The Man-eater threw itself towards the five individuals. The five of them hesitated waiting for it to pick a target.
However, the female Dream Shade, Lyra, reacted first. She slammed her palms into the charred earth.
'Divine Ability: Summoning!'
The ground trembled violently. Heat shimmered upward as vapor and light bled from the impact point beneath her hands. The soil split apart as something massive forced its way through.
A three-headed, shadowy canine erupted from the earth, towering over Lyra, its body stitched from smoke and Miasmic energy. All three heads snapped forward at once, jaws dripping and snapping hungrily as they locked onto the Man-eater.
Lyra nudged it forward. It crashed into the Man-eater mid-charge, clamping down with all three heads in a chaotic bite meant to restrain rather than kill.
A distraction.
Eve and Lucy, having activated their abilities, blurred into motion from the flanks. Lucy's Miasma Chains erupted from the ground, coiling around the monster's scaled tail and legs to anchoring it. Eve slashed at its arm, and spun driving her momentum toward the soft tissue behind its knee.
The Man-eater growled lowly. Its palm conjured a ball of pure, cursed Miasma. The Miasma exploded outward.
The shockwave erased everything in its radius.
The chains shattered like glass. The shadowed Cerberus disintegrated into smoke. Eve crossed her daggers just in time, bracing against the blast, but the force still drove her backward nearly twenty feet, boots carving deep trenches through the soil.
'It's not enough,' Kaelen muttered. He stepped forward, drawing a jagged obsidian Greatsword.
'Divine Abilty: Paladin's Sword.'
Light and wind burst out. The blade bent the air around it, pulling in surrounding light as though it were being consumed. The Man-eater's attention shifted immediately. It began walking toward Kaelen with slow, deliberate interest.
Kaelen ran to meet it.
Clang!
The shock wave of each clash leveled the remaining burning trees. Kaelen held the monster's claw back with his blade, muscles bulging, but the Man-eater's tail whipped around. There was no way for him to react on time.
Z saw the tail coming for Kaelen's exposed side. He lunged instinctively unsheathing his sword
Z swung Amaterasu in a wide arc, sending two crescent waves of crimson toward the tail. The fire collided with the scales, diverting the strike by an inch—enough for Kaelen to break free and roll away.
The Man-eater stood in the center of the ring of fire, looking grim. It opened its black mouth and exhaled a thick, black fog. It quickly surrounded the Shades blurring their vision.
'Don't breathe it in!' Kaelen shouted, but it was too late. The fog wasn't poison; it was worse. The fog disrupted Miasma, weakening them considerably.
Lucy fell to her knees, her Sais slipping from her fingers as her own Miasma turned sluggish.
Lyra tried to summon a barrier, but the Man-eater appeared behind her before it could finish forming. She barely avoided the strike, her cloak shredded as she tumbled into a tree.
Z felt his lungs tighten. His body still moved, but sluggishly, like something was pressing down on his bones. The Grail was fighting it, keeping him upright.
Kaelen and Eve remained standing, a desperate dance of heavy steel and twin daggers.
'Hope you can keep up, lady?' Kaelen asked.
'That's my line.' Eve said. Together, the both ran at the Man-eater, strangely synchronized. They landed a dozen hits—slashes across the chest, stabs to the shoulders—but the Devil-type's wounds closed as fast as they were made.
The monster finally saw a gap in their coordination. It slammed its fist into Kaelen's chest brutally, sending him crashing into dirt and debris. Eve tried to back away, but the monster stepped in quickly and grabbed her by the throat.
'Eve!'
Z, mustering all the strength he could, lunged at the Man-eater, igniting every drop of Miasma he had left. He used the Swallow Cut, the blade flickering in three directions at once. The Man-eater tilted its head, letting the flames lick its cheek, and swatted Z away like a fly.
Z crashed into a boulder, his vision spinning. Through the haze, he saw the Man-eater's eyes—not filled with rage, but amusement.
'It's playing with us,' Lucy whispered, her face pale as she struggled to stand.
The Man-eater tossed Eve aside and began to repair its wounds. It didn't want to kill them yet. It was giving them a chance to regroup and crush their hopes once again.
It didn't take too long before the Shades had gotten back to their feet. Kaelen had a few cracked ribs. If he hadn't poured all his Miasma into his chest, he would have definitely been killed.
