The synthetic glow of the arcade felt like a distant dream, a phantom memory swallowed by the gritty reality of Z-City's abandoned district. Hakai walked, his hands tucked into the pockets of his hoodie, but his mind was not on the crumbling ruins around him. It was fixed on the immovable mountain known as King.
That calm… he mused, his red eyes narrowed in thought. It wasn't just confidence. It was certainty. As if the outcome was already written before the first coin was inserted. He flexed his fingers, remembering the futile taps against the controller. It was a defeat more total than any physical beatdown. It demanded a different kind of strength, one he was fiercely determined to acquire. Hehe… a new kind of battle.
His internal monologue was cut short—not by a sound, but by a pressure.
It began as a subtle shift, a vibration in the very air that had nothing to do with the wind. Then it grew, a deep, thrumming hum that was felt in the bones more than heard by the ears. It was an energy signature, vast and alien, eclipsing everything he had ever sensed. The Deep Sea King had been a bonfire; this was a descending sun. It dwarfed even the immense, contained ocean of power he felt from King, but where King's was calm and deep, this was raging and violent, a tsunami of pure, unadulterated menace.
Hakai's head snapped upward, his previous thoughts vaporized. A slow, predatory grin stretched across his sharp features, wiping away all traces of his earlier contemplation. This was not a puzzle to be solved. This was a force to be met.
High above, the clouds began to boil, twisting away from a single, terrifying point. The sky itself seemed to tear open, and from the rift, a colossal shadow descended. It was a ship, an angular monstrosity of purple and silver that blotted out the sky, its scale so immense it defied comprehension. The thrumming energy he felt was emanating from this behemoth, a calling card of unimaginable power.
Sirens began to wail across the city, a frantic, pathetic counterpoint to the silent, overwhelming pressure from above. The Hero Association's emergency broadcast system crackled to life on abandoned screens, a distorted voice declaring a city-wide evacuation and a prophecy of "Earth's doom."
Hakai didn't move. He stood rooted to the spot, his white-sclera eyes wide, not with fear, but with rapture. The wind from the ship's descent whipped at his hoodie, making the blue dragon on his back seem to writhe to life.
"Finally," he whispered, the word a breath of pure, unadulterated ecstasy.
This was it. The reason he had been reborn into this world. The ultimate challenge. The energy radiating from that ship promised a fight that could push him to his absolute limits, and perhaps, beyond.
The "King Engine" was a fascinating mystery for another day. This… this was a symphony of destruction, and he had a front-row seat.
With a final, hungry look at the ship, he burst into motion. He didn't run away from the epicenter. He ran toward it. His body became a blur, leaping over crumbling highways and weaving through deserted streets, a single black arrow shooting directly toward the heart of the impending cataclysm. The heroes would be scrambling, the civilians would be fleeing, but Hakai had only one goal: to be the first one on that ship, to find the source of that magnificent energy, and to lose himself in the greatest warm-up of his life.
The game was over. The real fight was here.