The chamber was no longer a room. It was a cage for titans.
The ceiling, carved from ancient stone that had withstood centuries, groaned under the pressure of the sudden atmospheric shift. Dust rained down in sheets, coating the floor in a fine gray mist.
Shukaku, the One-Tailed Beast, did not just stand, he occupied space with the arrogance of a god. Rising nearly 150 meters into the gloom, his sandy bulk pressed against the very limits of the architecture. Black markings glowed along his tan, rotund body, pulsing in time with the sheer, suffocating density of his Soul Power.
His amber eyes, slit and wild with the joy of violence, locked onto his opponent.
"Well, well!" Shukaku's voice wasn't a sound, it was an earthquake. It rattled the teeth of the stone dragon statues lining the walls.
"You ugly pile of scales! You think you're big? You think you're tough?"
He leaned down, his face a mask of jagged teeth and malice.
"Let's see how you handle a real monster!"
Across the devastated floor, the Serpentine Beast recoiled. For the first time since it had awakened, the violet light in its eyes wavered. It was fifty meters long, a leviathan by any standard, but against Shukaku, it looked like a garden snake facing a bear.
It hissed, a sound like steam escaping a pressurized vent. Its obsidian scales flared, rippling with violet energy as it tried to assert its dominance, to reclaim the fear it fed on. But the aura it projected,a Rank 93 storm of pressure, crashed uselessly against Shukaku's Rank 95 wall.
The difference between Rank 93 and Rank 95 was not two steps. It was a chasm.
Shukaku laughed, a guttural bark that sent a shockwave through the air. But before he moved, his gaze snapped to the side.
Arthev lay crumpled against the far wall. He looked small. Broken. His chest was a ruin of torn flesh and shattered bone, his left arm twisted at a sickening angle. He was bleeding out, his life force flickering like a candle in a hurricane.
"Tch. Can't have my landlord dying on me," Shukaku grumbled. The playfulness vanished from his tone, replaced by a cold, calculating precision.
He flicked a claw.
The ground beneath Arthev liquified. But this wasn't the coarse, yellow sand of the desert. This was heavy, metallic grey sand – Magnet Release. It surged upward, defying gravity, and wrapped around Arthev's broken body. It didn't crush him, it cradled him. The sand hardened instantly, forming a perfect, seamless dome of steel-hard protection.
"Sit tight, Stunned Face," Shukaku muttered, turning back to the serpent. "And keep your head down. This is gonna get loud."
The Serpent Beast seized the distraction.
It didn't roar. It didn't pose. It struck with the desperation of a predator that suddenly realized it was prey.
It lunged, a blur of violet motion. Its claws, wreathed in energy that could slice through mountains, slashed at Shukaku's throat. The air screamed as space itself seemed to warp around the attack.
Shukaku didn't dodge. He didn't even blink.
"Sand Tsunami."
He opened his mouth, and the desert answered.
A wall of sand, massive and churning, erupted from his gullet. It wasn't just a wave; it was a physical rejection of the Serpent's attack. The violet energy slammed into the sand, cutting deep, vaporizing tons of grit, but there was always more sand.
The wave crashed over the Serpent, burying fifty meters of obsidian muscle in a blink. The chamber shuddered as the sheer weight of the attack compromised the structural integrity of the floor.
BOOM.
The Serpent exploded from the dune, scattering sand like shrapnel. It was fast. terrifyingly fast. It coiled around Shukaku's arm, its fangs glowing with necrotic light as it bit down.
CRUNCH.
Sand sprayed, not blood.
The Serpent's eyes widened. Its fangs were buried deep in Shukaku's limb, but the "flesh" was shifting, grinding against its teeth like sandpaper.
"You bite like a mosquito," Shukaku sneered.
The One-Tail grabbed the Serpent by its neck. The impact of the grip alone sent a shockwave of dust billowing outward. Shukaku squeezed.
The Serpent shrieked, a high, keening sound of pain. It thrashed, its tail whipping around to slam into Shukaku's side.
WHAM.
The blow would have leveled a fortress. Shukaku grunted, sliding back a few meters, his massive feet gouging trenches into the stone.
"Cheap shot!" Shukaku roared. "Alright, scale-face! You want to dance? Let's dance!"
Shukaku sucked in a breath. The air in the chamber vanished, pulled into the vacuum of his lungs. His belly expanded, the blue markings glowing blindingly bright.
The Serpent tried to uncoil, tried to flee, sensing the annihilation coming.
Too late.
"Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!"
Shukaku fired.
A sphere of compressed air, spinning with enough force to pierce a diamond, shot from his mouth. It hit the Serpent point-blank in the chest.
KABOOM.
The sound was beyond hearing. It was a pressure wave that liquefied the stone walls.
