They were not given a moment to recover.
The ground beneath them exploded, and parasites surged from the cracks like black tongues, clinging to necks and burrowing into flesh. At the same instant, fragmented portals opened, releasing armored demons that rushed forward without hesitation.
"Form defensive positions!" Marley shouted, her voice rising above the screeching and impact of battle.
Everyone responded instinctively. Violet stepped forward, her crimson blade igniting with a sharp glow. Her first dash cut through the front line, scattering the parasites like black sparks—but they immediately began to multiply again.
"Cut the connection, not the bodies!" Marley added quickly. "Target the binding points at the neck!"
Violet twisted, striking precisely beneath the ear of one of the possessed. A black thread snapped, its eye dimmed instantly, and it collapsed. She caught the rhythm, turning every strike into a clean separation between body and control.
On the other side, Zack was stepping back, one hand on his head, veins pulsing.
"Zack, focus!" Lexia called while cutting down the claw of a demon that lunged toward him.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Amid the chaos, he caught something faint—a repeating frequency within every parasite.
"I can hear them… they're not separate." He opened his eyes wide. "There's a single pattern controlling them all."
"Then show us where it is," Marley said without looking at him, raising a barrier to block a wave of dark shards.
The intensity of the attack suddenly increased. The parasites no longer just attached—they fused with the demons, wrapping their armor and reshaping their bodies into heavier, faster forms. At the center of the chaos, a larger black mass rose, absorbing everything around it and compressing it into a single form.
"Get back!" Violet shouted, leaping upward to intercept its charge. Her strikes were no longer meant to kill, but to separate and disrupt, drawing its attention away from the others.
The form fully took shape.
A massive body, woven from pulsating threads, with a single eye at its center. With every pulse, smaller parasites revived.
Marley said firmly, "That's a swarm commander. If it falls, the rest will collapse."
Violet charged directly. Her chains shot forward, wrapping around its limbs and restraining it for a brief moment—a moment enough to create an opening.
"Now!" she shouted.
But her attacks failed. Every wound regenerated before it could complete. She stepped back, analyzing the new rhythm.
"We need its core, not its surface!"
All eyes turned to Zack.
This time, he stood steady. The chaos no longer disturbed him; it had become a pattern in his mind.
"Not in the eye… deeper," he said, pointing inside the mass where a hidden point pulsed beneath layers of threads. "That's the control node."
Lexia stepped forward, taking a single breath. "I'll open the path. You finish it."
He nodded.
Violet attacked again, faster than before, striking from multiple angles, forcing the commander to react. Every movement became a distraction, every turn an opening.
Lexia moved.
She entered the creature through a gap Violet created, her blade cutting through resisting threads. The pressure inside was suffocating, darkness dense, but she pushed forward.
Zack followed behind her.
"Left!" he called, as if seeing what others could not. "Then one depth—stop!"
They arrived.
The point glowed like a central pulse, small, but heavily protected.
Zack raised his hand and gathered all his focus into a single strike.
"Here it ends."
"Do it," Lexia said, holding the space steady with her blade.
He struck.
A precise penetration.
For a moment, silence inside the entity—then a violent tremor.
Outside, Violet leapt back. "Get away!"
The structure cracked from within. The threads lost their rhythm, collapsing as the central node shattered. The massive body fell into lifeless fragments, and the smaller parasites dissolved as if cut off from a single heartbeat.
The attack stopped.
Only heavy breathing remained, and the battlefield was filled with fading black remnants that slowly evaporated.
Zack and Lexia emerged, exhausted but steady.
Marley approached them, her gaze sharp despite her fatigue. "Well done. That's how a network is broken."
Violet lowered her blade, watching the last fragments disappear.
But Maximilian did not share their relief. He stared at the ground where the cracks had retreated—but not disappeared.
"If that was a commander…" he said slowly.
He lifted his gaze.
"Then who is issuing the orders?"
The ground beneath them trembled once—deeper than before.
And in the depths…
The rhythm returned.
Slower.