The air in the Council Hall was thick as tar. News of the second repository attack hung over those assembled like a heavy hammer. Director Fujibayashi, his face appearing even more ancient and wrinkled, swept his gaze over those present.
"Tsuchigumo attacks again. This time their forces... are different. We're observing a colossal energy discharge. They want an Ark at any cost."
"Then send Kagetori-sensei!" blurted one of the junior Council members. "He'll sweep them away!"
All eyes turned to Reiden Kagetori, who, sprawled in a chair, was finishing drawing a lightning bolt on his jacket sleeve.
He lazily raised his golden eyes.
"I'm not a janitor," he said with a light, insulting smirk. "To sweep up trash after every spider that crawls out of a crack. You want me to waste my strength on clay dolls?"
"But... thousands could die! The repository is near a settlement!" cried Shiori, unable to hold back.
Kagetori yawned.
"The weak die. That's the law." His gaze slid over Kaede, Ryūnosuke, and Akira standing nearby. "But... if your 'golden students' fail and end up on the brink... well. Naturally, I'll show up so this dreary spectacle doesn't ruin my mood. Consider it insurance. Nothing more."
That was enough. The order was given.
The scene that greeted them at the mountain's foot was apocalyptic. The repository, once an impregnable fortress, was half-destroyed. But the main thing wasn't it. The main thing was It.
The Clay Colossus. A creature the size of a five-story house, molded from mud, stone, and bound by dark, pulsing energy. It had six arms, each crowned with a weapon fashioned from the same material. Its "face" was a smooth plane upon which hundreds of tiny, crimson points burned—concentrated Scars of suffering, pain, and despair, ripped from sacrificed members of the Tsuchigumo clan. Each of the colossus's steps made the earth tremble.
"Good God..." whispered Ryūnosuke.
"Don't pray," Kaede coldly cut him off. "Act!"
She concentrated first. "Kokuro: Crimson Loop of Fate!" She tried to rewrite reality, declaring: "The colossus's neck is already broken." The air trembled, but only a momentary crack appeared on the golem's throat, which immediately closed, consumed by the hissing darkness of the Scars. Kaede recoiled, blood trickling from her nose. "It... it devours the very logic of the attack!"
Ryūnosuke, with a roar, unleashed his "Iron Vow" upon the monster, commanding the Scar of decay to manifest in its clay body. Stone and earth crumbled from the colossus, but new, black energy tentacles crawled from within, instantly sealing the wounds. It was like trying to dry an ocean with a spoon.
Shiori, standing behind with closed eyes, feverishly sifted through archives in her memory. "Technique of scattering evil... seal of purification... all useless! This isn't a demon! It's a knot of pure malice! No technique can contain this!"
The colossus, as if irritated by their attempts, roared—a sound like the grinding of a thousand coffins. One of its arms crashed down on them like a mountain avalanche.
And then something happened that made everyone freeze.
Akira, who until that moment had been observing with his usual emptiness in his eyes, vanished from his spot. He didn't teleport. He moved with such inconceivable speed that his body left a blurred trail. He appeared between the falling stone paw and his comrades, raising a hand.
A blow capable of splitting a hill struck him. A deafening crash sounded, a wall of dust rose. Kaede and Ryūnosuke shut their eyes, expecting to see a bloody pulp.
But as the dust settled, they saw Akira, kneeling, with his arm raised. He hadn't blocked the blow. He had taken it. The colossus's palm rested on him but did not crush him. It was impossible. The force of the blow dissipated, absorbed by his anomalous nature, leaving not a scratch on him.
"What..." Ryūnosuke exhaled.
Akira slowly raised his head. His empty eyes were fixed on the colossus's chest, where the largest cluster of crimson points pulsed—the core of Scars.
"All your attacks... it absorbs them," Akira said quietly, his voice strangely loud in the ensuing silence. "Because they leave a trace. Energy. A Scar."
He straightened up, shaking off the stone arm, which crumbled into dust.
"I will leave nothing."
He closed his eyes. He didn't feel energy. He felt absence. And he began to project it. Not as a shield around himself, but as a spear. A beam of pure, absolute negation.
The air around his outstretched hand froze, lost color, sound. He concentrated his "void" into a point and directed it at the colossus's core.
There was no flash. No explosion. Only a quiet, wet squelching sound.
The crimson points in the golem's chest—those concentrated Scars of suffering—simply went out. One after another. Like candles doused with water.
The Clay Colossus froze. Its six-armed figure lost tension. Then, without the will that had bound it, it began to slowly, almost gracefully, collapse. The stones, mud, sand—everything it was molded from—poured down, forming a giant shapeless pile. There was no death, no destruction. There was... erasure. Annulment.
The silence that fell upon the battlefield was deafening.
In a cave several kilometers away, Jibetsu, watching through a magical crystal, hurled it against the wall with force. Shards rang out.
"Mushiro..." he hissed, his voice trembling with impotent rage. "He's not just an anomaly. He is a threat. A full-fledged threat."
He turned and vanished into shadow, holding the "Phantom Ark" snatched from under the heroes' noses. But the victory was not sweet. It was bitter, poisoned by the understanding that a new, unpredictable piece had appeared on the board.
Akira stood before the pile of debris that seconds ago had been an incarnated nightmare. He looked at his hands. He didn't feel tired. He felt... heaviness. Not physical. The burden of realizing that others' lives now depended on his actions. His void was filled with meaning for the first time. Not warmth, not light. Cold, ironclad responsibility.
He turned and met Kaede's gaze. In her eyes was not the previous contempt or simple curiosity. There was calculating, reevaluating interest. Ryūnosuke looked at him, clenching his fists, but no longer with the old hatred—with grudging, reluctant respect.
They returned not just as victors. They returned changed. And the world around them had become even more dangerous.