Krix's face twisted into a mask of pure, scarred rage. He gripped his claymore with both hands, his knuckles turning white. "Elites! Down here! Now! Grind them into the dirt!"
The hunters on the roof dropped down, their boots hitting the ground with heavy thuds. Twenty men, armed to the teeth, encircling the three of them in the heart of the Dead Alley.
Lyria sat on the ground, staring up at Rowan in absolute disbelief. "He's... he's stronger in the Dead Zone?"
Rowan didn't look back. He felt Seraphine's pulse. It was fast. It was eager.
The dust from the shattered warehouse windows hadn't even settled before Krix moved.
He was a veteran of the Grey District; he didn't survive this long by freezing in the face of the impossible. Even with his arms vibrating from the bone-deep impact of Rowan's fist, he snarled, his milky eye bulging with a mix of adrenaline and denial.
"Don't just stand there!" Krix roared at his elites. "It's a trick! A residual mana-charge! He's burning through his remaining reserves—kill him before he stabilizes!"
The twenty Eclipse hunters moved. They were professionals, trained to exploit the moment a high-rank hunter's mana flickered. They didn't use flashy spells. They used gravity, steel, and numbers.
Six elites dropped from the fire escapes, their heavy boots aimed at Rowan's head, while another four lunged from the shadows with jagged, Void-dipped spears.
Rowan didn't look at them.
He was looking at his own hand. The golden-white glow wasn't fading; it was vibrating.
[ Bond Resonance — Pressurized ]
[ Sync Efficiency: 95.2% ]
"Seraphine," Rowan said quietly.
"I know," she replied.
They didn't need a plan. Through the bond, Rowan felt her weight shift to her back foot. He leaned left, and she spun right. It was a perfect, symmetrical opening.
The first spear-man lunged. Rowan didn't parry. He simply stepped forward, entering the man's personal space before the spear-tip could even level. He caught the shaft of the spear, and with a casual flick of his wrist, snapped the reinforced wood like a dry twig.
The hunter's eyes widened behind his gas mask. Before he could scream, Rowan's palm met his chest.
There was no explosion. No burst of fire. Just a dull, wet thud as the internal mana-pressure transferred from Rowan's core into the man's ribcage. The hunter was launched backward, his body folding like a piece of paper as he slammed into the Void-Lead wall.
Beside him, Seraphine was a whirlwind of silent silver.
She wasn't using her usual graceful arcs. In the Dead Zone, she fought with a brutal, compact efficiency. Her blade, glowing with that same trapped radiance, sliced through the Eclipse armor as if it were parchment. Every time her steel met theirs, a sharp crack of pressurized energy echoed through the alley, sending shards of broken weapons flying.
"He's still moving!" Krix screamed, pulling a small, obsidian sphere from his belt. "Use the Suction Orbs! Drain the air out of them!"
Krix smashed the sphere at Rowan's feet.
A vortex of black light erupted. It was a Mana-Suction Artifact—an expensive, single-use tool designed to forcibly rip the mana out of a hunter's core and disperse it into the atmosphere. It was a "Core-Killer."
The vortex began to howl, pulling at Rowan's clothes, trying to find a leak, a crack, any opening in his spirit to latch onto.
Rowan stood in the center of the black wind.
His hair whipped around his face, but his expression remained terrifyingly bored. He felt the suction; it was like a tiny mosquito trying to drink from a pressurized steel tank.
"Is this it?" Rowan asked.
He looked at Krix, who was waiting for Rowan to collapse, for the glow to fade, for the "boy" to return to being meat.
"You spent five million credits," Rowan said, taking a slow, deliberate step toward Krix. The suction vortex groaned, its black light flickering as it struggled to handle the sheer density of the mana Rowan was holding. "You built a cage. You bought the best traps the Underworld has to offer."
Rowan took another step. The suction orb beneath his boot cracked under the weight of his presence.
"But you forgot one thing, Krix."
Rowan reached out and grabbed the howling vortex of black light with his bare hand. The artifact shrieked, its internal gears grinding as it tried to drain a source that had no end.
"You can't drain what you can't touch."
Rowan squeezed.
The obsidian sphere shattered. The black wind died instantly, smothered by the golden-white pressure radiating from Rowan's palm.
Silence returned to the alley, heavier than before.
The remaining Eclipse elites froze. One of them dropped his crossbow, the bolt clattering uselessly against the pavement. They weren't fighting a hunter anymore. They were fighting a fundamental law of nature that had decided to ignore the rules of the Dead Zone.
Krix took a step back, his claymore shaking. For the first time, the arrogance was gone. The milky eye was wide with the realization that he hadn't trapped a scout.
He had trapped a monster.
"You're... you're not a scout," Krix whispered, his voice trembling. "What are you?"
Rowan didn't answer. He felt Seraphine move up beside him, her sword leveled at Krix's throat. The 95.2% sync was humming, a beautiful, terrifying song that only the two of them could hear.
"We're just a boy and a girl," Rowan said, throwing Krix's own words back at him with a cold, predatory smirk.
Behind them, Lyria was still on the ground, her daggers forgotten. She watched Rowan's back, her crimson eyes reflecting the golden light. She had seen high-rank partners before—she had been part of a "Power Couple" herself once. But this?
This wasn't a partnership.
This was a singularity.
"Krix," Rowan said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble. "I have questions. And for every second you don't answer, I'm going to let Seraphine take another piece of your 'five-million-credit' investment."
He looked at the twenty elites.
"Starting with them."
Krix looked at his men, then back at the boy who had just crushed a Core-Killer with his bare hand. The scarred man realized, far too late, that the Dead Alley wasn't a trap for Rowan.
It was a cage for Eclipse. And the door was locked from the inside.