OLD-WORLD EXTRA

***

Amon had remained behind, and it was only of course that he did he was responsible for dealing with that terror.

It wasn't a being the others could see without dying.

The monster's mere presence was enough to squash them all into a paste.

Even the ground it walked on became no more.

Each step reduced everything in its surroundings to nearly nothing, slowly, deliberately so, becoming worse the closer it got to him.

Its every breath felt like guttural roars, so powerful that it seemed to come from the very Earth itself.

Whatever this being was, Emir knew not of it.

He only knew that it was a Behemoth, his knowledge from the 'novel' half complete as always.

Amon didn't know either.

His documented fights were limited to monsters in the Tyrant rank.

While he had definitely fought Behemoths before, it hadn't been on Earth.

It must have been somewhere else in the vast universe.

This was guesswork, speculation, but Emir was sure that he had, at least once or twice.

The difference between him and the Four Elites wouldn't make sense otherwise.

So, while Amon wasn't inexperienced, he wasn't really all that experienced either.

Either way, whatever experience he had seemed to be enough.

Panic was far from his mind.

Instead, what repeated in his mind was the word caution.

He had to minimize the damage as much as possible.

If he didn't, almost everyone around their side of the Earth would die, leaving only the strongest of Seraphims and Archons like himself.

His eyes stared at the end of the chamber, the only place where shadows loomed.

As that moment stretched, another came by, and he held his breath, the ruin did so alongside him.

And then...

It tore through the wall and roof, stepping into the light that revealed its form.

The creature was enormous, towering over him like a living mountain.

It stood on its massive two feet, its body shaped like a wingless dragon, with relatively small arms that ended with long claws made from some kind of crystallized steel.

A grotesque amalgamation of metal and flesh was on its back like jagged spikes, starting from its neck and ending at its tail, which was the biggest part of the terror.

The tail was not simply flesh and thick armored scales like its black skin but filled with metal, protruding out like a porcupine.

Multiple eyes, three in total, glowed with obvious intelligence, set deep within its skull, locked on Amon with a predatory focus.

This was a Ten-Core Behemoth, a ZillaColossi, an easily gotten commodity within the higher ranks, but a world-ending terror on Earth.

There was no doubt that this was the most dangerous creature to ever emerge throughout their history.

The power radiating from it was so intense that the very air seemed to warp around it.

Amon's eyes widened slightly.

It appeared that he would have to put in more effort than he previously thought.

Stepping forward, he looked up and snapped his fingers.

Then everything went silent.

The world could no longer see them.

***

Meanwhile, in another, dimmer, grimier, and uglier place, stood Emir, seemingly waiting for something.

His family had successfully stepped in before Templar's plan took hold.

Yet that was their only success.

Sure, they snuffed out much of their force, but what did it matter when the main event went as 'written?'

Well, at least they made it so that Amon had nothing else to deal with, allowing him to fight the Behemoth with no distractions.

Even then, it would take the principal a while to kill it.

Though it wasn't much of a challenge to him, this was to be expected.

After all, only he would be holding back his strength, the Colossi would go all out.

Besides, he would be focusing on minimizing its damage to the environment, and that was another challenge to consider.

So while they ultimately failed, Templar's attack would've been many magnitudes worse had they not interfered.

The entire batch of first-year students might have been wiped out-every single one, even Arthur.

A few of the professors and hunter group leaders would have fallen too, leaving Templar's attack as an overwhelming success in everyone's eyes.

Emir could easily bet that Amon had realized that by now, and it most certainly raised his

image in the man's eyes.

While his actions were driven by self-interest and fulfilling his duty as a professor, they far exceeded what anyone else had contributed-and that was putting it lightly.

Regardless, Emir's reason for acting leaned heavily on the former.

He didn't care much for accolades or titles, not compared to what he viewed as most important: the protection of his family.

It was what truly mattered to him-what had always mattered.

Everything else was secondary, a means to ensure that goal.

A dominating survival.

He would never let them step an inch closer to them.

Not only because of the danger but because of their nature as fanatics.

Emir didn't want them to see their pathetic sight, his hatred for those types running deep.

Anyhow, he knew where Templar's soldiers had met from Lyra's report, so he stalked that area for a while, silently watching his Elite Cohort's battle through an incredibly dirty

window.

He was waiting for Nathan's men to provide him with the exact location of Templar's base of

operations.

Their church.

And thankfully, he didn't need to wait long.

Just as the cohort ended the second wave, killing no less than fifty men, Nathan's voice

resounded in his head.

