The battle erupted in an instant, as if the world had simply decided it was done waiting.
The moment the Liches emerged from the darkness, Beta sprang forward.
The small black cat that had been perched on Aeryn's shoulder just moments earlier was no longer harmless. Its body warped under a dense, unstable dark energy, its eyes sharpening into something predatory. It shot through the air at an unnatural speed, leaving a trail of shadow behind it as it crashed into the undead with brutal force.
The impact echoed across the bone-strewn field like a dry crack.
Around it, the skeletons didn't even flinch.
They kept advancing.
Again and again.
As if individual destruction meant nothing.
But the elite hunters were not the kind to hesitate in front of a marching tide of the dead.
Immediately, Édouard gave the signal.
Without a word wasted, he positioned himself at the center of the formation. Aeryn moved to his right, Bayron to his left, while the white-haired soldier secured the rear arc. In just a few seconds, the group had deployed around Ryuji with mechanical precision.
A perfect formation.
A living circle.
An obvious shield.
And at the center of that circle…
Ryuji.
The only one who didn't immediately seem to understand what that meant.
The only one who didn't realize he had become the fixed point of their entire formation.
A faint tic tightened Léon's jaw.
His eyes were already locked onto the battlefield, muscles tense with electric anticipation.
"Tch…"
A bluish glow crawled up his arm. Electricity crackled around his fist, bursting in compressed sparks like contained lightning. Without waiting for orders, he dashed forward, breaking formation like an arrow fired too early.
"Léon!" Édouard shouted.
But the command was swallowed by the chaos of battle.
Too late.
Léon had already covered dozens of meters, weaving through the bones like a streak of lightning.
The skeletons didn't react immediately.
It was the Lich at the front that raised its staff.
A slow movement.
Almost ceremonial.
As if it were writing in the air rather than attacking.
Above the battlefield, a massive magic circle formed silently in the sky, its lines floating like a glowing scar across the clouds.
Bayron exhaled sharply.
"Damn it…"
The sky lit up.
White light swallowed the clouds, condensing into a colossal pillar of lightning. It didn't resemble a natural phenomenon at all. It fell with surgical precision, like a judgment already decided long before the fight began.
Léon looked up.
His expression froze.
Just a fraction of a second was enough to understand.
There was no dodging it.
No counter.
Not even survival.
The lightning was already upon him.
But before it could strike—
Space itself tore open.
A figure appeared between the lightning and Léon.
A hand seized his arm with brutal force.
Ryuji.
Without a word, without hesitation, he pulled.
Léon's body was yanked out of the lightning's path and hurled aside with controlled violence.
The next instant, the bolt struck.
BOOOOM!
The explosion swallowed the bone field in deafening chaos. A shockwave rippled outward, shattering nearby skeleton remains and sending fragments flying like a storm of white shards. The ground itself seemed to fracture under the magical pressure.
Thick smoke rose, engulfing everything for dozens of meters.
"RYUJI!"
Aeryn rushed forward immediately, eyes sharp, breath tight.
The smoke slowly began to clear, revealing a figure at the center of the crater.
Ryuji.
On his knees.
Head slightly lowered, as if trying to process what had just happened.
No burns.
No marks.
No pain.
Even his clothes were intact, as though the lightning had simply passed through reality without ever touching him.
He blinked several times.
Strange.
His body had felt nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
As if the attack had never existed.
That absence unsettled him more than the danger itself.
"I'm fine…" he said quietly.
He slowly stood up.
His eyes immediately scanned the battlefield.
The Liches were still advancing.
The skeleton soldiers were striking, flanking, encircling—an organized army that showed no chaos despite its undead nature.
And yet…
Ryuji frowned slightly.
Something was off.
In the air.
In the invisible pressure pressing down on the battlefield.
Like a gaze.
Not from the enemies.
But from something deeper.
Older.
"We should finish this quickly and leave this place," he said.
Bayron nodded without hesitation this time.
Even he seemed to feel it.
Ryuji took a step forward.
His intention was simple: reach the frontline, support Bayron, finally join the fight.
But the moment his foot touched the ground, a voice rang out behind him.
"Return to the center."
Édouard.
Cold.
Firm.
Unyielding.
Ryuji stopped.
"We'll handle the rest."
There was no room for discussion.
A short silence followed, heavy and suffocating.
Then the ground beneath Ryuji's feet trembled.
Without warning.
Without visible energy.
Without a magic circle.
A black rift tore open beneath him, as if space itself had been ripped apart.
"What?!"
The world tilted.
Ryuji fell.
Not a normal fall.
A complete void.
No direction, no gravity, no reference.
Only darkness.
And silence.
His body hit something.
A hand grabbed his wrist.
"Ryuji!"
Bayron.
The hunter had leapt without thinking into the rift.
Their eyes met for a fraction of a second—enough to understand neither of them had chosen this.
Then the portal swallowed them both.
They vanished.
As if they had never existed.
"BAYRON!"
"RYUJI!"
Aeryn rushed forward, but the rift closed before she could reach them.
A dull snap.
And emptiness.
Silence returned to the battlefield.
For a moment, nothing moved.
Then something strange happened.
The Liches stopped.
One by one.
Their bodies began to dissolve, as if their existence itself was unraveling. The skeleton soldiers crumbled next, turning into grey dust carried away by the wind.
No explosion.
No residue.
No mana trace.
Nothing.
As if they had never been there at all.
Édouard watched silently.
His expression darkened.
"A diversion…"
No one replied.
There was nothing left to say.
Everything suddenly made sense in the most brutal way.
The Liches were never the target.
They were only a curtain.
A distraction.
The true objective had never been this battlefield.
The wind passed through the motionless bones, lifting pale dust that swirled for a moment before settling again.
And in that deeper silence, heavier than death itself…
the group realized they had just lost two of their own without ever seeing the true enemy.