The onslaught of attacks on the giant monster felt endless - an eternity of slashes, blasts, and blood.

In truth, it had only been around ten minutes.

But ten minutes of relentless, high-stakes combat against a nightmare that refused to die was more than enough to push even elite mutants past their breaking point. Especially when most of them had already burned through most of their energy already.

The creature should've dropped by now. It was a walking corpse - torn tendons, ruptured muscles, scorched and mangled flesh hanging in strips. Its entire body was a roadmap of violence. Yet somehow, it still stood. Still swung. Still roared with a rage that cracked the air like thunder. As if pure hatred alone were enough to keep it alive.

Unlike the monster, the others were wearing down fast.

Takeshi, unreadable as always, no longer moved like a blade in the wind. Each strike from his katana, once swift and fluid, now had weight. A drag. As if the blade itself resisted being swung. He masked it well, but the slight hitch in his movements was there. Subtle. But real.

Nadya's hands trembled as she fought to ignite even the smallest flame. Her blasts had gone from overwhelming to erratic. Each flicker of fire came with a wince, a twitch, like her nerves were fraying from the inside out. She was running on fumes, but stubbornness kept her going.

Sven had shifted tactics entirely. His graceful dashes had become short, sharp, and surgical. He no longer danced across the battlefield; he stalked it, preserving what strength he had left. His daggers still found their marks, but every time he landed a hit, the tightness in his jaw deepened. His legs were a little overuse away from snapping like dry twigs.

And then there was Kai.

Every blood-soaked second felt like a war inside his own head. The more he manipulated, the heavier his thoughts became - like iron nails scraping against the inside of his skull. His vision blurred at the edges, a dark tunnel tightening with every move. His muscles screamed, his veins felt hot and bloated, and every breath dragged like it was coated in ash.

But he didn't stop.

None of them did.

They couldn't.

Because if they did, if even one of them fell, that thing would crush the rest without hesitation.

And they were too deep now. Too far gone to back down.

They just had to pray the monster gave out before they did.

-

'If the four of us were at peak condition from the start,' Kai thought bitterly, 'we'd already be standing over that bastard's corpse by now.'

But they weren't. Not even close.

Their bodies were running on fumes, their minds frayed by exhaustion, their powers dulled by overuse and desperation.

And the monster? Despite the hundreds of wounds carved into its body, despite the sluggishness in its movements and the way its breathing now rasped like broken glass through a steel pipe, it still stood. Still towered above them like some relentless force of nature. Still refused to die.

It shouldn't have been possible.

The thing had taken enough punishment to wipe a military base off the map, Nadya's blasts alone could've levelled a massive building. Takeshi had carved chunks from its limbs with each arc of his katana. Sven had jammed blades into vital tendons and pressure points. And Kai… Kai had driven blood projectiles into it than he could hope to count.

By all logic, it should have dropped.

But it hadn't.

Instead, it remained upright. Unshaken. A monument to pain endured and ignored.

And still, none of them backed down.

They were a ragtag group of battered mutants - each with their own limits, flaws, and wounds - but they hadn't quit. Not yet. Not while there was still breath in their lungs and something worth protecting behind them.

Kai gritted his teeth and prepared to unleash another wave of attacks, forcing blood into motion despite the stabbing agony it brought with it. His vision flickered, his knees buckled slightly, but he pushed through.

Then something shifted.

A wrongness in the air.

Subtle. But unmistakable.

'Something's wrong.'

His body froze mid-strike. Every instinct screamed at him to stop.

The others followed suit almost instantly. No discussion, no command, just a shared, primal awareness that something had changed. The battlefield stilled.

Then it happened.

The monster let out a fractured, broken scream - a sonic screech that clawed at the inside of their skulls. High-pitched. Dissonant. Wrong. A sound not of rage or defiance… but of panic.

And then there was silence.

It froze in place. No movement. No sound.

Like an unseen hand had seized it. Like invisible wires had pulled tight around its limbs.

It twitched. Limbs spasmed. Its head tilted slightly, like it was trying to understand what was happening to itself. A shiver ran through its massive frame.

Then came the swelling.

At first, it was almost subtle. A slight puffing beneath the skin. But then the bulges grew rapid and violent.

Muscles ballooned, pulsing like infected boils. A faint glow throbbed beneath its flesh, spreading like cracks in porcelain. Its chest expanded unnaturally, shoulders jerking and distorting, ribs pressing against skin from the inside.

It wasn't mutating or healing like it had been - it was imploding.

None of them had noticed it earlier. They'd been too locked into the rhythm of survival, too focused on not dying to see it. But now the truth was undeniable.

This thing hadn't just been resisting damage.

It had been evolving and morphing... but it had seemingly reached its limits.

Its body twisted with grotesque, uneven spasms. Glowing cracks widened across its torso. The skin along its stomach and chest split open, not from attacks, but from pressure.

As if something inside was trying to break free.

And then, all at once, the realisation hit them like a slap to the face.

'It's about to explode!'

No one said it aloud, but they all knew. It was instinctual. A survival response burned into their bones.

Run.

Takeshi moved first - vanishing in a blur, his exhaustion somehow overcome by pure survival instinct. A phantom in motion.

Sven was next. His movements were jagged and painful, each burst of speed a gamble with torn muscles and strained tendons, but he didn't hesitate.

Nadya stumbled, caught herself, and forced her body into motion. Her breaths came in rasps, each step a battle, but she moved, detonating tiny bursts from her palms, propelling herself toward the outskirts of the ruins where Isaac, Amina, and the others had last been seen. The flames were dim. Weak. But they were enough to drive her onwards.

That left Kai.

He ran.

But he was slower. His legs felt like they were wrapped in chains. The power he'd used to strengthen them before refused to return. He tried to force it again - focus, direct blood into his limbs, ignite the inner furnace - but it was like slamming against a wall. His body had nothing left to give.

'Great! Of course I can't do it now,' he cursed, frustration rising in his chest.

Then the giant monster detonated.

BOOM!

A hellish blast erupted behind him - a shockwave of molten air and concussive force that shattered the ground and tore apart the ruins in an instant.

The heat came first, flattening everything in its path. Stone disintegrated. Metal liquefied. The very air turned into fire.

Kai didn't look back. He didn't need to.

He dived forward, teeth gritted, and pulled every drop of blood he could feel in the vicinity toward him. Not just his own, but every splatter on the ground, every stray droplet from previous wounds. He wrapped it around himself like a cocoon, thick and tight.

It wasn't going to be enough.

But it was all he had.

He curled into a ball and hardened the blood just as the firestorm caught up.

Heat slammed into him, incinerating everything it touched. His blood armour hissed and cracked, boiling away under the sheer force of it. His skin blistered. Pain stabbed through him like a thousand knives. The world blurred, twisted.

And then he was airborne - ripped off the ground, spinning uncontrollably.

A ragdoll caught in the wake of destruction.

Every nerve screamed.

Every thought shattered.

And then, just as the pain became too much…

Darkness took him.

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