The chapter resumed exactly where the devastation left off.
Even beyond the pulverized foundation of the facility, the scenic avenues and paved sidewalks lay completely shredded. Miles of pristine street lamps, storefronts, and asphalt had been reduced to a scorched wasteland of smoking concrete and twisted metal.
Through the suffocating veil of pulverized rock and ash, two silhouettes stepped out entirely unscathed.
Darius and Veyron walked through the flames as if the multi-megaton detonation had been nothing more than an evening breeze.
Behind them, the remaining four executives emerged from the dust. Their condition, however, told an entirely different story. Valerina was limp and battered, barely clinging to consciousness.
Seraphine's armor was shredded, her body covered in severe burns and lacerations from shielding her younger sister during the structural collapse. Both Kaizen and Ravik were bruised, bleeding heavily from the concussive shockwave—yet none of them showed the slightest hint of retreat.
Darius brushed a layer of grey soot from his armored pauldrons, a cold smirk playing on his lips.
VOLUME 3RD - CHAPTER 35 - BEGINS...!!
"I have to hand it to you... your squad definitely has spine. Even ordinary human girls managed to push things to this absolute limit. Surviving an epicenter like that with sheer grit is almost impressive."
Veyron stepped forward, his duster whipping through the embers.
"Impressive? Maybe. But for how long? Does dragging out your death mean you've won? Still, Kye, you truly are a beast. I'm finally beginning to see how a single anomaly crushed so many Special Executives and even bent Hollow to his side. But what does any of that matter... when you're being hauled away in chains today anyway?"
A horrifying sound echoed from the wreckage.
Twitching with unnatural, mechanical jerks, Valerina forced her shattered frame upright. Her spine cracked into place, her limbs snapping forward like a broken marionette pulled by unseen strings. Seraphine's eyes narrowed—she recognized that berserk state immediately.
Kaizen grimaced, a bead of cold sweat running down his neck.
"Those twisted sisters are just as monstrous as the rest of them. What the hell are they made of? No matter how many times you break their bones, they just refuse to stay dead."
In a fraction of a millisecond, Valerina lunged. Moving on pure, unhinged adrenaline, she dove straight toward the pavement where Arisa and Elena lay unconscious, her high-density iron needles aimed directly at their exposed throats!
SPLASH!
A geyser of crimson erupted into the night air.
Valerina froze mid-air. Her needles clattered harmlessly against the cracked asphalt. Driven clean through her neck, from the nape straight out through her throat, was a serrated steel blade.
The strike had not come from Kye. Nor had it come from any enemy executive.
Standing behind her was Hollow.
He had torn the rusted structural pipe completely out of his midsection. His entire body was shrouded in a dense, roiling aura of pitch-black energy, writhing like living shadows. Even his sclera and irises had vanished—replaced by pools of absolute, pitch-black void.
The entire Alliance froze in utter disbelief. Kye's eyes widened, his instincts screaming at the sheer, suffocating pressure radiating off the boy.
"How...? How did he stand back up from a wound like that? And more importantly... where did that speed come from? Saito, is this some hidden combat overdrive mode you built into his frame?!"
Dragging his battered body up against the curb, Saito stared through his shattered visor, trembling in cold terror.
"No... this isn't my tech. Look at him, Kye! I have never seen Hollow like this in my entire life... not even during all those years after you disappeared."
Seeing her sister run through, Seraphine lost every shred of restraint. A blood-curdling shriek tore from her lungs.
"You worthless little rodent! How dare you lay a finger on her—!"
She surged forward, driving her jagged fangs in a frantic, blinding flurry.
Hollow didn't flinch. He slipped through the thrusts with zero wasted movement, parrying each strike with contemptuous ease. All the while, his pitch-black, pupil-less eyes never blinked, staying locked onto her face with an unholy, dead stare.
A wave of cold dread washed over Seraphine, forcing her to stumble backward. The hollow, lifeless gaze was suffocating.
