And the moment he activated his talent, Rapid E, the world blurred as a sharp crack split the air.
By the time Scarlet blinked, three heads hit the ground almost simultaneously.
The mutant goblins were already dead, their necks cleanly severed at impossible angles.
Adam then proceeded to harvest the granulites and valuable organs with practiced hands.
When he was done, he stood, wiped his hands on the grass, and walked ahead.
Scarlet stared at his back for a while in silence before following soon after.
Scarlet walked a step behind Adam as he handled everything with an ease that didn't match the chaos of the rift.
With each passing minute, her heartbeat finally settled, and she began to notice things she had completely missed before.
The first were Adam's clothes.
They weren't the armor a martial artist would normally wear inside a rift.
Adam was dressed in simple, although bloody, casual clothes; something someone would wear while running errands in the sector.
She blinked hard.
Was it overconfidence?
No, it was overwhelming belief in his own power.
A martial artist who didn't bother with armor was either a suicidal fool or someone so strong they didn't need it.
And to her, Adam was the later.
The thought that Adam simply couldn't afford proper armor never even crossed her mind.
And if Adam could read minds, he would be really grateful that that was her line of thought instead of concluding he was nothing else but a pauper.
Scarlet still found herself staring at his back.
Where did someone like him even come from?
Possibilities raced through her head but the one she eventually settled on was simple:
He must be from a powerful martial clan, one so influential it doesn't need to flaunt itself.
And then there was the matter of his martial spirit.
He still hadn't used it.
He must have a Special Talent, and a terrifying one at that, to not have used his Martial Spirit up to now.
She had never met anyone with a special talent before.
In their Sector, they were myths, walking cheats blessed by the heavens, and the heavens were never generous enough to hand out more than a few per generation.
The longer she walked with Adam, the more her curiosity grew.
Maybe it was unhealthy, but it kept her mind away from the image of her fallen team.
Adam was a distraction, but he was a strangely comforting one.
Just as she found herself sinking into her thoughts, Adam suddenly stopped.
Scarlet didn't react in time as she bumped into his back, stumbling, barely keeping herself from falling face-first into the dirt.
"S-sorry, what happened?" she asked, steadying herself.
Adam didn't answer immediately.
His gaze sharpened as it became unfocused and distant.
His [Connect] vision flared to life.
And the world changed.
Countless soul flames ignited in his sight: clusters of humans and goblins clashing violently, with the human flames collapsing one after another like candles in a storm.
Finally, he spoke.
"There's trouble ahead."
Scarlet frowned, confused.
"Trouble? Wha—"
Before she could finish, Adam turned, scooped her up in a smooth princess carry, and held her tightly against his bloodied chest.
"W-wait!"
He activated Rapid E.
The world blurred, and they vanished from the spot.
****
Thirty martial artists clashed against fifteen unranked Level 2 goblins in a chaotic, uneven battlefield.
The party had formed only minutes earlier, multiple groups merging into one after realizing the rift had mutated.
Their plan was simple: use numbers to isolate and eliminate lone goblins, bring the saturation down, and create a temporary exit.
It was a smart plan.
But thirty martial artists gathering in one place was anything but subtle.
And the goblins noticed.
Densely packed snarling shapes emerged from the tall grass, forming their own hunting pack to counterattack the human group.
The two sides slammed into each other like colliding storms.
Near the center of the battlefield, a martial apprentice with a five-star martial spirit struggled to hold back a goblin alongside another apprentice with a four-star spirit.
But the beast pushed them back step by step, its raw strength overwhelming.
He couldn't support anyone else, the battle consumed every scrap of his focus.
The only other Martial Apprentice with a Five-Star Martial Spirit in the group had already died during the first ambush.
We need an opening... any opening.
The goblin continued to push them back, as nearby shouts and clashing steel drowned his thoughts until.
"JOSHUA!!!"
The scream tore across the battlefield.
At another corner, a goblin's teeth were buried deep into the neck of a male martial apprentice.
His female partner, shoved aside by him only moments earlier, stared with tear-blurred eyes as the goblin ripped a massive chunk of flesh free.
Blood sprayed and poison pulsed.
His death was agonizing, minutes stretching into an eternity for him, though it lasted barely seconds.
"NO!" the girl cried, pushing herself up, rage consuming her.
She lunged, but another apprentice grabbed her arm.
"Don't! This is our chance to escape!"
The goblin didn't give them that chance.
It tossed Joshua's corpse aside like meat for later, eyes gleaming with feral focus as it charged at the pair.
They barely had time to gasp before it was upon them.
Its claws swung for the finishing blow, but it never came.
As a force like a cannon strike blasted the monster away, launching it across the battlefield.
It skipped across the ground again and again like a pebble on a lake before finally embedding into the dirt.
BOOM!!!
Everyone froze.
Every goblin.
Every martial artist.
Even those mid-swing halted as they turned toward the source of the disturbance.
And what they saw didn't make sense.
A young man stood there, emerald-green eyes glowing faintly beneath blood-stained curls.
His casual clothes, nothing but normal fabric, were drenched in goblin blood.
His posture remained locked in the aftermath of a devastating kick, one leg still elevated from the strike.
His gaze swept across the goblins.
And then the pressure hit.
A suffocating killing intent crashed over the battlefield, thick enough to make several goblins stumble.
The air vibrated.
Even the martial artists felt their skin crawl.
Adam had arrived.