Ethan moved.
Not a step.
A flash.
One heartbeat he was crouched—black marks pulsing across his arms—the next he was gone.
Flora's pink eyes widened—pupils shrinking to pinpricks.
She reacted on instinct.
Her free hand slammed forward.
The floor exploded.
A towering wall of thorned vines surged upward—thicker than before, three times the height of a man—twisting into an impenetrable green fortress directly in Ethan's path. Thorns gleamed like obsidian knives; emerald light pulsed through the stems.
Too late.
Ethan's fist—wrapped in writhing black markings—crashed through the center.
The wall didn't just break.
It shattered.
Vines tore like wet paper—sap spraying in wide arcs—thorns flying like shrapnel. The impact rang across the arena like a gong struck by a sledgehammer.
Ethan's knuckles drove straight into Flora's stomach.
A sickening thud.