A heavy hand clamped onto her shoulder from behind. Kaizen stepped up, his expression hardened, wiping blood from his chin.
"The four of us clawed our way up together from the start, Seraphine. Don't lose your head. You're not fighting this alone—I'm right beside you."
Hollow began moving forward, and the breath caught in everyone's throat.
His boots weren't touching the pavement.
Borne by the dense, writhing shadow aura, he was levitating inches above the cracked asphalt, drifting toward them like a harbinger of death.
"I am sick and tired of this!" Hollow roared, his voice layered with an unnatural, vibrating resonance. "Defeat after defeat... I can't take it anymore! None of you walk away from here alive. Not a single one! My chest feels completely hollow inside—after all the humiliation, all the failure... no more! Never again!"
The raw, unhinged despair in his voice left even Kye and Saito speechless.
Hollow's shadowy gaze remained locked onto the wounded sisters as his voice dropped into an icy, analytical cadence.
"Valerina and Seraphine... the more blood the two of you lose, the stronger and faster you become. Your biological enhancement relies on blood-loss escalation. That's why you come back more dangerous every time your flesh is torn."
Seraphine's eyes burned with rabid fury.
"You sniveling little rat! Do you think knowing our secret means you can actually beat us—?!"
The sentence died in her throat.
BOOM!
A concussive kick cracked flush against Kaizen's skull with terrifying velocity, blasting him across the asphalt and through the wreckage of a collapsed storefront.
Seraphine reacted on pure reflex, slashing her fangs downward.
It was far too late...
SPLASH—CRUNCH!
Hollow's bare, shadow-coated arm punched clean through Seraphine's sternum, erupting violently out the back of her spine.
Silence fell over the street.
Resting inside Hollow's blood-soaked, black-veiled fingers was her violently pulsing heart.
"If there's no life left in the body..." Hollow whispered, his void-black eyes staring straight through her glazing pupils, "...how exactly will you bleed? How will you grow stronger?"
Squelch.
He closed his fist.
From across the ruins, Kaizen scrambled out of the rubble, while Ravik's jaw clenched so hard his teeth cracked. Witnessing the brutal execution of one of their own, both men completely lost their minds.
A roaring shockwave erupted beneath their boots as Kaizen and Ravik tore across the gap in a split second, closing the distance toward Hollow in a blind, murderous frenzy.
"You little motherfucker—we'll tear you limb from limb!"
Ravik and Kaizen converged on Hollow in a blind, rabid frenzy, but Hollow yielded no ground. Enveloped in writhing black tendrils, he traded lethal strikes with terrifying ferocity, matching both seasoned executives blow for blow.
Watching from a distance, Darius crossed his heavy arms, a measured grin touching his lips.
"Just as expected... that is Hollow's awakened [Authority]. Decoding an Authority on the fly is a nightmare—they are either deceptively simple or impossibly complex."
Veyron stepped beside him, resting a hand on Darius's armored shoulder.
"What's truly absurd is that the moment it manifested, he wiped out two elite Special Executives. I can't even fathom what kind of monster that brat will grow into given enough time."
SHING—SHING!
Two serrated blades tore through the air, aimed squarely at Veyron's throat. With a casual tilt of his head, Veyron slipped the trajectory. The thrown steel clattered against the asphalt as Kye charged into the gap at maximum velocity, driving a barrage of bare-knuckle strikes toward Veyron's guard.
Veyron sidestepped the punches, laughing mockingly.
"What's wrong, Kye? Worn out already? Looks like you can't even channel your elemental reserves anymore. Natural, really—a mortal body has its limits."
Veyron accelerated, driving a lightning-fast combination into Kye's ribs and jaw that threw him onto his back.
"Any last words, Kye? I will admit, this was entertaining. The organization had grown thoroughly boring until you showed up. Honestly, we haven't had this much fun since the Tokyo Summit."
Kye wiped the blood from his chin, a cold smirk breaking across his face.
