The rainy landscape grew even more violent as thunder cracked, lighting up the dark sky.

"AWGHA!"

The flash revealed the brutal silhouette of a gigantic bird beating its wings.

As if it had been a signal, the inverted rain intensified, now accompanied by violent winds that lifted chunks of metal, plants, and debris into the air.

"Fuck, fuck! What the hell happened?!" Nene shouted, her voice breaking against the wind. "How is there a storm like this?! And WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT IN THE SKY?!"

The world around her roared. The air pushed, tore, and ripped everything in its path apart.

"Well… the only thing I can think of is that… what do you call it in your language? Bird? Right, a Thunder Bird. It must be fighting another Boss to leave the Negative Space and enter the Rift."

"Huh…?"

"I’ll explain after we survive. Overloading your brain right now isn’t a proper survival strategy."

Nene opened her mouth to argue, but the words died before they could form.

A thunderous crack tore through the sky—the sound of wind breaking itself apart.

When she looked up—

The Hunter’s blood froze.

"A… hurricane…?"

She didn’t have time to finish.

A gigantic vortex of air, shattered trees, and debris began forming from the sky down to the ground.

The moment it touched the earth, the cursed phenomenon—born from nothing—accelerated, increasing in power as it began to suck everything into its path.

"N-No!"

The tornado rushed toward her at high speed.

The force of the wind ripped her off the ground as if she weighed nothing.

"AHHHH!"

Her body was mercilessly dragged in, spinning, losing all sense of up and down.

"Shit," Sahara spat. "That idiot bird flapped its wings too hard."

"ARGH!"

Nene screamed, but her voice was swallowed by the roaring wind.

Her limbs wouldn’t respond.

The world spun too fast. The idea of surviving began to crumble inside her chest.

Is this how it ends…?

She could barely open her eyes. The air cut against her skin. It was Sahara who took partial control, forcing images directly into her mind.

Chaos.

Ethereal beings trapped like insects.

The bumblebee that had almost killed her.

Giant tarantulas twisting violently.

Metallic beetles crashing into each other.

Plants ripped from the roots, rocks, fragments of white structures, remnants of things her mind couldn’t comprehend.

Everything spinning. Everything falling.

"AHHH!"

"Human Nene," Sahara ordered. "Copy the tarantula’s ability. Create a web and pull the beetle toward you. Do it now, before the hurricane tears us apart!"

Nene squeezed her eyes shut, then forced them open with her fingers.

Thanks to Sahara’s image, she immediately located the tarantula and activated her Resonance.

Residual Synchrony – Target: [Ethereal Spider (Web)] 1.5 R.P

The reddish web shot out, wrapping around the metallic beetle just as it twisted and drifted through the wind.

Nene couldn’t believe her shot had landed in such chaos. For once in her life, she had good luck.

In that instant, both of them were hurled out of the hurricane like projectiles.

"AH!"

"Now! Copy its ability to create a metal shell!"

The beetle slammed into her, its wings opening with a metallic screech.

Nene reacted on pure instinct.

Residual Synchrony – Target [Ethereal Beetle (Steel)] 2.1 R.P

Her skin was covered in a dark, heavy, unnatural shell.

And then—

"H-HOLY SHIT!"

The world tilted.

She was about to crash into a white surface beside a raging yellow river that roared like a starving beast.

There was no time to think.

Only impact.

And darkness.

---

"Ah…"

Sound was the first thing to return. Flowing water. Distant wind. A heavy silence.

On the shore of a yellow river, near a desert-like expanse, the bruised young girl with two-toned hair streaked with purple struggled to sit up.

Spitting saliva, coughing as if her lungs wanted to escape her body.

"What… happened…?"

"We finally woke up," Sahara replied.

"Sahara… what the hell…?"

"I don’t have all the information either. We passed out after falling into one of the rivers of the Negative Zone. I only remember the impact and us floating in the raging waters because of the Bird. Good thing we didn’t drown… or get eaten."

"...Shit…" Nene whispered.

Then she shouted.

"SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE?!"

