Chapter 313: Black Flood (Part 2)

The enormous mass of Black Flood hung directly above Mythal, an entire ocean suspended in the sky, and for a moment Kai simply stood there staring up at it.

The whole city sat beneath it.

Then the black water began descending, slow at first, then faster, gathering speed as gravity finally caught hold of it.

Kai’s eyes narrowed. "...That’s coming toward me."

"Yes," Tiamat said immediately.

The Flood shifted mid-descent, the enormous mass changing direction entirely, abandoning the city as a whole and concentrating around a single point.

Him.

Kai looked around. The streets nearby were mostly empty, but not entirely. "Everyone!" His voice carried through the communication network. "Clear this area!"

Sera understood instantly. "Everyone, move!"

Hunters scattered, boots pounding against stone, and Kai stayed rooted in place until the last of them vanished around a corner.

"Go!" he shouted after them.

The Flood descended.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Kai activated Air Step, vanishing from beneath it a half-second before impact, the black water crashing into the street where he’d been standing. A massive section of road simply disappeared, not cratered, not broken, gone entirely, the stone beneath it erased down to nothing.

He landed several meters away and looked back at the empty crater.

"...Yeah." He tightened his grip on the Fractured Blade. "I really don’t want that touching me."

Red Storm had burned him. He’d survived a direct hit, scorched and bleeding but still standing.

This felt different. This didn’t feel like something he could tank.

"You understand now," Tiamat said.

"A lightning strike can hurt me." He looked at the black water pooling where the road used to be. "That thing can erase me."

"Correct."

His expression hardened. "Then I can’t make a mistake."

Tiamat didn’t answer.

He took a breath. "Fine." He looked toward the empty district ahead, already damaged from Red Storm, already cleared of anyone who might get caught in the crossfire.

"Let’s run."

He rushed forward, and the Black Flood followed. He activated Air Step.

WHOOSH!

He appeared on a rooftop, and the Flood crashed into the building behind him, the entire structure disappearing in an instant, no rubble left behind at all.

His eyes widened. "...That didn’t even leave rubble."

"Because there is nothing left to leave," Tiamat said.

He moved again immediately, leaping across the next building, the Flood rising to meet him. Air Step. Gone. Reappear. Move again. The Flood tracked every motion, patient and relentless.

He deliberately angled toward the abandoned sections of the city, the parts Red Storm had already gutted, empty streets, damaged towers, no hunters, no facilities, no one left to catch in the wreckage.

He glanced back. The Flood followed. "Good." He picked up speed. "Come after me."

The black water surged, and he cut around a leaning building, letting it crash into the structure instead of him, the building vanishing the instant contact was made. He Air Stepped again, a wave chasing his shadow, and jumped clear as it passed beneath him, landing on a broken tower.

"This might actually work," he said, breathing hard.

"For a short time," Tiamat said.

He sighed. "You really hate optimism."

The Flood changed tactics without warning. Instead of chasing him through the streets, it rose up around the surrounding buildings, cutting off his routes on three sides at once.

He stopped cold, black water pressing in from every direction but one.

"...It learned."

"It responds to your behavior," Tiamat confirmed.

"Then I need to change mine."

He activated Air Step, moving upward this time, and the Flood rose after him. He jumped building to building. It followed. He changed direction. It followed. He stopped entirely, and it stopped too, hovering, waiting.

His eyes narrowed. "It isn’t chasing where I am." He watched the black mass hold perfectly still. "It’s predicting where I’m going."

He broke his own rhythm on purpose after that. Air Step left. Then right. Then backward. Then upward. Then sharply down. The Flood missed him twice in a row, black water crashing into empty air where he should have landed.

"Better," Tiamat said.

He grinned. "I’m glad you approve."

"Do not become arrogant."

"There it is."

He kept moving, and somewhere in the chaos he noticed his own body shifting before he’d consciously decided to move at all, Distortion pulling him toward safer ground a half-second ahead of danger. A wave rose exactly where he was about to land, and his foot changed direction on its own, avoiding it entirely.

"...Distortion," he murmured.

