Ken's body lay twisted on the fractured ground, blood pooling beneath him. His breaths were shallow, scattered, every exhale sounding like glass dragging against his ribs. Silas knelt beside him, trembling, his arms nothing but crushed, dangling shapes that could barely be called limbs anymore. He panted through clenched teeth, face pale, sweat dripping off his chin.
They were done. Both of them.
And the creature… The creature moved like it didn't even notice it had been fighting multiple high-ranked heroes for the past ten minutes.
Ezra and Lucian were the only two left standing in the front line. Vale stood behind them, fingers trembling, trying to keep a connection stable as he barked into his communicator.
"Hero Association—listen, we need heavy reinforcements! Now! Class-S or above only! Anyone weaker will die instantly—send only the elite!" Vale hissed, voice cracking.
Static replied.
The creature didn't wait.
It lunged.
Ezra reacted first, his shadow stretching beneath his feet like liquid night. It rose up in jagged pillars that struck the creature's side, slowing its advance for a moment—just a moment. The creature swiped with one clawed, mangled hand, and the shadow pillars burst like ash caught in a storm.
Lucian flickered—space bending around him like warped glass. He reappeared behind the creature, dimensional blades orbiting him like a storm of silver crescent moons. They slashed downward, cutting through patches of the creature's flesh… but it didn't bleed. The wounds smoked. Then sealed.
Too fast.
Too wrong.
Lucian didn't pause. He spun with a twist of reality, bending space into a spiral that dragged the creature's arm backwards, twisting its limb with a nauseating crack, yet still the creature didn't stop. It lunged through the distortion like gravity didn't matter, aiming straight for Ezra.
Ezra dove aside as the ground shattered under the creature's strike, stone exploding outward in a violent burst. His shadow followed him like a second body, forming spikes and blades and shards, all stabbing upward into the creature's side. The impact staggered it for a fraction of a heartbeat.
Lucian took advantage of that moment.
He flickered again—teleported—no, folded himself through a slice of space so thin that reality hissed. He reappeared above the creature, palms extended.
Space buckled.
A compressed distortion slammed into the creature's skull like a fallen star.
The shockwave erupted outward in a cone, sending dust spiraling and peeling the ground like dried skin. Ezra shielded Silas and Ken with a blanket of shadow, teeth clenched against the violent pressure.
The creature stumbled back—its head dented inwards, skull twisted, bone cracking outward like broken marble.
But it didn't fall.
It looked up.
Its clawed-out eye sockets glowed faintly. Not with light, but with motion—something writhing in there, like threads of darkness shifting and spreading inside its skull.
Lucian exhaled sharply. "Damn it…"
The creature was adapting.
It moved again—this time faster.
Ezra barely had time to bring up a wall of shadow before the creature tore through it with both hands, sending him flying backward into a jagged piece of rubble. His back hit the stone with a sickening crunch. He gasped for breath, shadow splitting like ink around him.
Lucian reappeared behind the creature again, arm raised—
And the creature spun.
Its hand blurred, grasping Lucian's forearm mid-attack.
Lucian's eyes widened—space cracked around them like shattered glass as he tried to break away. But the creature's grip tightened. The air warped. Lucian's arm twisted unnaturally, bending in a way no joint should bend.
Lucian teleported—blinking ten meters back—just in time before the creature tore his entire arm off.
He landed hard, one knee in the dirt, clutching his bleeding arm.
"Ezra—move!"
Ezra staggered to his feet, shadow yanking him upright like a puppeteer. He leapt forward again, shadow forming a whip that cracked across the creature's neck. The creature tilted slightly—not in pain, but as if acknowledging the hit.
Then it charged him.
Ezra slashed shadows outward, dozens of blades spiraling from his hands like spirals of night. They sliced into the creature, tearing fragments of flesh off—but the creature simply endured, pushing through the storm like walking through heavy rain.
Ezra jumped back, shadows wrapping around his torso as he dodged a swing that would've bisected him. The creature followed, hand sweeping sideways—
Lucian folded space again, appearing directly beside Ezra. "MOVE!"
He shoved him aside.
The creature's claw ripped through Lucian's dimension barrier as if it were paper and carved a trench through the ground that stretched across the battlefield.
Vale stumbled back as the shockwave reached him, nearly dropping his communicator.
"Headquarters—PLEASE—send ANYONE. This is—"
The creature turned.
Vale froze.
The creature's empty sockets locked onto him. Or maybe it wasn't looking, but sensing.
Vale's breath stopped.
Ezra reacted instantly, shadows wrapping around Vale's waist and yanking him sideways as the creature lunged in a single smooth motion.
Lucian stepped into its path, forcing space to bend into a cube around the creature—a prison of mirrored reality. A pocket dimension.
It held the creature for two seconds.
Three.
The cube shuddered violently.
Then—
CRACK
The entire technique shattered, pieces of bent reality floating like shards of broken glass before dissolving.
The creature stepped out unhurt.
Vale clutched his communicator like a lifeline. He didn't say it, but the plea was obvious. If backup didn't arrive soon—they were dead.
All of them.
Shadows erupted like a minefield, pillars exploding upward to intercept the creature—but it sliced through them with a single swipe, its hand elongating unnaturally in mid-motion. Bone-like tendrils extended from its palm, carving through the battlefield like scythes.
Lucian folded space on instinct, warping himself and Ezra back several meters. The air cracked behind them as the tendrils slammed into the ground, carving bottomless trenches through bedrock.
"What the hell…" Lucian wheezed.
