He extended his hand, the inky symbiotic substance weaving around his arm to form…
A sword?
Not the cannon he expected, not the familiar echo of his soul resonance, but questions dissolved as he moved. He lunged into the faceless horde and sliced away, fast as lightning, the blade effortlessly parting bodies like paper.
The dust settled, and he let out a sigh of relief. Then he inspected the symbiote on his arm, muttering, “What are you?”
It was constantly crawling, oozing—breathing—yet it retained its shape as a blade. He tried to will it away, and though it would briefly unravel, it would always snap back into shape.
He pursed his lips. “Well, seeing as you're not going anywhere, you may as well behave.” So he willed the ink to extend and harden around his forearm, forging a matching gauntlet that molded perfectly to muscle and bone, as though it had always belonged there.
Then came the screams.
Despite being halfway across the city, they pierced his skull, sudden and sharp. He cursed, gripping his head. Was this a side effect…?
The ink reacted first, launching skyward like a thrown spear. He clung on for dear life, heart racing.
“What the—!”
The ascent halted. The world fell silent beneath him. He hovered, weightless, and from this impossible vantage point he saw it—
A rising cloud, blooming with destruction.
The blade hurled itself into the distance. This time he braced, fists tightened around the hilt, before the weapon drove itself into the heart of something monstrous.
He leapt back as the creature disintegrated into smoke and ash. The ink remained unharmed, snaking back to his arm, its home, where it formed a sword and gauntlet once more.
The monsters answered in rage.
As the unholy sounds of groans, ripping flesh, and breaking bones filled the air, the creatures gathered, stacked, and merged—transforming into a wall that blotted out the sky.
He could do nothing but retreat, feet flying, as the living mass thundered after him, closing in.
He was almost cornered when suddenly a voice, low and hoarse, invaded his mind. The words were in a language not of this world, yet he understood them loud and clear:
His body obeyed, turning instinctively. He slipped into the tunnel as the faceless tide rushed past, none the wiser.
Relief barely settled as the sword dragged him further into the abyss. Before darkness swallowed them, it led him upward through the hollow spine of an abandoned elevator shaft, gaining speed.
CLASH!
They shot through the skylight like a bullet, and for a moment he was airborne, bits of glass surrounding him like stars, suspended above the sea of ruins…
And the faceless mass churning below.
He and the symbiote moved as one. It weaved into a greatsword that tripled in size as he drew it high. Then, with a cry that tore from his lungs, he descended, carving a single, fatal line down the entire length of the horde, leaving guts and blood and ash behind.
When he landed, it was gracefully—symmetrically—as if it had all merely been a dance.
Behind him, the remains dissolved, ash endlessly evaporating into the sky. He flicked the blood off his sword before he slung it over his shoulder and departed…
