The jungle, once a lush labyrinth of green, had been transformed into a theater of primal dread. The air didn't just feel hot; it felt combustible. Nitsuki's desperate gamble with the Verse Slayer had not brought the victory they sought. Instead, the legendary blade had acted as a catalyst for a localized atmospheric catastrophe.
As the two halves of the Exclusive Stone attempted to stabilize, the physical world around them began to buckle. The air pressure spiked so sharply that ears popped painfully. The temperature skyrocketed, turning the humid jungle air into a furnace. A violent wind pressure, born from the stone's sudden intake of energy, whipped through the clearing, causing the Phore-enhanced uniforms of the team to snap and wave like flags in a hurricane.
Then, the true horror began.
The two stone fragments didn't crumble. Instead, they pulled toward each other with a magnetic, grinding force. They merged, bloomed, and expanded into a nightmare sculpted from the earth itself. Standing before them was the Faceless Monster. It was a towering, hulking mass of obsidian-black stone, its surface slick as oil and harder than diamond. Pulsing blue veins of pure energy ran across its limbs like a map of lightning. It had no eyes, no nose, no mouth—just a terrifying, blank expanse of rock. On its right shoulder, two cavernous holes hissed rhythmically, exhaling steam and Phore residue with every cycle of its unnatural life.
Kento took a involuntary step back, the static electricity in his hair standing on end. "Damn… look at the size of that thing," he muttered, his usual bravado struggling against the sheer pressure of the monster's presence. "And what the hell is it? A Soul Reaper? Or did we just wake up something much worse?"
He never received his answer. With a speed that defied every law of physics, the demonic stone monster jumped.
The monster didn't just move; it teleported through raw physical force. It launched its multi-ton body toward Kento with the velocity of a falling star. To the human eye, it was simply a blur of black and blue. Kento's pupils dilated; his brain registered the threat, but his body was rooted in place by the sheer shock of the creature's acceleration.
But Takashi was already in motion.
Takashi's instincts, honed by a thousand near-death encounters, saw the trajectory before the monster even left the ground. In a display of near-instantaneous reaction, Takashi pushed his speed to the absolute limit. He bridged the gap in a flash of movement, colliding with Kento and tackling him out of the death zone just as the monster's shadow swallowed the spot where they had been standing.
BOOOOOM—!
The monster slammed into the ground. The impact was seismic. The earth didn't just crack; it shattered like a sheet of ice. A massive crater exploded outward, and a mini-earthquake rippled through the jungle, snapping ancient trees like toothpicks for a hundred meters in every direction. Takashi and Kento were tossed like ragdolls by the shockwave, Takashi struggling to maintain his balance as they skidded across the heaving soil, finally coming to a halt at the edge of the destruction.
Nitsuki watched the carnage, his face pale and coated in a layer of fine dust. The realization hit him like a physical blow. "Hell nah... We are cooked. We made a mistake," he whispered, the hilt of the Verse Slayer trembling in his hand.
"Nitsuki! Get your head in the game!" Takashi roared, pushing himself up from the dirt, his eyes fixed on the faceless titan. "Your Verse Slayer! You said it can cut through anything, right? That means it can cut through this bastard too! Stable yourself and strike!"
Nitsuki took a sharp, jagged breath. He forced his legs to stop shaking, grounding himself in the debris. He gripped the sword with both hands, channeling every ounce of his internal Phore into the edge. I have to cut this monster down, he told himself, the mantra repeating in his mind. "I have to." He fell into a low stance, the wind howling around him. He prepared for a full-strength vertical slash that would cleave the beast in two. But as he began the motion, the monster flickered.
In a single heartbeat, the faceless obsidian wall was standing directly in front of him.
"DODGE IT!!!!" Takashi's scream echoed through the clearing, raw with panic.
The monster didn't waste time. It pulled back a massive, stoney fist, the blue veins on its arm glowing with a blinding, incandescent light as it stored a terrifying amount of kinetic energy. Nitsuki's vision was filled with the black expanse of the creature. Sweat poured down his face. He was too close. The punch was primed to erase him from existence.
The fist launched. It was one inch from Nitsuki's nose when he finally found his voice.
"Switch."
Using his Phantom Switch, Nitsuki's body flickered out of reality, swapping positions with the air near Takashi. He reappeared instantly, stumbling but alive.
