The Rank 4s charged first.

Seven of them with weapons drawn and burning with the desperate aggression of men who thought numbers mattered. Three came at Kael. Four went for Sage.

Kael didn’t move.

His bandaged hands moved.

The first operative’s neck got pulverized. Kael’s palm connected with the man’s throat and kept going, fingers closing around something that crumbled instead of snapped. The body hadn’t even registered death before Kael was already turning.

Second operative. Same motion. Same result. His fist went through the neck like it was wet paper—no resistance, no effort, just the obscene wet crunch of vertebrae exploding into fragments.

Third operative skidded to a stop. Eyes wide behind his mask. Mouth opening to scream.

Kael’s other hand found his throat before the sound escaped.

Crunch.

Three bodies hit the ground in less than two seconds.

A Rank 5 woman rushed in from the left—an earth manipulator, her skin already turning brown and crystalline, defensive reinforcement layered over every inch of her body.

Kael’s fist met her chest.

Lightning crackled. Gravity compressed. The combination hit her reinforced body like a meteor.

His hand went through her.

The crystalline armor shattered on contact. His palm entered her sternum, passed through bone and muscle and organ, and emerged from her back in a spray of blood and gore that painted the darkness behind her red. Her eyes went blank. Her mouth opened. A wet gurgle escaped.

Kael pulled his hand free as she dropped.

A blade came from his left.

Kael didn’t need to look as his gravity sense had mapped the trajectory a full second before the steel arrived—a horizontal slash aimed at his neck, standard sword form, predictable angle. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

He shifted his weight by an inch.

The blade passed his ear.

His elbow found the attacker’s temple.

Crack.

The man dropped like a marionette with cut strings—limbs flopping, signature winking out, skull caved in on one side.

Kael shook the blood off his elbow and kept moving.

Sage was art.

Illusions bloomed across the darkness like flowers in fast-forward. The four Rank 4s who’d charged her stumbled mid-stride, weapons lowering, bodies going slack as their minds were ripped from reality and shoved somewhere else.

One man dropped to his knees, eyes glazed, mouth stretched into a blissful smile. In his mind, he was somewhere warm. Someone soft was beneath him. He didn’t see the real world anymore.

Another was laughing—a low, breathless sound—hands reaching for something that wasn’t there.

The two female operatives weren’t immune. One had sunk to the ground, arms wrapped around herself, rocking. The other was whispering to someone who didn’t exist, tears streaming down her mask.

Sage watched them for a moment.

Then her tails erupted.

All nine of them—golden, massive, blazing with mana—burst from her back in a cascade of light. Her eyes shone like twin suns. Her claws extended to six inches of curved bone. And in her hands, materialized from shadow itself, appeared a scythe.

A black scythe with edges that seemed to drink the dim light of the realm.

She launched herself forward.

Schwing.

The laughing man’s head left his shoulders before his smile could fade.

Schwing.

The kneeling man followed—head spinning through the air, trailing a helix of blood.

Schwing. Schwing.

The two women died still lost in their illusions. Their heads rolled together, masks and all, coming to rest against the dark barrier wall like discarded props.

Sage stood among the bodies. Nine tails swaying. Scythe dripping.

Her golden eyes found the remaining operatives and smiled.

The carnage stopped.

Kael and Sage stood side by side, splattered in blood that wasn’t theirs, masks of crimson and bone fragments decorating their clothes. Behind them lay fourteen bodies—Rank 4s and Rank 5s, broken and scattered across the darkness like discarded toys.

Kael’s smirk hadn’t wavered.

Sage’s tails swished lazily, scattering droplets of blood across the ground.

The remaining mid-tier operatives had stopped charging.

Six Rank 5s and six Rank 6s formed a tight defensive cluster around Grellik and Vornin. Their signatures burned with fear now—the sharp, acrid stench of prey who’d just realized the hunters were on the other side.

Vornin’s flames flickered. His signature flared—hot, aggressive, desperate to reassert dominance over a situation that had spiraled completely out of control.

"Enough," he snarled.

He burst forward.

Fire engulfed him completely—not just coating his skin but becoming it. His body was a column of flame, humanoid in shape, eyes burning white-hot behind his flame-crested mask. The ground sizzled beneath his feet as he closed the distance toward Kael in a single explosive leap.

Fist cocked back. Flames spiraling. A killing blow aimed directly at Kael’s skull—

Sage stepped into his path.

"Mine," she said.

Her fist met his.

The impact sent a shockwave rippling through the darkness. Fire and golden mana clashed in a brilliant explosion of light and heat that made the remaining operatives stagger backward.

Sage held her ground.

Vornin held his.

For three seconds, they stood locked—fist against fist, flame against claw, neither giving an inch.

Then Vornin pushed harder.

Sage’s feet slid back. The heat was intense—too intense. Her claws were glowing red, fur singeing, the skin on her forearms blistering where the flames licked past her guard.

She disengaged.

Jumped backward creating a five meters of distance.

Vornin landed where she’d been standing with flames roaring.

Her hands were shaking with residue flames clung to her claws and forearms—orange embers eating into golden fur, smoke rising from singed flesh. She beat them out quickly, teeth bared, but the damage was done.

Vornin tilted his head.

"Weak," he said. "That’s the problem with you beast-kin. All instinct, no endurance. You hit hard for about thirty seconds. Then you’re done."

Sage didn’t respond.

Not with words at least.

Her lips curled into a grin.

Vornin’s flames flickered.

"What are you—"

Light erupted behind Sage.

Twelve feet tall. Golden. Impossibly beautiful and impossibly terrifying all at once. The ethereal image of a nine-tailed fox loomed over her like a god summoned to witness a sacrifice. Each tail was a river of golden fire. Each eye was a burning sun. The halo cast the entire area in warm, honeyed light that made the darkness of Kael’s realm recoil.

The bloodline avatar that separated Royal Fox-kin from common beasts. The manifestation of generational power accumulated over centuries. The reason nine-tailed foxes were considered divine.

Sage’s golden eyes blazed with its light.

Vornin’s flames sputtered.

His signature wavered.

"That," Sage whispered, "is what you’re fighting."

The Fox’s tails swayed.

Vornin swallowed.

The fight wasn’t over.

It was just beginning.