The hotel cum gambling house blew the fuck up and a gigantic column of red and purple light and black smoke erupted from the smoldering ruins, a gigantic hand, black with splotches of red scales and golden coins wrapped around it, raised from the rubble, grabbing onto one of the ruined walls and getting a firm grip.

A second hand burst with another explosion, a light and smoke show acting as the prelude for the hand that grabbed onto the wall on the other end of the first hand, and then the two hands, the size of houses themselves, pushed the remnants of the building apart, opening up a bigger hole from which many winged monsters erupted.

With the roar of tearing earth and the burp of erupting manga, the flying monsters cried out in horror and pain as they were incinerated in mid air, the ashes being blown away by strong, gale force winds that exploded as the huge monster used its hands to push itself out of the rubble of the building.

First, a crown of thousands if not tens of thousands of horns entwined and tied together, like the roots of a great tree, came up from the glowing portal-like light, and it was followed up by a humanoid red face that itself was the size of a two story house, vaguely human but elongated, eyes being just windows into a hell of yellow, orange and red flames that erupted from the holes, an open mouth filled with wicked, sharp and spiky looking teeth that seemed to jut out in random directions.

The shoulders and neck followed next, its muscles looked like cancerous tumors stretching the skin, which seemed to crack open to reveal bunches of black scales and golden coins, some of which hung from the torn flaps of skin, and as it continued to expand and rise, its muscles tensed and pulsed, throbbing grotesquely, as its entire torso was revealed, exaggerated musculature, with tens of abs and three pectoral muscles on each side of its body.

"Ew."

Marina had put it all in perspective the moment she saw the sky-scraper sized monstrosity, which seemed to be stuck in place as the hole it was in didn't seem big enough for it to get its legs through.

It opened its mouth and showed it had entirely too many teeth, five rows of them in its spiraling mouth. It let out a deafening, earsplitting cry that shattered every window around us and made the ground underneath us tremble, raising its arms and opening them before swinging them around, knocking buildings down.

"... can we really beat that thing..?" Marina asked, her voice small, frail even. She clutched her staff, trembling in place as she watched the monster rampage freely.

"It's not a matter of whether we can," Reiko replied, her lips meeting and drawing into a tight, grim line as she gripped her own polearm so tight and hard that her knuckles went white, stomping the ground as if trying not to let her legs tremble and quiver underneath her.

They weren't just afraid.

They were positively terrified.

"We have to," Reiko said, "we're the only ones who can even stand up to it..." she said, "this is the monster that killed my parents... the Corruptor..."

Raising its hands and throwing its head back to roar at the sky, the Corruptor trembled and shook in place, as a second pair of arms grew from its back, as if its shoulder blades extended into new limbs, webbed hands that looked like they would belong on an aquatic creature, the tips of each finger growing into wicked looking spikes, the two new hands swinging around and slicing entire buildings to ribbons.

"H-Hey, when we beat tha, that thing," Marina said, "the damage it does will, just go away right? Like the small ones?"

Reiko trembled. "Maybe?" she said.

Not a promising start.

However...

"Mrow."

They both turned to me, as I licked my paw and used it to clean my forehead, taking a few steps forward so I was ahead of them, as they both looked at the monster that seemed to be enjoying its random acts of destruction.

I stretched, sliding my front paws forward and raising my hind legs, raising my tail as well and fully curving my spine to get the most out of the stretch, feeling my entire body become more limber by the second as my claws came out of my paws and scratched up the hard concrete ground underneath me.

Standing back up, I took a few more steps towards the giant.

"Kuro seems ready to fight it," Marina said with a slight giggle, as the tension among us broke and Reiko followed with a sensible chuckle of her own. "Heheh, looking at him being so confident, it makes me feel like we might just be able to handle it after all!"

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"Yeah... If I was alone, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to do anything... but if I have you guy s," Reiko said, raising her bladed spear and spinning it above her head before bringing it down in a wide slashing arc, as if to remind herself she still had her weapon. "After all this... There's nothing else we can do but go up there and fight it, right?"

"Right!" Marina said. "Just like always, I'll back you up!"

"Follow me in, and bring the firepower!" Reiko agreed.

I broke into a run, and they came behind me. Together, the three of us rushed towards the gigantic creature, and as we made our way there, our surroundings blurring around us as we charged towards it at full speed and strength, it noticed us early enough that its enormous fist came barreling towards us.

It wasn't fast.

Compared to Marina and Reiko, it was moving in slow motion.

And for me?

It might as well not be moving at all.

