At the same time that Hollow Special Operations Section 6 was in full pursuit of Nineveh—
On the other side of Hollow Zero, Zhong Yan, weapon in hand, cleanly sliced through an Ethereal that had tried to block his path. His mission up to this point had been fairly simple: escort Eous and the proctor as they conducted Ether data scanning throughout the Hollow.
The process had been uneventful. The outer zones of Hollow Zero were mostly populated by low-tier Ethereals. Occasionally, an upper-tier one might appear, but none posed any real threat.
Fortunately, completing this assessment didn't just grant them an official Hollow Zero investigation license—it also came with a generous payout.
After all, who would volunteer for something like this without some kind of reward?
But it wasn't all smooth sailing. Just moments ago, Zhong Yan had received a telepathic transmission from his Shadow Clone—Nineveh and Section 6 were moving in their direction.
Sure enough, the instrument used for Ether data collection began to pick up a sharp spike in Ether activity.
Such fluctuations were fairly common within Hollows, so the proctor initially dismissed it. That is, until the Ether levels soared to an alarming degree.
"This... This isn't right. The Ether is off the charts... Could it be that a giant-class Ethereal has emerged nearby?" The proctor's voice trembled as she stared at the instrument now screaming with warnings.
Around them, the abandoned structures looked unchanged—just a few wandering standard-class Ethereals. Nothing out of the ordinary.
If a major Ethereal had really manifested, they should have seen it already.
"Something's wrong. Mission's on hold. Let's regroup somewhere safer first," she said, choosing to err on the side of caution. In Hollow Zero, even basic respect could mean survival. She would wait for the readings to stabilize before resuming.
But just as the words left her mouth, the ground began to shake violently.
A shrill, otherworldly roar echoed from a distance.
The group looked up in horror.
From behind a ruined building, Nineveh emerged—its hulking form brushing aside part of the structure as it passed, reducing the corner to rubble.
The tremor it created was enough to draw the attention of every other Ethereal in the area.
Even without higher intelligence, they knew. In that moment, all of them dropped to the ground in submission, kneeling before the returned king.
BOOM!
At the moment of Nineveh's appearance, the proctor's instrument hit critical overload—then shorted out and exploded from the strain.
"Get down!" she shouted. Seeing that Zhong Yan and Eous were still frozen, she pulled them toward a nearby underground parking structure, muttering in panic, "Damn it... It's really that thing..."
The look in her eyes—raw, unfiltered fear—said it all. She knew Nineveh. She knew exactly how terrifying it was.
Soon, the tremors faded into the distance as Nineveh floated past their hiding spot. Thankfully, the beast didn't seem to have any means of detecting them through walls and didn't notice their presence.
But just as they began to relax, the sound of footsteps echoed above them—heading in the same direction Nineveh had gone.
Someone was actually chasing it?
The proctor was stunned. Once the coast seemed clear, the three cautiously emerged, peeking out from the parking garage.
And sure enough—they saw a figure racing across the rooftops in pursuit of Nineveh.
"That's... Hoshimi Miyabi..." Zhong Yan muttered, eyes fixed on the twin fox ears atop her head. Finally, he was seeing the most beloved character in the game with his own eyes.
She's gotta have been released ages ago, right...?
While Zhong Yan drifted in and out of his own internal monologue, Miyabi had already closed the distance with astonishing speed.
Just like her first appearance in the game, she placed a hand on her weapon's hilt. As a spirit merged into the blade and she pressed the activation button, a surge of icy energy erupted outward—encasing Nineveh's entire body in a swirling blizzard.
Invisible ice blades shredded the air, slicing at Nineveh from every direction.
If it had been a normal building, it would've been shredded to dust.
But Nineveh, at the eye of the storm, remained unfazed. It simply flapped its wings and glided out of the blizzard—completely unscathed.
Then, with a beat of those massive wings, it summoned a raging gale and hurled it straight at Miyabi, who stood poised atop a crumbling ruin.
Miyabi raised her weapon just in time to block, but the collision of ice and wind overwhelmed her footing and sent her tumbling backward—
—off the edge of the hundred-meter-tall structure.
A fall from that height would be fatal.
Realizing how dire it was, Miyabi tried to adjust her posture midair to stabilize herself.
That was when Zhong Yan could no longer sit still.
Seeing her falling fast, he launched forward with a burst of Chidori-enhanced speed. In just a few seconds, he closed the gap, arriving beneath her.
Miyabi had just about regained her balance and was preparing for a safe landing—
When suddenly, Zhong Yan leapt into the air, caught her mid-fall, and—with an unnecessarily dramatic flair—spun twice in the air before landing gracefully.
The sudden, intimate contact stunned Miyabi. Staring at the handsome youth before her, any normal girl might've blushed.
Instead, she spoke coldly, voice like frost:
"You insolent brat. Let me go."
Zhong Yan had to admit—he had intended to show off a little. But her reaction caught him off guard, and he awkwardly placed her down, scratching his head.
Thinking it through, he realized she probably didn't need saving. Given her powers, she could've landed just fine on her own. His act had been... somewhat unnecessary.
But unlike in the game—where Nineveh typically withdrew after being injured by Miyabi—this version was far from done.
If anything, her attack had enraged it.
With a piercing screech, Nineveh's tail bud released waves of multicolored pollen.
From those spores, dozens—no, hundreds—of hive Ethereals and strangling vines burst from the earth, covering vast swathes of terrain.
As it howled, Nineveh's body began to radiate a brilliant pink glow.
Its true form—the Demon Flower state—had arrived.