The Anakim, despite the massive hole in his chest and the unbearable pain running through his body, still saw the attack coming toward him.
The burning fist descended from the sky like judgment itself.
Fast.
Too fast.
The Anakim tried to move away, but his damaged body refused to respond in time. His massive frame had barely begun shifting when the gigantic fist was already right in front of him.
There was no escape.
Still, the Anakim reacted on instinct.
He raised both arms upward, crossing them in front of himself in an attempt to block the incoming attack and lessen the impact.
But it was useless.
Boom!!!
The collision shook the entire area violently.
A terrifying shockwave exploded outward the moment the burning fist crashed into the Anakim. The ground beneath them shattered instantly, splitting apart as powerful winds burst across the battlefield.
Broken trees, dirt, rocks, and debris were thrown wildly into the air.
The pile of destroyed woods around the area scattered in every direction as the force spread outward in giant circles.
And it didn't stop there.
The shockwave continued moving far beyond the battlefield itself. It traveled into the ruined streets nearby, smashing through damaged buildings and uprooting whatever was still left standing from the Anakim's earlier destruction.
More trees collapsed.
Roads cracked apart.
Dust clouds swallowed entire sections of the area.
Meanwhile, right in the center of all that destruction, Rhyssa didn't move.
She stood there calmly as the storm of dust and wind swallowed her whole.
Far away from the battlefield, deep within the woods, two figures continued running desperately between the trees.
Lennox and Isla.
Neither of them slowed down for even a second.
Zephyr was still unconscious, hanging weakly over Lennox's shoulder. His body bounced slightly from the movement, but he showed no reaction at all.
He had completely passed out from exhaustion, pain, and the injuries he suffered earlier.
Boom!!
The explosive sound reached them from far behind.
Even from this distance, the ground beneath their feet shook slightly.
Isla glanced back instinctively for just a moment.
But neither of them stopped running.
"What is going on back there?" Isla asked as he ran beside Lennox.
The two of them weren't running at normal human speed anymore. Their bodies blurred through the woods, their speed already reaching over a hundred kilometers per hour, and they were still accelerating. Trees flashed past them one after another while the ground cracked beneath their feet with each step.
"It doesn't matter," Lennox replied immediately. "We shouldn't stop to investigate. We focus on getting out of here first."
Even as he spoke, his eyes stayed forward.
Right then, something changed.
Boom!
A massive tree suddenly dropped from the sky and crashed directly in front of them.
Lennox reacted first. He pushed off the ground and leaped over it cleanly.
Isla wasn't as lucky.
Bang!
His shoulder slammed into the fallen trunk. The impact shattered part of the tree apart, splinters exploding everywhere as his body rolled through the broken wood before forcing himself back up again.
Still, that wasn't the end of it.
More broken trees started falling from above.
Crack!
Boom!
Bang!
Large branches and shattered trunks rained down across the forest like a storm. Some stabbed into the earth while others smashed through nearby trees.
This alone forced Lennox and Isla to stop moving for a moment.
The two of them looked upward.
More pieces of trees were spinning through the air, thrown across the forest from somewhere far behind them.
'What kind of force throws trees this far?' Lennox thought.
Before either of them could figure it out, a terrifying gust of wind swept through the forest.
Boom!
The pressure hit them head-on.
Lennox and Isla were instantly blown off their feet. Their bodies flew backward and slammed hard into nearby trees before crashing onto the ground.
Crack!
Several trees bent violently from the pressure while leaves and dust filled the air.
"What... kind of attack caused all this?" Lennox blurted out.
His face looked tense now.
Even from this far away, the aftermath alone was enough to throw them around like toys. That was the frightening part.
The forest around them had changed completely.
Some trees were barely standing anymore, bending dangerously from the force of the wind. Others had been uprooted completely, their roots exposed to the air. Then there were the ones that had simply fallen from the sky after being blasted away from another area entirely.
For a moment, the woods looked less like a forest and more like the remains of a battlefield hit by a natural disaster.
Just as they were standing there, trying to understand what had happened, a single object appeared high in the sky.
It was falling fast.
At first, it was just a dark shape cutting through the clouds. Then it got bigger and bigger as it dropped toward the forest below.
Moments later, it crashed into the ground not too far away from them.
Thud!
The earth shook lightly from the impact.
Lennox and Isla both froze for a second. They looked at each other, then slowly turned their heads toward the object.
What they saw made their expressions stiffen.
It was a leg.
A gigantic leg.
The skin was rough and dark, covered in blood and deep scratches. Broken flesh hung from the side while thick dark blood slowly flowed onto the ground beneath it.
Even without seeing the full body, Lennox and Isla instantly knew who it belonged to.
The Anakim.
Lennox swallowed hard.
"So she killed it?" he blurted out.
A chill crawled down his spine as he stared at the severed limb.
"She actually killed that thing in her current state?"
That monster had nearly wiped them out without effort. Even now, Zephyr could barely move because of the damage caused by a single attack from it.
Yet Rhyssa had fought it head-on.
And won.
Meanwhile, Isla's thoughts had already gone somewhere worse.
"If she's done with the Anakim..." Isla said slowly, "doesn't that mean she'll start chasing us again?"
The moment those words left his mouth, the sky suddenly exploded with sound.
Crackkk!!
Boom!!
A massive bolt of lightning tore across the clouds.
The sound was so loud it shook the air itself.
