"Boom."
The sound rolled through the ruined warehouse like a drowning thunderclap. Where the dust had barely settled, a living, green void tore open the sky — a gate of emerald light, towering higher than the already giant third-order new human. Vines of iridescent energy crawled along its rim; the air itself bent toward it as if obeying some ancient gravity.
The behemoth below stumbled, its impact collapsing a whole flank of the building. Rubble exploded outward in a choking cloud. The lean man in black froze at the sight of the gate, pale as if he'd glimpsed some ritual beyond his ken. "You… you're a summoner?" he spat at Chen Xiao.
Chen Xiao only nodded. He'd hoped for a surprise; what he hadn't expected was how the gate's presence would twist the battlefield. The lean man's fingers snapped in a signal — a command. The giant coiled, launching itself with impossible force. Even such bulk needed tremendous energy to clear the space above the wreckage.
Chen Xiao didn't hesitate. One thought, one quiet word, and the [Gate of the Spirit Realm] answered.
The portal opened on a slow, metallic sigh. From its throat stepped a colossus that made the five-meter new human look like a boulder beside a mountain range: a Tyrannosaurus Rex, scales like burnished armor, eyes like hot coals, teeth long as a man's forearm. It was prehistoric terror made flesh — five meters high, ten meters long — every inch an assertion of killing instinct.
The lean man flinched. Around him the air changed; even Liu Ruyan, crouched in shadow, pressed a hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Summoners normally called forth farm animals or mundane beasts. No one expected a living mountain. Chen Xiao had guessed something formidable would come through the gate, but even he had to swallow at the sheer scale of it.
"Kill him! Kill him now!" the lean man shrieked, panic shredding his voice. He'd planned to bypass the summoned guardian and strike Chen Xiao down — sever the link, end the summoner. For a heartbeat it seemed possible: the behemoth lunged, a living battering ram aimed at Chen Xiao's flank.
Then the Tyrannosaur moved.
Its tail snapped through the air like a falling tree. The shockwave flattened the empty shells of nearby buildings; dust rolled in a living fog. The behemoth's leg fractured under that brutal sweep with a sick, ringing crunch. The T-rex didn't hesitate — it sank its jaws into the giant's upper body and shook. Flesh and bone exploded outward in a grotesque fountain. The third-order new human died in an instant, his head and chest reduced to ruin beneath the ancient predator's bite.
The lean man spat blood and turned to run, but he had no room for escape. A brutal kick sent him sailing; blades materialized and finished the job. The killer was not Chen Xiao but Liu Ruyan — silent, efficient, her surprise attack decisive. When she stepped into the open she was flushed, breathless; perhaps adrenaline, perhaps something more. Chen Xiao walked toward her at a measured pace, watching.
"How many talents do you have, exactly?" she asked when they were safe.
Chen Xiao grinned without answering the tally. "Ten or eight, maybe," he said lightly. She snorted, half-annoyed, half-pleased, and pointed at the T-rex, which now wandered among the ruins like a sovereign inspecting a conquered land.
The summoned beast was not an unmoored monster — it seemed bound within the gate's influence. As the moment to close ticked nearer, the creature relaxed, turning toward the portal. The Gate and its guardian appeared to share one lifespan; when one dissolved, so did the other. Chen Xiao watched the T-rex prowl back toward the glowing arch. The gate folded with the same slow, dreadful dignity it had opened, and the last of the green light drained away.
"Time to collect the trophy," Liu Ruyan said, eyes glittering. With Chen Xiao's help she bagged the severed half-head — macabre, priceless — proof that the Yakuza Base had stood against and bested a third-order threat. Such a relic would burnish her standing, rally support, and silence rivals. She packed it into the trunk as if stowing a badge of victory.
Before she climbed in, Chen Xiao stepped close. The air between them had shifted over the night: the shared danger, the sudden, raw displays of power, the quiet after the slaughter. He pressed against her, a move that startled her into a blush.
"What are you doing?" she snapped, voice unsteady as emotion and adrenaline tangled in her throat.
Chen Xiao only smiled, the green gate now memory and rumor in the moonlit ruin. Around them the grain warehouse gaped, blood and skeletons scattered like a terrible history. The world they lived in had just shown them one more rule: power could be called up like stormlight, and sometimes what answered was older and hungrier than humanity dared to imagine.