The woman’s knees had barely left the ground when Kael moved.

His bow was already raised with hisarrow nocked, lightning crackling along the shaft. The shot was lined up—her chest. Grey’s enhancement sang through his muscles, making the draw effortless, making the hold steady.

He released.

The arrow screamed toward her—

WHOOOM!

Wind erupted from the woman’s body like a bomb going off as a pure, desperate expulsion of air fired in every direction. The arrow caught the edge of the gust and veered wildly, embedding itself in a wall six meters to the left.

Kael flew backward.

His boots left the ground. The wind caught him like a ragdoll, tossing him through the air, spinning him end over end. He crashed through a rotting door frame, bounced off a collapsed wall, and hit the ground hard enough to taste blood.

"Kael!" Yenna’s voice.

He quickly got up. Shaking off the impact. Grey’s enhancement was still active, amplifying his durability more than normal.

The woman stood in the center of the street. Her white mask was cracked down the middle, one eye slit wider than the other. Blood seeped from the fracture, red against white.

She was angry.

Her hands rose.

"WIND TORNADO."

The fog itself answered.

It spiraled inward, drawn toward her raised palms like water down a drain. The mist thickened, compressed, began to spin faster and faster until a column of rotating air formed—a tornado ten meters tall, five meters wide, screaming with contained violence.

She thrust her hands forward.

The tornado launched.

"Scatter!" Kael shouted.

It hit the street where they’d been standing and kept coming—devouring asphalt, tearing up foundations, ripping abandoned cars from their moorings and flinging them like toys. The sound was deafening, a constant roar that drowned out everything else.

Kael raised his bow.

"Lightning Fang!"

One bolt. Two. Three. Four. Five. He fired them in rapid succession, each one screaming toward the tornado’s base. The lightning hit the rotating wind and scattered—some absorbed, some deflected, most dissipated before they could reach the core.

"Keep firing!" Yenna was beside him, ice sword gone, both hands raised. "FROST BLAST!"

A wave of sub-zero energy erupted from her palms, hitting the tornado’s flank. Ice crystals formed in the wind—momentarily slowing the rotation, creating visible friction, but not stopping it.

Kael fired again. Six more lightning fangs. Then six more. Then ten.

Yenna fired again. And again.

The tornado kept coming.

But it was slowing.

Each attack chipped away at its momentum—lightning disrupting the air currents, frost freezing the moisture, the combined assault creating enough chaos to degrade the technique’s structural integrity.

The tornado hit twenty meters from them.

Fifteen.

Ten.

Before it finally died down as the wind dissipated. The fog settled. Debris rained down around them in a gentle patter of brick dust and rusted metal.

The woman stood at the edge of the destruction. Breathing hard. Bleeding from her forehead now, the mask cracked further. Her white clothes were torn, exposing skin beneath that was bruised and scraped.

She raised her whip.

Cassian appeared in front of her. One moment he was beside Kael, the next he was directly in front of the woman, three-section staff raised overhead, every inch of the weapon glowing with runic light.

WHAM!

The staff came down.

The woman’s whip snapped up to block—

And slowed.

Time itself seemed to thicken around her. Her arm moved like it was pushing through honey, the whip rising in slow motion, the block that would have been perfect arriving a fraction of a second too late.

The staff hit her shoulder.

CRACK!

The sound was sickening—bone and joint and flesh all crying out at once. The woman screamed, a sound that echoed through the empty streets. The impact launched her backward, ragdolling her body through three abandoned buildings before she finally came to rest in a pile of rubble.

Cassian was already moving.

He appeared above her crumpled form, staff raised for another strike.

WHAM!

She managed to throw up a wind barrier as the staff hit the barrier and the barrier held—

For a moment.

Then it shattered, and she was sent flying again.

She hit the ground rolling.

Bleeding from her forehead and her shoulder—definitely dislocated or broken. Smaller cuts across her arms, her legs, her face where debris had torn through her clothes.

She got up.

Cassian was already pursuing, staff spinning, ready for another strike.

The woman’s hand went to her storage ring.

A pill—small, red, faintly glowing—appeared in her palm.

She swallowed it.

The effect was immediate.

A shockwave erupted from her body. Pure mana. Raw, unfiltered power flooding her meridians, boosting her cultivation past its normal limits, painting the air around her with visible energy distortions.

