Coronation

The one beside her was no exhausted opponent at all.

It was a surging mass of thick, impenetrable black mist.

The bizarre, violent black aura coiled and churned like a living thing, like shadows from the abyss that sought to devour all the surrounding light—and even hope itself.

That black mist was not still. It spread and expanded forward at a terrifying speed—

No.

It was not spreading toward her.

The instant she looked over, that boundless darkness had already completely swallowed her!

And in the instant she was engulfed by that suffocating black mist, Satono Diamond finally saw the even more terrifying true form of that "monster"—

Two points of crimson.

Two wildly swaying, burning pupils within the dense black mist, like the eyes of a beast!

The outlines of those pupils were so familiar, yet at this moment, they felt so alien that the blood in her entire body nearly froze.

They did not merely emit a bone-chilling, trembling crimson light. Within them was even something almost tangible—

Killing intent?

Mixed with an indescribable pressure that seemed to carry the fishy scent of rust, it seized her viciously in that instant.

That beast-like killing intent... was coming toward her.

She... seemed to have smiled within the black mist?

An absurd, horrifying thought surfaced uncontrollably.

Satono Diamond had no strength left to confirm it.

In that instant, she felt all the strength in her body, every thought in her mind, even her right to breathe, completely stripped away by those crimson pupils. Her limbs and bones felt as though they had been filled with cold lead blocks; her entire body was so stiff she could barely move, and she could only keep running by instinct.

And then—

"Kitasan Black! Kitasan Black takes the lead again!!"

The commentator's howl was