Advancing beneath Nazari’s distortion felt like walking along the bottom of a swimming pool while fully clothed, every movement resisted by an invisible force that refused to let the body function naturally.
Squad Four pressed forward in heavy silence, interrupted only by the grinding of broken concrete beneath their boots and the ragged rhythm of their breathing.
At the center of the formation, Leila kept both palms extended toward the ground, the faint green glow radiating from them flickering weakly, yet still strong enough to keep the oxygen in their lungs from being completely smothered.
Soura led the formation with his eyes fixed on the gutted facades surrounding them, while Raad followed barely a meter behind, constantly sweeping every blind corner for movement.
“This corridor’s too narrow,” Raad muttered, studying the concrete avenue stretching between the ruined buildings.
“If they close both ends, we’re trapped.” Kaïs wiped the sweat soaking the back of his neck, the pain in his arms throbbing relentlessly since his last detonation.
“We don’t really have another route to the center.
Stay alert.
Goman, if something comes from above, you handle the pressure.” Goman answered with nothing more than a brief nod.
His complexion had become waxy, and every movement suggested he was carefully rationing what little strength remained.
Together they stepped deeper into the avenue, where the air felt unnaturally still, as though even the wind had been forbidden from entering.
Suddenly Soura stopped walking.
His brow tightened as he stared at the cracked asphalt beneath his feet.
“The air just dried out,” he said, tension creeping into his voice.
“Completely.” Before he could even finish speaking, the temperature exploded upward.
Ten meters ahead, the asphalt fractured apart, glowing red like the heating coils of an old furnace.
A towering wall of fire erupted from the street with a deafening thermal roar, sealing the avenue shut.
“Fall back!” Tariq shouted, momentarily blinded by the sudden blaze.
The flames, however, were never meant to burn them.
They were meant to blind them…
and to cast dense, unnatural shadows across the surrounding walls.
Within the artificial darkness created by the infernal light, the concrete itself seemed to liquefy.
Thick black spears burst silently from the walls, slicing through the air with lethal precision as they raced straight toward the squad.
Goman gritted his teeth and slammed his hands together toward the sky.
The atmosphere instantly became crushingly heavy, forcing Kei’s shadow spears downward under an immense increase in pressure.
They veered off course and slammed into the asphalt only centimeters away from Leila’s boots.
A muffled groan escaped Goman as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
The strain of forcing that much pressure under only twenty percent output threatened to rupture his own eardrums.
“We’ve got to blow through that wall!” Raad shouted.
Soura thrust both hands toward a collapsed manhole nearby.
The stagnant water pooled beneath the street surged upward, forming a muddy sphere suspended in midair.
“Do it!” Raad didn’t waste a single second thinking.
He plunged his arm into the floating mass and discharged every volt of electricity he could still generate into the water.
The heavily ionized liquid was immediately launched by Soura straight into the blue flames.
The combined thermal and electrical reaction violently stripped the surrounding air of oxygen.
The blazing wall exploded into a cloud of scalding steam, tearing open a narrow passage through the inferno.
“Move!” Kaïs ordered.
The squad rushed through the smoking breach without hesitation.
Tariq covered the rear, scanning the lingering shadows while forcing himself to ignore the burning sensation inside his lungs.
Then he felt it.
Something fluid.
To his left.
One final spear of Kei’s shadow, far larger than the others, had slipped around Goman’s pressure field and was hurtling directly toward Leila, completely concealed by the dense steam.
There wasn’t enough time to warn anyone.
Tariq threw himself sideways, extending his hand in a desperate attempt to intercept the attack with his own void.
He was too slow.
A dark blur shot past him.
Kaïs.
The explosive fighter had spun around in the middle of his sprint and smashed his elbow directly into the side of the incoming shadow spear.
The resulting detonation echoed through the avenue with brutal force.
The shockwave shattered the shadow construct into pieces, but Kaïs’s volatile fluid reacted instantly upon impact.
The flesh of his forearm split apart with a sickening wet crack.
Kaïs absorbed the recoil without uttering a single scream, yet his knee buckled the moment he landed.
Before he could collapse completely, Leila caught him by the arm.
Brilliant green light immediately spread from her hands as torn muscle fibers rapidly knitted themselves back together.
“Forget it…
it’s nothing,” Kaïs growled through clenched teeth, gently pushing her hand away so she wouldn’t waste more energy on him.
His breathing came in short, painful bursts.
“Keep moving.” At last they emerged from the suffocating avenue, their lungs burning as the thick steam slowly dispersed behind them.
Before them stretched the Arena’s central plaza.
Amid the shattered concrete and scattered wreckage stood a single cylindrical beacon, pulsing rhythmically with an emerald glow.
The squad came to a halt, desperately catching their breath.
Tariq wiped the dust from his face while carefully searching the surrounding ruins for movement.
Everything appeared silent.
Far too silent.
Considering what stood before them.
Together, they took a cautious step toward the beacon.
The crunch of crushed rubble echoed across the plaza.
Tariq froze.
Beyond the lingering curtains of steam, on the opposite side of the glowing cylinder, several silhouettes gradually emerged, advancing at exactly the same pace as Squad Four.
The dust finally settled.
Issa stood there, absentmindedly adjusting his glasses with practiced precision, exhaustion visible even behind his calm expression.
Beside him, the rest of Squad Seven stopped the instant they recognized the opposing group.
No one delivered a threatening speech.
There were only six exhausted students staring at six equally exhausted students…
…with a single beacon standing between them.