The Colos Variant lunged again—
a mass of tendon, crystal plates, and parasite sinew tearing the ground beneath it.
Kaodin didn't backpedal.
He stepped into the attack.
His heel bit into the wet concrete, Qi snarling around his calves like heated smoke.
He feinted left—
slipped right—
and brought a razor-edged palm down across a tendon cluster at the inner elbow joint.
A burst of heat flared from his hand.
Parasitic flesh sizzled.
For the first time—
the monster recoiled.
Han-Xiao's visor pinged—once, sharp, unmistakable.
"Yuri—there! Left dorsal plate—fracture line—heat spike!"
Arika snapped her fingers. "Transmit—NOW!"
Han-Xiao didn't hesitate. She routed the data straight to Kaodin's wristband.
A red marker blinked across Kaodin's peripheral display the moment he slipped beneath the Colos Variant's guard.
"Boy! Weak spot—left back plate! Beneath the crystal layer!" Han-Xiao shouted across the rubble.
Yuri reinforced the callout, voice cracking through dust and rain:
"Hit that point! Nothing else hurts it!"
Kaodin's gaze snapped to the glowing seam immediately—
no guesswork, no coincidence.
His body reacted before thought, fury and discipline snapping into a single line of motion.
His Dusk-state was thinning—
the sharp clarity beginning to fray at the edges—
but he forced his breath deeper, grinding Qi through his veins like molten grit.
Something inside him responded—
Seemingly like a second rhythm stirred within him and somehow it folded itself naturally into Kaodin's breath like a second heartbeat aligning with the first.
Thread over thread, like invisible fibers braiding themselves around his forearms
The beginning of something that behaved like Qi-woven carbon fiber — exhibiting an extreme heat wave outward, yet holding a warmth and trust-filled protection around Kaodin, becoming adaptive to enhanced, super-strength attacks infused with heat-Qi, or absorbing damage from any strike directed at him.
A protective lattice began to form — woven from Kaodin's absolute will, carried and amplified through Wawa.
The boy didn't realize it, but the world around him did: this was no longer merely the trait of internal Qi or any known form of Qi Gong.
Something otherworldly stirred within that energy, interpreting Kaodin's unwavering will and shaping it into a power that did not belong to this world.
TRUE-QI STRIKE — "Jarake-Fad-Hang" (Crocodile Whips Tail)
He planted his foot hard—
hips torquing with violent precision—
and his heel swept out in a savage, cutting arc across the parasite's rib plates.
Qi erupted across his leg like a coiling flame.
BOOM—!!
The impact shook the entire street.
The monster staggered—its massive frame skidding sideways, gouging a trench as its claws dug desperately for balance.
Shards of the crystal armor cracked loose, skittering across the pavement.
Steam hissed from Kaodin's leg where Qi backlash scorched his ankle.
The recoil nearly buckled him.
But he stayed upright.
Arika's visor lit up with thermal bloom.
"That strike carried internal heat—he's damaging the core cover!"
Han-Xiao zoomed in sharply.
"The fracture's widening—he's almost through!"
The monster stabilized, talons carving deep grooves as it regained footing.
Its parasite spine vibrated violently—
not in pain,
but agitation.
It lunged.
A tendril caught Kaodin across the ribs—
a meaty, crushing blow, strong enough to crack stone.
The boy hit the ground hard, concrete fracturing under his shoulder.
Air punched from his lungs.
His chest burned like a furnace collapsing.
But he rolled up anyway, coughing grit, eyes locked on the widening crack in the crystal plate.
It was already closing.
Too fast.
He clenched his fist.
He had one chance left.
MAGMA PUNCH — First True Ignition
Kaodin, breath ragged, stepped back from the regenerating crack in the Colos Variant's chest.
The plate was already sealing — thin parasite filaments knitting across the wound like frantic spiders.
He couldn't let it close.
Not after everything.
