The sky looked like a nightmare painted in the colors of ruin. Kyle lay at the bottom of a vast crater, and the ground around him had been torn to shreds by the blows of Majestic-class beasts. The forest that had once been dense was now a graveyard of shattered trees and clotted soil. Deep gouges scarred the earth, and the snow was stained with horrific crimson patches of blood and other unknown fluids that gave off a foul, sulfurous stench. The very air was heavy with leftover aether— a poisonous blend of blood, ozone, and raw destructive energy that felt like it was choking the lungs.
The circle of death tightened around him. The three Majestic-class beasts formed a terrifying trinity: a gorilla-like brute with rocky arms that still blazed with energy and spit blue sparks; a shadow-wolf that shimmered and dimmed on the edge of reality like a specter moving between worlds; and a crystalline scorpion raising a lethal, venomous tail that dripped a purple fluid steaming with toxic vapor. Their oppressive aura pressed down like a physical weight of hatred and hunger, making the air around them feel dense, like a warped gravity field. From above, the scene formed a killing snare, and Kyle was the prize at its center.
The moment Kyle tried to rise, channeling his strength—steam boiling from his body, proof his temperature had climbed to dangerous levels—a familiar hand, too fast to see, covered his eyes and gently but firmly pushed him back down.
A voice whispered in his ear, filled with the same madness that haunted his own laugh. "No, no—rest a moment, you lunatic."
Kyle's other, uncovered eye widened in shock. The figure bending over him wore his face like a mirror, right down to the bloodthirsty, crazed grin. Only a bright yellow lock of hair—rather than blue—distinguished the twin.
fyle: "You really are insane. Were you planning to butcher this whole horde using only the first stage?"
As if on cue, the gorilla-beast lunged, its aether-charged fist aiming to smash them both. fyle didn't even move. His skin flashed with a coating of liquid gold. The blow struck his body with a resounding peal—GONG!—and the force scattered through his gilded frame without even making him flinch.
In the same fluid motion, fyle hoisted Kyle over his shoulder. As he leapt, the earth answered his will. With a series of rending cracks! thick iron pillars erupted from the ground like giant spears, skewering the weaker beasts and forcing the Majestic ones to fall back. One central column, wider than an ancient oak, thrust upward to meet them at height. They landed smoothly on its flat top, high above the massacre below.
fyle began a strange, ritual dance; his fingers wove intricate patterns in the air as he chanted incomprehensible words: "Shar Shon Vaniso Nar Tar Dod!"
As the final syllable left his lips, a gigantic, exquisitely detailed circle of blazing white light etched itself across the ground, encircling the entire horde. In the blink of an eye, the circle detonated. Walls of solid, rust-scored iron rose from its perimeter, curving inward with a hideous metallic shriek to form a colossal, impenetrable dome. The horizontal reach of the central pillar defined the dome's apex. From where the twins stood, they heard the final, horrifying sounds of grinding metal and dying screams from within the sealed tomb.
Kyle could only stare, his earlier fury dissolving into pure shock.
Kyle (hoarsely): "Damn it… you… you also have the 'An' class? And when did you perform the circle ritual? I didn't see you or sense you at all!"
fyle threw his head back and laughed. "What's the matter? Jealous of my skills?"
Kyle (irritated): "Why would I be jealous of someone weaker than me?"
fyle: "Hahaha! Does accepting being number two mean I'm weaker? I set these circles up with 09 last night as contingencies. Lucky for you, this horde fell into my trap."
Kyle: "You know I would've taken them down."
fyle laughed again and patted Kyle's back with mocking gentleness. "Don't be naive. You wouldn't have killed all of them with the first stage alone. Are you that afraid of your pink hair showing?"
Kyle (shouting with bitter sarcasm): "I use a special dye! Even if I used any of those stages, my hair wouldn't revert unless I completely lost control! Wait… do you have the same power I do?!"
fyle: "We're twins. It's only natural I have what you have. Unfortunately, I focused hard on training my metal manipulation."
(Note: fyle consumed two black flowers, granting him two additional abilities.)
