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ARC: Back Attack Land
But at that exact moment... [The wall erupts in a shower of stone and dust.]
The wall beside them shattered into a thousand pieces.
Jin was launched through the debris and slammed with all his weight into Nani, dragging him to the floor.
The other men stood frozen in shock, aiming their weapons toward the massive hole in the wall.
Jin stood up slowly, taking difficult, ragged breaths.
Behind him, through the dust of the crumbled wall, a terrifying figure emerged: the Kiro.
He stood like a giant, his gaze frozen and expressionless.
One of the men tried to aim at Jin, but the giant moved faster.
He reached out his massive hand, grabbed the man by the throat, and began to choke him with ease before hurling him like a toy onto the others.
The man named Kiro looked at the other armed men with a gaze that turned their blood to ice.
"None of you touch my target," he said in a savage, perfectly calm voice.
Filled with anxiety, the men around him began to tremble and took several steps back.
Jin stood up in agonizing pain, feeling his bones shattered from the previous impact, but he refused to back down.
Kiro walked right past the wounded Nani as if he didn't even exist, heading straight toward Jin.
Jin spat blood onto the floor and clenched his fists, a wild smile forming on his lips.
"I'm going to make you forget your own name," he said defiantly.
At that same moment, Nani raised his sword to stab the demonic mouth, but before he could move... [The massive mouth ruptures with a violent force.]
The mouth exploded from the inside out, spraying blood everywhere and coating the entire corridor.
Through the wreckage of flesh, Ronika emerged, holding her two swords with a gaze so cold she looked like a stranger.
"Ronika? How did you become like this? What the hell..." Jin whispered, shocked by her new aura.
Before he could finish his sentence, Kiro lunged forward.
A devastating punch landed in Jin's stomach, launching him into the wall with incredible force.
Jin opened his eyes only to see Kiro already charging at him for the next strike.
With a lightning-fast movement, Jin snapped his head to the right.
Kiro's fist whistled past his ear and slammed into the wall, shattering the concrete until the iron rebar was exposed.
"Damn... what exactly are you?" Jin asked, feeling the sheer air pressure from the blow.
"The one who is going to finish you," Kiro replied in a voice that left no room for hope.
Kiro launched his attack, but Jin was ready.
He managed to dodge the first fist, which was so fast that he felt the air tear beside him.
Before Kiro could regain his balance, Jin struck him with a deafening slap.
It wasn't a simple hit; the slap created a shockwave of wind that sent Kiro stumbling back several steps.
"That was no ordinary strike... it's an ability," Kiro thought, wiping his face.
Without wasting a second, he lunged again, but this time his fist was covered in an eerie blue aura.
[A heavy impact reverberates through the room.]
The punch connected with Jin with such power that it launched him like a projectile.
Jin began smashing through one wall after another, piercing through entire rooms until he vanished into the debris.
At the same time, Ronika had transformed into an angel of death.
With her two swords, she was reaping the men around her.
She decapitated one, while with her other sword, she impaled the next one through the skull.
A man attacked her with a katana, but Ronika delivered a terrible kick, sending him flying away.
Suddenly, another man stood up and aimed a gun at her.
Ronika froze; she saw death staring her in the face as the man's finger pressed the trigger.
But for the second time... [The concrete structure shatters instantly.]
The wall beside her disintegrated, and Jin—who had been launched by Kiro's strike—crashed violently into the gunman, crushing him.
Ronika looked at him with pure hatred and rage.
"Get out of here, you bastard!" she screamed, cursing him.
"Go fight somewhere else, you're in our way!"
Jin stood up slowly from the wreckage, coughing up blood, but his gaze remained fixed on the direction from which Kiro was coming.
Kiro launched himself again with all his might, the blue aura completely enveloping his fist.
Jin managed to deflect Kiro's arm at the last second and countered with a massive punch of his own.
However, Kiro didn't feel a thing; he stood like an immovable mountain.
Jin coughed up blood in agony, his vision starting to blur.
"What am I seeing... what exactly is this aura?" Jin whispered, clutching his head.
"I hope these hits haven't started making me hallucinate," he muttered, but before he could react, Kiro grabbed him.
Kiro slammed him with such force that the floor shattered beneath them, dragging Jin down to the lower level.
Kiro looked at him and cracked his neck with a cold, hollow sound.
"It's more comfortable for a fight down here," Kiro said, his gaze empty and frozen.
Jin stared back at him, his entire body already drenched in blood and covered in wounds.
Ronika looked at the men, whose numbers had grown until they completely surrounded her.
Nani laughed hysterically, his eyes filled with malice. "Farewell, pretty girl," he sneered.
He snapped his fingers together, and the entire mob lunged at Ronika from every single direction.
