CALAMITY : Legends Of The Chosen

The Akashi Kaikyō Bridge had once been an icon of Japan's engineering brilliance a titan of steel suspended over glittering ocean. But that was two centuries ago. Now, it was a decaying skeleton of its former self. The wind howled through rusted girders. Cables swayed above jagged breaks in the roadbed. Moss and ash coated every inch. And demons thousands of them had made it their nest.

Shojiro Momo stood at the edge of the cracked pavement, eyes narrowing. His bare fists tightened, old blood caking his knuckles. Beside him, Karl Mitsubishi booted down a slope of shattered rebar, nanite plates covering half his torso and legs. Sparks occasionally sputtered from overloaded joints.

They both knew.

This would not be a battle.

This would be a siege.

"Just how many of these bastards crawled out of the cracks?" Karl muttered, voice echoing metallic through his throat speaker.

Shojiro wiped a bead of sweat from his chin. "Does it matter?" he grinned. "We go through them. Like always."

The first demons appeared as silhouettes low-class skulkers with hunched shoulders and rapid, twitching limbs. Then came shriekers, flapping overhead and howling with vibrations that fractured old windows nearby. Then berserkers. Then more.

The bridge became an ocean of claws, teeth, and death.

Shojiro was the first to leap in, slamming a Skulker into the asphalt with enough force to crack it. He spun, backhanded a second into the suspension cable, and shouted, "Karl, I'm going right!"

"Then I'll hold the line left!" Karl shouted, deploying his shoulder-mounted nanite guns.

Demons swarmed them like ants. Dozens at first. Then hundreds. Karl's arm split open, blades extending from beneath the forearm plating. He weaved through a cluster of fanged hybrids, cleaving arms and torsos with each pass. Shojiro carved his way forward with sheer brute force—each punch denting skulls, breaking ribs, collapsing chests.

Ten minutes in. Shojiro's breathing already deepened. A claw raked across his side, tearing open flesh. He grunted but didn't fall. His body healed, slowly, as the Yggdrasil link mended bone and sinew.

Thirty minutes in. Karl had taken three hits to the chest, one of which cracked his exo-rib plating. Nanites scrambled to rebuild his armor as he fought off a four-armed Brute.

Shojiro screamed as he activated a new technique Muscle Refiguration. His right arm swelled grotesquely, cords of muscle twisting and tightening until it looked almost inhuman. He grabbed a Berserker mid-charge and flung it over the edge of the bridge like a rag doll.

"Let's gooooo!!" he howled, steam rising from his back.

But the process was unstable. His legs nearly gave out.

"You're gonna pop a tendon like that!" Karl warned, slicing three enemies down the middle.

"Then I'll just grow a new one!"

The demons kept coming. For every one slain, five more seemed to emerge from the shadows.

Shojiro tried to charge another muscle refiguration but this time, he focused. He inhaled. Felt each fiber. Adjusted his muscle density with brutal precision. A pulse rolled through his body, and his thighs bulked with tension.

He blasted forward like a cannonball.

And then Ligament Drift. His shoulder popped from its socket as his punch launched forward unnaturally far his own tendons temporarily shifting to extend his reach like a whip. The blow connected with a demon's temple, shattering its skull.

"What the hell" Karl blinked. "Did your damn arm stretch?"

"New trick," Shojiro growled, eyes glowing faintly. "Takes a chunk of Vythra, though."

One hour in.

The bridge was a graveyard. Bodies littered the steel, stacked in heaps of blood and bone.

Karl was wheezing, his nanite supply low. One arm was practically shredded metal dangling like torn muscle. Shojiro limped, deep gashes healing slower now. His left eye was swollen shut.

And yet, they stood. Side by side. Surrounded.

Vythra: 1%

Demons: Too many to count.

Shojiro leaned against a lamppost for balance. "I think… I think I broke something inside."

Karl coughed, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. "We break. We heal. That's the deal."

A tremor rolled through the bridge again. Both of them froze.

Then a thunderclap. A vertical gash tore open midair above the water a Crack.

More demons spilled out. Not just dozens. Hundreds. Wings. Claws. Shadow beasts. Bone serpents. All falling from the sky, hissing with unnatural rage.

Shojiro stared, barely able to stand. Karl's nanite drones were down. His internal reactor flickered. "We're out of options."

Shojiro clenched his fists. "Then we die on our feet."

But before they could charge again lightning crashed from above.

A flash. A figure descended, wrapped in tendrils of black lightning.

The storm had arrived.

But the chapter ends not with hope.

Just silence....

The bridge swayed… and waited for the next bloodbath to begin.