A/N: This is my first time writing such fighting scenes. I hope you like it. If you have any suggestions, feel free to do so. I am all open.
Also, this arc will end in less than 9 chapters. Maximum 9 chapters.
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The wind had gone silent.
The Law Maker (Jin) stood in the cratered plaza, his coat fluttering as dust rose around him. The others were far behind, locked in their own battles. But his focus narrowed to the creature before him—a formless thing, gas-like, flickering between shapes like an echo of something long dead.
What stood before him wasn't solid. It looked like a cloud—gas-like, shifting, with no true form. But The Law Maker (Jin) could feel it. Hatred radiated from the thing, directed solely at him.
'This is my first time seeing a monster like that.'
The dark mass began twisting, pulling itself together. Slowly, it formed a humanoid shape. No mouth. No nose. Just a barely defined body and glowing red eyes.
Then, without warning—it charged.
The Law Maker (Jin) sidestepped in a blur, rotating his body and countering with a swift kick to its chest.
His foot passed through it—like wind.
'What?'
A split-second later, the monster reappeared beside him and delivered a brutal punch straight to his face. He barely saw it coming. It sent him flying backward, smashing through broken tiles before he skidded to a halt.
He rose quickly, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, which had an unusual color, but he didn't notice.
Soon, he looked forward—but the monster was gone. The Law Maker (Jin) scanned the battlefield using his hyper senses, eyes glowing faintly from the surge of Ki. Still, nothing.
'Where is its presence? Even without a Ki signature, it should still have its presence...'
That's when he felt it.
A faint, unnatural tug—rising from beneath his feet.
From his own shadow.
Before he could fully process it, the monster erupted like a spike of black flame, its form twisting upward with violent speed, a punch aimed straight for his chest.
But this time, The Law Maker (Jin) was ready.
He caught the blow with both hands.
The impact unleashed a massive shockwave—rattling broken buildings, sending cracks spiderwebbing through the ground, and tearing up debris as a crater burst beneath them.
The two stood locked in place—one a swirling mass of shadow and hatred, the other a force of calm, unshakable power.
'It was hiding in my shadow... How? That's an advanced skill that needs a higher control of ki. Not to mention the monster is a walking dead and seems... not to use ki?'
The Law Maker (Jin) shook his head. Now wasn't the time to ponder. Without hesitation, he raised his free hand—Ki condensed into a compact sphere, dense and humming with compressed force.
He thrust it forward.
A burst of white-hot energy exploded from his palm, slamming into the shadow creature at point-blank range.
The monster staggered back, its form flickering—unstable for a brief moment, like smoke caught in the wind.
The Law Maker (Jin) stepped forward, eyes cold.
This battle was far from over.
The shadow creature recovered quickly—its shape rippling as if trying to adapt to the damage. Then it vanished again, not with speed, but by melting into the ground.
The Law Maker (Jin) narrowed his eyes, planting a hand on the cracked earth. He sent out a pulse of Ki—not to track, but to disturb.
Ripples spread out like sonar. And for a brief flicker—there it was.
The shadow leapt from a nearby wall, shifting form mid-air, trying to catch him blind. But The Law Maker (Jin) spun, launching a barrage of rapid-fire Ki bursts—each shot controlled, silent, burning through the fog of its presence.
The creature split apart unnaturally to dodge, its body reshaping like liquid. But he forced it back with relentless pressure, using minimal yet precise Ki strikes to keep it reactive.
'It's fast… but not invincible.'
The Law Maker (Jin) didn't give chase. Instead, he stood still, letting his senses extend again—relying on ambient pressure, air density, sound delay. He read the battlefield like a book and suddenly turned—
Just in time to duck a spear of shadow launching from the ground. The being had extended a limb beneath him like a spike.
The Law Maker (Jin) kicked off the ground, flipping backward, launching two rotating discs of Ki mid-air. The spinning projectiles carved into the plaza, cutting deep into the creature's mass. This time it shrieked—soundless, but the vibration was felt in The Law Maker's (Jin) bones.
It retaliated by summoning a dozen copies of itself—blurred, flickering echoes. They attacked from every direction.
The Law Maker (Jin) exhaled.
He centered himself and unleashed a shockwave of raw energy—Ki erupting from his core. The clones scattered like smoke.
But the real one had already gone underground again.
'It's fighting with intelligence now.'
The Law Maker (Jin) planted his hand to the ground again and forced his Ki deep—not as a pulse, but as pressure. The stone cracked and glowed.
A trap.
The moment the shadow rose again, The Law Maker (Jin) activated it. A ring of Ki exploded beneath it—binding it in radiant chains for a split second.
It snarled and twisted violently, snapping the bindings with raw force, but not before The Law Maker (Jin) launched a high-speed dash, elbow-first, slamming the creature into a pillar.
The pillar cracked. The creature's form warped—and suddenly, it split in two, dodging the follow-up and reforming behind him.
Its arms became blades. It struck.
The Law Maker (Jin) blocked one with his arm, wincing slightly, and launched a point-blank energy burst at the other. The creature dodged, but The Law Maker (Jin) followed with a spinning heel kick coated in spiraling Ki. It connected.
While The Law Maker (Jin) struck down his shadowy foe in the shattered plaza, another battle had already begun brewing far across the labyrinthine ruins.
The ground shook in uneven pulses, vibrations crawling beneath the boots of twenty armored survivors moving through broken terrain. Dust swirled in their wake. The sky overhead remained an artificial wash of violet and deep gray, flickering now and then like a glitch in simulation.
Riva knelt behind a broken slab of wall as her visor's HUD scanned the enemy presence beyond the mist. Two creatures. Marching side by side through shattered stone and cracked steel. One floated without sound, impossibly thin—skin like taut leather stretched over a spiderlike frame. Its elongated fingers curled unnaturally with each twitch, and a slow pulse of distortion followed its every motion. Time bent subtly around it: birds froze mid-flight, dust hovered still in the air, and noise became warped, muffled.
The second creature stomped heavily beside it. Snow-white flesh wrapped around a brute frame. It had a single massive eye in the center of its face and another glaring from its broad chest. From its shoulders rose three pairs of ear-like protrusions that shimmered like feathered antennae. The buildings near it warped and twisted—folding inward or flickering in and out of view. It didn't walk through space. It rewrote it.
Riva's visor flared yellow.
Her scanner had picked it up—detailed data layered over both targets. Recognition codes pinged back from past encounters. Not exact matches, but close enough.
Time and space manipulation.
"Very troublesome," Riva snapped, activating all channels, "Among the 2, the thin one controls time. The muscular one bends space."
Silence
Then Kael's voice: "You sure?"
"I scanned their signatures. It's confirmed. We've fought monsters like these before. Not this strong, but close. We need to split up."
A murmur of affirmation spread through the team.
"Quickly," she continued, "form two groups—based on skill compatibility."
Without wasting a second, the team began reshuffling. The heavy-hitters—those who specialized in raw force, disruption, and AoE bombardment—moved toward the left flank. Dren, Kael, Mira, and three others joined them, preparing for the white beast that distorted the battlefield like a living black hole.
The rest—tacticians, speed specialists, precision attackers, and energy manipulators—shifted right. They were equipped with suits calibrated for enhanced reflex and cognitive sync, more suited to dealing with unpredictability and rapid time shifts. Riva led this group, her gaze never leaving the floating horror.
The teams exchanged glances across the divide—no fear, just a silent contract. Everyone had made peace with the possibility they wouldn't all return.
With swift hand signals and synchronized HUDs, the two units peeled off into formation.
Each team took their position in the jagged ruins.
And the monsters were still marching forward—unaware that this time... they were being hunted.