'Lucy, the joints! Z, follow Kaelen's lead!' Eve barked, her voice raspy from almost having her windpipe crushed.
Kaelen stepped forward, his obsidian greatsword humming. He swung a massive vertical cleave. The ground split open, a wave of Miasma energy racing toward the monster.
The Man-eater caught the energy wave with its bare claws, the friction sending sparks flying like a grinder against stone.
While it was occupied, Z saw his opening. He pushed his Miasma to the breaking point, his vision tunneling.
Faster. It has to be faster.
He ignited the blade, compressing the fire until it was a thin, vibrating line of orange heat.
Z lunged, thrusting Amaterasu into the monster's midsection. The blade sank four inches—deeper than anyone had managed—cauterizing the flesh as it went. The Man-eater's eyes narrowed, locking onto Z. Instead of screaming, it reached down and gripped his sword arm.
'Get away from him!' Lucy screamed.
She threw both hands forward. Her chains erupted from the ground, driven by desperation, coiling around the Man-eater's neck and arm, pulling with enough force to crack the earth beneath her feet.
At the same moment, Lyra had gotten back to her feet. 'Summoning: Twin-Headed Chimera!'
Its body was hulking and heavily muscled, coated in shifting dark hide that rippled like smoke-bound flesh. Two necks extended from its shoulders—one ending in a lion-like head with jagged teeth and burning red eyes, the other a serpentine head with blade-like scales and a cold, calculating gaze.
Both heads moved independently, scanning the battlefield in opposite rhythms. It charged, biting deep into the Man-eater's shoulder.
For a moment, the monster was pinned.
Eve reappeared above it, daggers aimed at its head. She drove them downward with the weight of her entire body. The impact hit like a thunderclap.
The Devil Man-eater couldn't dodge. Her blades sank deep into its skull. She didn't stop. She tried to tear it apart, forcing the blades wider. But the Man-eater resisted, its flesh already regenerating, closing around the wounds.
Z was still trying to sever its torso, and Kaelen was engaged with its arms when it shifted. The Man-eater finally recognized the danger it was in. Its tongue flicked out, elongating rapidly, wrapping around Kaelen's neck.
The pressure tightened instantly, forcing Kaelen to focus on breathing. He swung his sword at the tongue. That split second gave the Man-eater what it needed.
Its palm opened again. In one hand, a sphere of cursed Miasma spun rapidly. In the other, a sphere of purple fire ignited, rotating violently. The Man-eater brought both hands together.
A massive, invisible shockwave erupted from its body.
The Chimera evaporated instantly. Lucy was thrown backward, her chains shattering. Kaelen was sent skidding, his sword vibrating violently, drawing blood from his palms.
Z, still wrapped around the Man-eater's tail, took the full force of the blast. The tail released him mid-impact, then struck his sternum in the air. He felt his ribs break again, and he was launched through the smoke, crashing into a tree a couple of yards away. Blood seeped through every pore on body as he barely held on.
'It's no use!' Kaelen spat, coughing blood. 'We're taking too much damage. Fall back!'
'We can't outrun a Devil-type on flat ground!' Eve shouted, grabbing Lucy by the collar of her shirt and hauling her up.
'The gorge!' Lyra pointed deeper into the forest, where the terrain broke into jagged cliffs and narrow stone passages. 'If we can bottle it up, we might stand a chance!'
'GO!' Kaelen ordered.
They turned and sprinted. It wasn't a tactical withdrawal; it was a frantic scramble for survival.
The forest blurred behind them in fire and ash as the Man-eater followed, unhurried and certain, closing distance with every step. Each impact of its movement came closer than the last, its rhythm like a hunt.
Z, trailing slightly behind and clutching his chest, looked over his shoulder. The Grail had healed his worst injuries, but pain still lingered like fire under his skin.
In the darkness, the Man-eater's eyes were two glowing slits of pure malice. It was gaining. It leaped, Its massive frame cut across the moonlight, silhouetted as it soared over the trees, landing twenty feet behind Z with an impact that shook the mountain.
'Keep moving!' Kaelen roared, swinging his sword backward without looking, sending a desperate wave of energy to slow it down.
