The word "necromancy" hung in the cold, dead air of the industrial yard, a concept so alien to this world of science and Kaiju that it felt like a blasphemy.
Kaiju No. 9's synthesized voice, for the first time, held an inflection of genuine shock and disbelief. It stared at the thirteen Shadow Kaiju that had just risen, their forms wrought from pure, shifting darkness, glowing with an internal violet fire. They were ethereal copies of the beasts Kafka had slain, but infinitely more menacing. They made no sound, their killing intent a palpable, chilling aura.
"Impossible…" No. 9 whispered, its analytical mind scrambling to process what it was seeing. "Reanimation of deceased biological matter via an unknown energy source? The sheer complexity… this is not creation. This is… perversion of the natural order. Heresy against biology itself!"
Its initial academic curiosity was finally being eclipsed by a more primal emotion: fear. The calm, detached researcher was facing a force that was not of its world, a power that broke every scientific rule it knew.
Jin-Woo's face was a mask of cold indifference. He stood at the head of his newly formed legion, the Shadow Monarch in his element.
"Order. Biology. Death," Jin-Woo said, his voice a low, resonant hum. "These are merely concepts. Concepts I have mastered."
He made a subtle, almost imperceptible gesture with his hand. A silent command.
The Shadow Army moved.
There was no battle cry. No roar. Just a silent, coordinated rush of pure darkness. They moved with an unnatural speed and fluidity that their flesh-and-blood counterparts had never possessed. The boar-shadow became a low-profile battering ram of pure night. The scythe-shadow blurred into a spinning cyclone of ethereal blades. The wolf-shadow flowed along the ground like spilled ink, flanking with terrifying speed.
No. 9 reacted instantly. Its body seemed to lose all solid structure, becoming a maelstrom of morphing, bone-white limbs.
*KRR-SHRAK! THWACK!*
Multiple, razor-sharp blades, bone hammers, and piercing tendrils erupted from its torso, lashing out at the incoming shadow beasts. It became a living blender of death, its every limb a weapon.
The clash was a surreal symphony of violence. Shadow met bone. Violet energy met stark white. The silent, disciplined phantoms of death against the chaotic, ever-changing arsenal of a mad biological creator.
A shadow-wolf leaped, and No. 9 impaled it with three simultaneous bone spears. But the spears passed through its body with a puff of black smoke, leaving the wolf-shadow completely unharmed. It then reformed a meter away, its shadowy jaws clamping down on the limb that had created the spears.
"Intangibility?!" No. 9 exclaimed as the shadow-wolf's fangs began to drain the energy directly from its arm.
Jin-Woo's shadows were not physical beings. They were constructs of magical energy. They could not be impaled or cut by conventional means. They had to be destroyed, their core energy dispersed. And No. 9's physical attacks were hideously inefficient at doing so.
While No. 9 was distracted, the scythe-shadow was on it, its blades cleaving through two of No. 9's legs. The boar-shadow slammed into its chest, not with the force of a physical impact, but with the deadening thud of pure negative energy, causing its regeneration to sputter and slow for a crucial second.
Kafka could only watch, his back pressed against a crumbling wall, feeling utterly, profoundly useless. He was a child who had stumbled into a battle between gods. One moment he had felt like a burgeoning predator, and the next he was reminded he was plankton in an ocean of leviathans. The sheer scale and speed of the conflict was beyond his comprehension. His eyes could barely keep up.
No. 9 was being overwhelmed. For every shadow it managed to disperse with a focused burst of its own bio-energy, two more would attack its flank. The shadows fought with perfect coordination, a single hive mind directed by the silent Monarch watching over the battlefield.
"Unacceptable! This cannot be!" No. 9 shrieked, its calm demeanor finally cracking completely under the relentless assault. It realized a horrifying truth: it could not win a battle of attrition against an army that could not be killed and was fueled by an enemy who seemed to have endless reserves.
Its entire body began to pulse with a furious, crimson light. The ground trembled.
