The monster lunged.
Steel claws raked across the ground, ripping through broken concrete as if it were paper.
Reo didn't hesitate.
He ran.
Through the shattered halls, up the crumbling stairwells, across floors that groaned under his weight — every step calculated, every turn intentional.
Executor — no, the Hunter's Blood — crashed after him, a roaring avalanche of steel and rage.
But Reo's mind was ice-cold.
Every second it chased him was a second closer to the trap.
---
A Dance with Death
Chunks of wall exploded around him as the Hunter slashed blindly, fury clouding its mutated mind.
Reo ducked under a falling beam, barely avoiding being crushed.
He sprinted across a gaping hole in the floor, using a broken girder as a makeshift bridge.
Behind him, the Hunter didn't slow — it leapt, landing with an earth-shaking crash that sent splinters of stone flying.
Reo glanced over his shoulder.
Faster than I thought, he grimaced.
Plan B.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gadget Doraemon had hastily cobbled together: a miniature gravity trap.
He threw it behind him without looking.
The device beeped once — then detonated in a pulse of invisible force.
The Hunter stumbled — crushed downward as its weight tripled for a split second, smashing it into the floor.
Reo didn't wait to see the result.
He vaulted over another hole and burst into the main atrium — a vast, open space at the heart of the tower.
Above him, dozens of dangling steel cables and fractured girders hung like a spider's web.
Exactly where the real trap lay.
This was where the game would end.
---
The Trap is Sprung
Hidden in the shadows, Doraemon whispered urgently into his wrist communicator.
"Now, Yua!"
A sharp crack echoed through the ruins.
From high above, Yua fired the first shot — not a bullet, but a specialized gadget shell.
The shell struck a key support beam.
With a grinding shriek, the cables above the atrium snapped free, unleashing a deadly rain of steel.
Massive beams and twisted cables plummeted toward the ground — toward the Hunter.
Reo skidded to a halt at the center of the atrium, whirling to face his pursuer.
The Hunter burst into the open, roaring.
And then the sky fell.
A hundred tons of steel and ruin collapsed onto it, burying the monster in an avalanche of death.
The ground shook violently, dust exploding into the air like a bomb.
For a long, agonizing moment, there was only silence.
---
The Price of Survival
Reo collapsed to his knees, panting hard.
He coughed against the dust cloud, eyes watering.
Yua slid down a broken beam from above, landing beside him.
"You okay?!" she shouted, gripping his arm.
Reo gave a shaky thumbs-up.
"Alive," he rasped.
Doraemon waddled over, clutching a tangle of spare gadgets like a nervous mother hen.
"You crazy idiot! You could have been crushed too!" he squeaked.
Reo laughed weakly.
"But I wasn't."
Yua helped him to his feet, and together they stared at the mountain of debris where the Hunter lay buried.
"Is it... over?" she whispered.
Reo narrowed his eyes.
Deep inside, something told him:
Not yet.
But he forced a smile.
"For now," he said. "We won."
---
New Resolve
Later, as they limped back to their hideout, Doraemon pressed a gadget to Reo's wounds, helping heal the worst of the bruises.
The city loomed around them — broken, dangerous, but still somehow alive.
Reo gazed up at the ruined skyline, a grim fire burning in his chest.
He had made a decision in that atrium, running for his life:
This world wouldn't give him peace.
Not yet.
First, he had to take it.
Piece by bloody piece if necessary.
He looked at his hands — small, childish still, but stronger than they were months ago.
I was born a loser.
Now?
I'll be the king.
And no monster — machine or man — would ever stop him again.
---