Yorowin's heart trembled.
His crimson eyes widened in alarm, his entire body stiffening.
'This…'
It was a simple movement.
A basic uppercut.
Atticus threw it into what seemed to be empty air, a strike so rudimentary, it should have been insignificant. But Yorowin knew better. He knew exactly what was coming.
And it made his mind churn in dread.
Memories of the Auralithians' battle techniques flooded his thoughts, techniques that had made their race unparalleled in battle.
Their first ability: Echoes.
The power to create phantoms of themselves, crafted from fragments of their original strength. These phantoms multiplied their presence on the battlefield, allowing them to act in countless places at once.
Their second ability: Future Sight.
The ability to peer into what was yet to come. For some, it was a fraction of a second. For others, more.
But it didn't matter. In the heat of battle, even a single second of foresight could turn gods into mortals, paragons into prey.
Atticus had used it.
Yorowin was certain. The boy had moved with certainty, not reaction, but preemption. He had shifted before the Echo appeared behind him. He had acted not in response, but in inevitability.
What seemed like a simple uppercut was anything but.
Because, as though destiny itself had demanded it, Yorowin's chin landed exactly where the strike was aimed.
And it hit.
The force was cataclysmic.
The ground beneath them erupted, as if struck by a meteor. Fissures spiderwebbed outward, tearing through the forest for hundreds of kilometers. Dust and debris shot into the air in a volcanic plume.
Yorowin's head snapped upward, his neck arching violently as pain unlike anything he had ever experienced surged through him. His entire body lifted off the ground as though it weighed nothing.
The blood armor that had withstood centuries of battle buckled under the impact. Cracks formed along its surface, fissures of crimson energy rupturing like over-pressurized veins.
The world around him blurred. His body launched skyward, a streak of crimson tearing through the air. The sheer force of his trajectory created a deafening sonic boom, scattering clouds in his wake.
Yorowin's mind reeled as he struggled to regain his composure.
His skull felt like it was a cannonball ricocheting inside his own head. His thoughts refused to form, clarity slipping further and further out of reach.
He couldn't think. His head refused to work. But his ears still did.
And so did his heart.
He heard it.
A voice.
Cold. Sharp. Unmoving.
A voice that could freeze worlds.
"Godspeed Grace."
Yorowin's heart stopped.
He saw nothing. Not a flicker, not a shadow.
But he felt it.
His instincts screamed at him, a primal alarm louder than anything he had ever known. Death loomed closer than it had in his centuries of existence.
A flash.
A movement.
And then, he felt it.
The cold, precise bite of a blade slicing through his neck.
His eyes snapped back into focus. His vision blurred as searing pain lanced through him, his body trembling uncontrollably. His heart thundered furiously in his chest, each beat echoing in his ears like the pounding of war drums, drowning out all else.
Yorowin couldn't speak. He couldn't even think.
But as his brain began to catch up, panic seized him like a vice, consuming every thought.
It screamed a single command:
"'Blood Eruption!'
Every molecule of blood within the crimson mist surrounding the battlefield trembled violently, vibrating with a ferocity that could rip reality apart. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, as though the world itself braced for what was to come.
And then, it happened.
The blood mist collapsed inward, condensing into a singular, volatile point. The energy surged uncontrollably, reaching its breaking point in mere fractions of a second.
Then it exploded.
The detonation was unlike anything the world had ever witnessed.
The condensed mist erupted outward in a cataclysmic blast. A crimson mushroom cloud surged into the sky, its fiery base expanding outward like a tidal wave of annihilation.
The ground beneath it disintegrated, massive craters forming as the force carved deep scars into the earth.
The shockwave ripped through the battlefield with unrelenting fury.
Trees were vaporized before they could fall. Rocks dissolved into fine dust. Even the air itself screamed, twisting violently as the sheer force obliterated everything in its path.
The destruction didn't stop at the battlefield.
The borders of both the human and vampyros domains fell.
Fortified walls, centuries in the making, crumbled like sandcastles beneath the tide.
In the human domain, Sector 10, the shockwave arrived like a hammer of the gods.
Buildings trembled violently, their foundations cracking. Massive structures that had stood tall for decades collapsed, their debris scattering through the streets.
The ground buckled and split, streets fracturing as the sector descended into chaos. People screamed, their terror echoing through the ruined city.
Alarms blared.
A deep, resonant horn boomed across the sector: The Paragon Alarm.
It was a signal of unimaginable magnitude, reserved only for events that threatened the survival of the entire sector.
People froze in their tracks. Their gazes snapped upward, toward the source of the devastation.
And then they saw it.
The mushroom cloud.
Towering into the heavens, its crimson core swirled violently, a hellish vortex that twisted against the backdrop of the horizon.
Their breaths stopped. Their hearts skipped. Their minds spun in disbelief.
"What… what just happened?" someone whispered, the question hanging in the air, unanswered.
It wasn't just Sector 10.
Every human fortress facing the direction of the explosion stilled. Warriors hardened by countless battles froze in unison, their wide eyes fixed on the distant, blood-red inferno.
The shockwave had reached them all, rattling their fortresses and shattering their nerves.
The second the wave hit the human domain, the heads of the human paragons snapped toward its source.
Their faces darkened as they realized the implications.
Without hesitation, they moved.
Their forms blurred, streaking across the land like bolts of divine light. The air itself tore apart in their wake as they crossed the vast expanse at impossible speeds.
Unlike the others, they knew.
They all knew.
Their apex was there.
They all echoed the same thoughts:
What the hell has he gotten himself into now?
But it wasn't just the humans.
Within the vampyros domain, their paragons turned their crimson eyes toward the same horizon.
Unlike their human counterparts, their expressions carried no fear or concern. There was no urgency in their movements.
Only intrigue.
That direction… it was the border of the human and vampyros domains.
A battle of paragons was occurring there?
Their lips curled into feral, bloodthirsty grins.
Had the humans finally grown a spine? The thought echoed among them.
They moved.
Their speed obliterated the ground beneath them, sending rippling shockwaves outward.
Streaks of red tore through the skies, screaming toward the border like predators chasing the scent of fresh blood.