Blood began to slowly drench Jorgen. Each drop slid down his face, thick and hot. The Medusa was on the brink of death, yet she still moved with a ferocity that forced him back step by step, overpowering him.

  "Shit… hurry up, brat," Jorgen growled through clenched teeth, feeling his own pulse beginning to lose its rhythm.

  As if those words had been a signal, Nene’s voice burst out from the distance.

  "I-I found another one! Come here!"

  There was hope in that voice—young, trembling, but still believing they could get out alive.

  Jorgen used one more technique; a fsh sliced through the air, forcing distance between him and Arghnipraksma. Then he broke into a sprint toward Nene, feeling his muscles tighten with every stride, fueled by pure frustration.

  This would be his st chance.

  If he didn’t do it now, he would never take the Bizarre’s core. He wouldn’t get the money. He wouldn’t fulfill the promises he made to his beloved daughter.

  He had to take advantage of the fact that that thing would charge at them in a frenzy to stop Nene from activating her Resonance. He would trust that the brat would be fast—immobilize the Bizarre—and then he would rip out her Core with his Resonance.

  And just as he expected, the Bizarre chased him instantly, leaving behind a viscous trail of blood; her face twisted with desperation.

  "Now!" he shouted.

  Nene opened the exit immediately. The orange light of the portal illuminated her face, just as hope filled it. Jorgen reached her side with his greatsword raised, ready to activate his Resonance, ready to calcute the exact location—

  "…It didn’t stop?" Jorgen whispered, incredulous.

  The Medusa spat blood, staggered for a second… but recovered her pace, only slightly slower.

  Jorgen’s heart stopped. His pn had been discarded before he could even set it in motion. That thing had already adapted… to the phenomenon that made her colpse when the dome was damaged.

  He understood the truth in a single heartbeat: he was going to die. They both were.

  It wasn’t the fact that he only had one functional arm—that he could solve by burning through nearly all his Vitality. No, the problem was that his brain didn’t have enough time to calcute the core’s position.

  His Resonance had two modes: Bite and Sever. Bite allowed him to “steal” parts of his target. The problem was that he needed to know the exact location with precision. That required time.

  Time he no longer had.

  He knew where the Core was, yes. But not precisely. The Medusa, though she mimicked a woman’s body, was rger.

  If only… if only that thing were smaller, he could calcute the position instantly.

  "Hurry, Mr. Jorgen! I don’t think I can hold it much longer!"

  Rosa’s image—coughing in her hospital bed—overpped with the terrified face of the brat. For a moment, he hesitated. Then his daughter’s smile erased everything else.

  Her torso… he only needed her torso to be smaller. Like that of an average woman.

  "Faster, Mr. Jorgen! I can’t-!"

  And then he saw it, in a fraction of a second.

  A woman of average size. With normal torso proportions. Measurements… that he could calcute in less than a second to use his Resonance.

  His body moved before his consciousness fully understood what he was doing.

  "Huh?" Nene barely had time to react.

  An instant ter, she felt her body violently shoved forward. She didn’t even have time to brace herself. Or scream. She only felt the air slice against her skin as she flew—straight toward the Medusa.

  "…I’m sorry, brat. I’ll pay for this in hell when I die."

  The creature paused as Nene’s body crashed into her, confused by the incomprehensible movement.

  That was her fatal mistake.

  Standing still, holding the human in the perfect position.

  "Technique Deployment: Swordsman I — Ssh ; Connect [Bite (Neonphy Nerlhyta > Arghnipraksma / Third Intercostal Space -> Heart / Core)]" (10 R.P)

  Jorgen unleashed his technique mercilessly.

  Nene’s torso—more precisely, her heart—aligned perfectly with the spot where Jorgen had glimpsed the Core before. With that reference, the Hunter managed to steal both the Core… and an innocent heart.

  Nene didn’t have time to understand. Not even to think.

  She felt a sharp, horrible, viscous pain. As if the entire world were tearing apart inside her body.

  "ARGH—!"

  Her scream broke before it could fully escape.

  The greatsword pierced her left side, through the third intercostal space, as if she were nothing more than soaked paper. The metal, hot and vibrating with Resonance, shattered ribs, flesh, and skin. And it also pierced through the Medusa’s chest behind her.

  Blood gushed from her mouth in a choking gurgle. A mix of saliva and dark red that tasted like iron and terror. White spots flooded her vision as the blood pouring from her own body spshed over the Medusa’s distorted face, frozen in absolute disbelief.

  With one final movement of his hand, Jorgen maneuvered the greatsword. The tip drove deeper, widening the wound, ripping the Bizarre’s Core free at the same time it finished tearing through Nene’s side.

  She felt something inside her chest colpse.

  Jorgen’s voice—trembling but steady—was the st thing she heard.

  "…I’m sorry. I really am, kid. Goodbye."

  And without looking back, without waiting for a response, without carrying the weight of the life he had just destroyed, he disappeared through the exit created by the very person he had betrayed.

  "Eh…"

  It was the only thing that managed to escape Nene’s lips. Her voice was not a question, not even a conscious sound. It was an empty reflex. Her mind gged behind, unable to catch up to what had just happened, as if the world had moved one step too fast.

