Just as Knight was about to flee the repulsive circus grounds, the screech of rending metal as deafening as a thunderclap brought the world to a violent, shuddering halt.
When he spun around, the horror was absolute. The boastful ringleader, mid-proclamation, had been seized by a gargantuan white hand that burst through the iron bars like a nightmare breaking into reality. With a sickening, wet crunch, the beast tore the man in his crimson suit into two jagged halves. Fresh blood sprayed across the performance floor in a hot, macabre mist.
A roar erupted, a primal vibration so powerful it seemed to rattle Knight's very teeth, drowning out the frantic screams of the fleeing audience. Before anyone could find their footing, that massive white palm slammed into the crowd. Human bodies were pulverized instantly, reduced to a nameless slurry of meat and splintered bone that bore no resemblance to anything that had once been alive.
The circus crew scrambled to intervene, but their weapons forged in mundane factories without the essence of a Box or the soul of a gifted smith merely sparked and whistled off the creature's hide. To a Level 4 calamity, their steel was no more than annoying gnats.
Standing over three meters tall, the monster shredded its cage as if the iron bars were rotted silk. It reached up and tore the reinforced helmet from its skull, revealing eyes that burned with an ancient, unadulterated fury.
"Ah… figures, old man," Knight whispered, his voice cracking. "The chains you forged… they really weren't enough for this nightmare, were they?" A paralyzing dread surged through his veins, colder than the grave.
His legs were rooted to the spot, though his brain had been screaming at him to run for an eternity. The Level 4 beast turned its head slowly toward Knight, as if sensing the only soul in the vicinity who had yet to flee. Those crimson eyes locked onto him, a gaze so heavy it felt like his heart was being crushed.
Hot, metallic-smelling blood splattered against his left cheek. Knight didn't dare wipe it away; he didn't dare twitch a finger. Every instinct he possessed told him that in this moment, any movement was a signed death warrant.
It began to walk toward him.
The heavy wooden floorboards exploded under footsteps that hit like falling stone pillars. Step by agonizing step, the air around Knight seemed to vanish, replaced by the suffocating, copper stench of fresh slaughter.
The white palm swung down with a velocity no human should have been able to track. Driven by pure survival, Knight threw himself to the side. He avoided the direct crush, but the back of the monster's hand clipped him mid-air. The impact sent him hurtling several meters, his body skipping across the debris like a broken doll.
Knight coughed up a thick spray of blood, the agony white-hot and blinding. His ribs felt like a bag of shattered glass. It was a miracle his spine hadn't snapped; if it had, he'd be a paralyzed carcass waiting for the end.
'Get up, Knight... move, damn you! Move!'
The Goliath loomed over him, its shadow swallowing him whole. But before it could deliver the finishing blow, a matte-black hammer whistled through the air, striking the beast's shoulder to draw its gaze. The Goliath turned toward the source: a withered old man in a tattered blacksmith's apron.
"Old man...?" Knight rasped, his voice barely a wheeze.
The atmosphere twisted into an inescapable hell as the Goliath's roar nearly burst Knight's eardrums. It wasn't just a beast's cry; it was the tolling of a death knell. The monster didn't hesitate. It snatched a fleeing circus worker by the head, and with a casual squeeze, the skull popped like a ripe tomato. Brain matter and blood drenched those nearby before the lifeless husk was hurled against a wall, leaving nothing but a red smear.
"Run! Somebody help us!" The screams were a chaotic symphony of terror, but the more they ran, the more the Goliath's bloodlust grew. With a single sweep of its massive arm, it gathered a dozen spectators like autumn leaves and slammed them into the jagged remains of the cage. The sound of snapping bone harmonized with the wet gurgles of the dying. The beast wasn't killing for food; it was killing for the sheer, sadistic joy of vengeance.
Knight, lying in his own blood, watched through a red haze. Every breath was a struggle. Every attempt to move sent a jolt of agony through him that made him pray for his heart to simply stop.
"Old man... run..." Knight choked out.
But the blacksmith stood his ground against the three-meter-tall Reaper. His hands shook, and he held no weapon from a Box, only a desperate, futile courage. The Goliath didn't blink. It charged with a speed that defied its size, its demonic hand closing around the old man's torso.
Crunch. The sound of collapsing ribs broke Knight's spirit.
The beast hoisted the old man high, tightening its grip slowly to ensure he tasted every second of the end. The old man coughed dark blood into his beard, his fading eyes finding Knight one last time.
"Run... kid... don't you dare... look back..."
With a violent wrench, the Goliath tore both arms from the old man's shoulders. The sound of snapping tendons echoed in the alleyway. Blood geysered from the wounds as the limbless torso was tossed aside like common trash.
Knight's heart died with the only family he had left. A black despair, colder than the void, settled over his soul. The beast stepped over the remains, its shadow blotting out the sun. Around Knight, there was no one left, only pulverized meat, the stench of iron, and the looming silence of the grave.
The Goliath raised a massive foot over Knight's head, ready to stamp him into a memory. Knight closed his eyes and waited for the darkness.
BOOM!
A thunderous explosion rocked the earth, accompanied by a howl of genuine pain from the Goliath. Knight's eyes snapped open to see the beast staggering back, a jagged, charred wound smoking on its chest.
Then came the heavy, rhythmic thud of military boots. The Welders had arrived.
Men and women clad in tactical black, their cloaks fluttering like shadows, descended upon the alley. They wore an array of haunting masks, some bone-white like demons, others cold and metallic.
"Purge the area! Kill it now!" a commanding voice barked.
"Acknowledged!"
The Welder unit moved with lethal precision. Their weapons, glowing with the ethereal light of their Boxes, sliced through the air.
'So... it's over,' Knight thought, a flicker of relief washing over him as his consciousness began to slip.
But the Goliath wasn't finished. With a roar that shook the surrounding buildings, it lunged. Its massive hands swatted Welders through the air like flies, sending them crashing into walls in bursts of blood. Yet the Welders were relentless. They struck back with a ferocity the circus crew couldn't dream of. Swords and spears bit deep into the Goliath's muscle. The wounds were shallow, but they carried the sting of the supernatural the only thing this world truly feared.
The battle turned into a bloodbath, a cacophony of clashing steel and monstrous bellows, as the alleyway disappeared behind a veil of dust and death.