We arrived at Peanu and took our captives straight to the temporary camp we had built for ourselves near the ruined capital. The damage was fresh, craters, burned towers, and entire streets reduced to gray dust. The scent of scorched earth still lingered in the air.
Odin looked horrified as he walked beside me, his eyes wide as he took in the destruction around us. "Did you... do this?" he asked slowly, his voice trembling between disbelief and surprise.
I shook my head. "No. I told you before, he was a traitor. There was a Phantom attack."
Odin stopped in his tracks for a second. His expression froze, and then he looked away, clearly shaken. I didn’t blame him. Few beings had ever seen a Phantom and lived long enough to talk about it.
Dante led the Emperor and the other captives ahead toward the hall where the negotiation would take place. I stayed behind, my mind already elsewhere. I needed to find North and Steve. I wanted them to come with me to the marked location.
As I lifted into the air, my thoughts turned uneasy. According to the Ferans, their convoy was supposed to land on Peanu and meet Saturn here but Saturn was dead, and the Ferans didn’t exactly have a reputation for patience.
What if they already knew where the Genesis Rune was? What if this "Butcher" had decided to skip all formalities and go there himself? Waiting here might just waste time we didn’t have.
I flew over the ruins of the city, scanning the broken streets below until I finally spotted Steve and North sparring in what used to be a plaza. The ground around them was cracked but they didn’t seem to care.
North moved first. Her twin blades shimmered with faint green light as her figure blurred, vanishing from sight for a split moment before reappearing right behind Steve. One blade shot toward his spine while the other sliced for his neck.
But Steve was already gone. His body flashed forward in a streak of light, narrowly dodging both blades.
North didn’t pause, her body flickered again, faster this time, reappearing right behind him in the same perfect position, her blades cutting toward the same weak points as before.
"Damn it," Steve muttered, flashing sideways to escape. But before his feet could even touch the ground, North was already there again, her movements impossibly fluid, like she had read his every motion before he made it.
Watching her, I finally understood what she was doing.
She wasn’t just using speed, she was chaining her Law of Momentum with the Hidden Cleave art Dante had taught her, using each movement to accelerate the next. Every shift, every breath built upon the last, compounding her speed until her attacks looked like a storm of light and steel.
Steve finally snapped. "Burst Flash!" he shouted, his body vanishing in a violent surge of Essence as he reappeared far away from North’s reach.
North stopped mid-motion, exhaling deeply as she lowered her blades. The faint green light faded as she steadied her breathing, sweat glistening on her forehead.
"Twenty-one follow-ups," Steve said, still catching his breath. "That’s insane. How long can you chain it?"
"Twenty-four is my max right now," North said, resting her hands on her knees. "It really takes a toll on my body to enter that hyperzone state. The moment I push it too far, everything slows down again."
"That’s already good enough for a Master," I said as I landed softly behind North.
She jumped in surprise and spun around, her blades still humming faintly with Essence.
"Hi, beautiful," I said with a grin.
"When... when did you get here? I didn’t sense you at all," she asked, still startled.
"Just now," I replied, smirking. "But if you did sense me, I’d start doubting my hiding skills, you know?"
Steve groaned from nearby. "Well, there goes my training," he said and flopped flat onto the cracked ground, arms spread out.
I ignored him and stepped closer to North.
Her breathing was still uneven from the spar, a few scratches visible on her arms. I reached out and gently touched her shoulder. Green light spread from my hand as I activated Verdant Extraction, channeling vitality into her body. Her injuries sealed, and the tension in her muscles eased instantly.
"Whoo, that feels good," she said with a relieved sigh. Then, without hesitation, she tiptoed up and placed a soft kiss on my lips.
"Damn it, my eyes!" Steve shouted dramatically from behind.
"You should be careful, North," I said with a straight face, pointing over her shoulder. "There’s a kid behind you."
She chuckled, shaking her head, and we both walked over to where Steve was sprawled. I sat down beside him while North sat next to me, the three of us finally taking a quiet moment amid the ruins.
"So, tell me, what’s going on?" I asked, glancing between Steve and North.
Neither of them answered. The silence stretched long enough for me to frown.
"Hey... what happened?" I pressed again.
Steve sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. "What’s going on is that you’re growing too damn fast for us to keep up, that’s what."
I blinked. "What?"
He looked at me with a flat expression. "Both of us are still stuck on our rank-up quests, and you—" he gestured toward me, exasperated, "—you’ve probably finished even your next quest already, haven’t you?"
I coughed lightly, scratching my neck. "Uhh... yeah."
He rolled his eyes so hard I thought they’d get stuck. "Exactly. We haven’t even hit Grandmaster, and you’re about to become the first person in history to reach the Transcendent Rank. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?"
I didn’t answer. Instead, I turned to North, who was smiling softly, her expression calm despite Steve’s frustration.
"Don’t worry about me," she said. "I don’t care about the pace. According to Dante, people like you are rare, he called them freaks of nature. Actually, the exact word he used was ’glitch’ in the universe."
Steve snorted at that, but North continued, her tone light.
"My mother is still a Master-ranked individual. My grandfather reached Grandmaster in his forties. My brother’s been training under Dante for years and he’s still stuck at Master too. So really," she looked at me with a small grin, "I’m doing just fine."
I smiled back at her. There was no envy or frustration in her eyes, only warmth. But before I could appreciate how understanding my girlfriend was, she spoke again, her tone suddenly sharp.
"But," she said, eyes narrowing, "that doesn’t mean you get to run ahead and leave us behind. You already promised to take us with you. So you better figure something out, or you can forget about leaving our world. We’ll never forgive you, and we’ll never let you go."
I blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift.
Steve jumped in, nodding in agreement. "Yeah, what she said. You said you had a plan, right? Let’s hear it."
I sighed, rubbing the back of my head as both of them stared at me expectantly. For a moment, it felt less like I was talking to my friends and more like I was being interrogated by two robbers.