Jumping from the 10th floor, Apex Ace didn’t bother scaling down the building—he simply let gravity do its job. He landed perfectly, despite the wrecked state of the streets, and was about to rush into the building, ignoring the chaos and bloodshed around him. But then—
"Move! Mister, move!"
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The desperate yell made him pause and look up. It was Elinor.
The mont she jumped, regret hit her like a freight train. A million things that could go wrong flooded her mind all at once—and, to her horror, one of them was about to co true. She was about to crash land on the unknown man.
Panic surged through her.
"Move! Mister, move!" she shouted, flailing in midair.
But instead of moving, the man below did the exact opposite—he stood still, staring up at her.
She had the sudden urge to slap herself silly. ’Seriously? Of all the tis to freeze up, it had to be now?’
But there was no ti for self-scolding. Gravity was about to do the slapping for her.
Bracing for impact, she clenched her eyes shut, ready to crash into him—only to feel a pair of firm arms catching her instead. The jarring fall she expected never ca.
Instead, she was held in a secure, almost effortless princess carry. Slowly, she opened her eyes. A masked face stared back at her—sharp, unreadable, yet oddly… handso? Or maybe that was just the adrenaline ssing with her brain.
"You okay?" he asked, his voice steady and calm.
Before she could answer, a new voice cut through the mont, dripping with sadistic glee.
"Well, well, what do we have here? The age-old knight in shining armor and the damsel in distress? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? She is clearly higher tier than you." The voice was practically purring with amusent. "Anyways, I’m going to savor dismbering your bodies and sewing them back together. It’ll be your happy ending—though I’m not sure you’ll like it. But I sure will."
A figure erged, grinning like a lunatic, brandishing an oversized needle, an innate cursed tool that looked more like a rapier.
Apex Ace’s grip on Elinor tightened for a fraction of a second before he swiftly set her down. Then, without a word, he dashed at the psycho, closing the distance in a heartbeat.
The fanatic lunged at him, a manic grin stretched across his face—only for his world to spin.
Or rather, his head did.
His severed head flew through the air, tumbling, rolling—just in ti to catch sight of his own body crumpling to the ground. Behind it stood his opponent, unbothered, a thorned wooden sword retracting into the right gauntlet of his armor.
Before he could even process what had happened, everything faded to black.
"What a weirdo," Elinor muttered, stepping past the severed head as it rolled along the pavent. "He just stood there grinning and let you cut his head off."
Despite knowing nothing about him, she found herself instinctively following her knight in shining armor.
But Apex Ace wasn’t done.
His sharp gaze swept the ground, ignoring the fanatic’s body as it disintegrated into nothing, it didn’t leave behind a innate curse tool. That was how you knew whether soone was a fanatic of the Samsara cult. The price for that knowledge, though? Unbearable.
Then, his boot slamd down—hard—on a pile of rubble. A sickening crunch followed. He crouched, reaching into the debris, and pulled out a cursed core, It was a mutated Rust Worm cursed core; these Rust Worm curselings held human souls, hence their cores were mutated.
Thanks to MindBug’s innate cursed tool, Apex Ace had done more than just decapitate the psycho—he had traced the real body of the Rust Worm and crushed it before it could slither away and find a new body.
A sharp gasp snapped him from his thoughts.
"Oh, crap—I totally forgot!" Elinor blurted, eyes widening in panic, seeing the armored man pick up the mutated Rust Worm curse core. She imdiately activated her innate cursed tool.
This ti, instead of branching out wildly like tree branches, her hair wove itself into an intricate box braid with a hundred individual braids, and at the end of each one, an eerie red eyeball with slit pupils blinked to life.
The braids moved, twisting and shifting on their own, as if they had minds of their own, scanning the surroundings with an unsettling awareness.
Just then, Elinor froze in her steps, noticing the man had stopped in his tracks—just to blatantly stare at her. It was rude and creepy.
But before she could snap at him, heat crept up her neck, embarrassnt settling in. Was he checking her out?
Her thoughts shattered the mont he blurted out, "Cool!" like a kid seeing the gift he wanted for Christmas.
Her ego soared—only to co crashing down in a million pieces when he added, "Codena dusa would suit you better. It’d be way more fitting. And cooler."
Elinor’s eye twitched, but she muttered, "Unfortunately, it’s taken." Masking her sha behind a forced calmness. She wanted to tell him off for his blunt comnts—and his blatant staring—but for so reason, she couldn’t.
Maybe it was because, against all logic, she found herself drawn to him even though she hadn’t even seen his face.
"Too bad," Apex Ace replied, unfazed. Then, without another word, he carefully made his way toward the building entrance, moving with deliberate steps, making sure not to attract any more psycho rust worms.
If it weren’t for Elinor, he would’ve just used Curse Clout to head straight to the basent instead of taking the long and hard way there.
Just as Apex Ace and Elinor stepped into the building, they were t with a grueso sight—five curse masters lounging atop a massive pile of corpses subrged in an ankle-deep blood pool as if it were nothing more than an small island in a sea of blood.
The stench was suffocating, but the curse masters didn’t seem to mind.
"Two more," one of them drawled, not even bothering to look up. He lazily shifted to the side, making himself more comfortable on the grotesque heap, asking his colleagues, "Whose turn is it this ti?"
After a brief pause, the other four eyed each other with a knowing smile before answering, "It’s your turn, Captain."
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