[Sorry for the delay, boss man. These no-brained bastards took a while to crack. Their minds were fuzzed up real bad, so we had to check out at least ten of em.]

Chuckling, Emir checked the information and then inputted the coordinates to his map of the

slums.

[It's fine; I expected as much. You're up against her. She must've tinkered with their brains in that millisecond before death. So don't worry, you've done well.]

[Thank you, bossman!]

Their connection was cut there.

He glanced at the map and then, after identifying a route to their church, he kicked the wall he

was leaning on, opening the room to sunlight and revealing the nearby street.

Looking up, his eyes turned to a building in the distance.

"Flash Step."

He disappeared, reappearing just above the building's roof and landing on it softly.

It was similar-looking to all the buildings in the earlier sections of the slums-broken,

rusting, and crumbling.

However, there was something unusual-a figure that stood out.

A homeless man sat on one of its rusted beams, unfazed by the destruction and gunfire that

had echoed through the area for the last half hour.

Interested, Emir dropped right in front of him, not slowing his fall and cracking the ground,

all in an attempt to intimidate him.

But again, the man remained unfazed.

His eyes slowly drifted toward Emir, meeting his inky ones without fear or surprise.

"Sir... Can you spare me some credits?"

Emir tilted his head, confused, almost disappointed.

His face didn't show that emotion, however.

A different one was more evident.

Disgust. He was unable to hide what he felt from looking at the man, his OCD acting up.

While he could ignore the building by focusing on particular elements, this man was a mess from top to bottom, there was nothing clean about him, almost as if he was a comical

caricature of a homeless man...

A fake.

"My daughter is cold... very cold."

His begging sounded genuine though, he had to give him that.

Or... he might be real, just preyed upon by the Praying Lady.

'Ah... That's definitely it.'

Emir nodded his head, accepting that conclusion as the truth.

It sounded like something right up her alley.

"Sir?"

Sighing, he looked away, his eyes scanning the streets, then suddenly vanished.

Ten seconds later, he reappeared back in front of the homeless man, an assault rifle in his

hand.

"What's your name?"

"I-Its E-Emir, Sir."

He smiled at that answer.

Now he was sure of his conclusion.

Emir got closer to the filthy Emir and handed over the AR.

"Warm up your daughter with this."

Showing emotion at last, filthy Emir looked at clean Emir with surprise, thinking that he was

about to get shot.

That emotion switched to something else as a moment passed, confusion, mirroring clean

Emir fifteen seconds earlier.

"How?"

Clean Emir presented the gun even closer to the filthy one's face.

"I don't have time to teach you how to fish. It's a gun, use it."

"To... extort people? Steal from them?"

"Exactly."

"Then..."

The homeless man took the gun, pressed its stock on his shoulder, and aimed it at the owner

of the hand that fed him.

"Hm."

For the first time since he arrived, Emir looked directly at the man's face and leaned towards

him, intentionally slow.

"Does desperation make people this stupid?"

With every second, the homeless man pushed himself further back, his flinching body

screaming at him to run away, that he had made a mistake.

"Am I like this as well? Can't imagine it."

In the next second, there was no more room for the man, his back was pinned against the wall.

Meanwhile, Emir's head was pushing down against the rifle's nozzle.

"What do you think? Am I stupid?"

Utterly speechless, the homeless man's finger neared the trigger, while his eyes remained

stuck on Emir's.

He couldn't stop himself, it was as if his body was moving on its own accord.

He had to kill this man!

"DIE YOU MONSTER!"

His finger pulled the trigger fully and...

Click!

Nothing happened.

All they heard was a click.

Click! Click! Click! Click!

He pressed the trigger multiple times like a maniac, begging for the impossible to happen,

but nothing could.

"Please... p-please... don't kill me... please."

The gun had no bullets.

"I beg you, please don't-"

Emir kicked him into the ground, shutting him up, and then, without giving him a moment to

react, he curb-stomped his head, ending his life at once.

Like a ripe tomato thrown against a rock-hard wall, what remained of his head splattered everywhere, coating his surroundings in blood, bone chips, brain matter, and muscle tissue.

He had stomped the heads of many before this, but none had resulted in such a gruesome display.

It was on purpose.

This wasn't just about his usual efficiency; it was a statement-a warning to those who dared

to misuse his name.

"Bitch... trying to play me like that."

Emir cursed under his breath, his voice seething with barely restrained anger.

He then took a deep breath, composing himself, then kneeled down slightly, grabbed the

cleanest part of the man- the left shoe-and dragged the body forward into the building. "Fine. If death is what you want then I'll show it to you."