Naker moved at a speed that surpassed human perception. In a fraction of a second, he teleported behind Akos. His hand, acting like a blade, was ready to take his head, but Akos, reacting with pure survival instinct, leaned his whole body down, narrowly avoiding the strike.
The momentum of Naker's movement created a whirlwind that made the pavement tremble.
The snake heads sprouting from Naker's body lunged at Akos, but he was already gone. Naker, enraged by his opponent's agility, stomped his feet on the ground. The bridge's deck rose like a living wave.
Akos jumped onto the wave and, utilising the momentum, launched himself at Naker, nailing him with a fistful of red energy that cracked the air.
"What the hell...?" whispered Akos, looking at the creature that seemed to feel nothing.
Naker decided to end the game. A huge, suffocating snake sprang from his chest, trapping Akos in its jaws.
The grip was unbearable. The snake lifted him high into the sky. Akos tried to pry the jaws open, but the pressure was crushing him. Suddenly, the snake dissolved into mud and soil, leaving Akos falling into the void.
Before he could catch his breath, Naker was above him, driving a fist that sent Akos smashing through the walls of a nearby building.
Inside the luxurious offices of a real estate firm, the atmosphere was heavy. An irritated woman paced next to Gojo.
"Gojoru, you must accept this job! I don't care what you feel; we sell to rich idiots. That's all there is to it!"
Gojoru, with his back turned, stared at his coffee. "You know nothing of my past... Every day I feel like my end is approaching," he replied in a low, almost whispered voice.
"What are you talking about? Just take your coffee and—"
She didn't finish. A deafening noise shattered the wall. Akos, covered in dust and blood, was blasted into the room, landing between them.
The woman stood paralysed in shock. Gojoru, however, looked at Akos with a strange, shocked expression, as if he recognised something amidst the chaos.
Akos wiped himself off and took off his jacket. "Starting with the heavy stuff, huh?" he said with a bitter smile. "Stand aside; it's my turn now."
"Who are you? What is happening?" the woman screamed, but Naker gave no time for explanations. The creature smashed through all the floors of the building, reaching Akos in seconds. He grabbed him by the neck and threw him back outside, through the walls, like a rag doll.
Akos, flying through another building, tried to counter-attack. He formed the sign with his fingers, a pistol.
[ABSOLUTE Technique]: Deadly. A small, black energy orb shot with terrifying speed towards Naker.
But the creature vanished in a fraction of a second, avoiding it. Before Akos could understand what happened, the snakes sprouting from Naker had wrapped around him, immobilising his arms. The creature prepared to plunge its claws directly into Akos's stomach.
In the final, desperate heartbeat before Naker's claws could pierce his flesh, Akos forced his will upon the world around him. He triggered the TOTSUGEK FIELD. Reality warped. An invisible, humming dome shimmered into existence, distorting the space between him and the monstrosity. Naker's strike, which should have disembowelled him, veered wildly off-course, the claws carving deep, useless furrows into the pavement. The snakes that had been coiled around Akos whipped backward, caught in the repulsive gravity of the field, lashing out at the empty air.
Akos collapsed, his lungs burning, his knees hitting the concrete with a sickening thud. "Damn it... this enemy... he has too much power," he wheezed, blood dripping from his chin.
The reprieve was short-lived. Naker, indifferent to the distortion, simply ploughed forward. He didn't care where he stepped. He crashed into a stationary car, crushing it flat against the pavement like an aluminium can. Inside, the muffled scream of a civilian was silenced instantly as metal and flesh were fused into a singular, grotesque heap of ruin. Akos watched, horrified, realising that Naker wasn't just a warrior—he was a natural disaster that didn't distinguish between him and the innocent.
"I don't understand," Akos muttered, his mind reeling. "How is he suppressing my techniques? How is he erasing my abilities?"
He didn't have time to ponder. Naker lunged again, a kinetic blur. Before Akos could react, a colossal fist connected with his ribs. The sound was like a thunderclap. Akos was sent flying, spiralling through the air until he slammed into a concrete wall with enough force to liquefy organs. He slumped to the ground, spitting a mouthful of copper-tasting blood. His vision blurred, swimming in and out of focus.
"He's not just blocking", Akos realised, the terrible truth dawning on him. "He's cancelling. He's dissolving the very foundation of my power."
Pain flared, white-hot and blinding, as he tried to stand. His stomach felt like it had been shredded. Naker stood over him, raising his hand in the air. A surge of raw, serpentine malice gathered at his palm. [SLASH SNAKE]. A massive, blade-like projection of solidified energy erupted from the beast's arm, screaming toward Akos like a guillotine of shadow.
