CALAMITY : Legends Of The Chosen

THE 1% THRESHOLD

Location: The Flooded Edge of Neo-Azanai

Smoke clung to the fractured ruins like cobwebs. Craters still boiled. The team trudged forward — barely alive. They had survived the Catalyst-class demon Veskrith… but just barely.

Shojiro's muscles spasmed with every step. His VYTHRA gland was dry. Leone's ghoul form had vanished, leaving her pale and swaying. Karl's HUD blinked red — reactor overheat imminent. Morgz was using the last of his water to keep himself from passing out. Max had literal scorch marks up his spine. Enme was bleeding from the ears. Even her voice glyphs were flickering.

VYTHRA LEVELS: 1% CONDITION: CRITICAL MAGIC USAGE: LOCKED

And then…

The air cracked.

Literally.

A jagged tear split open twenty meters from their position — a Crack, malformed and angry, tore through reality like shattered glass.

Everyone stopped.

A guttural screech echoed from within. Then another.

A flood of shadows erupted.

Bone-wolves, their ribs twisted into saws.

Horned fire spirits, levitating like bleeding lanterns.

Centipede demons slithering over broken walls, mouths foaming with teeth.

Thirty-seven demons poured from the rupture — mid-tier. Elite. Hungry.

Shojiro's legs locked.

Leone reached for her bow but it fizzled in her palm.

Max staggered. "I… I can't—"

Enme lifted a hand, trying to conjure even a weak glyph—

Nothing.

Karl whispered:

"This is a wipe. We're done."

Zans was the only one standing steady. Silent.

He looked at his friends.

Then slowly…

He took a deep breath—

And slammed his head into the concrete beneath him.

CRACK.

Blood spilled from his scalp.

Shojiro blinked. "Zans?!"

Zans didn't stop. He grabbed the edge of the curb, leaned forward—

SLAM.

His head shattered stone.

Morgz shouted. "Stop—!!"

SLAM.

The third hit was violent — his forehead split wide open. Blood soaked the ground. His shadow rippled violently beneath him.

"Kuro," Zans murmured, "...take them."

And he collapsed — body limp, twitching once before falling still.

The shadow beneath him exploded outward—

And Kuro rose.

She stood like judgment.

Kuro's body shimmered from the ink.

A lithe humanoid woman — pitch black, silver hair glowing with strands of soullight, eyes twin moons of white fire.

And this time—

She didn't just rise.

She bloomed.

Her form expanded, threefold, tendrils of liquid darkness spiraling behind her like a spectral cloak. Veins of starlight webbed through her arms.

She was shadow weaponized.

A nightmare with intent.

The demons shrieked and charged.

Kuro didn't move.

Then—

She snapped.

Combat Phase: "One vs Legion"

The battlefield became carnage.

Kuro disappeared from sight.

In the next instant, ten demons dropped — necks slashed, hearts pierced, eyes gouged from the inside out.

Her silhouette darted across the cracked pavement like oil on fire.

A centipede demon lunged— She grabbed its shadow, and used it to tie its body into a noose. It collapsed, bones shattering from its own contortion.

A horned fire demon hurled molten spears—

Kuro absorbed the flames, blinked through its face, and exited its skull like smoke, leaving the corpse to crumple without a mark.

Leone, barely conscious, saw it all from the dirt.

"That's… not Zans. That's something else entirely."

Morgz whispered, "She's not even using VYTHRA…"

Karl's system tried to analyze.

[ERROR: Pattern not recognized. No VYTHRA consumption detected.]

Moment: The Last Stand

Kuro dropped to a crouch, blood glistening on her arms.

Only seven demons remained. They tried to surround her.

She smiled.

"You mistake my silence for weakness."

Her shadow snapped open like wings — becoming blades, spikes, whips.

She exploded forward.

Ripped two bone-wolves in half with one swipe.

Skewered a flying demon on her fingers.

Decapitated another without touching it—its head vanished as its own shadow crushed it inward.

Enme, weakly watching through her glyphs, muttered:

"She's using… inverse geometry. Light-bending physics… impossibility calculus…"

Shojiro, laying beside her, said simply:

"She's protecting us."

Kuro hovered midair now — radiant in a nightmarish silhouette, wings of ink stretched like a fallen god.

The final demon — a crablike monstrosity with iron carapace — lunged.

Kuro met it mid-pounce. With one gesture, she tore its shadow out of its body, shaped it into a blade, and ran it through the demon's own skull.

The Crack shuddered. Closed.

Silence.

Aftermath: "Return of the Guardian"

Kuro landed softly beside Zans' unconscious body.

Her monstrous form dimmed.

She gently cradled his head and whispered,

"You broke your own skull… just to call me. Idiot."

A faint smile on her lips.

She knelt.

And returned into his shadow.

Gone.

The team could only stare.

Max: "…We're keeping her."

Leone coughed. "That was… ungodly hot."

Shojiro shook his head. "She's on our side. That's all I care about."

Karl let out a long exhale.

"I don't care what species she is. If she does that every time we drop to 1%… I say we get Zans a helmet and let him go nuts."

Morgz looked at Zans, unconscious and bruised.

"We owe him."

Shojiro nodded.

"Yeah."

"Big time."

Scene: "Nightmare Hangover"

Location: A rooftop safehouse in the ruins of Neo-Azanai.

Zans lay in a makeshift bed of salvaged cloaks and debris. Head wrapped. Still unconscious.

Shojiro sat nearby, arms crossed.

Karl was patching his cybernetic leg.

Morgz was sipping the last of the clean water.

Max was doodling on a wall with soot.

Leone was laying on her back, sighing.

Enme was asleep, her head in Shojiro's lap.

Silence.

Then—

Zans sat bolt upright with a ragged inhale.

"GAH—!"

Everyone jumped.

Max almost dropped the soot stick.

Morgz choked on his water.

Shojiro blinked.

"He's awake."

Leone perked up.

"He's alive."

Karl added,

"He's surprisingly intact."

Zans blinked blearily at them all, blood still dried around his temple.

He rubbed his head.

Groaned.

And then muttered—

"...Shit."

"I forgot I had Nightmare Leech."

Everyone stared.

"You what?" Enme sat up.

Zans winced.

"I could've just siphoned a little VYTHRA from a demon. Or Max. Or... Karl's foot. I dunno. Anything. Instead—"

He gestured to his bandaged skull.

"I headbutted concrete like a lunatic."

Morgz cackled.

"Bro thought he was in a Mortal Kombat finisher."

Max slapped his knee.

"Next time we're at 1%, let's just plug a USB into your neck."

Karl adjusted his lens.

"To be fair, Kuro was more efficient than anything we could've pulled off."

Zans groaned, falling back onto the rubble like a corpse.

"My brain feels like mashed tofu."

Kuro's voice echoed lightly from his shadow.

"Because you're a dumbass."

Zans sat up again.

"You saw everything?"

Kuro:

"I was everything."

Leone leaned over.

"Soooo… you didn't have to knock yourself out?"

Zans groaned again.

"I panicked, okay? Everyone was dying. Shojiro was wheezing like a broken fridge. Enme was bleeding from her eyeballs. I made a call."

Shojiro shrugged.

"To be fair… you made the right call."

Max grinned.

"Still funny as hell though."

Morgz held out a cracked metal helmet he'd spray-painted with "BREAK IN CASE OF EMERGENCY."

"Here. For next time."

Zans stared at it in silence.

Then sighed.

"I hate all of you."

The group laughed — a much-needed release after the chaos.

Above them, the sun pierced through the smoky sky.

And for the first time in a while…

They felt like they could breathe.