In the Bleeding Core

The street-level hatch burst open.

Kazuma pulled himself out onto the shattered pavement of Shibuya Crossing.

The city was unrecognizable.

Towering skyscrapers had been reduced to jagged stumps of rebar and gray powder.

The sky above wasn't blue, nor was it dark.

It was a suffocating dome of swirling silver mist and crackling static.

Directly above the glowing Ley Line Spire, the Shiver-Colossus hung like a wounded leviathan.

Its massive outer shell of trillions of needles was torn wide open, fractured by the heavy mass loss in the sewers below.

Through the torn curtain of shifting silver, a pulsing, white-hot magnetic wound gaped open near its underbelly.

It was siphoning raw magic from the city’s roots, trying desperately to knit its body back together.

Kazuma adjusted his one-handed grip on his katana. The gravity stone in the hilt hummed with pure, stored kinetic energy.

"No more running," Kazuma muttered to the empty air. "This ends today."

He sprinted across the ruined intersection, his boots crushing glass and pulverized concrete.

He reached the base of the Ley Line Spire, planting his feet on a tilted slab of asphalt.

He channeled a massive burst of gravity magic into the soles of his boots.

BOOM.

The pavement shattered beneath him as he launched into the air like a kinetic missile.

He soared fifty feet straight up, soaring past the ragged outer curtain of vibrating silver threads.

He aimed his body directly for the glowing, open rupture in the creature’s flank.

He plunged straight into the open wound.The interior of the Shiver-Colossus was a blinding nightmare of localized gravity loops and grinding metal.

Trillions of microscopic needles swirled around him like a liquid silver vortex, tearing at his tactical coat and searing his exposed skin.

He wedged his boots into a dense cluster of internal magnetic struts, anchoring himself inside the beast's living carcass.

Directly in front of him lay the monster's inner vascular network; thick, glowing cables of liquid mercury feeding energy to the core.

Kazuma raised his carbon-steel katana with his right hand, the cobalt glow illuminating the storm inside.

He gritted his teeth and slashed downward with a savage, sweeping arc.

CRACK

The blade sheared through the first major energy conduit. Liquid silver erupted into the chamber, vaporizing on contact with his kinetic aura.

Look at that, Kazuma thought, his chest heaving as the recoil rattled through his teeth. It actually bleeds.

For three long years, I thought these things were untouchable gods. I thought they were natural disasters with no hearts, no nerves, no weaknesses.

But it’s just meat and energy. Complex, ancient, monstrous meat.

My left arm is dead weight. Kazuma's lungs felt like they're filled with liquid lead. But my blade still bites.

If it bleeds, it can break. And if it breaks.

Tokyo survives.

He shifted his weight, driving his heels deeper into the vibrating struts to maintain his footing against the howling internal gale.

He spotted a massive, swirling knot of pressurized magnetic fibers pulsing right beside him.

He pulled the katana back and executed a horizontal reverse-cleave directly through the center of the knot.

BANG

A shockwave of compressed air exploded outward. The internal fibers snapped like over-tensioned steel cables, whipping violently against the chamber walls.

Nnnngh!

Kazuma gasped internally, tasting the bitter copper of his own blood on his tongue.

That one sent a shock right down my spine. The burn in my shoulder is spreading again. The cauterized skin is cracking under the pressure.

I can feel the heat radiating off my own flesh. It wants me to drop the sword. It wants me to lie down and let the silver needles swallow me whole.

Not yet, damn it. Not while I can still feel my fingers around this hilt.

Yumi didn't get a chance to fight back. She didn't get to choose how her story ended. I do.

Every drop of blood I leave inside this creature, is interest paid on a debt three years overdue.

The monster shuddered violently around him. The walls of the internal wound contracted, trying to crush the mortal parasite inside its gut.

Heavy magnetic waves pounded against Kazuma's mind, trying to force his consciousness into shutdown.

Kazuma ignored the psychic pressure, his eyes burning with frantic determination.

He spotted the secondary core conduit it was a thick, glowing trunk of raw elemental magic drawn straight from the city's ley lines below.

He gripped his hilt with both hands; his healthy right hand taking the weight, his burnt, useless left hand merely pressed against his wrist for stability.

He roared and drove the katana straight into the center of the conduit, triggering a micro-burst of gravity magic at the tip.

THUUUUMMMM.

The gravity pulse detonated inside the conduit wall. The thick trunk burst open, spraying raw, unrefined magic across the chamber floor.

Yes! Kazuma laughed internally, a dark, manic edge creeping into his thoughts. Cut the fuel, kill the beast!

Look at it struggle. It’s trying to siphon more power from the spire, but the line is severed.

It’s starving. The high-frequency hum is dropping pitch. The silence outside must be breaking right now.

I'm tearing a god apart from the inside out, one muscle fiber at a time.

My vision is turning red around the edges.

 I’ve only got enough kinetic charge left in this blade for one final, concentrated burst.

Just one more push. Just one more strike to clear the path to the central nexus.

Through the blinding haze of leaking magic and liquid silver, Kazuma saw it.

The inner protective wall surrounding the primary core had fractured under his assault.

Behind the cracked wall, the primary magnetic core burned; a blinding, basketball-sized sphere of pure, terrifying singularity.

It was completely exposed now. No shields. No needle armor. No conduits left to absorb the impact.

Kazuma pulled his blade out of the severed trunk, his body shaking uncontrollably from blood loss and sheer physical exhaustion.

He pointed the glowing tip of his katana straight at the exposed central core.

There you are, Kazuma thought, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. The heart of the storm.