Joonas walked barefoot through the mist, each step slow and steady. His black robe hung open, revealing his bare chest—and the inked tattoo of a large spider sprawled across it. The fabric brushed his ankles as he moved. He didn't rush. The facility loomed ahead, and he walked toward it like a storm rolling in—quiet, certain, unstoppable.
His head tilted slightly as he neared the entrance, his gaze settling on the sentry towers above.
From the towers, red targeting lasers snapped onto him—dots dancing across his chest, the spider tattoo glowing faintly under the beams.
"Who are you?!" a guard shouted through the speaker system. "Identify yourself!"
Joonas didn't answer.
Another guard leaned out from the eastern tower.
"This is a restricted zone. Turn around now, or we'll open fire!"
Still, Joonas didn't respond—only laughed, long and maniacal, like joy strangled into something foul.
Then he whispered:
"Hämähäkin Hampaat."
—Teeth of the Spider.
The guard on the northern tower blinked through his scope. Through the lens, he watched the nighttime fog curl unnaturally across the ground—slithering, like it had a mind of its own. But it wasn't the mist that made his skin crawl. It was the figure standing at the entrance. He moved like a man, but the pressure in the air felt like something else.
Like a ritual had begun… and the world itself was watching.
He gritted his teeth, flicking off the safety of his rifle—angry that the strange man on the ground had just appeared, ignoring every warning, every question.
But then—he felt it. Something was wrong.
'Why was everything… upside down?'
A heartbeat later, his severed head thudded to the ground.
Screams erupted. The guards in the sentry towers panicked—staring in disbelief as their colleague's head hit the ground like dead weight. Confusion twisted into terror.
They turned their scopes down, locked on the lone figure below.
But before they could open fire, the glass façade of the facility behind them—and the reinforced glass encasing the towers—shattered in an instant.
Shards of glass sliced through the air with screaming velocity.
The guards never stood a chance.
One was impaled mid-shout—three jagged slivers piercing his neck and face before he crumpled like a ragdoll, tumbling to the ground.
Another was pinned to the railing, a spike driven clean through his spine. His scream gurgled out in blood, then silence.
Teeth of the Spider—Joonas's mid-tier Resonant Art—was a deadly technique that caused all glass within twenty-five to thirty meters to shatter and twist into fangs, impaling anyone he set his eyes on. And now that it had been unleashed, all the guards in the sentry towers were impaled instantly.
All the shattered glass began to move, drawn to him.
The storm of fragments whirled around his body like petals in a hurricane, circling faster and faster. They hovered mid-air, suspended—thousands of silver fangs glinting in the mist. Each shard shimmered with an unnatural light, pulsing in rhythm with his breath, bending to his will.
He exhaled.
Then stepped upward.
Shards of glass began to bloom into stair-steps beneath his bare feet, forming mid-air—then shattering behind him the moment he lifted off them. And just like that, he rose above the giant gates of the facility like a god made of mirrors.
From high above, he looked down.
The facility stretched beneath him like a steel compound stitched into the earth—roads and loading docks, security towers, transport shuttles. Crates marked with glowing codes lay stacked like coffins. Drones hovered overhead, circling like metal hornets, scanning for threats.
Below, people scattered. Some on foot, others scrambling out of vehicles—all of them screaming, running in different directions the moment they saw Joonas suspended in the air, glass shards orbiting him like a halo of blades.
Then, the alarms began to wail—deep, echoing pulses that rippled through the compound. Red lights spun across the concrete.
The doors to the central hub hissed open.
Forty-one guards surged out in formation, boots slamming the ground in rhythm. Their rifles were raised, visors flashing to life as their exosuits locked into combat stance.
"Take formation!"
"Pin him down—now!"
"Keep your sights on him! Don't break line!"
They spread out across the open yard in tight rows, forming a perimeter beneath the hovering figure cloaked in glass. The air crackled with tension. Fingers curled around triggers.
Joonas, who had been staring down at them in silence, grinned.
Then he whispered a mid-tier defensive art:
"Peilinkukka."
—Mirror Bloom.
The glass storm around him bloomed.
Shards stacked and fused, forming massive glass petals that floated around him like ethereal shields—beautiful, gleaming, and lethal.
One of the guards below, still locked in formation, shouted,
"Fire!"
Gunshots erupted. Muzzle flashes lit up the compound in staccato bursts. Bullets tore through the air—shredding banners, puncturing walls, cracking asphalt. Wind screamed as metal clashed against the storm of glass.
But none reached him.
The massive petals orbiting Joonas spun like a flower in bloom, catching every round. The bullets struck the crystalline barriers with metallic shrieks, then dropped—raining to the ground like spent hail.
Moments passed. The gunfire died. Silence settled across the facility.
A thick fog of smoke and gunpowder curled across the yard, veiling everything in grey.
One of the guards squinted through the haze, heart hammering.
"Did we get him…?"
Then—whispers of movement.
The glass dome above the gate began to peel open. Petals drifted apart like a blooming flower.
And at the center, Joonas stood untouched, grinning.
That same twisted, gleaming grin.
The guards froze, faces draining of color. Horror rooted their boots to the ground.
Joonas raised both hands.
Two large glass shards spiraled in midair, reshaping into long kopis blades before flying into his grasp.
He raised one of the blades slightly.
Then, as if offering a gift, he vanished in a blur and a gust of air. The glass beneath him shattered.
By the time the first scream rang out, he was already among them.
The first soldier didn't have time to scream.
One kopis drove through the eye. The other—straight into the chest.
Blood sprayed like a ruptured pipe.
Gunfire erupted again—yet, like before, none reached Joonas.
The glass petals spun, a living shield, catching each shot mid-flight.
Some ricocheted. Some melted. Some stopped—suspended, as if time itself had flinched.
Joonas vanished again.
Then reappeared beside a man mid-turn—crushing his temple with a single kick. His helmet splintered. His skull followed—spraying blood and brain matter into the air.
Another guard lunged, drawing his blade—but Joonas had already turned. He hurled his kopis like a dagger. It crossed the distance in a blink, driving straight through the man's forehead. The guard collapsed without a sound.
A fourth guard broke ranks and ran. Joonas leapt and landed on his back, driving the second kopis upward through his chin. The blade burst out the top of his skull, trailing blood and bone.
Another guard rushed from behind—
But Joonas tackled and pinned him before he could react.
This time, he carved.
He didn't go for the heart. Not at first. Instead, he dragged the blade across the man's belly—slow, deliberate—splitting flesh from hip to hip. The guard screamed, clawing at Joonas's wrists as his ribs cracked—one after another—pried apart by the blade like a stubborn fruit.
Blood gushed in thick, steaming waves. Intestines slithered free, glistening in the night air.
And through it all, Joonas smiled—twitching with fury, his grin stretched too wide, like someone caught between rage and madness. His chest rose and fell in ragged bursts as he breathed in the heat.
Then—boom. A shotgun roared from behind.
Joonas turned. The blast lit the air, but he caught the barrel mid-flash.
Glass laced his palm as he crushed the weapon in his grip, shattering it like brittle ice.
Then he moved—fast, like an animal. He lunged and sank his teeth into the man's throat.
Flesh tore. Arterial spray erupted across Joonas's face. The guard gurgled, clawing at him, but Joonas didn't let go.
He ripped back with a feral snap, dragging a chunk of windpipe between his teeth.
The man shrieked—or tried to. Only wet gasps came. Then Joonas lunged at the next guard without slowing.
One by one, all the guards around him fell.
Some were sliced in half—clean, elegant, like paper cutouts in a butcher's dream. Others were torn apart, limbs wrenched from sockets by flying shards. A few had their heads caved in, or skewered straight through the mouth.
One man tried to crawl away, intestines dragging behind him like wet ropes—before a sliver of glass zipped through his skull and pinned him to the floor like a specimen in a lab tray.
Blood coated the ground in thick, steaming pools, running in crimson rivers through the concrete channels, soaking the soles of Joonas' feet. By the end, the courtyard looked like a slaughterhouse—a war zone designed by a mad god.
Flesh sizzled where Vira-infused glass had struck. Eyes stared blankly at the sky. Chests were torn open, lungs exposed to air. Dozens of them—all forty—lay strewn across the asphalt like discarded dolls: cracked, broken, bleeding.
The silence afterward was a kind of scream.
Joonas turned slowly, soaked in blood—face streaked, bare chest painted in splatter. The kopis blades in his hands still dripped red. Glass shards hovered lazily around him, orbiting like a halo of fangs.
Only one guard remained.
He looked different from the rest, clad in matte-black armor, his visor glowing faintly. His twin katanas were already drawn, one in each hand.
Joonas locked eyes with him. His grin stretched from cheek to cheek, even as rage boiled just beneath his skin.
Then he spoke, voice jagged—like cracked glass:
"I'm so goddamn bored, it makes my teeth itch. No... no, this? This isn't even scratching the itch. You see… I've carved. I've ripped. I've bathed in their screams—AND STILL I BURN. So come on. Let's play. Give me something real. Or I'll twist you into such a beautiful, broken mess… the worms will puke you back out. You hear me? Even the grave'll spit you up like a bad fucking joke."