The alleyway is a narrow throat of damp brick and rain-slicked pavement. Behind them, the screams from the Registration Center echo through the buildings, but the chaos is already catching up. Lyza’s fingers are locked around Janus’s arm, her knuckles white as she tries to drag him deeper into the shadows.

  "Why did you stop? Why are you staring at the sky?" she cries, her voice cracking with terror. "Are you trying to die just because you got a bad Rank? Let’s go!"

  Janus feels a surge of energy through his core. It isn't the smooth hum of Mana; it is a jagged, grinding Static that makes his teeth ache. He isn't sure if it is the Codex Stone’s gift or the Abomination’s taint, but he feels heavier, more grounded. With a sharp twist, he easily wrenches his arm free from her. Lyza stumbles back, her eyes wide with shock. She has never known him to be this strong.

  "Calm down, Lyza," Janus says, his voice dropping to a low, unnatural vibration. "The creature is not going to kill me. It... it talked to me."

  Lyza doesn't hear him. Her gaze has shifted over his shoulder, and her face twists into a mask of pure horror. A massive shadow eclipses the alley. It is a Mana-Leech, a giant, winged bug the size of a carriage. Its front legs are jagged like a praying mantis, while its rear is a mass of writhing tentacles. Two wicked horns protrude from a head that ends in a spiked, tubular trunk designed to pierce a human thorax and drain their life essence.

  The creature’s wings and many of its tentacles are shredded, cleanly sectioned by a Hunter’s blade from high above. It is falling, crashing toward them with a wet, heavy thud. As it lands, it begins to thrash, its very presence radiating a psychic pressure that stabs like needles into the brain.

  Lyza screams, her hands flying to her face as she begins to scratch at her own skin in a fit of madness. Janus feels the pressure too, but his mana seems to act like a shield, absorbing the worst of the psychic rot. He has a split second to decide: help his friend or kill the beast.

  He chooses Lyza. He focuses his mana, reaching for the familiar patterns he practiced in secret at his father’s house. To his surprise, the mana responds with terrifying speed. He doesn't just nudge it; he commands it. He weaves a protective bubble of energy around Lyza’s head. The moment the shroud takes hold, her thrashing stops. She slumps against the wall, staring at her blood-stained hands with a dazed, inquisitive expression.

  Janus turns his attention to the monster. The Mana-Leech is still stunned from its fall. Nearby, the impact has shattered a brick wall, exposing several long, rusted rebar rods. Janus grabs one, his hands finding a familiar grip. His mother forced him through thousands of hours of warrior training, and for the first time in his life, he is grateful for her zeal.

  He takes a striking pose, holds the rebar like a longsword, and charges. He leaps, bringing the metal rod down with every ounce of his strength toward the creature’s skull.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  PANG.

  The rebar vibrates so violently his hands go numb. He expected to carve a hole through the chitin, but he only manages a shallow dent. The Mana-Leech hisses, fully awake now. It swings a horn, catching Janus in the ribs and sending him staggering. He lunges again, striking twice more, but the blows are like pebbles against a tank. The creature lashes its trunk like a whip, slamming into the rebar. The metal recoils violently, snapping back against Janus’s head. His vision blurs from the impact as the force hurls him backward, crashing into a pile of trash.

  Even after years of secret training, even with the "gift" in his chest, his physical body is still weak. He feels pathetic.

  "Let’s run, Lyza!" he shouts, limping back toward her. He tries to lift her, but she is a dead weight.

  "I can’t move," she sobs, the tears streaming down her face. "Just go, Janus. Save yourself."

  "Never," Janus growls.

  He stands his ground between Lyza and the creeping horror. He cannot win with steel, so he reaches for the power that does not belong to this world. He begins to manifest a destructive ball of mana. A year ago, this would have been a flickering blue light. Now, a high-pitched, screeching Static fills the alley.

  The ball is blue on the outside, but the center is a jagged, flickering void. It looks like a mini-rift has opened in his palm. The air around it distorts and blurs, as if the world is failing to render. Janus is transfixed by the wrongness of it. When the pressure becomes unbearable, he hurls it like a baseball.

  The ball doesn't just hit the creature; it erodes it. It does not act like a solid object, but like a localized deletion of space. It moves through the Mana-Leech’s head and thorax like a hot knife through butter, leaving a perfectly circular, gaping hole of nothingness in its wake. There is no blood, no splatter, just a missing section of reality.

  The creature slumps, stone dead.

  Uncreation. The word floated in Janus's mind as if he had always known it, even though he had never heard it before. He stared at the impossible hole in the beast’s chest, realizing he hadn't just killed it; he had deleted it.

  Janus falls to his knees, exhausted. He had used all his Mana to produce this ball of destruction. Now that he was running on fumes, he could only look around, astonished by what he had just done. Lyza scrambles toward him, her eyes darting between the dead bug and her friend. "We need to go to my father’s store," she whispers, her voice urgent. "We need to talk. I know a way out of the main streets."

  She hauls him up. As they stumble out of the alleyway, the roar of a high-powered engine fills the air. They look up to see a sleek, armored transport ship lifting off from the sector heights. Two high-ranked Hunters fly alongside it, their blades glowing as they swat away any monster that approaches the craft. Janus sees golden hair in one of its windows and recognizes Rick.

  "Rick is in that ship," Janus mutters, watching the golden light of the thrusters disappear into the clouds.

  "Of course he is," Lyza spats, her pity replaced by a cold, sharp bitterness. "They'll do anything to save their golden boy. We peasants get to fend for ourselves while he gets a private escort. Typical."

  She pulls him into the shadows of a side street, her gaze fixed on the path ahead.