CALAMITY : Legends Of The Chosen

Shojiro cracked his neck, one foot stomping the dream floor beneath him. "Alright," he muttered, eyes locked onto the twisted, regenerating Namsari, "I'm done watching this thing squirm."

Leone grinned, already half-shifted into Ghoul Mode, her dark purple hair flaring as spectral tendrils surged around her. The exposed stitches on her arms and legs pulsed with faint VYTHRA, and her glowing purple eye flicked toward him.

"Soccer with a starfish. That's a first."

Shojiro smirked, crouching like a runner about to launch.

"Hope you're warmed up, Leone."

He vanished.

In an instant, Shojiro appeared above the Namsari, his leg cocked back with inhuman strength.

"Ligament Drift—RIGHT FOOT!!"

CRACKKK!

His leg extended unnaturally mid-air, the ligaments in his thigh dislocating and stretching to increase reach and speed. He kicked the Namsari across the forest dreamscape like a cannonball.

The creature screamed, flipping end over end like a soccer ball launched by a titan.

Leone didn't miss a beat. She was already mid-air on the opposite side—her body surging with Ghoul VYTHRA, muscle density doubled, speed tripled.

BOOM—

She drop-kicked it straight back, eyes flashing purple.

"Try to touch me again and I'll snap all your tentacles in alphabetical order!"

The Namsari bounced like a volleyball struck by gods. Trees shattered. Dream-earth cratered. The group watched with jaws slack.

Shojiro was already moving again, laughing.

"Let's keep it up, Leone!"

Leone slid backward, heels digging into the dust.

"Don't go easy just because we're dating!"

"I wasn't planning to!"

They began volleying the Namsari back and forth, like a game of high-stakes, VYTHRA-fueled soccer. Every kick launched the creature farther—every strike dented its armor, its screeches fading into wind tunnels.

Shojiro activated Ligament Drift again—this time both legs extending unnaturally as he leapt and bicycle-kicked the creature from mid-air, launching it skyward.

Leone roared, activating Spectre Overlay for a moment, vanishing from view and reappearing above the Namsari mid-flight, delivering a downward heel-drop that sent the monster slamming into the dirt like a meteor.

BOOM!

A shockwave burst outward. The crater glowed red. Dust coated the sky.

The Namsari twitched, now buried half a meter deep, its armor cracked and leaking dream-ichor.

Shojiro landed beside Leone, both of them panting slightly, eyes alight.

He nudged her shoulder. "Nice shot, striker."

She grinned, fangs slightly showing. "Nice pass, musclehead."

From the sideline, Max whistled.

"Okay, I take it back. You two are terrifying when you sync up."

Karl muttered from his spot, still repairing his nanite chassis. "Remind me to never get between them during training."

The Namsari rose once more—but slower now. Weakened. Its regeneration delayed. And its body twitching unnaturally from the punishment.

Shojiro cracked his knuckles. "Ready for overtime?"

Leone nodded. "Let's finish this game."

The air shifted.

Gone was the playful volley.

Now, both Leone and Shojiro stood in silence at the edge of the battlefield. Their eyes weren't glowing—they were burning. The Namsari, half-regenerated, twitched in place. Its tentacles jittered as if even it could feel the rising pressure.

Shojiro cracked his neck, then rolled his shoulder.

The muscle on his right arm suddenly began to recede—folding in, compressing, collapsing on itself.

Veins vanished. Flesh thinned.

Until his arm looked skeletal, like it had been devoured by his own body.

"Ligament Drift… activate."

Snap. Pop. Stretch.

His shoulder dislocated cleanly, followed by his elbow, then wrist.

His entire right arm extended, warped by the stretched ligaments like a slingshot pulled to the limit.

"Muscle Reconfiguration… Phase 3."

Every muscle in Shojiro's entire body—his back, his chest, even his thighs—began flowing, relocating, all condensing into his right arm. It bulged, then quaked, then pulsed, grotesquely overgrown and vibrating with raw, monstrous power.

"Leone," he grunted through clenched teeth. "Cover me. One shot."

Leone nodded. Her pupils thinned into vertical slits.

