Sloth tilted their head, shadows writhing around them like a nest of serpents. Their voice came slow, heavy with unreadable tones.
"…Foolishness… or resolve? Very well. Let us test… which it is."
The temperature plummeted. Air folded inward, dragged by something deeper than gravity. The floor beneath them cracked like a spider's web, tiles curling upward as if reality itself was being swallowed.
From Sloth's body, the shadows did not simply spill this time. They bloomed—vast, skeletal arms of darkness clawing out of the floor, the walls, even the ceiling. Each limb was boneless, sagging and rubbery, but when they struck, the stone shrieked like glass under a hammer.
Naomi gasped, fire flaring at her fists.
"…It's everywhere—!"
One of the colossal arms lashed forward. Kurozawa met it with a bellow, blade sweeping upward.
"Eclipse Art: Iron-Cleaving Slash!"
The arm split, dissolving into ash but three more surged behind it, snapping shut like a vice.
