"Ugh — aaaahhh."
The sub-boss who had been kicked to the ground moments ago suddenly began convulsing violently where he lay. The Public Security officers nearby rushed in to restrain him — but to everyone's shock, the man summoned strength from nowhere, seizing two officers by the throat and wrenching them clean off their feet.
"What?! Let them go!"
Geno moved to intervene the instant he saw things go sideways — but before he could reach them, a sickening crack split the air. Both officers went limp at once, their bodies crumpling to the ground like broken marionettes.
"You—!"
Blind fury surged through Geno. He lunged forward and drove his hand toward the man's shoulder — only for the man to catch his wrist in a crushing reverse grip, arresting the motion entirely.
The strength behind it was nothing short of terrifying. This was not the same person he'd been casually manhandling minutes ago — not even close.
And when the sub-boss turned to face him, Geno's pupils contracted in genuine shock.
The man's face was blanketed in the unmistakable markings of Ether Corruption — vivid, multicolored fractures spreading across his skin like an abstract oil painting cracked apart from within.
"Ether Corruption? That's impossible — we're outside the Hollow!"
Ether Corruption only manifested in the presence of a massive Ether source. But out here, beyond the Hollow's boundary, there should have been nothing — no source, no radiation, nothing strong enough to cause this.
At the same moment, the other black-clad men being held by the officers began showing the same signs.
"GRAAAHHH!!"
"My — my head — it hurts, it hurts — ugh..."
With two officers already dead, the rest of the force snapped to high alert, raising their weapons and training them on every suspected infected.
"Something's wrong — protect the master!"
Head butler Arnold read the chaos in an instant and rallied the household attendants, throwing a protective ring around old Master Timefield.
Meanwhile, Geno was still locked in a standoff with the sub-boss — and with every passing second, the man's expression was twisting further into something inhuman. His eyes rolled back until only the whites showed, his consciousness clearly gone.
And then Geno saw it.
Ether energy was coalescing around the sub-boss's body at a terrifying rate. His flesh began to swell — an unnatural, grotesque bloating that spread across his frame in seconds — and then—
RRRIP. RRRIP!!
A giant hand tore through the sub-boss's back and thrust itself out into the open air.
It was nearly a meter long and as thick around as a mixing bowl, its color a sickly, pallid white — and at the center of its palm sat a single murky yellow eye.
Geno couldn't be certain, but he thought the eye glanced at him.
He was right. It had.
Because the moment the hand dragged itself free of its host, it launched itself straight at him — with such force that the momentum sent the sub-boss's ruined body spinning away like a ragdoll.
Geno's instincts kicked in before thought could. He wrenched his greatsword up in a block — CLANG — and the hand was solid, hitting with enough force to drive him backward, crashing him into the wall behind.
The impact was bone-rattling. But the hand didn't even pause. It curved around his guard and clamped around his throat.
What strength—!
Geno felt the force bearing down on his neck and was certain, for a breathless moment, that his bones were about to snap.
But what alarmed him more than the crushing grip was something else entirely — this thing was draining him. He could feel it, a cold, pulling sensation as his Ether energy was siphoned straight out of his body.
With every second, the reserves inside him thinned. Geno forced himself to act — he threw everything he had into seizing the hand at its base, wrenching with all his strength, and tore it loose from his throat. Then he surged forward, greatsword swinging in a powerful arc.
The blow landed clean. It meant absolutely nothing.
Those pale, barely-defined fingers simply caught the blade. Then the hand twisted — and Geno felt a massive force slam into him, sending him flying once again.
"Open fire! Open fire!"
The remaining officers finally shook off their shock and gave the order. Bullets poured into the hand from every direction.
Ting. Ting. Ting-ting-ting.
Not a single round broke through.
The eye in the center of the palm narrowed — an expression that read unmistakably as irritation. Then it turned its gaze toward the officers shooting at it.
That look was not human. The murky yellow eye radiated a cold, dispassionate malice that sent chills crawling up the spines of every officer who met it.
The hand vanished.
In the same instant, it reappeared — directly behind the cluster of officers.
"Watch out—!"
"AAAGH!!"
By the time Geno had recovered his footing and looked up, it was already too late. A single sweeping blow sent the entire squad of officers crashing to the ground. Then the hand rose into the air, and a ribbon of shimmering, multicolored light stretched from it toward the bound black-clad men below — connecting them all like a circuit.
Geno braced himself for the hand to pull its allies free.
Instead, the light ribbon severed.
The hand swelled. What had been bowl-thick was now barrel-thick, its mass expanding as the stolen Ether rushed into it. The black-clad men below it had been reduced to hollow, withered husks — drained dry, their fates indeterminate.
The hand flexed its fingers with unmistakable satisfaction, its eye half-lidded — and then turned back toward Geno.
The difference in speed was staggering. It was on a completely different level from before.
Geno, already running on fumes, acted on pure reflex — interposing his greatsword between himself and the incoming strike. The impact hammered through the blade and into him, and for the third time, he was driven backward.
Damn it. This thing — it's gotten stronger. I can't beat it out here.
Inside a Hollow, it would have been a different story. In a Hollow, Geno could shed his disguise and draw on an endless supply of ambient Ether — this hand would have been nothing. But out here in the open world, with civilians present, and with his Ether already heavily depleted from the earlier clash with Number 11, his bracelet's reserves not yet replenished — he had nothing to work with.
All he had was the swordsmanship and close-quarters combat techniques he'd learned from the Silver forces. He pressed on, trading blows with the hand on pure skill alone.
"This is bad — Geno's in trouble! What are you all standing around for?! Help him!"
Old Master Timefield watched Geno being pushed back and felt a rare spike of genuine panic — but there was nothing he could do. Even the officers were already down. What could the handful of them possibly accomplish?
And Geno's condition was worsening by the exchange. Every clash left him a fraction slower, a fraction more ragged. The hand, by contrast, was warming up — it clearly had its sights set on seizing him again, draining the Ether from his body. To that thing, he was nothing but a meal worth savoring.
This can't go on. My Ether is getting thinner and thinner — if this keeps up, I'm going to...
He turned aside one more strike — but fatigue had begun to hollow out his reflexes, and in that moment of fractional vulnerability, the hand found the gap it had been hunting for. It slapped his greatsword out of his grip — sending the blade spinning away — and closed around his throat for the second time.
"URRGH—AAAHH!!"
The drain was immediate and vicious. Geno could feel the Ether inside him streaming toward the hand's grip — faster now, more ravenous — and with it, a rising tide of panic that he fought to contain.
No — my consciousness—
He struggled desperately against the hand's hold. And at that same moment, the bracelet on his wrist blazed red.
A warning. Critical Ether deficiency.
Geno knew what that meant. If the last of his Ether was stripped away — if the reserves hit zero — he would not simply fall unconscious. Like a dead Ethereal with nothing left to sustain its form, he would dissolve. Unmade. Gone without a trace.
____
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