Akos closed his eyes, accepting the inevitable. Death was coming.
SCREECH.
The sound of burning rubber and tortured metal shattered the air. A flash of yellow paint blinded the night as a taxi—Huga's taxi—ploughed into the path of the energy blade. The vehicle was obliterated, metal twisting and flying in every direction, but the intervention had succeeded. The blow was diverted.
Akos blinked, his head ringing. "Eh...?"
Smoke billowed from the wreckage of the taxi, but out of the twisted hood crawled Huga. He was bleeding and his clothes were shredded, but he was laughing. A manic, unhinged laugh that echoed off the surrounding buildings.
"Hahahaha! Did you see that, buddy? Did you see the look on that thing's face?" Huga shouted, stumbling toward Akos, his eyes wild with adrenaline.
"Huga? "What are you doing here? "Akos!" he yelled, panic rising in his chest. "It's too dangerous! Why did you—"
"Doesn't matter!" Huga beamed, his smile wide and obsessive. "I'm buying a 500cc speed racing machine, man! I'm going to enter the King Oil tournament! I'm going to win it all, every single race, hahaha!"
Akos felt a flicker of hope, a faint smile touching his lips. But—"
"Forget the buts!" Huga reached out, offering a hand to help Akos up.
Akos gripped Huga's hand, but before he could even stand, the air split. A precise, clean cut sliced through the space where they stood. Huga's body went rigid. His eyes widened, not in pain, but in sheer bewilderment.
Then, with the sound of tearing parchment, Huga's body was bisected from the shoulder down to the hip. His hand, still gripping Akos's, dropped to the pavement with a heavy, wet thud.
Huga fell, his severed torso collapsing in front of Akos. Even in his final seconds, the man still wore that crazed, joyous smile.
Akos stared, his mind going completely blank. "Eh...?"
Then, the scream tore out of him. "HUGA! WHY?! WHY DID YOU DO THAT?" Akos roared, his voice cracking with agony. He scrambled to his feet, rage and grief burning through the physical pain, ignoring the blood pouring from his lips.
He pushed past his limits, his hands snapping into the final gesture. [ABSOLUTE Technique: Energetic].
Two spheres, one black as the void and one red as fresh blood, erupted from his fingertips. They collided in the air, spinning into a blinding, electric-blue orb of pure condensed energy. It hummed with the weight of a dying star. He hurled it at Naker.
But Naker didn't flinch. The beast raised a single hand. As the blue orb struck, Naker's palm glowed with a sickly, void-like light. Cancelled. Dissolved. The energy simply vanished, the blue light snuffing out like a candle in the wind.
Naker stepped forward, his fist winding back. The strike that followed was a catastrophe. It connected with Akos, driving him through the building behind him, through the support beams, and out the other side.
The shockwave levelled the city block, turning the world into a storm of concrete dust and despair.
Amidst the ruins, Huga, gasping his last breaths, looked up at the ceiling that was no longer there. He coughed, spraying blood, and whispered, "You... you have to win, Akos... the race... don't let... don't let them..." His head lolled to the side, and the light in his eyes flickered out, leaving Akos alone in the silence of the destruction.
The dust hung heavy in the stagnant air, thick enough to choke on. Every ragged breath Akos drew tasted of pulverised concrete and old blood.
His legs were gone—not severed, but obliterated, pinned under the crushing weight of the collapsed ceiling. He had tried to push, to crawl, but the agony was a white-hot spike driving directly into his spine, forcing him back against the cracked wall.
He wasn't going anywhere.
A rhythmic thud-drag-thud echoed through the wreckage. It wasn't the sound of debris settling. It was deliberate. Calculated.
Akos tilted his head back, his neck straining, his vision swimming in dark, dizzying patches. A shadow stretched out across the jagged floorboards, elongated and unnatural, cast by the flickering light of a dying ember somewhere nearby.
It stopped.
The silhouette belonged to Naker.
Akos watched, his heart hammering a frantic, uneven rhythm against his ribs, as the shadow grew larger, darker, closer.
He tried to reach for the pistol holstered at his hip, but his fingers were numb, dead weights that refused to obey his frantic commands.
Closer. Naker didn't run. He walked with the casual, terrifying ease of a man who knew he had all the time in the world. He was savouring the silence.
Akos pressed his head back against the cold stone, closing his eyes for a split second, praying for a miracle he knew wouldn't come. When he opened them again, the boots were only a few feet away.
The shadow loomed over him, blotting out the light entirely.