The rift had grown darker, denser, every shadow sharper, every sound warped and hollow. It was no longer a zone of simple distortion. It was alive.
Ten Hunters entered. Only nine would leave.
Takumi moved cautiously, chest tight, hands hovering near his weapon. Each step into the rift felt like walking on the edge of reality, the ground beneath him unsure if it wanted to support him—or swallow him whole.
"Stay close! Formation!" Ryo barked, but his voice was already thin, tremoring. The remaining Hunters tried to follow. Panic was thick, a heavy fog dragging at their minds.
A pulse of energy rolled outward from the rift core. Walls cracked, floor tiles lifted as if the zone itself flexed its muscles. A B-rank Hunter screamed as his reflection—somehow wrong, a fraction of himself with red glinting eyes—reached from the shadows and dragged him screaming into the void.
Takumi stumbled back, heart hammering. The System interface was useless. Every reading skewed. Every alert meaningless.
Another Hunter tried a spell—a cascade of fire meant to cleanse and contain—but the flames warped in mid-air, twisting backward, consuming themselves before they even touched the rift.
"Stay calm! Don't—" Ryo shouted. He didn't finish.
The rift struck. It wasn't a being, not yet, not in the conventional sense. It was a force, a judgment. Gravity inverted, then doubled, then twisted. Hunters were slammed into walls, flung into ceilings, ripped apart in silent, horrifying precision.
Takumi's vision blurred as another B-rank was pulled into a wall, his body folding in on itself. No screams. No blood. Just absence.
The floor fractured beneath Takumi's feet. He caught the edge of a wall, his knuckles scraping raw concrete, and stared into the shifting shadows. Shapes moved inside them—humanoid, impossible. Limbs bent where they shouldn't, eyes glowed red, and mouths twisted into grins that weren't human.
He didn't scream. There was no time for screams.
Ryo and the others tried to counterattack, throwing weapons, launching abilities. Each strike met… nothing. The shadows folded around them, redirected, nullified. A single glance from the rift—an impossible, penetrating awareness—and their attacks faltered mid-motion, bodies jerked unnaturally, screams cut off before sound could form.
One by one, the hunters fell. Limbs vanished. Faces melted. The rift's edges flickered with dark-red light, pulses synchronizing with the fleeting beats of Takumi's heart.
He dropped low, instincts honed from training kicking in. Every movement had to count. Every step was calculated. The rift wasn't just a threat—it was a teacher, a predator, showing him exactly how fragile humans were.
A moment of stillness. Just Takumi.
The rift pulsed again, and the air shattered. Concrete cracked, light bent. A blast of energy, invisible until it hit, sent him flying across the corridor. Pain lanced through his ribs, but he stayed conscious.
He raised a hand, searching for the system, for guidance, for something. Nothing. The rift had eaten it.
Then he realized: the rift wasn't just destroying them. It was testing. Counting. Observing. It didn't need to kill everyone—but it would if it deemed them unworthy.
He gritted his teeth and forced himself forward. Every pulse of the zone felt like it was inside his chest. He couldn't see it, couldn't fight it—could only move, only survive.
Another Hunter—a D-rank—screamed as the shadows reached from the walls. Limbs stretched, wrapped, twisted. And then—silence.
Takumi's eyes locked on the rift core. He could see it now, pulsing crimson and black, a heart of impossible shadow. The energy bent around him, weaving, waiting. And he knew: whatever waited beyond that pulse would awaken soon.
He didn't move. He couldn't. Every instinct told him to run, but there was nowhere to go.
Behind him, another Hunter was taken, erased cleanly by the rift's shifting tendrils. Takumi watched, frozen, stomach tight, hands gripping the pole he'd picked up from the debris.
A whispering hum filled the air, vibrating through bone and soul. Not sound—but thought, presence, awareness. Something ancient was stirring.
The rift pulsed violently. The lights dimmed. Shadows thickened.
And somewhere, in the deepest, oldest part of the rift, a hibernating god stirred.
Takumi Hanabira—alone, terrified, alive—was the first to see it: not the god itself, not yet, but the sign. A ripple of molten shadow, coiling like smoke, moving with intent, reaching outward.
He didn't know it yet, but that ripple, that awareness, would soon bind to him. Shape him. Change him. Make him something beyond human.
For now, all he could do was survive.
And survive he did.