[𝕂𝕦𝕨𝕒𝕘𝕒𝕥𝕒]
[𝕂𝕒𝕞𝕒𝕜𝕚𝕣𝕚]
[𝔹𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕒]
[𝔾𝕒𝕥𝕒-𝔾𝕒𝕥𝕒-𝔾𝕒𝕥𝕒𝕂𝕚𝕣𝕚𝔹𝕒! 𝔾𝕒𝕥𝕒𝕂𝕚𝕣𝕚𝔹𝕒!]
As the emblems of the Core dals rged and flew toward , my current suit shifted and transford, accompanied by an unfamiliar jingle that echoed through the air.
I looked down at my green suit. The color was bright and solid across my body, lined with darker patterns that followed the shape of an insect's segnted form. My helt carried a pair of long stag beetle horns rising from the forehead, with a small green crystal set between them and wide orange compound eyes curving along the sides.
My arms ended in sharp mantis-like blades that extended along my forearms—thin and curved like the edge of a scythe. My legs were built for powerful jumps, thicker around the thighs and shaped like those of a grasshopper.
Power surged through my veins and bones. Compared to what I had used before, my previous suits felt like nothing next to what I was experiencing now. I looked toward the sky, clenched my fist, and raised it to shoulder height.
I opened my mouth and roared.
"MUWAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
My scream tore through the battlefield. The already ruined ground around cracked further under the pressure of the energy bursting out of my body. Isadora and the third unit Vice Chief instinctively raised their arms to shield their faces from the sudden blast. The wind generated by my roar slamd into them like a raging hurricane.
"What is that?!" the Third Unit Vice Chief imdiately asked Isadora. A chill ran down her spine as she felt the dangerous pressure radiating from the Kan Rider.
"A big boost in power, you could say," Isadora replied casually.
But inside, her thoughts were in complete disarray. Using three Core dals from the sa Greeed was no joke.
Despite transforming into this form for the first ti, I could already tell that it possessed a useful ability. Eager to test it, I turned my gaze toward Shikoku and the three-headed Unique Shuuki. They were staring back at . The Shuuki still wore that disgusting smile, but Shikoku's expression had turned serious.
"You," Shikoku said to the Shuuki beside her. "Make them move."
The Unique Shuuki didn't understand why her previously cheerful tone had suddenly shifted into sothing far more cautious.
When the Shuuki hesitated, Shikoku slowly turned her eyes toward it.
Her gaze changed.
"Are you defying ?"
The Shuuki imdiately panicked and nodded in submission. Following her command, it slamd its chest repeatedly with one hand and let out a howl. At the sa ti, the two faces beside it stopped laughing and began shrieking instead.
I looked around.
The frozen horde slowly began to move. Muscles twitched, joints shifted, and within seconds they regained control of their bodies. Their voices rose as the horde ca back to life.
"Go!" Shikoku shouted.
They charged toward in a frenzy. The Unique Shuuki joined the advance, moving even faster than the rest.
"Quite unfair, you know," I muttered. "I'm only one person."
Let's even the odds.
I dashed forward to et them, heading straight for the Unique Shuuki. A green aura flared around my body. Then sothing split away from .
A clone.
It looked exactly like my suit with every detail perfectly replicated.
But it didn't stop there.
More bodies separated from mine, multiplying again and again until their number approached multiple dozens. Without needing a single command from , they spread out and rushed the ordinary Shuuki and the others to Shikoku to engage in combat. With only a few remaining at my side, they would face the three-headed abomination with .
"Seiyahhhh!!!"
"Haaaaaa!"
"Oraa!!!!!"
"Take this, you bastard!!!"
"Beat him up!!!"
My clones started shouting over one another as they charged the Shuuki.
It still tried to resist but unfortunately for it, this wasn't a fight with high odds on its side. It would have been one thing if my clones were weaker. They weren't. Each one was just as strong as I was, with no drop in power.
"Clone One and Two!" I shouted. "Hold him down!"
"Aye, boss!" Clone One saluted.
"DEMACIA!!" Clone Two yelled as he caught the Shuuki's incoming punch. In one swift motion he grabbed its arm, and Clone One imdiately seized the other.
I skidded to a stop in front of them, cracking my knuckles. I started punching the absolute hell out of it. Every hit carried the anger boiling inside . My fists slamd into its torso again and again. My other clones didn't just stand around either—they piled on from behind, raining blows across its back and every part of its body. When the Shuuki tried to kick, two more clones imdiately noticed.
