The chapter picks up right where it left off—Kye vs. Grimm.
The fight had reached an absolute breaking point. While Kye was still struggling on his knees, desperately trying to force his broken body back up, a terrifying, manic smile plastered Grimm's face.
VOLUME 3 - CHAPTER : 29 - BEGINS...!!
Grimm: "How much longer are you going to drag this out, Kye? You're going to die here anyway. Before you draw your last breath, let me enlighten you. This power I just used... it's called Absolute Fear. It's essentially an upgraded version of the Death Stare, pushed to its absolute limits by my combat experience. Because of my aura and sheer charisma, I can cast it simultaneously on multiple opponents without even needing to look at them."
Kye pushed down hard with his hands, his muscles screaming in protest, but his physical efforts seemed completely useless against the suffocating gravity bearing down on him.
Yet, even as blood dripped from his chin, Kye's lips curved into a subtle, mocking smirk. He decided to play a different kind of game.
Kye: "Grimm... you bastard. Did you say... you actually hate your own brother?"
Grimm's smile faltered slightly, his eyes narrowing.
Grimm: "So what if I do? I've never had any tolerance for the weak. To be honest... when our entire family was wiped out, I didn't feel a single ounce of anger toward that fool of a brother. My family was hollow from the inside out—they only cared about superficial reputation. They never understood my true talent; all they ever saw in me was a weapon with good physical stats. A bloodline driven solely by fake prestige is nothing more than an empty, rotting room."
Kye chuckled weakly, spitting a mouthful of crimson onto the dirt.
Kye: "Is that so? So you'd kill your own flesh and blood just for that pathetic reason? You truly are a wretched piece of trash, Grimm. Or... should I say, you're actually jealous of your brother?"
That single word struck a raw, volatile nerve.
Grimm's face twisted into pure, unadulterated rage, his aura flaring violently.
Grimm: "What the hell did you just say?! Me? Jealous of that ditch-dwelling rat?! I can crush him whenever I feel like it! Compared to my Divine Pressure and Absolute Fear, he wouldn't even be able to stand in my presence!"
Kye: "Then why didn't you just kill him already? Could it be... that you can't?"
Grimm: "Kye, you arrogant little piece of—"
Ugh... What the hell?!
Suddenly, right beneath the cracked soil, thick, durable tree roots erupted like living serpents, clamping around Grimm's throat and pinning his arms instantly!
Taking full advantage of Grimm's momentary lapse in focus and ego flare, Kye had secretly buried his hand into the dirt while stalling with words, covertly manipulating nature elements—a hidden trump card he had kept concealed the entire time!
The second Grimm's concentration shattered, the crushing weight of the Divine Pressure vanished into thin air.
Seizing the opening, Kye forced his battered legs to stand.
His body felt like it was held together by mere threads, yet a lethal grin spread across his face.
Kye: "Sometimes... you gotta use your brain to win a fight, Grimm. Didn't anyone ever teach you that?"
Grimm: "YOU RUNT OF A MOTHERFUCKER—!"
Shrieking with fury, Grimm violently thrashed his body, snapping the thick roots apart with brute force. But it was already too late.
Kye was already standing right in front of him, his fist drawn back and blazing with a terrifying, multi-elemental singularity:
[ Fire + Electricity + Water ]
Kye: "Burn, shock, and crush."
BOOM!
The compressed elemental blast hit Grimm dead-center in the chest like a hyper-velocity railgun!
The kinetic shockwave launched Grimm backward at rocket speed, crashing him straight into the structural pillars of the nearby SS Partners facility. The impact triggered a massive chain reaction—the entire multi-story building lost its structural integrity, collapsing inward and burying Grimm beneath mountains of concrete rubble and twisted steel.
Huff... Huff... Huff...
Kye dropped to one knee, clutching his bleeding ribs as he gasped for oxygen.
'That son of a bitch pushed me to my absolute limit... If a mere sub-branch executive is this monstrous, just what kind of terrifying level are the Chief Executives on? Will I even stand a chance against them?'
