North called out to me, her voice filled with concern. "You can take a break, Steve."
I let out a long breath and dropped to the ground, sitting hard on my butt. My body felt heavy, and so did my thoughts.
"Damn it," I muttered, rubbing the sweat from my forehead. "This skill is going to kill me, not just from the strain, but from the boredom too."
North gave me one of those looks that seemed to see right through me. I pretended not to notice, but her gaze lingered.
Then it hit—BOOM!
The sound was deafening, so loud it almost burst my eardrums. The ground trembled beneath me, and in that instant, I knew another shockwave was coming.
Instinct pushed me to leap up and defend, but before I could move, North had already stepped forward. Her blades cut through the air with sharp precision, slicing the shockwave in half before it could reach us.
I couldn’t help but chuckle, even in the chaos. "Thanks, sister-in-law."
"You’re welcome," she said with a small smile.
I stood again, brushing the dirt from my uniform, and turned my eyes toward the sky. The source of the boom was clear.
Hazel.
But this time, she wasn’t calm. She wasn’t collected. She looked completely unhinged. Her aura lashed out like a storm, wild and unstable. She had thrown herself directly into the clash with Saturn, her blade dripping with black mist that coiled and rose like living smoke.
Before I could process it further, Edgar appeared beside us. In a flash, the ground vanished, and I felt the wind whip around me, we were already floating high above the battlefield.
"What happened?" I asked him, trying to keep my voice steady.
"Nothing yet," he replied, though his tone carried an uneasy edge. "But it will."
I scanned the chaos below, forcing myself to count. Only nine grandmasters remained on their side. My eyes darted across the battlefield to our forces. Relief washed through me when I realized that aside from the injured, we hadn’t suffered any casualties yet.
Finally, my gaze locked on the center of everything.
Saturn hovered there, calm as ever, with his massive greatsword resting on his shoulder. Just a few steps away from him stood Hazel, her chest rising and falling with furious breaths. Her aura flickered violently, and her sword pulsed with that black mist.
A little farther back, Lucien lingered, his face twisted with anger.
His voice cut through the air. "That is enough, Hazel."
Saturn didn’t even glance at him. His smirk deepened as his eyes stayed locked on Hazel.
"Ohh... is that brotherly love I see? Makes sense. You don’t have anyone else left, do you, Hazel? Just him."
My stomach dropped. My eyes widened. Even Edgar cursed under his breath. "Shit."
Hazel’s answer was a roar, raw and thunderous. She lunged forward, and before I could even blink, her sword had already crashed against Saturn’s greatsword.
BOOM!
The collision ripped through the sky like thunder, shaking everything around us.
The sky turned into a battlefield above me.
Hazel and Saturn clashed again and again, their movements so fast I couldn’t follow them.
Every strike sounded like thunder, every swing tore the clouds apart. My eyes darted left and right, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t track their speed or even guess at their skill.
Then, for a moment, they broke apart.
The space between them warped with tension, and I finally saw Hazel clearly.
A chill crawled up my spine. Black smoke wasn’t only spilling from her sword anymore, it was seeping out from her body, curling around her like living chains. Her eyes glowed with a madness that frightened me.
"What’s happening to her?" I asked quickly, turning to Edgar.
He watched with a grim face.
"She’s burning her life force. She’s forcing her death comprehension to rise higher than it should go."
I clenched my fists.
"Then shouldn’t the emperor stop her? He can’t just stand there."
Edgar let out a long sigh, his shoulders dropping.
"He can’t. She won’t listen this time. He already stopped her once."
His words cut through me. A heaviness settled in my chest. Hazel had been my mentor, the one who guided me, taught me, told me never to doubt myself toward the path to Abyss. To see her now, burning herself away, felt like watching a mountain collapse before my eyes.
Then it happened. Her speed jumped so suddenly it was as if time itself broke. Her aura sharpened into a blade, and the smoke swirled violently around her body.
I heard the name of the technique whispered by her - Abyss Severance.
Hazel flashed forward, vanishing from sight. Space rippled like water where she had been, and then, with a sound that split the heavens, she appeared before Saturn. Her sword came down in a single black arc, slicing through space itself.
Saturn’s greatsword rose to meet her, but he was a fraction too slow. A line of darkness carved across his arm, and then his hand was gone, severed cleanly. Blood scattered into the air like sparks.
Hazel laughed, the sound loud and wild, carried by the silence around her. Black smoke poured from her sword, from her body, and even from the wound she had just inflicted.
Saturn’s face twisted with fury. His voice roared across the battlefield.
"HAZEL!"
His aura erupted outward in a blinding wave, so heavy I could feel it crushing my chest even from a distance. The air itself bent around him as he gripped his greatsword in his remaining hand. The playful arrogance was gone, now he was fighting for real.
Hazel didn’t falter. She raised her sword high, black smoke trailing off it like burning shadows. Saturn lifted his greatsword with one hand, golden light erupting from the blade.
They moved at the same time. Hazel’s Abyss Severance ripped forward again, tearing through the air, the black arc spreading like a rift in reality. Saturn’s blade swung down, his own signature skill bursting into life. Black and Golden lights collided.
BOOM!!
The world cracked. Light and shadow crashed together. A shockwave rippled outward, flattening the clouds and sending violent winds screaming across the battlefield.
My eyes watered, my breath was ripped from my lungs, and for a moment, everything was nothing but white light and black smoke.
When the air cleared, I gasped. Both Hazel and Saturn were falling from the sky, their bodies slammed downward by the sheer force of the collision. The ground split apart when they hit, dust and stone erupting like a volcano.
The clash ended in a draw. But the sight of Hazel lying in the wreckage, smoke still rising from her body, twisted my heart.