Kenji hit the ground hard, the impact jarring every bone in his body. His vision blurred.
The familiar concrete of the city below felt solid yet strangely alien. The metallic smell of blight from the other dimension was gone.
It was replaced by the heavy scent of decay and something sweet, like rotting flowers.
His System didn't drop its alarms. Instead, it went into overdrive: [Warning: Reality Overlap Detected! Environmental Corruption Level: CRITICAL!
He pushed up, his muscles screaming. He fought the dizzying rush of mixed realities.
"We're back… but it's not the same. Not at all."
Kaito landed next to him with a grunt of pain. He scrambled to his feet, eyes wide with disbelief and horror.
He gazed at the skyscraper he once knew. Now, it was covered in strange, pulsating growths that dripped green fluid onto the streets.
"No… no no no! This isn't right! This isn't our city! The comms are dead!"
He frantically tapped at his last functioning wrist-mounted device.
"Every network, every satellite… It's all gone! It's all… blight!" His voice cracked.
It missed his usual sarcastic bravado and was now full of desperate, frantic energy. He looked like he was about to vomit.
Elara landed more gracefully, but her gasp was just as ragged. Her Lumina light flared instinctively, weakly pushing back against the encroaching gloom.
The sky above, once a bright blue, now swirled with sickly green and dark purple. This change cast an eerie, heavy twilight over the ruined city. She knelt, her hands hovering over a patch of blighted asphalt, tears welling in her eyes.
"The blight… It's spreading so fast! We have to find survivors! My light… it feels stronger here, Kenji, even against this… this violation of our world!"
Her voice, though pained, held a renewed sense of urgency and compassionate resolve.
A guttural growl ripped through the air. From a nearby alleyway, a figure stumbled out. It was human, or had been.
Its skin was a sickly gray-green, with eyes that glowed with malice. Its limbs twisted into unnatural angles.
It was a thrall, a corrupted husk, and it moved with a chilling, predatory grace. This was different from the dimensional horrors.
This was home, twisted.
"Incoming!" Kenji roared, drawing Shadowfang. The blade felt heavy.
Its dark energy almost painfully connected with the blight in the air. He lunged, a blur of grim determination.
He sent the thrall away with one harsh Dark Slash. The creature turned into a stinky mist. But more were coming, shambling out of the shadows, their numbers growing.
Kaito was searching for cover, despite his limp. He desperately tried to salvage useful tech from the wrecked cars on the street.
"They're… they're everywhere! And these aren't just monsters from the other side, these are… people! Twisted!"
His voice was filled with a raw, gut-wrenching despair. He fumbled with a sparking wire, trying to connect it to a power cell.
"I need a signal! Anything! If the network's down, we're blind!"
Elara ran to a crumpled bus with shattered windows. She heard a faint, desperate whimper. She found a small child, huddled and terrified, but uncorrupted.
Her face relaxed, and her Lumina light brightened.
It pushed back the blight around her, creating a delicate sanctuary.
"There are survivors! We have to help them! We have to protect them!"
Her voice was fierce. It held a strong resolve that broke through the emptiness.
Kenji moved fiercely, blocking twisted limbs and pushing back the advancing thralls.
He could feel the sheer density of the blight here. It was everywhere. It was in the air he breathed, the ground beneath his feet, and the twisted structures around him.
The Heart of the Eclipse pulsed, a chilling sign of deep corruption. Its power felt like a part of the heavy atmosphere.
He was a walking paradox. He fought against this, but he could also bring more destruction.
He looked up. In the distance, tall, ugly buildings of pure decay loomed over the city.
They pierced the sickly sky.
They glowed with a green-black light, similar to the third Reality Anchor. This glow gave off a strong, heavy sense of evil.
Noxius wasn't just here; he had conquered. He had already won a significant battle.
"Noxius… he's here. He's everywhere,"
Kenji growled, the words heavy with a new, burning purpose. He looked at Kaito, frantically trying to revive his tech, his face a mask of despair.
He looked at Elara, shielding the child, her eyes blazing with compassionate fury. He gazed at the wide, green-purple sky.
Then, he looked at the tall, distant structures of blight that now filled the horizon. They were reminders of their failure.
He shut his eyes and then opened them. A grim, terrifying resolve took shape in their depths.
The whispers from the Heart of the Eclipse still nagged, but now they faded into the background. A single, burning purpose took over.
"No,"
Kenji said, his voice sharp and full of defiance amid the battle sounds.
"We didn't bring it back. It was already coming. We just brought the fight here. And now… we end it. Or we die trying."
He raised Shadowfang. Its dark blade shone with the sickly green glow of the conquered world. He was ready for the desperate, final stand.
"This is our home. And it's not going down without a goddamn fight."