The thick darkness enveloped San Francisco.

The neon signs of the streets occasionally pierced through the darkness, emitting light, but even that seemed to lose its power near the Alexander Group headquarters building.

It was as if a giant monster had swallowed one corner of the city.

The red-haired reporter slowly, yet resolutely, walked toward the Alexander Group headquarters through the darkness.

Her gaze held both fear and determination.

She could feel her fingertips trembling slightly as she took a deep breath.

"Well then, please take care."

The reporter's quiet mutterings scattered through the night air.

At that moment, as if waiting for those words, black lumps began to envelop her body.

A cold, yet warm, unfamiliar yet familiar sensation spread through her body.

The black lumps crawled up her skin, changing shape.

Her skin turned as black as the night, and its surface began to mimic the surrounding objects, making it seem as if nothing was there at all.

Of course, due to the jet-black color, if exposed to bright light, she would be immediately revealed.

Creeping.

With each step the reporter took, the skin made of black lumps transformed to match her movement.

Slowly, the reporter made her way toward the Alexander Group headquarters.

Guards patrolling the building passed right by her, but none of them sensed her hiding in the shadows.

She passed the guards, clung to the wall of the building, and successfully entered the building through the window.

"Whew."

The reporter exhaled softly.

"I've made it inside somehow."

It had been easier than expected, probably because so many soldiers were searching all over San Francisco for her.

Sss... Sss...

The reporter quietly moved through the pitch-black darkness.

‘It feels strangely like I’ve been here before…’

The eerily quiet hallway and the pictures on the walls twisted into strange shapes in the darkness.

A sense of déjà vu hit her.

Had she infiltrated the Alexander Group headquarters during the week she had no memory of?

‘...’

Like a blind person touching the legs of an elephant, the reporter fumbled along the path as her sense of déjà vu grew stronger.

Soon, she discovered a staircase leading downward.

After descending the long underground stairs, she entered a brightly lit space, contrasting the darkness of the building.

At that moment, her eyes widened.

‘This place...’

Endless rows of transparent isolation rooms.

This space, with individual square isolation rooms stretching endlessly, was certainly a facility meant to imprison something.

But now, they were all empty.

"Welcome, reporter."

At that moment, a familiar voice reached her ears.

Surrounding Prism Sentinel, members of the Meta-Human Association blocked her path.

Instinctively, the reporter looked behind her, but it was already too late.

She was completely surrounded.

There was nowhere to run.

Then, Sentinel slowly approached her, as if cornering prey.

"I never thought the man I saw at the motel would be you, reporter."

Sentinel’s voice was soft, but she could sense the hidden malice within it.

There was an unbearable stench in his voice.

She instinctively knew it was the "smell of a human being devoured," but she couldn't understand why she was now smelling it.

The reporter bit her lip.

Her mind was swirling with countless thoughts.

Was there any way to escape?

But no matter how she thought about it, this situation was one where she had no choice but to fight.

"Let’s fight."

She gently patted the black lumps that covered her body and muttered quietly.

[Yes…]

[Dizzy…]

[Preemptive strike…!]

The emotions of the black lumps, which seemed even more dizzy than before, resonated within her heart.

At that moment, black liquid, wriggling as if alive, began to ooze from her body.

The Meta-Human Association members and Sentinel, likely aware of the black liquid’s presence, showed even more confident expressions.

But then, something happened that neither the Meta-Humans nor the reporter had anticipated.

Considering the Meta-Humans' powerful abilities and the combat tactics of the black lumps, they had expected a fierce and brutal battle…

But the "preemptive strike" from the black lumps was completely different from anything before.

The black lumps attached to her body swelled up, then shrank back, releasing hundreds of sharp tentacles.

Like a volcanic eruption, the tentacles spread out in all directions, flailing like the tentacles of a vicious Kraken, striking the Meta-Humans at lightning speed.

The sound of the air splitting and the devastation it caused as it advanced was truly overwhelming.

"AAAH!"

The Meta-Humans' screams filled the air.

Their superpowers were useless against the black lumps.

Flames and telekinesis had no effect on the black skin.

Even the Meta-Human with high-speed movement abilities was skewered in the blink of an eye.

The overwhelming might of the black lumps was like that of a "high-class object."

"What is this…?"

Sentinel, surrounded by multicolored light shields, spoke in a confused voice.

Sssshh!

And like the receding tide of the ocean, the sea of black tentacles returned to the reporter’s body.

The Meta-Humans, with dozens of large holes in their bodies, lay on the ground in a tragic state.

Sentinel, seeing this, spat out his words as if grinding his teeth.

"How dare you…!"

The smug expression vanished from his face, replaced only by extreme anger.

‘He was hiding a fatal move.’

However, many thoughts quickly passed through Prism Sentinel’s mind.

‘But he can’t continuously unleash such an attack…!’

As Prism Sentinel finished his thoughts, seven-colored light gathered around his body, and intense beams shot from his eyes.

