The others stared up in awe and horror.
The shieldbearer whispered:
"I've never seen Rex fight like this… This isn't a battle. It's a war."
The archer still pinned in the rubble muttered,
"That Runner… it's matching Rex blow for blow. He's Steel Rank, 120,000 feed count. That thing's keeping up."
The spearwoman trembled, leaning on her weapon.
"Unbelievable… This is insane! GO, REX! Fucking kill that nemesis already!"
Back on the battlefield. Rex and the Runner stood again, bloodied and bruised. Breathing heavy, no words passed between them. Only the promise of death in the next strike. And it was far from over.
Johnquis coughed hard.
Blood poured from the gash in his throat, running down his chest in rivulets. Every breath was a burning gasp, his vision blurred, and the roar of battle echoed in his ears like thunder through water.
But he refused to black out.
He pressed his palms against the broken floor, knelt on one knee, and shut his eyes.
"Focus… Draw it in. All of it. Channel the healing. Just one place… hold it together…"
The power of his Eater Stone pulsed in the back of his right hand. A dim swirl of unstable violet flickered beneath the skin.
His whole body trembled.
"I'm not dying here. Not before I stop this. Not before I fix everything."
Pain surged like fire through his veins. His skin turned a sickly pale. But then—
FLASH!
His eyes snapped open, burning a deeper violet than ever before. The air around him shimmered and bent as a hum rippled from his core. Sparks of violet and red crackled across his skin, swirling erratically.
[SYSTEM ALERT!]
— EATER FLOW IS UNSTABLE!
Across the battlefield, the spearwoman's eyes widened.
"What the hell is he doing?! HEY! STOP! One mistake and you won't come back from it!"
The shieldbearer shouted too, voice sharp with panic:
"KID! THAT NEMESIS IS BAD ENOUGH—DON'T MAKE US FIGHT YOU TOO IF YOU TURN!"
But Johnquis didn't listen. He poured more power into the wound, forcing the Eater flow to accelerate his healing. Blood gushed. His body shook.
"I WON'T GIVE UP! Not for them. Not for Jiana. Not for my slave.NOT NOW!"
The sparks grew violent, unstable.
[WARNING!]
— EATER FLOW IS CRITICALLY UNSTABLE!
The others looked at him in fear.
"Oh gods…"
Even the Runner hesitated, pausing mid-charge to glance at him. There was something in its eyes—concern.
Rex sneered.
"Hah… Eaters don't feel. You're worried for him? Then you should've watched me instead."
His blade slashed through the pause.
SHLIK!
The Runner cried out as one of its arms was severed clean.
"RAAAAAAH!!"
But Johnquis pushed himself harder just one more second. One more push. The wound on his throat began to knit. Muscle. Skin. Blood vessels. The flow slowed. Then stopped.
His voice returned as a harsh rasp, His eyes once burning dark violet dimmed, shifting back to silver. The glow faded. The sparks died out.
"I… I did it."
He looked up, chest heaving. The pain was fading. The healing held.
[EATER FLOW STABILIZED]
The others exhaled in loud relief. The shieldbearer muttered,
"Shit, that kid nearly gave me a heart attack…"
The spearwoman added, wiping sweat from her brow.
"Fucking hell… I thought we were about to watch him turn anomaly."
She tried to push herself up, wincing.
"Oof—yeah. I can finally feel my body again."
Johnquis immediately turned toward the fight. The Runner's arm was severed and Rex wasn't giving it a second to heal. He kept swinging his sawblade in brutal arcs, each strike forcing the creature back. The Runner dodged, barely, its movements sluggish from the injury.
Rex taunted, voice full of hate.
"So you're finally feeling pain? Good. That's nothing compared to what you did to me… to her. I'll make sure you feel every inch of it before you die."
Rex's blade danced in a violent rhythm each swing faster, harder, his strikes fueled not by strategy but by fury. The Runner, one arm now limp and bloodied, struggled to keep up. Its claws scraped against the tile as it retreated, panting, movement uneven.
Johnquis shouted, "Rex—STOP! You're going too far!"
He took a step forward but someone slammed into him from the side, dropping him hard to the ground. A blade pressed against his neck.
It was the spearwoman.
She pinned him, eyes cold, fury burning behind them.
"I can't let you ruin this fight. This is the revenge my captain's been waiting for. Don't make me finish you, leash boy."
"FUCK!"
Their shouts echoed through the ruined mall.
Not far off, the shieldbearer was helping the archer sit up.
"You alright?"
"Yeah… barely. My bones are still healing from when that asshole kicked me."
The shieldbearer chuckled grimly.
"Good. Don't blink. This fight's nearly over. The nemesis is weakening. When it started caring about that kid… that's when it sealed its fate."
The archer nodded, spitting blood.
"Finally… someone's putting an end to that monster. For every Eater Blade it devoured. They all deserve vengeance."
On the shattered floor ahead, the Runner and Rex clashed in a brutal storm of claws, kicks, and steel. The Runner's remaining arm twitched, struggling to regenerate but it couldn't focus. Not while Johnquis was pinned. Not while its instincts screamed.
Each of Rex's swings tore the floor apart—tiles shattered, walls buckled. Every kick from the Runner, pillars snapped and everything flew across the mall.
BOOOOM. BOOM. CRASH!
Johnquis watched in growing horror. The Runner's movements were getting sloppier. Injured, off-balance, and distracted.
Because of him.
Even now, it was worried for him. He muttered.
"Even now, you're worried about me. Don't be. Save yourself…"
The spearwoman screamed from behind,
"KILL THAT THING! END IT, REX!"
Voices clashed, shouts, steel, crashing stone. The mall was chaos. But all Johnquis could see was the Runner; bleeding, limping, still standing. His ears rang as Rex's squad screamed for blood.
He couldn't take it. His slave—no, his partner, only allywas about to die.
Rex stepped forward slowly, dragging his sawblade behind him. It shrieked as it moved, howling with barely contained power.
"You know what I unlocked the day I found Lex's body?"
He raised the weapon, eyes wild.
"This. Right here."
The blade thrummed, the air warping around it.
"You'll be the last thing it ever touches."
Wind howled through the ruined mall. Dust lifted. Debris began to hover. Johnquis's heart raced, he could feel the Eater Flow rippling out of Rex, unstable and boiling over.
The spearwoman stood in awe,
"Oh, shit—he's really gonna use it."
Johnquis's eyes burned bright. Silver turned to deep violet.
"BLADECALL."
Chains exploded from his hand. They wrapped the spearwoman's arms before she could react.
"Wha—HEY!"
With a fierce twist of his body, Johnquis rotated and slammed her into the ground.
WHAM!
She shrieked. He pulled the chains again.
CRACK!
Her shoulder dislocated. she screamed,
"AAGHHH!!"
He kicked her square in the gut. Blood spit from her mouth as she hit the tiles and stayed down, groaning.
"Arghhh, fucking asshole!"
Johnquis didn't look back. He ran. He ran and RAN.
"I'M NOT LETTING YOU DIE! NOT YOU!"