The air reeked of a nauseating mixture of sulfur and despair.
"Welcome, everyone, to my playground."
An elegant voice dripping with malice echoed above their heads.
All eyes turned skyward to behold the figure from their intelligence reports—Magaki, a hauntingly beautiful man with flowing otherworldly hair, hovering gracefully in the air. He gazed down at them with the expression of a scientist observing lab rats.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Magaki," he said, his face adorned with a gentleman's veneer of a false smile. "The final gatekeeper of this little game."
"So? What do you think of this stage I've so carefully prepared for you all? Do you like it?"
"Magaki! How dare you—"
Just as everyone stood frozen by Magaki's terrifying power and eerie entrance, an angry voice cut through from another direction!
A portal of black stone materialized beside Magaki, and the "stone man" Mukai—the one Cloud had punched into an existential crisis during the last tournament—slowly stepped through.
But this time, he carried no air of supreme arrogance. Only uncontrollable rage.
"Magaki!" Mukai pointed at the fighters below and roared, "You've violated the Master's commands! The Master decreed that we must not directly interfere with the KOF tournament! Our purpose is only to test this era's strongest warriors—to see if they're worthy of surviving the new age when the Master descends!"
"What are you doing?! You've dragged them into your dimensional rift! Are you trying to... annihilate them all?!"
Faced with Mukai's accusations, Magaki showed not the slightest hint of restraint. Instead, he laughed.
It was a laugh filled with contempt and mockery, looking down from on high.
"Heh heh... Mukai, my dear colleague," Magaki spoke in his elegant tone, as if reciting poetry. "You're still so... naive."
"Testing? Survival qualification?" His eyes flashed with undisguised disdain. "Do you really think the Master cares whether these ant-like, lower life forms live or die?"
"They're nothing but the finest sacrifices for the Master's resurrection ritual! Their power, their despair, their deaths... all will become the sweetest nourishment for the Master's return to this world!"
"I'm simply... preparing these ingredients for the Master ahead of schedule."
"Mukai! Let me say this again! The ultimate goal of our operation is to liberate Orochi and use its power as Earth's Will to completely erase these pathetic, ugly, insect-like humans from this timeline!"
"Humans may be weak, but their civilization, their emotions, their potential—all have value," Mukai said gravely. "Our mission is to guide history, not to brutally destroy it. We could coexist peacefully with humans, even become their gods, receiving their worship and faith."
"Gods? Hahahaha!" Magaki burst into piercing laughter as if he'd heard the greatest joke. "Mukai, you're laughably naive! Coexist peacefully with insects? Are you insulting our noble bloodline?!"
"Let me tell you—the only truth is power! Only by seizing everything in your own hands, by completely erasing all uncertainties, can you create the most perfect history!"
"You...!" Mukai's body trembled with extreme fury.
He couldn't comprehend Magaki's pure "evil"—this mindset that treated all living things as worthless.
In Mukai's view, although humans were inferior, they possessed an indomitable quality, a capacity for constant evolution, even the ability to create "miracles"! They were worthy "opponents" deserving of respect!
He respected power, respected the strong. That's why he chose to test humanity through honorable combat.
Magaki was the complete opposite.
He despised humans to his very core. He believed humans were just pathetic, ugly "insects" fit only to be dominated and toyed with by "higher beings" like themselves!
What he enjoyed was manipulation, torment—watching these "insects" struggle and die in despair!
On the fundamental question of how to treat humanity, the two held irreconcilable differences!
This was their massive divide in "corporate culture"!
"Magaki, you're playing with fire!" Mukai's voice now carried a warning. "The Master's plan allows for no mistakes! Your unauthorized actions could very well attract that variable's attention!"
The "variable" he referred to was, naturally, the man who had punched him into submission—Cloud.
"Variable? You mean that man called Cloud?" At this name, Magaki's smile became even more playful and cruel. "Heh heh... a mortal who could defeat you is indeed... quite interesting."
"But that's all it is."
"Before my spatial laws, his so-called power is utterly worthless."
"I even... look forward to personally tearing him into countless dimensional fragments, then watching that face that always wears a calm smile twist into despair... What a beautiful picture that would be."
"You... you've gone completely mad!" Mukai stared at his colleague who had completely lost himself in delusions, eyes filled with rage and... a hint of helplessness.
He knew he could no longer stop this lunatic.
"Mad? No, I simply understand better than you how to please the Master."
Magaki dismissed Mukai and turned his gaze back to the fighters below, all now in battle-ready stances.
"So then, my sacrifices," his voice echoed through the dimensional space like a demon's whisper, "let the games... begin."
"Who shall be my first appetizer?"
A villain-on-villain conflict complete with "office politics" and "corporate culture clashes" had just played out before everyone's eyes.
And the outcome of this infighting foretold just how cruel and hopeless the coming battle would be.
Because they now faced an opponent who played by no rules—a pure lunatic whose only joy was tormenting his victims!
...
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