Savannah’s heart dropped.

  She felt them before she saw them—a presence so drenched in artistic menace it clawed against her awareness like thick ink bleeding across paper.

  At least ten Veytharis had been in the area. With five being from E.R.O

  Almost all of them dead.

  The city was ash and screaming flame. Rubble cracked beneath her slippers, sirens howled in the distance, and the scent of burning plastic and blood filled the air like fog.

  It felt like Red Hollow Park all over again.

  And that anger—that biting, clawing, uncontrollable thing inside her—began to stir.

  Her mani surged, unconsciously flaring in swirls around her. Lucenzo, just behind her, said nothing.

  Because he felt it too.

  A presence, sudden and unmistakably powerful, just entered their awareness field.

  The air cooled unnaturally. Light dimmed—not from cloud cover, but sheer influence.

  And then—he appeared.

  Descending through the torn clouds above, a figure floated downward—calm, composed, and terrible in beauty.

  From their back, a pair of purple and black wings bloomed like ink dropped in water—feathers laced with shifting light, each one humming with silent intent.

  But they did not fly.

  The wings dissolved, morphing into an inky staircase that unfurled downward from the sky, step by step, forming from will and pigment as if painted midair.

  The figure walked calmly down the stairs—graceful, unhurried, the moonlight framing them from behind like a spotlight on a god descending to rewrite a canvas.

  He was tall, dressed in a charcoal-black tailored coat, lapels lined with deep violet trim. A flowing purple scarf was draped across his neck like a splash of royalty.

  His long, dark hair, flowed like brushstrokes in the wind.

  And in one hand—

  He held a long brush-staff, taller than himself, the bristles dipped in a radiant, swirling violet hue that never stopped moving. It wasn’t just a tool. It was an extension of his core.

  His eyes—a stunning purple—glowed faintly as he looked down upon the ruin.

  Savannah’s fingers curled into fists.

  Lucenzo whispered without looking at her. “Do you know who that is?”

  “No,” Savannah said, voice tight. “But I think we’re about to.”

  The man reached the final step of his descending staircase of ink and wind, his polished dress shoes touching down with practiced elegance. The violet pigment around his brush-staff shimmered, each flicker in the air trailing like a signature.

  He opened his mouth to speak, voice smooth, and ever so slightly amused.

  “Greetings. I—”

  “Were you responsible for Red Hollow Park?” Savannah cut in, her voice sharp and venom-laced, slicing through the tension like her words had teeth.

  The man blinked.

  Lucenzo turned toward her, surprised, and even the stranger tilted his head, visibly taken aback.

  “…Excuse me?” he said, his tone genuinely confused. “No. I was not.”

  He dipped the brush forward slightly, almost like a bow of correction.

  “I am Mason Marwell,” he said with quiet pride.

  They knew that name. A Judicato aka The Mad Painter. S-Rank.

  Savannah’s face didn’t change.

  But her smile did.

  It deepened, darkened, like a sharp edge was tucked behind her teeth.

  “Oi… Oi…” she whispered, voice playful, but her eyes told a different story.

  Lucenzo tensed. “Shit…”

  Mason’s eyes narrowed slightly, regarding Savannah the way an art critic might look at a cracked masterpiece.

  “That smile…” he muttered. “That’s disturbing.”

  Lucenzo stepped forward, his stance guarded.

  “Why are you here, Painter?”

  Mason shrugged with a smirk, rolling his wrist slightly as the brush-staff danced behind his back like a ribbon on string.

  “Just in the neighborhood. Admiring the view. You know… watching art evolve in real time.”

  That was the last straw.

  Savannah’s aura flared, violent gales roaring around her as the natural and manifested winds obeyed their master. Loose debris around the area spun into the air like a cyclone waking up. The very air tasted like ozone and fury.

  Her body glowed—veins of mani energy pulsing bright beneath her skin—and her red hair snapped around her like a storm caught in a waterfall, every strand alive, coiled and hungry.

  Her feet cracked the concrete beneath her as she stepped forward.

  “Oi! I’ve had enough of this.”

  The storm responded. The wind howled louder.

  “You’re under arrest or whatever we call it.”

  She tilted her head, the glow in her eyes brightening.

  “And please resist… so I can beat the shit out of you.”

  Mason smiled.

  Not wide. Not cocky.

  Just calm.