Her aura blazed.

Early Mana Heart Rank 2. But it was temporary and clearly unstable.

"To use this pill," she said, voice strained but vicious, "facing kids like you—"

She raised her whip.

"I’m going to kill you all."

Kael appeared beside her. Both short blades drawn, bow stored, eyes cold.

"Yeenna. Cassian." His voice was flat. "Let’s attack at the same time and leave her no breathing space."

The trio moved.

Cassian boosted his speed with time manipulation—blurring forward with his three-section staff whistling. Yenna burst forward on platforms of ice, sword raised, frost trailing behind her like a comet’s tail. Kael used lightning—arcs crackling along his legs, propelling him forward at speeds that matched his companions despite his lower cultivation.

Three attackers converging on one target.

The woman’s wind screamed.

CLASH!

Cassian’s staff met her whip. Yenna’s sword met her parry. Kael’s blades met her reinforced guard.

They pushed her back. Step by step. Strike by strike. No room to breathe, no time to think, no chance to launch one of those devastating wind attacks.

But she was still Mana Heart. Still enhanced. Still dangerous.

A rapier thrust came at Kael’s throat—fast, too fast, he couldn’t—

The thrust slowed.

Just for a heartbeat. But that was enough for Kael to dodge.

But a wind blade followed. Slicing toward his chest, invisible except for the faint distortion in the air.

"Dark Slash!"

His blade met the wind blade. Darkness clashed against compressed air. The impact pushed him backward—the difference in cultivation making itself painfully clear.

Cassian kept the pressure up. His staff was everywhere—overhead strikes, sweeping attacks, stabs that seemed to come from impossible angles. The runes on the weapon glowed brighter with each impact, channeling additional force into every blow.

Yenna mixed close and ranged combat. Ice sword clashing against rapier one moment, a dozen ice spears launching the next. The woman was forced to constantly adjust, constantly defend, constantly split her attention.

Kael watched and he waited for an opening.

The woman’s shadow stretched across the ruined street—long, distorted, clearly defined by the faint light filtering through the fog.

Kael’s darkness stirred.

He reached into it—with his will, his intent, the connection to that purple flame in his core that responded to shadow like a part of his own body.

The shadow moved.

Spike erupted from the darkness—directly beneath the woman’s right leg.

SHLUK!

It punched through her calf. Clean through her musclethe tip emerging from the front of her thigh in a spray of blood as she screamed.

Her head snapped down, staring at the shadow spike pinning her leg like a butterfly to a board.

Her eyes found Kael.

"You—!"

WHAM!

Cassian’s staff hit her from behind with full force. Runes blazing. The impact sent her flying again, shadow spike tearing free from her leg in a spray of red. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

She crashed through a wall and lay still for a moment.

Cassian stood over her, staff resting on his shoulder, breathing slightly harder than normal.

"While my ability isn’t really combat based," he said, almost conversationally, "I can compensate with the weapons I possess."

He tapped the three-section staff with one finger. The runes pulsed.

"This has various inscriptions. Packs enough punch to severely injure or even kill any early peak Mana Heart cultivator."

He smiled.

"Like you."

He moved to attack again.

But—

Cough. Cough. Cough.

Blood sprayed from his lips. Red liquid dripped from his nose, staining his chin, dripping onto the rubble beneath him. His legs buckled, staff clattering from his grip, and he dropped to his knees like a puppet with cut strings.

The woman laughed.

"While time manipulation is powerful," she gasped, "it really takes quite the toll on the user, doesn’t it?"

She grinned through bloody teeth.

"You really are the most dangerous in your group."

Cassian joined her laughter.

The woman’s grin faltered.

"You really think I’m the most dangerous?" Cassian raised his head, blood still dripping from his nose, but his eyes—his eyes were mocking. "Well. You haven’t seen anything."

He looked at Kael. Then at Yenna.

"I’m sure you guys can take it from here."

He sat back in a lotus position as his eyes closing.

The woman stared at him. Then at Kael and Yenna.

Kael stored his short blades.

His hands came up. Index finger and middle finger together on both hands, crossed at the wrists.

The woman’s eyes widened.

"No—"

Kael whispered.

"Realm of Darkness."

"Darker than black."

The world went dark.