Though a few of them were still processing the whiplash of emotions, things were — on the whole — moving in the right direction.
Watching Geno's awareness slowly return, the others immediately moved to check on him.
But they never got the chance.
What happened next stopped them cold.
The Filth that had been expelled from Geno's body rushed together in an instant — and then a figure rose from within that writhing mass, surging upward from the ground.
It wore Geno's face.
"What — the Filth took on Geno's shape?!"
Lucia and the others went pale. A horrible premonition gripped them all at once.
Then the Filth-Corrupted Geno raised its hand and summoned a greatsword — identical to the one Geno himself had called forth — and came charging straight at them.
It happened so fast. Before any of them had shaken off the shock, the Filth-Corrupted Geno was already there — right in their faces, its expression twisted into something grotesque and monstrous, sword raised high.
"Lucia!"
Just as Lucia was about to be cut down, Alice and Yuzuha snatched up their weapons and lunged forward to stop it.
But someone else got there first.
Clang!
Two greatswords crashed together with a resounding ring.
"Geno!"
Lucia snapped back to herself — and found Geno's greatsword thrust out in front of her, holding the blow. Surprise and relief flooded her eyes all at once.
Geno didn't even look back.
"Story time later. Right now I've got a score to settle with this bastard!"
He shoved — hard — driving the Filth-Corrupted Geno back two steps.
Then he pressed the advantage. His greatsword swept through the air with ferocious momentum, cutting off every attempt the Filth-Corrupted Geno made to retaliate.
Even so, he couldn't finish it off.
Staring at the face that mirrored his own — the moves that were nine-tenths identical to his own — the stench of Filth that no amount of imitation could hide — Geno understood exactly what he was looking at.
"Ha. You copy my face, and now you're copying my sword style? Think you can actually pull that off?"
That had Geno laughing through his irritation. Of all the things to imitate, it chose his fighting style — a style that had no technique to speak of. It had always been pure overwhelming force.
Well. Not no technique. His swordsmanship had transcended technique entirely, returning to a pure and primal simplicity. Something an imitation could never hope to reproduce.
And so Geno proceeded to hack at the Filth-Corrupted Geno with exactly zero finesse — one brutal, thundering blow after another — as though the weapon in his hands wasn't a greatsword at all, but a wooden club.
After being pounded senseless two, three times over, the Filth-Corrupted Geno stumbled back, putting distance between them.
Then a massive surge of energy erupted from its body — and it shifted, taking on Geno's Ethereal form, then came charging back in.
"Oh, what — you're going Super Saiyan on me?! Can't win so you transform? I can do that too!"
He did. Geno shifted into his Ethereal form as well, unleashing his full power and hurling himself forward.
Both hands on the hilt, he wound up low at his waist — then pivoted, letting the rotation carry his blade around in one sweeping slash.
The Filth-Corrupted Geno scrambled to mirror his earlier guard — but Geno, freshly flooded with a massive surge of Ether, was operating on a completely different level.
A single strike shattered the Filth-Corrupted Geno's weapon and armor together, sending both exploding outward into a spray of thick, viscous Filth.
The Filth-Corrupted Geno immediately ditched the broken blade and threw both hands up, clearly going for a bare-handed catch of the next strike.
Unfortunately for it, it wasn't the right guy for that trick. Catching a blade barehanded took a very particular set of skills — ones it simply didn't have.
A flash of cold steel — and both of the Filth-Corrupted Geno's hands were cleanly severed.
Just as Geno's blade was descending toward its skull — whoosh — the Filth-Corrupted Geno vanished.
"What?! It can teleport?! Of course it can!"
The sudden disappearance threw Geno for half a second — and in that half a second, the Filth-Corrupted Geno reappeared directly behind him, its severed hands already regrown.
Razor-sharp claws drove straight into Geno's chest, punching clean through.
"Gugh—!"
The ambush sent a shock of white-hot pain through him. Geno looked down at the hand protruding from his own chest — then, jaw set, he reversed his greatsword and drove it backward, skewering both himself and the Filth-Corrupted Geno behind him on the same blade.
"Nghhhh—!"
Greatsword through both their chests, the two inhuman figures were locked together.
Knowing his opponent could teleport, Geno had made sure they were connected — if it tried to run, it was taking him along for the ride.
After that, it was just a numbers game. A battle of attrition.
And Geno was absolutely certain his numbers were higher.
"Come on, then!"
Geno released the hilt entirely, and started driving his elbows backward in rapid alternation — hammering into the Filth-Corrupted Ethereal behind him, over and over.
Vicious. Merciless. Every single elbow finding the same spot — the head.
The only reason blood and bone weren't flying was that his opponent was made of Filth. Anything else would've been paste by now.
The Filth-Corrupted Geno, reeling from the punishment, was utterly stunned by this absolute lunatic's approach to combat. It had never seen anything like this in its existence.
It desperately tried to pull its hand free — only to find it hopelessly locked in place, pinned by Geno's body as his accelerated regeneration sealed around it.
"Going somewhere? Think you can?"
A contemptuous snort — then Geno redoubled his attack. This time it wasn't just elbows. He started throwing his head backward into the Filth-Corrupted Geno as well, every strike aimed at the same target.
The savage, utterly unhinged assault left Lucia and the others watching from nearby completely speechless.
"Is that... really... Geno?"
Yuzuha could barely believe what she was seeing. In her memory, Geno had always been gentle and polite.
Incredibly strong, yes — but he'd never once come across as arrogant about it. He was always like a true warrior in that way.
Lucia, who had already witnessed this side of him before, watched without so much as a raised eyebrow. Alice, meanwhile, had the look of someone who absolutely did not want to watch — and absolutely could not stop herself from peeking.
As for Yidhari — she was still out cold.
Back to Geno.
The Filth-Corrupted Geno, battered half-senseless, realized that this couldn't go on. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before Geno beat it into nothing.
So it made a choice: abandon the physical form entirely, dissolve back into pure Filth, and engulf Geno from the outside — trying to seep back inside him.
In truth, that had been the plan from the start.
What it had always wanted was Geno's body. That was why it had mimicked his appearance and movements from the very beginning.
The original strategy had been to wear Geno down first, then attempt to possess him. But Geno as he was now simply couldn't be beaten.
So the only move left was to abandon all pretense — dissolve back into the Filth and force its way inside him, fighting directly for control of his body.
Unfortunately for it, Geno's body was no longer anything like what it had been before.
____
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