The air on the third island cracked with lightning as the wolf lowered its head.
Golden eyes stared through the storm.
Its claws began to change. The dark fur around its forelegs was swallowed by light, the claws stretching longer until they no longer resembled anything made of flesh. They were blades of concentrated radiance.
Its fangs followed. They lengthened from its jaws, glowing brighter with every second, while the muscles beneath its golden fur tightened.
Rain took one step forward.
Lightning exploded around her.
BOOM!
A twenty-meter field of lightning spread across the island. The ground beneath their feet cracked as countless arcs crawled across the stone.
Rain’s eyes narrowed.
"Don’t leave my Lightning Space."
Beside her, Sen slowly drew his katana. He dragged two fingers along the blade.
Space split.
A thin black fracture appeared along the edge of the weapon, trembling as though reality itself was struggling to remain attached to the steel.
Sen looked at the beast. "That thing doesn’t look like it plans to listen."
The wolf vanished.
Rain’s pupils contracted.
BOOM!
The place where the beast had stood exploded. Sen’s blade rose. The golden claw collided with it.
For an instant, nothing happened.
Then—
CRACK!
The surrounding space fractured. Sen’s feet slid backward several meters. His expression changed. The wolf’s strength had actually pushed through his spatial severance.
The beast opened its mouth.
Light gathered between its fangs.
Rain immediately raised her hand. "Sen."
"I see it."
A sphere of golden light condensed inside the wolf’s mouth. It wasn’t fire. It was sunlight compressed until the air itself began to distort around it.
Rain’s Lightning Space surged. Lightning struck the beast from every direction, and the wolf disappeared beneath a storm of blue-white arcs.
Sen didn’t wait. He stepped forward and swung his katana. The spatial tear along the blade extended outward. A black line appeared across the battlefield.
Then reality split.
The attack cut through the stone beneath the wolf, forcing it sideways just as—
BOOOOM!
A sphere of light erupted from its mouth. The island shook. The explosion swallowed everything in front of it.
Rain’s lightning screamed inside the blast.
Sen vanished through a spatial tear.
And somewhere within the golden inferno, two golden eyes opened again.
The Ravager was still standing.
Meanwhile, on the second island, another battle was raging as lightning was still cracking around Orson’s body. The pain was very intense. Orson felt like his body was being burned alive by lightning as it cracked all around him.
The air smelled like burned skin, and Orson felt his body was at its limit. He could not feel anything, and the energy was just floating more and more into his body. He thought this was the worst idea he could have come up with—that everything was over.
A loud boom exploded inside his body. All the energy that was flowing finally condensed into the center of his body like a vacuum vortex before stabilizing.
As Orson’s body entered the first realm of cultivation, that was when Orson felt it. He let go of the core, and his body, which was floating, fell to the ground.
The air was charged as the man watched what was happening. He walked forward to an unconscious Orson and picked up the orb before looking at him.
"Wow. Weird. What was that about?"
He looked down at Orson’s unconscious body.
"If I knew killing you was going to be this easy, I wouldn’t have even bothered."
With that, the man’s glove glowed as he drove it down onto Orson’s head.
But in the next moment, Orson’s body disappeared.
The man was surprised and looked up. Orson was standing in front of him, his eyes as cold and lifeless as he looked down at the man before him.
Before the man could react, Orson moved and kicked him in the stomach, sending him back. But the man moved immediately and blasted multiple energy balls at Orson.
But Orson was like a phantom as he moved forward. Before the man could react, he was in front of him in a flash and gave him an uppercut with his leg, sending the man rolling back a bit.
But the man was quick. I mean, he was a thief, a trainer who had killed before, and the energy the young man was showing was that of an Awakened. But it didn’t matter.
The man was trained for something like this, and he was ready for it. He knew how to kill and had the resolve for that. But the man in front of him was just a wet-behind-the-ears kid. Killing him should be easy.
As he continued with his attack on Orson, Orson dodged it all as he moved forward toward the man, who used his gears and glove to move back, keeping the space. That was the plan for now, because it seemed Orson had no way of long-range attack.
But that was where he was wrong.
As Orson moved, at first he was a phantom as he dodged energy balls after energy balls. But just as the man thought he had Orson, Orson disappeared and appeared beside him with a smile.
But what the man saw was the devil smiling at him. It was strange, but since the man was not an Awakened, he should not have been feeling any aura.
But the aura he was feeling from the man was the same as Steven—the aura of death. It was like he was looking at a war god, and worst, the aura was more refined in this young boy than Mister Steven, if that was even possible.
As the man tried to react, Orson was faster, grabbing his throat with one hand as he lifted his body from the ground.
The man could feel his breath leaving him as he moved his hands, but Orson caught it with his second hand before holding his neck tighter. He looked at the man with a black expression as the man struggled.
Then his eyes turned even colder as Orson snapped it like a twig.
Before letting him fall to the ground, the man looked up lifeless as Orson looked at him.
Before looking at his hand. There was blood on it. And a blade. And there was nothing but blood and bodies.
Orson was standing in a wasteland filled with nothing but blood and monsters all around. Orson looked down again at his bloody hand.
He killed someone again.