The dust was still falling — slow, thick — over what remained of the chamber. The void that had torn open before them was nothing but a black pit now, a few blue lights still blinking at its depths, cold as dead eyes. Silence crept back in, heavy, suffocating, as though the Colossi themselves were holding their breath.
Then they heard it.
Footsteps.
Slow. Heavy. Uneven.
Not human.
Kobe looked up first.
At the edge of the void, half-swallowed by shadow, a silhouette stood.
Nearly three meters tall. Too large to be a man. Too twisted to be a machine. Its body was emaciated — ghastly, skeletal, as though everything inside had been hollowed out and devoured. Its head resembled a bare skull: smooth, pallid, no nose, no ears, no lips. Four enormous black eyes, round and glistening, lidless, stared down at them like four empty wells. Its jaw hung too wide, lined with long, uneven teeth jutting at broken angles like shattered blades. Its arms dangled too low, too long — clawed fingers scraping the floor with every lurching movement.
A Bökyakusha.
Kobe's stomach turned to stone.
He'd heard the name passed around in secret among the Scavengers — old reports, scrawled warnings, hasty notes left by men who sometimes never came back.
"That's a Bökyakusha…" he breathed, voice barely a sound.
His throat had gone dry. He couldn't look away.
"Someone who sold every memory they had for power. That's what they become. A calamity. They hunt anything that moves in the ruins. They don't think anymore… they just kill."
The Bökyakusha tilted its skeletal head.
Then it spoke.
The voice clawed its way out of its throat like something dragged up from a deep pit.
Cavernous. Cold. Distorted. Each word seemed wrenched from somewhere far below, trailing a sinister echo — two voices layered over one another, one human and fractured, one deeper, near-demonic, grinding beneath the first like a second heartbeat.
"…mem…o…ries…"
The word split apart in the air.
Then a second sound rose — a raw, guttural shriek, almost animal, that shuddered through the entire chamber.
Luna let out a strangled cry.
She was still on her knees, shaking uncontrollably. Her shattered glasses hung crookedly on her nose. Tears streamed down her pale face without a sound. Her hands gripped her own arms so tightly her knuckles had gone white.
Yan snarled through gritted teeth as he wrenched at his trapped arm. The limb was
bent at a wrong angle — impossible, brutal.
His angular face was caked in dust and sweat.
He was biting back a scream.
The Bökyakusha took one step.
Then another.
Its movements were wrong — too fast, not fluid, not natural. Like a starved beast that had learned to run through ruins. It lurched suddenly, vaulted the void in a single bound, and landed directly in front of them. No sound. Horrifying grace.
Kobe seized Luna's hand.
It was ice cold.
They scrambled backward together until they hit the wall — the one still folding in on itself like a metal flower. Yan finally wrenched his arm free from under the beam with a sickening crack that drained the color from his face. He staggered upright. His broken arm hung useless at his side. He stepped in front of them anyway.
The Bökyakusha watched.
Its four eyes never blinked.
There was something in its gaze worse than rage. Something void. A pure, hollow hunger.
As though everything that had once made it human had been stripped away, leaving only the instinct to hunt.
Then it charged.
Its claws cracked against the floor.
They bolted down the narrow corridor they'd come through. The blue lights blinked on one by one as they passed — as though the Colossi themselves were lighting the hunt.
The smooth walls threw cold shards of light across their faces.
"There!" Luna screamed, tears still streaming, one arm outstretched.
A large carved facade covered in ancient symbols jutted from the wall a few meters ahead, holding up a section of the ceiling. A crack split it down the center.
"If we break it — the whole thing comes down!" she gasped.
Yan's hand tightened around his crowbar.
"We don't have a choice! We buy time — we bring it down on top of that thing!"
Behind them, the Bökyakusha closed in.
Its voice came again — nearer this time. Rougher. More distorted.
"…gi…ve… uuooohhhhhhhhee—"
The word dissolved into a long, rasping groan that vibrated in the air around them like a frequency designed to break something inside the mind.
Luna stumbled. Kobe hauled her forward with everything he had. His small legs slipped on the wet floor, but he didn't stop. Behind them, Yan breathed in ragged bursts, face locked tight against the pain.
The Bökyakusha accelerated.
Too fast.
It lunged past Luna in a single bound, seized her by the shoulder, and hurled her into Yan like she weighed nothing. Luna screamed.
Yan caught her with his good arm, nearly collapsing under the impact.
"I'm scared…" she sobbed against him. "I'm so scared…"
Kobe felt his heart slamming against his ribs.
The Bökyakusha turned toward them.
Its jaw unhinged.
The voice that came out this time was worse than anything before — as though something deep inside the creature was trying to imitate a human being, and failing grotesquely, hopelessly, at every syllable.
"…give… it… ba…ck… to me…"
Then it unleashed a brutal, short, animal howl that swallowed everything else whole.
"It's going to kill us all if we stay here!" Yan's voice cracked. "Collapse the cave. Now!"
Kobe spun toward the fractured facade.
He drove his crowbar into the crack with everything he had. Yan, broken arm and all, threw his shoulder against it. His muscles trembled violently. Sweat dripped from his forehead. He growled low under the strain.
The slab gave.
A deep, rolling groan rose from below.
The ceiling shuddered.
Blocks of stone and metal began to rain down.
The Bökyakusha charged one final time.
As the cave collapsed around them, one clawed hand raked across Kobe's jacket.
The fabric tore.
Kobe was wrenched backward — toward the void splitting open beneath his feet. He slammed his fingers into the metal ledge of the rampart. His nails scraped against the smooth surface. His legs dangled over nothing. Dust and rubble rained down around him.
Yan released Luna and lunged forward. With one working arm, he snatched Kobe's wrist.
His muscles shook.
He pulled with everything left in him — but the Bökyakusha's weight, still clinging to the jacket, made it nearly impossible.
Kobe looked up at him.
Yan's eyes were wide open, face wrenched by effort. He could see his friend — terrified, broken arm hanging useless at his side. Luna curled against the wall behind him, sobbing.
Is this how I die?
The thought moved through him. Cold. Clean.
Merciless.
Mama… I'm sorry.
Images detonated behind his eyes: the dark hovel, the thin clear soup, his mother's worn hands, her tired eyes the morning she'd told him not to go down. The words he whispered every single day, without fail.
I can do this. I will do this. I have to do this.
All of that. For what?
The rampart was giving way beneath their combined weight.
The Bökyakusha — that immense, ravenous mass of death — dragged him lower, lower, lower. Its four black eyes stayed locked on Kobe like he was already gone. And through the roar of falling stone, its voice came one last time — deep, shattered, monstrous:
"…Why… Why today…"
The cave collapsed further.
And Kobe understood that this time, the promise he had made to his mother might shatter along with him.