Kaiza had little time to react.The blade arrived faster than was thought possible a silver line, a ribbon of flame and destruction, splitting the air. His instinct screamed to move, but his body, still bruised and raw from the chasm, was too slow.A stabbing pain detonated in his side as the edge of the blade tore flesh, the impact slamming him down onto the vibrating black streets. Blood spattered in all directions, sizzling against the living ground on impact.Not abyssal. Not shadow-forged. Something else.Kaiza ground his teeth, his breaths harsh and erratic as he shoved himself upright, glaring at his assailant.And there they stood.A gauzy figure, draped in silver and fire, their form rippling in the half-light of the Hollow King’s domain. Their armor was not solid but fluid, shifting like seeping metal, pulsing with sinuous lines of deep crimson. As was their sword the weapon that had shredded him, tauntingly, bloodless of the same stuff, swinging between solid steel and liqu

A new presence placed a burden between Heaven and man.It was no mere arrival itas an invasion, a subversion of reality itself.The sky trembled; the Abyss quaked; everything in the Hollow City shook in the embrace of some inconceivable power, as if the very being of things rebelled at what had entered in.Kaiza swayed, ragged for breath, body yelling in wounds already delivered.That thing in Mina had nearly torn him asunder.Where her hand had passed through him, his soul still burned angony beyond that of flesh, beyond the physical.But this… this was worse.The Unseen Devourer didn’t descend from the sky like a deity.It did not emerge from the underworld like a demon.It was a vacuum untilt wasn’t.A crack in the world, a wound deeper even than the broken sky, gaped open like torn flesh. It did not step through. It never existed.It ate its way into being.Kaiza didn’t so much see it as feel it theunger.One that not only wanted to eatbut only wanted to gorge. A kind of energy t

Kaiza gasped in a rasping breath.His body protested, his bones heavy with fatigue, but he did not dare to shift.Mina or whatever wore her skin stood in front of him, with her head cocked as if she were an animal luxuriating in its prey, drinking him in with her coal-black eyes.The violet fissures snaking across her skin throbbed, shifting shape as if whatever was underneath the surface wasn’t quite done yet.The hooded figure was gone.No remains, no body, no leftover vibes. No, no absence, as though they were torn from reality itself.Kaiza clenched his jaw.That meant he was alone.With her.Mina stepped forward intentionally, her bare soles squealing against the splintered surface.It was a slow, considered movement, too unlike her usual.He saw her fingers flex, curling then extending outward like claws for a cat flexing its paw.Her lips curled in a cruel smile.“You’re frightened,” she said quietly.Kaiza tightened his grip on his sword.“Mina,” he said, voice low, steady.“F