They swarmed her with katanas, axes, and jagged knives, a tidal wave of steel closing in.
Ronika looked at them one last time with a cold, detached gaze.
She gripped her two swords so tightly that the purple aura began to bleed into her skin.
As the blades touched her clothes, Ronika slowly closed her eyes, letting the darkness take over.
Ronika snapped her eyes open and moved her body with such blinding speed it defied human limits.
She performed a violent spin with her two swords, and in a single blur of steel, the heads of the entire first line were severed, sent flying into the air.
The rest of the men scrambled back in terror, but before they could even process the horror, she was already gone.
Ronika moved past them like an invisible ghost; two men looked around in shock, only for her to suddenly materialize right between them.
They froze in place as she drove both katanas deep into their skulls with a [heavy, muffled impact.]
As another enemy lunged, she ripped her blades out, letting the two corpses slump to the ground.
With a brutal motion, she slammed her right katana into the next attacker's head, killing him instantly.
She gripped her single katana and blurred past a group of enemies, slicing through them as she moved.
A dozen men collapsed at once, and the entire hallway was instantly flooded with a thick river of blood.
Others tried to attack from behind, but Ronika performed a low slide across the bloody floor, cutting a man completely in half.
His upper torso slid off his legs as she retrieved her second katana from the air.
One final attacker charged with everything he had, but Ronika didn't even flinch.
She sliced through both of his legs, and as he fell, she drove both katanas through the top of his head, pinning him to the floor.
The remaining enemies stared at her, gripping their katanas tightly.
Ronika locked her gaze onto them—a hollow stare, stripped of even the smallest shred of mercy. Her knuckles turned white as her grip tightened around the hilts of her katanas.
As the mob surged toward her, a chaotic sea of glinting steel and guttural screams, the very air around her began to tremble.
Suddenly, her blades didn't just shine; they exploded.
An eerie, purple flame wreathed the metal, swallowing the dim light of the corridor. Before the attackers could even blink against the sudden intensity, she had already vanished into a haze of smoke.
"Shine Flame!"
There was no sound of footsteps, only the chilling hiss of the air being torn in two. Ronika tore through them like a violet lightning bolt, a shadow that left nothing but death in her wake.
For a heartbeat, there was absolute silence. Then, hell broke loose.
The men's bodies were engulfed in flames before they even realized they had been struck. Some tried to scream, but the sounds were drowned out by the spray of blood erupting from their severed throats.
Heads spun through the air in fiery vortices, torn clean from their shoulders, before hitting the floor with a sickening, heavy thud.
Those who remained collapsed like puppets with their strings cut, their flesh searing under the relentless purple fire.
Through the rising smoke and the stench of burnt iron, Ronika stood tall. Her blades were still smoldering, and her eyes, fixed forward, seemed to be staring directly into the abyss.
There stood one last enemy, armed with a spear.
He cursed at her, gripping his spear tightly, then charged with powerful thrusts.
But Ronika moved with lightning-fast reflexes.
[The weapon is sliced into fragments instantly.]
In an instant, she sliced his spear into pieces, along with his hands.
His fingers fell to the bloody floor as the man screamed in agony.
He turned his head, seeing Ronika already in a decisive attack stance.
Time itself seemed to slow down around him.
[A devastating strike splits the air and flesh.] TIME STOP SLASH!
She cut him clean in half.
His corpse fell, and blood splattered everywhere.
Ronika surveyed the carnage she had wrought: severed heads, scattered limbs, and countless bodies strewn across the floor.
Nani was walking calmly, a smug smile on his face, convinced that his men would easily finish off Ronika.
As he strolled, he noticed a river of blood flowing across the floor, reaching his feet.
Nani froze in his tracks.
He turned around and stood there, paralyzed with horror: every single one of his men was dead, a mountain of corpses.
Ronika was nowhere to be seen.
Panicked, Nani pressed his hands together in the shape of a mouth and screamed for Ronika to show herself, cursing her name.
Suddenly, before he could even react, a blur of steel moved with blinding speed.
[A sharp blade cuts through the air and bone.]
Ronika sliced through his arms; Nani let out a blood-curdling scream of agony.
[The body hits the ground with a heavy weight.]
Without a moment's hesitation, Ronika drove her right katana straight into his heart and the left one deep into his back.
She ripped them out with a spray of crimson and immediately plunged both katanas into his throat.
She slammed her foot into his stomach to push him away as she retracted her blades.
Nani stumbled back, clutching his throat as an unbelievable amount of blood gushed through his fingers.
"Arghhh... h-help..." he wheezed, choking on his own blood.
Ronika stood over him, her gaze empty and cold as ice.
"Where is Yuzana?" she asked, her voice calm and terrifying.