The air was thick with death.
The remains of the eight fallen beasts had barely turned to ash when the remaining seven charged. They came in fast—howling like tortured spirits, driven by rage and something deeper… something ancient. The red-eyed boss still stood in the distance, unmoving, watching like a puppeteer waiting for his strings to snap.
"They're coming!" Ryuu shouted.
Renzo moved without thinking. One of the beasts lunged at Maiya from her blind spot—its jagged claws ready to tear. "Maiya, down!"
He pushed her aside and threw up his arms just in time—but a second beast came from his left, slashing downward. The claws raked a long, deep gash under his right eye. Blood poured instantly, running down his cheek in a crimson trail. The pain was sharp, but Renzo gritted his teeth.
"Renzo!" Maiya gasped, scrambling up and forming her blades again. Her eyes burned with fear and fury.
"I'm fine," he growled, wiping the blood away with his sleeve. "Stay focused!"
Jinsei dashed in with twin strikes, cutting through one beast's legs and finishing it with a spinning stab to the heart. "That's one!"
Maiya took out another, her energy blades glowing brighter with every breath. She cut through the shadows with a sharp scream, the beast crumbling in her wake. "Two!"
Renzo, despite the blood leaking from his wound, threw himself back into the fight. He dodged low, then uppercut a beast into the air and blasted it with a pulse of Will energy mid-flight. "Three down!"
Ryuu and Tetsu moved like lightning and thunder. Tetsu slammed his gauntlets together, creating a shockwave that dazed a charging beast, and Ryuu finished it off with a precise wind-infused strike to the neck. "Four and five," Tetsu muttered.
Jinsei and Maiya teamed up on the last two. Jinsei distracted with feints, while Maiya dashed in for quick kills. The final one let out a shriek before dissolving into smoke.
"Seven down," Ryuu confirmed, his chest rising and falling with hard breaths. "That's all of them."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Then… the ground trembled.
The red-eyed boss began to move.
It stepped forward slowly, each motion sending a pulse through the Rift. Its body was massive—part shadow, part corrupted steel. Its arms looked like blackened spears. Its mouth opened, but no words came—only a guttural growl that made the stone around them crack.
"That's not a beast…" Renzo muttered, hand pressed to the bleeding cut beneath his eye. "That's something else."
"It's the source," Tetsu said grimly. "The one guarding the Cleansing Elixir."
Maiya looked between the team, her voice soft but steady. "Then we fight it. For Daddy."
Jinsei's blade hummed in his hand. "We take it down… together."
The boss raised its arms—energy gathering like a storm cloud over its back.
The final battle had begun.