  “Let’s see if you can survive.”

  He extended one hand, brush-staff poised in the other.

  “This is a test.”

  Glass shimmered from the nearby collapse of Jones’s Clothing Store, flames licking up the corners of neon signs and high-rises warped from the residual pressure of combat.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Savannah and Lucenzo stood in perfect synchronization—coming down from their cross-fade, but focused.

  Mason Marwell stood across from them, purple eyes laced with sparking amusement, his brush-staff lazily twirling in one hand. The battlefield bent subtly around him, ink trails coiling around his feet like living calligraphy. His smile was that of an artist staring at a blank canvas with blood on his palette.

  Savannah moved first.

  She chanted under her breath, hands slicing through the air in aggressive spiral-patterned signs. The winds surged in tight coils around her like a drawn bow.

  Lucenzo joined her rhythm immediately, his movements tighter, sharper—metaphysical thread loops unraveling around his fingers. Their shared breath found unity.

  “Thread of Denial—Layered Compression.”

  “Cyclone Wall—Feather-Forged Edge.”

  Together, they created a hybrid barrier—a dome of turbulent wind woven with vibrating thread constructs, crackling as it spun tighter, matching Mason’s watercolor barrier stroke for stroke.

  Mason smiled with delight.

  “How precious. A duet.” He flicked his brush upward. “Let me orchestrate the chorus.”

  With a graceful sweep, he drew the glyph “SHATTER” in midair. The word burned with black-violet ink and launched forward like a spear of judgment.

  The hybrid barrier rippled.

  Savannah dropped low and let the blast shear above her, wind curling in a razor-whip as she surged forward. Lucenzo spun, channeling Hollow Pulse, his breath falling out of sync with the environment—vanishing from Mason’s view as he repositioned behind him.

  Mason twisted, his coat fluttering. Another glyph burst from his brush:

  “PUSH.”

  A massive invisible force expanded, crashing outward. Savannah struck it first—her body jerking backward, but she cut through the pressure with a Vacuum Implosion, briefly collapsing the space around her to force a hole in the wave.

  Lucenzo was already inside the force blast—his Equilibrium Thread anchoring him to Mason’s rhythm. He lashed out with a Veiled Return, redirecting the lingering kinetic wave back at its source.

  Mason twirled the brush, drew a circle—Negative Space—and the returning pressure was erased midair, vanishing like a ghost swallowed by a canvas.

  Still smiling.

  “You’re quite fun,” he said, ducking under Savannah’s Wind Severance slash, her blade of condensed gale cutting inches from his shoulder. “But you’re incomplete.”

  He skated back with the grace of a ballet dancer, brush dragging along the street to paint a scene—a looming wave of black ink in the shape of crashing buildings.

  Savannah sliced a spear of Tempest Barrage into it, tearing the front of the image before it could materialize.

  Lucenzo closed the gap again, snapping his fingers—Silken Cage activated. The more Mason committed to the attack, the heavier the spiritual weight on his limbs became.

  Mason paused, adjusted his stance… then stepped out of his own time, using a Pigment Pulse to surge his body with boosted reflexes. He dodged between them, spinning under Savannah’s sweep and backflipping over Lucenzo’s low guard.

  A blast of howling wind met a barrier stroke of “HOLD.”

  Ink and air collided in a storm of color and pressure.

  Mason landed ten meters away, cloak fluttering.

  Still smiling.

  Savannah gritted her teeth. Her breath came harder, but her attacks remained viciously precise. She couldn’t go all out—not yet. Her core still burned from her earlier surge, and her lungs were tight. But her eyes never left him.

  Lucenzo circled left, slowing his breath again. Stillpoint Oath was building—he only needed sixteen more seconds without taking damage. The threadlines around him were starting to tremble with anticipation.

  Mason tilted his head.

  “You think this is control? You’re clinging to structure like it’ll save you.”

  He drew a massive sigil in the air. It bloomed outward in loops, words forming around the circle:

  “CONSUME, BIND, SCATTER, PAINT.”

  He raised his hand.

  “Let’s see if your little duet can survive a solo masterpiece.”

  Five seconds.

  That’s all Lucenzo needed.

  Five more seconds in Stillpoint Oath and he could’ve hit Mason with a desire-bending strike that might’ve turned the tide.

