From the western edge of City F to its ruined center, the devastation was complete. The central district was nothing but collapsed structures, scorched rubble, and the scattered remains of Gigax Aries—blown apart by the impact of the meteor Allen had brought down.
Once the civilians finally emerged from the bunkers, Shinobi, Titan, and the remaining heroes were immediately placed under arrest within the Federation's administrative facility. The city's mayor had issued a censure motion against the local Heroic Federation branch, and the courts had begun treating every hero as a criminal.
With the sole exception of Allen, all heroes were now confined inside Federation headquarters, awaiting the tribunal's verdict.
Shinobi sat quietly on a chair, hands folded, his mind outwardly calm. The others trained relentlessly to occupy themselves, but even Shinobi felt the pressure. Yes, he had exposed the Federation's corruption… but at the cost of losing the chance to explain the intention behind everything the heroes of City F had done.
Titan rushed toward him with panic carved across his face.
"Shinobi—Allen… Allen is—!"
Shinobi snapped his gaze toward one of the screens.
His heart froze.
Allen, now wearing a gray suit and wielding a scythe, was fighting against police officers in the middle of the street.
---
After unleashing his final attack, Allen had wandered aimlessly through the ruined city, clutching the left side of his chest with trembling fingers.
"Why…? Why does it hurt so much…?"
His eyes glimmered with a pale light as tears streamed down his cheeks—thick rivers spilling from a grief he could no longer contain.
"What good is anything I do… if she's no longer here?"
He collapsed to his knees and screamed, while the Stones in his pockets pulsed with a blinding, anguished glow.
A nearby chunk of debris split apart. From the dust emerged a small floating sphere of pitch-black energy drifting toward him. Allen stared at it through his tears and slowly extended a hand.
"So this is the only way…? Is hatred—the pain I'm drowning in—the only path left for me to follow?"
He grasped the black sphere.
Black light swallowed him whole.
His staff shattered. The remaining Stones lost their color, turning lifeless and gray.
When the darkness faded, Allen stood in a gray suit. From each eye ran a single tear—glossy and black—leaving two symmetrical streaks down his face.
"Sorrowful Knight... Style..."
He raised his hand. A black liquid poured from his palm, stretching, twisting, until it took the shape of a scythe. It solidified once Allen gripped the weapon's shaft.
"Hated... Sorrow Weapon."
As he walked, long-buried emotions surged violently within him.
He felt hate—for himself, for Calibur, for Aegis and all their experiments. He felt cold indifference toward whatever might happen next. Yet above all else, he felt only sorrow.
When he turned a corner, a police officer spotted him and raised his firearm. Allen met his gaze with empty, lifeless eyes.
"Are you going to shoot? Go on. It doesn't change the fact that I fall in love too easily… and that I fell for the wrong person."
A gunshot echoed.
A heartbeat later, the officer's upper and lower halves slid apart. The blade of Allen's scythe dripped fresh blood.
"She was supposed to be different… I thought she would accept me… but I was wrong."
Something inside Allen cracked—sharply, painfully.
His heart convulsed, pumping violently as though it were tearing itself apart from the inside. Allen clutched his chest, grimacing.
"Please… I just wanted someone to understand…"
The pain worsened. It felt like a burning knife driven straight into his heart.
A voice whispered in his mind.
"Everyone hurts you. They lie. They hide who they really are. They never accept you."
A single black tear rose from Allen's cheek and hovered in the air, glowing with a malevolent light.
"Do it. No one ever changes. Everyone will hurt you in the end. They will never accept you."
Allen's right eye turned entirely black—its iris glowing crimson—while he lifted the scythe above his head.
The blade shifted to a violet hue, wrapped in a dark aura. Allen's lips twisted into a broken smile.
"Greater Star Burst."
The world stopped.
Wind ceased to blow. Sound vanished.
Allen swung—cutting the black tear.
The resulting detonation engulfed the entire city in a single, all-consuming blast.
That day marked the birth of a new villain—captured by the Federation's satellites—the emergence of an S-Rank threat. It was also the day City F vanished in its entirety.
Aegis hardly cared about the city's destruction. But Allen's abnormal strength did trouble him.
He immediately issued an order for Allen's capture.
But to his surprise, Allen—along with Shinobi, Titan, the minor heroes, and every civilian—had vanished.
---
When Aegis finally arrived at the site where City F had once stood, he found only a massive crater stretching for hundreds of kilometers.
He crouched near the edge of the chasm.
"He's maturing… The Evolution Gene is forcing him to grow."
Clad in white armor trimmed with gold, Aegis touched the fractured rim of the crater and came to a realization.
"So that's it. He released too much power at once… and created a wormhole. He and the entire city fell through."
He stood, smiling broadly, and took out his phone.
"Allen has jumped across space. I want five of you to pursue him. Capture him alive—do whatever you wish with the heroes and civilians. Elisse, you'll lead the team."
He dropped the phone to the ground and walked away, a satisfied smile etched across his face.