"Director! All the Gates are experiencing an overflow!"

"Yudonia requests backup! Multiple Werewolf tribes have been attacked! All of our allies have been hit!"

"Ma'am! The Major Gates are all reacting! Outer Demons are invading by the millions!"

In the heart of the Hunter's Association, several voices were frantically raised on top of each other as they communicated in a flurry. The Outer Demon invasion was a surprise, with almost every country and significant faction forced to engage in battle. Fortunately, humanity wasn't naive enough to remain unprepared.

In an emergency such as this, the Alliance of all the races had prepared a contingency plan. A central headquarters was established to monitor the Gates in real time. State-of-the-art equipment, including satellites that could broadcast live images from anywhere on the planet, was provided to this central headquarters.

Irrespective of their race, the Alliance would send their best forces over if their country were invaded. It was a fail-proof system, which had helped manage countless Gate overflows in the past, but… This event was unprecedented.

"Shit! All hands on deck, we'll need to monitor every battlefield and plan our resources carefully!"

A middle-aged woman slammed her fist onto the desk and rushed to the centre of the command post. Dozens of operatives furiously typed into their machines around her, their faces red with anxiety and fear. Some even used magic to complete their tasks efficiently, but no matter how much they struggled, more issues popped up by the second.

"We see large signs of magical energy in the North and South! It's… incomparable to any overflow we'd seen before!"

"Ma'am… We've received a message from the Southern Branch… Baishe has invaded their territory."

"Baishe?! The Demon Lord?!"

Almost every operative in the command room abruptly stopped their work and turned their heads to the man with the report. Other than Eyghon a few months prior, it had been decades since the last Demon Lord's appearance. Not to mention, unlike Eyghon, Baishe was far more aggressive and had actively hunted humans in the past.

"Shit… Unlike the Northern Pole Gate, Baishe's Gate is located right in the middle of human territory! We may have isolated the Gate, but if it flies a few hundred kilometres, it'll reach civilian cities!"

"W-We're trying to call all active Hunters to subjugate Baishe!"

"It'll be too late! Hunters are far slower than Baishe, the Serpent of the Skies!"

The director covered her mouth and resisted the urge to puke. A Demon Lord like Baishe could cause unimaginable damage before a suitable resistance could be gathered. Even if they managed to gather the world's greatest heroes and kill off the flying serpent, a certain degree of collateral was to be expected.

And that number would be in the millions.

When all hope seemed lost, an operative shouted: "Ma'am! We've received word… The Holy Church is moving!"

"The Holy Church?! They're sending out their Exorcists?!" The director beamed in delight. However, it didn't take long for her happiness to turn into a dismal frown. "No, even if they did send their best, they wouldn't be able to stop Baishe. The only thing that could help is an Archangel, and the Holy Church requires great preparation to summon it."

"No… From their message, it seems that… They're planning to summon an Archangel."

"What?! They've finished the preparations for an Archangel?!"

To summon an Archangel, the Holy Church needed to gather nine-hundred Priests, ninety Bishops and nine Cardinals. They would need to pray together in a chamber to gather their Holy power, and they also required Holy relics sealed in the Holy Church's deepest vaults. No matter how large their organisation was, it took time to bring all those pieces together.

"Were they expecting this?" The director thought out loud. However, she shook her head immediately after and said:

"Well, whatever the case, we've lucked out! Send word to those rushing to Baishe that the Holy Church is summoning an Archangel! Refrain from sending Vampires and Werewolves. Their powers would be halved in front of an Archangel, and they'll be more of a liability than an asset."

"Understood!"

The director immediately barked her orders and returned to monitoring the numerous screens in front of her. The news of the Holy Church summoning an Archangel gave her a sense of relief, but the crisis was far from over. In fact…

"Hold on… Marcus, didn't you say there were two magical energy sources?"

"Y-yes, one in the North and the other in the South."

"If Baishe was the energy in the South… What's going on up North?"

"T-That…"

'It can't be…'

Everyone in the command room felt a shiver run down their spine as the worst possible scenario played through their mind. Only one other creature could match Baishe's magical energy, and if that monster invaded as well…

"U-Urgent news! We've received confirmation from the Everwinter House! Cthulhu has invaded!!!"

"... Is this the end of the world?"

The director dropped her shoulders as her legs gave in. Falling onto her chair, she shivered from the core and couldn't breathe a single word. One Demon Lord was enough to cause the entire world to move. Even if they gathered all of humanity's best forces, there was no guarantee they would defeat a Demon Lord. At most, it would be a pyrrhic victory where the Demon Lord would be driven back to the Demon Realm at a cost too high for humanity to bear.

