Kael walked forward.

Each step was deliberate—measured, careful, the walk of a man whose body was screaming at him to stop but whose mind had already committed to something stupid. His broken ribs ground against each other with every breath. His slashed back wept blood down his legs. His mana reserves sat at maybe fifteen percent—enough for one more technique if he didn’t waste it.

Thorne stood in the middle of the street.

The Rank 9’s attention was fixed on Miss Beauty and Seraphine’s battle—watching the flame goddess get dismantled with the detached expression of a man watching weather reports. His wind signature pulsed erratically. Uncertain. His mind was somewhere else entirely. Maybe already planning his escape in case Seraphine losses which from the looks of things, he was probably going to run.

Thorne felt something a fraction of a second too late.

His head snapped to the right.

Nothing there.

His signature flared—sweeping backward—

Behind.

He whipped around.

Kael stood three meters behind him with his right hand extended and index finger pointing directly at Thorne’s chest.

A deep purple-black orb rotated at the fingertip. as the air screamed and the ground cracked beneath Kael’s feet.

Pulsar.

Thorne’s eyes widened.

"No—"

He moved sideways—his body bending at an angle that defied normal flexibility, his wind manipulation accelerating his dodge to speeds that should have been more than enough.

But Kael had already released the orb.

It moved like it wasn’t moving at all—one moment at Kael’s fingertip, the next there, crossing the three-meter gap in a fraction of a heartbeat. Thorne’s wind barrier snapped into existence—a shell of compressed air dense enough to deflect steel—

The Pulsar hit it.

The barrier held for just a second.

Cracks spider-webbed through the compressed wind. Purple-black light leaked through the fractures like blood through bandages.

Then it shattered.

The orb punched through the dying barrier and hit Thorne squarely on the right side of his body.

BOOM.

The explosion wasn’t large. Not compared to the first Pulsar that had killed Grellik. This one was smaller—starved of mana, incomplete, fed with only a fraction of the energy it needed to reach full potential.

But it was still an Origin Grade technique.

How could an Origin Grade attack be stopped by a mere wind barrier? Even incomplete, it’s still Origin Grade.

Kael lowered his hand.

Smoke and dust billowed outward from the impact point—obscuring Thorne’s body, hiding the results, filling the street with a choking haze that tasted like burned meat and ozone.

The smoke cleared.

Thorne was still standing.

But barely.

His right arm was gone. Blood ran from a dozen other gashes across his torso and legs where the explosion’s shrapnel had caught him. His clothing was shredded. His face was pale—pale enough that the blood dripping from his nose and mouth looked almost black by comparison.

But his chest still rose and fell.

His heart still beat.

"Well," Kael said, wiping blood from his chin. "Can’t underestimate the vitality of a Peak Foundation Establishment cultivator. Even if they’re monkeys."

Thorne spat a mouthful of blood at Kael’s feet.

Pthw.

"Y-you—" Thorne’s voice was broken. Each word cost him something. "I’ll kill you. I’ll—"

Something shifted in the periphery of Kael’s vision.

He turned.

Miss Beauty had Seraphine by the throat. The flame goddess hung limp in her grip—robes torn, face swollen, divine fire reduced to pathetic flickers that couldn’t even warm the air around her. One eye was swollen shut. Blood ran from her nose, her ears, the corners of her mouth.

The battle was over.

Had been over for a while, probably.

And Seraphine knew it.

Her remaining eye found Thorne across the smoke-choked street. Only to see Thorne’s mutilated body with a missing arm and the bleeding wounds and the sheer impossibility of a Rank 9 being taken apart by a Rank 4.

Something passed between them.

Then Seraphine moved.

Ffleeing. Fire erupted around her body in a blinding flash—not directed at Miss Beauty, just raw, desperate flame meant to create cover. Miss Beauty’s grip tightened—

Seraphine phased.

Her body became fire. Pure fire and she poured through Miss Beauty’s fingers like water, streaming upward into the night sky, a column of golden light that rocketed toward the horizon faster than any of them could follow.

