Inside the apartment—or rather, what remained of the apartment where Eric used to live—Eric stood amidst the wreckage.
His right arm was covered in burns, the pain still lingering from the single clash.
From that one exchange, Eric understood one thing clearly.
He was outmatched.
So he did the only thing he could think of.
He ran.
His body morphed into sparks of light and shot out of the ruined building.
The moment his feet touched the ground, Eric bolted forward with every ounce of speed he could muster.
A second after he left the area, a wave of flames crashed down upon the spot where he had been standing, filling the surroundings with suffocating heat.
Eric flash-stepped onto a nearby rooftop, then leapt onto another building a second later.
But even as he ran, he could feel it.
The assassin was catching up to him with ease.
The closer the assassin got, the more Eric felt his malice encroaching upon him, like a silent promise of death.
Eric flash-stepped at ten-second intervals, desperately trying to create some distance.
It wasn’t enough.
The assassin was still getting closer.
This is not good.
At this rate, I’m going to be caught soon.
Eric’s expression darkened.
Why the heck did I push Daina out of the window?
We could have fought this monster together.
He gritted his teeth.
Think.
Think!
At this rate, he would have no choice but to stand and fight a battle he had no chance of winning.
Eric desperately searched through his memories, trying to find a lesson, a technique, anything that could save him from this situation.
He searched.
And searched.
For a minute or two, nothing came.
Then, just as the assassin was about to catch him, a memory suddenly surfaced.
It wasn’t a lesson he had learned.
It wasn’t some sudden realization.
It was simply an encounter—an insignificant detail he had almost forgotten.
The image of an awakened covered in corrosive darkness appeared in his mind.
The awakened Eric had killed on his way to the city.
The awakened himself wasn’t the solution.
It was what he had done.
The Mistress had taught him that when a human awakened, their body became a manifestation of their element.
The bandit had manifested his element through his body, but his transformation had been incomplete.
Come to think of it, Daina also manifested her element partially whenever she transformed into her human form.
Then it hit him.
Eric’s eyes widened.
That’s it.
He stopped flash-stepping.
Instead, he concentrated on activating his transformation in a different way.
Rather than disintegrating into sparks of light, his body began to glow with a bright blue radiance.
His pupils turned blue.
Lightning crackled across his skin.
Then— BOOM!
His body exploded forward.
His body became as light as a feather as currents of electricity shot backward, continuously propelling him forward.
Unlike Flash Step, which gave him explosive bursts of speed, this form allowed him to maintain a steady pace without having to stop and accelerate again.
Eric’s legs moved with such speed that even the Lightning God would have been proud.
For the first time, the assassin’s expression twisted with anger.
Eric’s speed had not increased explosively.
Instead, he was maintaining a terrifyingly consistent pace, no longer slowing down between bursts of movement.
The distance between them stopped shrinking.
But instead of giving up, the assassin made his own decision.
He released his body from the confines of his human form.
His body began to disintegrate.
In the next instant, the assassin transformed into a raging mass of flame that shot forward, gaining even greater speed.
The chase continued.
Meanwhile, in the distance, a little fox no larger than a fully grown cat raced through the streets, following Eric’s scent—a scent she knew all too well.
Daina was angry.
No.
She was furious.
How dare that human toss me away just to protect me?
Who did he think he was?
She was a hunter among hunters, not some fragile pet that needed to be protected.
As those thoughts filled her mind, her body suddenly began to change.
Her small frame swelled.
Her fur darkened as her body transformed into a ferocious beast.
Her single tail split into three.
Her claws elongated, and her height increased several times over.
In an instant, her speed tripled.
Daina shot forward with a low growl, determined to catch up to Eric.”Damn that bastard,” Eric cursed as he felt the approaching heat.
Even with his speed, the assassin seemed to be catching up.
Eric could maintain this pace for another hour or two, but he was afraid that if he exhausted himself completely, he wouldn’t be able to survive the inevitable clash.
He suddenly jumped down from the rooftop and deactivated his transformation.
Immediately, the flames surrounding him stopped moving.
They rippled violently for a moment before slowly coalescing back into a human form.
The assassin landed on the rooftop opposite him and smiled.
The smile was so creepy that a shiver ran down Eric’s spine.
“Well, well, well.
It seems our little chase is finally going to end here.” The man grinned from ear to ear.
“And I was just starting to have fun.
But I guess all good things must come to an end.” “Why?” Eric asked, his expression filled with confusion.
“Why are you trying to kill me?” “Nothing too serious.” The man’s grin widened.
“I’m just trying to put out a wild spark before it becomes a raging storm.”