"Is that so? Here's another reason to keep enjoying yourself."
Kye slammed his fist into the cracked street, blasting a geyser of pulverized asphalt and stone into the air. Through the blinding screen of dust, Kye scooped up Valerina's discarded iron needles, driving them straight toward Veyron's eyes!
CLANG!
Darius stepped into the line of fire. The steel needles snapped against his impervious chestplate like dry twigs.
Veyron chuckled behind the armored shield. "Still clinging to false hope? Did you genuinely think a cheap trick could scratch us?"
Kye bounded backward into a high vault, roaring at the top of his lungs.
"SAITO! NOW!"
In the blind spot above, a swarm of Saito's autonomous micro-drone bombs converged on the brothers' coordinates, detonating simultaneously!
KA-BOOOOM!
The shockwave tore through the avenue, tearing up chunks of asphalt and rippling across the combat zone where Hollow, Kaizen, and Ravik were brawling nearly two hundred meters away.
When the white flash cleared, Darius stood utterly untouched, the kinetic shock rolling off him like water. Veyron, however, had suffered light abrasions—and more importantly, the sheer outward concussive blast had hurled him dozens of meters away from his brother's side!
Veyron dug his boots into the pavement, furious. "You miserable human maggots... I am going to rip your heads off starting with that tech rat—"
He froze.
Kye was standing directly in front of him, close enough to feel his breath.
Every strand of Kye's elemental energy—compressed azure fire, crackling golden lightning, and raw kinetic density—was concentrated entirely into his single right fist.
Veyron's eyes widened in sheer terror. Far across the dust cloud, Darius's jaw went slack.
BOOOOOOOM!
The point-blank strike detonated against Veyron's solar plexus with cataclysmic force.
The kinetic transfer launched Veyron like an artillery shell. He rocketed backward over a hundred meters, smashing dead-center into a heavy commercial cargo transport. The fuel tank ignited instantly, consuming the entire vehicle in a towering fireball!
Darius stood frozen, his eyes burning with pure, murderous rage.
"You bastard... what did you just do?!"
Kye stood upright, the embers fading from his knuckles as a twisted, demonic grin carved across his face.
"What did I do? I paved the path to put you both in the dirt. What else was I supposed to do?"
"Impossible... you spent the entire fight running from us! Lord Bansho is the only person alive who ever decoded the exact mechanics of our Authority! How could a mortal rat figure it out?!"
Kye's smirk turned chillingly cold.
"Observation. The only reason I went on the defensive was to run the numbers. It didn't take long to notice the anomaly: you two never break proximity. No matter what happens, you remain tethered. And before an attack lands, Darius positions himself at the absolute point of impact every single time, while Veyron strikes with zero personal defense. That kind of pattern has a reason."
CRASH!
Before Kye could elaborate, Hollow's body came crashing down out of the sky, slamming heavily into Kye and knocking both of them onto the cracked asphalt.
"Hollow?!"
Kye quickly checked his pulse. Hollow's black aura was fading back into his skin, his breathing ragged, but his heart was beating steadily.
Emerging from the smoke with a limp and torn knuckles, Kaizen advanced with bloodlust radiating from every pore.
"That little bastard is still breathing! His body gave out—he couldn't handle the strain of his own power! But neither of you are walking away from this ruin alive. Especially not you, Kye Kurasaki... I am going to tear you apart with my bare hands!"
Kye gently shifted Hollow's unconscious body to the side, rising back to his feet with an unbothered, dangerous smirk.
"First of all, you two brothers don't wield an ordinary Authority. It's complex, dense, and layered—the exact reason your brain-dead teammates could never wrap their heads around how it works."
Kaizen and Ravik stepped forward, their teeth bared in fury.
"What the hell are you babbling about, you arrogant little brat?! Who do you think you are?!"
"Take a look in the mirror," Kye sneered. "You two should consider yourselves lucky. Because of us, you finally get front-row seats to watch these so-called 'Undefeated Brothers' hit the dirt."
