The Wendigo loomed before them. Nine feet of skeletal hunger, frostbitten flesh stretched over jagged bone. Pale skin glistened with unnatural blue light. Frozen veins pulsed like dying embers. Spines erupted from its hunched back, twisting upward like corrupted antlers.

  Its skull fused deer and beast into something primal. Ice-encrusted horns spiraled outward, framing hollow blue eyes that pierced straight through. Its maw gaped open, a cavern of jagged yellow teeth lined with blackened frost. A low, guttural growl rattled the air.

  The temperature plummeted. Each step left frost coating the ground, brittle and cracking. Icy vapor coiled around its limbs, giving it an ethereal presence. The beast strained reality itself, a living curse.

  Katsuki's voice cut through the dread. "I'll handle this."

  Hikari turned. "Wait! You can't—"

  He was already moving.

  In a blur, Katsuki transformed. His tousled brown hair ignited into black flames streaked with violent violet, casting eerie shadows across the frozen street. His eyes became twin beacons of unrelenting light. The jagged frames of his glasses morphed into sleek, angular shades pulsing with dark energy.

  Shadowy energy crackled around him, the air warping. A spectral jaw mask materialized over his face, its jagged teeth glinting. Katsuki became a living storm.

  He took a single step forward.

  The world exploded.

  Katsuki launched himself like a missile, breaking the sound barrier. The shockwave tore through Shibuya, shattering glass and sending parked cars skidding. Windows burst, alarms wailed, the ground buckled.

  He twisted mid-air, a streak of darkness and flame, striking the Wendigo faster than reality could track. The impact was deafening. The ground cratered beneath the Wendigo, fissures spidering out in every direction.

  The Wendigo staggered. But it didn't fall. Instead, it let out an earsplitting roar that reverberated through their bones.

  Hikari, Lyra, and Lila shielded their ears as the Wendigo's icy aura surged outward, freezing everything it touched. Frost raced across the ground, encasing cars, lampposts, and debris in crystalline ice. The temperature plummeted further.

  Lyra cursed. "This thing's not going down easy."

  Hikari's hands trembled as she clutched her pendant. "Katsuki… don't get yourself killed."

  Katsuki's voice rang out, steady. "Don't worry about me. Just focus on not dying."

  The Wendigo lunged forward, its spindly claws slicing through the air with enough force to rend steel. Katsuki darted to the side, a shadow weaving through its attacks. He countered with a burst of violet energy, blasting into the Wendigo's chest and sending chunks of frostbitten flesh scattering like shards of glass.

  The creature was relentless. Its hollow eyes burned brighter. From its maw came a guttural, choking noise. Laughter. The sound was maddening, a thousand voices shrieking in unison. The Wendigo raised one skeletal arm, veins glowing, and jagged spears of ice erupted from the ground, slicing toward Katsuki.

  He barely dodged. The spears grazed his arm, drawing blood. A hiss escaped through his jaw mask, but he pressed on. The violet flames around him grew wilder, hotter.

  "Alright, you ugly bastard," Katsuki growled. "Let's see how fast you really are."

  He surged forward again, faster than before, his movements blurring into nothingness. Each strike sent shockwaves through the air, but the Wendigo endured, its grotesque body knitting itself back together as fast as he could tear it apart.

  Lila's voice cut through the chaos. "Katsuki! It's regenerating too fast! You need to hit it all at once!"

  Katsuki grinned beneath his mask. "Then I'll just have to go all in."

  He leapt high into the air, the violet flames coalescing into a sphere of pure destruction. The Wendigo looked up, its glowing eyes narrowing, and released another guttural roar. Tendrils of icy mist shot toward Katsuki, twisting and curling like living things, but he was faster.

  "Turbo Breaker!"

  The sphere detonated as Katsuki drove it downward, crashing into the Wendigo with the force of a meteor. The impact unleashed a blinding explosion of violet and black energy, the shockwave ripping through the frozen cityscape. Ice shattered, shadows burned away, and the Wendigo's roar was drowned out by the sound of its own destruction.