They dove down and grabbed its legs.
"Just let us do our thing, you ugly bastard," Clone Six said while wrapping himself around the creature's leg.
The Unique Shuuki couldn't move.
Even though the other heads were still laughing, we never loosened our grip. The beatdown continued nonstop—an all-you-can-eat buffet of fists.
"Will you shut up already?"
Annoyed by the constant cackling, two clones climbed onto another clone's back. Using him as a platform, they jumped forward and drove their knees straight into the laughing faces.
Once.
Twice.
Then repeatedly.
They kept hamring the heads over and over until the faces were barely recognizable anymore. The Unique Shuuki's expression twisted into one of pure desperation. All three of its face opened their mouths and released a furious roar that echoed. The sound barely finished leaving its throat before so of my clones casually bent down, grabbed a large rock from the cracked ground, and walked straight up to the monster.
"Yeah, yeah, we hear you," one of the clones muttered.
Then they shoved the rock straight into the creature's mouth.
"Now chew."
The Shuuki gagged as the stone jamd between its teeth, muffling whatever roar it was trying to make.
anwhile, the clones pinning it down loosened their grips for only a split second—just enough to lift the monster's upper body before slamming it back down onto the ground. Seeing the perfect opening, the rest of us didn't hesitate.
We started kicking it.
Hard.
Boots slamd into its body, stomach, face. Anywhere we could reach. To anyone watching, it probably looked less like a battle and more like a group of delinquents jumping so poor idiot in an alley.
Except the "poor idiot" in question happened to be a three-headed Shuuki.
"Is that all you've got, punk?" one clone shouted as he stomped on its chest. "Where's that confidence you had earlier?!"
"Hit it harder!" another clone yelled while winding up another kick. "It's still moving!"
"Yeah, aim for the ugly face!"
"Which one?!"
"Good point!"
Our kicks kept raining down like a storm.
But then sothing strange started happening. The two faces on the sides of its body began to blur. At first I thought they were simply fading. But the longer I looked, the clearer it beca.
They weren't disappearing.
They were being absorbed.
The flesh around the faces twisted and pulled inward, slowly rging back into the creature's main body. At the sa ti, its muscles began to swell unnaturally, bulging under its skin like sothing was inflating it from the inside.
"Uh… guys?" Clone Ten said, pausing mid-kick.
He pointed down at the monster.
"It's doing sothing."
Everyone stopped.
Dozens of identical green helts turned toward each other. Then we all looked back down at the Shuuki. The creature's body continued expanding, its muscles twitching and stretching. For a mont, none of us moved.
"So…" I said. "We gonna let it finish?"
Clone Two crossed his arms and tilted his head as he watched the transformation.
"…For now only," he replied.
With that silent agreent made, we all jumped back at once, scattering away from the monster. Within seconds, identical versions of spread out, forming a loose circle around the creature.
The Shuuki's body continued growing at an alarming rate. Its fra stretched taller and taller, its muscles swelling to ridiculous proportions. Veins bulged along its arms as its entire body thickened with raw strength.
Cracks spread through the ground beneath its expanding weight.
Then, with a sudden violent motion.
It roared.
The sound was far deeper and louder than before, rumbling through the air like thunder. Slowly, the monstrous creature pushed itself upright, rising onto its two feet as its newly enlarged body finished its transformation.
Earlier, I had actually been afraid of what might happen to .
But now that I was using a Combo… that fear had completely vanished.
In its place was sothing else.
An uncontrollable urge to play with the Shuuki crept into my mind.
I felt strangely at ease, almost relaxed, even while my clones rampaged across the battlefield. All around , identical versions of myself were tearing through the remaining Shuuki—slashing, punching, and kicking them apart as their numbers rapidly dwindled. What had once been a horde was now barely anything at all.
"Nin nin. The enemy has beco stronger, de gozaru," Clone Thirteen said while raising his index and middle finger in a ninja hand sign.
"Mhm mhm, de gozaru," Clone Five nodded thoughtfully before turning toward . "Hideo-dono, what do we do?"
I couldn't help it.
I laughed.
"We beat it, my fellow !"
"Osu!" they answered in perfect unison.
Imdiately, dozens of my clones began running in a wide circle around the Unique Shuuki. As we moved, we stretched both arms behind our backs in exaggerated ninja fashion, leaning forward as if we were sprinting through so overdramatic ninja ani. The creature's massive head turned left.
Then right.
Then left again.
