The observation deck went silent.
Rin’s hands pressed against the glass, leaving sweaty prints. That thing down there, it was looking right at the cara. Right at him sohow through the feed.
"Did it just say host?" Joy’s lollipop fell from her mouth.
The armored figure moved.
One second it stood in the doorway. The next it was on Nelia, sword already mid-swing.
She tried to dodge, bringing her blade up to block.
However, the figure’s sword passed through her weapon like it wasn’t there, through her armor, through her ribcage.
She made this sound, wet and surprised, her eyes going wide.
Then she split in half.
Just fell apart, top and bottom, organs spilling onto the ground.
"Nelia!" Leo’s scream echoed through the speakers.
Soone on the observation deck threw up. Kids started crying. Parents tried to cover their eyes but nobody could look away.
Yuki threw up barriers, three layers thick but the figure simply walked through them, shattering them like sugar glass.
"Run!" Jin’s voice cracked for the first ti. "Everyone fucking run now!"
But the orcs had closed in. Hundreds of them, wall to wall, blocking every exit.
Kelvin charged the figure, fists already swinging. His punch would’ve cratered concrete. The figure sidestepped, almost lazy. Its free hand shot out, grabbing Kelvin by the throat.
Darkness spread from its fingers, crawling up Kelvin’s face like roots.
"Get off !" He clawed at the hand, at the armor, his strength doing nothing.
The darkness reached his eyes and they went completely black.
Then he started screaming, but these were not screams of just pain, this was sothing worse, like his brain was being torn apart from the inside and he could feel every second of it.
"Kelvin!" Yuki was crying, barriers forming around her teammate, trying to pull him free.
The figure let go.
Kelvin dropped to his knees, hands clutching his head. The screaming got worse, higher, until his throat gave out and it turned into this horrible rasping sound.
Then he grabbed his own skull and twisted.
The crack was heard loudly through the speakers. His body fell sideways, neck at an angle that made Rin’s stomach lurch.
"No no no no." Soone was muttering, over and over. "This isn’t real. This can’t be happening."
But it was real. This was happening live, millions of people watching worldwide.
Leo threw everything he had. Lightning poured from his hands, enough to power a city, enough to glass the entire clearing.
The figure raised its sword. The lightning hit the blade and got absorbed, sucked into that void like water down a drain.
"Impossible." Leo’s voice shook.
"Your power ans nothing to ." The figure started walking toward him, slow and steady. "You are insects playing with forces you cannot comprehend."
Jin appeared between them, her blade cutting space itself. Reality split where she swung, a tear in existence that should’ve erased anything it touched.
The figure caught the spatial tear in its hand.
"Interesting." It examined the rift like soone studying a bug. "S-rank spatial manipulation. I haven’t seen sothing like this in such a long ti. You remind of people from ’that world’."
It crushed the tear. Space snapped back together with a sound that made everyone’s ears ring through the speakers.
Jin stumbled back, blood running from her nose. "What are you?"
"I am Kazriketh. Voice of the Fractured God. Herald of endings." The figure pointed its sword at her. "And you are an obstacle."
It moved again, faster than before.
Jin opened portals, dozens of them, trying to redirect the attack. The sword passed through every portal, ca out the other side, adjusted mid-swing.
The blade took her arm off at the shoulder.
She didn’t scream. Just looked down at where her arm used to be, at the blood spraying from the stump.
"Huh."
Then the sword ca back, horizontal this ti.
Jin’s head separated from her shoulders, tumbled through the air, landed face-up in the dirt.
Her expression was still confused, like she hadn’t quite processed dying.
The observation deck erupted. People screaming, crying, trying to run for the exits. Security was yelling into radios, alarms blaring.
Rin couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even look away.
Leo stood alone now. The strongest people Rin had ever seen, gone in under two minutes.
"Leo run!" Yuki was backing away, barriers forming and shattering as fast as she could make them. "Please just run!"
"There’s nowhere to run to!" Leo’s hands sparked but the electricity looked weak now, flickering. "We’re surrounded!"
Kazriketh walked toward him through the barriers. Each step deliberate, taking its ti.
"You interest ," it said. "You sll of him. The host. His energy is all over you."
"I don’t know what you’re talking about!" Leo backed up until he hit Yuki’s barrier.
"He is close. Very close." Kazriketh’s helt tilted. "The one who will inherit everything. The one we’ve been waiting for."
’Move,’ Rin’s brain scread at him. ’Do sothing. Anything.’
But he couldn’t. His legs wouldn’t work. He just stood there, hands pressed against the glass, watching his best friend about to die.
"Tell ," Kazriketh raised its sword. "Does he care about you? Will he co if I break you slowly?"
"Fuck you!" Leo threw lightning, everything he had left.
It hit Kazriketh square in the chest and did absolutely nothing. The electricity just fizzled out against that void armor.
"Disappointing."
The sword ca. Not fast, not a killing blow. Just a cut, shallow, across Leo’s stomach.
He looked down at the wound. It wasn’t deep but darkness spread from it, crawling under his skin like poison.
"What did you—" He clutched his stomach and the darkness spread faster, veins turning black, skin going gray.
"A gift." Kazriketh stepped back, watching. "Your body will consu itself from the inside. Slowly, painfully and he will watch it all happen."
Leo fell to his knees. The darkness was everywhere, spreading up his chest, down his legs, everywhere.
"Stop!" Yuki threw herself at Kazriketh, barriers forming into spikes, trying to pierce that armor.
Kazriketh backhanded her. Casual, like swatting a fly.
She hit a wall thirty feet away. Her body making a wet sound on impact. She slid down, leaving a red streak, and didn’t get up.
Leo was convulsing now, his mouth open in a silent scream, back arched, fingers clawing at his own skin trying to stop the spread.
But it wouldn’t stop.
"Leo." Rin’s voice ca out barely a whisper. "No. Please no. What kind of nightmarish dream is this."
The darkness reached Leo’s throat. His eyes went wide, locked on the cara, and for just a second Rin swore Leo was looking right at him.
Then he spoke, "It’s you right? I has to be you... hahaha," his voice was getting weaker with each word, "I always knew you were special... I... always...... knew... my best friend..."
Then the darkness took his eyes.
His body went rigid, every muscle seizing at once. His veins stood out black against pale skin. His mouth stretched too wide.
There was sothing moved under his skin, writhing, eating him from inside.
"Turn it off!" Soone was screaming. "Turn the fucking caras off!"
But nobody did. The feed kept running. Millions of people watching Leo die in real ti.
His chest caved in suddenly, ribs breaking inward. Blood poured from his mouth, his nose, his eyes. The darkness burst from his skin in a dozen places at once.
Then he just fell over.
Gone.
Just a husk that used to be Rin’s best friend.
"No." Rin’s voice cracked. "No no no no—"
His legs gave out and hit the floor, hands shaking, vision blurring.
"Leo!!!!!!!" His scream was filled with so much anger, so much hate that Kazriketh felt the fracture energy beginning to rise, at unprecedented levels.
[Host... No, Rin.]
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