallowed to deteriorate.

Therefore, he kept all those people and lives in his belly, swallowing them in their most perfect state, forbidding them from rotting, dying, or decaying.

Because he was greedy.

So he wanted everything.

He couldn't bear to lose even the slightest bit.

…And that was how the situation ended up like this.

With just one sword strike from Jingo Rin, he lost thousands of "himself."

"—Everyone retreat! Don't get near Jingo Rin!"

The next moment, countless Greed Demons instantly turned and fled!

The swarm of insects that had originally covered the sky like a tsunami now acted like a cluster of flies smelling insecticide, crumbling in the face of Jingo Rin's flames, scattering and fleeing, desperately trying to get away from that golden divine fire!

"At this point, I really have to ask."

Looking at the scene, Qi Xing asked with some helplessness,

"Jingo Rin, how did you suddenly level up?"

"It's a long story." Jingo Rin shook her head, sighing for once, "I can only say it's family factors."

Oh, family factors.

…Qi Xing immediately guessed a bit of the answer. Since Jingo Rin couldn't answer, he wouldn't press the issue for now.

"The Greed Demon just threw a bunch of monsters down."

So Qi Xing asked again,

"Is there no problem over in Tokyo?"

"I don't know," Jingo Rin said calmly,

"but I believe they are already fine."

"So me coming here to help you is also to lend them a helping hand."

Having said that, Jingo Rin raised her flaming sword high.

Golden flames instantly erupted like a torrent, circling and intertwining in the air, gradually gathering into a giant sword.

A sword body that twisted like a snake emerged from the flames, and it kept extending, soon becoming thousands and tens of thousands of times longer than Jingo Rin's height.

The fiery, golden-like radiance of the giant flame sword even illuminated the dark Magic City and the Greed Demon's horrified features.

The continuously extending divine fire blade soon became—longer than Tokyo itself.

A giant sword of divine fire that seemed to pierce through the heavens and earth, piercing the clouds, longer than a modern metropolis.

For a moment, not to mention the Greed Demon who was dumbstruck, even Qi Xing was stunned.

What was she going to do? Could it be… that's impossible, right?

It couldn't be that she was going to do that, right?

"The one who clears the contract, unparalleled in the world."

"The hand that unties the knot, truly like the red thread."

"Burning crimson flames, cleansing the filth of all phenomena."

The song began to flow from Jingo Rin's lips.

"The Heavenly Floating Bridge connects, guiding to the Kingdom of the Seven Spirits of the High Heavens."

"The Great God wields the fire, forever accompanying the journey of my beloved."

This dark world was a universe created by Sasa, a world Jingo Rin did not like.

Although she was a member of this world and had never seen the appearance of other worlds with her own eyes, she still intuitively felt that this world should not be like this; the world must be changed.

So she chose Qi Xing, chose to believe in him, and was willing to burn for the future he looked forward to.

"Qi Xing, although I don't know what a better world should look like."

She looked back at him and smiled slightly,

"but I am looking forward to it, and I am willing to burn for the new world you desire."

"Because you are certainly not the only one who desires a new world."

—Therefore, I will walk with you.

Whether it is a Demon King or an Evil God, I will never allow them to drag you onto the path of darkness.

"[The fire of the universe, the divine fire that illuminates the dawn of the world]."

This was the law that could satisfy Jingo Rin's desire.

Sword and soul both transformed into the angel's flames; that was the desire of a girl praying to illuminate the path ahead.

It was so that the person she liked would not lose his way in the darkness.

She hoped that the hero she loved could let his ideals bloom with radiance.

She wanted to become the light that illuminates the darkness—the Valkyrie (angel) leading the hero to glory.

Her noble prayer was her desire.

The world was shaken by this moment.

Jingo Rin swung her sword down.

The golden divine fire poured down in abundance, like a galaxy falling from the sky.

The flaming sword slashed through with a hiss, and wherever it went, the entire Magic City Tokyo was easily sliced open as if it were tofu.

Tokyo, a massive metropolis of approximately two thousand square kilometers, was split in two by a single sword strike!

Skyscrapers were neatly severed and collapsed; concrete and steel were melted into ash; the ground cracked open, revealing a golden chasm that resembled an abyss!

And beneath the Magic City Tokyo, those three statues of women holding up the city, their bodies exposed like goddesses of hell, were also split by the golden divine fire!

The golden flames exploded within their bodies, erasing the boundary between flesh and stone. They struggled, roared, and screamed as they were chopped into six pieces—

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!"

The Greed Demon's scream came from the entire city, filled with hatred, anger, and despair.

But all of his "no's" could not withstand Jingo Rin's "I am."

The entire vast Magic City instantly shattered and collapsed!

And the hundreds of thousands of lives buried within the Magic City Tokyo, having been devoured by the Greed Demon, were liberated at this moment along with the collapse of the Magic City.