Suddenly Kyle's eyes widened as he remembered his sister. He launched off the pillar without another word, a blur streaking toward the rear positions where her team had been stationed. He found a squad of soldiers watching the area anxiously, grabbed one by the collar, and hauled him off the ground.
"Where is she?!" Kyle's voice was a roar, his eyes promising instant death if the answer displeased him. "Where are the medics and researchers?!"
The soldier trembled, sweat streaming down his temples like a waterfall. "I—I didn't see them, sir! But I heard… I heard they were all evacuated to the city the moment the attack began!"
Kyle flung the soldier aside, grinding his teeth. Ignoring the battle plan, his position—everything—he hurled himself into a wild, rage-fueled assault. Any pack of beasts he encountered met total annihilation. His reckless onslaught, powered by fury and backed by 09's strategic support and fyle's overwhelming might, finally allowed the remaining teams to wipe out the last of the invading monsters.
A grim, painful silence settled over the battlefield, broken only by the groans of the wounded. Soldiers began to emerge slowly to begin the bleak task of collecting the dead. The casualties were horrific—over two hundred, most from Teams 65 and 85. Without the intervention of the three powers, it would have been a complete massacre.
This was only the beginning. The beasts had merely been testing their defenses. What horrors they were holding back—no one could say. All the soldiers could do was tend their wounds and wait, dreading the next wave.
Minutes after that dreadful surge of monsters had been put down, the medical teams and researchers returned to their stations. Kyle walked heavily toward his sister, Lya, who was tending to the wounded, his face a mixture of concern and anger.
Kyle (clamping down on his temper): "Why didn't you tell me you'd been moved from your post? I would've lost my mind if I hadn't found you here."
Lia (pausing mid-bandage, looking exhausted): "We were in a rush. And there was an attack by some terrorists inside the city—we were busy treating casualties there. There wasn't time to report."
Before he could answer, cloe stormed into the scene like a cyclone. Her hand was clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone white, her teeth ground with fury, and her expression radiated the desire to strangle him to death. She shoved Kyle hard and screamed in his face.
cloe: "Why are you here and not at your post?! And why did you break the plan so recklessly?!"
Kyle (dry, scornful laugh): "If we'd followed your pathetic plan, every soldier would be dead! Can't you see that breaking it is what let us repel this attack?" (He shakes his head, taunting.) "Are you ashamed to admit 09 and fyle saved the day?"
cloe (eyes blazing with hatred): "What if another horde had attacked, exploiting your absence from your position? What would he have done then?!"
Kyle: "I left my post because you lied to me! I'm not a lab rat for you to exploit however you like! You used me as a human shield without sending any support, even though ninety-five percent of the beasts attacked my sector! Do you even deserve to call yourself a leader? Step down immediately! Two hundred soldiers died in a so-called 'simple' attack!"
Kyle drew a long breath, then shot cloe a sharp, fleeting glance, one that carried a sincere intent to kill.
Kyle (low and dangerous): "I won't forget that you used my sister to force me into this fight."
cloe (letting out a warped little laugh): "Do you really want to kill me? Then… just follow me."
Lia tried to intervene and stop this deadly argument, but cloe flashed away like lightning toward the forest. Kyle followed without hesitation, and they came to a vast clearing hidden deep in the woods. It was a wide, open space, ringed by colossal trees—as if designed specifically as an arena for lethal duels.
Kyle (laughing hysterically, sticking out his tongue like a madman): "Do you realize that, aside from Lia, no one saw us head here?"
cloe (laughing as she drew two hidden swords from her back): "I know. And all I need to do is get rid of Lya after I finish you."
Kyle (eyes glittering with madness): "I should've brought a shovel. What a pity to dirty my hands digging your grave. I'll tear your body to pieces and leave it for the beasts."
