Destructive Pin — Heat Convergence.

Even though she'd been caught off guard twice, Keede was still a Delta-ranked individual. The moment of surprise was short-lived. Heat flared in the air around her, bending toward her body like metal drawn to a forge.

But Zephyr moved before it could take shape.

Limbo — Hollow Breath Transition.

A cold mist slipped from his mouth, curling around him like phantom breath. The space rippled. In a blink, he was gone— phased into Limbo.

Keede gasped as her Art healed her. The heat she'd summoned began pouring into her own body, healing her wounds. She gritted her teeth, ready to pivot.

But she felt it before she saw it— fingers twisting into her hair from behind.

Her eyes widened. 'Why isn't he affected by the heat convergence…?'.

There was no answer— only pain.

Her head slammed into the crystallized rock beneath her. Once. Twice. Again. And again.

White sparks burst across her vision as the jagged crystal cut through her scalp. Blood painted the rock below like an offering.

If she could've seen him, she'd have seen the wild grin on his face, the unrelenting fury in his lavender eyes. But all she could feel was her skull cracking against the earth.

When he finally stopped— after fifteen seconds that felt like eternity— he didn't let go.

He jumped back, dragging her by the hair.

Her scalp screamed, her breath caught. She stumbled after him on instinct, legs scraping against the ground until he finally let go.

She collapsed, hitting the ground with a sickening thud. Her head spun. The last of her wounds sealed themselves from the residual heat she had gathered— but it wasn't enough.

The moment her thoughts began to gather—

Pain exploded in her gut.

Her body folded as she coughed out blood, her breath leaving her in a sharp gasp.

She looked down, barely comprehending.

A hand— cold, pale, and merciless— was buried in her side, fingers clenched around something inside her.

Her eyes rose slowly.

They met his.

Zephyr's gaze held no mercy. No fury. Just a crazed expression that could only belong to a mad person.

He tilted his head slightly. "Ah," he murmured, voice curious, even amused. "You seem surprised."

Then he tore.

Keede's scream tore through the mountain air like a blade through cloth.

But Zephyr? He just tilted his head, still holding her bloodied rib in one hand like it was no more than a snapped twig.

Keede twitched on the ground, coughing blood. Her fingers dug into the dirt, trying to push herself up. Rage burned in her eyes.

Zephyr looked down at her— eyes half-lidded, lips curled into something between a smirk and a sneer.

"You look offended." His voice was soft, playful. Dangerous. "Why? Because you lost? Or because I didn't show up to kneel at your feet like all the other dogs you keep around?".

Zephyr leapt back, blood still dripping from the rib clutched in his hand. Dust and shards of crystal scattered in the air behind him, his expression as unbothered as if he were plucking weeds.

But inside his head, his danger intuition was so high it was practically ringing inside his head.

Keede didn't scream again.

She just lay there, coughing blood, her limbs twitching from the violent shock. Her eyes—red, bloodshot, wet with fury— locked onto him.

She pushed herself to her knees, trembling, broken strands of crimson hair plastered to her face. Her lips moved slowly, drawing breath between spasms of pain.

"Destructive Pin…" her voice cracked, but there was something rising behind it—something deep, old, and anchored.

"…Majestic Oaks."

The heat in the air didn't return— it vanished.

Replaced by stillness.

The mountain trembled.

Then from beneath her, roots of molten black iron burst from the ground, coiling like serpents, thick as boulders, veined with flowing black flame. They slammed into the earth around her, forming a crown of trees born from fire and hatred.

The roots stretched up, curling into majestic trunks of liquid metal, and from them came spears— javelins made of something that looked like trees and black fire. The air sang with their forming.

The sky above dimmed as the branches stretched, blackening clouds above the battlefield. Keede's bleeding form was now cloaked in a forest of towering war-trees—each one humming with a radiant, dreadful pulse.

Then they fired.

Not one. Not ten.

