The forest was closing in. Fast.
At Malakai’s current stage, a fall from this height would still snap his bones and force him to slow down.
However, he couldn’t afford to waste even a second.
His eyes turned cold. His aura burst to life.
Vita surged through his veins like a wave, igniting every fiber of his body.
His senses sharpened, time slowed. Everything became clear.
And then…
Crack!
His foot slammed into a thick tree branch mid-fall, the impact redirecting his descent.
He hit another branch, then another, each one slowing him, redirecting him, guiding him downward with precise control.
Finally, he twisted his body mid-air and landed in a controlled roll, before stopping, knees bent, body low.
However, despite the rough landing, Malakai’s mind had never been sharper.
He didn’t waste a single second. Gripping his scythe tightly, Vita roared through his body before he blasted forward at full speed, leaving a surge of dust in his wake.
‘I’m being chased.’
Not even a second later, Malakai’s senses picked up multiple presences closing in from different directions.
‘This is bad.’
His mind spun.
The Sanguine man who had slaughtered Varek’s squad was in the third level of evolution, the Synergy stage. And not just that… he was a Blood Champion.
Aside from the stages of evolution, the clans within the dome had given their lineage abilities ranks, each one serving to mark their mastery. For the Sanguine, there were five ranks:
Blood Initiate
Blood Adept
Blood Champion
Blood Warden
Blood Sovereign
Each rank represented the depth of one’s control over their blood.
Blood Initiates focused on mastering the flow of blood, using it to boost physical strength.
Blood Adepts went deeper, being able to manipulate their blood, hardening it, accelerating healing, and more.
But the real change was from the third rank, Blood Champion.
At this level, external manipulation of blood became possible. And with it came terrifying power.
Weapons, projectiles, shields, its utility was insane.
The squad members that man had killed were in the Node Formation stage and were Blood Adepts. Yet, they were cut down before they could even react.
To Malakai, there was nothing to think about.
If that man caught him, he was as good as dead.
‘The darkness creatures should hold him back for now.’
Killing the squad members had birthed darkness creatures. The grade of darkness creatures that formed more often than not always depended on the evolution stage of the one who died.
Genesis bred grade one.
Node Formation bred grade two.
‘There were seven of them. They should slow him down a bit. That means…’
He had to move. But he couldn’t, not while being chased and targeted.
His grip on the scythe tightened. His eyes turned cold.
He had to kill them.
His senses sharpened, tuning out everything else. His ears focused, filtering every step, every shift in the wind.
But his legs never stopped running.
‘From their speed and movement… Genesis rank. Six in total.’
The thought echoed in Malakai’s mind.
Suddenly, his right foot stomped the ground, bringing his body to an abrupt stop.
The gazes of the recruits widened in shock, not expecting the sudden halt.
But before they could react, Malakai spun.
Vita roared through his legs.
He blasted forward.
His scythe flashed.
One of the closest recruits barely raised his weapon before the blade carved through his neck, blood spraying as his body crumpled to the dirt.
The remaining recruits flinched, stunned.
Wasn’t he supposed to be newly evolved!? What was this speed!?
But none of them received any respite.
‘Five more.’
Malakai’s thoughts moved. His body never stopped.
His foot kicked off the ground, hitting the head of the recruit he had just beheaded.
The severed head shot forward like a cannonball, smashing into another recruit’s face with a sickening crack, flipping him backward and slamming him against a tree.
“Be careful! He’s fast!” one of them yelled in panic.
His shout snapped them into focus, only to see he was gone.
Slash. Thud.
Another body dropped before they could react. Their heads immediately snapped to the sound, but all they caught was a blur, slipping through the trees like a shadow.
In the next second, two more heads flew.
‘One more.’
Vita exploded through Malakai’s veins as he pushed his body to the limit. He closed the distance in a blink. The last recruit’s eyes widened in fear.
“Wait—”
The blade flashed.
His head hit the ground before the word could finish leaving his lips.
But Malakai didn’t stop, not even for a second.
He spun and sprinted toward the one he had struck with the severed head. The recruit writhed on the ground, groaning in pain, trying to push himself up.
He didn’t even get the chance.
Malakai’s scythe came down, slicing cleanly through his neck.
In the next instant, Malakai turned, eyes locked forward.
He shot ahead, leaving the corpse behind him.
Then, multiple pillars of darkness erupted from the corpses of the recruits, tearing through the forest canopy like jagged spears of void.
But Malakai didn’t even glance back.
He ran with every fiber of his being, surging forward, and forcing the Vita in his body to its absolute limits.
If he checked his Vita consumption rate now… it would’ve gone through the roof.
…
Delmas’s head snapped to the side, his gaze narrowing into pinpricks.
He was the same man that had killed Varek’s squad members in front of Malakai seconds ago.
All around him, the remains of the darkness creatures plummeted from the sky into the forest below. They had been split into pieces the second they formed.
But Delmas’s gaze wasn’t on the corpses anymore.
It was fixed on the distance, where multiple towering columns of darkness had just ignited.
‘He killed them?’
Delmas was beyond shocked. No, more than that, he couldn’t understand how it was possible.
The darkness always spawned seconds after a death within the dome. And these pillars…
They had all formed almost at the exact same time.
‘He killed them all in seconds.’