The Giant Devils charge like a living avalanche, their massive claws shredding the pavement. Akos grabs Ruka's arm, sprinting toward a nearby high-rise as debris rains down around them.
"This is your 'Let me cook' plan?! You're an idiot, Akos!" Ruka screams over the roar of collapsing buildings.
"Shut up and run!" Akos barks. "I'm gathering them all in one spot!"
The monsters smash through everything in their path, their 13-meter frames leveling structures like they were made of toothpicks. Akos and Ruka vault through a shattered window, racing up the internal stairs as the entire building groans under the impact of the giants' fists.
They reach the rooftop just as a massive, furred maw opens wide, lunging to swallow them whole. In a sudden, violent motion, Akos grabs Ruka by the waist and flings her with superhuman strength high into the air.
Ruka gasps, momentarily frozen as she soars above the battlefield. Below her, dozens of red eyes track her movement; the devils tilt their heads back, their jaws unhinging to catch her like a falling morsel.
But Akos isn't finished. He slams his palms against the rooftop and roars:
"ZAMKA!"
Instantly, the air freezes. The laws of physics surrender. Buildings, trees, jagged rocks, and the massive devils themselves are ripped from the ground. Gravity reverses, dragging everything toward a single point in the sky.
The monsters howl in confusion as they are sucked upward, their massive bodies colliding and snapping as they are compressed into a giant, swirling sphere of destruction. The orb pulses with a black energy that drips like thick, cosmic ink, vibrating with enough force to shatter the atmosphere.
Suddenly—BOOM.
The sphere detonates. It isn't fire or wind that erupts, but a wave of pure decomposition. The black energy screams outward in every direction, dissolving the matter of the devils until nothing remains but falling ash.
Ruka hits the ground, her breath knocked out of her. She looks up, stunned, as the light from the Rift above finally filters through the settling dust.
Akos stands over her, his eyes dimming from their intense glow. He looks at his hands, a strange, hollow expression on his face. "I don't know what I feel when I use these abilities... it's something strange. Come on, get up."
He reaches down, offering his hand. Ruka takes it, and he pulls her to her feet with a firm tug.
"I think... I think I'm seeing things," Ruka murmurs, still processing the absolute erasure of the giants.
"What did you expect?" Akos says, his voice returning to its usual cold tone. "The older ones always think they need to protect the younger ones. Take this as a lesson: age doesn't judge power. A child can kill a bear if he knows where to strike. Now, move out."
He turns and begins to walk deeper into the distorted city, leaving Ruka to scramble after him, clutching his katana tightly.
As they delve deeper into the Rift, the logic of the world continues to dissolve. They pass a Mexican military base, complete with F-18 fighter jets and a massive landing strip, all swallowed and rearranged inside this subterranean nightmare.
Suddenly, Akos grips Ruka's shoulders, forcing her to halt.
"Stop here," he commands. The temperature has plummeted. "It's freezing. The presence of devils is dense here... which means the Purple Crystal is close."
Ruka shivers violently, her breath misting in the air. "There's no wind... no snow... why is it so cold?"
"Quiet," Akos whispers. "Look."
Ruka freezes. Perched atop a distorted skyscraper is a gargantuan, bloated black creature. Its massive, obsidian hide is encrusted with glowing purple crystals that pulse like a slow heartbeat. It is the DEVIL'S MONSTER, and it is fast asleep.
"Wake up, you fat truck," Akos calls out casually.
"Ahhh! What are you doing?!" Ruka hisses, terrified. "Look at the size of that thing!"
The creature stirs. Its skin ripples as it shifts its weight, and it opens eyes so large they reflect the entire ruined city. The DEVIL'S MONSTER speaks with a voice that vibrates in their very bones, freezing the moisture in the air. "What do you want? Can you not see I am sleeping?"
"Shut up," Akos retorts. "I don't care about your title. I'm just here for a crystal."
"Are you insane?!" Ruka whispers, her heart racing. "You're just going to ask him like that?"
Ignoring her, Akos walks right up to the beast's massive leg. He reaches out and snaps off a glowing purple crystal. "Thanks for this, little devil," he says coolly.
Ruka is paralyzed by his sheer audacity. But Akos remains calm. "Relax, Ruka. He can't attack us. He can't even move. This thing is just a catalyst; his only function is to shift the geography and generate the devils in this area. He's a living factory, not a fighter."
The DEVIL'S MONSTER lets out a roar of pure, impotent rage that shakes the foundations of the Rift. "You will die here! This is not a bathroom door you can walk through whenever you please!"
The roar acts as a beacon. From every alleyway, hangar, and ruined hut, thousands of devils emerge. Small ones, giants, zombie-humans—an unquantifiable tide of monsters flooding the streets.