She tried to stand in anger, but her knees gave out. The ground received her again without mercy.

Most likely, her Vitality was close to zero. If she wasn’t careful, she would pass out for hours—and in this place, that would be fatal.

"Damn it… Seriously, Sahara, start explaining what the hell the ‘Negative Zone’ is."

"Alright," Sahara said, more serious. "As you’ve seen, this place is aggressive as hell. Basically, this is where we exist. It’s that simple. No matter what happens to us in your world, we always return here."

"O-Okay…" Nene murmured, collapsing onto the rough, white ground, fragmented like broken glass.

She was too tired to complain. Even the pain in her shoulder felt distant.

"Here, everything devours everything else. By consuming cores, we grow stronger, we climb the food chain. And if we manage to devour the right amount with the right power, we can… travel to the other side—to your world."

"That… is the exit?"

"...Yes and no. I don’t know when, since time doesn’t exist here, but some… things started appearing. Yath—" Sahara spoke a word in her native tongue, one Nene couldn’t understand.

"Y-Yeathf? Yaretgh? What? W-Why didn’t you translate it like before?"

"I don’t know how. There’s nothing in your language that matches the idea of Yath. So we’ll leave it like that—it doesn’t matter if you can’t pronounce it properly. Anyway, ever since they appeared, they’ve turned this ecosystem into hell. I don’t know how or why. But we can’t travel anymore… at least, not consciously."

"Consciously?"

"As I said, if you’re strong enough, you can travel to your world. I think in your language it would be something like… Interstice. You can move into the interstice. But those things ruined it!"

Nene fell silent.

"It’s not just that. When they attack you, it’s like you lose your mind. I don’t understand it either. It happened to me three times before I attacked your group. It’s like pieces of my brain go missing, like I fell asleep—and those fragments contain my memories from those times. I know I traveled to the other world because I ‘woke up’ in places I had never been before… with my powers reduced."

The air left Nene’s lungs.

"That… is terrifying… W-What are we supposed to do if that happens again?!"

"I don’t know. For now, we need to avoid confronting those things. I don’t have concrete proof, but I think those things can’t leave the Negative Zone unless they use our bodies."

Silence stretched.

Nene felt like her lungs stopped working. All that information was too much for her fragile heart.

What was the plan?

She hadn’t thought about it until now, because everything had been happening so fast—but now that she had a moment of clarity, she realized a harsh truth.

"There’s no way out…"

"Huh?"

"There’s no way out…" she repeated, her voice breaking. "All of this… surviving… fighting… it’s pointless…"

She had believed that if she survived, it meant something—but now she realized it was only to suffer.

What was the point of fighting to see her loved ones again if there was no way out?

She was already dead… she just hadn’t understood it…

Despair wrapped around her like the yellow river.

"Snap out of it!" Sahara cut her off. "Listen carefully. The traditional way is blocked. But we can get out!"

"Huh…?"

"How do you think I reached where you were? Why do you think the Bird was fighting? We can get out. I’m not completely sure yet, but if we kill a Yath, we can escape. We don’t need to defeat the strongest—just those disgusting things!"

Nene fell silent.

Then…

"...God…"

She slapped herself.

"My damn pessimistic delusions…"

She took a deep breath.

"Alright. I want to believe."

"That’s more like it," Sahara said. "Let’s keep moving. Let’s find shelter… you did well."

Nene froze.

"What did you say…?"

"You, Human Nene. You did well. That was a horrible situation. I’m impressed you reacted. I’m… glad to have you with me."

That filled Nene’s soul in a way she couldn’t describe.

There were very few—if any—times someone had genuinely praised her work without it coming from pity.

Linx, Bender—they told her she did well, but they were her friends. They would never call her a loser.

Something broke inside Nene.

"Mngh!"

She couldn’t stop herself from crying.

Not out of fear.

But because someone had acknowledged her without pity.

An Ethereal being inside her body and mind was the first to truly recognize everything she had done—honestly.

And so, with silent tears and an exhausted body, she kept moving in search of shelter… in a world that showed no mercy.

---