The Man-eater waved away the blast and continued its pursuit.
The gorge was a narrow, jagged wound in the earth, flanked by obsidian cliffs that trapped the heat of the burning forest. As the five Shades backed into the bottleneck, the air grew thin, vibrating with the low-frequency hum of the Devil Man-eater's presence.
Kaelen raised his palm. The shades stopped.
'Alright, no more running,' Kaelen growled, his obsidian Greatsword glowing with a violet, unstable light. 'If we going to die here, we die taking a piece of it with us!'
The Man-eater emerged slowly from the shadows, releasing dense cursed Miasma—heavy enough to crush will itself.
Kaelen grimaced. As the strongest, he felt it was his duty to take the lead. He lunged first, muscles straining as his blade carved a rift through the air. The strike hit the Man-eater's chest, drawing a spray of black, steaming blood. The creature screamed sharply. It reached out and seized the blade with its bare palm, trying to extract it from its torso.
But Kaelen wasn't done. A localized gravity well formed around the Man-eater. The Man-eater's feet sank into the solid rock, its joints popping under the pressure.
The Devil Man-eater let out a guttural rumble as the gravity well crushed downward, its legs bending unnaturally beneath the focused force. The rock fissured under its weight, cracks radiating like a spiderweb. For the first time, it looked hurt. Its wounds repaired still, but much slower. They were finally doing damage for the first time in the fight.
Kaelen bared his teeth, forcing more power into the Greatsword. Veins bulged across his arms as the violet light intensified.
'Stay the fuck down!' He yelled.
The Man-eater's muscles twitched. Its chest wound steamed but did not close. It stared at Kaelen with a look of despair and curiosity. Then, with a violent twist of its hips, it tore one foot free.
The sudden motion broke the gravity field's symmetry. The gravity's pressure flickered for a second or two. Instantly, the Man-eater wrenched its second leg out of the rock, exploding dust outward. The ground collapsed inward where it had been trapped.
It was free.
In one quick, blurry movement it struck Kaelen viscously.
Kaelen's guard shattered. The claw slammed into his ribs, lifting him off his feet. He smashed into the cliff wall with enough force to crater it, stone raining down around his body. His Greatsword clattered beside him, dimming.
'KAELEN!' Lyra shouted.
Eve charged determined not to give it a chance to rest. She launched herself at the Man-eater midair, both daggers spinning in reverse grip. She slashed once—twice—six times in a blink, each strike aimed at a joint, a tendon, an eye socket.
The monster weaved through her attacks cautious to not take any more damage. But Eve was fatigued -- they all were -- and the Man-eater was well aware.
Eve sung her dagger wildly, giving the monster an opening.
It caught her wrist.
Eve's eyes widened a fraction before she reacted, kicking off its forearm to free herself—barely.
'Lucy! Now!' she yelled.
Lucy slammed both palms into the ground. Her chains erupted at once, bursting not only from the earth but from the surrounding cliff walls as well. Dozens of them snaked outward like living serpents, wrapping tightly around the Man-eater's arms, torso, neck, and legs, locking it in place.
Lyra staggered forward, biting down on her thumb until blood spilled. It dripped onto the ground, then she placed he palms onto the soil.
'Summoning: Abyssal Kirin.'
The ground ruptured in a blinding pillar of white fire and black lightning. From it emerged a colossal antlered beast made of smoke and light, its hooves burning into the stone. Its mane crackled with unstable energy, and its eyes glowed a deep, unnatural red.
The Devil Man-eater pulled an tugged at the chains, desperate to free itself from the chains. The creature in front of it emitted an aura far above its own.
The Kirin roared and charged.
The beast struck with the force of a falling meteor, driving the Devil-type back several paces, carving trenches under its hooves. Lightning tore through the monster's torso. White flame ate into its side. The gorge flashed like a miniature sun.
The Kirin pressed forward relentlessly, driving its horns into the Man-eater again and again as it attempted to regenerate. Limbs were torn apart and immediately regrown, only to be torn again. Every attempt to break free was forced back by two steps. The wounds refused to close fast enough under the constant barrage.
Meanwhile, Lyra's vision blurred.
Calling the Kirin alone was already beyond her limit. Sustaining it was tearing her apart from the inside.