Before Kye could catch his breath—
CRACK! RUMBLE!
An explosive burst of raw bloodlust shattered the debris overhead. Grimm burst out from beneath the rubble, his entire body drenched in blood, his eyes burning with insane, psychopathic hatred. His aura warped the surrounding air, scorching the earth around him.
Grimm: "Today, you die a death so miserable that nothing of you will remain, Kye! To hell with Master Null's orders of bringing you in alive! Even if the organization executes me for this later... I am going to tear you apart with my bare hands right here, right now!"
Roaring like a caged beast, Grimm charged forward once again!
Grimm closed the distance in a fraction of a second, surging forward in his absolute, unadulterated bloodlust.
Before Kye could even raise his arms to guard, a devastating punch struck him square in the face. A brutal kick followed, launching him backward, only for Grimm to teleport right into his path,
hammering him with a vicious knee strike, a razor-sharp elbow, and a final, bone-crushing punch that sent shockwaves through the air.
It looked as though Grimm was literally tearing Kye apart with his bare hands.
Kye's vision swam, every blink reduced to a blur of incoming, lethal strikes.
Grimm: "Today, I'll shatter my own physical limits if I have to! To slaughter a piece of trash like you, I'll do whatever it takes!"
With a savage roar, Grimm clamped his hand around Kye's windpipe, hoisting him effortlessly into the air. Carrying him forward at full momentum, Grimm slammed Kye's back violently into the thick trunk of a massive tree, pinning him there without ever loosening his crushing grip.
Kye gasped, blood spilling from his lips, his voice strained and ragged.
Kye: "You... you're strong, Grimm... But, you don't have a real reason to live... or a reason to win this fight. My reason... my reason is a hell of a lot better than yours!"
Veins bulged around Kye's temples as fresh blood streamed from his eyes, his pupils flaring into a deep, terrifying red color.
And in that exact instant—
The very roots of the tree behind them lashed out like living, venomous serpents.
PIERCE!
The thick, jagged wooden roots drove straight through Grimm's stomach, bursting out from his back in a sickening spray of blood.
Before Grimm could even process the agony, Kye wrenched his legs up, delivering a vicious, suffocating kick straight to Grimm's chest to push him back—and lunged forward.
Digging his fingers deep into Grimm's sockets, Kye forced his fingers inward, brutally rupturing his pupils.
Grimm: "Aaargh! What... what the hell did you do to me?! I can't see anything!"
Grimm shrieked, thrashing blindly in raw, blinding agony, but Kye wasn't in the mood to listen to a single word.
Seizing a massive, jagged boulder from the blood-soaked earth, Kye hoisted it high above his head and smashed it downward with all his remaining fury straight onto Grimm's face!
SPLASH!
Grimm's movements instantly turned sluggish. He was technically still breathing, his body twitching on the blood-soaked soil, but he was in no condition to ever stand again. Yet, even that wasn't enough to satisfy the cold emptiness in Kye's eyes.
Drawing back his fist one final time, Kye coated it in a volatile, compressed singularity of raw elemental pressure.
BOOM! BLAST!
With an earth-shattering shockwave, Kye's final punch pierced straight through Grimm's chest, carving a gaping hole right where his heart used to be.
And with that final, merciless blow, Grimm's life slipped away—joining his brother in the dark abyss of death.
With a cold, emotionless stare, Kye did something deeply unsettling. He reached his hand straight into the gaping, bloodied cavity of Grimm's chest, pulled out Grimm's still-warm heart, and held it up to examine it in the dim moonlight.
Before the grim spectacle could sink in, the perspective violently shifted back toward the Alliance.
At the local town hospital, emergency surgeries and treatments were underway. Hollow was locked in a critical care ward, while Arisa and Elena were recovering in adjacent rooms under strict medical observation. Meanwhile, Saito had managed to slip away from the ruins of the Ashmoor base with the intel they came for, arriving at the hospital shortly after.
