The air crackled with a malevolent hum, a low thrumming that vibrated in Kenji's bones.
"Right," he muttered, adjusting his grip on the new, slightly oversized trench coat.
He swapped his old robe for something more suitable for the city, but it still felt strange.
"Major Corruption Node, they said. Just a little walk in the park. Full of… whatever this is."
He squinted at the huge, empty industrial complex ahead. Its skeletal buildings twisted against the darkening sky.
The place radiated a sickening green aura, visible even to the naked eye.
His System, a familiar and clear overlay in his sight, pulsed. It highlighted the whole complex in a threatening red.
[Threat Level: Extreme – Major Corruption Node Detected!].
"Stick to my shadows, ghost-boy, healer-girl," Kaito's voice sliced through the heavy silence.
He was in motion, a dark blur. His custom hoverboard glided silently over the cracked asphalt.
"This place? It's a spiderweb of dead ends and traps. But I know a way in. Always do. Dead zones, weak points in the perimeter. My specialty."
Elara, her eyes faintly glowing with Radiant energy, walked next to Kenji. She kept scanning their surroundings.
"The blight here… It's denser than anything I've felt before. My light feels… heavy. Suppressed."
Her voice was usually soft and empathetic, but now it held a strained edge.
Kaito, meanwhile, was already several yards ahead, darting behind a crumbling concrete wall.
"Alright, big guy," he called back, a sardonic edge to his voice.
"Try to keep up. Don't get stuck in the cobwebs."
Kenji rolled his eyes under his mask.
He activated Shadow Step, a flicker, and reappeared directly behind Kaito.
"Too slow," he murmured.
Kaito jumped in surprise and turned to Kenji. A tiny drone whirred into his palm, almost invisible.
"Damn! How do you do that? No footsteps, no sound… It's freaking."
They moved in tandem then, a strange, unnatural ballet. Kaito used his knowledge of the city's hidden paths.
"This way, I know this path."
He guided them through broken fences and crumbling walls, avoiding the main entrances. He pointed out tripwires, sensor grids, and basic traps made by monsters.
These traps were clusters of blighted vines that lashed out when disturbed. Elara's sense helped them dodge areas of hidden corruption.
It guided them on cleaner, safer paths, even as the red overlay on Kenji's System tried to blur his vision.
Inside the complex, they discovered a huge, open hall. The ceiling had collapsed in spots, allowing beams of moonlight to shine through.
In the middle of the hall, a throbbing, rotting mass of corrupted moved and squished.
Scores of twisted, deformed creatures lurked in the shadows. They were larger and more aggressive than anything Kenji had faced before.
"Looks like we found the party," Kaito said, his usual bravado mixed with grim determination. "And they brought friends. Lots of friends."
A huge, twisted creature with many limbs charged ahead, snapping its jaws.
Kenji didn't hesitate.
"Elara, cover! Kaito, disrupt!" He surged forward, Shadowfang materializing in his hand, wreathed in dark energy.
He danced around the first attacker, a precise Dark Slash severing one of its limbs. The creature roared, its blighted blood spraying. He felt the familiar thrill of combat and the power from the Heart of the Eclipse.
But he pushed it down. He focused on efficiency and control. His Corruption Influence meter, a small bar near his MP, twitched but remained stable.
Elara's light flared. She sent a wave of cleansing energy. It pushed back several smaller corrupted entities.
Their forms shimmered as they recoiled.
"Watch your opening, Kenji! Don't let it take root!" she cried out, her voice straining with the effort.
As Kenji fought another beast, she ran to a civilian trapped under debris. Her hands glowed as she healed their minor wounds. She stayed focused, even in the chaos.
Kaito, meanwhile, was a whirlwind of movement. He zipped around on his hoverboard, deploying small, humming devices.
One emitted a blinding flash of light, disorienting a cluster of beasts. Another let out a high-pitched sonic shriek that made the corrupted creatures spasm.
"Heads up, you two! Big ugly on your six! Ghost-boy, left flank! Healer, give 'em some sun!"
