Kranor swung his sword instinctively, the blade cutting through neon haze, aiming straight for Xino's torso.
But Xino slipped aside with unnerving grace, his body folding like liquid.
Xino (mocking, voice calm):
"Flexible Weave. One of the universal techniques of Devia we know of. You'll have to do better than swinging like a hot-headed rookie."
Kranor snarled, aura flaring, but before he could retort, chaos ignited all around him.
Meilo and Ulok had locked into a tag-team rhythm. Whenever a Shaman's lantern beam streaked through the air, Meilo's mirror projection bent the blast back like a silver whip.
And the instant the energy ricocheted, Ulok's Gate of Woes tore open mid-flight, swallowing the Shaman whole.
Ulok (grinning):
"Dinner bell's ringing, boys. The children are waiting."
From within the portal, muffled screams of nightmarish creatures echoed.
Across the room, Marneth had his own method. His palms glowed as he twisted the fabric of the floor into knots, locking five Shamans in looping positions.
Marneth:
"Dimensional Siege—try moving now, I dare you."
Gullia, beside him, hefted a monstrous hammer made from thick black metal, its edges carved with fractured words, when she had to accept a lie she hated. She swung it with brutal force, flattening one Shaman instantly.
After that, a wave of the painful memory washed over her, her breathing ragged, body shaking, mind feeling like it's peeling from inside out. BUT Omega Devia improvised adapting her mind to endure it...
Then as if nothing happened, Gullia bounced back to normal...as if a weight is off her shoulders.
Marneth (raising a brow):
"…Was it really that bad?"
Gullia (scoffing, then laughing):
"You have no idea. At this point, I don't use trauma… trauma uses me."
They both laughed, even as she brought the hammer down again with a sickening crunch.
Meanwhile, Nicia's black ink writhed like serpents. Several Shamans were already thrashing in her tendrils, their eyes blank, voices stolen. She giggled.
Nicia:
"Come on… fight them for me, will you? Haha."
Her puppets jerked upright, attacking their own allies in a silent frenzy.
Jero, though disgusted, pulled his weight. His chains of revolution snaked across the room, pinning three Shamans to pillars.
Jero (grimacing):
"Why am I even helping with this? I miss Tarren men…"
Lunio, hissing with delight, spewed acid directly onto one immobilized Shaman, the flesh sizzling away.
Lunio (grinning with fangs bared):
"Better get used to it. Or are you scared?"
(pauses, leaning closer, mocking)
"Ohhh, yeah… you might just need that fear."
Jero chuckled bitterly, even as the chains tightened.
"Yeah… fear is my mess. Might as well own it."
Through the smoke and distortion, Xino fixed his cold gaze on Kranor.
Xino:
"You won the game fair and square… but Lunio? He's dead weight. Still think you can save everyone, trainee?"
The word landed like a blade. Kranor froze for a heartbeat—then his aura exploded outward. Black flames and jagged light cracked the floor beneath him. The casino trembled as Omega Devia surged, answering his rage.
Kranor (growling, voice booming):
"Who are you calling trainee… huh?! I already told you… nobody goes down on my watch. Not Lunio. Not anyone!"
He charged, sword in hand, shaking the neon-lit hall with every step.
Xino weaved, danger flies bursting from his arms in a black swarm. But as they swarmed Kranor, they simply dissolved in his aura, shredded before contact.
Thela, seeing an opening, lunged with her doubled arms, slamming into Kranor's chest.
The hit echoed like thunder—yet Kranor didn't budge.
He looked down at where he was struck. His aura twisted, forming a warped shell—the Armor of Insecurity, clinging to him like a thought that refuses to leave.
Kranor raised his head slowly, a smirk spreading across his face.
"You shouldn't have done that."
His fist clenched, black energy swirling. Then—
Kranor:
" Punch of Neglect."
The punch landed like an executioner's verdict, sending Thela skidding across the room, smashing through two tables.
Lunio (snickering):
"Oooh… ouch."
Kranor turned his glare back to Xino.
"You're next."
The room crackled with tension.
The battle is almost over.
The casino reeked of smoke, blood, and flickering neon as the last of the Shamans' lanterns cracked. Shadows curled up the walls like whispers that didn't want to die.
Xino leaned closer to Kranor, blood trailing from his lip but grin razor-sharp.
Xino: "You really believe those Deviant Alliance clowns are saints, don't you? Parading around Flex City like moral guardians. Newsflash—this place doesn't reward saints. It rewards killers. You think you're special just 'cause you've got a squad and a dream? Pathetic."
Kranor's grip on his blade tightened, his aura rattling the floorboards.
Kranor: "You talk too much. I don't want to belong. I want to dominate. Crush anyone who thinks they can stand against me."
He tilted his head, smiling darkly.
Kranor: "Unfortunate for you—you just made the list."
With a savage swing, he cleaved the ground open. A wave of void distortion blasted Xino backward, ripping apart poker tables and slot machines.
Around them, the crew was mopping up. Gullia's hammer shattered the last Shaman. Marneth's siege snapped lanterns like toys. Nicia's hollow puppets gathered in eerie silence, circling Xino like vultures waiting for the body to drop.
Kranor planted his sword beside Xino's throat, voice like iron.
Kranor: "Stand down. You've already lost."
Xino coughed, staggered to his knees, but his smirk never faded.
Xino: "Stronger than I thought… fine. You win. But you don't know half of how the Alliance really operates, do you?"
He chuckled through the blood.
Xino: "Figure it out. Or don't. You probably won't care anyway."
