The battlefield was alive—
No, it was breathing.
The wind shrieked, a formless terror coiling through the ruins, its voice a thousand overlapping whispers. The sky roiled with black clouds, twisting and warping as if the heavens themselves were in agony. And in the heart of this maelstrom, slitted eyes flickered in and out of existence.
Watching. Mocking.
The Wind Shikiban had no fixed form. One moment, a mouth grinned in the mist, jagged and too wide. The next, a limb stretched from the storm—only to dissolve into nothingness.
It was an entity that should not be.
Daigo cracked his knuckles, unfazed by the supernatural horror swirling around him. A fresh cut licked at his skin, but he only grinned wider. "Tch. So it's all talk, huh? I should rip that mouth off."
Yeaga exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders. "We don't even know if it has a mouth, dumbass."
Ishiga adjusted his blood-specked glasses, remaining silent. He felt it. Something ancient was watching, lurking beyond the veil of the storm. They weren't fighting mere monsters. This was something beyond human comprehension.
A whisper slithered through the wind. "Three little mortals. Three little worms. How long will you last?"
And then—
The storm attacked.
A scythe of wind slashed toward Daigo's throat. He barely twisted away in time, but the blade still grazed his neck—a thin red line blooming on his skin. The sand around them exploded, jagged spikes of air rupturing the battlefield. Yeaga dodged with a seamless flip, landing light as if gravity didn't exist.
Ishiga didn't move at all. He merely adjusted his stance—
And the wind that should have torn him apart split around him instead.
Daigo let out a bark of laughter. "That's it?! You call that a storm?! I'll show you how to break one!"
He launched himself into the air, muscles coiling like a spring. His fist collided with the storm itself, sending a shudder through reality. The Shikiban's form flickered, distorting violently as it let out a screech.
Yeaga was already moving. A shadow among the chaos. His kick came with no wasted motion, cutting through the air like a guillotine. The sheer force behind it dispersed a section of the storm entirely, scattering it like torn paper.
"You're too slow,"he muttered.
A cold, unnatural laughter echoed around them. "Slow? We are the sky. You are nothing."
A cyclone erupted.
The sheer force ripped them from the ground, hurling them skyward. The world became a vortex of slicing winds, deafening shrieks, and pressure that threatened to crush bone.
Daigo gritted his teeth, arms shielding his face as he spiraled through the storm. "Tch—this is pissing me off!"His body twisted midair, gathering raw power into his knuckles. Then, with a single, monstrous punch—
BOOM!
The very air exploded outward, dispersing the cyclone in a deafening shockwave. He landed in a crouch, bleeding, grinning. "Did I break your precious storm, freaks?"
"No."
A claw of wind speared toward his ribs.
And was stopped.
Yeaga's foot slammed down, pinning the attack midair. The air itself trembled. His smirk was gone.
"Enough games."
He vanished.
A flicker of motion. The next moment—Yeaga was already in front of the Wind Shikiban. His knee drove into its core.
A shockwave burst outward as the Shikiban screeched, its formless body struggling to remain intact. Yeaga did not let it recover. His hand snapped forward, grabbing something intangible—the Shikiban's very essence.
"Wind? No. You're just air. And I can crush air."
His fingers tightened.
The Wind Shikiban screamed as its body imploded.
A ripple of divine execution surged through the battlefield. One down.
Ishiga exhaled, adjusting his glasses. "Sloppy."
Yeaga scoffed, shaking the blood from his hands. "Shut up. You didn't even do anything yet."
Ishiga's fingers twitched.
And the storm stopped.
For a moment—just a moment—the wind was completely silent.
Then, it reversed.
The Wind Shikibans screeched in pure, primal panic as their own storm turned against them. Ishiga had rewritten the battlefield itself.
The pressure intensified.
A final, inhuman shriek split the air—
And then the storm was gone.
Silence.
Daigo exhaled, wiping blood from his mouth. "Well, that was annoying."
Yeaga cracked his neck. "Next time, don't get thrown like an idiot."
Daigo glared at him. "Next time, I'll kill it before it even breathes."
Ishiga ignored them both. His eyes were locked ahead.