The beast’s roar shook what was left of the chapel walls.

  A quake rippled through the ground. Rell barely had time to react as stone cracked overhead.

  “Move—” he shouted, shoving Thessia with his shoulder just as the ceiling came down.

  Debris crushed his back and slammed him to the ground. Pain blanketed everything.

  Thessia skidded, coughing through the dust, then turned. “No!”

  He was already trying to stand, one hand trembling as it pressed against a fallen beam. Blood trickled from his mouth.

  “Run…,” he muttered, voice slurred.

  “Not happening,” she snapped, trying to pull him up. But the beast roared again.

  She shoved him behind a pillar and turned, drawing her blade. Her arm ached from before, her body bruised and shaking—but she faced the monster anyway.

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  It came like a charging nightmare.

  Thessia struck with a flare of enchantment magic, her blade glowing faintly blue. It bounced off the creature’s hide.

  She adjusted her stance—low guard, front foot angled, center balanced. The first feint drew no reaction; the second was sharper, meant to bait. She slid in for a clean thrust at the leg joint.

  Too slow.

  The beast’s backhand came from nowhere, crushing her guard and body in a single motion. She hit the wall shoulder-first, pain snapping up her spine, and fell to one knee, still gripping her weapon out of sheer habit.

  Her blade was cracked. Her ribs stung. She couldn’t breathe.

  The beast loomed above, ready to strike.

  Rell appeared, stumbling forward like a wounded soldier.

  He stepped in front of Thessia just as the creature lashed out. A spike tore across his torso.

  He didn’t fall. He wheezed, blood pouring—but stayed on his feet.

  “No… lose hope,” he said, barely audible. “Never.”

  Thessia’s eyes widened. She felt her pulse rise, cheeks flush. Her chest tightened—not from fear, but from something else. Something terrifying and warm.

  She stood again, sword shaking in her hand, ready to fight beside him—

  —but she didn’t need to.

  A golden flash blazed through the cracked ceiling.

  Umbwe fell like divine judgment.

  The lion didn’t roar—he slammed into the creature like a star crashing into earth. His aura wrapped the monster in blazing glyph-light.

  “Savannah Collapse,” he growled.

  The creature screamed once. Then stopped existing.

  Dust swirled. Rell blinked.

  A static charge raced through his spine.

  In that split-second, something cracked open inside Rell.

  A heat behind the eyes.

  The moment Umbwe landed, Rell’s vision blurred — like the world slowed to match the heartbeat of the move itself.

  He saw it, not just with his eyes, but with his soul.

  Every ripple of power, the angle of descent, the weight distribution, the spiritual signature.

  It burned into him like instinct.

  His body twitched — muscles flexing in perfect mimicry.

  He didn’t just understand the move. He absorbed it.

  He copied the technique without thinking.

  Not the full power — but the blueprint burned into his soul.

  “What… was that?” he whispered.

  Umbwe just nodded toward Thessia, then toward Rell.

  “Still breathing. Good.”