  Savannah, meanwhile, was seconds from doing something reckless. Her eyes were locked, her jaw set, and she was silently preparing a Supreme Skill—the kind that would burn through her already-damaged core and probably cripple her permanently.

  She knew it.

  She didn’t care.

  But then—

  The sky cracked.

  A pulse of black energy erupted from around Times Square. A massive barrier, obsidian and swirling as it expanded across the skyline like the lid on a boiling pot.

  Two figures clashed outside of it like meteors colliding mid-air.

  Anaya, trailing streams of violet flame, her clothes burned away mostly and bloodstained, weaved through a storm of bullets—dodging, countering, and barely surviving.

  Crimline was no longer refined. She had fused completely with her Eidolon rifles, and a constellation of spectral guns spun around her like a halo of wrath. She rained down death from every angle, her face locked in silent fury.

  They clashed on rooftops, shattered windows, tore through stone. The city bent beneath them.

  Until

  The barrier split.

  A single, perfect line of severance ran across its surface. Like someone had taken a god’s scalpel and slit the domain in two.

  The black dome crumbled, dissolving into ash.

  Crimline looked up, stunned.

  Anaya saw her opening.

  “Pay attention, bitch!!”

  Her roar echoed through the wreckage as her entire body burst into violet combustion. She condensed the flame into her fist, twisted midair, and slammed her entire weight into Crimline’s midsection.

  The impact detonated.

  BOOOOOOM.

  The shockwave tore through buildings, shattering glass across city blocks. Crimline’s body rocketed backward, crashing through three buildings before slamming down into the street—and then through it, disappearing into the sewer systems below.

  Anaya collapsed on a fallen balcony, fell to her knees, and vomited blood. Her breathing was labored and broken, but her eyes still burned.

  —

  Mason tilted his head at the scene unfolding. He watched it not with concern, but with admiration.

  “Hm. Unexpected. But beautiful,” he said.

  He turned back to Savannah and Lucenzo, the ends of his coat fluttering as his brush spun between his fingers like a conductor’s baton.

  With a few elegant strokes, he activated the perfect ink circle the air. Pigment shimmered as dozens of glowing bubbles emerged, floating upward like lanterns—each one pulsing faintly, filled with reptilian, ink-like fish crammed inside, squirming and hissing.

  “Seems this gallery is coming to a close,” Mason said as he bowed slightly. “Let’s see how well you handle the finale.”

  With a flick, the bubbles shattered.

  A horde of shrieking, clawing, grotesque beasts exploded forth like a tidal wave of madness. Teeth gnashed, fins flared, and every twisted body moved as if born from some ink-born nightmare.

  Lucenzo clenched his fists, mani flaring around him. He was already reaching deep into himself, pulling for the spark that would ignite his Desire.

  Savannah snapped her gaze toward him.

  “Don’t.”

  Lucenzo froze.

  “I know what you’re about to do—and it’s stupid.”

  He blinked, a little stunned at her timing.

  Savannah’s eyes flared.

  “Just open a barrier,” she growled. “And help me kill these damn ink-freaks.”

  Lucenzo hesitated, then slowly nodded. He inhaled, settling his spirit.

  “Just take ya own advice, ok?”

  He entered Unconscious Movement.

  The air around him shifted. His stance eased, breath leveled. His motions grew sharper—faster. No excess. No waste.

  Savannah was already in motion, her body glowing faintly with residual power. The winds around her spun like a red hurricane.

  Together—they moved.

  Lucenzo’s barriers formed instinctively, wrapping and warping around the ink-beasts, splitting them in tight funnels. Savannah dashed through the openings, slicing through the clusters with wind-imbued strikes and precision bursts.

  She crushed two against a collapsed wall with a whip of air and cracked another in half with a flick of her fingers. Lucenzo surrounded three more in a prism of thread-bound compression, watching them implode under the force of layered pressure.

  Savannah twisted midair, drove a kick into one beast’s center mass, then vaulted off Lucenzo’s redirected thread-line. She rose above the street, perched for a breath on a sparking streetlight—

  And dropped down with a single burst of wind so sharp it stripped the pigment off the creatures beneath her.

  Lucenzo caught her with a hex-barrier rebound, crushing two more beasts into the pavement with bone-snapping force.

  Together they carved through Mason’s gallery, unraveling his masterpiece one grotesque stroke at a time.