Tiamat stayed silent.

He kept running, but his breathing grew heavier with every Air Step. The technique was powerful, but it still meant pushing against the air itself over and over, and his body was starting to feel the cost of it. He landed hard on a rooftop, the Flood closing in behind him.

"I can’t keep doing this." He activated Air Step again, and his body felt sluggish, heavier than it should have. The Flood rose at his back.

He gritted his teeth. "Come on..."

He pushed off.

Then something changed.

A notification flickered at the edge of his vision.

[External Attention: Surging.]

He blinked mid-motion. "...What?"

Another followed.

[True Fans Gained: 9,350.]

[Total True Fans: 10,230.]

He stared at it for half a second. "Now?"

The Flood was already closing the distance. He didn’t have time to investigate. He activated Air Step, pushing against the air the way he’d done a hundred times already.

His foot didn’t fall.

He froze mid-motion, eyes wide. "...What?"

He carefully set his other foot down. It stayed suspended too, hanging in open air like there was something solid beneath it. He looked down.

Nothing there. No platform. No spell circle. No barrier. Just empty sky.

He took another step. Nothing happened. Another. Still nothing.

Tiamat went completely silent.

He smiled slowly. "No way."

Another step. Then another. His feet stayed suspended in midair the entire time, holding his weight like solid ground.

He laughed, disbelieving. "I can stand on it."

Then he moved, and instead of pushing himself forward with Air Step the way he always had, he simply ran. One step. Two. Three. Faster. The air held beneath him like packed earth, and his expression shifted from shock to something closer to exhilaration.

"I’m actually running."

He accelerated, the ruined city rushing past beneath his feet, and the Flood surged upward to follow. He ran across open sky. Turned. Ran sideways. Then straight up along an invisible incline.

No more teleporting. No more resetting his position every few seconds.

He could just keep moving.

"This is amazing."

Tiamat finally spoke again, and this time there was nothing playful in her voice at all. "This feeling..."

He kept running. "What?"

"Your Distortion."

He glanced back at the chasing wave without slowing. "It really is removing the rules of the physical world from you."

His eyes widened. "Removing the rules?"

"You were not supposed to be able to run through empty air."

He grinned, dodging a rising crest without breaking stride. "Apparently I am now."

Tiamat stayed quiet for a long moment.

"But I can feel something else."

He glanced ahead, weaving between two more waves as they rose. "Something else?"

"Yes." A pause. "There is more happening here."

She seemed to be thinking aloud, almost to herself. "Could it be..."

He kept running. "Could it be what?"

"The System was delaying it?"

His expression shifted. "Delaying what?"

She didn’t answer.

He glanced back. The Flood was still chasing him, a massive wave gathering behind him fast. He accelerated. "Not now." He turned forward again. "We’ll figure it out later."

"Agreed."

He started experimenting almost immediately, realizing what Air Run gave him that Air Step never had.

Momentum.

He ran across the empty sky, changed direction sharply, and the Flood followed a half-beat behind. He ran upward, looping tight around a damaged tower, and the wave crashed into it instead, the structure disappearing whole. He kept going, using the sky itself as his battlefield now, running between waves, over them, around them, under them, the Flood grasping at air again and again.

Distortion kept guiding him, small corrections he barely noticed making, his feet shifting course a fraction before a wave appeared where he would have landed, his body already moving the optimal direction before he’d consciously chosen it.

The System timer flickered into view.

[Black Flood Duration: 8:41.]

He glanced at it mid-stride. "Less than two minutes."

"Then continue running," Tiamat said.

He laughed. "That’s the plan."

The Flood grew more aggressive, massive waves rising from every direction. One came from the left, and he cut right. Another rose ahead, and he jumped clean over it. A third surged behind him, and he pushed faster. A spatial gap tore open in front of him without warning, and he turned sharply, the Flood missing by inches.

[9:12.]

His breathing had gone ragged, ordinary water soaking through his torn clothes, exhaustion pulling at every muscle. But Air Run had changed everything about this fight. He didn’t need to stop anymore. Didn’t need to reset. He could simply keep the momentum going.

