"I. Will. Not. Yield!"
The words didn't come out as a shout. They were a rasp, thick with the iron taste of the blood pooling in his mouth.
Before the firing pin could strike, Renji's neck snapped to the left. It was a violent, ugly motion—the kind that strained tendons to the breaking point. The bullet hissed, a hot line of lead that scorched the air beside his ear and buried itself with a muffled thud into the damp, light-starved earth.
"You truly believe," Renji said, his voice level now, rising from the dirt like a ghost, "that killing me today lets you destroy the world?"
He didn't use the System's shortcuts. He didn't wait for a skill to activate. He simply moved.
To the eyes of a normal man, he would have vanished. To an A-rank like Hoshino, he was a blur of displaced air and lethal intent. Renji materialized in the blind spot of Hoshino's peripheral vision. He didn't aim for the head.
He drove a fist, powered by twenty-nine points of raw, unnatural strength, directly into the center of Hoshino's spine.
The impact sounded like a wet branch snapping.
Hoshino went airborne, his body skipping across the cavern floor like a stone over a pond. But he wasn't a novice. He tucked his chin, executed a tight, professional roll, and came up on his feet. He wiped a smear of red from his lip, his eyes narrowing into predatory slits.
"Hmm. Impressive, Renji."
Hoshino's arm blurred. The pistol leveled. Crack.
Renji's aura didn't just flicker; it erupted. It was a churning, oily green flame that licked the air around his skin. He didn't dodge. He caught the projectile on the hardened meat of his forearm, the lead flattening against his mana-reinforced skin and falling harmlessly to the pebbles.
Hoshino's smile turned into something jagged and cold. "Not bad. But I'll make damn sure you join her."
He didn't just fire; he unleashed. Hoshino ran up the vertical stone of the cavern wall, gravity a mere suggestion, emptying the clip in a rhythmic, deafening cadence. Every bullet Renji touched seemed to turn to ash, the heat of his fury incinerating the lead inches from his skin.
Renji sprinted. He wasn't running; he was hunting.
"I will make you pay," Renji growled. "For her."
"Bone Grasp!"
The stone didn't just crack; it birthed horrors. Massive, calcified hands—thick as tree trunks and white as sun-bleached carrion—surged out of the walls. They locked around Hoshino mid-air, a crushing, skeletal embrace.
"How could you do it!"
Renji launched himself. He met Hoshino in the air, a devastating hook catching the A-ranker square in the cheek. Hoshino's head snapped back, but his eyes stayed wide, locked on Renji's. He was smiling through the broken teeth.
Renji's hands became a storm. He wasn't a martial artist; he was a thresher. He delivered a hundred punches in the space of three breaths—ribs, solar plexus, throat.
Hoshino didn't drop. Blood sprayed from his mouth, decorating the white bone of the hands holding him, but he endured.
Then, the temperature in the room plummeted.
The skeletal hands frosted over. The marrow turned to ice. With a surge of blue light, Hoshino caught Renji's next blow in a gloved palm. He drove his own forearm into Renji's forehead, the impact echoing like a hammer on an anvil. The bone hands shattered into a thousand useless shards.
Hoshino landed softly. He reached up and slowly, deliberately, peeled off his combat gloves.
"You forced me," he muttered, his voice a low vibration. "You're a monster, Renji. More than I thought. But today, the monster dies."
He started walking. Each step left a footprint of frost on the stone.
"Something is coming. Something big. The shadows of demons, the ancient Sages... they're all waking up. All of them looking for one thing. The Monarch King."
Hoshino knelt, pressing a bare palm to the ground.
"Ice: Glacial Impalement."
The world turned white. Jagged, translucent spikes of frost tore out of the earth, a forest of spears aimed at Renji's heart. Renji twisted in mid-air, dodging the primary cluster, but a spire caught his shoulder, opening a shallow, freezing red line.
Before Renji could find his footing on the slick floor, Hoshino was there.
One. Two. Three.
Two strikes to the jaw, one to the center of the chest. Renji's lungs seized. He vomited blood, the crimson staining the ice beneath him.
"My standard punch is physical," Hoshino said, his voice echoing in the chamber. "But when I layer the potential energy... you're just meat." He laughed, a high, manic sound, and unleashed a flurry of concentrated strikes that tore through Renji's guard like it wasn't there.
Renji collapsed. He lay in the slush, his body trembling, every nerve screaming.
"She was so kind, your mother," Hoshino whispered, standing over him. "A truly nice person. That's why she had to die. She was too soft for the world I'm building."
Renji's fingers twitched in the frost. The System was a silent, cold observer.
Kerry... Kerry...
The voice didn't come from the air. It came from somewhere deeper. He saw her, silhouetted against the dark of the dungeon. Not as a ghost, but as a memory so sharp it cut.
Wake up. Be strong. Don't stop.
"Mom," he breathed.
The vision faded.
"Hey, loser. Are you listening? I'm telling you how she bled out."
Renji's eyes snapped open. They weren't just green; they were the color of the abyss. He felt the mana in his veins turn from a stream into a flood. He forced himself up, his bones grinding together.
"You talk too much," Renji said. He wiped the blood from his chin, a genuine, broken smile cracking his face. "That's why I'm ending this."
"Pathetic," Hoshino sneered.
Whoosh.
The air in the cavern didn't just move; it vanished. Renji's speed was no longer a blur; it was an absence.
"Where—"
Renji's hands were a storm. A dozen phantom limbs struck Hoshino's chest in a single second. The sound of cracking ribs was rhythmic, like a drum. Hoshino tried to summon a shield of frost, but Renji was gone again.
In a flash of black light, Renji drew the Obsidian Greatsword.
The blade didn't just cut; it erased. It pierced Hoshino's stomach, the dark metal erupting through his back. Renji didn't let go. He drove the sword home, pinning the A-ranker to the stone wall.
Hoshino looked down at the blade. He coughed, blood bubbling over his lips, but the weak, strange smile remained.
"Underestimated you... didn't I?"
He grasped the blade with trembling, frost-bitten hands and slowly slid himself off the steel. He stood, swaying, a hole through his center.
"Your mother... would be proud." He hacked out a laugh. "But remember, Renji. The demons... they will find the Monarch. They'll find you. The Abyss Lord only wakes when you do. You're going to die. All of you."
He took one more step, his eyes clouding over, and hit the floor. He didn't move again.
[Opponent Defeated: Ryo Hoshino]
[Reward: +1 Strength]
[Status: Vitality Restored]
[New Skill: Shadow Cloak]
[New Skill: Abyssal Retaliation]
Renji stood over the body. The silence of the dungeon was absolute. He clenched his fist, the heat returning to his skin. "I promised," he whispered.
The tears came then. They weren't for the fight. They were for the three years he'd missed. For the hands she didn't have at the end. He let them fall, hot and bitter, onto the cold stone.
A low, deep vibration shook the cavern. The Boss was close.
"I have to save it," he murmured, his voice hardening. "Because no one else is going to."
He turned away from the corpse and walked toward the final chamber. As he rounded the corner, the darkness gave way to a brilliant, flickering light. The walls were encrusted with Magic Crystals, thousands of them, glowing like stars trapped in the earth.
And in the center of the room, something much larger began to breathe.