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A thick darkness enveloped San Francisco.

The neon signs on the streets occasionally tore through the darkness, spewing their light, but even that seemed to lose its power around the Headquarters of the Alexander Group.

It felt as though a giant monster had swallowed a corner of the city.

The reporter with red hair slowly but resolutely made her way toward the Alexander headquarters through the darkness.

In her gaze, fear and determination coexisted.

Feeling her fingertips tremble slightly, she took a deep breath.

“Well then, I’ll count on you.”

The reporter’s small mutter sliced through the night air and spread.

At that moment, as if waiting for those words, the Black Masses began to wrap around her body.

A cold yet warm, alien yet familiar sensation crawled over her.

The Black Masses began to climb her skin, changing shape as they did.

As her skin turned as black as the night’s darkness and began to mimic the surrounding objects, it felt for a moment as though she was nothing at all.

Of course, that jet-black color would be easily detected under bright light.

Slither, slither.

With each step the reporter took, the skin made of Black Masses delicately shifted in tandem.

Thus, the reporter slowly progressed toward the Headquarters of the Alexander Group.

Guards patrolling around the building brushed past her, but none felt her hidden presence in the shadows.

After slipping past the guards, she successfully stuck to the wall of the building and climbed through a window into the interior.

“Whoo.”

The reporter exhaled softly.

‘I somehow got inside.’

It had been easier than she expected.

Perhaps it was because many soldiers were busy searching all over San Francisco for her.

Slither, slither.

The reporter quietly advanced into the lightless darkness.

‘I feel like I’ve been here before…’

The eerily silent corridor and the pictures hanging on the walls twisted into bizarre shapes in the darkness.

She felt a sense of déjà vu.

Was she here infiltrating the Alexander Group during her one-week memory blackout?

‘….’

Like a blind person touching an elephant’s leg, the reporter fumbled her way toward the source of her strong sense of familiarity.

In doing so, she spotted a staircase leading down into the basement.

After descending the long flight of steps, she found a brightly lit space contrasting the dark building.

At that moment, her eyes widened.

‘This place….’

Endlessly lined up, transparent isolation rooms.

This rectangular space with endlessly extending individual isolation rooms was clearly a facility meant to contain something.

But now, they were all empty.

“Welcome, reporter.”

Just then, a familiar voice reached her ears.

The Prism Sentinel and the superhumans of the Superhuman Association blocked her path.

The reporter instinctively looked back the way she came, but it was already too late.

She was completely surrounded.

There was nowhere to escape.

Then, the Sentinel approached her slowly, as if driving her into a corner.

“Who would have thought the man from the motel was you.”

The Sentinel’s voice was smooth, but she could sense the hidden malice beneath it.

And there was an unbearable stench emanating from him.

Instinctively, she recognized the ‘smell of a human-eater,’ but why she was smelling it was something she couldn’t understand.

The reporter bit her lip.

Countless thoughts whirled in her head.

Was there no way to escape?

However, no matter how much she thought about it, it was a situation where fighting was unavoidable.

“Let’s fight.”

She murmured softly, patting the Black Masses covering her body.

[Yes….]
[Feeling dizzy.]
[Preemptive attack…!]

The emotions of the Black Masses, now looking significantly more dizzy than before, resonated within her heart.

At that moment, a living black liquid began to ooze out from her body.

The members of the Superhuman Association and the Sentinel seemed already aware of the presence of the black liquid, wearing even more confident expressions.

But the next moment, something occurred that neither the superhumans nor the reporter had anticipated.

Considering the superhumans’ immense power and the fighting style of the Black Masses, they expected a fierce and desperate battle…

But the Black Masses’ ‘preemptive attack’ was nothing like before.

The Black Masses clinging to the reporter’s body puffed up and then shrank back, unleashing hundreds of sharp tentacles.

Like a volcanic eruption, the tentacles spread in all directions, thrashing about like the tentacles of a ferocious kraken, rushing toward the surrounding superhumans at lightning speed.

With a sound that sliced through the air, they advanced while destroying everything in their path; it was truly overwhelming.

“AAAH!”

The screams of the superhumans echoed.

Their superpowers were completely useless against these Black Masses.

Flames and telekinesis had no effect on the black skin.

Even the superhuman with high-speed movement found themselves skewered in an instant.

Its presence was truly ‘super-class Object’ level.

“What the…?”

The Sentinel, creating a colorful shield of light, uttered in confusion.

Zshaaak!

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

The superhumans lay scattered, grotesquely fallen, with dozens of large holes in their bodies.

Seeing this, the Sentinel spat out his words like they were bitter.

“How dare you…!”

The ease on his face vanished, replaced entirely by extreme rage.

‘So you’ve been hiding a deadly blow.’

But within the Prism Sentinel’s mind, many thoughts whirled rapidly.

‘But that kind of attack can’t be used continuously…!’

As the Prism Sentinel finished his thoughts, seven-colored lights began to gather all over his body, and intense light burst forth from his eyes.

