The berserk Nightmare continued its rampage.
Its massive arms swung wildly through the district, crushing buildings and sending clouds of debris into the air.
ROOOOAAAR!
The roar shook the streets below as civilians fled in panic from the collapsing structures.
Kael stood atop a broken rooftop, his gaze fixed on the monster.
Through Truth, he could still see the remaining five cores pulsing inside its unstable body.
But they were moving faster now.
The Nightmare had learned.
Its remaining cores no longer stayed in one place, constantly shifting through the corrupted flesh to avoid destruction.
"…Adaptation." Kael murmured.
The Nightmare might have lost a core, but it had become more dangerous, then one of its countless eyes suddenly locked onto him again.
And this time—Every eye followed.
The countless purple eyes stared at Kael.
Not one, not ten, every eye on the Nightmare's body had locked onto him at the same time.
For a brief moment, the berserk destruction stopped.
The Nightmare stood motionless, watching.
The shifting cores inside its body continued moving rapidly beneath layers of corrupted flesh while the monster's attention focused entirely on a single target.
Kael.
The rooftop beneath him creaked from the lingering tremors, but he remained still.
His faintly glowing eyes met the countless purple eyes without fear.
Then the Nightmare opened every mouth hidden across its body.
And the district was filled with a deafening roar.
The Nightmare suddenly moved.
Its massive body but unlike before now he small little, surged forward with terrifying speed, far faster than before.
Everything in its path was obliterated instantly—houses, walls, entire structures collapsing as it charged straight toward Kael.
Kael stood on the rooftop, watching it approach without moving.
"…It became faster than before." he said calmly. "Of course. It became smaller than before."
The Nightmare's earlier destroyed sections had condensed its mass, making its movements more agile and deadly.
Now it was nearly upon him.
Its enormous mouth split open wide, revealing rows of corrupted teeth and swirling purple mist inside, ready to swallow everything in its path.
At the very last moment—
Kael jumped.
The rooftop he had been standing on was instantly crushed into dust by the Nightmare's attack, exploding into debris and shockwaves as he disappeared upward into the air.
While falling beside the Nightmare's massive body, Kael twisted his form mid-air.
His broken sword flashed once.
SHHK!
He slashed across the left side of the Nightmare's body with a clean, precise motion.
For a brief moment, the cut held—
Then the Nightmare reacted.
The sliced area immediately began to liquefy, its corrupted flesh turning fluid-like and flowing back together as if the wound had never existed.
Kael's expression didn't change as he watched it happen.
He already expected this.
Based on all its previous movements, it wasn't just the body adapting—it was a single core controlling localized regeneration and reaction patterns.
The Nightmare had already learned to adapt to slashes and thrusts by turning its outer layer into shifting liquid flesh.
But that adaptability came with a flaw.
"…It's still made of liquid and flesh." Kael murmured mid-fall. "Which means it has a weakness. Magic..."
Kael landed on the shattered ground with a controlled impact, dust spreading around his feet.
Behind him, the Nightmare's sliced wound began to regenerate, its liquid-like flesh flowing back together to erase the damage.
But then—
A faint flame ignited inside the healing cut, burning from within the regenerating mass as if it had been hidden in the slash all along.
The Nightmare released a deafening roar of pain.
Purple flesh twisted violently as flames erupted from the wound Kael had left behind, spreading rapidly across one of its arms and down its leg.
For the first time since its transformation, the monster looked truly injured.
The fire refused to be extinguished, burning deeper into the corrupted flesh each second.
Not far away, a senior knight stood frozen in the middle of a ruined street.
His armor was covered in dust from the collapsing house and rescued for others people, but he had completely forgotten to move.
His eyes remained fixed on Kael.
"...What is that?" he whispered in disbelief.
Watching the battle unfold, he felt a chill run down his spine.
"He's so strong. He's treating a Six-Core Nightmare like a training dummy."
The knight swallowed hard, unable to take his eyes off the distant figure.
