Sophia stepped fully into the battlefield.
Her chains snapped outward instantly, and the sky answered.
Thousands of blades formed above the ruined town—floating, rotating, waiting.
Then they fell.
A raining execution storm.
Each blade targeted the remaining Commanding Kings who were moving in to finish Jhonathan. The air filled with metallic screams as the strikes forced them to defend, scatter, or retreat under overwhelming pressure.
The battlefield balance shifted in seconds.
---
"You are not alone," Sophia said calmly.
"You've got us."
---
Jhonathan stood in the aftermath of Carl Jhon's strike.
His armor was shattered, barely holding together in fragments. Blood and ash mixed across his body, but he didn't collapse.
His heart still beat.
Loud.
Steady.
Alive.
---
Something inside him reacted.
His heartbeat echoed outward, syncing with his mana flow.
A technique awakened from within—
Vital Beats.
Each pulse stabilized his body.
Each rhythm accelerated recovery.
Fatigue began to dissolve, not instantly—but consistently, like his body was remembering how to survive again.
His breathing slowed.
His posture steadied.
And then—
he smiled.
Not weakly.
Not painfully.
But with something close to relief.
"…nigurandayo!"
---
The group moved.
All of them.
Jhonathan.
Sophia.
Ralph.
Leerooey.
They turned away from Carl Jhon and the remaining knights.
And ran.
---
It should have felt like retreat.
Like defeat.
Like cowardice.
But it didn't.
It felt like survival.
Like choosing the next battle instead of dying in the current one.
---
Behind them, Carl Jhon watched silently.
His expression… unreadable.
The knights hesitated, unable to pursue through Sophia's blade rain and Jhonathan's collapsing battlefield pressure.
No one chased them immediately.
Not because they couldn't.
But because something about the group made pursuit unstable.
Unpredictable.
---
As they ran, something changed in the battlefield mechanics.
Every tracking ability aimed at them failed.
Every interception spell missed its mark.
Every targeting skill collapsed mid-activation.
As if the concept of "being caught" no longer applied to them.
---
An announcement echoed faintly through the collapsing system field:
AREA OF SLOTH → UPGRADED
NEW FORM: ULTIMATE SPEED
---
The world itself seemed to hesitate for a moment.
Then the group disappeared deeper into the fractured landscape, leaving behind burning ruins, broken laws, and the stunned silence of the Commanding Kings.