Ghoul Mode surged, her claws elongating, muscles flexing with supernatural density.

"Buy you one shot? That's all I ever need."

Leone lunged forward first, a dark purple blur, tanking three tentacles on her way as she slammed the Namsari with a shoulder charge, cracking its spine with raw force. A tentacle whipped toward Shojiro—

Leone caught it.

"HEY! HE'S CHARGING A FINISHER—PAY ATTENTION TO ME!"

Shojiro's extended arm began to glow red from sheer friction.

The wind spiraled toward it. Trees bowed from the invisible pressure.

"Hey, starfish…"

He crouched. The ground cratered beneath him.

"…Hold this."

He launched.

BOOOOM—

Like a railgun, Shojiro's arm extended, Ligament Drift snapping forward like a coiled beast. His skeletal frame whipped his full force into the punch—one single, concentrated strike powered by every ounce of muscle in his body.

The Namsari didn't dodge. It couldn't.

It barely even registered the punch before it hit.

KA-KRAAAAAAAK!!!

The compressed force detonated on impact, sounding like a meteor tearing through the atmosphere. The tentacled monster was ripped apart mid-air, its dream-flesh warping from the sheer velocity and muscle density compounded into one punch.

A shockwave erupted. Everyone had to brace.

Shojiro landed, his now completely emaciated body slumping slightly, steam rising off his right arm—still dislocated, bones cracked, but slowly regenerating.

Leone appeared beside him, scooping him up by the waist.

"Told you I had your back."

Shojiro smirked. "Yeah… just a little rusty. Let's see if it gets back up."

The Namsari's upper half twitched violently in the air—barely holding together.

The sky dimmed. The dream world shuddered.

Shojiro's one-hit mauling had left the Namsari mutilated, twitching in the air like a puppet whose strings had been slashed. But it didn't fall. It regrew—oozing, shriveling, reshaping.

"Of course…" Leone whispered, eyes narrowed. "It's never that easy."

She lowered Shojiro gently to the ground and stood back up, her Ghoul form slowly burning away into shadow particles.

"It's time…"

Her voice deepened with an echo.

Her skin turned pale like moonlight.

The air around her froze.

"Spectre Mode — Full Resonance."

Chains erupted from her back.

Not forged of iron—these were ethereal, veiled in spectral violet light, shifting between solid and phantom with every flicker of her heartbeat. Dozens of them. Some floated around her like orbiting serpents. Others trailed behind her, dragging through the grass like curses waiting to be cast.

The Namsari raised three twitching tentacles.

Too late.

CLANG!

Three chains wrapped around them instantly, phasing through the air like living spirits. Then more—six, twelve, fifteen, now wrapped around every inch of the Namsari's body.

"You're not regenerating from this," Leone growled.

Her pupils vanished, her voice became two-toned—her own and the echo of spirits long bound to her soul.

"Rend."

The chains tightened.

The Namsari SCREAMED.

Its psychic cry warped the dreamscape—but it couldn't move.

"Rend."

The chains shimmered, then pulled outward in ten different directions.

RRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP!!!

The Namsari's body exploded apart, violently torn into fragments, ripped into atoms. The sound was not of flesh being destroyed—it was the shriek of souls being unmade.

The area went dead silent.

Leone hovered in the air, breathing heavily. The chains slowly recoiled around her like quiet, sleeping snakes.

The dust settled.

…But then it twitched.

The air around the shredded remnants of the Namsari pulsed. A tiny bead of glowing matter reformed, no larger than a heart. And then—

FWOOOSH.

Tentacles began growing back. Regenerating. Even faster than before.

"…No," Leone whispered, her expression tightening. "That was everything…"

Shojiro looked up, barely recovering. "It's… regenerating again?"

"It's evolving," murmured Karl, scanning the dream code with glowing Nanite lenses. "It's adapting to everything we throw at it."

Leone gritted her teeth. The chains hissed, sensing the Namsari's return.

"Fine. Then let's keep going…"

But her eyes betrayed a flicker of exhaustion. Even Spectre Mode couldn't finish it off.