Varek’s voice roared again, tearing through Malakai’s thoughts.
“ANOTHER LANCE!”
Malakai’s eyes widened…
Nyx moved.
Her aura surged, flooding the entire carriage.
The air bent around her as Vita whipped through the space, spiraling toward her in a violent current.
She stepped forward and raised her hand.
A radiant green shield burst to life in front of her, glowing like a living wall.
The second lance hit.
BOOM.
An explosion ripped across the sky, loud enough to deafen gods. The force parted the clouds for hundreds of meters, tearing the sky open.
The carriage didn’t survive.
It was blown apart in an instant, splintering into countless fragments, swallowed by the smoke that now engulfed the skies.
Varek yanked the reins hard, steadying his Equilador mid-movement. The explosion’s force had flung him and his entire squad off course, scattering them like leaves in a storm.
Still, Varek was in the Synergy stage of evolution. If he hadn’t been mounted on his beast, he wouldn’t have been sent flying at all. As expected, there wasn’t a single scratch on him.
But his expression was the farthest thing from calm.
The moment he stabilized himself, his gaze snapped toward the ruins of the carriage, only to find smoke. Thick, blinding, and endless. It swallowed the sky.
‘Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit!’
The words rumbled in his head continuously.
He had wanted Malakai to die, yes, but not now.
Not like this!
He had been tasked with escorting him. Everyone had seen their confrontation at the Blackreach. If anything happened to him now…
He was as good as dead.
“We’re under attack!” Varek’s voice boomed like a warhorn.
“They’re after the Ninth Vein! Clear the smoke and secure him. NOW!”
His squad heard him.
And at that same moment, his aura exploded out, flooding the air with suffocating pressure. Then—
BOOM
A blast erupted from him, scattering the smoke just in time.
And he saw it.
A greenish streak shot from where the carriage had been, racing through the thinning haze back toward the forest.
But Varek’s eyes snapped away from it, because something else had caught his attention.
A figure was plummeting from the sky, encased in a flickering green shield that dispersed in the next instant.
But Varek didn’t care about the shield. He cared about who it was.
Malakai.
His eyes gleamed.
‘He’s alive!’
But just as he was about to move… he felt it.
An overwhelming aura surged from behind.
Varek’s head jerked back, eyes narrowing, just as a figure hurtled toward him at terrifying speed.
His hand moved on instinct, finding his blade, drawing it in one fluid motion—
CLANG!
The figure collided with his sword, and the impact was explosive.
A shockwave erupted, so intense it exploded in a spiral, sending a ripple through the trees that tore leaves and bark from their places.
Meanwhile, Malakai, who had been falling from the sky, shot his hand up just as the shockwave of the clash hit him, sending him spiraling through the sky.
Everything was happening so fast that he barely had time to process what was happening.
The explosion had been too close. The Vita Lance had hit the carriage directly. However, Nyx had summoned the shield in time to block. But the force had flung her away like a comet. She was already gone from view.
‘A Vita Lance…’
Malakai’s thoughts spun, trying to piece together everything.
It wasn’t just a weapon. It was a cataclysm.
It was created to battle the darkness creatures, creatures powerful enough to level entire cities and kill hundreds of thousands.
One shot from the lance could level a city district. It was made for pure destruction.
‘Who is it…?’
Malakai’s mind churned.
A Vita Lance was a weapon that wasn’t easy to obtain. He could count only a few groups within the dome that had access to one, let alone two.
‘Now’s not the time.’
Malakai gritted his teeth and forced his thoughts aside. His cold gaze locked onto the chaos unfolding around him.
Above, the force of the earlier impact had sent Varek flying backward, hurtling through the air.
Regardless, his voice still boomed, teeth gritted as he roared:
“SECURE THE NINTH VEIN!”
Shnnnk!
Malakai heard it; the unmistakable sound of blades being unsheathed. Then, the sharp crack of reins being snapped.
Varek’s squad echoed the order almost instantly.
“Secure the Ninth Vein!”
They surged through the air from different directions, streaking toward Malakai like arrows parting the air.
However…
Malakai’s eyes suddenly widened. A sharp, metallic scent rushed into the air.
It was heavy. Familiar.
Blood.
‘No…’
A streak of red blitzed through the sky, so fast, it was a blur.
All Malakai could see were crimson lines slicing through the necks of Varek’s squad as they closed in on him.
But none of them seemed to notice it. Not yet.
However, in the very next instant, their heads suddenly detached from their shoulders, cleanly severed.
Blood erupted like geysers from their necks, their corpses losing control mid-flight. The Equiladors beneath them shrieked, high-pitched and wild.
But Malakai’s gaze had already left them.
His gaze shook as he locked onto the figure now hovering above the carnage.
A man.
He was draped completely in black. His aura dead silent, but his presence only screamed danger.
Then, their eyes met.
Both crimson.
Both burning.
At that moment, only one thought echoed through Malakai’s mind.
‘A Sanguine…’
And then, without warning, an intense chill gripped him.
‘They’re coming.’ Malakai’s thoughts froze.
It was inevitable.
Inside the dome, any death, no matter how minor, would breed the darkness without fail.
Pillars of blackness erupted into the sky, tearing upward from the corpses of Varek’s fallen squad.
The smoke twisted violently, writhing, before crashing downward and collapsing in on itself.
And from the void, they formed.
Grotesque and twisted figures materialized in the air, their eyes gleaming with hunger.
But the man in black didn’t even blink. His gaze remained cold, fixed, and focused on Malakai as he spoke.
“Don’t let him escape.”
Malakai’s expression darkened.
‘There are more of them.’
His mind snapped into focus as he glanced down fast.
The forest was closing in.