The creature's body rippled again. Its chest expanded, fractured, and opened like a blooming stone flower—revealing dozens of thin, needle-like limbs twitching inside.
Ezra's heart dropped.
"Oh… hell no—"
The limbs shot outward in a web-burst.
Ezra threw shadow over everyone he could reach—himself, Lucian, Vale. The shadows hardened into plates of midnight.
The limbs pierced right through them.
Ezra screamed as three needles stabbed into his shoulder and ribs. Lucian was hit through the thigh. Vale barely ducked, one needle grazing his cheek and slicing it open like a razor.
Behind them, Silas tried to crawl away with what little strength he had left—
A needle flew straight toward his head.
Ezra's shadow yanked him sideways at the last instant, slamming him behind a fallen pillar.
The creature retracted its limbs, the holes in its chest sealing shut like nothing ever opened.
Lucian staggered, breath ragged. "If it keeps evolving like this—we're—"
A sonic boom cracked overhead.
Six figures streaked down through the sky, landing between Lucian's group and the creature. None of them knew what had been happening for the last thirty minutes. None of them had seen Ken fall, Silas lose his arms, Ezra nearly bleed out, or Lucian carve reality just to stay alive.
They landed too close.
Far too close.
Vale's eyes widened in horror. "NO — GET BACK!!"
But the new arrivals didn't even hear him. Their ears were ringing from the landing shockwave. Their eyes were on the creature — a humanoid silhouette standing motionless amidst drifting dust.
To them?
It looked wounded.
Manageable.
Beatable.
Lucian's voice cracked as he shouted, "DON'T MOVE FORWARD! IT'S—"
Too late. The creature turned its head.
Orien Westfall, Blitz King, took a confident step forward— A slice. No sound. No wind. No blur. Just a thin red line across his neck.
Orien blinked. Then his head slid off his shoulders. His body dropped a second later.
Rin Tashara, Gale Monk, reacted on instinct, wind swirling around her. The creature's arm stretched, stretched, like bone and muscle were clay. It punched straight through her torso mid-dash. Her body never even touched the ground in one piece.
Magnus Heid roared, activating his granite form. Armor exploded across his body. The creature flicked one finger upward. A spike of bone burst from the ground and impaled Magnus through the jaw, out the top of his skull. He died frozen in a standing position.
Sera Linwyn fired a radiant arrow so bright it lit the cracked wasteland. The creature simply stepped sideways, bending space like it was walking through a curtain.
The arrow disappeared. A heartbeat later, Sera imploded inward like her bones turned to dust. Her organs folded. Her light went out. Her body hit the ground as a pile of crumpled flesh.
Ezra wasn't breathing. Lucian wasn't blinking. Vale's hands shook uncontrollably. The creature hadn't even taken a second step.
Four elite heroes were gone in less time than a sigh.
The Last Two Survivors Reacted, Draven Tull and Liora Haze froze in shock, their bravery evaporating instantly. They had been airborne when the others landed. They had distance. They had perspective.
That was the only reason they were still breathing.
"Lucian," Liora whispered, trembling, "that… wasn't speed."
Lucian swallowed blood.
The creature shifted its weight.
Ezra gagged. "It's coming again—!"
Draven unleashed a storm of spiraling bone spikes that shot toward the creature in a helix pattern. They hit—impaling its torso and limbs—and the creature barely even shifted. Bones stuck into its body like needles into a corpse.
No reaction. Liora formed a disk of spatial light and hurled it like a blade. The disk carved through the air. The creature raised one hand. Reality around the disk folded, like someone bending paper.
The disk vanished.
Just gone.
Liora gasped. "What—? That was a spatial cleave—"
The creature shifted behind her.
Ezra screamed, "Liora—MOVE!"
She teleported instantly. The creature's claw skimmed her cheek instead of removing her head.
Draven charged to cover her, bone armor forming around his body. The creature backhanded him. His entire ribcage caved in, bone armor shattering like eggshells. He flew thirty meters before skidding lifeless across the ground.
Liora trembled, alone now, wounded but standing, light sparking around her hands in desperation.
But she didn't run. Ezra's respect for her doubled instantly. Lucian stepped beside her. "Stay behind me."
Ezra rose beside them, shadow swirling in violent shapes. "This thing… it's not a creature. It's a calamity."
Somewhere in the middle of that chaos…
Silas moved. No one saw him at first. They were too busy surviving.
Silas pushed himself onto his knees, blood leaking from the ruins of his crushed arms. He shouldn't have even been conscious. His breathing was shallow, barely holding together. His hair stuck to his forehead, sweat mixing with the dust and ash around him.
Vale saw him. Across the field, Vale froze mid-step, shadows bending around his boots. His eyes flickered to Silas, noticing him.
Silas held his gaze.
It was a message.
Now.
Vale exhaled once. A slow breath, full of acceptance. Then he nodded—barely—before vanishing into motion.
While Lucian shredded the air with rupturing dimensional arcs and Ezra lashed out with dark tendrils that clawed from the ground, Vale moved in the opposite direction. He slid across the ruined terrain like he wasn't even touching the earth. His presence thinned, drifted, dissolved—until even the twisted creature couldn't sense him anymore.
He circled the battlefield, unseen. Unfelt. A ghost through broken light.
Slow.
Unsteady.
Certain.
Vale slipped behind the far rocks, staying low, breathing slow, eyes locked on Silas. Silas looked back only once—just enough for their eyes to meet again across the battlefield.
A final understanding passed between them.