"Ugh…"
Kazoru dropped to one knee, clutching his chest as his breathing turned ragged and uneven. Sweat dripped from his chin onto the cracked ground beneath him.
"Damn it…"
His vision blurred slightly from exhaustion.
"I'm out of mana…"
The glowing spirit rings rotating around the area flickered unstably, their light weakening second by second.
"Ring of Spirits won't last more than two minutes…" Kazoru muttered bitterly while scanning his surroundings carefully. "And it hasn't even been that long yet."
His body felt strangely heavy.
Far heavier than it should have been.
Clearly, the technique still consumed far too much energy for him to control properly.
"I still haven't mastered this stupid move…" he hissed under his breath.
Using the last of his strength, Kazoru slowly forced himself back onto his feet. His muscles trembled in protest while memories of the earlier fight resurfaced vividly in his mind.
"That man…"
His eyes narrowed sharply.
The enemy had been absurdly fast—almost impossible to pin down. Combined with the strange fog surrounding the battlefield, every movement became harder to predict.
But what truly bothered Kazoru was something else entirely.
Even while trapped within the Ring of Spirits, the man had still managed to escape despite being weakened.
Kazoru had planned everything carefully.
The battlefield.
The timing.
The restriction zone.
Yet somehow his strategy completely fell apart the moment his body began weakening unexpectedly.
"…That's it."
Kazoru suddenly steadied his breathing as realization struck him.
The final spirit rings around him faded away completely into glowing particles.
"Something's messing with me."
His expression darkened.
"Some kind of invisible effect…"
He clenched his fist tightly afterward.
"…something that weakens the body without being noticed."
"Hey… do you copy?"
A sharp buzzing voice crackled inside Kazoru's head, like electricity crawling through his skull.
"Huh?"
He froze. The voice was distorted, but painfully familiar.
"Volts?! Wait—you can use telepathy now?!"
Kazoru nearly stumbled from the shock. A cold shiver ran down his spine as static danced faintly around his fingertips.
"No," Volts replied calmly. "I'm manipulating the electrical signals in your brainwaves and translating them into my voice. It's one of my skills."
A brief sting pulsed through Kazoru's temples.
"Can you hear me clearly?"
"Loud and clear!" Kazoru grinned despite the strange sensation. "That's insane… you'd make a terrifying strategist."
On the other side, Volts wiped sweat from his brow, his expression tense.
"There's something wrong around you," he muttered. "I've been picking up a strange disturbance lately. A hypersonic frequency… similar to a bat's sonar."
"A bat?"
"Correct."
Volts' voice sharpened.
"You can't hear it because human ears aren't built for ultrasonic sound. But your body can still react to it." He paused grimly. "That frequency is slowly tearing your nervous system apart."
"Annoying," Kazoru growled, smoke curling from his clenched fists. "Any way to drag him out of hiding?"
"I'm already working on it," Volts replied. "I planted my spike rods across seven points around the forest. If he moves, I'll know." His voice lowered with frustration. "But that man's Fog Magic keeps disrupting the signals. I can't tell which presence is real and which is a decoy."
Kazoru cracked his knuckles, sparks of mana flickering around his arms.
"So we smoke the rats out."
A grin spread across his face.
"Alright then… bet."
The ground trembled.
Mana erupted from Kazoru's body in violent waves, crimson flames spiraling upward like a volcanic eruption. Trees bent from the pressure alone before instantly igniting. The surrounding air distorted from the sheer heat.
"Melaine, now!" Volts shouted.
Without hesitation, Melaine slammed her palm forward. The air in front of them hardened into transparent walls, layers upon layers of solidified atmosphere shielding the team from the inferno.
The forest became a sea of fire.
Flames devoured the woods at terrifying speed, turning shadows into blinding orange light visible across the island.
"Is that guy insane?!"
"What the hell is that flame?!"
"So hot—!"
Teams hidden throughout the island stared in horror as pillars of fire clawed into the sky. Even from miles away, the heat crawled against their skin.
Their position was exposed now.
Every enemy would know where they were.
But somewhere within the burning forest, Kazoru smiled.
Because anything hiding in the fog would soon have nowhere left to run.
"If this keeps up, he'll cook us alive." Volts eyes darted around the barrier melting down.
"Melaine, take my hand!" Volts shouted, extending his arm.
"Right!"
The moment her fingers met his, blue sparks burst around their bodies.
Crack.
The two vanished instantly, leaving behind only flickering electricity as they teleported to one of Volts' spike rods planted far across the battlefield—a vantage point safely beyond Kazoru's raging inferno.
From the distance, the forest looked like hell itself.
Flames swallowed everything in their path, roaring through the woods with monstrous hunger. Trees collapsed into ash, the ground glowing red beneath the firestorm. Even the air trembled violently from the heat.
"The flames are interfering with magic…" Melaine muttered in disbelief.
Volts narrowed his eyes.
"No—Kazoru's burning the mana itself."
The enemy's fog rapidly thinned apart.
Without moisture, without stable mana flow, the Fog Magic couldn't spread. Illusions vanished one by one as the fire consumed the battlefield indiscriminately.
Panic erupted among the hidden teams.
"Run!"
"Get out of the forest!"
Several figures burst from the smoke, desperately fleeing the inferno. One of them wasn't fast enough.
"Aghk—!"
His scream was brief before the flames swallowed him whole.
Then Volts saw it.
"There!"
