The three moved in perfect sync.
The blurred fighter's blade swept for his throat, the molten woman's heat curled inward from the left, and Tharos's Echoblade came down with enough force to split the platform in half.
Leon didn't step back.
He stepped in.
His pulse detonated—not as a single burst, but in layered waves, each one delayed by fractions of a heartbeat. The first wave slammed into the blurred fighter mid-strike, breaking her rhythm. The second rippled into the molten woman's arc, shattering it into scattered embers.
The third—sharper, heavier—met Tharos's blade dead-on.
The sound wasn't a clash. It was a crack.
Stone shattered beneath them, heat vented upward in a geyser, and the mana field pulling at Leon's body shattered under the recoil.
For the first time, Tharos stepped back. Not because he'd been pushed, but because he was interested.
The molten woman landed on the far side of the platform, eyes narrowed, heat still rising from her skin. "That was close."