His movements were sharp, decisive, a blur of strategic chaos.
Suddenly, a sickening tearing sound ripped through the air. In the corner of the vast hall, reality itself seemed to shiver.
The air warped, shimmering like heat haze. A jagged, pulsating tear, glowing with a malevolent, sickly green light, ripped open.
Kenji's System screamed a new alert: [Dimensional Anomaly Detected! Threat Level: Critical! Unstable Rifts Manifesting!]
A swirling vortex icon pulsed on his map, marking the rift's location.
From the tear, something new emerged. It was taller and thinner, looking utterly horrifying. Its skin resembled warped bone, and its eyes glowed with a clever, alien malice.
It moved with unnatural speed, unlike the lumbering beasts they'd faced before.
"What in the… that wasn't here a second ago!" Kaito yelled, momentarily stunned, nearly swerving into a pillar.
"Rifts," Elara whispered, her voice laced with dread. "They're opening portals. This isn't just about corruption… it's about invasion."
More rifts began to appear, smaller ones, then larger. The hall was filling with horrors. Kenji gritted his teeth.
His Corruption Influence meter was spiking with every new appearance. He fought a creature that had come from a smaller rift.
Its claws were sharp, and he felt a cold urge to destroy it. He pushed the feeling down.
"We can't clear this whole place!" Kenji shouted over the din of battle. "The rifts are bringing them in faster than we can kill them! We have to seal them!"
He focused, his System now showing the rift's unstable nature. A new sub-objective appeared: [Primary Objective: Stabilize Dimensional Rifts (3 Remaining)].
"Kaito! Can you disrupt those tears? Anything that interferes with dimensional stability?" Kenji yelled, ducking under a sweeping claw.
"Disrupt? Maybe!" Kaito replied, already working on his wrist-mounted tech.
"I've got some scramblers that mess with… space-time… on a tiny scale. Might buy us time!"
"Elara! Focus your light on the rifts! Try to close them, or at least slow the flow!"
Kenji commanded, severing another creature. He could feel the Heart of the Eclipse humming, almost eager to face these new, stronger foes. He fought the urge to unleash Death's Embrace.
Elara nodded, her eyes wide with fear, but her resolve firm. She started to channel her radiant energy.
"Hold on, Sec!"
She focused a strong beam of blue light on the biggest rift. The rift shimmered, its tearing sound momentarily faltering.
Kaito then leapt towards another rift. He sent out small, glowing devices that pulsed with magical energy.
The air around the rift shook wildly, and the movement of creatures slowed for a moment.
Kenji knew his role. He became the shield, the distraction. He lunged at a rift-spawned monster that was trying to flank Elara. He used Abyssal Shield to absorb its blow.
Then, he delivered a powerful Dark Slash that took it down for good. His Corruption Influence spiked to [30%], then slowly began to fall.
It was a hard-won, brutal engagement. They fought not to destroy, but to contain.
The rifts were bleeding, but they were no longer gaping wounds. The flow of creatures slowed. They had bought themselves time.
They stood amidst the wreckage, panting, exhausted. The major Corruption Node still pulsed, its sickening aura ever-present.
However, the flood of rift-spawned horrors had stopped.
Kaito leaned against a rusting machine, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Rifts, huh? Never thought I'd see reality start to unbuckle. This is… officially not my job description."
Elara knelt down, her light pulsing weakly around her. She looked closely at a faint shimmer in the air where the largest rift used to be.
"It's worse than we imagined. He's not just corrupting, he's consuming the very fabric of reality."
Kenji looked at his System map. The Node was no longer flashing red. [Threat Level: Contained – Dimensional Instability Subdued.]
But in the distance, a new threat appeared. A larger "Noxius Presence" spread over a vast area, reaching well beyond the city. The focus had shifted.
He looked at Elara, then at Kaito, a grim determination setting his jaw. "This was just a warm-up. He's opening doors.
And we're going to have to find a way to close them. Permanently. And to do that… we need to find what created these rifts. And stop it."