By this point, the clock struck 2:30 AM.
The hospital staff was in a state of absolute panic and shock. Doctors and nurses couldn't wrap their heads around how multiple severely wounded individuals with catastrophic, combat-level trauma kept flooding into their emergency ward one after another in a single night. But given the life-or-death urgency, the medical team prioritized immediate trauma care over interrogation.
Morning broke.
By sunrise, authorities had flooded both locations. At Woshwood-77, local residents and remaining SS Partners operatives discovered the apocalyptic wasteland left behind by Kye and Grimm, immediately alerting the authorities. At Ashmoor, the hospital management filed an official police report regarding the mysterious, heavily injured patients who had just checked in overnight.
Armed with questions, local police officers accompanied by the head doctor marched straight toward the Alliance's recovery ward.
Head Doctor: "Sir, these four critically injured individuals were brought in last night. You can question them directly; they might know what caused last night's explosions—"
The officers pushed open the emergency ward doors, ready to secure the room.
Surprise!
The room was completely empty. Every single one of them had vanished.
Anticipating this exact scenario, Saito knew that running into the police while recovering from a black-ops clash with SS Partners would spell absolute disaster. Waking up Arisa, Elena, and supporting the heavily sedated, unconscious Hollow, Saito had orchestrated a quiet escape around 6:00 AM, slipping out of the hospital's first-floor exit before anyone noticed.
Right now, battered, bruised, and wrapped in bandages, the four of them were crammed together on a local public bus, enduring a painful, bumpy ride back toward their safehouse.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the region—
At Woshwood-77, Kye had remained slumped amidst the ruined concrete and scorched earth for the remainder of the night. By morning, as police sirens began wailing in the distance, he finally pushed himself up and slipped away into the shadows.
Because the entire branch facility had been utterly vaporized during the clash, Kye couldn't salvage any physical documents or data servers. He walked away empty-handed, with only one piece of loot secured from the carnage:
Grimm's personal encrypted smartphone, clutched tightly in his bloodstained hand.
And we see---
The Alliance finally managed to make it back to their hideout.
Anticipating their condition, Saito had used a roadside telephone booth during their transit to alert Arisa's brother, Ren, instructing him to meet them directly at the bus stop.
The precaution proved necessary—Arisa had lapsed back into unconsciousness mid-journey. Without extensive combat conditioning, the sheer physical and mental strain of the confrontation had overwhelmed her body.
Saito and Ren supported Arisa and Hollow between them, dragging their limp frames through the safehouse doors.
The second they crossed the threshold, Elena's adrenaline completely gave out; her legs buckled, and she collapsed onto the floor, her eyes fluttering shut as exhaustion claimed her.
Saito was on the verge of collapsing himself, yet the weight of keeping everyone alive forced him forward. Together with Ren, he moved the injured into the safehouse medical wing. With his hands trembling and his strength fading, Saito realized he lacked the physical coordination to perform surgical procedures himself.
Saito: "Ren... listen to my instructions carefully. Do exactly as I tell you, step by step. No questions, no hesitation. Just stay focused."
Ren was visibly shaken by the gruesome injuries, but seeing Saito on the brink of total collapse, he nodded firmly and prepared the surgical tools.
Guiding Ren through every suture, antiseptic application, and emergency stabilization procedure, Saito directed the operations through sheer force of will. Step by step, they managed to close the lethal lacerations and stabilize everyone's vital signs.
The moment the final bandage was secured, the last thread of Saito's consciousness snapped. He collapsed backward onto the floor.
Ren: "Mr. Saito? Saito?! Wake up!"
Seeing that Saito had passed out from extreme physical depletion, Ren took a deep breath, gathered his composure, and used what basic medical knowledge he had to disinfect and bandage Saito's wounds, securing the entire ward.
Through the combined grit and sacrifice of every single member, the Alliance had narrowly survived the night.
[ END OF CHAPTER 29 ]