10 PM. Damian could be seen at his home, lying on his bed, when something crashed through his house, instantly shattering the walls he had just fixed two days ago. “What the fuck!” Damian shouted as he rolled off his bed before leaping backward. In front of him was something he never expected to see. An Ajuma — with pale grey skin and long hair covering most of her face. Her mouth stretched beyond normal limits, parts of it sewn shut with black stitches. Her muscles were well-defined, but her outer body was warped, covered in a black, shell-like substance. “Found you!” the Ajuma said, stretching her hand toward Damian and firing a blast of red blood at hypersonic speed. It pierced through his body like a hot knife through butter. Damian was lucky it didn’t hit his heart — instead, it tore through his shoulder. He immediately activated his regalia, a purple aura enveloping him. He dashed forward and threw a powerful punch — but the Ajuma caught it mid-air and swung him upwar

It had been three days since the training Instructor Sinclair conducted, and the results had already been released. There weren’t any major changes, except that Damian was now ranked second, Austin third, and Freya fourth. The rest either stayed the same or shifted slightly.It was no surprise that Sagara remained number one. Although he hadn’t won, he was still the person closest to victory.But none of that actually bothered Sagara.Right now, his interest lay elsewhere — Damian’s whereabouts.He hadn’t been in class for two days. He wasn’t at his home either. The only reason Sagara wasn’t actively searching for him was because of his own nature.He was a complex individual — someone who tried to fit into the version of himself he had created in his mind. And that version… didn’t care about anyone but himself.Still, a part of him was curious.Where was Damian?There was also the possibility… that he was in danger.Or worse — dead.“Damn it… how about I phrase it as looking for my s

“I have no idea what a Zeta Shard is, I swear!” the man cried, dropping to his knees and thrusting his arms high in surrender. His voice cracked with terror.Cleave stepped closer, her towering black exoskeleton gleaming under the moonlight like polished obsidian. The sheer oppressive presence radiating from her made the man’s bladder release involuntarily — a dark stain spreading across his pants as he trembled.“You filth,” Cleave hissed in disgust, her stitched mouth twisting. “It seems you’re useless as well.”“Wait, please!” the man begged, voice shaking. “I heard about a rock that was stolen from a museum… but I heard it’s being transported to our main hideout in Continent 2!”“I see,” Cleave replied, her depthless black eyes narrowing. “However, I feel the rock is still here. Any idea where it’ll be?”The man paused, sweat pouring down his face, then nodded frantically. “I think it’s most likely being held by the leader of this base! I can show you where his residence is!”Clea

“Although it only lasts five minutes — but that’s enough time for me to kill you,” Phillip said, his calm smile never wavering. This time it was Cleave’s turn to be cautious.The fear in her eyes lasted only a heartbeat before it dissolved into something far more unsettling — a wide, hungry grin that stretched her stitched mouth to its limits. “Fine then! First I’ll eat your legs, then your heart… No. I’ll eat you whole!”They moved at the same instant.⸻The collision was apocalyptic.Two bodies crossed the distance between them in less than a blink, the air between them annihilated on impact. The shockwave that erupted outward flattened the surrounding mountain range in a perfect ring — peaks that had stood for millennia collapsing inward like crumbling sandcastles, boulders the size of houses hurled skyward before raining back down kilometers away. The ground beneath them cratered instantly, a depression twenty meters deep forming in the first second alone, its walls spiderwebbing

In City Z, inside the Supreme Leader’s chamber, the atmosphere carried the particular weight of a room where every person present understood that the decisions being made would be measured not in consequences but in casualties. Three figures. One silence. The Supreme Leader broke it. “We are going to end Cleave in a single, coordinated strike.” His voice was measured, but the intent beneath it was absolute. “The two of you will work in tandem. I’m not asking you to engage her physically — not yet. You will attack from here.” He let that sit for a moment before continuing. “Negator — you will deploy your Full Zone and extend its coverage to encompass Chronos, negating the concept of energy drain on him entirely. With that cost removed, Chronos will have the reserves to summon multiple meteorites simultaneously while also wrapping City X in a localized time field — one that sends any damage attempting to bleed into the surrounding cities back to the moment before it arrived.” He fold