Her hands trembled uncontrollably. Blood streamed from her nose, then from her tear ducts. Her knees buckled violently.
Lucy saw it immediately. 'Lyra—stop! You'll kill yourself!'
Lyra shook her head, jaw clenched so tightly her teeth creaked. 'It's working. I just—need—one more—'
The Kirin reared up, its form flickering violently as Lyra's control wavered. Even so, it slammed both burning hooves into the Man-eater's chest. The Devil-type roared in frustration as its back hit the cliff, pinned under the celestial beast's furious weight.
Cracks spidered across the cliff face behind it. The Kirin lowered its antlers, charging a final burst of black lightning. Seemingly about to bring the battle to a close.
Lyra's arms gave out. She collapsed face-first into the dirt as her eyes rolled back.
Immediately, the Kirin's form destabilized. The lightning flickered out. The white fire sputtered. The massive beast dissolved into smoke and drifting embers, its roar fading like an echo swallowed by the wind.
The Man-eater burst free the instant the pressure disappeared.
Stone exploded outward.Lucy launched another wave of chains, but the Man-eater's aura spiked violently. With a single flex, it shattered them. Debris scattered across the gorge.
Eve tried to intercept but was swatted aside by the tail, sent spinning across the ground.
Kaelen, still kneeling and struggling to breathe, forced himself up on trembling arms—only for the Man-eater to appear in front of him in a blur.
He didn't even see the kick that followed.
The hit landed square in the sternum, lifting Kaelen off the ground and sending him tumbling across the gorge until he hit the far wall and slumped, unconscious.
Lucy scrambled up, gasping. She had just enough time to turn before a clawed palm struck her across the chest. She flew into a boulder, the impact knocking the air and the fight out of her.
The Man-eater stood alone in the center of the ravine, scorched, bleeding, limping—yet unbroken. Its red eyes swept across the battlefield, confirming each of its victims had fallen.
Then it turned toward the only one still conscious.
Z dragged himself upright, blood dripping from his chin, Amaterasu flickering weakly in his grip. His legs wobbled. Every breath felt like glass.
But he stepped forward.
A few couple of meters away from them a groggy Eve lay, gathering Miasma and recovering from the earlier hit. She saw Z standing alone facing the Man-eater
'Damn it, Z…. You better not die.'
The Man-eater took a single step to meet him, the ground trembling under its weight.
The two of them faced each other—the last fighters left standing. Behind Z lay the broken forms of people who had refused to give up.
He tightened his grip on Amaterasu.
The Man-eater stood still, its chest rising and falling in slow, controlled breaths. The wounds carved by the Kirin still smoldered across its body, resisting regeneration.
Then, Its right hand gripped its own left shoulder. With a violent wrench, it tore the arm free.
Black blood sprayed across the stone. But instead of reforming, the wound sealed flat, muscle tightening over the stump like hardened armor. The leaking energy that had been sustaining its regeneration condensed inward, its entire body compressing with a dense, suffocating pressure.
The Miasma in the air grew heavier. Sharper.
The Man-eater reached back its claws digging into the base of its tail.
The tail ripped free and hit the ground with a heavy thud. Again, no regrowth. The energy in the tail returned to the core of its body. Its frame shrank slightly, but the density of power around it became suffocating and more intimidating.
The Man-eater moved. It crossed the distance in a blink, its remaining arm swinging in a straight, brutal line.
Z raised his blade.
The impact detonated through him.
He was launched backward, his feet carving deep grooves into the soil as he slid. Before he could recover, the Man-eater was already on him again, pressing forward with relentless speed. Each strike was heavier now, denser, every motion carrying the weight of its sacrificed regeneration.
Z tried to counter. Too slow.
A claw struck his shoulder. Another hit his ribs. He barely blocked the next blow, but the force drove him down to one knee.
His breathing broke.
Another strike came in quick succession. He raised Amaterasu just in time to block it, but the pressure forced him backward again, step by step, toward the cliff wall.
The Man-eater leaned in, preparing to break through his guard entirely.
Z's knees nearly gave out.
Then a second presence dropped into the space beside him.
Eve.
Her daggers caught the incoming strike just before it landed, the impact sending a shockwave through both of them, but Eve held.
'Stop getting pushed around,' she muttered through gritted teeth.
