Chapter 152: Exorcist in Action…

Ayame’s dark eyes swept the café, and Akira watched her expression shift from professional assessment to barely controlled fury in the space of a heartbeat.

She could see everything: the Shades feeding, the tendrils capturing people, the painting pulsing with demonic energy, and the six faces already trapped in the canvas.

“Holy shit,” she breathed. Then louder, her voice cutting through the screams: “EVERYONE OUT! THIS IS A CONTAMINATION EVENT! EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY!”

But everyone was too lost in the thrall or too panicked to process coherent commands. Some tried to run and got tangled in tendrils. Others were too affected by the Shades to move at all.

Ayame didn’t wait. She pulled a talisman from her pocket, covered in silver kanji that glowed with holy light, and threw it at the nearest Lust Shade.

The paper spun through the air and stuck to the Shade’s form. Holy light flared, and the creature let out a a sound that only those with supernatural hearing could perceive before dissolving into smoke.

“One down,” Ayame muttered. She reached into her jacket and pulled out a whole handful of talismans. “Twenty-two to go.”

She moved through the café like a deadly dancer. Talisman after talisman flew from her hands, and Shade after Shade dissolved under the assault of holy energy.

Akira watched in reluctant admiration. She was good. Professionally trained, completely focused, executing her mission with ruthless efficiency.

She destroyed five Shades in as many seconds, her blessed dagger flashing out to cut through another that got too close. The blade parted shadow-flesh like butter, and the Shade came apart in wisps of smoke.

But for every Shade she destroyed, two more poured from the painting.

[LUST SHADE COUNT: 31]

He watched as she reached out for something in her pocket… a communication device of some sort and called for backup. “The painting is the source!” Ayame shouted as she ended the call. “I have to seal it directly!”

She started toward the stage, destroying more Shades as she went. But the tendrils recognised the threat now. They lashed out at her specifically, trying to grab her, bind her, and pull her into the canvas before she could reach it.

Ayame ducked under one tendril, sliced through another with her dagger, and kept moving. She was ten feet from the stage when three Shades attacked simultaneously.

She spun, her dagger creating an arc of silver light that bisected two of them. The third she caught with a palm-strike talisman that detonated on contact, holy light consuming the creature.

“You’re not stopping me,” she growled, pulling another handful of talismans. “By the authority of—”

A tendril wrapped around her ankle.

Ayame looked down in shock as the oily rope of shadow tightened, pulling her off balance. She slashed at it with her dagger, but two more tendrils shot out, wrapping around her wrists.

“No! Let go!”

More tendrils emerged, dozens of them, all converging on the exorcist who threatened the Gate. They wrapped around her arms, her legs, and her torso, lifting her into the air.

Ayame thrashed desperately, holy energy flaring from her cross, but the tendrils were too many, too strong. They squeezed, making her gasp, forcing the air from her lungs.

A tendril wrapped around her throat.

Another around her mouth, gagging her, preventing her from chanting exorcism prayers.

“MMPH!” Ayame’s eyes were wide with terror as she realized what was happening.

The tendrils began pulling her toward the painting, toward the rippling canvas, toward the Hollow Woods that had already swallowed six people.

At this point, Akira made his decision.

He couldn’t hide anymore. Not with an exorcist about to be dragged into a demon dimension. Not with Shades swarming the room. Not with innocent people being drained of their life force.

He turned to Rina. “Rina! Feed on the crowd! Absorb everything you can! Get as strong as possible!”

“But Akira, the mist will…”

“NOW!”

Rina’s violet eyes flashed. She stopped holding back, stopped trying to be subtle. Her aura exploded outward, visible even to normal humans as a purple-tinged shimmer radiating from her body.

She began actively pulling lust energy from everyone in the room, draining it like water down a sink, her succubus nature feeding hungrily on the ambient corruption.

The effect was immediate. People who’d been aggressive or overstimulated suddenly became calmer, their arousal dampened as Rina absorbed it wholesale. The pink mist began swirling toward her like she was a vacuum.

Akira spun toward Ayaka. “Absorb as much as you can too. Then guard the door! No one in or out until I say so!”

Ayaka nodded once and moved into position. Her own demonic aura flared as she reinforced the entrance with supernatural barriers invisible to normal eyes. Anyone who tried to leave now would find themselves inexplicably unable to open the doors.

Sakura grabbed Akira’s arm, her face pale. “Kanzaki, what is happening? Those shadows, that girl being pulled into the painting… what IS all of this?”

“You won’t understand,” Akira said simply, pulling away from her grip. “But if I don’t stop them, everyone in this room dies.”

He walked toward the centre of the café, his footsteps somehow audible despite the screaming chaos.

On the stage, Ayame was being pulled inexorably toward the painting’s surface. Half her body was already touching the canvas, being absorbed into the two-dimensional world. She thrashed desperately, her muffled screams barely audible through the tendril gagging her.

Her blessed dagger fell from nerveless fingers, clattering on the stage floor.

The Lust Shades swarmed around the room, their numbers growing by the second as the painting vomited them out in an endless stream.

Akira took a deep breath.

He reached for the skill he’d purchased after defeating Lilithia. The one he’d been saving for exactly this kind of emergency.

[DOMAIN OF DESIRE]

[ACTIVATE? Y/N]

Yes.

