—Kamen Rider Kabuto World.
Tendou Souji gazed at the kabuto-shaped device circling in the air beside him—the Kabuto Zecter, which hovered close with an almost affectionate intent—and made up his mind in silence.
Though the chat group offered all manner of cultivation paths, none of them were the one that suited him best.
What suited him best had been decided from the very beginning.
In all the myriad worlds of the future, he would walk as a Kamen Rider.
—Reality, Haicheng.
This was a city within Huaxia that lay beside the sea.
Before the resurgence of spiritual energy, the city had enjoyed great benefits because of the ocean; its people felt an intimate closeness to the sea.
Every year, countless tourists came here for travel and vacations, just to witness the boundless waters with their own eyes.
But now, in this era of rejuvenated spiritual energy, the city had become extraordinarily dangerous.
As everyone knew, the oceans covered far more of Earth than the land did, and the mutated sea beasts lurking within were beyond counting. If those creatures ever set their sights on the land, this would be the first place a war would begin.
Curiously, when the second wave of aura tides swept across Huaxia and triggered beast tides in many regions, Haicheng was an exception.
There were occasional incidents—mutated livestock here and there—but the death toll remained far lower than in other cities.
Even so, because of Haicheng's special location, some among the nation's leadership still wanted to evacuate the populace to other cities.
But evacuating an entire city's residents was not something that could be done overnight, nor was it something that would be carried out simply because one faction proposed it.
Besides, under present circumstances—was there any city within Huaxia that could truly be called absolutely safe?
There was not.
And so, after much discussion, nothing was definitively decided.
All the same, as a precaution, the national leadership had built special fortifications here: towering walls to separate the sea from Haicheng.
The purpose was to prevent an invasion of sea beasts.
Or rather, to buy time—hoping such defenses could hold for a while, until reinforcements arrived.
The residents of Haicheng did not object. When life itself was at stake, aside from a few elders who still held a kind of faith in the sea, no one would claim the ocean mattered more than their own survival.
On this day, dusk had already fallen. The afterglow of the setting sun carried a touch of calm and peace.
A gentle breeze drifted past with a slight coolness.
At the city's edge, atop the high walls, soldiers with resolute faces and straight-backed stances stood watching the direction of the sea, vigilant for any sign of abnormality.
When the hour for a shift change arrived, they handed off their duties to their teammates and headed to the canteen for a meal.
As they ate, they traded occasional, low-voiced remarks.
"The aura tides are fierce, sure—but it's not like they can give marine creatures two legs so they can live on land, right?"
"They're not amphibians."
"This is reality, not a novel. Even if they did evolve legs, who knows how many years that would take."
"Reality's been more exciting than fiction lately. The resurgence of spiritual energy happened—what else is impossible now?"
"For all we know, they might even evolve into humans someday. Who can say?"
"Just do your job properly. If nothing happens, that's better for us, isn't it?"
"…"
Time slipped by, and night finally came. Haicheng was ablaze with lights now, like a lighthouse casting brilliant radiance.
And beneath that radiance, countless crabs and lobsters, packed dense as grains of sand, emerged from the ocean and started to climb toward the land.
Perhaps the night was simply too dark—or perhaps, even after baptism by spiritual energy, their bodies were still small enough—that no one noticed.
Just then, something pitch-black and massive, like a long whip, lashed through the sea. Under the threat of that black tentacle, the crabs and lobsters gathering on the shore grew more and more numerous.
"Boom!"
With a thunderous crash, a crab nearly four meters long was blasted up onto the shore. A long dent marred its hard carapace, and though it pushed itself upright, it spared a wary glance toward the sea before turning its gaze on the city.
In its eyes, there was something like curiosity—as if it were staring at a world utterly different from the ocean.
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
More impacts followed. One after another, huge crabs and lobsters came out of the sea onto land. They exchanged a look, then resolutely advanced toward Haicheng.
Out over the ocean, ripples bloomed by the countless, while several black tentacles coiled above the waves.
A tremendous shadow swam just beneath the surface. It wanted to approach the shore, and yet seemed to hesitate.
Instead, it drove more and more marine life toward the coastline, threatening them onward.
Mutated crabs, mutated lobsters, mutated sea turtles, mutated sea snakes…
The threat of death forced them to abandon the ocean and move onto the land.
This stretch of sea had fallen under the dominion of that terrifying being. No creature could defy its commands.
If the choice was to die outright or obey and head for a human city—then obedience at least left a chance to live.
Impact followed impact, and the sheer quantity of mutated sea beasts could not remain hidden—even beneath the cover of darkness—for long. The soldiers guarding the walls spotted them at last.
"Sea beasts are invading!"
"Attention, all units—sea beasts are invading!"
"Boom!"
The alarm snapped every last soldier out of his drowsiness. Faces taut with tension, they stared toward the edge of the shore, where the beasts crept ever closer.
The terrifying numbers made their pupils involuntarily contract.
They had never seen a beast tide like this—not even close. In fact, this number far exceeded the beast tides that had erupted in other cities.
Inside a city, even if there were rats by the thousands, and flocks of mutated birds, and mantises, and zoo predators gone feral—at most you were still talking about thousands, tens of thousands of mutated animals. But what they were seeing now? There had to be more than a hundred thousand…
After all—this was the sea.
Now the mutated tide began to feed. It seemed that, once they left the ocean and slipped free of that mutated overlord's immediate threat, their tension eased—and then greed and hostility flared toward any life outside their own species.
Crashes and clashes cascaded without end until the tide merged into a single, fathomless black mass.
Where it passed, nothing was left standing—not a blade of grass.
Then the mass became a black wave rolling toward the human city.
"Woooo—"
"Woooo—"
"Woooo—"
The horns of danger resounded through Haicheng. Countless citizens were jolted awake, terror already on their faces.
They knew exactly what those horns meant.
They just hadn't expected the day to arrive so soon.
"What happened? Why are the horns sounding?"
"Did those beasts crawl out of the sea?"
"Damn it, we should've moved to another city back then."
"In times like these, what place is safe? Even if you flee to the Imperial Capital, it won't help."
"Trust the nation. They'll protect us."
"…"
(End of this chapter)