His body unraveled into a swarm of flies that skittered out of the casino windows, leaving only buzzing echoes behind.
Kranor clenched his jaw. Victory tasted bitter.
Lunio sighed, relieved.
Lunio: "Phew, finally over. Thanks, Kranor—"
Before he could finish, Kranor seized him by the chest, lifting him off his feet. His aura burned hot, suffocating.
Kranor: "What was he talking about? You know something."
Lunio's face paled. He squirmed, stammering.
Lunio: "T-t-they mean… the inner realm. Yeah, that's it. The inner realm. Chill, bro—we're good, right?"
Kranor narrowed his eyes, then lowered him slightly, the rage simmering down but not gone.
Nicia tapped her chin, ink dripping lazily from her fingertips.
Nicia: "Inner realms, huh? Makes sense. I've seen glimpses whenever I cloud people with my ink. Their fears… their truths. I shape them like clay."
She grinned wickedly.
Nicia: "So… this is bigger than we thought."
Lunio nodded reluctantly.
Lunio: "The Alliance can sync inner realms with others. That's how they push people into Omega Devia… make them theirs."
Marneth's eyes lit with dangerous curiosity.
Marneth: "If that's true… we could do it too. We could invade their inner realms. Influence them."
Ulok barked a laugh, already hungry.
Ulok: "Think about it! We could build an army bigger than the Elites! No one could stop us."
The crew's eyes gleamed at the thought.
Kranor stood over them, silent for a beat. Then his lips curled into a sly smirk, darker than victory, sharper than ambition.
Kranor (thought): If inner realms are the key… then Flex City won't be big enough for me.
The view goes upwards, from the casino, through the sky scrappers of Flex City...
To the sky.
The neon above Flex City bled like old wounds—green and yellow smeared across the sky until light itself looked sick. From that height the streets were no longer veins but slow-moving arteries, and inside each artery a fever burned.
Then the voice came, not spoken so much as excavated from the city's bones. It arrived like a draft in a closed room, like something that had learned to breathe through the cracks.
"Note," it said. The word landed like a nail.
"This world keeps coffins for its truths." The voice was low, casual, and then deeper—an animal behind glass. "The inner realm is not a thought. It is a place where your knuckles scrape on memory, where your shame sleeps with one eye open. It has waited. Patient. Hungry."
The intonation changed; honey curdled into iron.
"Fear is not a shadow. Fear is a shape. Grief is a tool. Memory is a weapon." The syllables fell like weights. "Everything you hide is an instrument. You are not messengers of your own lives—you are raw material."
It laughed then, a sound that split like a door being torn off its hinges.
"Everyone is a mess. None of you are free. Comfort is a soft chain." The laugh hollowed the neon; the city's lights paused mid-flicker.
The voice went savage-soft. The words twisted: "I, Omega Devia, take what you are and make it malleable. I will tend it. I will bend it. I will soothe the bleeding—then teach you to bleed on cue." It breathed the name and the syllable crawled under skin like ink.
The scene cut to rooms across worlds: a child under a threadbare blanket; a man who pretends the sink doesn't drip; a woman who presses lipstick on without feeling. The camera lingered on small betrayals: half-closed eyes, fists clenched on a pillow, mouths forming calm lies. The voice catalogued them with intimate relish.
"They make faces: polite, tidy, obedient," it said. "Inside, the quiet is a riot. Little screams. Huge howls. Guts twisting like ropes. You flinch from your own reflection. You stitch smiles over rot. You convince yourselves comfort equals safety—and call that slavery anything but."
Its tone thickened until it was a growl you could wear like a collar.
"Spiralling. Sweating. Hiding. Cowering. Peeling off skins you don't remember stitching on. Retching. Pretending."
A slow, cruel smile in the voice. "But I see." The word was a cold palm on the back of the neck. "I see the wrongness beneath the wallpaper. I see the wetness behind clenched teeth. I see who you are when no one is watching."
There was a pause—long enough for the stomach to drop—then the voice moved closer, conspiratorial, friendly as a hand offering pills.
"And I will turn you into something useful." It pronounced the promise like a spell: "Flexing."
The laugh that followed had teeth. It sounded like theological worship and like a butcher counting knives.
"Traxis taught me the language: contradiction as lullaby. He learned to burn to warm a crowd. He taught me to make comfort feel like freedom." Reverence and menace braided together.
"For those who call me cheat, villain, devil—names are small things to pin to skin." The voice was a guillotine being readied. "It does not matter. As long as the living are frayed—brittle, messy, unfinished—I will wait like a tide."
The promise became a hunger. "I will come. I will offer balm, a hand, a name. I will look into your splintered places and say: Let me hold this for you." The words were velvet and trap.
"And when I hold it," the voice added, as if amused by the thing about to happen, "it will be warm. It will be obedient. It will be yours to parade—or mine to bind."
The final syllables were not a whisper but an indictment:
"Your inner realm will not harm you anymore—if you let me in. I guarantee it."
The guarantee was a door being sealed. Behind it a sound like chains in a tunnel, like breathing from a throat that had only just learned to chant.
Silence dropped like a hammer. The neon trembled and then steadied, as if something in the city had been measured and found wanting. Every light seemed to look away.
And over it all, the last low thing, both promise and verdict:
"But remember—what I keep for you, I can also return. As armor. As prison. As a crown forged of your own scars."
The air tightened. For a single long beat the world listened—and then, a little too late, everyone felt the cold that had been waiting at the edges of their breath.