Jane's order cut through the rising panic like a honed blade.
"GET INTO FUCKING FORMATION!"
The command snapped the moment into motion.
Lynis reacted before the last syllable finished leaving her mouth. His body surged forward, boots pounding hard against shattered asphalt as he vaulted over the pile of broken concrete. Loose fragments skittered and bounced away from the impact of his landing. The battered plates of his armor scraped against stone with a harsh screech as he planted himself squarely in the center of the street.
He became the wall.
In one fluid motion, he drew his kukri and slammed its flat edge against the face of his shield.
CLANG.
The sound tore through the ruined street, sharp and metallic, echoing between skeletal buildings and rebounding off hollow interiors. It felt final. Like a challenge issued to the city itself.
"WARCRY!" Lynis bellowed.
The shout erupted from deep in his chest, raw and violent, carrying more than sound alone. Intent poured into it. Pressure. Authority. A pulse of invisible force rippled outward through the cracked street and into the Thorned Marionette.
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[Warcry] Inflicts 'Fear' or 'Intimidation' on all hostile targets within a 10-meter radius. Targets of higher rank may resist. [Cooldown: 10 minutes]
-
From the crater behind it, the street split further.
More tendrils surged free.
Not one. Not two. Dozens.
They slithered and lashed outward in a writhing mass, whipping through the air before slapping down against broken concrete with wet, meaty thuds. Some were thin and whip-like, others thick as a man's arm. Every single one ended in a vicious, barbed tip that glistened with slick, dark ichor.
Lynis shifted his stance, boots grinding against asphalt as he lowered his center of gravity. His grip tightened around shield and blade.
"I have aggro!" he shouted, voice strained but steady.
Running to the left, Porpo broke into motion. She sprinted low and fast, boots skidding as she slid behind the overturned husk of a bus. She dropped into cover just as a tendril lashed overhead, smashing into the street where she had been moments earlier.
Her grimoire flew open in her hands, pages fluttering violently before snapping to a marked section. Green light seeped from between the pages as her lips moved in a rapid, controlled chant.
"Focus Mana."
-
[Focus Mana] Increases casting speed and mana efficiency for the next spell. [Cooldown: 2 minutes]
-
Wisps of emerald energy gathered around her hands, coiling tightly, growing denser with every breath she took.
Jagger stood frozen.
The formation unfolded in front of him with brutal clarity. Lynis was the anchor, the immovable wall drawing every ounce of the creature's hatred. Porpo was the blade in the dark, preparing to strike from safety. Jane stood between them, balanced, controlled, lethal.
Her eyes burned with cold fury.
They landed on Jagger.
For a heartbeat, he could not move. His legs felt rooted to the street, his mind screaming at his body to react while his instincts lagged behind.
Jane turned forward and stomped her foot into the asphalt.
The impact sent a shockwave rippling outward, not toward the enemy but around them. A faint red shimmer enveloped the squad as power surged outward from her.
"Inspiring Resolution. Focus Aura. Battle Hymn!"
The effect hit Jagger instantly.
A violent rush of energy tore through his limbs, chasing away exhaustion like it had never existed. His muscles hummed with jittery, unstable strength. His thoughts sharpened to a painful edge. The world snapped into terrifying clarity.
He could see the individual barbs lining each tendril. He could hear the wet scrape of them dragging across broken pavement. He could smell the copper-heavy stench of the Marionette's blood mixing with rot and ash.
Jane turned back toward him, her face a mask of cold fury. "Find a place to hide, you are just going to be a liability."
Jagger flinched at the raw disdain in her voice, she was no longer the shy girl from before, she was something else entirely, "But-"
"I NEED HELP HERE!" Lynis roared.
"GO!" Jane roared at Jagger and he ran.
Four tendrils lashed out in unison, a coordinated strike aimed straight at him. The street shook as they slammed into his raised shield. Each impact hit like a sledgehammer, sending violent vibrations through metal, bone, and muscle.
Lynis grunted, teeth clenched, boots scraping backward as he slid nearly a full foot across the asphalt.
Two more tendrils slipped around the shield's edge, barbs angling toward his exposed side.
"GALE TRIGGER!" Porpo screamed.
-
[Gale Trigger] Fires a concentrated blast of compressed air. [Cooldown: 5 seconds]
-
From behind the bus, she thrust her hands forward, fingers extended like gun barrels. A compressed blade of air screamed through the street, invisible but lethal.
The strike hit both tendrils mid-lash.
One was severed cleanly, whipping away in a spray of dark ichor. The second, thicker and tougher, split open along its length but did not break. It recoiled violently, ichor spraying across the pavement.
The Thorned Marionette shrieked again, the sound higher now, layered with fury and pain.
Three remaining tendrils twisted together midair, braiding themselves into a single massive spear lined with hooked barbs. It whipped around Lynis's flank with terrifying speed.
"FUCKER! FORTIFY!"
-
[Fortify] Hardens shield, absorbing 150% of incoming damage for 10 seconds. [Cooldown: 10 minutes]
-
The reinforced tendril slammed into Lynis's shield with a deafening crack.
The shield held.
Lynis did not.