  The dust settled. Katsuki stood amidst the wreckage, his breath ragged but steady. The crater beneath him was deep, its edges still glowing faintly. The Wendigo's twisted, broken form lay motionless, its once-burning eyes now dark.

  He turned back to the group, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "Told you. No problem."

  The shadows around the crater began to ripple. Hikari's eyes widened. "…Katsuki, behind you!"

  The Wendigo emerged from the smoldering crater, its skeletal frame radiating frost and malice as it lunged toward Katsuki. Its claws slashed through the air, aiming directly for his chest.

  Before it could land the fatal blow, a burst of blinding movement sliced through the tension. In five seconds, Lyra surged forward, her form a blur of momentum and precision. She raised both hands, her fingers crackling with arcs of plasma-based lightning. A deafening crack erupted as the lightning bolt launched from her palms, tearing through the air at near-incomprehensible speed, splitting the sound barrier and sending thunder rolling across Shibuya.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  The Wendigo moved with unnerving, arachnid-like agility. Its spectral form flickered, and in an instant, it phased through the solid ground, reemerging from a nearby shadow to effortlessly dodge the plasma strike. Its hollow, burning eyes glowed with amusement as its ghastly maw twisted into a mocking grin.

  Wendigo: "Did you mortals truly believe lightning could defeat me?"

  Before the echo of its taunt could fade, Katsuki was already in motion. In a fraction of a second, he disappeared, leaving behind only a gust of wind and a rapidly expanding shockwave that cracked the pavement. The world blurred as he dashed toward the still-crackling plasma bolt, catching it mid-flight. The sheer speed of his movements ignited the air around him, violet flames licking at his shadowy figure.

  Then, Katsuki accelerated further, his figure becoming little more than a ravenous streak of black and violet light streaking across Shibuya's skyline. He wove through the bustling city, darting between skyscrapers, alleys, and streets, circling the entirety of the metropolis. Each lap built more kinetic energy, the plasma bolt growing brighter in his grasp, crackling wildly like a caged storm.

  To bystanders, his movements were little more than a fleeting ripple, a gust of wind carrying a phantom-like figure. The air hummed with the sound of his velocity, a deep, resonating tone like the roar of a jet engine mixed with the howl of an oncoming storm. Glass windows rattled and shattered as Katsuki's path warped the urban environment.

  Twenty-five seconds later, he returned, skidding to a stop directly in front of the Wendigo. The kinetic force of his sudden halt sent ripples of distortion through the air, and cracks spider-webbed through the asphalt beneath his feet. His geometric shades glinted with an eerie light as he hurled the plasma bolt with all the energy he'd built.

  The bolt screamed through the air, now transformed into a devastating surge of raw energy. It tore through the space between them with such ferocity that the atmosphere itself seemed to combust in its wake, leaving a trail of violet and electric blue light that seared the sky.

  The Wendigo had no time to react. It barely turned its ghastly skull toward the incoming attack before the bolt collided with it, detonating on impact. A cataclysmic explosion erupted, the shockwave rippling outward and leveling everything within its radius. Daylight was momentarily consumed by the flash, bathing the streets in an unearthly glow.

  Katsuki stood firm, his jaw mask still crackling with violet flames as he straightened his posture. His voice carried a calm confidence as the explosion settled into a smoldering crater where the Wendigo once stood.

  Katsuki: "You can run through shadows all you want, but you can't outrun me."

  The ground rumbled as the massive Kuni no Kami strode into view, each step carving deep craters into the earth. Its form resembled a living monolith, jagged slabs of stone fused together with pulsating vines that twisted like veins. Its glowing emerald eyes stared down with ancient, unrelenting menace.

  From the other end of the battlefield, the wendigo groaned, rising from the impact crater that Hikari and Lila's attacks had left it in. Its pale, mottled flesh began to stitch itself together, sinew knitting back with horrifying speed.

  The creature sneered, its voice a guttural rasp.

  "Mortals… If you think you've won, think again. I didn't come here alone."

  It gestured to the towering Earth Spirit.

