The marshland lay in eerie silence, thick with the scent of decay and damp earth. Wisps of fog coiled around the twisted roots and stagnant pools, clinging to the aftermath of Nioh’s ascension. The air was charged with residual electricity, faint arcs of lightning still crackling across the damp ground where his power had flared to life. The embers of distant fires flickered weakly, their glow swallowed by the oppressive gloom.
The shadow that had been watching him for the past two months finally moved.
A shift in the air. A whisper of displaced mist.
And then—
"It seems you’re more talented than I expected."
The sheer pressure behind the apparition dragged Nioh from his thoughts. His instincts scread at him to move. He pivoted sharply, after tightening his stance.
Then he saw him. Grims.
The older man erged from the darkness with the ease of a phantom, his expression remained unreadable as his piercing gaze asured him.
"Do you always sneak up on people?" Nioh asked with a voice edged with wariness.
Grims rely smirked. "It seems my tip was useful. I can sense a hint of intent in you now." His gaze sharpened and sothing like amusent flickered in his eyes. "But you’re still just a brat playing with borrowed power. And still far too disrespectful."
Then—he vanished.
Nioh barely had ti to react.
Electricity crackled across his body as he twisted, his instincts driving him into motion. This ti, he was ready.
Grims reappeared in an instant, with his fist coated with energy like a blurred cot of destruction.
Nioh moved too.
Lightning shrouded his limbs as he redirected the blow, but the sheer force behind it sent him flying. His body ripped through the marshland, crashing through tangled roots and into the murky swamp. Water exploded in all directions as he tumbled. The impact was brutal enough to make his organs shift within his body.
The taste of iron filled his mouth as he forced himself up
"You’re still wet behind the ears." Grims’s words cut through the haze like a blade. "You rely too much on your abilities—. Do you really think those flimsy military martial arts amount to anything?"
Nioh wiped the blood from his lips.
His mind was spinning, his body already calculating, adjusting. The pain was secondary. What mattered was—"I’ve had enough of this brute."Ekoh’s voice surged through him.
Nioh exhaled.
Then he transford.
Lightning tore through the air, forming a vortex of raw energy as tal plates locked into place around him. His Biocore surged, expanding, the golden runes across his skin burning as power flooded his system.
"Let’s go all out."
He vanished—And then reappeared into his chanized form.
Lightning spiraled around him while he lunged forward. His fists were a blur, each strike splitting the air with thunderous force.
But Grims— moved like a ghost.
Every blow, every devastating strike—missed.
Grims weaved through the assault with an almost lazy grace, his body slipping through gaps in Nioh’s attacks as if he had already seen them before they happened.
Nioh’s frustration flared. His golden eyes burned as he lifted his hand.
Hundreds of lightning blades manifested above him, crackling like a living storm.
A smirk flickered across Grims’s face. "Now this is interesting."
A white bone blade grew from his palm.
Nioh’s gaze darkened. Then—he dropped his hand.
The sky split apart.
Each of Nioh’s lightning-forged blades descended like divine punishnt—yet with nothing more than a flick of his wrist, Grims’s bone sword weaved through them, deflecting each strike as though swatting away re insects.
The older warrior’s movents were unnatural—not just fast, but precise in a way that defied logic. His footwork never wasted motion, his parries carried no excess force. He was fighting at a level that made Nioh’s attacks feel like child’s play.
The difference in experience was suffocating.
The weight of pride would not allow him to fall without a fight.
Nioh charged forward again, his body a blur of motion beneath the cascading storm of lightning blades. This ti, the attack was not just a distraction—it was a veil, an opening carved through sheer audacity. He closed the distance.
Then, he unleashed it.
The Banshee Wail.
A piercing, gut-wrenching scream erupted from his throat, a soundwave so sharp and violent that the very air rippled with its force. The marshland shuddered, the ground cracked, and every bone in the vicinity trembled in resonance.
Even Grims, unshakable as he was, flinched.
His body instinctively tensed, his hands snapping to his ears, his stance breaking for just a fraction of a second.
And in that instant—
A jagged bone spear exploded from the ground beneath Nioh, piercing through the air with brutal precision. It scraped against his armor, denting it, twisting the tal inward, stopping just short of impaling him.
"Your brain is always scheming for shortcuts," Grims spat, his voice cutting through the aftermath of the wail. "You’ve never learned the true aning of strength."
With a single clap of his hands,
The world changed.
The sky darkened, not from storm clouds, but from the thousands of bone swords that suddenly hovered above, their serrated edges glinting ominously.
The earth trembled, the marshland shifting, and from its depths rose the dead.
Skeletons of fallen Biocore warriors.
Their forms were incomplete, broken relics of ancient battles, but the energy they radiated was nothing short of overwhelming. A spectral fire burned within their hollow chests, their eyes void of humanity—yet filled with purpose.
And for the first ti—Nioh felt completely powerless.
Not since his awakening had he experienced this. That sickening, claustrophobic sense of control slipped through his fingers.
Grims’s words were like a whisper of inevitability.
"In the face of real power, no sche or machination shall succeed."Nioh exhaled.
He could feel Ekoh’s concern.
"Is that it?!" Grims barked. "Co on! Show your power!"
Nioh closed his eyes."I’m sorry, Ekoh... This is going to hurt."
His fingers pressed against his Rhythm Walker.
Track 1."Auditory Hallucination."
A shift. A sudden, almost imperceptible change in the air.
Grims’s eyes widened in realization. "Yes! This is it!" And then—The attack began.
The bone swords fell, streaking downward at Mach speed. The hordes of dead Biocores charged, their skeletal limbs clawing through the air, an unstoppable tide of destruction.
Nioh raised his hand. "Auditory Overflow."
Sound erupted. Not as a single, deafening blast—but as a symphony of chaos.
A torrent of frequencies surged forth, colliding against the incoming assault like a tidal wave of raw force. High-pitched shrieks split the air, like a million shards of glass shattering at once, piercing through flesh and bone. Deep, guttural roars rumbled through the battlefield, a bass so dense it vibrated their very bones, rattling their skulls like an earthquake.
Then—the rhythm shifted.
A relentless barrage of pulses, each one a miniature sonic boom, detonated in rapid succession. Invisible shockwaves slamd into the enemy forces.
The skeletons faltered, their brittle forms cracking apart, bones disassembling mid-charge.
The bone swords twisted off-course, shattering midair as the sheer force of sound disrupted their montum.
The horde convulsed, so collapsing outright, others grasping at nothing, their movents wild and erratic as their senses overloaded.
The air itself crackled, whipping the battlefield into chaos.
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