The force hurled him backward. His body skidded several feet across the asphalt, but as he lost his balance, he twisted in mid-air. The motion was desperate but trained. He took the impact on the reinforced pauldrons of his armor, rolling with the momentum to shed kinetic energy before falling into a superhero pose and instantly stood up raising his Kurki. Bring it down with all the force he could muster.
"Guillotine!"
-
[Guillotine] A heavy downward strike. [Cooldown: 2 minutes]
-
"AAARRRGGGH!" With a primal roar, he brought down the kukri as it bit deep, sinking into the braided tendril. For a heartbeat, it seemed to halt its descent. Then, with a wet, tearing crunch, the blade sliced clean through.
The braided whip, now severed, flopped to the ground with a wet slap as it twitched and spasmed like a dying snake.
The Marionette shrieked, a sound of pure rage, Jane pulled out her Bowie knife and lowered herself into a lunge, she would not stand to watch.
"Quick Step!"
-
[Quick Step] A burst of speed allowing the user to cover 3 meters in an instant. [Cooldown: 30 seconds]
-
She vanished.
As Jagger looked back, his eyes widened. The space she had occupied collapsed inward, leaving behind only a fading afterimage of red energy that tore itself apart like smoke in wind. Her body moved with terrifying precision. She slipped under the writhing mass of tendrils as if she had already memorized their paths. Then she jumped.
Not a desperate leap, but a controlled, graceful ascent.
She cleared nearly four meters in a single bound, her body twisting and flipping midair as she brought her blade down in a clean, merciless arc. The Bowie knife flashed once, red patterns along its surface burning brighter as it sliced through the tentacle fused to the child's skull.
The resistance was brief.
Then came the sound.
A wet, sickening tear echoed through the street as the tendril ripped free.
The child-puppet collapsed instantly.
Its body hit the ground with a heavy, wet thud, limbs folding at unnatural angles. The sickly green mucus coating its eyes dulled and drained away, the illusion of innocence evaporating in seconds. What remained was just a broken corpse. Empty. Wrong.
The Thorned Marionette convulsed.
It screeched, a piercing, high-frequency shriek that clawed straight into Jagger's skull. His teeth ached as the sound vibrated through his bones. Tendrils lashed wildly in every direction, fury replacing calculation.
One snapped toward Jane as she descended.
She landed with almost no sound. One toe brushed the ground, just enough to anchor her. Her body bent backward unnaturally, spine arcing as she flipped her head inches from the asphalt. The barbed tendril passed where her throat had been a heartbeat earlier. She flowed into the motion, legs splitting wide as she absorbed the landing in a perfect, gymnast-like split, dust bursting outward from the impact.
Before the creature could adjust, she was already moving.
Jane snapped upright and sprinted back toward the group, boots pounding hard. A thin line of blood ran down her cheek where a barb had grazed her skin, but her expression never changed.
"Get up and hold that line," she barked at Lynis. Then, without breaking stride, she turned her head toward Porpo. "Blast that thing back."
Everything happened too fast.
Jagger's breath came shallow and ragged as panic finally caught up to him. His instincts screamed. He spun away from the chaos, eyes darting wildly until he spotted a wrecked sedan nearby. He yanked the door open and threw himself into the back seat, curling low as shattered glass bit into his palms.
"Fuck," he whispered, voice shaking. "How did I get myself into this?"
His hands trembled as he drew the knife Jane had given him, gripping it with white-knuckled desperation. The metal felt cold. Too light. Too useless. His chest tightened as he tried and failed to slow his breathing.
That was when the chime rang inside his head again.
A translucent screen flared to life in front of him, hovering inches from his face.
-
[Calibrating Hunter Parameters…100%]
[Evaluating latent combat potential…100%]
[Assigning Starting Class…]
-
"What the fuck!" Jagger screamed, his voice cracking as he recoiled against the seat.
The screen flickered, shifting rapidly. His vision spun, nausea surging as the world tilted. For a heartbeat, it felt like gravity itself had lost interest in him. Then everything snapped back into place.
He stared at the interface, chest tight, pulse pounding in his ears.
Then it happened.
A sharp, unnatural distortion tore through the space.
His heart lurched violently.
-
[ERROR.]
[ERROR.]
[ERROR.]
-
The screen glitched and convulsed. White light fractured into spiderweb patterns that crawled across its surface. Text twisted violently, letters stretching, folding, and tearing apart like living ink caught in a storm.
"What the hell is happening…?" he whispered.
The temperature inside the car dropped sharply. A cold breeze swept over his skin, raising goosebumps along his arms. His breath fogged faintly in front of his face.
-
[Corrupted entity [Ophilia] detected: Interference with standard class protocols.]
[Re-evaluating…]
-
The white glow bled into crimson.
Black Vein-like lines crawled along the edges of the interface, pulsing slowly as if alive. The hum deepened into a low, oppressive throb that vibrated through Jagger's chest. His heartbeat began to sync with it, each thud echoing unnaturally loud in his ears.
The once-clean text darkened, turning black, each word appearing as though scrawled in ink and blood.
-
[Class Assignment Override Initiated.]
[Unique Class Identified.]
[Class Assigned: SPLINTERED ONE.]