The Flood chased him. It couldn’t catch him.

"Your movement has improved considerably," Tiamat said.

He smiled, weaving between two more waves. "That almost sounded like praise."

"Do not push your luck."

He laughed. "Worth a try."

[9:30.]

He looked down at Mythal spread out beneath him, damaged but still standing, still full of people fighting to keep it that way. He spotted Sera helping a wounded hunter to their feet. Raze hauling debris off a cracked barrier. Mira organizing triage along a side street. Lily and Elden still bent over the network console. Gabriel coordinating a line of Church members near the central plaza.

He smiled. "Thirty seconds."

He kept running.

[9:45.]

The Flood gathered behind him one last time, swelling into something enormous. He glanced back. "...Really?"

The entire mass surged forward. He ran faster.

[9:50.] A wave rose directly ahead of him. He turned.

[9:55.] Another appeared behind. He accelerated.

[9:57.] The black water grazed inches from his heel, and Distortion pulled him forward before he’d finished registering the danger. He jumped.

[9:59.] The Flood hung a breath away from his ankle. He gritted his teeth. "Come on!"

[10:00.]

Everything stopped.

The Black Flood lost its shape all at once, the enormous mass collapsing inward instead of crashing down, black water evaporating into countless drifting particles that scattered and vanished on a wind that hadn’t been there a moment before.

The sky cleared.

Kai kept running for several more steps out of pure momentum before he realized nothing was chasing him anymore. He slowed, then stopped, standing alone in the open air, nothing beneath his feet but empty sky and a very long drop.

He looked down.

"...Air Run." A slow smile crossed his face. "So my Air Step evolved into this huh? I’m keeping it."

"I suspected you would," Tiamat said.

He descended slowly, and hunters began emerging from their defensive positions below, the city wet, scarred, but intact. Lily checked the readout on her console.

[Black Flood Duration: 10 Minutes.]

She exhaled. "It’s over."

Elden looked toward the city map, still glowing faintly across his display. "Damage?"

She checked. "Lower than the simulation."

Mira jogged over, breathing hard. "Hunter casualties?"

Lily scanned the numbers again, expression tightening slightly. "We’re still checking."

Kai landed near them, expecting relief to settle over him the way it had after Red Storm.

Instead, something else nagged at him, small and persistent, refusing to let the moment feel finished.

He walked through one of the nearby streets, and a black stain on the pavement caught his eye. He stopped. It looked like spilled ink, dark and glossy against the gray stone. Another mark sat a few feet further along. Then another.

His expression shifted. He kept walking, finding more the deeper he went, some on the road, some smeared across walls, one near a piece of destroyed equipment.

He crouched beside one, careful not to touch it directly, fingers hovering just above the stone beside it. "...Someone was hit."

Gabriel approached from behind, and her expression went complicated the instant she saw the marks. "Yes."

He looked up at her. "How many?"

She shook her head slowly. "We don’t know yet."

His jaw tightened. The city had survived. The damage sat far below what the simulations had predicted.

But not everyone had come through untouched.

"You cannot protect everyone," Tiamat said quietly.

He didn’t answer right away, still staring at the black stain on the ground.

"I know."

"Do you?"

He looked at the marks again, jaw set. "Knowing that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying."

Tiamat didn’t respond.

Before he could say anything further, the ground lurched beneath him.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

His head snapped upward. The whole city shook, buildings trembling, loose stone raining off half-repaired walls, several already-weakened structures collapsing outright. Hunters across the plaza raised their weapons on instinct.

"What was that?!" someone shouted.

Another tremor rolled through the streets.

BOOM!

Kai turned toward the horizon, expression sharpening. A System window opened in front of him.

[Calamity Two: Black Flood — Complete.]

He barely finished reading it before a second window appeared beneath it.

[Preparing for Calamity Three.]

The city shook again, harder this time, dust rolling off the rooftops in a slow gray wave.

"It has begun," Tiamat said inside his mind.

Kai looked toward the horizon, where the last traces of black water were still fading from the air.

The Flood was gone.

The next disaster was already on its way.