The hall stretched wide beneath their gaze—silent for a breath, trembling the next.

Elias dropped from the air, parting from his wind current, his fall carrying the weight of a falling storm.

Vlad, in contrast, calmly slipped off his coat. The winds stole it instantly, sending it drifting through the chaos—slow, deliberate, each flutter marking the countdown to violence.

The coat touched the ground.

They vanished.

A thunderous roar detonated across the hall.

Wind and World collided—two Manifestations tearing through stone and steel.

Their figures flickered like mirages, clashing faster than the eye could grasp—footsteps blurring, strikes shattering the air, the rhythm a frenzy of motion.

The ground trembled, the ceiling shed dust like falling ash, stone walls split and groaned.

“Terran Manifestation, Act III—Gaia’s Mighty Cores!”

A massive cylindrical core erupted from the ground, orbiting Vlad as if alive.

It shot toward Elias, circling him in ruthless patterns, sealing every escape.

Vlad smirked.

But the cores shattered.

Blades of wind tore outward from the circle—razor crescents slicing the air clean.

Elias stepped from the storm, untouched.

He moved.

In a heartbeat, he was in front of Vlad—a kick slammed into the criminal’s chest with hurricane force.

Vlad’s body launched across the hall, drilling through stone.

Dust billowed. The ground shook.

Silence followed—only the whisper of wind currents stirring.

But Elias still felt it—that bloodlust.

The smoke thinned, and Vlad emerged, grinning with blood on his lips.

“That hurts—HAHA!”

Elias exhaled sharply. “What a monster.”

“Let’s continue!” Vlad roared.

He vanished.

Elias’s eyes widened—Vlad was already on him.

A punch—fast enough to twist a head clean off—cut toward him.

Elias barely dodged, but something was wrong. Vlad was faster, heavier, stronger.

Blow after blow crashed into Elias’s guard—each one harder to block than the last.

Why is he stronger now? What changed after that kick?, His thoughts faltered. His guard dipped.

Vlad’s fist hammered his skull.

Elias shot backward—ripped through his own wind current—then smashed into the wall with a force that buried him halfway into the stone.

Dust rolled from the crater.

Blood dripped from Elias’s brow, half his face was swallowed in shadow.

“Is this all you’ve got, Elias?” Vlad mocked, voice echoing through the hall, “Trying to ‘save the world’—sacrificing yourself for a patch of mold on a forgotten corpse.”

The words stung sharper than a blade.

Elias’s fingers twitched. Slowly, he rose.

Vlad watched him with a predator’s curiosity.

“Your mouth is what’s molded,” Elias said, voice cutting through the wind.

“Not just your Manifestation—every time your feet touch the ground, your strength rises.”

Vlad burst into wild laughter, “HAHA! Now you understand. Fighting me while I stand on the ground is pointless!”

Elias stepped into his wind.

“Then I just have to keep your feet off it.”

Vlad grinned sharply, “Challenge me!”

Elias charged.

“Wind Manifestation, Act II—Cyclone Cage!”

A raging storm coiled around Vlad, lifting him violently, binding him in currents sharp enough to peel stone.

Elias swung his arms—two massive arcs of slicing wind tore toward Vlad.

But the ground responded.

Boulders erupted from the floor, stacking, shifting—forming a shield that absorbed the attack.

Vlad burst free, leaping from stone to stone in rapid succession, darting toward Elias with a predatory glide.

Elias moved—just a slip of the wind—and Vlad’s strike tore through empty space.

Vlad slammed into the ground with a thunderous crash, dust spiraling outward.

He rose slowly, grinning like a madman.

“Let’s settle this, Elias!”

His excitement dripped like venom.

“Terran Manifestation, Act IV—Magma Hegemon!”

The earth convulsed.

Cracks tore open beneath their feet—thin at first, then widening, splitting wider and wider until the floor collapsed into a yawning crater.

A roar surged from the depths as the prison’s lower strata were exposed—down to a blazing magma chamber.

Heat punched the air, the stones glowed red, flames licked upward like grasping hands.

Above, the swirling tornado-like wind currents—Elias’ ever-present domain—halted for a moment, then shifted as if obeying a silent command.

Elias raised his hand.

The currents dropped, twisting downward toward him, spiraling tighter and tighter.

“Wind Manifestation, Act IV—Cyclone Eye!”

The air screamed.

Wind converged violently around Elias, forming a massive, rotating storm—an eye of pure pressure and sharpened force.

The storm rose to the ceiling, tearing stone from its frame and pulling it into its violent orbit.

Their gazes locked once more.

This time deeper—feral will against unwavering resolve.

Then the world ignited.

Pressure surged from the ground—steam blasting outward with a deafening hiss.

Magma erupted through the crater in a violent column, a volcanic explosion unleashed by Vlad’s Manifestation.

The molten wave shot upward, ready to pierce the prison roof—ready to break through the earth—ready to erupt into the Kingdom itself.

But the storm struck first.

Elias’ Cyclone Eye consumed the eruption whole, bending the magma’s path, trapping it in a vortex of shrieking wind.

The collision of heat and storm warped the air, bending reality itself with sheer force.

Then—the world detonated.

A colossal explosion ripped the hall apart.

Stone was shredded into dust.

The main prison hall vanished in an instant—obliterated into nothingness.

The ground heaved, the shock running across the prison grounds like a living quake.

Outside, the soldiers surrounding the prison froze mid-breath.

Knights, mages, sentry-commanders—all stared in horror as a blinding shockwave burst outward, flattening the surrounding debris and rattling their armor.

Darion and the boy had already reached the outer grounds—but the shockwave hit like a hammer.

“W-What was THAT?!” Darion shouted as the world shook.

The boy stood unmoving, eyes wide, breath trembling.

“It… it must be—”

He didn’t finish.

Time slowed.

Not metaphorically—literally.

A ray of light pierced down from the sky, carving through the dust clouds like a spear from heaven.

The air shimmered, freezing particles mid-motion.

And then they saw him.

A figure descending through the shimmering air—cloaked in white, radiance trailing from his form.

Beneath the cloak: armor pure as dawn, engraved with a glowing emblem—VII.

Darion’s entire body locked in place.

His breath hitched.

“A… You are—”

The figure did not answer.

He merely passed them—silent, unbothered, unhurried—as though the chaos of the world bent out of respect for his presence.

The ground trembled beneath each step of his descent.

Darion’s knees buckled, he collapsed.

The boy reached out instinctively, but his vision warped.

The colors around him melted into gray.

Sound dimmed—then darkness swallowed him whole.