The creature blurred forward, Ezra barely managed to pull Ken backward into a shadow slip. The creature's claws carved through the space where Ken's head had been a heartbeat earlier, the air screeching like metal dragged across the sky.
"MOVE!" Lucian barked—
But his voice was swallowed by a psychic pressure-wave that pulsed from the creature's chest.
The battlefield trembled.
Ken felt his knees buckle. Ezra staggered, shadows dilating uncontrollably around him. Silas clutched his ears, teeth gritted. Vale… breathed out slowly, expression blank as ever.
The creature stood in the center, ribs split open, runes spiraling in a rhythm that made reality itself twitch.
And then—
It came.
An onslaught of motion so fast the eye couldn't track it.
Ken moved first.
He threw himself forward, blood erupting from his palms in sharp, crimson strands. They twisted around each other midair, forming a spinning buzzsaw that screeched toward the creature's face.
The creature tilted its head, letting it scrape across its cracked skull—but the attack was only a distraction.
Lucian warped directly above it, dimensional blades streaking through the air like ribbons of light. He rotated midair, slicing down—
The creature caught the blade barehanded.
Space shuddered.
Lucian's eyes widened.
He tried to teleport away—
But the creature dragged him from the distortion and hurled him like a broken comet toward the ground. Lucian twisted, bending space just enough to slow his fall, but he still hit the earth hard enough to crack it.
Ezra rose behind the creature in a burst of shadow. His arm became a black lance that shot toward the creature's spine.
For one fraction of a second, it looked like it would land—
Then the creature's back opened.
Open.
Like peeling bark.
A cluster of serrated bones shot outward like shrapnel.
Ezra dodged most—one grazed his cheek, slicing clean through shadow and flesh alike. Black mist leaked from the wound. He hissed but stayed standing.
Silas came next.
He inhaled deeply—ignoring the blood spilling from his eardrums—and clapped once.
A pitch drop collapsed around the creature, folding sound inward like a crushing black hole. The ground dented under the force, gravity bending inwards from the shock.
For the first time, the creature staggered.
"Ken!" Silas roared, voice trembling from strain. "Push it!"
Ken didn't need to be told twice. He sent every droplet of blood he still had floating in the air—hundreds of shards—spiraling into a huge, rotating drill.
He sprinted.
The drill spun beside him, ripping grooves into the earth.
The creature straightened just as Ken leapt—
The crimson drill aiming for its heart—
The drill connected—
And shattered.
Blood exploded outward like fireworks, the creature's chest vibrating with that horrific whispering sound that twisted the drill apart instantly.
Ken's eyes widened. He hadn't even pierced it. The creature's hand blurred forward— Ken barely blocked with his sickle.
Vale stepped forward. Calm. Controlled. Untouched.He didn't attack. He simply observed.
"We need a clear lane," Vale said, his voice cutting through the chaos. "I must touch it."
Silas let out a strained laugh. "Sure. Let me just ask it politely to stand still."
Ezra flanked the creature again, shadows spiraling around his legs as he slid across the ground like liquid ink. He lashed upward—but the creature met him with a single downward strike, forcing him into the dirt.
Lucian reappeared in a ripple of warped air beside Vale, panting.
"I can open a short window," Lucian muttered. "Maybe half a second. No more."
Vale nodded once. "Half a second is enough."
Ken coughed blood. "Half a second? That thing reacts in a tenth of one!"
Lucian smirked, wiping blood from his lip. "Then buy me that tenth."
And they did.
They attacked together—not synchronized, not perfect, but desperate.
Ken launched a barrage of blood snakes that coiled around the creature's legs, yanking them taut.
Ezra shot upward, turning into a massive shadow cleaver that crashed down on its shoulder.
Silas hit a frequency burst so sharp the air fractured like brittle glass.
Lucian bent space around its torso, momentarily pinning it between two points of reality.
For an instant, an impossible instant. The creature locked up.
Ken shouted—"VALE! NOW!"
Vale sprinted, breaking into a run so smooth it looked unreal.
He weaved through falling debris.Through warped space.Through the sound distortions. Through shadow tendrils and blood constructs.
He almost reached the creature. Almost touched the side of its cracked skull—
But the creature's ribs snapped shut with a violent spasm, and a pulse of psychic force exploded outward.
Ken, Ezra, Silas, and Lucian were thrown back like ragdolls. Vale skidded to a halt, inches short of contact, coat torn, hair disheveled. But still, somehow, standing.
The creature straightened slowly. Bones creaked .Runes glowed. Its eyeless gaze turned toward Vale.
And the whispering grew louder.
Much louder.
Vale exhaled softly.
"That was… close."
Ken spat blood. "We noticed."