"Cthulhu… The Everwinter House wouldn't be able to handle it on its own. It might be redundant, but inform the Guardian Houses to move to the Everwinter Estate. Any Hunters who are near must rush there too!"

"About that, director… The Everwinter House has requested we don't interfere."

"Don't interfere?! Are they high?! Even if they have Matriarch Innocence, they are no match for a Demon Lord! Have they forgotten the tragedy of the past?! Or have they gone senile in their old age?! If they fail to stop Cthulhu, the entire North will perish!"

The director burst into rage, unwilling to agree to the Everwinter House's arrogance. And it was with good reason. Cthulhu had crippled the Everwinter House and much of the North in the past. Should the Demon Lord roam free once more, no one could imagine the scale of destruction the beast could inflict.

"T-That… They've said they won't be able to interfere with the battle either."

"Huh? What are they smoking?"

"Cthulhu isn't battling the Everwinter House and Matriarch Innocence… It's being handled by the new Progenitor." The man timidly answered his superior's question.

"The new Progenitor? Ah, I've heard of him. The Vampire who destroyed Eyghon, right?"

Jin's name wasn't just known within the Vampire world. Every human alive knew his name. Even more so now that he'd become a Progenitor. While they were grateful for Jin's immense power, they feared him.

"But even if he's a Progenitor and defeated Eyghon, isn't he just a child in his mid-twenties? Is he really able to fight toe-to-toe with Cthulhu?"

"D-Director… You should see for yourself."

The operator switched to a live video feed captured by their state-of-the-art satellite. However, the image on the screen wasn't the icy North or the Winter Wonderland that was the Everwinter Estate. Instead, it was a barren sand desert, or to be precise… What remained of the desert.

Craters upon craters painted the sandy dunes of the Mahayana desert as the entire region had been engulfed in a strange symphony of fire and water. Flames from the heavens burned on one side as crimson lightning, and pure destruction reigned. Facing the wrath of hell was a tempest of rain and hail. Water, the liquid that made Earth the Blue Marble, flowed hurriedly to douse the flames and stop the damage from spreading.

But that's not all…

Comet after comet fell from the sky, increasing the damage to the planet tenfold. Mountain-sized meteors, ones that could cause mass extinctions, broke through the stratosphere and created miniature Suns above the sandy plains. If not for the ever-falling rain and torrents of water stopping them, the entire Mahayana desert would have been wiped clean from the planet long ago.

Only a Demon Lord would cause destruction on such a scale… Or so they'd thought.

"Cthulhu… is struggling?"

"Y-yes…"

"The one casting the meteors is the Progenitor?"

"Y-yes…"

"And Cthulhu is the one preventing the planet from bursting into flames?"

"Y-yes…"

The director wiped her glasses, unable to believe the scene unfolding before her eyes. She continued to beat her head to prove she wasn't dreaming, and only after confirming the live feed a hundred times did she speak.

"... I wonder who's the real Demon Lord here."

"..."

None of the operators answered her, but they felt the same way inwardly. The terror that Cthulhu posed was nothing against Jin's endless surge of destruction. Time and time again, he summoned meteors that could level a city within seconds. Of course, Jin had concentrated all of his power onto the Demon Lord to limit environmental damage. And even if an explosion did occur, Jin would protect the planet with his own barrier magic.

However, the spectators didn't know that.

All they saw was a madman hurling world-ending meteors down. But what shocked them the most was how one-sided the battle was.

A Demon Lord was meant to be the apex of all Demons. An entity that humanity couldn't defeat no matter how many souls banded together. Winning against a Demon Lord meant surviving, and no one in history ever dreamed of killing them.

Yet…

Cthulhu was struggling to contain Jin's all-out assault. The Demon Lord was slowly but surely being worn down, and in due time… Cthulhu would be weakened. And if that's the case…

The impossible might come true.

The Alliance might actually… Kill a Demon Lord.

"No, it'll be the second Demon Lord he killed."

"D-Director?"

"Oh, dear God…"

The director had never been a member of the Holy Church. Heck, she didn't even believe in God. However, as she saw Jin single-handedly force Cthulhu into a corner, for the first time in her life… She prayed.

For the first time in thousands of years, humanity's fear shifted from the Outer Demons and the Demon Lords…

Back to the Vampires.