...

Theo landed softly a few meters away from the cloud of dust and debris that still covered the impact site. He made not a single sound upon landing, his boots pressing the earth without a noise.

Whoosh!

A subtle flick of his wrist, as if brushing away an invisible spiderweb, and the thick curtain of dust and smoke that obscured the crater where Sven lay dissipated instantly.

It was as if an invisible window had been opened, revealing the scene of destruction in a raw and clear way.

In the center, Sven was beginning to get up, his twisted body reassembling itself with unnatural, bony snaps, his red eyes fixed on Theo with a seething hatred.

It was then that, without warning, five jet-black tentacles shot out from the shadows, from all sides.

Swiiii!

The air hissed with the deadly speed of the dark appendages.

Theo didn't even blink. He didn't move to dodge, didn't raise his arms in defense. He remained absolutely still, watching the assault with the gaze of a man watching a heavy rain from inside his house.

At the exact moment the sharp, vibrating tips of the tentacles were centimeters from touching his Cube uniform.

Ting!

A metallic sound, like a thin glass blade being contained, cut through the air.

A hexagonal barrier, translucent and with a blue glow, materialized with millimeter precision around Theo's body.

CRUNCH!

The five tentacles impacted against the barrier at the same time. But instead of piercing, the sound was of something dense and solid being repelled with full force. The corrupt energy of the tentacles dissipated against the smooth, untouchable surface of the shield in a flash of black sparks.

The law of reflection was absolute. The brutal kinetic force, the murderous intent, everything was instantly reversed.

The tentacles themselves, unable to absorb the counter-shock of their own amplified power, shattered like glass, exploding into fragments of pure darkness that dissipated in the air.

GYAARGH!

The scream that followed was no longer of fury, but of pure agony.

"Oh, so you do feel pain."

Theo spoke casually, looking at Sven who was on the ground with his hands propped up.

"K-kill..."

Sven spat, the words barely leaving his lips. His body contorted violently, a convulsion that was no longer entirely his own.

His back began to swell grotesquely and unnaturally, as if something were struggling to be born from there, forcing its way out.

Kiieeek!

A sharp, completely inhuman shriek tore through the air as his body was completely enveloped by tentacles.

The black tentacles intertwined, fused, and thickened, weaving a grotesque silhouette against the sky. In a few seconds, the transformation was complete.

What stood before Theo was no longer Sven, not even a recognizable creature. It was an abomination that resembled a monstrous squid, five meters tall, made of pulsating shadow and pure hatred.

Dozens of thinner tentacles snaked at its base like diseased roots, while main limbs, thick as ebony logs, struck the air with a wet, heavy sound.

In the center of the black mass, where the head should have been, two red eyes opened, fixing Theo with a primordial malice.

"Tsk!"

Theo's sound of disapproval was as dry and mundane as the snapping of fingers.

"I think I'll be off squid for a while."

The comment was deliberately absurd, a final insult to the monstrosity roaring before him. He didn't back down. Instead, he crouched with an exasperating calm, his eyes never leaving the creature's red eye.

His fingers searched the earth until he found a simple stick, perhaps fallen from one of the destroyed trees. It was a dry piece of wood, no thicker than his thumb and the length of his forearm.

He held it up, examining it in the faint light as if evaluating a fine blade.

"This will be enough."

Looking at the ground, he whispered the words to himself.

Adesin Arms Reinforcement.

The command of someone who wanted nothing came from his lips, but the effect was immediate. To the unsuspecting, nothing seemed to have happened to the stick after the magic.

But, to the truly strong, they would quickly realize. The stick itself didn't change in appearance, but it now seemed to weigh more in the air, as if it contained the potential of a mountain in its simple form.

Yes, it might not look like it, but the magic Theo had used had strengthened the stick to a level comparable to a mountain-destroying sword.

Unceremoniously, Theo raised the enhanced stick over his head, holding it with one hand. The pose was almost comical, a man facing a leviathan of darkness with a piece of firewood.

As if synchronized, the thing that was no longer human leaped, with hundreds of tentacles coming towards Theo.

"Bye! Bye!"

His words were a casual whisper. Then, in a disconcertingly simple and clean motion, he lowered the arm holding the stick.

It wasn't a blow of brute force. It was a cut that transcended physics.

Slash!

The sound was not of wood hitting flesh. It was of an infinitely sharp blade cutting through butter.

For a fraction of a second, the world fell silent once more. The whistling of the tentacles, the monster's gasping breath, the rustling of the grass, everything ceased. It was the vacuum of sound that precedes the understanding of an irrevocable truth.

Then, the truth manifested itself.

The monstrous mass of tentacles and the central body of the abomination simply separated. A line of amber light, thin as a hair, appeared for an instant in the air, marking the path of the stick's cut.

Above and below this line, the two halves of what had been Sven lost all coherence, their black energy dissipating instantly.

Thud!

The dull, heavy sound of the two halves of the demonic body falling to the earth, one on each side of Theo, broke the silence.

They didn't writhe or gush fluids. They just landed like sandbags, inert, the darkness that composed them already dissolving into harmless black smoke that the wind began to carry away.

Theo lowered his arm, the stick still intact in his hand. He looked at the remains of the former Sven on the ground.

"Mm! If you weren't crazy enough to try and attack my girlfriend, I might have considered letting you live..."

With a murmur, Theo turned to leave the place as silently as he had arrived.

"Wow host, that was amazing!"

...