"In my experience, he could have killed it long ago... but he keeps dragging out the fight. Why?"
His gaze followed Kael as the young man calmly observed the burning Nightmare.
Then the senior knight reached a conclusion that made even him uneasy.
"...I don't think even the Four Border Commanders would have a chance against him."
The senior knight stood motionless, watching Kael fight the Nightmare in the distance.
Every clash shook the district, flames and corruption colliding as buildings continued to collapse around the battlefield.
Then, from the southern streets, a group of knights rushed toward the scene at full speed.
Leading them was the South Border Commander himself, Louis, followed closely by several elite knights.
The moment Commander Louis spotted the senior knight standing alone, he immediately rushed over.
"Hey! What's going on here?! Where's the Nightmare?!" Louis shouted, scanning the ruined district.
The senior knight opened his mouth, but for a moment, no words came out.
Then Louis shouted again.
"Hey! What are you doing standing there?! Where are the other knights?!"
The senior knight finally snapped out of his daze.
"I-I'm sorry, Commander Louis..." he said, still staring toward the battlefield. "But... I think everything is fine now."
Commander Louis frowned and followed the senior knight's gaze.
In the distance, a ruined section of the district was covered in dust, shattered stone, and dark stains of corrupted liquid.
The remains of destroyed houses were scattered everywhere, evidence of a battle far beyond what ordinary knights could handle.
Then a figure emerged from the lingering smoke.
Kael walked forward calmly, his clothes torn and covered in dust.
In his hand was a sword that was no longer a sword at all—only a broken fragment of a blade remained.
The smoke slowly cleared behind him.
And Commander Louis froze.
The enormous Nightmare lay collapsed across the ruins, its body dissolving into pools of dark liquid as the last traces of corruption evaporated into the air.
"W-who is he?" Commander Louis asked quietly.
The senior knight never took his eyes off Kael.
"...He's the one who took down the Six-Core Nightmare." he said.
Commander Louis' eyes widened in disbelief. "S-Six-Core Nightmare?" he repeated.
His gaze immediately returned to the dissolving corpse sprawled across the ruined district.
Even in death, the remains radiated a pressure that made the surrounding knights uneasy.
"A Nightmare capable of threatening Fortress Genesis..." Louis muttered, struggling to process what he was seeing.
The commander clenched his fists.
A Six-Core Nightmare wasn't something a normal knight order could handle.
If it had been allowed to fully rampage through the city, entire districts could have been wiped out.
Yet now—
Its corpse was dissolving into liquid corruption among the ruins.
Commander Louis slowly looked back toward Kael.
The young man was simply walking away with a broken sword in his hand, as if he had merely finished a routine task.
For the first time in years, Commander Louis felt a chill run down his spine.
Commander Louis swallowed hard as he looked at the dissolving remains of the Nightmare.
"A Six-Core Nightmare can threaten an entire kingdom," he said quietly. "It isn't because of its raw strength alone."
His gaze remained fixed on the corpse.
"The true danger of a Six-Core Nightmare is its ability to manipulate its own body and move its cores at will."
The surrounding knights fell silent.
Even among experienced veterans, everyone knew the terror of such a creature.
"No matter how powerful you are," Louis continued, "if you can't locate its cores, you'll never truly kill it."
He clenched his fist.
"Their regeneration is insane. Wounds, severed limbs, even massive damage to the body mean almost nothing to them."
His eyes narrowed.
"Only by damaging the cores can you slow that regeneration. And unless every core is destroyed, the Nightmare will keep adapting, healing, and fighting."
The commander slowly turned toward Kael's departing figure.
"Yet somehow... he found every core." he whispered. "As if he knew where they were from the very beginning."
The senior knight stayed silent, still staring at Kael.
Commander Louis exhaled slowly, trying to steady his thoughts.
"…That's not something a normal human can do," he muttered.
Far ahead, Kael continued walking away from the battlefield, not once looking back at the ruined Nightmare behind him.