The Serpent was blasted backward, smashing into the ceiling, then the floor, then the far wall. Its violet scales shattered. Purple blood sprayed the air, mixing with the dust.
Debris rained down on Arthev's grey dome, pinging off the metal like hail, but the shield held firm.
The Serpent lay in a crater of its own making, hissing weakly. Its aura flickered, dropping from the terrifying heights of Rank 93 to something far more manageable. It looked at Shukaku with pure, unadulterated horror.
"What?" Shukaku taunted, stomping forward. The ground jumped with every step. "Done already? I'm just warming up!"
The Serpent shrieked again, rising on trembling coils. It gathered every scrap of violet energy left in its core, compressing it into a single, desperate beam of destruction. It fired.
The beam tore across the room, melting the stone floor into slag.
Shukaku grinned. He slammed his claws together.
"Desert Suspension!"
A cloud of sand rose up, catching the beam. The energy burned through layer after layer, turning the sand into glass, but Shukaku just poured more power into it. The defense held.
As the beam faded, Shukaku dropped the wall.
"My turn to finish this," he growled.
He raised a single claw. The sand in the room, ton upon ton of it, rose into the air. It swirled, condensing, hardening, forming a pyramid of crushing weight directly above the battered Serpent.
"Sabaku Taisō! (Giant Sand Burial)"
He clenched his fist.
The pyramid fell.
There was no scream. Just the sickening crunch of scale being ground into dust. The floor of the chamber finally gave way, collapsing into a dark abyss below, taking the crushed remains of the Serpent with it.
Shukaku stood over the pit, panting slightly. Golden sand drifted around him like snow.
"Heh. Told ya I'd win, kid."
The violet light of the beast's soul faded, leaving only darkness. But then, a faint hum drew Shukaku's attention.
Drifting up from the abyss, hovering in the residual energy, was a box. It was small, unassuming, etched that pulsed with a dying light. It landed with a soft thud next to Arthev's grey shield.
Shukaku looked at the box, then at the shield. His expression softened.
"Tough little bastard," he murmured. He poked the shield gently with one massive claw. "You survived. barely. But you survived."
With a grunt, Shukaku let go. His massive form dissolved into a whirlwind of chakra and sand, sucked back into the seal on Arthev's stomach.
The chamber fell silent. The only sound was the dripping of water and the shallow, ragged breathing of the boy inside the dome.
-----------
Darkness.
Absolute, weightless darkness.
There was no pain here. No broken ribs. No shattered arm. Just the gentle lap of water against skin.
Arthev floated. Time didn't exist here. It could have been a second. It could have been a century.
Slowly, sensation returned. The cold touch of the black water. The smell of ozone and wet dog.
Arthev's eyes fluttered open.
He was back in the subconscious. The black sea stretched out infinitely in every direction, mirrored by a starless sky.
He sat up, groaning. His phantom body felt heavy, stiff. He rubbed his face, his hand trembling slightly.
"Finally awake, huh?"
The boom of the voice made him flinch.
Shukaku was floating on his back a few yards away, paws behind his head, looking like he was on a tropical vacation. He looked unbothered, unhurt, and incredibly smug.
"Took you long enough, Stunned Face. I was starting to think I'd have to find a new roommate."
Arthev stared at him, his mind reeling as the memories crashed back in. The Serpent. The pain. The hole in his chest.
"What happened?" Arthev rasped. His throat felt like he'd swallowed glass. "The beast... did you...?"
"Win?" Shukaku snorted, rolling over to float on his stomach. He paddled closer, his giant face looming over Arthev.
"Kid, I didn't just win. I humiliated it. Turned that overgrown worm into a smear on the pavement. You should have seen it, begging for mercy, crying for its mama."
Shukaku grinned, a terrifying display of teeth. "And, you're welcome, by the way. I saved your sorry hide with a Magnet Release shield. If I hadn't, you'd be a pancake right now."
Arthev let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He slumped back onto the water's surface, staring up at the void.
"You won," he whispered. "We're alive."
"Alive is a strong word," Shukaku drawled. "You're currently in a healing coma. Your body is a mess. I'm pumping enough soul power into you to keep a corpse walking, but it takes time to knit bone and lung back together."
Arthev frowned. "Time? How long have I been out?"
Shukaku scratched his ear lazily. "Oh, not long."
He held up a claw, counting the air.
"Just about a month."
Arthev shot up, splashing water everywhere. "A month?!"
"Relax," Shukaku laughed, enjoying the panic. "You're in a sealed ruin. Nobody's coming to check on your rent. Besides, you needed the nap. And..."
Shukaku's expression turned sly. He pointed a claw toward the horizon of the mindscape.
"You might want to check your pockets when you wake up. That snake dropped some loot."
To be continued.....