The air crackled with residual electricity, smoke trailing from shattered concrete and frozen wreckage. Hundreds of purple beasts now lay in mangled piles—burnt, frozen, blinded, or shattered by sheer power. Reika Muro, Hajime Kenta, Hina Morikawa, and Kaito Sorimachi stood amidst the aftermath, battered but standing firm.
Only one enemy remained.
The Veynos clone—the last remnant of the enemy's sudden onslaught—stood tall at the end of the broken road, unfazed by the devastation of his army.
His voice slithered from his mouth like poison. "So… you're not just insects. Good."
He lowered into a stance, then vanished in a blur—his speed far exceeding that of the beasts before him.
"Behind!" Kaito shouted.
The Veynos clone reappeared mid-air behind Reika, launching a condensed blast of essence like a black pulse of slime. She pivoted fast, raising a wall of ice just in time to absorb the blow, but the impact sent her sliding across the concrete.
"Reika!" Hajime flashed forward, swinging a fist infused with lightning toward the clone—but the Veynos duplicate twisted unnaturally, avoiding it and countered with a spike from his forearm, nearly grazing Hajime's ribs.
Kaito engaged next, his illusions flickering, creating seven mirror copies of himself. They surrounded the clone and struck from all angles.
But Veynos wasn't fooled.
He smirked—then closed his eyes.
The air distorted for a moment… and five of Kaito's illusions shattered instantly. He had somehow felt their placement.
"He's sensing essence presence," Kaito hissed, leaping backward. "Tch. He's adapting."
"Then let's make sure he can't see a damn thing," Hina said, stepping into her darkness.
Suddenly, a thick veil of shadows dropped, blinding the entire area. Within the darkness, she whispered—her essence pulsing like sonar to track Veynos.
Reika rose again, palms glowing with icy blue essence. Frost licked the edges of her fingers, spreading across the ground as the temperature dropped drastically.
"We need to overwhelm him," she said. "Pin him, freeze him, and hit him together."
Inside the shadow field, Veynos struck. A sharp crack sounded as he sent Hajime flying through a street lamp, crashing into a dented vehicle.
But the distraction worked.
"Now!" Reika yelled.
She unleashed a wave of cryogenic frost, freezing the area Veynos stood in. Kaito followed with a blinding phantasm flash, stunning the clone for just a second. And Hajime, wiping blood from his mouth, roared forward, lightning coating his arms as he crashed down like a falling star—
BOOM.
A crater formed where Veynos had been hit.
The clone emerged from the rubble, cracked and steaming, his expression twisted in frustration.
"Not… bad," he hissed, regenerating slowly, dark slime pulsing over his wounds. "But you're still not enough."
Reika's expression sharpened, frost mist curling around her eyes.
"Then we'll keep coming."
The four warriors surrounded him again. The real Veynos was still out there—but this clone, this abomination, would not escape.