A hundred spears shot from the trees— each aimed with brutal precision. They glowed black-hot with the heat of her fury, carving through the sky like meteor trails. The air tore apart behind them.

Zephyr's smile faded.

His eyes snapped to the first wave, then the next. Then came the hum— deep and vibrating, like the earth itself was howling.

This wasn't just a counterattack.

This was an execution.

Keede's head hung low, blood still dripping from her jaw, but her voice echoed with force, filled with biting venom.

"You think I'm a crownkin just for show?" she spat. "Then let me show you why even the royal family must kneel beneath the Demios".

The spears converged.

Zephyr's breath came out low.

The spears screamed toward him like comets dipped in fire and spite.

He didn't flinch, instead, he laughed.

A short, cold sound— sharp and clear amidst the howling storm of molten branches.

"Demios." He said the name like it was something foul on his tongue. Then louder—he barked it into the air as the hundred spears bore down on him.

"Is that supposed to scare me?"

The mountain cracked beneath his boots. Air warped. The first spear was seconds away.

"You overgrown cult of inbreds— dressing up your bloodline madness as power—"

He raised his hand.

"—and calling it legacy?"

Then, as if it were a joke—he smirked. But inside?

Inside, Zephyr's mind was racing like a storm barely bottled in glass.

'This is bad. This is very, very bad.'

He couldn't block all of them, not even with Limbo's phasing. He needed to survive the first wave. Only the first. After that—

His mind slipped deeper into strategy.

'i can't run away, I have come too far'. But out loud—

"Oh, Keede," he said, mocking pity in his voice, "is this your family's idea of affection? You rip out someone's ribs and they throw fire at you? Then we really do love each other".

'hmm I could have found a better way to say that'. But outwardly he opened his arms wide as if inviting the spears.

"Come then— show me how a royal dog barks when it's pissed."

The first volley of spears struck. And Zephyr moved.

Limbo — Hollow Breath Transition.

The moment the first black-hot spear cracked the mountain and sprayed molten debris into the air— His body blurred, shimmered— and then turned to a phantom, a Spector.

His world shifted. Everything turned black and white.

Color bled from the world like a dying sun retreating from existence. The mountains, the sky, the glowing spears— all became pale shades of shadow and light.

In this realm, Limbo, the air was thinner, the sounds muted, and time bent— not slowed, not accelerated, just… twisted.

Zephyr sprinted.

Faster than his body would normally allow, faster than flesh could endure. The javelins passed through where he'd just stood, crashing into stone, burning through cliffs and even his body. But here, in Limbo, he was a ghost made motion.

His limbs screamed in silence as he tore across the peak— phasing between rock and flame like a wraith, closing the distance between him and Keede.

She had already risen to her feet.

The heat had sealed her wounds again. Her stance low, her hair a storm of scarlet and ash behind her. More spears grew from the trees of blackened flame— summoned by sheer hatred.

She took a step back.

Zephyr's feet touched ground just meters from her. The sharp scent of her Arts singed his senses despite him being in Limbo. His eyes were wild in this colorless world— like two violet sparks in grayscale madness.

Ten seconds.

He could already feel the edges of Limbo rejecting his presence.

A soundless snap tore through the back of his mind.

Return.

He burst back into reality— color flooding in like a tidal wave. His boots struck the mountain's rock, dust flaring beneath him.

Keede's head jerked— her crimson eyes locked onto him—

Only for Zephyr to exhale another Hollow Breath, slipping right back into Limbo before she could react.

This time, he carried momentum.

In the in-between space, he twisted mid-step— appearing to her like a phantom flickering between frames of reality. Her spears couldn't lock onto him, not accurately. Each time they neared, he phased— shifting his position subtly.

He was right in front of her, his hand parted into her side, the intense heat from her body melting the harden space around his arm.

He gripped her rib and pulled. Keede let out a scream of pain and rage, her hand clamped around Zephyr's space harden fist.

Zephyr immediately fell into a delimma, any second from now and he would be rebounded back into reality and that would mean certain death.

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