Miss Beauty’s hand closed on empty air.

She stared at the fading light for a long moment.

"How annoying," she murmured.

Thorne watched Seraphine disappear.

His remaining hand reached out—fingers stretching toward the fading golden light, toward salvation, toward the only person who could have saved him.

"Seraphine—"

The light vanished over the horizon.

She didn’t look back.

"SERAPHINE!"

Nothing.

Thorne’s outstretched hand dropped. His head turned slowly toward Kael. Toward Miss Beauty. The despair in his eyes curdled into something darker. Something bitter.

"Since I’m going to die anyway," he said, voice hollow, "I might as well take both of you with me."

Thorne’s remaining hand moved to his waist. Towards his storage ring 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

A detonator.

Simple. Crude. A button on a handle, connected to nothing visible.

"People like me," Thorne said, "who come out of the dumps and get trained as soldiers for the House of Crimson... we get implants."

He held up the detonator.

"Bombs inside our bodies. Can’t be removed. Can’t be deactivated. The House doesn’t trust its tools to be captured alive." His broken laugh echoed through the empty street. "Keeps us loyal. Keeps us from talking. And when all else fails..."

He pressed the button.

Click.

Kael’s gravity sense screamed as a massive, overwhelming energy was building from inside Thorne’s chest—compressed into a point no larger than a fist.

A bomb.

The energy released.

"MOVE—"

Something touched Kael’s shoulder.

Miss Beauty appeared beside him with her hand on his shoulder, her body pressed close, her green mask inches from his face.

The explosion hit.

WHOOOOOM.

A wall of fire and force erupted outward from Thorne’s position—expanding in a sphere, consuming the street, the buildings, the air itself. The shockwave was visible—a ripple of distorted space that flattened everything it touched. Cars flipped. Walls crumbled. The ground itself cracked and buckled under the force.

The explosion was at least a rank 4 Mana Heart equivalent.

Enough to level a city block. Enough to vaporize anything Foundation Establishment. Enough to kill Kael a hundred times over.

The wave of destruction reached them—

And stopped.

The fire and force pressed against an invisible barrier that surrounded Kael and Miss Beauty like a bubble. Energy that should have incinerated them simply... couldn’t touch them. It flowed around the barrier, was absorbed by it, pulled into Miss Beauty’s body like water into sand.

The radiation continued—the ambient energy, the residual heat, the secondary shockwaves—but none of it reached inside.

Kael stared.

The explosion faded. Dust settled. Silence fell over the ruined street where Thorne had stood.

Where Thorne had stood.

There was nothing left. Not a body. Not bones. Not even ash. Just a crater—deep, smoldering, ringed with melted concrete and twisted rebar.

Thorne had vaporized himself.

"What..." Kael’s voice came out as a croak. "What was that?"

Miss Beauty’s hand left his shoulder.

"Ultimate defense," she said simply. "Energy-based attacks cannot touch me. They’re absorbed into my body instead. And when a certain condition is met..."

She gestured at the crater.

"I can send them back to the sender."

Kael’s eyes widened.

"That’s—"

"The condition," she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken, "is what makes it work. Without the condition being met, I can absorb but not redirect. When it’s met, the stored energy can be returned with amplified power."

"What’s the condition?"

Miss Beauty looked at him.

Her green eyes were unreadable behind the mask.

Kael leaned forward. Despite everything—the pain, the exhaustion, the crater full of vaporized Rank 9—his eyes were shining. Actually shining, like a child presented with a new toy.

"So you have three abilities," he said. "Teleportation. Attack reflection. And this absorption defense thing. Three distinct abilities. How does that work? Are they connected? Are they separate techniques? Is it a bloodline? A mutation? Can you—"

"Why would I tell you, silly?"

The shine in Kael’s eyes died.

Miss Beauty turned away from the crater and started walking toward the warehouse.

"Clean up your mess," she called over her shoulder. "There are still people trapped underground."

Kael stood alone in the ruined street.

"...Silly?"