When he saw the abomination target them, they ran—
No direction, no hope—just pure instinct.
But there was no safety.
None.
Kuro glanced back. The creature was gaining, an unstoppable tide of Kurayami filth. Its vast vertical maw, lined with spinning rings of teeth, gaped wider. It was targeting him. He tripped, sprawling onto the slick, gory cobblestones.
"KURO!"
He looked up just as the maw descended.
And just as the thing almost caught him, Elara threw herself in between—without hesitation.
It devoured her.
Tortured.
Slowly.
Cruelly.
Kuro screamed.
But he couldn't stop it.
He ran.
And kept running.
But the torture followed him.
And when he looked back—
He saw her.
In the final moments.
Her body—
Twisted.
Her scream—
A crescendo of agony.
Each hand and leg torn out of its joint, her heart impaled, her stomach slashed wide, spilling like a ruptured fruit.
And then her head—
It bloomed.
Split like a grotesque flower in slow motion.
And from it, something vile slithered out—
The true beast.
A malformed entity, a creature without shape but full of hate, formed from her shattered death.
Elara's eyes, glassy and lifeless, rolled across the ground and brushed against Kuro.
The touch, cold and final, extinguished the last spark within him. A low, broken moan escaped his lips.
Then—
It grabbed him.
The beast's appendages—if they could be called that—pinned his limbs to the broken earth, holding him down like a ritual sacrifice.
The beast opened its mouth,
a void,
a black pit of nothingness, to feed on him.
Kuro's Consciousness fled a final mercy.
But—
The world hummed.
A deep, unholy vibration.
It cut through the storm, the bells, the lingering echo of screams. The beast pinning Kuro froze mid-lunge, its head snapping up, every eye wide with sudden, primal dread.
Before it could react, before it could even process the source of its fear, it simply… ceased to exist.
Its flesh peeled in particles, like sand blown into oblivion.
Shredded on an atomic scale, dissolving into a fine mist of black particles that vanished instantly.
The sky screamed.
And then, amidst the ruin, he appeared.
He walked.
Topless, revealing skin that was a horrifying tapestry of scars – deep gouges, intricate burns, ritualistic patterns, twisted like brands burned over centuries.
His eyes were hollow, void.
His teeth glimmered—each one sharp, brilliant like cut diamonds.
His clothes hung in rags, his stance upright, stuttering gibberish between bursts of laughter—
Unhinged.
The rot rain refused to touch him.
It bent away, afraid.
Reality twitched around him.
He took a step, then floated. Rising effortlessly above the devastation, the crimson and violet lightning now swirling around him like eager attendants.
The main abomination, the colossal horror still slithering from the Reality Tear hundreds of meters away, finally registered this new power. Its vast form surged, contracting and expanding, turning its attention towards the floating man.
The man laughed, louder this time, a sharp, manic sound that sliced through the air. "More?" He raised a hand, palm open towards the sky. A pulse of pure, incandescent power erupted from him, invisible but absolute.
Color drained.
Weather burned away.
Everything… stopped.
Every living being—bird, insect, tree, corrupted soul—vanished.
Only the beast remained.
And then—
Brutality.
The ground exploded.
Not cracked—shattered.
Kilometres of land were unearthed, burned, twisted, then burned again.
Tectonic layers peeled like paper, forests became smoke, rivers evaporated mid-flow.
The man never moved.
He levitated, a still point in a world of chaos.
His laughter became louder—
Maniacal.
"Burn."
He whispered.
"Burn to ashes."
He floated toward the Tear in the sky—
The place where the abomination had slithered through.
He drifted slowly towards the Reality Tear. The low moans and powerful whispers intensified, leaking from the rift, trying to ensnare him and consume him. He ignored them, his diamond-toothed grin widening. Reality seemed to shatter further with a casual flick of his finger. Cracks spread across the edges of the Tear like fracturing glass, widening the wound, and unleashing raw, untamed chaos.
The world hummed again, louder, resonant with the scarred man's power. The abomination froze, every eye wide with palpable dread. Before it could strike, before it could even flinch, the dismantling began. Starting from its immense bulk near the Tear and racing along its entire length, faster than thought, it unravelled. Atomized. Shredded particle by screaming particle. Its colossal form dissolved into absolute nothingness under the hollow, indifferent gaze of the scarred man.
Silence. Profound and terrifying. The only sound was the faint crackle of residual energy around the floating figure and the ragged whisper of the damaged Reality Tear.