  "When the Yokai Hybrid of War is here, there won't be any one-on-one fights."

  Hikari and Lila stepped forward.

  "Good," Hikari said, cracking her knuckles. "We'll handle the wendigo. You two…" She shot a glance over her shoulder at Lyra and Katsuki. "Take the rock monster."

  "Gladly," Katsuki said, his voice distorted through the phantom-like jaw mask. Violet flames danced along his raven-black hair, flowing like liquid shadows, and his jagged geometric shades pulsed with an eerie luminescence. Each movement sent ripples of energy across the battlefield.

  Beside him, Lyra grinned, electricity crackling along her frame like a living aura. Her honey-blonde hair seemed to glow faintly in the storm of her energy, star-shaped clips sparking as if charged with her power. She rolled her shoulders and let her fingers flex, the hum of voltage growing louder with every breath.

  "Guess we're up," she said, tilting her head toward Katsuki. "You ready, babe?"

  "Always," Katsuki replied, his smirk hidden but audible.

  In a flash, they launched forward, their combined energy tearing through the air like a thunderclap. Katsuki's speed distorted reality, and for a moment, he appeared as a blur, warping in and out of existence. But then, something unusual happened. His movements shifted, his breakneck pace slowing ever so slightly. Not because of a lack of power, but because of precision. He matched Lyra's speed perfectly, their momentum synchronizing.

  Their advance became a dazzling spectacle of light and motion. Katsuki left behind streaks of violet flames that curled like serpents, twisting in the air before dissipating. Lyra was a comet of crackling blue light, her electricity illuminating the battlefield like a second sun. Together, they were chaos and elegance, destruction and precision.

  The Kuni no Kami reacted instantly, raising a massive, vine-covered arm that shimmered with crystalline mineral growths. The spirit swung down with the force of a mountain, but Katsuki phased through the strike as if the gargantuan limb didn't exist, his form flickering between dimensions.

  "Too slow," he growled, appearing above the creature's shoulder.

  Lyra surged forward in the same breath, her hands outstretched as arcs of electricity danced between her fingers.

  "Catch!" she yelled, sending a blinding bolt of energy directly into the Earth Spirit's torso. The force of the impact staggered the massive entity, its glowing green eyes dimming momentarily as its rocky form crackled under the assault.

  Katsuki followed up immediately, a trail of violet flames spiraling around his body as he descended like a missile. His fist collided with the spirit's back, and the resulting shockwave tore through the ground, shattering boulders and uprooting trees in a wide radius. The Kuni no Kami roared, its body trembling.

  Landing beside Lyra, Katsuki's jagged shades caught the flicker of electricity still crackling in the air around her. He gave her a quick glance, his smirk now visible beneath the faint flicker of his jaw mask.

  "Not bad, huh?"

  "Eh," Lyra teased, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as sparks crackled around her. "Try to keep up, Speed Demon."

  "Oh, I'm keeping up," Katsuki said, his tone laced with playful confidence. "You're the one playing catch-up."

  They dashed forward like twin storms, a blur of speed and fury that tore through the battlefield. The Kuni no Kami's colossal limbs swung with earth-shattering force, but for every devastating blow, they vanished, only to reappear in blinding flashes of light and fire, delivering strikes that cracked the very air.

  The Earth Spirit faltered, its movements growing sluggish. Each swing was slower than the last, its massive frame quaking as the ground beneath it fractured.

  The battlefield pulsed with energy. Katsuki's voice cut through the chaos, low and savage.

  "Let's end this."

  Lyra's grin was feral, her electric-blue eyes burning with raw power.

  "About time."

  With a roar, they launched into the air, their auras colliding in a blinding vortex of violet and blue. The sky itself seemed to crack as their combined energy spiraled downward, aimed at the heart of the Kuni no Kami.

  The battlefield erupted in a deafening explosion of power. Then silence. Dust and smoke billowed into the air, obscuring the crater where the Earth Spirit had stood.

  And then, from the shadows of the smoke, a low, guttural growl echoed.

  "Did you think it would be that easy?"

  to be continued…