Darren's focus had been on Marianne, watching as the Wicked Witch intercepted a projectile that was heading his way. He had barely allowed himself the relief of knowing that she would be handling the marksman when a flash of silver cut through his peripheral vision.

  The swordswoman.

  There was no mistaking her speed. Even from their brief exchange, she was sharpened by training and honed by battle, the kind of velocity that made her a formidable opponent. Darren turned immediately, blade rising in the same breath with its steel angling to intercept the strike he knew was coming.

  Except it never did.

  Instead, the swordswoman shifted mid-stride, her body twisting with brutal precision as she launched herself at her fellow warrior of Earth. Her leg snapped outward in a devastating kick that struck the hulking beast square in the chest. The impact thundered through the shattered street. The giant bear—once a man empowered by his Divinity—was sent hurtling sideways, massive frame crashing through debris before slamming into the ground hard enough to crack the asphalt beneath him.

  Darren frowned, lowering his blade a fraction.

  Confusion flickered across his face.

  The swordswoman did not spare him a glance. Her entire posture radiated fury as she stalked towards the bear. For a heartbeat, Darren ceased to exist in her awareness.

  “Have you no honor?” she demanded, her voice cutting through the battlefield.

  The bear rose slowly, shaking rubble from his furred shoulders. The kick had not been enough to do any real damage, rather simply intercepting him before the beast could reach Darren while his attention had been fixed on the Wicked Witch. His growl was low and irritated, more offended than injured.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” The bear barked back, his voice distorted by the beastly form he wore. “We have our orders and that man needs to be eliminated at all costs. I could not care less about honor!”

  The words lingered in the charged space between them.

  Darren’s grip tightened around his sword.

  It was a realization he perhaps should have reached sooner.

  These warriors might share allegiance to the same overarching System, bound by its commands and its rewards, but that did not make them unified.

  They were not comrades-in-arms. In fact, they were anything but allies.

  The Ferry of the Dead had not delivered them into an ongoing battle after all. But that battle had been put aside to eliminate the threat that was Darren Ittriki.

  Because no matter what codes of morality that they lived by, they had come together to follow the orders that their System had given them in the same way that Darren himself tried his best to accomplish the Objectives that Merlyn set for him.

  That begged the question.

  What did that say about his own System?

  Darren had followed these Mission Objectives that Merlyn gave him because he believed in the necessity of them. He trusted that there was purpose behind the System’s directives. But watching the warriors of Earth forced an uncomfortable thought to surface of his mind.

  To what extent could he trust Merlyn?

  Was every mission truly aligned with his survival? With his goals?

  Or was he simply another pawn being maneuvered across a board he could not see?

  The air split apart before he could pursue the thought further.

  A deafening explosion rocked the street as another arrow tore through the side of a half-collapsed building. Concrete and glass erupted outward in a storm of debris. The marksman—who had attempted to evade Marianne's attacks by leaping to another building—was reminded that escape would not be so easily achieved.

  The battlefield snapped back into focus for all of them.

  The bear rose fully onto his hind legs, towering and monstrous, chest heaving as a roar ripped from his throat. The sound reverberated through Darren’s bones.

  This time, their hostility was directed back at him.

  With powerful steps that cracked the ground beneath his weight, the beast charged.

  At the same instant, the swordswoman moved.

  Whatever disagreement had passed between them evaporated beneath the urgency of combat and the fact that Darren's attention was now properly fixed on his opponents. Her blade flashed upward as she lunged forward once more, speed coiling into lethal intent. The persistent animosity between them did not change the reality of their shared objective.

  Steel, claws, and fury converged upon him from two directions.

  His blade lifted again, stance adjusting as he calculated distance, timing and angles. The exchange between the two warriors of Earth had lasted only seconds, but it had been enough to expose certain flaws that could be exploited.

  Now, as the roar of the beast and the whistle of the sword closed in around him, Darren understood one thing without any doubt in his mind.

  This chaos was not a weakness.

  It was an opportunity.

  His gaze flickered left, then right, tracking both opponents with meticulous precision. The bear barrelled forward, each step shaking loose fragments of concrete. The swordswoman’s approach was nearly silent by comparison, her blade already weaving arcs of silver through the air, testing angles and searching for an opening.

  Then finally, Darren moved.

  // MP (Mana Points): 9787 (-10) → 9777 / 5500

  He dipped low at the last possible second, the swordswoman’s slash hissing past where he had been an instant prior. The edge sang as it carved nothing but air. Using that momentum, he pushed off the ground and vaulted upward, body folding and extending in one seamless motion as he sailed over the charging bear.

  Wind rushed past his ears.

  Beneath him, the beast’s massive claws tore through the space he had just vacated, gouging deep scars into the concrete beneath their feet. The transformation into this beast had unquestionably amplified the man’s raw power. The increased density of muscle, the immense weight behind each swing, Darren could already tell that taking just one direct hit would not end well for him.

  But power was only ever as useful as the one who wielded it.

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Darren had fought against and alongside the most fearsome fighters of the Kingdom of Khaitish, home to the beastkin race. He had learned the cadence of true predators, something that only instinct could teach. The people of Khaitish did not merely mimic animals. They moved as them, breath and instinct intertwined, every motion fluid and almost graceful in nature.

  This man was not that.

  The bear’s movements were heavy. But they were predictable. His transformation magnified strength without rewriting habit. He still carried the stiffness of a human mind directing an animal frame. There was no surrender to the wild rhythm that defined genuine members of the beatskin race.

  He twisted midair and landed lightly behind the bear, boots skidding only slightly on fractured pavement. The beast turned with a roar, claws swinging in a wide arc meant to crush rather than cut.

  Darren stepped inside the swing.