"Ugh," Akos sighs, looking at the approaching horde. "You really want a fight? Fine. You asked for it."
"Akos, what are we doing?!" Ruka screams. "We have to go! The Hole is starting to shift its location again! I don't want to end up in the Sahara, the middle of the ocean, or Siberia!"
They turn and begin a desperate sprint. Behind them, a literal sea of monsters pursues them, their numbers so vast they look like a living carpet of teeth and claws.
The pursuit is absolute chaos. Devils swarm from every angle—bursting through the windows of ruined skyscrapers and dropping from the dark sky of the Rift. The ground behind them is being shredded as the portal begins to glitch and fold.
Suddenly, Akos skids to a halt and grabs Ruka's arm with a bruising grip.
"What are you doing, you maniac?! Let go! Why are we stopping?!" Ruka screams, her eyes darting to the thousands of monsters closing in.
Akos doesn't say a word. His Infinity Eyes are locked on a specific high-speed devil lunging from above. As the creature passes, Akos's hand flashes out, catching the beast by its massive leg.
The momentum of the high-speed devil yanks them upward. Just as the Rift begins to snap shut, they are catapulted toward the exit. The devils that were only half a second behind them are instantly bisected as the portal closes, their bodies sliced clean by the collapsing dimensions.
Only a few elite devils with high-speed abilities manage to break through into the real world. As they soar through the night sky, Akos reaches out, grabs one of Ruka's Deagles, and fires a single, perfect shot into the brain of the devil they are hitching a ride on.
The beast goes limp, and they plummet through the canopy of a dense forest.
Ruka ends up tangled high in the branches of a massive tree. Akos, landing gracefully on the forest floor, delivers a powerful punch to the trunk. The vibration shakes Ruka loose, and she falls—only for Akos to catch her in his arms before she hits the dirt.
"Ohh, nice catch," Ruka purrs, looking up at him with a teasing smirk. "I didn't know the Fake World made you so romantic."
Akos stares at her for a cold second before simply letting go, letting her drop the last few inches to the ground. Ruka grunts, brushing leaves and twigs out of her white hair.
"You'd better watch what comes out of your mouth," Akos warns.
"Chill! I was just joking," Ruka says, reaching out as Akos tosses her Deagle back to her.
"We don't have time for jokes," Akos says, his voice sharpening. "The devils that made it through the portal are out there. If they reach the city centers, it'll be a massacre. We need to move."
Suddenly, Vanessa's voice crackles over the comms again. "Can you hear me?"
"We hear you," Ruka answers, checking her gear. "We got the Purple Crystal. We're on our way back."
"We have a slight problem," Vanessa says, a hint of dry humor in her voice. "I saw those devils exit the Rift, and I managed to draw their attention. I've got them all following the van right now... but I don't exactly have a plan for how to kill them all from the driver's seat."
Akos's eyes glow with a lethal light. "That's perfect. Keep them gathered. We're coming."
Inside the Mobile Operations Center, the monitors are blaring with red alerts as the radar swarms with dots. Vanessa, however, has reached her breaking point. She has actually stepped out of the high-tech truck with a common cleaning broom, swinging it wildly to shoo away the smaller devils clinging to the chassis.
"Get off, you filthy bastards! Damn it, you stupid brat, give me back my broom!" she screams as a snarling devil grabs the bristles and tries to yank it away.
Crack!
A high-caliber sniper round shatters the devil's skull. Then another. And another. One by one, the monsters surrounding the truck begin to drop as if hit by an invisible reaper. Vanessa looks around, confused, seeing nothing but the forest shadows until the last one is silenced.
Or so she thought. A mangled devil, still twitching with life, lunges from under the truck toward Vanessa's throat.
Suddenly, a hand reaches past her. Akos grabs the broom handle, shoves Vanessa aside with his shoulder, and drives the wooden staff straight through the devil's eye socket, pinning it to the earth.
"Next time, pay attention," Akos says, his voice flat and devoid of warmth. "I won't always be here to save you."
Ruka slides down from the top of a nearby ridge, her massive sniper rifle slung over her shoulder. she struts toward them with a cocky grin. "I don't think you're as tough as you look, Akos! Hahaha! Did you see those headshots I landed? Absolute perfection."
Akos doesn't even look at her. He turns his back and walks into the van. "I didn't see anything," he mutters.
"Ugh! What is wrong with this guy?" Ruka groans, following him inside with a huff.
Vanessa stands there for a second, staring at her ruined broom still stuck in the twitching monster's head. "Mahh! My broom! I can't believe he used it like that... argh!"
She stomps back inside the truck, leaving the broom behind to finish the job on the dying devil as it gasps its final breath in the dirt.