Chapter 10: The System Crash
The triumphant cheers died in the townsfolks' throats, replaced by gasps of horror. The massive, burning spider-creature, the Twilight Hunter, was stirring. Its flaming limbs scraped against the asphalt, pulling its crippled body forward.
"It's still alive!" Kenny yelled, scrambling back from the intense heat.
"Cease celebrations," Jin's voice commanded over the walkie-talkie, his tone as cool and calm as if he were commenting on the weather. "The incendiary payload was effective, but its core is intact. I anticipated this contingency. All teams, advance. Target the central mass, as indicated in Briefing Document 7-B. Maintain a perimeter of fifteen meters."
Boyd looked at the absurdly over-engineered spear in his hands, then at the flaming monster. "You heard him!" he roared, finding strength in the sheer insanity of it all. "Let's go!"
Boyd, Kenny, and Ellis moved in, a reluctant vanguard armed with Jin's "Mark II Strategic Impalement Devices." From the diner, a window smashed open. It was Donna, her face grim, hurling a flaming bottle that shattered against the creature's back. "That's for my good china, you son of a bitch!"
The battle was a chaotic, desperate ballet. Ellis, fueled by adrenaline, lunged forward and plunged his spear deep into a burning leg joint.
"Stevens!" Jin's voice crackled from the church steeple. "Your spear-thrust angle is suboptimal! You are losing an estimated 20% of your kinetic energy due to improper hip rotation! Correct your form!"
"I'm a little busy trying not to get barbecued!" Ellis screamed back, dodging a fiery limb that crashed down, shattering the ground.
At the ballista, Jade and Jim frantically tried to reload the massive siege weapon. "The tensile strength of this winch is not rated for this speed!" Jim grunted, his engineer's mind still running calculations even in his terror.
"Just pull the damn thing!" Jade shot back, his face a mask of sweat and grease. "His plan didn't account for a 'cool-down period'!"
The ground teams were buying time, but the creature, even in its death throes, was a vortex of destruction. It swept a leg, sending Kenny flying. He landed hard, his head hitting the pavement, stunning him. The monster's burning head, with its dozens of glowing red eyes, turned towards the downed deputy.
"Kenny!" Boyd screamed.
"Ground team effectiveness has dropped below 30%," Jin announced over the radio, his voice sharp. "Risk to human assets is now unacceptable. I am intervening directly."
A steel cable fired from the church steeple, hooking onto the diner's roof. Before anyone could fully process it, Jin slid down the zipline he had "prepared just in case," landing in a perfect, low crouch between Kenny and the monster. He drew his black katana.
He didn't announce an attack. He simply moved. It wasn't supernatural; it was a masterclass in disciplined violence. He exploded forward in a series of short, sharp, unpredictable dashes, blending the explosive footwork of Taekwondo with the grounded, powerful stances of Kendo. He was a phantom in the firelight, flowing around the monster's wild attacks with inches to spare.
He didn't slash wildly; his katana became a scalpel. He used precise, economical thrusts—tsuki, the heart of Kendo—to sever the creature's burning tendons at the joints he'd identified as weak points. With each clinical strike, another leg would buckle and collapse. It was a cold, beautiful, and terrifyingly efficient dissection of the beast.
The creature, crippled and dying, had one last spasm of defiance. A burning, spear-tipped limb whipped out, not at Jin, but at a collapsed section of the general store. Kristi and Julie were there, desperately trying to pull an injured and trapped Donna from the rubble. They were cornered, with no time to escape.
There was no calculation. No risk assessment. For the first time, Jin's body moved on pure instinct.
He exploded into a desperate, low sprint, his katana held in a two-handed grip. He threw himself forward, a blur of motion, intercepting the massive descending limb not with overwhelming strength, but with a perfectly angled block that channeled the force of the blow into the ground. The impact sent a painful, jarring shudder up his entire body, buckling his knees, but the block held. He had saved them.
Lying on the ground, his body screaming in protest from the strain, he watched as the monster finally collapsed for good, its inner fire extinguishing into a plume of acrid smoke. He had been awake for over fifty hours. He had planned and executed a full-scale battle. He had pushed his body and mind to their absolute limits and beyond.
A wave of triumphant, disbelieving cheers erupted from the town. They had won.
Kristi and Julie, their faces a mixture of terror and overwhelming relief, rushed towards him. "Jin! You did it! Are you okay?!"
He tried to push himself up, to give a tactical report, but his system was failing. He looked down at his hand. It was flickering, turning translucent and dissolving into shimmering blue pixels. A deafening roar of digital static filled his ears, drowning out the cheers.
He looked up, his eyes wide with the first genuine, uncalculated shock anyone had ever seen on his face. His last sight in this universe was of Julie's horrified gasp and Kristi's outstretched hand reaching for him.
Then, in front of the entire town, at the very peak of his victory, Jin Nakahara dissolved into a storm of light and static, and vanished completely.
The monster was dead. The hero was gone. A new, impossible silence fell over the town.
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Target is 10 powerstone for now
Chapter complete! I read every single comment, so let me know what's on your mind! If you want to support the fic even more, a review or some power stones would be amazing. Cheers!