  // MP (Mana Points): 9777 (-10) → 9767 / 5500

  His shoulder brushed coarse fur as the paw swept harmlessly past. He struck the bear’s flank with the flat of his blade—not to wound, but to provoke—then retreated a half-step, angling himself deliberately between the beast and the approaching swordswoman.

  If the bear insisted on fighting like a blunt instrument, Darren would use him as one.

  The swordswoman closed the distance with relentless speed. Even Darren could acknowledge it, she was strong. There was control in her stance, discipline in every step. Her anger toward the bear had not dulled her edge; it had sharpened it. Her blade cut toward him again, this time with sharper intent. Darren pivoted, letting the strike glance off his own weapon before guiding its trajectory downward. The redirected swing skimmed the bear’s forearm instead, slicing fur and drawing a thin line of blood.

  The beast snarled in outrage.

  The swordswoman’s eyes narrowed, not at Darren, but at the collateral contact.

  Honor.

  Even now, she adjusted, recalibrating to avoid striking her ally again. That hesitation, that refusal to abandon her code, was the only reason Darren remained untouched. If she were willing to discard it…if she chose efficiency over principle…she might have already drawn blood.

  The thought stirred something unexpected within him.

  Interest.

  A worthy opponent was rare.

  One who restrained themselves by choice? Even rarer.

  If she wished to measure herself against him while bound by honor, then he would show her the distance she needed to cross.

  Darren exhaled slowly, drawing inward.

  The Internal Arts was still active, elevating his physical attributes.

  Masters of this technique, founded by the First Conqueror of Khaitish, reshaped their mortal vessels through discipline and control.

  Darren was one of those masters.

  But this was only the surface.

  There was more.

  There was always more.

  The disciplined flow of the Internal Arts drew upon his Pool of Mana. Normally, he guided it in measured streams that traveled through his entire body.

  To do otherwise was reckless.

  To do otherwise was dangerous.

  Because if he opened the floodgates—if he allowed every drop of that magical energy to surge through him at once—his body would become something else entirely.

  Transcendent.

  The risk was obvious.

  A mortal vessel could fracture beneath such strain.

  But if one was willing to gamble everything—to abandon restraint and embrace the storm—they could reach a threshold that bordered on the divine.

  A level of power great enough to challenge gods.

  Darren’s eyes lifted to meet the swordswoman’s as the air around him began to tremble faintly.

  If she wished to see whether she could keep up—

  Then he would show her what that truly meant.

  -----------------------------------------

  Joan wove through the battlefield with deliberate precision, her boots striking broken pavement in calculated steps as the giant bear rampaged between them.

  She understood exactly what Darren was doing.

  The transformed Jaegar was not the Anomaly's true target, this big oaf was simply an obstacle. The Final Boss of this sudden Invasion had turned him into living barricade meant to make her pursuit harder, perhaps even testing how far the hostility between them really was.

  And that hostility was very real.

  Working alongside Big John, as they called him, had always been unbearable. Their philosophies clashed as violently as their weapons. Where she upheld discipline and honor, he embraced ruthless obedience. Cooperation between them had been an illusion forced by circumstance. Darren had sensed that fracture and widened it with merciless efficiency.

  Every time she attempted to close the distance, the bear’s massive frame crashed into her path. Whether intentional or not no longer mattered. She adapted, slipping past claws and shoulders, blade flashing as she sought angles that would not leave her exposed.

  Her focus never wavered from Darren.

  She caught glimpses of him—afterimages, fragments of motion—like shards of a reflection glimpsed in broken glass.

  Joan waited for the opening, sooner or later it would come.

  Then—

  He vanished.

  This was not the same blur she had grown accustomed to chasing in the last few seconds, not the stretched distortion of speed that even a trained eye could parse.

  He was simply gone.

  Her breath caught.

  A sudden flash of red flooded her vision, a streak that carved through the space ahead of her.

  Clean lines appeared across Big John's enormous body.

  For the briefest heartbeat, nothing happened.

  The transformed Jaegar stood frozen, towering and defiant.

  Then the lines separated.

  Fur and flesh parted with surgical precision. Blood erupted a split second later, spraying outward in heavy arcs as though the body itself had needed time to understand what had been done to it. The sheer brutality of it caused her to remain frozen in pure shock.

  This man—one of Earth’s S Rank Jaegars—was renowned for his durability. She had witnessed Big John endure attacks that would have obliterated lesser warriors. His transformation had made him a bastion of endurance, a shield on countless battlefields.

  Now he lay in pieces.

  This time, even she did not know if Big John would come out of this alive.

  “The man who once wielded this blade. Who was he to you?”

  The voice came from behind her.

  Joan flinched, turning instantly.

  The Final Boss of this strange Invasion stood there as though he had always been. There was no strain marked his expression, no sign that what he had done required effort. Her grip tightened around her sword, knuckles whitening as she raised it between them. Fear clawed at the edges of her composure, but it did not consume her. She would not allow it to.

  “He was my brother,” Joan answered.

  Emotions warred across her face despite her discipline. Grief pressed against anger. Shock tangled with fury. Beneath it all, something else lingered, an ache she refused to name. Joan had never been close to her brother, in fact, there were many times that she hated Joseph for who he was. But still, she had fought beside her brother countless times, respected his strength and ambition.

  Now, her brother was dead.

  The man studied her quietly. There was no mockery in his gaze, nor was there cruelty.

  He stepped back and lifted a hand, curling his fingers toward himself in a silent summons.

  The gesture was almost casual.

  Darren was taunting her to make a move.

  The invitation hung between them as overwhelming power radiated from the man who the System had deemed an Anamoly. Joan could feel his sheer magical energy pressing against her senses, testing her bravery.

  “You may grieve for him when the time is right.” Darren stated.

  As though grief were a luxury to be scheduled.

  “Now,” he said evenly, “avenge him.”