A heavy silence followed the chaos. The battlefield was a mixture of blood, broken trees, and burning tension.
Mia stood frozen, her fists clenched so tightly her knuckles turned pale. The sight of her captain's head in the enemy's grasp was like a cruel nightmare.
Joy's usually playful face was contorted in pure rage, and Diya's breathing had turned sharp, her grip on her sword trembling.
Max remained hidden, crouched behind dense bushes. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, not from fear but focus. He had already eliminated three lurking bandits with surgical precision, each kill cleaner than the last.
He had become a shadow in the chaos, avoiding attention, striking like a ghost.
The bandit boss, a man wrapped in dark leather and scarred armor, stood tall and calm.
Despite the blood on his hands and the corpses around him, he looked… amused.
"Is this it?" he taunted, dropping the captain's head to the ground. "You bring children to fight me now?"
The warriors didn't answer. But something shifted.
Suddenly, Diya lunged toward the nearest bandit squad to the right—a group of four looters attempting to sneak behind the main fight. Her twin blades gleamed in the sunlight as she moved like a hurricane, slashing with elegance and fury.
One fell instantly, another tried to escape—only to be caught by Roy, who dropped from a tree with brutal force, crushing the bandit's arm and plunging his spear through his gut.
Joy, still shaking, turned toward the left flank where a few bandits tried to circle back and attack Mia from behind. "You worms picked the wrong day!" he shouted, laughter mixed with anger. He twirled his long staff, using the terrain to vault over rocks and bash heads. His fighting style wasn't graceful, but it was efficient—and wild enough to confuse his opponents.
Max saw all of this through the cracks in the brush. His mind kept drifting back to Mia's master.
She was losing.
Her left hand was bleeding—two fingers gone—and her right shoulder had been dislocated by a brutal strike. She was still standing, but barely.
The bandit boss, however, was smiling wider. He wasn't just strong he was unstoppable.
"You reached Master level, little girl," he said, slamming his foot into the ground and cracking the earth. "But I've lived at its peak for ten years. You are nothing but a child playing with power."
He rushed her again.
But before the attack could connect—Max moved.
He wasn't sure what pushed him. Logic said stay back. Every part of him screamed, you're weak! Let them handle it! But something inside—the same quiet thing that made him fight through old injuries, try every sport, and keep standing even after life had given him nothing—whispered something new now:
> She'll die unless someone breaks the flow.
Max leaped from the shadows, silently taking down another hidden sniper just a few feet away from the master's blind spot.
Then he dashed to the front lines, reaching Joy just as one of the remaining bandits raised a blade toward him.
Max caught the bandit's hand mid-air—and twisted.
Joy turned, surprised. "What the hell?! Max?!"
"I'm fine. Keep fighting."
They nodded, and Joy flipped back into the brawl.
Meanwhile, Mia made a split-second decision.
She saw the moment Max disrupted the rhythm.
She saw her master bleeding, down on one knee.
She saw the smallest window open.
And she moved.
With a primal scream, she launched forward, sword raised, spinning low. The bandit boss, distracted by Max's interference, failed to dodge fully. Mia's blade grazed his side, drawing his first drop of blood.
Everyone froze.
Even the boss.
His smile vanished.
"You… made me bleed?"
Max gulped. "Oh no."
Then, the boss roared like a demon and slammed his fists into the ground, sending a shockwave across the field.
The impact knocked Max back, sent Joy flying, and cracked the nearby cliff wall.
But Mia didn't retreat.
She stood tall, her eyes locked on him. "You're no god. You bleed like any other beast."
The boss stared at her, silent, breathing heavily.
Then he whispered, "…Now you die."