It couldn't keep track of us.
Using its confusion against it, we suddenly broke formation and dashed inward from every direction at once. Our forearm blades lit up with a sharp green glow.
Then the slicing began. We carved into its body with clean, controlled strikes which were precise and deliberate. Like a master chef preparing sushi, every cut was quick and efficient.
The Shuuki raised its massive arms in an attempt to block, but even that only earned it more wounds as our blades scraped and sliced across its defenses. Whenever it tried to retaliate, whenever its massive arm twitched or its muscles tensed to strike, we were already gone.
One of the slashes finally went deep enough.
With a sharp, tearing sound, the blade cut clean through flesh and bone. The Shuuki's arm separated from its body and spun through the air before crashing heavily onto the ruined ground.
For a brief mont, even the monster seed stunned by what had just happened.
But my attention didn't stay on it for long.
At that exact mont, I felt sothing else—an abrupt, faint disconnect in my senses.
Several of my clones had just been destroyed.
My head snapped toward the direction where a massive cloud of dust and smoke was rising into the air, the aftershock of a violent explosion spreading.
A quick ntal check confird it.
Clone Sixty-Seven.
Clone Sixty-Nine.
Clone Twenty-One.
Clone Forty-Two.
Gone.
The connection between us had vanished completely.
"Shikoku really is strong."
Whether she was a real god or not, her strength was no joke.
I hadn't personally t the other gods yet, but one thing was already clear to : if Shikoku was this powerful, there was a very real chance the others were even worse.
Which ant I couldn't afford to get careless.
Not even for a mont.
And yet I had been doing exactly that.
Playing around.
The overwhelming power of the Combo form had made far too relaxed. I had been enjoying myself a little too much while my clones ran wild across the battlefield.
I had almost forgotten sothing important.
My quota.
The Third Unit still needed help.
"Alright," I muttered to myself. "Playti's over."
I reached down to my belt and grabbed the scanner.
The mont I stopped moving, my clones did the sa. One by one, dozens of identical versions of halted in place and pulled out their own scanners as well, perfectly mirroring my actions.
Then the belt responded.
[𝕊ℂ𝔸ℕℕ𝕀ℕ𝔾 ℝ𝔼ℂℍ𝔸ℝ𝔾𝔼]
Without another word, we all jumped at the exact sa ti. Many identical green figures shot upward into the sky, rising above the ruined battlefield in perfect synchronization.
From above, we looked down. The Shuuki stood below us in a miserable state. Its body was covered in deep cuts and wounds from our earlier assault. One of its arms was gone entirely, leaving behind a jagged stump.
It had transford.
It had grown stronger.
And yet even with all that power, it still hadn't managed to properly fight back against us. Still, it had served its purpose. Now it was ti to send it to its final resting place. Whether that ant a grave… or whatever twisted purgatory monsters like it ended up in. If they even had one.
"SEIYAHHHHHH!"
Our voices roared together as one when gravity pulled us downward. Our bodies angled forward as we descended, sliding through the air like a rain of falling cots.
According to Isadora.
As the old Rider saying goes—
Every jump to the sky.
Turns into a Rider Kick.
"GRAAAARRRRRR!"
The Shuuki let out one last desperate roar.
Despite having only a single arm left, it bent its legs and leapt upward to et us head-on, refusing to die without resistance.
For a brief mont, we collided in midair. My foot slamd straight into its chest. Its force alone was enough to send the monster hurtling back toward the ground like a cannonball. But we didn't stop there. Not even close because my clones followed right behind one after another.
Kicks rained down upon the creature as it fell, each strike smashing into its body before the previous one had even finished landing. The sky itself seed to rain green streaks of destruction. By the ti the final kick landed. There was nothing left of the monster's resistance.
Then—
As if on cue—
A massive explosion erupted from the impact point.
Bright.
Loud.
And ridiculously dramatic.
========
========
Shikoku POV
I caught sight of a massive explosion in the distance. The exact spot where the fused form of Arges, Brontes, and Steropes had been fighting.
Even while noticing it, I was busy weaving through the air, dodging attack after attack from these irritating bugs that had been swarming around for the past several minutes. Their constant interference was starting to grind down what little patience I had left. The place had already turned into a complete ss. The normal Shuuki I had summoned earlier were gone as well.
All of them.
Wiped out.
I let out a slow sigh.
I could have continued fighting if I really wanted to. But honestly, I had already lost interest.