  Then the pain came.

  An unnatural, brutal pain that gave no warning and no mercy. Something burning and sharp exploded inside her chest, piercing her from the left side. It was not a clean strike—it was butchery. The bde tore through lung, muscle, ribs… and with them, the absurd hope that all of this was just a bad dream.

  Her body convulsed. The air left her lungs in a broken gasp that never fully returned.

  Before she could scream, before she could even understand, her body colpsed against that monstrous Ethereal. The Medusa didn’t seem capable of moving either—whether from the shock of witnessing such a brutal betrayal… or from the loss of her core. No one could know.

  The only truth was that the creature wrapped Nene in its trembling arms.

  And together, they fell.

  The bck water of the cave devoured them in silence.

  "Argh…"

  Nene vomited blood so thick and hot it choked her. She tried to crawl, to drag herself toward the exit that still burned in her memory, to get away from the Ethereal… but her arms wouldn’t respond. Her legs were strangers.

  Fear slid down her spine like ice.

  And then the dark dome trembled.

  A deep cracking sound, as if hundreds of thousands of fractures were forming across the dome’s bck shell.

  And then—

  BOOM!

  An explosion from outside shook everything. The force tore her from the Medusa’s embrace, hurling her through the air like a broken doll. Her body smmed against the bck walls again and again; the entire dome seemed to twist the same way her body was breaking.

  Until everything ended abruptly.

  The dome shattered.

  Releasing her body into the air, only for it to violently crash down seconds ter onto the ground. A ft, metallic white surface, stained red.

  Her red.

  “…Where had she… fallen?”

  With an effort that bordered on impossible, she forced her eyelids open.

  The world she saw made no sense.

  Her body had twisted in such a way that she could see the sky… or what seemed to be one. Holographic panels formed an artificial vault, imitating a white sky. At its center, suspended, shone a white sun.

  The image was bizarre—so much so that it distracted her mind from the fact that her body was utterly broken.

  For a second.

  Then she breathed.

  And the pain returned with a repulsive violence, running through every nerve that had not yet snapped. Each inhale was torture, each exhale a threat of death.

  She didn’t know where she was.

  But she understood something with cruel crity.

  "I… see…" she murmured. "They left me behind…"

  A small ugh escaped her ruined lips. Dry. Empty.

  "Ha… ha… Once again… abandoned… Ha… ha… ah… ngh…!"

  The ughter broke apart. Tears spilled without permission, rolling down her bloodstained face. How had it ended like this? This time she had tried. She truly had. She had given everything her weak body could offer.

  And still—

  Nothing.

  Her efforts had meant nothing.

  As she waited for her body to finally give in, for death to have the decency to arrive already, the ground around her trembled.

  Her eyes, unable to focus properly, dragged themselves toward the source of the movement.

  A figure, crawling pathetically across the floor. Though, well, it wasn’t like she was in any position to judge.

  She didn’t need to see its face.

  From the way its arm stabbed into the white metal, from its bluish body stained with dried blood, and those tentacles—once so lethal—now writhing wildly; she knew who it was.

  …The Medusa…

  "Ah… are you going to kill me?"

  She asked as she watched that being drag itself until it loomed over her.

  Its purple blood bathed her face.

  So this was her end, huh?

  Beaten. Abandoned. And now, about to be devoured.

  "…It’s fine… I don’t… really… mind…"

  The words drowned in blood. Her own body refused to let her finish the sentence, as if even it rejected that surrender.

  "I…" she sobbed, gurgling. "I… I don’t want to die…"

  "…Die… don’t… want?"

  The Medusa repeated her words, its voice now like a soft drizzle of rain.

  She felt something fall onto her face.

  A warm liquid.

  Tears.

  "Eh…?" she whispered. "You… don’t either?"

  That thing had just said it didn’t want to die either, right?

  Ha… Who would have thought. Even Ethereals feared death.

  She didn’t know if it was delirium, the fear of dying alone, or the nearness of the end—but Nene decided to say what had always frustrated her.

  "…You know?" she said between ragged breaths. "I haven’t lived at all… it was always… just surviving… But I wanted to… experience… a normal life…"

  She coughed. Every word stole the few seconds of life she had left.

  The Ethereal, just as dying, leaned even more heavily over her, as if trying to understand.

  "Sleeping… eating… I even wanted to… try… going out with… Linx… Heh… How embarrassing to admit that…"

  "…Live?"

  "Live…" Nene smiled ironically, her breathing in pieces. "A-Are you asking… if I want to keep living?"

  She was spending her final moments with a monster. And yet, her heart was grateful not to die alone. Even if that thing would kill her, it felt better than absolute solitude… or maybe Nene had simply gone mad from the pain.

  Who knows.

  The only thing she knew for sure was—

  "Yes…" she whispered. "I would’ve liked… to go to the beach… feel the sun… sleep in…"

  She closed her eyes.

  The st tears fell.

  "…Living in peace… would’ve been beautiful…"

  And in that broken silence, Nene let out her final breath.

  Ouro