Lennox and Isla immediately looked upward.
High above them, they could see a single dark cloud moving through the sky.
It wasn't normal.
The cloud was small compared to the others around it, yet it moved unnaturally fast. Lightning flashed constantly inside it, bright white veins crawling through the darkness like living snakes.
And its direction was clear.
It was heading straight toward the place where the explosion had happened.
Lennox narrowed his eyes as he watched it.
"Whatever that thing is," he said, breathing heavily, "I hope it buys us some time."
Neither of them waited any longer.
Lennox quickly adjusted Zephyr on his back while Isla moved beside him.
The next second, both of them kicked off the ground again.
Bang!
They burst forward through the forest at full speed, weaving past broken trees and shattered debris while the storm cloud continued racing across the sky behind them like something hunting its prey.
---
Meanwhile, at the spot where it had all started, a single person stood over a massive crater in the ground.
Rhyssa remained there silently, her expression unreadable behind the cracks spread across her damaged armor. Smoke slowly rose from parts of the suit. Some sections still sparked with dying lights before shutting down completely.
As for the Anakim, its body was nowhere to be seen anymore.
Only a large pool of burnt red blood remained, mixed with chunks of flesh and broken body parts scattered all over the crater. The smell in the air was terrible. Burnt flesh, smoke, and hot blood mixed together into something thick enough to make normal people vomit on the spot.
Rhyssa took in a deep breath before slowly letting it out.
'I hope you three made good use of the head start I gave you,' she thought.
'Because from now on, I won't be playing around anymore.'
The air around her stayed quiet for only a few seconds.
Then suddenly, the sky darkened.
A thick black cloud gathered directly above Rhyssa. It moved unnaturally fast, swallowing the sky above the crater. Flashes of lightning crackled inside the cloud like giant glowing snakes moving through darkness.
Crack!
Crack!!
Rhyssa slowly lifted her head and looked upward. Her eyes narrowed.
The next moment, four massive lightning bolts crashed down from the cloud.
Boom!
Boom!!
Boom!!
Boom!!!
Each bolt struck a different edge of the crater. The impact alone caused parts of the ground to collapse inward. Dirt, rocks, and broken pieces of the battlefield slid into the pit below.
For a second, the entire area was drowned in blinding white light.
Then the lightning disappeared.
What remained behind were four figures standing calmly at the edges of the crater.
Not one of them looked injured from the lightning strike. In fact, they looked completely relaxed.
"Well, well, well..." one of them spoke.
It was a young-looking man. He wore a white garment that hung around his waist like a skirt, leaving his upper body exposed. His physique was lean but clearly trained. Strange markings could be seen faintly glowing across parts of his skin.
In one hand, he held a long metallic staff that crackled lightly with leftover electricity.
"If it isn't the famous Synapse Circle," he continued with a grin.
"The same people arrogant enough to enter a tournament like this solo."
The others beside him stayed silent, but their presence alone felt heavy.
All four of them wore similar white garments, though each carried a different weapon. One held twin curved blades. Another carried a massive hammer resting on his shoulder. The last one had chains wrapped around both arms like living serpents.
None of them looked weak.
Not even close.
The air itself felt tense now. Like two storms had just met face to face in the middle of the battlefield.
When Rhyssa saw the people that had surrounded her, she let out a slow sigh.
'Seems like you guys bought them more time,' she thought.
Even so, she turned toward the newcomers with a calm and confident expression. There wasn't even the slightest hint of fear in her eyes.
---
Meanwhile, the Wyndhams had finally calmed down after seeing how everything had turned out.
"They managed to survive both her and that Anakim at the same time," Jim said, sounding relieved like the others.
"Seems like their training wasn't a complete waste after all," John added.
As they spoke, they noticed Lucius wasn't paying attention to them fully. His eyes were fixed on someone else.
Draven.
He sat comfortably in his seat, relaxed from start to finish. Not once had his expression changed during the entire battle.
"That's what bothers me," Lucius finally said.
"The fact that he doesn't seem annoyed at all by how well things turned out for us."
John crossed his arms.
"It doesn't matter," he replied.
"Our clan has survived this long already. Right now, you should be checking the count. The number of claims left in the tournament is about to be cut in half, and we still have our full clan and backup members inside."
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"Which means it won't be long before we surpass the low clan score and start competing for the mid clan level."
"But that girl said she would still come after them," Jake pointed out.
"Yeah, she did," Jim answered.
"But from the looks of things, she has her own problems to deal with now."
At that moment, the display showed Rhyssa surrounded by the four newcomers.
Jim stared at the screen for a few seconds before speaking again.
"I don't know how that fight will end, but one thing is certain, it won't be easy. And the longer that fight drags on, the more time the boys have to escape."
Jake still didn't look fully convinced.
"You people are forgetting something," he said.
"There are still other Synapse Circle members inside the tournament."
The atmosphere turned slightly heavy after those words.
Jim eventually nodded.
"Then we can only hope they don't run into any of them," he replied.
"At least not in their current condition."
Meanwhile, over at Draven's table, he had also watched the entire fight from beginning to end. Yet strangely enough, he still looked completely calm.
There was a reason for that.
'The Wyndhams probably think they escaped,' Draven thought inwardly.
'But from what I can see, one of ours is already about to run into another one of their members.'
A faint smile slowly appeared on his lips.
'And this one... seems to be alone.'