The silence in the West Sector of Oakhaven was not peaceful; it was heavy, like the air inside a sealed tomb.
Eren and Edy stood back-to-back in the center of what used to be a bustling city plaza. A dried-up fountain sat in the middle, filled with dead leaves and trash. The towering skyscrapers surrounding them blocked any escape routes, turning the square into a gladiatorial arena.
"My head is splitting," Edy hissed, pressing his palms against his temples. His eyes were glowing with a faint, erratic green light. "I can't get a lock. Their minds... they aren't like the Class 3s. It's not just hunger. It's static. It's like trying to listen to a radio channel that doesn't exist."
"Focus on the physical then," Eren replied, his leg vibrating so fast it was a blur. "Because here they come."
From opposite ends of the plaza, two shadows emerged.
They were M-Class Mutated Guuts. Unlike the brute Malina fought or the assassin hunting Max, these two were lithe, wiry, and identical. They looked like flayed gymnasts dipped in liquid onyx. Their limbs were elongated, their fingers ending in needle-like spikes. They moved in perfect unison, mirroring each other's steps with a terrifying, silent symmetry.
"Twins," Edy muttered. "Great. I hate twins."
"I'll take the left. You take the right," Eren said. "On my mark."
"Eren, wait—"
Eren didn't wait. He triggered the Gold Fluid.
BOOM.
A sonic boom shattered the windows of the surrounding buildings as Eren vanished. To a normal eye, he was gone. To Edy, whose mind could track rapid movement, Eren was a streak of gold lightning tearing across the pavement.
Eren reached the Left Guut in a millisecond. He aimed a high-velocity kick at its head, moving at Mach 1.
But the Guut didn't react like a statue. It reacted like water.
Just as Eren's boot was about to connect, the Left Guut dropped into a split, flattening itself against the ground. Eren's kick passed harmlessly over its head.
"What?" Eren gasped, his momentum carrying him forward.
As he flew over the Left Guut, the Right Guut—standing fifty feet away—didn't look at Eren. It looked at where Eren was going to be.
The Right Guut raised its arm and fired a cluster of solidified shadow-spikes from its palm. They flew like shotgun pellets.
Eren, still mid-air and recovering from the missed kick, saw the spikes coming. In his accelerated perception, they were moving slowly, but he had no leverage to dodge.
"Edy!" Eren screamed.
Edy reacted instantly. He thrust his hand forward, his eyes flaring bright green.
"Vector Shield!"
A translucent, emerald barrier shimmered into existence in front of Eren. The shadow spikes slammed into the psychic wall—ping, ping, ping—shattering on impact.
Eren tumbled, hitting the ground in a roll and skidding to a halt next to the fountain. "They're predicting me! How are they predicting me?"
"They're a hive mind!" Edy shouted, hiding behind a concrete planter. "They share sensory data! The Right one sees what the Left one misses!"
The Twin Guuts didn't give them time to strategize. They launched a coordinated assault.
The Left Guut sprinted toward Eren, moving with a disturbing, spider-like agility, running on all fours. The Right Guut focused on Edy, leaping into the air and bounding off the walls of the buildings, closing the distance from above.
"Disorient them!" Eren yelled, drawing his vibro-daggers.
Eren engaged the Left Guut. The clash was a blur of sparks and shadow. Eren slashed, his knives vibrating at a frequency meant to cut steel. Clang! The Guut parried with its forearm, the shadow-flesh hardening instantly to diamond density. It swiped at Eren's face, and Eren had to lean back, the claws missing his nose by a millimeter.
Every time Eren tried to flank, the Guut mirrored him. It was faster than any Class 4. It wasn't just fast; it was efficient. It wasted no movement.
Meanwhile, Edy was fighting for his life.
The Right Guut landed on the planter Edy was hiding behind, shattering the concrete. Edy scrambled backward, falling onto the pavement.
"Get out of my head!" Edy screamed.
He unleashed a Psionic Scream—a blast of pure mental anguish directed at the creature's brain.
The Guut stumbled, clutching its head for a split second. But then it shook it off. It looked at Edy, and its eyeless face seemed to mock him. It raised a claw to strike.
"Illusion: Inferno!" Edy commanded.
He planted a thought in the Guut's mind. Suddenly, to the Guut, the floor around Edy wasn't pavement; it was a pit of roaring lava.
The Guut hesitated, stepping back from the phantom fire.
"It worked!" Edy gasped, scrambling to his feet.
But the Left Guut—the one fighting Eren—suddenly turned its head toward Edy. It screeched.
Instantly, the Right Guut realized the lava was fake. The hive mind had corrected the hallucination. It ignored the fire and lunged at Edy again.
"Eren! Help!"
Eren heard the scream. He was locked in a duel with the Left Guut, but he saw his friend in danger.
"Damn it!"
Eren did something reckless. He stopped dodging.
As the Left Guut swiped at him, Eren took the hit. The claws raked across his chest armor, slicing through the Kevlar and drawing blood. But Eren used the impact to grab the Guut's arm.