'!'

The reporter, blinded by the wave of light so intense it felt like it would blind her, tightly shut her eyes.

"AAAH!"

And when she opened her eyes again, the black lumps were slowly advancing despite the intense light hitting them.

It was as if they were slowly pushing against a raging stream of water.

The black skin was slowly being worn down, but considering the power of Sentinel, this was an unbelievable feat.

‘Just how strong are these black lumps?’

The black lumps in front of Sentinel stretched out long arms and grasped his entire head in their hands.

Then, as if grabbing a faucet, waves of colored light shot out in all directions, beginning to destroy the underground facility.

[Die.]

[Bad human.]

With the whispers of the black lumps, their grip crushed Sentinel’s head.

Thud.

Sentinel’s headless body lay in the middle of the ruined underground, a pile of corpses surrounding it.

All that remained before her were the dead Meta-Humans.

"You guys… were incredibly strong…"

The reporter murmured, and the black lumps responded.

[Preemptive strike!]

[Human weak.]

The reporter let out a sigh of relief at their response.

"Whew."

She had prepared for death, but the unexpected outcome made her feel drained.

Relaxing, she looked around.

Corpses. Corpses. Corpses.

And all of them were brutally killed.

‘I thought I was just too distracted by the soldiers…’

Strangely, the reporter felt no emotion when looking at the corpses.

In fact, as the humans who emitted that foul stench died, it felt like the stench was finally dissipating, and she felt a sense of relief.

‘Maybe I’m influenced by the black lumps.’

The reporter pushed the growing thoughts to the corner of her mind and spoke loudly.

"Let’s search for it then. My memory and your ‘mother.’"

As she was about to wander around the isolation rooms, a loud bang echoed.

The steel door at the end of the hallway was forcefully thrown open.

[Danger!]

[Danger!]

[Enemy of humanity!]

From beyond the door, multicolored worms began to rise toward the sky.

The Meta-Humans’ bodies exploded as worms emerged, mixing into the rushing stream toward the sky.

The sight of the worms was so dizzying that it almost made her lose consciousness, and they emitted a sinister energy.

And as the reporter stared at the worm tide, she lost consciousness.

The disorienting sensation hit the reporter as she arrived in San Francisco.

She nearly stumbled, the dizziness almost overwhelming her.

Because of that, the mini reapers in San Francisco didn't even welcome her, only swaying in confusion.

‘Mom didn’t come?’

‘Dizzy.’

‘Ugh.’

They didn’t even seem to notice that she had arrived.

Given how jumbled her senses were, it wasn’t surprising that their ability to detect her was off.

‘As expected.’

Looking up at the sky, she saw a foreboding foreign object coiling in the air.

The worms, dozens of thousands of them, had formed a massive coil the size of a metropolitan city.

‘Ugh, this is troublesome.’

It seemed to have descended with full force, like the Pacific incident. It looked like a complete catastrophe.

When her gaze shifted to the ground, people were fleeing in fear, running out of the city.

The cause was the black object in the shape of an ancient god, walking around, destroying everything in its path.

‘It seems the humans can’t see the worms at all.’

Even though the sky was filled with worms, it appeared humans only focused on the black object.

‘That thing, it was a black reaper...’

Now that she was here and saw it in person, the entity, which seemed connected to the Immutable Sphere, was nothing more than a black reaper.

What was more, it wasn’t rampaging and causing harm to people.

Some of the worms fell to the ground and rooted themselves, but each time, the black reaper hurriedly tore the worms apart.

However, with so many worms falling, the huge black reaper alone couldn’t handle it all.

The worms that rooted in the ground were contaminating the very space of Earth.

‘This foreign object looks very harmful. I need to deal with it as soon as possible.’

First, to eliminate the severe dizziness that was interfering with her powers, she put on a power-nullifying halo.

A white flame spread throughout San Francisco, and the dizziness began to dissipate.

‘Mom!’

‘Mom!’

‘Mom, when did you come?’

In an instant, the mini reapers under her feet revived.

And far off, the black reaper in the form of an ancient god, who had been tearing apart the worms, turned its head toward her.

[Mom??]

A will filled with confusion.

It seemed unsure because it was too far away to be certain, so she called upon the original reaper and mounted it.

‘Let’s go to the black reaper!’

Upon issuing the command, the white reaper, agile as its size, began to leap from building to building, heading toward the ancient god-shaped black reaper.

Kyu!

Being made of marshmallow, her steps on the rooftops were light and swift.

In no time, she passed through the city and jumped toward the chest of the ancient god-shaped black reaper.

The black reaper caught the white reaper in its massive hands, its eyes wide as it let out a trembling will.

[Mom…]

[Mom…]

[Mom!]

After absorbing the firewood from her, the reaper’s form began to shift into a familiar shape.

The black reaper, now in the form of a mini reaper, smiled gently while holding the white reaper.

‘Finally, Mom, I found you!’