Without warning, Kyle stamped the ground with brutal force, triggering a small explosion and using the dense dust as a screen. He shot toward cloe like lightning—but his instincts suddenly screamed a warning unlike anything he'd felt before. It was the sensation of imminent death. He tried to pull back at the last instant, but as cloe's sword swept toward him and he dodged it at the very last moment—
Pain ripped through him, sudden and savage. He looked down to see a deep, imposing gash slashed across his face, nearly reaching his nose. A few millimeters more and he would have died. Blood poured from the wound like a river, shock twisting his features. One thought pounded in his skull: How did that happen? He'd dodged at the last second—so how did he get hit?!
cloe exploited his confusion and streaked toward him like an arrow. Kyle slipped aside, evading her strike, but her blade punched through his guard, carving another deep wound from below his abdomen up across his chest. In that moment, a terrifying truth settled over him: if he didn't end this in a single blow, he would be a corpse within minutes.
He fell back, trying to gather his strength. But cloe gave him no time. She sent razor-edged arcs of energy from her swords—similar to the waves his own sword could release, yet unleashed through ordinary weapons. He tanked them with his hardened body, but then came the shock as cloe hurled a cluster of small knives that pierced him in vital spots.
In a burst of despair and fury, Kyle blasted the ground again to throw her off, but she sliced through the dust veil like the devil herself. She appeared right in front of him. Kyle twisted and seized her wrist to stop the swing—only for her other sword to come down on his left arm, severing it cleanly at the shoulder with a single, precise stroke.
Kyle screamed in agony, yet he exploited her fixation on that moment of triumph. With one brutal kick, he drove his heel into her midsection with unbelievable force, hurling her backward. She tried to brace herself with her sword, but it was too late.
Then the change came. Kyle let out a mad howl, loaded with pain and wrath. His eyes turned entirely a deep, murderous red—but this time, a bright green pentagram formed at the center of each eye, a sigil marking the unleashing of his true, latent power. A vast, feral energy bled from his body.
Suddenly, Kyle was standing behind Lya in the laboratory, shouting in a ragged voice thick with confusion and fear, his severed arm clutched in his grasp and blood soaking his entire body, other wounds everywhere: "Hurry! I don't want to lose it…" Shock and confusion flashed over his face, fear and tension shuddering through him as his whole body shook the instant Lya turned; she was seeing her brother in a state she had never seen before—but she understood at once.
Kyle (hoarse with pain and shock, waving the severed limb): "Hurry—what are you waiting for?!"
Lia stared at him in stark bewilderment, eyes bright with tears and terror. She grabbed a syringe and tried to inject him, but his body's rigidity kept the needle out.
Lia (shouting): "Relax your body, now!"
Kyle: "Fine!"
Lya injected him and then clamped two metal clips onto the stump of his arm (her voice trembling): "You killed her, didn't you? Did you hide the evidence?"
Kyle: "I forgot. All I can think about right now is saving my arm."
Lia clutched her head with both hands, on the verge of breaking down. Then she screamed, "Where is the body now? I'll go get rid of the evidence!" (She pointed toward a large, egg-shaped machine.) "Just get into the preservation pod. It will keep your arm from decaying and help you recover a little. I'll finish treating you when I get back."
Before the glass door closed, she asked one last time, eyes full of tears and dread:
Lia: "Where is the body, Kyle? Where is it?!"
Kyle: "Just follow the aether traces. I overdid it a little, so your device will detect residual energy there—but be careful."
Lia roared off on her advanced, cloaking-equipped motorcycle, following the rising trail of aether through the forest until she reached the site—utterly devastated. Trees were shattered, the ground charred, and in the center lay cloe's corpse. Another shock awaited Lia: a huge, horrific wound gaped across cloe's abdomen, as if a human arm had punched straight through her.
With shaking hands, Lya tried to use her vaporization pistol to dissolve the body and erase the evidence. But at the instant the process initiated, she noticed something that froze the blood in her veins: cloe's chest was still rising and falling in a faint, regular rhythm.
She dropped to her knees, overwhelmed by shock and disbelief. How could any living thing—even cloe—still be alive after a wound like that? A storm of confusion seized her: should she end cloe's life now? Wait for her to die alone? Or… try to save her? Lya aimed the vaporizer at cloe, trembling, tears streaming down her face like a waterfall.