Mad Viper stepped down from the platform with unhurried confidence, the double-edged axe resting on his shoulder. The baleful aura pouring out from the open secret chamber swirled around his legs like living smoke, and for a moment, it seemed to cling to him, darkening the edges of his silhouette.
"You've killed my men," he said in a voice that was almost conversational. "So now I have to end you *to* avenge them."
Mad Viper made his move.
He vanished from the platform, then appeared in front of Wren with a malicious grin plastered on his face.
Wren's heart nearly stopped when she witnessed Mad Viper's axe chopping toward her. She did not know when he raised his weapon because his speed was off the charts, and she couldn't follow his movements, but what she did know was that she was about to die.
Gabriel and Ivan both saw that Wren was in danger and, without hesitation, rushed at her with their fastest speed to defend her. As they got close, Gabriel used the fourth form: turning the river of the flowing river sword to redirect the attack from Mad Viper. Ivan came up behind Mad Viper and unleashed a fist technique toward the bandit's spine.
Mad Viper's eyes locked on the incoming fist. Ivan's punch was already driving toward the base of his spine—a killing blow if it landed. In a blur of motion, Viper twisted, forearm slamming into Ivan's wrist with bone-jarring force, deflecting the strike just enough to send it skimming past his back.
Before Ivan could recover, Viper's leg exploded upward. The kick hit like a freight train—raw power and speed concentrated into a single, devastating impact against Ivan's midsection. The air left Ivan's lungs in a violent rush. His body folded around the strike, feet leaving the ground as he was launched backward, the force of the blow echoing through the air like thunder.
Ivan's body crashed into the stone wall with a sickening, bone-deep *thud*. The impact cracked several of the weathered blocks, sending a shower of dust and small fragments raining down around him. His spine and shoulders took the full brunt of the force; the air that had already been driven from his lungs by Viper's kick was completely gone now. For a split second, he hung against the wall, then slid down in a heap, one knee hitting the floor hard.
A thin line of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were still open but glassy with shock. He tried to push himself up, one hand braced against the fractured stone, yet his midsection screamed in protest, and his arms trembled under his own weight.
Mad Viper stood a few meters away, breathing evenly, the sole of his boot still warm from the kick. He watched Ivan without pity or triumph—just the cold, calculating stare of someone already deciding whether the next strike would finish the fight.
Mad Viper's eyes never left Ivan's crumpled form against the cracked wall—until Wren, Gabriel, and Eleanor came at him together.
Wren closed the distance first, dual swords flashing in a crossing slash meant to take his head. Gabriel came from the flank with a heavy downward strike of his own blade. Eleanor hung back a half-step, both hands raised as a shimmering barrier of qi bloomed around the group, ready to reinforce any opening.
It meant nothing.
Viper moved like a shadow given weight. He stepped inside Wren's crossed blades as if they were made of paper, his free hand snapping out in a brutal, open-palm punch that caught her clean across the face. The impact spun her head sideways; her swords clattered from nerveless fingers as she dropped hard to the stone floor, blood already welling from a split lip and a rapidly swelling cheek.
Without pause, Viper pivoted. His axe came around in a vicious horizontal arc. Gabriel's chest plate and the flesh beneath it parted under the edge with a wet, tearing sound. A deep, ugly gash opened from collarbone nearly to the opposite ribs. Before the pain could fully register, Viper's boot drove into Gabriel's sternum in a perfect Spartan kick. His feet left the ground, flew several meters, and slammed onto his back, clutching the bleeding wound as he gasped for air.
Eleanor's barrier flared brighter in desperation. Viper simply walked through it. The qi shattered like glass against his advance.
One powerful lariat from his forearm sent her flying backward into a stone pillar. The collision drove the air from her lungs and extinguished the last remnants of her protective energy in a fading shimmer. She crumpled at the base of the pillar, dazed and struggling to rise.
In the span of a few heartbeats, the coordinated assault had been reduced to three broken fighters on the floor. Mad Viper stood in the center of the room once more, axe resting lightly against his shoulder, gaze already swinging back toward Ivan—who was still trying and failing to push himself upright against the ruined wall.
Mad Viper took one measured step toward Ivan.
The injured man finally forced himself upright, back pressed against the fractured wall, one arm wrapped tightly around his midsection. Blood still leaked from the corner of his mouth. His breathing was ragged, but his eyes had cleared—cold, furious, and focused.
Viper raised the axe.
Before the blade could fall, a low, broken growl came from the floor behind him.
Gabriel, whose chest was still bleeding from the deep gash, had rolled onto his side. With a grunt of pure stubbornness, he forced himself to his knees, vision swimming, but *Rootcleaver* in his hand never left his grip.
Wren, face already swollen and bloody, crawled toward her fallen swords. Her fingers closed around one hilt. Eleanor, still slumped against the pillar, forced a trembling hand up. A faint, flickering thread of qi sparked between her fingers—weak, unstable, but present.
Viper's head turned slightly, looking at them without any real concern.
*Clap… clap… clap…*
A slow, deliberate clap echoed through the chamber—mocking, unhurried, each strike of palm against palm ringing off the stone walls like a death knell.
Every head turned.
From the deep within shadows near the far archway, a figure stepped into light.
He walked with a confident swagger, his hands still clapping in that lazy, contemptuous rhythm, a wide sadistic smile plastered across his face as his eyes swept over their beaten forms.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
Baleful qi was being secreted from him in thick, nauseating waves—the exact same malignant energy that leaked from the sealed underground chamber below. It clung to the air like rot, heavy and wrong.
Gabriel's eyes widened in pure shock and recognition of that figure that he involuntarily shouted his name.
"Jason…?"