Hide tapped the earpiece one last time, his finger pressing hard against the sleek metal casing.

Nothing. There wasn’t even the faint, reassuring hum of white noise or the crackle of static.

Hide’s eyes narrowed. A Major of the National Exterminator Agency, a seasoned veteran, did not simply lose comms by accident. Even if she wasn’t particularly a fighter, there was no way a normal beast could have given her problem.

He didn’t hesitate and commanded Zenith to come back.

Miles away, deep in the ruined city, the towering, armored phantom soldier stopped mid-swing. Zenith dissolved instantly into a cloud of dense violet smoke, shooting across the broken skyline like a dark comet.

A second later, the dark mana sank seamlessly back into Hide’s body. The sudden influx of returned stamina washed over Hide, slightly easing the persistent ache in his muscles.

He turned on his heel, preparing to sprint back toward the center of the grid, but his boots ground to a halt against the mossy asphalt. He looked down at the massive, headless carcass of the Iron-Winged Harpy lying in the tall, razor-sharp grass.

"Wait," Hide muttered to himself. "I didn’t take the core."

In a gate of this level, every resource was valuable, and he was currently operating on an incredibly tight budget. He stepped over the mangled iron feathers and raised his right hand. Night Singer materialized from his inventory.

With three quick strikes, Hide carved open the beast’s heavily armored chest. The smell of hot copper and rotten meat hit his nose, but he ignored it, plunging his hand into the ruined cavity. His fingers closed around a hard, multifaceted stone. He pulled it out, wiping away the thick, dark blood with his thumb.

It was an E-Rank core. It pulsed faintly, radiating a wild, untamed energy.

Hide looked at the core resting in his palm, and then looked at the massive wingspan of the dead avian beast. The ruins around him were dense, confusing, and completely devoid of reliable landmarks. Running back on foot could take over an hour in this labyrinth of collapsed skyscrapers and overgrown streets.

’I need to get back fast. The fastest way is a straight line.’

He closed his eyes, taking a slow, steadying breath. He reached inward, tapping into the cold well of his Dark Abyssal Core. As he activated his talent, the ambient dark mana lingering in the humid air of the gate began to violently swirl around him. The shadows cast by the ruined buildings elongated, snapping toward him like iron filings to a magnet.

He raised his hand, channeling the condensed dark energy directly into the E-Rank core.

The core shattered, releasing its raw energy into his grasp. The dark mana devoured it instantly, expanding outward in a massive, violent eruption of dark flames. The shadows twisted and folded, ignoring the biological limitations of flesh and bone. Instead, they sculpted themselves into a brand new, terrifying shape.

In a matter of seconds, a colossal avian phantom materialized in front of him. It was easily as large as the original Iron-Winged Harpy, but its entire body was composed of shifting, solid darkness. Its feathers looked like forged obsidian, and its eyes were hollow.

Hide stared at the massive shadow bird.

[Phantom Soldier Formation Successful]

Please assign a name to the newly formed Phantom Soldier.

"I’ll call you Hooter," Hide said simply. The name didn’t really matter; it was just a temporary vehicle.

The system window related to his new trope materialized in front of him, but he simply ignored it.

Hooter let out a low, echoing trill that sounded like grinding metal, and obediently lowered its massive, shadowy neck.

Hide climbed onto the beast’s back, wrapping his hands tightly into the mane of dense, smoky energy just above the wing joints. He planted his boots against the sides of the phantom’s spine.

"Up," Hide commanded.

Hooter pushed off the ground with terrifying force. Its massive wings generated a shockwave that flattened the tall grass into the dirt and shattered the remaining glass in the adjacent buildings. They rocketed into the sky, tearing through the humid air and clearing the canopy of the ruined skyscrapers in a matter of seconds.

The sudden acceleration hit Hide like a physical blow. He gripped the phantom tightly, his stomach lurching violently. It was incredibly hard to stay balanced on a flying bird made of dark mana.

There was no saddle and the movements were erratic and aggressively sharp. As Hooter banked hard to avoid the crumbling spire of a radio tower, Hide squeezed his eyes shut. His newly upgraded endurance stat fought a losing battle against the intense vertigo.

He leaned over the side of the shadowy beast, gagging before vomiting over the edge as they hit a sudden, violent air pocket.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, forcing himself to swallow the lingering nausea. It was not a major concern. He had to focus.

He forced himself to look down.

From above, the apocalyptic world of the Loop gate looked even more dangerous and profoundly gloomy. The city was an endless, suffocating maze of shattered concrete, choked by parasitic green overgrowth and veiled in a sickly, pale mist. Deep craters scarred the landscape, marking the territories of massive, unseen Calamity beasts.

To the west, about twenty kilometers away, a sudden eruption of light caught his attention.

Rapid flashes of pale blue energy were illuminating the dense forest canopy. Massive, compressed ice darts were flying up from under the cover of the giant trees, piercing the sky like anti-aircraft fire. Above the treeline, Hide could clearly see three Iron-Winged Harpies desperately trying to dive-bomb the source of the magic, only to be met with relentless, freezing artillery.

’Elara,’ Hide thought, watching one of the harpies get clipped by a massive spike of ice, sending it spiraling out of the sky.

Given the sheer scale and frequency of those magical attacks, she could most probably take care of them on her own. She was a Major for a reason. Hide pulled his gaze away from the western quadrant and scanned the sprawling ruins below him, desperately searching for the place where they had originally started.

In this dense, apocalyptic city, every intersection looked exactly the same. But to Hide’s immediate relief, a distinct anomaly broke the endless sea of green and grey.

A thick, unnatural plume of black smoke was rising from a plaza not too far away from his current position.

Hide pointed toward the smoke. "Dive. Get us down there."

Hooter tucked its obsidian wings, searing through the sky in a steep, terrifying descent. The wind roared in Hide’s ears as they plummeted toward the earth. The phantom bird leveled out just inches above the treeline, banking sharply to bleed off momentum before landing heavily among the thick grasses of the central plaza.

The impact cracked the asphalt beneath them. Hide immediately slid off the phantom’s back, dismissing Hooter. The massive bird dissolved into a wisp of smoke, slipping back into his body. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Hide drew Night Singer, his eyes scanning the perimeter as he stepped forward.

He moved toward the source of the smoke.

It was a small fire burning on the cracked asphalt. Hide looked closer, his brow furrowing. It wasn’t debris. It was the reinforced tactical tablet Evelyn had been holding earlier.

The device had been completely shattered in half, the screen spider-webbed with cracks, and its internal battery pack was actively burning, sending up the thick black smoke he had seen from the sky.

Evelyn was nowhere to be seen.

A few yards away, partially hidden in the tall grass, Hide spotted a mound of pristine white fur.

He walked over quickly, his heart rate steadying.

It was the dead body of the male Shikigami, Shiro. The massive white wolf lay on its side, its beautiful fur stained with dark, heavy red. Hide crouched beside the body, inspecting the damage.

The Shikigami’s throat had been entirely crushed. It hadn’t been bitten or torn by another Calamity beast!

Beside the body, leading away from the plaza, were distinct drag marks and a trail of fresh, dripping blood.

Hide didn’t hesitate. He followed the trail.