Holding his fractured ribs, Saito dragged himself upright through the dust, his cracked visor projecting frantic lines of tactical data.
"These two brothers are somehow warping the local space-time continuum to an extreme degree. They create localized micro-conduits across the spatial fabric—sub-dimensional wormholes through which kinetic and thermal energy transfers instantaneously from one side to the other."
"And once that energy passes through the bridge," Kye continued, his voice sharp and clinical, "it feeds directly into Veyron. But the conduit isn't the whole trick. Veyron possesses a secondary biological frequency: he synthesizes that transferred energy, fusing it with his own reserves. That resonance fusion amplifies the kinetic density several times over."
Saito nodded weakly, coughing past a clot of blood. "And Darius operates under the exact inverse. He isn't merely a transfer conduit—he absorbs the primary shockwaves directly, keeping his localized spatial barrier from tearing apart while the field constantly repairs itself. But since that spatial sheath is an artificial construct, breaking it is theoretically possible. What do you think, Kye?"
"My assessment?" Kye adjusted his footing, eyes locking dead-center onto Darius. "If we hit him with zero energetic output—pure, raw, hollow physical mass with no kinetic signature—there's no power source for the conduit to channel, right Darius?"
Darius's eye twitched. Desperate to mask the accuracy of their breakdown, he threw his head back and forced a harsh laugh.
"Fabricating fairy tales to comfort yourselves? If that pathetic theory had any truth to it, you would have bypassed me and struck Veyron from the start. Why didn't you, genius? Tell me!"
"Cut the act," Kye replied coldly. "You two share multiple synchronized traits, including an acute reflexive danger-sense. The instant one registers a threat vector, the other intercepts it on instinct—which is why you never allow an incoming strike to touch him. But the catch is range. The moment distance opens up between you, your neural synchronization deteriorates. Break the sync, and the invincible defense evaporates."
Darius's veins bulged along his temples. The mask slipped completely, drowned in blind, rabid fury.
"I'll show you that I'm good for a hell of a lot more than just playing defense, you little insect!"
Reaching over his shoulder, Darius tore a colossal, jagged executioner's broadsword from its scabbard. Igniting his kinetic boosters, he charged straight at Kye with mountain-splitting speed!
Kye held his ground with calm confidence, stepping into the pocket and unleashing a pinpoint, un-channeled punch directly at the armored behemoth.
BOOM!
Darius didn't budge an inch.
Instead, a catastrophic concussive backdraft erupted instantaneously from his armor, driving the entire force of the blow directly back into Kye's own skeletal structure!
The internal shockwave threw Kye violently to the ground. Bone fractured under the rebound. Crimson gushed freely from his eyes, nose, ears, and lips, pooling across the shattered street beneath him.
Darius towered over him, blade raised high.
"Let me educate you, Kye Kurasaki: I might not store external energy long-term, but I can reflect and transfer every ounce of it right back into the sender on contact!"
With executioner finality, Darius drove the heavy blade downward, aiming straight between Kye's paralyzed eyes.
"KYE!" Saito screamed from the rubble.
SPLASH—!
A geyser of blood sprayed across the cracked pavement.
The blade had driven all the way through flesh and bone, pinning a body down to the rock.
Yet Kye lay untouched.
Every set of eyes on the battlefield went wide with horror.
Standing over Kye was Arisa. Running on pure, overdosed adrenaline and the overloaded thrusters of her combat suit, she had thrown herself into the fatal arc at the absolute final millisecond.
The massive steel blade had impaled her straight through the abdomen, erupting out her spine and anchoring into the asphalt beneath.
Blood bubbled up past her lips, dripping down her chin. Yet looking down at Kye's horrified face, a faint, chilling smile touched her face.
Her knees buckled. Her eyelids fluttered shut.
Her breath went completely still.
[ END OF CHAPTER 35 ]