‘!’

The reporter squinted her eyes shut against the intense wave of light that threatened to blind her.

“AAAAH!”

And when she opened her eyes again at the Sentinel’s battle cry, the Black Masses were slowly advancing forward, absorbing the light into their bodies.

Slowly, as if fighting against a strong current.

The black skin was gradually being worn away, but given the Sentinel’s power, that was hard to believe.

‘Just how strong are these Black Masses as Objects?’

And the Black Masses standing before the Sentinel stretched out elongated arms, grasping the entirety of the Sentinel’s head.

Then, like a faucet being grabbed, waves of colorful light burst forth in all directions, beginning to destroy the underground facility.

[Die.]
[Bad human.]

Along with the whispers of the Black Masses, the grip crushed the Sentinel’s head.

Thud.

The headless corpse of the Sentinel lay sprawled in the middle of the chaos.

All that remained before her were the dead bodies of the superhumans.

“You guys were really strong….”

In response to her mumble, the Black Masses replied.

[Preemptive attack!]
[Humans are weak.]

The reporter sighed in relief at the Black Masses’ reply.

“Ha.”

She had prepared for death, but felt utterly drained at the unexpected outcome.

Relaxing, the reporter looked around.

Corpses, corpses, corpses.

They were all horrifically dead bodies.

‘I thought they were just in a rush because of the soldiers…’

Strangely, the reporter felt no particular feeling upon seeing the dead bodies.

In fact, it felt refreshing to see the stench of dead humans lessen.

‘Perhaps I’m affected by the Black Masses.’

Trying to push her complicated thoughts aside, she spoke out loud.

“Then let’s find it. My memories and your ‘mom.'”

Just as she was about to wander around the isolation rooms.

BANG!

With a loud noise, the steel door at the end of the corridor flew open.

[It’s dangerous!]
[It’s dangerous!]
[Enemy of humanity!]

And from beyond that door, colorful glowing worms began to surge toward the sky.

The bodies of the superhumans were also torn apart in an explosive manner, with the worms mixing into the swirling currents toward the sky.

The sight of the worms was dizzying, and they emitted an incredibly ominous aura.

And the reporter, staring at the torrent of worms, promptly lost consciousness.

*

Upon instantaneous arrival in San Francisco, the first sensation was an overwhelming dizziness.

It was such a serious level that I almost stumbled and fell!

Perhaps because of that, the Mini Reapers in San Francisco couldn’t welcome me and merely stared at me in a daze.

‘Mom didn’t come?’
‘Dizzy.’
‘Waaah.’

They completely failed to sense my arrival.

Well, if their senses were this jumbled, it was understandable that they couldn’t detect me.

‘As expected.’

Looking up at the sky, a foreboding external being coiled overhead.

Worms by the tens of thousands had gathered to form a city-sized massive coil.

‘Ugh, this is a headache.’

It looked like the external being had descended with a complete power like during the Pacific incident.

Lowering my gaze to the ground, I saw humans fleeing the city in terror.

The cause was the black Object in the form of the Old God, wandering around the city with its elongated arms, shattering everything in its path.

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

Even though the mass of worms in the sky looked far more dangerous, humans were only concerned about the black Object.

‘That guy was the Black Reaper…’

Seeing it up close, the creature I thought was linked to the Unchanging Sphere turned out to just be the Black Reaper.

Moreover, it wasn’t rampaging and harming people.

Some worms that fell to the ground began to root, and each time that happened, the Black Reaper hurriedly tore them apart.

But with so many worms falling, the giant Black Reaper alone was insufficient.

The worms that had taken root were polluting the very space of Earth.

‘That external being looks incredibly harmful. I need to deal with it as quickly as possible.’

To eliminate the severe dizziness that was hindering my abilities, I donned the ability negation halo.

Immediately, a white flame spread throughout San Francisco, and the dizziness began to fade.

‘MOM!’

‘MOM!’

‘MOM, when did you come?’

Suddenly, the dazed Mini Reapers at my feet came back to life in an instant.

Then, the Black Reaper in the form of the Old God, who had been busy tearing apart worms from a distance, turned its head toward me.

[MOM??]

It held a look of puzzled intent.

Seeming too far away to feel certain, I summoned the original Hungry Ghost and climbed onto it.

‘Let’s go to the Black Reaper!’

After giving the command, the large white Hungry Ghost began to leap up on top of the buildings with agility matching its size.

Kyu!

Perhaps because it was made of marshmallow, its footsteps were light and brisk on the buildings.

In no time, it traversed the city and jumped toward the chest of the Black Reaper in the form of the Old God!

The Black Reaper caught the white Hungry Ghost in its large hands, eyes wide open, expressing trembling intent.

[MOM…]
[MOMMA…]
[MOM!]

Then it absorbed copious amounts of firewood from me, and its form began to change into a familiar appearance.

The Black Reaper, now taking on the form of a Mini Reaper, held the white Hungry Ghost and smiled broadly.

‘Finally, Mom, I found you!’