Chapter 56: The Chasm Between Us
For a second, I just stared. I couldn't help it. The sheer, audacious scale of what was happening froze me solid.
The massive black lion, Moti's throne, his pet, his fucking centerpiece, moved. It didn't lunge or charge like a normal animal. It flowed. One moment it was a statue of living obsidian, the next it was a blur of impossible speed, covering the hundred yards between us in the space of a single, skipped heartbeat. The ground didn't just shake; it seemed to recoil under its paws.
And the Iron Fangs… they didn't flinch. They didn't brace. They unfolded.
It was like watching a perfect, deadly machine come to life. There was no shouted order, no panicked signal. They just moved, each piece slotting into place with an instinct that went beyond training.
Kaku, the immovable object, met the unstoppable force. He didn't try to dodge. He planted his feet, his dark armor sinking inches into the soil, and he swung that absurd, building-sized axe not as a blade, but as a blunt instrument of defiance. The axe head, wreathed in a sudden, visible aura of crimson energy, slammed into the lion's descending paw.
The sound was not a clang of metal on claw. It was a thunderclap. A shockwave of pure force erupted from the impact, flattening the grass in a twenty-foot radius and staggering me back a step. Kaku skidded backward, his boots carving deep furrows in the earth, but he held. He'd stopped the charge. My brain refused to process it. He'd just physically halted something that weighed as much as a small ship.
Before the lion could even recover, Sheyla was there. She didn't run; she flickered. One moment she was near Kaku's flank, the next she was scaling the lion's foreleg like it was a ladder, her curved sword leaving a deep, smoking gash in the black hide with each step. The beast roared, a sound that felt like it was peeling the skin from my bones, and tried to shake her off. It was like a mountain trying to dislodge a particularly persistent and sharp flea.
That's when Kail's work began. He wasn't just shooting arrows anymore. He was conducting a symphony of pinpoint annihilation. Three arrows of solid light shot out in rapid succession. Not at the lion. At the air around the lion. The first exploded in a flash of blinding white light right in front of its eyes, making it jerk its head back in startled pain. The second arrow hit a rock near its back foot and erupted into a web of icy crystals that instantly froze the ground, trapping the paw momentarily. The third arrow curved, actually curved in mid-air, zipping around the lion's head to strike at the exact spot where Moti was seated. The Beast Tamer, with a look of mild annoyance, flicked his wrist, and a shimmering black barrier deflected the arrow, but the distraction was enough.
Trent, meanwhile, was playing a different game. His crossbow was silent now. Instead, he was throwing small, metal spheres from his belt. They didn't explode. They'd hit the ground and unfold into intricate, razor-wire traps, or emit a high-frequency whine that made the smaller beasts trying to flank us whimper and back away. He was controlling the battlefield, shrinking the arena, making sure the fight stayed between the Fangs and the lion.
This wasn't a brawl. This was a surgical strike performed by demigods.
"Kaizen!"
Freya's voice was a whip-crack next to my ear, followed by the wet, meaty sound of her sword decapitating a hyena-like creature that had chosen that moment to lunge at my distracted ass.
"Stop gawking and fight!" she snarled, her face splattered with black blood, her eyes blazing. "Unless you want to die admiring the view!"
She was right. The rest of Moti's "pets" hadn't gotten the memo that this was a main event fight. They were still coming, a relentless tide of claws and teeth aimed at the supporting cast us.
I shook my head, the spell broken, and fell back-to-back with her. My sword felt pathetically small and dull. A wolf charged. I moved to intercept, my Acceleration Loop flaring, and I was fast. I'd always been fast. But watching Sheyla… my speed felt clumsy. Juvenile. I cut the wolf down, but my mind was still back there, watching the dance of the Fangs.
I parried a boar's tusk, my arms vibrating with the impact, and risked another glance.
Kaku was now trading blows with the lion, each swing of his axe met by a swipe of a paw that could level a house. The air crackled around their impacts. Sheyla was a constant, buzzing menace, her blades finding the gaps in the lion's armor, leaping from its back to its shoulders with a grace that defied gravity. Kail's arrows were now leaving trails of light in the air, homing in on the lion's eyes and mouth, forcing it to constantly defend itself.
They were coordinated on a level I couldn't even comprehend. Kaku would create an opening with a massive overhead chop, and Sheyla would already be moving into the space he created. Kail would fire an arrow at a precise angle to force the lion's head to turn, exposing its neck for a fraction of a second for Kaku to exploit.
This was A-Class. This was the real thing.
And I had almost drawn a sword on Sheyla.
The thought hit me like a physical blow, a cold wave of nausea that had nothing to do with the gore around me. I had been ready to fight her. Me. With my stolen sword and my desperate, scrappy Ki tricks. I'd called her a bitch. If Kaku hadn't stopped it… if she had decided to take me seriously for even one second… I wouldn't have lasted a heartbeat. I couldn't even keep up with her movements with my eyes, let alone my blade. The sheer, suicidal stupidity of it threatened to buckle my knees.
A sharp pain In my side brought me back. A set of claws had raked across my ribs, tearing through leather. I roared, more in humiliation and fear than pain, and gutted the cat-thing that had gotten too close.
I fought on, but the fight had changed. Every parry felt inadequate. Every kill felt insignificant. I was a child swinging a stick on the sidelines of a war between titans. The chasm between us wasn't just a difference in skill. It was the difference between a campfire and a supernova.
The Iron Fangs were in a league of their own. And I was just the guy who'd accidentally started the apocalypse, trying to earn a stay of execution from a System that had thrown me into the deep end with sharks.
And the worst part? The lion, for all their insane power, wasn't losing. It was fast, strong, and terrifyingly durable. Moti, perched on its back, watched it all with that same bored, condescending smile, occasionally flicking a hand to summon a wave of dark energy that the Fangs had to scatter to avoid.
We were buying time. But I had no idea what for. The clock in my vision kept ticking down, a merciless reminder that my own personal apocalypse was on a tighter schedule than this one.
55 hours, 42 minutes, 11 seconds.
Yeah. Fuck.
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