Z exhaled sharply. 'Didn't think you were still up.'
'I wasn't,' she replied, shifting her stance, 'but I got bored of staying down.'
The Man-eater's head turned slightly, recalibrating again.
The monster blitzed towards them.
Eve reacted first, stepping in front of Z to take the angle. Her daggers met the incoming strike, but the force behind it was heavier than before. Her arms buckled instantly, boots scraping across the stone as she was driven back.
'Z—left!' she shouted.
Z moved without thinking, cutting in from the side. Amaterasu swept upward in a burning arc, forcing the Man-eater to twist away. The blade grazed its ribs, carving a shallow, smoking line.
Eve used the opening.
She darted low, aiming for the creature's exposed flank, daggers flashing in rapid succession. Each strike landed—shoulder, ribs, hip—forcing the Man-eater to turn its attention fully onto her.
'Now!' she barked.
Z pushed forward. But the Man-eater pivoted too fast.
Its remaining arm shot out and caught Eve mid-lunge.
The motion stopped everything.
Eve froze as the claw drove through her torso, lifting her slightly off the ground. Blood ran down the Man-eater's arm as it held her there, steady and deliberate.
Z's eyes widened. 'EVE!'
She coughed, but her grip didn't loosen. Instead, she tightened it on the arm pinning her.
'Don't… stop,' she forced out.
The Man-eater turned its head slightly toward Z, still holding her in place like a shield.
Z's breathing sharpened. His hands tightened around Amaterasu until his knuckles went white.
The Man-eater adjusted its stance, preparing to finish both of them.
Z's world went blank and quiet. A wave roared in his head. A surge of anger shook his body.
He surged forward, forcing everything he had into a single motion. Amaterasu ignited again—but this time differently. The flame didn't flare outward. It compressed inward, crawling along the blade until it became a solid line of white heat.
The Man-eater tried to react. But Eve didn't let it.
Even impaled, even shaking, she twisted her body just enough to lock its arm in place, forcing its guard open for a fraction of a second.
Z reached it. He stepped in and swung.
The blade passed through the neck in a single, uninterrupted line of white fire.
For a moment, there was no sound.
Then the head separated cleanly and hit the ground.
Black fissures spread across its flesh, starting from the neck and branching outward like cracks in burning glass. The dense, sacrificed energy it had condensed earlier destabilized all at once, no longer anchored by a living core.
Its limbs dissolved into drifting black ash. The torso followed, collapsing into fragments of dust that evaporated before they could hit the ground. The remaining arm holding Eve lost shape first, fingers turning to smoke, the grip loosening as structure failed.
Eve dropped with it.
Z caught her before she hit the ground.
Her weight was light, too light. Blood soaked through his hands as he lowered her carefully.
Behind them, the Man-eater's body continued to fall apart, dissolving into nothing but scattered black particles that were quickly swallowed by the wind of the gorge. Only the severed head remained solid for a few seconds longer—its expression frozen, unblinking—before even that cracked and turned to ash.
Silence returned.
Z stayed on his knees, holding Eve's shoulders as her breathing flickered in and out, unstable but still present. His hands were shaking, not from exhaustion alone anymore.
Z tried his best not to panic. The wound was to large to apply pressure on and he didn't know what to do. Then an idea came to his head.
'Grail?'
'Yes Z?'
'Please, you have to help me save her. She saved my life. Please.'
A pause followed.
'I cannot. You are too weak to use my techniques. If you do there will be disastrous consequences.'
Z swallowed. 'What's going to happen?'
'Your lifespan will be shortened.'
'Do it. I don't care what happens to me.'
'That is ---'
'I SAID I DON'T CARE. DO IT!'
'As you wish, Z'
A faint white light began to gather in Z's hands.
At first it felt like warmth returning to battered fingers. Then his own injuries began to heal slowly.
Z placed both hands over Eve's wound.
Torn muscle fibers reconnected strand by strand. Damaged tissue regrew in layered sequence, as though time itself was being reversed in a controlled spiral. Bone realigned. Blood flow stabilized. Skin followed last, sealing over the restored body until the injury was gone entirely.
The light faded.
Eve's breathing steadied. She was alive.
A faint, exhausted smile formed on his face. Then he collapsed, unconscious.