36 Transformations: Demon City

Austin Rowan, a high school senior repeating his final year, discovers that his mother, Megan Foster, the only family he has, has been replaced by a demon. After killing it in turn, he obtains the Thirty-Six Transformations of Tiangang and awakens Wall-Piercing Insight, able to see through all illusions. Locked in Crestview Asylum as a mental patient, he finds that his attending doctor, Clara Pierce, is actually a Three-Phase Demon trying to seize his powers. In a life-and-death struggle, Austin awakens Subdue the Dragon and Tiger and kills Clara Pierce. Before dying, Clara Pierce lies that his mother is at the Northside Abandoned Factory. Austin goes there but encounters the spider demon known as the Enchantress. After a fierce battle, he learns his mother’s true whereabouts—Clara Pierce’s lair. At Forgotten Hills, Austin meets Rachel Lawson, commander of the Crimson Phoenix Division of the Order of the Exorcists, and joins the Order. He kills the Stage Demon, the Human-Faced Tree, and the Japanese onmyoji Paisley Reed one after another, awakening powers such as the Orthodox Five-Thunder Art, the Great Five-Element Escape, and Size at Will. Meanwhile, Bryan Pierce and his brother offer Megan Foster to the Archfiend as a vessel for possession, while the Japanese onmyoji Julian Abbott and Specter Isle also join the fight. On the Southshore Defensive Line, Austin encounters the Nightmare’s domain. At the cost of burning all his cultivation, he subdues the Seven-Aperture Exquisite Heart and sees through Deputy Commander Nathan Cole’s conspiracy. In the end, Austin and Rachel join forces in the Crimson Phoenix Domain to wipe out Bryan Pierce and Specter Isle, but Nathan Cole uses Rachel’s absence to steal the Crimson Phoenix remains and frames Kenny Shaw. To save his mother, Austin steps onto a dangerous path of playing chess against Nathan Cole.