His right arm shook; the Qi-weave along his forearm flickered, threads loosening like frayed fabric.
Dusk was still active — but thinning, fraying — like the rhythm itself was slipping through his fingers.
He clenched his teeth.
Jarake-Fad-Hang had landed.
He felt the ribs give.
He heard the crack.
And still—
only a hairline fracture.
Not enough.
Nowhere near enough.
He replayed the impact in his mind:
the monster's weight, the elasticity of its bone-gel skeleton, the protective crystal plate absorbing shock.
He needed more than Dusk's precision.
More than a counter.
More than vibration strikes.
He needed all of it —
everything still left inside him —
before the window closed and the creature regenerated completely.
Kaodin muttered under his breath:
"Not enough… I need more Qi than I can hold.
All of it… at once."
But Dusk's mental sync with Wawa was already straining.
His vision became extremely obscured around the edges.
His pulse staggered.
Circulating more Qi now was like trying to force a river through a needle.
Kaodin inhaled sharply and made his decision.
He lifted his voice across the battlefield:
"Commander Arika!
I need the monster HELD — just for a moment!"
Readied for combat, she had already leapt forward to support the boy before he even finished his sentence.
By the time Kaodin's request reached her ears, Arika was already at his side and in motion.
Her blade-whip cracked open in a snap of steel and light as she surged ahead, boots grinding into the wet rubble.
"Yuri, with me.
Albert, right flank.
Han-Xiao, Ken — keep scanning for any secondary weak points and provide long-range support the moment you get an opening."
"Yes, Ma'am!" her subordinates answered, instantly shifting into formation.
The loyal knights of her team had worked together for years — long enough that a nod, a glance, the slightest shift of stance was all they needed to communicate.
No comms, no chatter.
They simply moved — each one instinctively supporting her the way a well-trained formation guards its commander's blind spots.
Concussive pellets detonated against the Colos Variant's joints.
Yuri's electro-axe carved into a tendon cluster.
Arika swept low herself, her whip-rapier hooking a parasite-laden limb and dragging it off balance with practiced precision.
the monster slowed.
Kaodin closed his eyes, aligning his absolute will with himself.
He focused on his breathing, slow and constant, syncing every inhale and exhale with the flow of his Qi and the singular goal pulsing in his chest.
Everything — every thread of energy — he bet on his right fist.
Qi-manifested knuckle and elbow guards along his left arm began to disperse, the plated structure dissolving back into his circulation.
As the armor receded, it left behind black tiger-like stripes across his skin — not fading, but marking the path of the Qi returning inward.
Simultaneously, the same dispersal swept through his right arm.
The plating dissolved into raw Qi leaving behind matching tiger-stripe traces winding across his shoulder and down his limb.
Except the right knuckle guard that's just beginning to shift its appearance
Those stripes ignited.
Thin, cosmic-rainbow flickers shimmered across them, flowing from his left side toward his right arm in a slow pulse.
Kaodin felt it clearly — the sensation that despite his unable to communicate his will, Wawa definitely would help him convey his will to turn it in to his power to support him.
All he could hope now was that risking the exhaustion of every last drop of Qi…
would be worth the struggle everyone was enduring.
That he could finally quell the rage burning through him — the rage of seeing Nyla injured right in front of him!
Arika planted her boots into the mud-slick rubble, jaw tightening as she steadied her whip-rapier. She wasn't holding the line from behind — she was the line.
With one fluid step, she cut into the Variant's flank, steel whipping through rain and parasite flesh.
"Albert — left," she ordered, voice low but firm.
Not shouted. Not panicked.
Just precise.
Albert was already moving, matching her angle without hesitation.
"Han-Xiao, eyes on those tendrils," she added, shifting her stance as another limb lashed toward them.
Han-Xiao slid into position behind her, visor scanning for predictive strike patterns, feeding information to the formation.
Yuri flanked from the opposite side, concussive shots hammering into exposed joints to slow the beast's advance.
