The port was burning.
Wherever Kaido's "Bolo Breath" had licked, even stone had melted into glass. Charred black and blazing red twisted together like an oil painting carelessly smeared by a giant, then crushed underfoot. The air reeked of scorched metal and timber, and... the sickly sweet tang of carbonized flesh.
When Boer descended from the shuttle, an ominous crunch sounded beneath his feet. He looked down. A pocket watch cover embedded in the ground had shattered completely under his weight. The hands on its dial had stopped forever at 2:37 p.m.
"Listen."
Robin's voice was soft, but her power had already spread. Throughout the ruined port, countless slender, pale arms "grew" from broken walls and rubble, each palm bearing a listening ear. They pressed against cold concrete, warm steel, bodies that still held traces of warmth... gathering whatever last pulses might remain in this land of death.
Hokushin Ichiteru silently waved his hand. Bandages slithered like enormous pythons into the depths of the ruins, carefully lifting and moving fallen steel beams and concrete blocks. Clouds of metallic dust rose wherever they passed.
Boer closed his eyes.
Through his Extrasensory Vision, the world was reduced to heat signatures and biological magnetic fields. The points of light that had once represented life were now dimming and going out in swaths. Only forty-six scattered, faint clusters of light remained, flickering across the cold sensory map like guttering candles in the wind.
Then magnetic force lifted the rubble and debris. The injured were gently drawn out, automatically sorted, and lined up. Medical workers moved silently among them, with only stifled sobs and the cold echoes of objects knocking together.
"There are no more survivors." Boer opened his eyes and looked at Robin. His voice was terrifyingly calm, his gaze like cold iron in