The monster's punch hit nothing but the atmosphere. But the strength behind the blow was so extreme that it compressed the air into a physical shockwave. A titanic gust of wind exploded from the point of impact, a horizontal tornado that stripped the earth bare. Everything in a straight line for half a mile—trees, boulders, ruins—was instantly pulverized and swept away.
Nitsuki stared at the newly formed empty wasteland. "Wohh... that was way too close. My heart almost stopped."
Nitsuki, his face a mask of frustration and fear, turned to Takashi. "What do we do, Takashi? Its strength is one thing, but that speed... it's on an extreme level. We can't match it in a direct head-on!"
Takashi grit his teeth, his knuckles white. "I also don't fucking know!" he spat, his eyes scanning for a weakness that didn't seem to exist.
While Nitsuki and Takashi debated strategy, Kento's fighting instinct refused to stay dormant. Despite the narrow miss, a feral smirk returned to his face. He wasn't a man who enjoyed standing in the shadows of others.
"Huh... sitting around and talking isn't going to kill this thing," Kento said, stepping forward. "My Thunder Wire is more than enough to shred this stone heap into gravel."
"Nah, Kento! Don't be an idiot!" Takashi yelled. "He's too fast and his body is too dense. If you go in there, you're dead!"
But Kento was already gone. He didn't listen; he never did when his blood was pumping. He launched himself into the air, sparks of blue electricity dancing around his fingers. He held his hands out, his ten fingers glowing like miniature stars.
"I'll take you down anyway, you piece of shit!"
With a violent swing of both hands, he unleashed his Thunder Wires. Ten jagged, wavy lines of high-voltage lightning streaked through the air, weaving a web of electrical death around the monster. "Haaa! Now die!"
The wires struck the monster's chest with a series of blinding flashes and the smell of ozone. But the result was horrifying. The monster didn't even flinch. It didn't try to dodge. It didn't even move to protect its breathing holes. It simply tanked the entire assault. As the lightning wires made contact with the obsidian skin, the blue veins on the monster's body flared. It wasn't being damaged; it was absorbing the charge. One by one, the wires vanished into the stone as if they had never existed.
"What the hell?!" Kento's eyes widened in disbelief. "What did it do to my thunder?!"
The monster answered with action. With a burst of speed that made its previous movements look slow, it appeared in front of Kento mid-air. It delivered a single, focused punch into Kento's stomach.
BOOM—!
The sound of the impact was like a cannon firing at point-blank range. Kento's body was folded in half, the wind driven from his lungs in a bloody mist. He was sent hurtling backward, a streak of blue light disappearing over the jungle canopy until he was a mere speck in the distance.
"KENTO!" Nitsuki screamed, his voice cracking.
"Nitsuki, eyes on the enemy!" Takashi grabbed Nitsuki's shoulder, forcing him to refocus. "Forget about Kento for a second! He's tough—he won't die that easily. Right now, we have to worry about us! If we don't handle this thing, no one survives!"
Nitsuki's fear finally curdled into a cold, sharp rage. He looked at the faceless monster, which was now turning its blank head toward them. He took his position next to Takashi, the two of them standing as the last line of defense.
"You're gonna PAY for this, you bastard!" Nitsuki roared.
And so, the standoff began: Takashi and Nitsuki vs. The Exclusive Monster.
Miles away, at the edge of the jungle ruins, Kento's unconscious body was still hurtling through the sky. He was limp, his electricity flickering out as he prepared to crash into the jagged remains of a collapsed skyscraper.
But as his back was inches from the stone, a soft, shimmering Silver Aura began to glow around him. His velocity dropped instantly, the kinetic energy of his flight being absorbed by an invisible force. He was brought to a gentle, floating halt, hovering just feet above the ground.
Sami Yan stood just behind him, her hand outstretched, her eyes glowing with the intense silver light of her telekinesis. She had sensed the massive disturbance in the Phore from a distance and had arrived just in time to catch her falling comrade.
She lowered him gently to a flat patch of concrete. "Sorry, Kento," she whispered, her voice tight with urgency and concern. "I have to leave you here for now. I need to go... I have to stop that thing before they get killed."
With a swift motion of her hand, she used her telekinesis to lift Kento's body again, sliding him into the shadows of a nearby building to protect him from the elements and any wandering Soul Reapers. Once he was safe, she turned back toward the jungle.
Her silver aura flared, turning her into a streak of light as she launched herself toward the battlefield where Nitsuki and Takashi were making their final stand.