"Gotcha," Eren gritted out.
He vibrated his entire body. Phase Shift.
For a second, Eren became intangible. He passed through the Left Guut, confusing it. He sprinted toward Edy, reaching supersonic speeds in three steps.
He hit the Right Guut like a cannonball, tackling it mid-air just inches before it could gut Edy. The two of them crashed into the fountain, cracking the stone basin.
Eren rolled away, panting, blood dripping from his chest. Edy was shaking, his nose bleeding from the mental exertion.
The two Guuts regrouped. They stood side by side now. They didn't look tired. They looked angry.
"We can't win this," Edy wheezed. "They cover each other's weaknesses. If I distract one, the other corrects it. If you hit one, the other counters."
"Then we stop hitting two targets," Eren said, wiping blood from his mouth. His eyes were wild, fueled by the adrenaline of the Gold Fluid. "We kill one. Instantly. Before the other can react."
"How?" Edy asked. "Their armor is too thick."
"The Railgun," Eren said.
Edy's eyes widened. "Max nearly killed us in simulation with that. We haven't perfected it."
"Do we have a choice?" Eren gestured to the monsters, who were crouching, preparing to spring.
Edy looked at the monsters, then at Eren. He nodded. "Buy me three seconds."
"I'll give you two," Eren grinned.
Eren turned to the Guuts. "Hey! Ugly! Over here!"
Eren tapped into his reserves. His skin began to glow with a blinding golden light. He started running.
Not at them. Around them.
He ran in a circle around the plaza, moving faster and faster. Mach 1. Mach 2. He became a golden cyclone, kicking up dust and debris, creating a vortex that trapped the Guuts in the center.
The Guuts screeched, confused by the sensory overload. They tried to track him, but he was moving too fast.
Inside the eye of the storm, Edy stood perfectly still. He closed his eyes. He ignored the fear. He ignored the headache. He focused every ounce of his green Psionic energy on a single point.
He reached out with his mind and grabbed the Left Guut.
"PSIONIC LOCK."
Edy didn't try to hurt it. He tried to hold it. He wrapped telekinetic chains around the creature's limbs, freezing it in place. The Guut struggled, its strength immense, fighting against Edy's mind.
"Eren! NOW!" Edy screamed, blood pouring from both nostrils.
Eren heard the signal.
He broke the circle. He didn't slow down. He accelerated.
He used the momentum of the vortex to slingshot himself straight toward the immobilized Left Guut. He held his vibro-daggers in front of him, crossing them to form a spear point.
He was moving at Mach 3. He was a living missile.
The Right Guut saw it happening. It moved to intercept. It jumped in front of its twin to take the hit.
"No you don't!" Edy roared.
Edy used the last of his mental strength to cast a Flashbang Illusion directly into the Right Guut's mind—a blinding white light that didn't exist.
The Right Guut flinched, missing the intercept by a fraction of a second.
Eren collided with the Left Guut.
KRA-KOOOM.
The impact was catastrophic. The sound barrier shattered, blowing out every window within three blocks.
Eren's daggers, combined with the kinetic energy of a supersonic jet, pierced the Guut's diamond-hard chest armor like it was wet paper. Eren passed straight through the monster, exiting out the back in a spray of black ichor and shadow-dust.
The Left Guut didn't even have time to scream. Its upper torso simply vaporized. The bottom half of the creature stood for a second, twitching, before crumbling into a heap of ash.
Eren skidded across the pavement, tumbling over and over until he crashed into a lamppost. He lay there, groaning. His uniform was shredded, his body smoking from the friction heat. He was completely drained.
"Eren!" Edy called out, his vision blurry. He dropped to his knees, his head pounding like a drum. "We... we did it."
Edy looked at the pile of ash. One down.
But the celebration lasted less than a heartbeat.
A low, guttural growl vibrated through the plaza.
Edy froze. He slowly looked up.
The Right Guut—the survivor—was standing ten feet away.
It wasn't looking at Eren. It was looking at Edy.
It had felt its twin die. It had felt the psychic hold Edy had placed on its brother. It knew who was responsible.
The creature let out a sound that wasn't a roar. It was a wail—a high-pitched, mourning shriek that shattered Edy's remaining mental shields.
The Guut's form shifted. The sleek armor expanded, growing jagged spikes. Its eyes, previously just smooth obsidian, cracked open to reveal burning red fissures of pure hate. It had entered a frenzy state.
Edy tried to raise his hand. He tried to summon a shield. But his tank was empty. The Psionic Lock had used everything. He couldn't even stand up.
"Eren..." Edy whispered, but Eren was fifty feet away, unconscious or unable to move.
The Guut didn't run. It leaped.
It covered the distance in a single bound, its shadow-claws fully extended, aiming to separate Edy's head from his shoulders.
Edy watched death coming toward him. He saw the serrated edges of the claws. He saw the red hate in the fissures of its face.
The claws descended.