A dark figure shot through the burning trees at high speed—a massive bat weaving desperately between collapsing branches. One wing was scorched black, pieces of burnt flesh crumbling away mid-flight.
The man snarled in agony.
"He got my wings!"
CRACK!
Branches were stepped as team Kazoru finally had them cornered.
"Seems like the bat's out of the bag," Kazoru cracked his knuckles, grinning. "Nowhere to run now, huh?"
The identities of the three attackers were finally uncovered.
The first was Barry Wayne, a brown-haired man whose body had taken on the grotesque traits of a humanoid bat.
Main Ability: Bat
Barry possessed abilities that mirrored the nature of a bat itself. Vast wings allowed him to soar through the skies with unnatural speed, while his hearing was so sharp that even the faintest vibrations became clear within his mind. He hunted not through sight, but through sound.
His scream carried frequencies inaudible to an ordinary human hearing, making his attacks nearly impossible to predict. Victims often collapsed before they even realized they had been struck. Barry could navigate darkness effortlessly, tracing the exact position of his prey while remaining almost completely silent in return.
The second was Vasta Kley, a towering, thin man whose face remained hidden beneath a mask. A long scarf draped around his neck, divided into two contrasting halves—dark green on the left, pure white on the right.
Main Ability: Illusiory Toxin
Vasta wielded a dangerous toxin secreted from the dark green side of his scarf, while the white side carried its antidote. The poisonous substance could disperse into the air as a nearly invisible fog, invading the lungs of anyone unfortunate enough to inhale it.
Once inside the body, the toxin distorted the victim's mind itself.
Their senses became unreliable. Reality twisted apart as Vasta manipulated the brain's visual perception, forcing his targets to witness illusions so vivid they felt tangible. Phantom pain crawled across their skin, imaginary wounds burned like real injuries, and nonexistent threats appeared horrifyingly alive before their eyes.
The third attacker was a man with long white hair, calm and expressionless, Erno Sclare. At first glance, he seemed harmless, but several strands of his hair were nearly transparent, making them incredibly difficult to notice.
That was when Kazoru finally understood how he had been affected by the illusionary toxin despite never breathing the gas in.
The toxin had been injected directly into him.
Main Ability: Needle Hair
Erno could fire strands of his hair with deadly precision. Each strand was sharpened like a tiny barbed needle, capable of piercing even hardened skin with ease.
The attacks were fast, silent, and almost invisible.
When combined with Vasta Kley's Illusiory Toxin, the ability became far more dangerous. The transparent hair strands carried the toxin directly into the victim's body, allowing the hallucinations to take effect without the target ever realizing they had been struck.
Just before Volts could strike them with his Spike Rods, their bodies suddenly dissolved into smoke.
Illusions.
"What the—" Kazoru quickly covered his mouth and nose. "When did they—"
His words stopped as he turned around.
A powerful sonar scream tore through the air behind them, barely missing its target. Thanks to Volts' quick reaction, the three escaped in time and took cover deeper within the forest.
"Damn them." Kazoru slammed his fist against a tree. "They completely fooled us."
"I understand it now," Melaine said while examining the ground beneath their feet. "That man's hair pierced us earlier."
"A spike trap," Volts added calmly.
Volts crouched and pressed his hand against the ground. Small sparks flickered across the soil as his senses spread outward.
"Now that I've seen their appearances," he said, "I can track them through my electric signals."
"I can tell they're changing tactics," Volts stated. "They're becoming bolder now."
"Then two can play that game."
Kazoru leapt high into the sky, his fist blazing with intense flames. A moment later, he came crashing down like a meteor, the impact erupting into a massive explosion that tore through the forest and left behind a giant crater.
"Is he an idiot?" Melaine shielded her eyes from the violent winds.
"No," Volts replied, spotting the opening immediately. "He's doing us a favour."
With the forest destroyed, the enemies no longer had trees and shadows to hide behind. The battlefield had become completely exposed.
"Tch, pests! Let's finish this now!" Vasta shouted.
"Melaine, amplify me," Volts ordered.
Melaine boosted his power instantly, electricity surging violently across Volts' body. Sparks streaked through the air as he dashed forward at incredible speed, joining forces with Kazoru for a direct assault.
Vasta, Erno, and Barry combined their attacks at once.
Barry unleashed a powerful sonar scream, its shockwave carrying both Vasta's illusionary toxin and Erno's needle-like hair across the battlefield. The attack spread over a massive area, turning into a deadly wave that was nearly impossible to avoid.
Kazoru and Volts immediately answered with a combined attack of their own.
Flames ignited around Kazoru while electricity surged violently through Volts. The two charged forward side by side before unleashing their powers together, merging fire and lightning into a destructive blast wave that tore straight through the battlefield.
Melaine did not remain idle.
She quickly solidified the surrounding air, shaping it into a massive tube-like pathway that directed Kazoru's and Volts' combined attack forward with far greater force and accuracy.
The battle instantly shifted in their favor.
At the same time, Melaine redirected Barry's sonar screams away from them with precise control, preventing the deadly shockwaves from landing a direct hit.
With their attack no longer disrupted, Kazoru's and Volts' combined blast struck the three enemies head-on before they could recover.
The fight was over.
Team Kazoru emerged victorious, standing amidst the ruined battlefield after defeating the three attackers. Their hard-fought victory earned them an additional 300,000 points, raising their total score to 360,000 points.