My purpose had been simple. To test the humans and see how capable they really were. Unfortunately, the interference from those two had ruined the flow of that testing completely. Even if I continued now, the results wouldn't be very aningful. This particular unit was far too weak. And their chief wasn't even present on the battlefield.
Still.
One thing continued to bother .
That man in the suit.
Why did he suddenly beco so strong? When I first appeared, he could barely keep up with . When the fused Shuuki joined in, the two of us had nearly cornered him. We should have finished him. Yet the mont he changed into that strange new form, everything flipped. The difference in power was huge.
It irritated .
"Nice attempt," I said casually as I looked down at the clones circling . "But you all need to be punished properly."
Lightning blasts began firing from their horns again. Individually, the attacks were only decent—nothing compared to the full output Rairen could produce. But their numbers made up for it. With dozens of them firing simultaneously, the barrage beca dangerous enough that even I couldn't afford to take it lightly.
Fine.
If they insisted on continuing this farce. Then I would give them a treatnt worthy of their efforts. I raised both of my hands in front of and pressed my palms together.
Dark energy gathered instantly between them.
I slowly pulled my hands apart as a swirling black sphere ford in the space between my palms, spinning faster and faster as it absorbed the surrounding air.
The clones imdiately reacted. Their movents stopped and every single one of them shifted into a guarded stance.
"She's doing sothing!" one clone shouted.
"Brace for impact!" another yelled.
Their alarm only made smile wider.
I let out a quiet, ominous laugh.
"Your resistance is futile," I mocked as I poured more power into the sphere.
≋B≋L≋A≋C≋K≋ ≋E≋D≋D≋Y≋
The dark sphere exploded outward with gravitational force. Instantly, the clones felt their bodies being pulled toward it. Dust, broken debris, and loose stones from the battlefield were dragged into the swirling force.
Surprisingly, the clones resisted.
Their feet dug into the ground as they fought against the pull.
For a mont, they actually managed to hold their ground outside the range of my control.
"…Impressive," I muttered.
So I increased the power.
The gravitational pull intensified.
This ti, their resistance failed.
One by one, the clones were dragged toward the center of the vortex.
As soon as they crossed into my area of control, dozens of my strongest snakes erupted from the darkness surrounding the sphere. They lunged forward and sank their fangs into the trapped clones. Normally, victims bitten by these snakes would suffer a slow and painful death from the venom.
Instead of collapsing, they vanished the instant the fangs pierced them. Their bodies dissolved into nothingness. Yet before I could finish wiping them out, I felt sothing again. More of them with dozens of presences rushing toward from every direction. The remaining clones were already closing in.
"…Ti to bail out," I gathered another mass of dark energy in my hand and threw it toward the group of humans in the distance.
If nothing else, I could at least leave them with a parting gift.
The black projectile shot forward.
But just before it could reach that arrogant woman and the wounded soldiers around her—
Sothing interfered.
A sudden vortex of wind tore across the battlefield and swallowed the attack whole. The dark energy was ripped apart and scattered by the violent currents. Then, from within the swirling wind, two figures appeared.
A woman with purple hair stepped out first. Behind her was another woman with black hair, who imdiately rushed toward the injured soldiers to check their condition. The purple-haired woman, anwhile, floated lightly above the battlefield. She looked around at the destruction with an amused grin.
"Quite a rowdy ss you've made here for soone as cute as you~~," she said casually, though the air around her carried a quiet seriousness that didn't match her tone. Her voice sounded relaxed, almost teasing, yet there was a clear weight behind her words. "Too bad Yakumo-chan showed up late to the party."
Her gaze drifted across the area.
Then it stopped.
Locked directly onto .
"The Fifth Unit Chief has now arrived for backup."
She lifted two fingers in a cheerful peace sign.
And then she winked.
…Bad news.
Not because of her combat ability.
But the way she was looking at —
It made my skin crawl.
There was sothing invasive about it, like being stripped bare naked under a spotlight. As if she could see straight through , straight through the calm expression I forced myself to keep. Standing there beneath that gaze felt wrong.
I felt violated.
And I absolutely hated it.
"Tsk."
With the fused Shuuki already gone, there was no longer any reason for to stay here. The fight had already played out, and whatever ca next had nothing to do with .
I've seen more than enough for today.
Without another thought, I slipped back into the shadows. Darkness folded around my body like a curtain closing over a stage. My form dissolved into the gloom just as one of the approaching clones cut through where I had been standing monts earlier, its blade slicing through nothing but empty air.
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