The revenge in the women's fiction world was over.
Genichi stood before the ruins of the villa and cast one final glance at the massive iron cage.
There was no sound left inside it. Only a pack of starving stray dogs lay sprawled on the ground, licking at the blood that remained.
He turned away and did not look back.
He had no attachment to this world.
As for the two kidneys that had been carved out of the other Genichi, he eventually found out where they had gone.
Ji Boxiao and Bai Boda had sold the two kidneys through the black market.
The buyer was a wealthy businessman with a severe illness, someone in urgent need of a kidney transplant.
They had traded those two kidneys for a large sum of money.
Genichi found that businessman.
He stood beside the man's hospital bed, watched the terror fill his eyes, then reached out and crushed the transplanted kidneys one by one.
The businessman's screams echoed through the ward, but Genichi had already turned and left.
Whether the man lived or died had nothing to do with him.
They had sown the cause themselves, so they would bear the corresponding consequence.
After finishing all of that, Genichi did not immediately return to the DxD world.
His entire body was steeped in killing intent and the stench of blood. If he went back to Rias like this, she would definitely suspect something.
That clever red-haired devil would absolutely notice something was wrong.
So he needed to calm down first.
He needed to find somewhere to settle his emotions.
And so, Genichi returned to the vengeful spirit world.
The world where he had first crossed over.
The starting point of everything.
A flash of light appeared in the apartment entryway, and Genichi materialized out of thin air.
He stood in that cramped little apartment and looked around.
Everything was exactly as it had been when he left: simple furniture, a dusty tabletop, tightly shut curtains.
But the air was filled with a cold, sinister presence.
It was the aura of vengeful spirits.
Genichi lifted his head and looked at the ceiling.
A twisted figure was clinging there.
It was a woman in a white dress, her long hair hanging down to cover her face.
Her body was bent into an unnatural arc, her limbs spread against the ceiling like a spider's, while those hollow eyes stared fixedly at Genichi.
And she was not alone.
Inside the walls, beneath the bed, in the closet, outside the window, vengeful spirits were everywhere.
Some had half their bodies embedded in the walls. Some curled up in the corners. Some clung to the outside of the window, staring greedily at this living person who had suddenly appeared with pupil-less eyes.
Genichi looked at them, and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
"Lively place."
He said it softly.
If this had been before, he probably would have had no choice but to pretend he could not see these vengeful spirits.
But now?
In his eyes, these spirits were nothing more than moving experience packs.
Genichi raised his hand and was just about to act, but then he seemed to think of something and lowered it again.
He summoned his shadow.
"King of Shadows."
The darkness beneath his feet began to writhe, and black silhouettes crawled out one after another.
They had no faces. They were only vague humanoid outlines, yet they exuded a suffocating pressure.
"Go. Devour them."
Genichi gave the order in a quiet voice.
He did not dare use his Devour skill to directly absorb these vengeful spirits.
Who knew whether their souls were clean or not?
Who knew if they carried curses?
What if they polluted his own soul?
The safest method was to have the shadows devour them instead.
After all, any power the shadows gained would be synchronized back to him.
Once the shadows received the order, they immediately pounced toward the vengeful spirits.
The woman in white on the ceiling had no time to react before a shadow seized her and dragged her whole into the darkness.
Her scream cut off abruptly, as if she had never existed.
The spirits inside the walls met the same fate.
The shadows slipped directly into the walls, dragged them out of their hiding places, and devoured them completely.
Beneath the bed, inside the closet, outside the window.
One after another, the vengeful spirits were found by the shadows, devoured, and erased.
With every vengeful spirit consumed, Genichi could feel his magical power increase by the slightest amount.
The growth was faint.
So faint that it was almost negligible.
But small gains accumulated.
This world might not have many other things, but it had no shortage of vengeful spirits.
Genichi walked to the window, pulled open the curtains, and looked out at the street.
Night had fallen, and the city was gradually being swallowed by darkness.
But in the corners untouched by streetlights, in the gloomy alleys, in the abandoned buildings, vengeful spirits drifted everywhere.
Some crouched beneath streetlamps. Some hung from power lines. Some clung to windows. Some trailed behind pedestrians.
This world had already been eaten away by vengeful spirits until it was riddled with wounds.
"Perfect."
Genichi murmured, "I'll use you to level up."
For the next few days, Genichi stayed in that apartment.
During the day, he went to school as usual and acted like a good student.
At night, he sent out his shadows to hunt vengeful spirits throughout the city.
Those shadows moved through the darkness without sound, like true gods of death.
They could find any hidden vengeful spirit and devour even powerful evil spirits completely.
As for Genichi, he simply sat inside the apartment and felt his magical power rise bit by bit.
It was a strange sensation.
It felt like slowly filling a vast container. Each time, only a single drop was added, but given enough time, that container would eventually be filled.
After one day, Genichi's magical power rose by a noticeable margin.
Two days later, his magical power had doubled.
Three days later, he could already feel himself drawing closer and closer to the realm of a Middle-Class Devil.
In the devil ranking system, Low-Class Devil, Middle-Class Devil, High-Class Devil, Ultimate-Class Devil, and Maou were all separated by enormous gaps.
After devouring Ddraig before, he had already come close to becoming a Middle-Class Devil.
But to truly advance, he still needed time to accumulate more power.
Now, in this vengeful spirit world, he had found a shortcut.
These vengeful spirits were the perfect supplements.
If he could devour every vengeful spirit in this entire world...
Genichi could hardly imagine what level he might reach.
Ultimate-Class Devil?
Or perhaps even beyond Ultimate-Class?
Could he reach Maou-class?
He stood before the window, gazing out into the night, his eyes gleaming.
However, he also discovered a problem.
After leaving the DanMachi world, the boosts brought by Falna had disappeared.
His physical attributes and total magical power had both returned to the state they had been in before he went to Orario.
The SSS-ranked ability values he had worked so hard to grind, along with the attribute improvements he had gained through leveling up, were all temporarily unusable.
But to his surprise...
His Development Abilities remained.
His magic remained.
His skills remained as well.
Healing S, Justice S, and the abilities he had gained from the goddesses could still be used normally.
Magic Catalog, Heavenly Dominion, King of Shadows, and his other spells were likewise unaffected.
In other words, while the "attribute bonuses" granted by Falna disappeared after leaving that world, the "abilities themselves" had already fully become part of him.
Genichi fell into thought.
Once he left that world, the accompanying effects vanished.
But the abilities he had learned and the developments he had mastered would remain with him forever.
That was good news.
Genichi turned and looked at the final vengeful spirit in the apartment.
It was the spirit of a small child, curled up in the corner and trembling.
All the other vengeful spirits had already been devoured. It alone remained.
Genichi walked over, crouched in front of it, and looked at it.
The little ghost raised its head and stared back at him with black, empty eye sockets, its gaze filled with fear.
Genichi stayed silent for a moment. Then he waved his hand.
A shadow stepped forward and swallowed the little ghost into the darkness.
The ghost's scream echoed through the air, but it was soon consumed by the blackness.
Genichi rose and walked back to the window.
Another trace of magical power flowed into his body.
He was one step closer to becoming a Middle-Class Devil.
"Still not enough."
He murmured, "I need more."
(End of Chapter)
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