They weren't reacting —
They were synchronizing.
Years of fighting together made their movement seamless.
A nod.
A shift in stance.
A half-second eye contact.
And Arika's team flowed around her like a shield of moving parts.
Rain mixed with sweat across their visors as they dug their heels in, forcing the Variant back inch by inch —
carving out the seconds Kaodin desperately needed behind them.
Kaodin winced as the change settled across his body.
Volcanic-red fur now wrapped his right arm, radiating a warmth for him, yet extreme ferocious heating wave sway by the wind radiating its lethal heat at every. Black tiger-stripes—first appearing along his left side—had fully crossed his torso and wrapped down into his right arm, forming dark channels that pulsed with heat. The limb itself remained the size of a boy's arm, but the Qi packed into it made the skin feel too small, too tight, too full.
The heat-elemental Qi-knuckle guard that once sat atop his skin no longer existed as armor.
It had melted inward.
What had been an outer layer was now part of him—fused into tendon, bone, and muscle, reshaping the limb into something primal. His fingers thickened and widened, each joint reinforced with Qi-hardened sinew until they resembled the palm and claws of a young tiger.
and at that sudden moment, his subconscious has alerted him, and he felt it that it's now ready, and he's certain that this shall not fail.
And so to signaling commander Arika and her group, immediately, he shouted,
"Wawa… with me."
A pulse from his inner consciousness, unmistakably there, inside him — as it always has been.
A wave of heat rolled across the field, slicing through the rain like a furnace door kicked open.
Yuri flinched first.
"Commander — heat spike!"
A sudden gust of scorching wind blasted toward the group, so abrupt that none of them could pinpoint its origin through the falling rain.
But then—
Kaodin appeared beside Commander Arika, already settled into a familiar Muaythai stance.
"Commander, everyone—thank you for holding the fort for me. Now let me return the favor. You fall back first."
"Commander, your order?" Han-Xiao asked, because none of them would move on anyone's request unless Arika confirmed it.
Arika nodded once, sharp and confident.
"Wanderer boy, we are grateful. Let's finish this quickly—then we can properly introduce ourselves, and I'll offer our gratitude back at SAI."
Kaodin answered with a fierce grin.
"This is my vengeance. He dared hurt my friend—so I'll get him."
Arika smiled back, then gave her subordinates the signal to fall back.
Ping… ping…
Han-Xiao's visor burst into a cascade of red warnings.
"Kaodin's reading just blew past calibration—he's beyond our sensors!"
Arika's visor echoed the alert.
A bead of rain struck her cheek—only to sizzle into steam before it slid off.
Heat shimmered around Kaodin like a furnace wrapped in rainfall.
Steam curled upward from the soaked ground.
Even the Variant paused, a guttural vibration rolling from deep in its chest—instinctively wary of the impossible heat building before it.
Arika snapped her whip-rapier back into its sheath as she and her team maneuvered into a defensive line around Nyla, who still lay unconscious on an emergency anti-gravity field stretcher—standard equipment that two members of every platoon were required to always carry.
Unleashing the punch!
Rain hissed on his skin and turned to steam.
The Variant swung a tendril, trying to crush him flat.
Kaodin slid in, weight light on the balls of his feet. His left forearm cut across the incoming limb, catching it near the joint. 'Salap-fan-pla'—.(Slip-Inward Palm Strike), He didn't stop the power — he turned it against the opponent.
The tendril's force glanced off his guard and slammed into the ground, tearing a deep groove through broken concrete, shards spraying up behind him. The impact boomed across the street, echoing off half-collapsed walls.
Kaodin was already moving.
He ducked low inside the monster's guard, breath short, eyes narrowed, the world narrowed to ribs, joints, and exposed plates.
The Variant tried to adjust, torso twisting to follow him.
Too slow.
Kaodin dropped his hips, coiled, then drove upward with both arms.
'Ta-Tain-Kum-Fuk'.—Double Rising Strike.