[DOMAIN OF DESIRE – ACTIVATED]

Power exploded from Akira’s core like a shockwave.

The pink mist in the room froze mid-swirl, suspended in the air like it had been flash-frozen. The Lust Shades stopped moving, their forms crystallising as if trapped in amber. Even the tendrils holding Ayame slowed their pull, the painting’s influence suddenly meeting overwhelming resistance.

Everyone in the room felt it: a pressure in the air, a weight settling over them like a heavy blanket. Like they were in the presence of something far more powerful than themselves.

Akira’s eyes began to glow with golden light as the Domain took full effect. When he spoke, his voice carried supernatural weight, the Aura of Dominance amplified a thousandfold.

“Release her.”

The tendrils shuddered but didn’t obey. The painting pulsed, fighting against his command with everything it had.

Akira clenched his fists, feeding more power into the Domain. His eyes blazed brighter. “I said… RELEASE HER!”

The golden light intensified until it was almost blinding. The tendrils convulsed, writhing like living things in pain. One by one they began to unwound from Ayame’s body, unable to resist the absolute command in Akira’s voice.

The tendril across her mouth released first. Ayame gasped, sucking in air. “What… who are you?”

“Someone trying to save your life,” Akira said. “Now hold still.”

The remaining tendrils unwound from her throat, torso, and limbs. Within seconds, Ayame was free, dropping to the stage floor in a heap. She scrambled away from the painting on hands and knees, coughing and gasping.

But before she could get far, new tendrils shot out from the canvas. The painting wasn’t giving up; it recognised Ayame as a threat, as holy energy that needed to be neutralised.

The tendrils wrapped around her ankles and yanked.

“NO!” Ayame screamed, her fingernails scraping against the stage floor as she was dragged backward. “Help me! Someone… HELP!”

Akira started forward, power gathering around his hands, golden light crackling like electricity.

But he was too far away. The tendrils pulled too fast. And the Domain of Desire, for all its power over lust-based energy, couldn’t directly manipulate the physical tendrils that were dragging her.

He could slow them, weaken them, but not stop them completely.

Ayame’s fingers found the edge of the stage, gripping desperately. Her shoulder dislocated with an audible pop as the tendrils continued their relentless pull. She screamed in pain, but her grip didn’t loosen.

“Let… GO!” she sobbed, tears streaming down her face. “Please, I don’t want to…”

The tendrils gave one final, violent yank.

Ayame’s fingers lost their grip.

She was pulled across the stage, her body hitting the canvas surface. The painting rippled like disturbed water. She sank into it, two dimensions consuming three, reality becoming paint and shadow.

“NO!” Ayame reached out desperately, her hand the last thing visible, grasping at empty air. “SOMEONE HELP M…”

The painting swallowed her completely.

The surface rippled once more, then went still.

And now there were seven faces visible in the twisted trees.

The entire café had witnessed it.

All of them had just watched a girl get dragged into a painting and disappear.

[AYAME SHINOMIYA: CAPTURED]

[LOCATION: HOLLOW WOODS POCKET DIMENSION]

[STATUS: ALIVE BUT IN EXTREME DANGER]

[TIME UNTIL COMPLETE ASSIMILATION: 28 MINUTES]

[VICTIMS CAPTURED: 7]

[MISSION UPDATED: RESCUE ALL VICTIMS AND CLOSE THE GATE]

[CIVILIAN WITNESSES: 47]

[COVER STORY: COMPLETELY COMPROMISED]

[WARNING: SPIU WILL BE HERE SOON]

Silence fell over the café.

Then, all at once, the screaming started.

People ran for the exits, slamming into Ayaka’s invisible barriers, ricocheting back in confusion and terror. Others tried to climb through windows that were somehow sealed. Some simply collapsed where they stood, their minds unable to process what they’d just seen.

Sakura stood frozen, her clipboard having fallen to the floor, her ice-blue eyes wide with shock and disbelief.

“That’s… that’s impossible,” she whispered. “People don’t just… paintings can’t…”

Her gaze found Akira, still standing in the centre of the café with his eyes glowing gold, power radiating from him in visible waves.

“Kanzaki,” she breathed. “What… what are you?”

Satomi-sensei appeared at Akira’s side, her own succubus nature no longer hidden. “I’ll explain later, but right now, we need to evacuate. The Gate is entering final activation. In minutes, it won’t just be pulling people in one at a time; it’ll consume the entire room.”

As if to punctuate her point, the painting pulsed. The canvas bulged outward, three-dimensional space warping around it. The frame began to crack.

[GATE STABILITY: 34%]

[WARNING: DIMENSIONAL BREACH IMMINENT]

[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL FULL MANIFESTATION: 4 MINUTES 17 SECONDS]

Akira looked at the Lust Shades, still frozen in his Domain but already beginning to strain against it. He looked at the terrified witnesses. At Rina, violet energy swirling around her as she struggled to contain the lust she was absorbing. At Ayaka, holding the door with everything she had.

And he looked at the painting, at Ayame’s face trapped in the trees, at the six other victims screaming silently for rescue.

His cover was blown. The SPIU would be here within minutes. His normal life was over.

But seven people were trapped in a demon dimension, dying by the second.

And that was a choice that required no calculation at all. “I’m going in there. And I’m bringing them all back.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep