The air inside the rift was heavier than anything Takumi had ever felt. It wasn't just gravity; it was pressure, expectation, a subtle assertion that the world itself might bend or break at a whim. Every step forward felt like moving through water thickened by shadows.
Ryo's voice cut through the fog of fear. "Spread out! Keep formation! Eyes on the rift core!"
But the formation didn't hold. Concrete walls cracked and warped. A blast of energy tore through the eastern corridor, sending two B-rank Hunters flying into a twisted steel beam. The sound of metal and bone colliding was immediate and raw.
Takumi's pulse hit a thousand beats per minute. He dropped low, grabbing the nearest Hunter, yanking her behind debris. She coughed, eyes wide, staring at the shifting darkness ahead.
"It… it moves too fast," she whispered.
"You move with it," Takumi muttered. Instinctively, he scanned for patterns, reactions—anything the System might have told him. But the interface was dead. Flickering. Broken.
A sudden scream split the air. One of the A-rank Hunters had lunged forward, trying to engage what looked like a simple spike of energy. The rift had other plans.
The floor beneath him buckled, fracturing like brittle glass. He fell through a temporary void—a pocket of displaced space—and landed on shattered rubble, pain shooting through his limbs. He barely had time to react before the energy spike expanded outward, reducing the corridor to a crater.
He froze for a second, staring at the carnage, and then his stomach turned. Another Hunter was gone. Not running, not screaming—gone. The space where he had stood twisted and folded inward, as if reality itself rejected his presence.
Takumi's fists clenched. This wasn't just a rift. This wasn't a creature. Whatever lived here didn't hunt in the way humans understood. It evaluated, pruned, erased.
Ryo's voice came again, strained and raw. "Hold your ground! This—this isn't a normal mission!"
Takumi ducked behind another slab of concrete just as a wave of distorted air shattered the wall beside him. The blast carried a scent—burning ozone, charred earth, and something metallic, sharp and alive.
He looked toward the center of the rift. The source of the disturbance remained unseen, but its effects were unmistakable. Shadows stretched unnaturally, bending light, distorting shapes. Every pulse of energy, every displacement of matter, suggested intelligence.
[Warning: Anomaly beyond classification.]
The System interface flickered back to life briefly, but the readings were meaningless. E-rank data points twisted into incomprehensible symbols. Takumi barely had time to register the threat before the air split with another scream.
The melee A-rank tried to advance, launching a charge. A wall of kinetic energy surged outward—displacement in every direction, as though the rift itself anticipated his movements. He hit the ground hard, bones rattling. When he tried to rise, nothing remained of the corridor. Just twisted shadows.
The rest of the team panicked. Orders fell apart, replaced by screams and blind survival instincts. Takumi moved methodically, weaving between warped steel and debris, trying to keep himself and the remaining B-ranks alive.
Another wave of force struck—a gravitational spike that lifted several Hunters and slammed them into the floor. One of the B-ranks' legs snapped, and he didn't scream. The rift had stripped sound from the world around them, leaving only the internal panic, the heartbeat, and the silent screams echoing in memory.
Takumi stumbled over a fractured slab, his eyes catching a flash of movement—a shadow, darker than the dim red glow, sliding across the fractured walls. His instincts screamed.
[Warning: Presence detected.]
Not an enemy. Not a creature. Something else. Something aware.
He pushed forward, toward where Ryo and the others were supposed to be regrouping, and froze.
Three more Hunters had been erased. Bodies didn't just fall—they had been undone. Limbs vanished, faces twisted and contorted into expressions that weren't theirs. The space where they had been… no longer existed in the same way.
Takumi swallowed hard. He had survived so far on instinct, but instinct alone wasn't enough.
He could feel it—the eyes, not literal eyes, but a presence, watching, judging, testing. It wasn't hunting prey. It was counting survivors.
The rift pulsed violently, a heartbeat that shook the walls and floor. Takumi felt a vibration in his chest, not his own. Something in the rift resonated with him, subtle but undeniable.
He didn't know what it was, couldn't name it—but he felt it. Something ancient. Something powerful. Something alive.
And then, as if acknowledging his presence, the energy calmed slightly. The rift's chaotic pulses slowed, shadows retreating, only to thicken again, denser and more oppressive.
Takumi realized, with a cold certainty, that this was just the beginning.
The Night Rift hadn't awakened fully yet. Whatever lay dormant beyond the veil of red-black shadow was still hibernating.
But the test had begun.
And Takumi Hanabira—still human, still fragile, still unprepared—had just stepped into the first echo of a god's birth scream.