However, it came down onto us with the force of an angry god, and it produced an almost hurricane force wind just from the air displacement, almost throwing us off, but the fist came down onto us and all three of us jumped on top of it as it buried itself nearly halfway into the ground, creating a huge crater and causing an earthshaking tremor on the ground behind us.

The arm was moving very slowly as it began to retract, a good several dozen muscle groups activating in sequence, flexing and tensing and relaxing, as the skin broke and more splotches of black scales and giant golden coins were exposed as the muscles reformed and deformed under us.

My claws found easy purchase, and the sensible, rough terrain shoes that both Marina and Reiko wore managed to let them run with ease, all three of us dashed towards the creature's main body.

We got past the elbow just in time as it began to bend and shake its forearm trying to throw us off, and it couldn't move fast enough to stop us from reaching the shoulder.

By my estimation, we basically did the equivalent of running up a skyscraper's wall in about five seconds. Not bad if I do say so myself.

What was bad, however, was that Reiko leaped ahead of us and swung an extremely wide spinning attack that landed against the disgustingly throbbing veins of the creature's neck, chopping an opening into said neck, only for it to gush boiling hot blood that rapidly turned to steam, burning Reiko, and then closed up immediately.

"Reiko! Are you okay!?"

"Shoot it Marina!!" Reiko called out as she wiped the boiling hot blood from her costume and face, taking a step back as she moved out of the way.

Marina jumped into the air much like Reiko had, but with a much higher arch to her jump, and then while she was at the apex of it, she thrust her staff forward and unleashed a large pink beam into the same spot Reiko had hit, carving a hole into the creature, which again gushed boiling hot blood and steam and then closed up.

"That's not good," Reiko muttered. "Your attack dealt more damage than mine but it still healed."

"MROW!!"

My call got their attention just in time, my instincts alerted me and my eyes confirmed that one of its webbed hands was coming towards its shoulder, and would turn us into stickers if we didn't move. Luckily it was slow enough that we could disperse. Marina landed and then slid down the monster's back. Reiko followed, stabbing her polearm into the monster and catching Reiko by the hand, both of them descending along its back and away from the monster's shoulder.

And as for me, I had an easier time climbing the monster, so I rushed up its neck and managed to run upside down by digging my claws into its flesh, allowing me to make it up the creature's face.

However, when I tried to get up to its eye to inflict some damage, I realized that its eyes really were just holes from which flame was coming out, and more importantly, the impact of its webbed hand on its shoulder registered, and caused me to actually slip off, its skin simply wasn't strong enough for my claws to not just tear loose when its entire body began to shake like water from the force of the impact.

I began falling, but I didn't fall for long, as I was caught in mid air by its enormous hand, so big that there was no realistic way it wasn't going to catch me, as it made use of the fact that it had two arms on each side.

I had thought it a mindless, rampaging beast, but obviously it was intelligent enough to prepare that little trick.

I...

Might've been very thoroughly fucked at that moment. The impact of it catching me causes all the air to be pushed out of my body, and I can't even let out a shrill cry of pain as cats are known to do, and before I can catch my bearings, it's bringing me up and forward.

Like I'm nothing more than a small pill, it brings me up to its mouth.

It's no longer moving as slowly as before, right at this time it happens to speed the fuck up, just to bring me up to its mouth.

I've stared death in the face many times. I've died before, actually.

This isn't even entirely new to me, though I admit, I wasn't the one being shoved into the wood chipper the first time around.

Pro tip? It's not like in the movies, they actually will get wrecked by human bodies, it's painful but really not a good way to get rid of a body you don't need anymore.

As I'm thrown into its five circular rows of teeth, they begin to spin and rotate, the jagged monstrous maw already promising that this is going to suck. My eyes quickly adjust to the darkness as I'm thrown into its mouth, and as its throat opens up, I realize it's all teeth, becoming narrower and narrower, with more jagged and wicked looking spikes of enamel and bone.

"Meow..."

My voice echoes down its throat. It's covering its mouth with its hand, and the seal is tight. More importantly, hurricane force winds are starting to pull on me, it's sucking, it's actively trying to swallow me, and I can't do much about it, as I'm in mid air and being pulled towards the ever darker insides of the beast.

Well.

This is not looking good at all.

Not being one to give up, I began to put my all into trying to prevent myself from being swallowed, unfortunately, the only thing I could do was slow the inevitable, the surface of its many rows of teeth was extremely tough and slippery, affording me no purchase and making me fall further and further down even as its ridiculous insides continued to try to make mincemeat out of me.

I have to think of something fast.

I'm not about to be done in by some amateur horseshit like getting swallowed by a big enemy.