Lucian cracked his neck. "Again." As he blurred, folding into a sharp bend in reality as dimensional fissures snapped awake around him. Ezra melted into a shadow that stretched unnaturally far, and Vale traced another invisible line on the ground, trying to find a safe path toward the creature. Ken simply forced himself forward — half limping, half dragging his own breath behind him.
They attacked as one — or tried to.
Lucian's space warped, twisting into sharp crescents. One sliced over the creature's clavicle. Ezra's shadow leaped up behind it, forming a claw that dug into its spine. Vale shattered a mental spark at its temple, stunning it for a second.
Ken flashed in low, a burst of crimson erupting from the ground.
Then the creature moved.
Its body bent backward at a wrong angle, spine snapping like a whip, and every limb swung in a separate direction, as if its joints were simply suggestions to ignore. One hand reached for Ezra; another for Lucian; a third tore out from its shoulder, a new limb ripping free just to swat Ken aside.
Lucian reacted late.
Ezra reacted too early.
And Ken tried to react while already hurt.
None of it aligned.
The creature slipped between their broken rhythm and slammed the ground. A shockwave erupted, not of force but of distortion — a trembling, vibrating pulse that made the landscape shudder. Silas clutched his ears and gasped, his sound-based powers glitching for a split second as the entire frequency of the battlefield twisted.
Lucian's spatial blades flickered.
Ezra's shadows evaporated.
Ken's blood froze mid-air.
The creature lunged.
Lucian dashed forward to intercept — too sharp, too fast — but Ezra's shadow rose at the same moment, trying to snatch the creature's leg. Their movements clashed. Ezra's shadow caught Lucian's afterimage instead, pulling his attack a few inches off target.
Those inches mattered.
The creature's palm hammered into Lucian's ribs with the weight of a collapsing dimension. Lucian's body bent around the hit, and he skidded back, coughing blood.
"Go—!" he tried to shout, but it was swallowed by the sound of tearing ground.
Ken didn't hesitate.
He hurled himself into the opening Lucian created, every vein burning. Blood surged from the cuts on his arms, forming a rotating wall of crimson spears. Crimson Blood Gear roared awake again, but weaker, thinner, flickering like burnt-out neon.
The creature met him.
Ken swung. The creature ducked. Ken spun. The creature slid between his legs and rose behind him like a shadow peeling from the ground.
Ezra lunged, shadow claws flashing, but the creature snatched his wrist and threw him through a boulder.
Lucian reappeared, but too far. Vale ran forward, but not close enough.
That left only Silas.
And Silas wasn't built for close combat.
But he still moved.
He unleashed a vibrating wave that cracked the creature's skin like shattered glass, buying Ken half a second—just half—but half was enough for Ken to form a blade of pure blood and slice at the creature's neck.
The cut landed.
The creature paused, then smiled with his stitched up mouth.
A distorted sound leaked from its body, something between a drone and a whisper, and a sudden limb sprouted from its ribcage.
It grabbed Silas by the wrists.
There was a heartbeat of silence.
Then the creature squeezed.
Silas screamed as both of his hands were crushed like brittle fruit. Bone gave out instantly. Flesh folded. The sound tore through the air, drowning out every other noise. Lucian teleported toward him, but the creature hurled Silas aside like a broken instrument.
He collapsed on the ground, trembling, stunned into a helpless quiet.
Ken saw it.
And anger took him harder than pain ever had.
Blood exploded around him in a spiral. He didn't even shape it properly — it formed itself through instinct alone, whipping into jagged tendrils that shot at the creature from every direction. The monster blocked most of them, but Ken forced more and more into existence until the entire air around them shimmered red.
And when he charged again, stumbling forward with everything he had left, Lucian and Ezra tried to match him — but they were too late, too slow.
Ken was the first one in.
The creature's hand swung down.
Ken blocked with his sickle.
A second hand smashed into his chest.
A third hit his ribs.
A fourth slammed into his thigh.
He coughed blood, stumbled, but kept swinging.
Lucian warped behind the creature, forcing space itself to bend around Ken — pulling him away from a fatal strike. Ezra's shadow rose again, grabbing the creature's leg to slow it for even a moment.
But the creature didn't stop.
It punched Ken again — a blow so heavy his spine twisted. He hit the ground, bounced, skidded, rolled, and still tried to stand.
He pushed himself up on trembling arms.
His legs weren't there for him.
They shook, bent, and collapsed again.
Blood poured from his back. His breath cut in half.
He still tried.
Lucian shouted something, Ezra ran toward him, Vale tried to reach Ken's mind to keep him awake, but the creature appeared in front of him, its shadow falling over him like a curtain of death.
Ken lifted his sickle.
Barely.
The creature backhanded him.
And his body finally went limp.
His vision faded into static. His mind dulled. The last thing he felt was Lucian's spatial force dragging him backward, away from the killing blow.
Ken fell unconscious.