"If conventional forms are ineffective, then I will become… unconventional!"
Its body exploded.
Not in a shower of gore, but in a tidal wave of pale, bonelike material. It surged outwards, a living tsunami of flesh and sinew. It was no longer a single entity, but a rapidly expanding mass of biological horror, consuming the yard. It was a desperate, scorched-earth tactic.
The Shadow Army was instantly engulfed. Swallowed by the living tide.
The wave of bio-matter rushed toward Jin-Woo and Kafka.
Kafka froze, terror rooting him to the spot. This was it. This was how he died.
Jin-Woo didn't even flinch.
[Ruler's Authority]
An invisible, omnipotent hand of pure telekinetic force slammed down.
*VMMMM-CRUUUNCH!*
The living tsunami, which had been surging forward with unstoppable momentum, hit an invisible, immovable wall just feet from Jin-Woo. The bio-mass compressed, writhed, and strained against the unseen barrier, but could not advance a single inch further. It was like watching the ocean trying to break a mountain.
With a simple, contemptuous clench of his fist, Jin-Woo tightened his telekinetic grip.
The entire mass of No. 9's body was squeezed, compressed, and contorted. Horrifying, muffled shrieks echoed from within it. It was being crushed on a molecular level.
"Enough playing," Jin-Woo said, his voice dangerously low.
From within the roiling mass, a single, small form shot out like a rocket, leaving the larger body to be crushed. A desperate escape. A smaller, more streamlined version of No. 9, no bigger than a man, was fleeing at an impossible speed. It had sacrificed the bulk of its body as a diversion.
"You're not getting away," Jin-Woo whispered.
He didn't move to pursue. Instead, he simply reached into his own shadow at his feet. It was a casual gesture, like reaching into a pocket.
His hand emerged holding the hilt of a magnificent, ethereal longsword, its blade glowing with a brilliant blue-white light that banished the shadows and radiated an aura of pure, righteous power. The sword screamed with an authority that made all of Kaiju No. 9's monstrous power feel cheap and dirty.
It was Igris's sword. Summoned as a stand-alone item.
Jin-Woo brought the sword up.
Kafka's Kaiju-enhanced senses barely registered what happened next.
There was a flicker of blue light. A sound like the sky being torn in half.
*SHRRRR-IIIIING!*
A beam of pure, incandescent energy, a crescent wave of divine power, shot from the sword. It traveled across the entire industrial complex in less than a milisecond, silent and absolute.
The escaping form of Kaiju No. 9, half a kilometer away and moving at supersonic speed, was neatly bisected from its head down to its waist. Its two halves fell from the sky, tumbling end over end before crashing into a distant warehouse with a deafening explosion.
Jin-Woo held the pose for a moment, the ethereal sword humming with power, before letting it dissolve back into his shadow. He turned his head slowly, his cold gaze falling on the larger, still-writhing mass of bio-matter that he held pinned in his telekinetic grip.
He began to walk towards it. The battle was over. It was time to collect his prize.
But as he approached, a faint, mocking, synthetic laugh echoed through the yard, seeming to come from the ruined remains in the distance.
"Incredible data… such power… I must… have it… You think you've won? Hahaha… This body is just one of many… A disposable clone… But now I have your measure… King of the Dead… The Architect now knows his rival… and he will build your coffin…".
The voice faded. The writhing mass of bio-matter lost its coherence, shuddering violently before rapidly decaying, melting into a foul-smelling, inert sludge that seeped into the cracked concrete. There was no core. It had been a decoy. A puppet whose strings had just been cut.
The real Kaiju No. 9 had escaped, sacrificing a significant part of itself to do so.
It had taken the data it needed. And it had left behind a name for its new enemy.
King of the Dead.
Jin-Woo stood over the puddle of goo, his expression colder and more dangerous than Kafka had ever seen it.
He had won the battle decisively. But for the first time, his prey had gotten away.
The hunt was just beginning.