248 RETURN TO ROOTS
Ryjer frowned."Then what is it about?"
"There's a psychic backing Black Halo," Sorrow replied.
"As long as that psychic is alive, I'm not stepping onto that battlefield."
The doors slid open again.
A woman walked in calmly.
"If it's a psychic you're worried about," she said smoothly,
"then there will be no issue."
Sorrow turned, eyes narrowing."And who the hell are you?"
Ryjer straightened."This is Morana. A high-level psychic sent by Godfather."
Sorrow's brow lifted slightly.
"Godfather?" he muttered. "That sneaky old bastard manipulating half a dozen minor cities in the background? I know him."
Morana met his gaze.
"Well?" she asked. "What do you say now?"
Sorrow considered it carefully.
"Raise the bounty to two hundred million," he said at last.
"And understand this—if you fail to neutralize the psychic, I walk."
Ryjer didn't hesitate.
"You have a deal."
The machines continued to hum.
But the war had just changed.
-----
Damen finished devouring the last of the Meat Heaps in the city.The ruins around him were silent, almost like it was stripped clean.
He opened his status interface.
Name: Damen Dark
Strength Rank: AAMeta Rank: AABlood Rank: AAAPsychic Rank: AA
Strength: 14,699Charm: 14,386Meta: 15,131
Command: 15,132Blood: 35,254Armor: 53,813
Damen's armor had reached Rank AAA, nearly matching Sorrow's innate defense.
But the price was steep.
His Blood Rank had climbed to AAA as well.
Without the Blood Core to suppress the side effects, Damen knew what would happen—he would eventually lose himself and become nothing more than a mindless beast.
The air suddenly went still.
The wind died.The city seemed to hold its breath.
Something was coming.
"Finally," Black Halo shouted, his voice cutting through the silence.
"You coward—so you dare to return."
A figure stepped forward from the haze of ruin.
It was Sorrow.
His body was whole again. His health was fully restored.
Not a single trace of weakness remained on him.
"You bastard," Sorrow roared, his eyes burning."You hid a psychic to trick me. If you've got any guts, fight me head-on this time."
Damen said nothing.
He reflected on their last battle—and the mistake he had made.He had relied too heavily on range against a monster built for close combat.
That mistake had nearly cost him everything.
He wouldn't repeat it.
Not this time.
Suddenly Sorrow spurted forward with a boom towards Black Halo.
Black Halo barely had time to tilt his head before Sorrow's fist tore through the space where his face had been. The impact alone shattered the reinforced wall behind him, metal folding inward like paper.
Black Halo slid back, his boots screaming against the floor, cloak snapping behind him.
"I admit, you are still as fast," Black Halo muttered.
Sorrow didn't answer.
He was already on him.
A knee drove toward Black Halo's ribs… but Black Halo twisted, and caught the leg.
Sorrow screamed in shock."You're much faster than the last time we fought!"
Black Halo laughed.
"This time," he said calmly, "you won't get away."
He twisted Sorrow mid-grapple and hurled him across the rooftop. Sorrow skidded through concrete and steel, tearing a scar across the building before barely managing to roll to his feet.
Black Halo was already above him.
A heel came down like a meteor.
The roof collapsed.Floors caved in beneath the impact, the building groaning as it began to fail.
"Impossible!" Sorrow shouted, clawing his way out of the debris. "You were never this fast. Never this precise. What happened to you?!"
Black Halo smiled.
"I realized something," he said. "To defeat you… I had to get my hands dirty."
As they faced each other, Damen reflected on their previous battle—and on the reason he had struggled so badly.
He had fought S-Rank alien gods and survived.
So why had a Rank 6A soldier nearly overwhelmed him?
Then the answer struck him.
He had been fighting Sorrow with the mindset of a ranged superhero—believing his greatest weapon was his plasma beam. Against colossal gods, that approach worked.
Against a pure close-combat predator?
It was suicide.
Damen had to return to his roots.He had to reclaim his spirit as a close-range fighter.
One by one, he shut down his cores.
Core of Electricity. Core of Blood. Core of Genesis.
All except one.
The Core of the Mind.
The change was immediate.
With no other cores draining its resources, the Mind Core surged unchecked. Damen's perception sharpened beyond human limits. Time stretched. Movement became intention.
His reaction speed and agility increased by leaps and bounds.
Black Halo was no longer just fast.
He was lethal.
Coupled with the Rank AAA Blood influence raging beneath the surface, he gained the predator instincts of the alien horde—cold, calculating, and merciless.
In that moment, Damen Dark stopped fighting like a hero.
And Sorrow found himself facing a hunter….. no…a Predator.
Suddenly, Sorrow screamed.
"Morana, you bitch! Are you just going to stand there and watch?!"
His rage wasn't aimed at Black Halo—but at the warship hovering above.At the woman still hidden inside it.
Morana.The psychic Godfather had sent to support them.
The moment her name left Sorrow's mouth, Damen's vision shuddered.
The world blurred.
Sound warped.
Reality peeled away.
Darkness swallowed Damen.
When his sight returned, he was no longer on the battlefield.
He stood in a mine.
The Aur Mine—deep beneath Liberty City.
The air was heavy with dust and heat. His arms ached. His hands were raw as he swung a pickaxe into rock, over and over, chipping glowing crystals from the stone.
He was exhausted.
"I'm so tired…" he muttered to himself."When can I go back and sleep?"
A massive hand struck him across the face.
Damen hit the ground hard.
Standing over him was his uncle—Ralph.
"Bastard," Ralph snarled. "How many times do I have to catch you sleeping on the job? If they dock your pay, you'll repay me with your blood and bones."
"I—I—" Damen tried to speak.
Suddenly, his pocket vibrated.
The sensation didn't belong here.
He froze.
Slowly, he reached in and pulled out his phone.
The sight of it shattered the illusion.
Memories flooded back all at once.
This wasn't the Aur Mine.
This wasn't the past.
"This is a hallucination," Damen growled. "Someone's attacking me with psychic powers. Putting me to sleep inside a nightmare loop that I couldn't escape from."
Damen struggled to wake himself from the nightmare, but he couldn't.
"Damnit, how do I get out from this bloody nightmare", he screamed.
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