"Lynx... is that really you?" Lucia asked, her knees giving out beneath her as she fell to the ground. Her mind was breaking down from processing so many fake-outs in such a short time.
"Get out of the line!" Rey shouted across the field, his voice hoarse. "I—We can take you to a clinic right now!"
"Not yet," Lynx replied softly, coughing out a spray of blood onto the stone.
Karti glared at Lynx, his face twisted in rage as he yanked the bloody knife out of Sun's lifeless chest. "You dirty bastard... you tricked me into killing my own teammate! Even so, you're heavily wounded. You'll die right here!"
Karti gestured mockingly with the blade. "How about you sit down and let me give you a quick, painless death?"
"LYNX, LEAVE!" Rey screamed over the roaring crowd, tears spilling down his face. "WE DON'T CARE ABOUT WINNING! WE JUST WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE TOGETHER!"
"Shut up..." Lynx muttered under his breath, tuning out the noise of the entire stadium.
{All those years of isolation and training... forcing my body past its limits because I was weak, forcing my mind to think layers ahead because I wasn't smart enough. Now that I actually have people to guide... as their leader, there's no way I'm letting their goals die here because of my mistakes. Even if it costs me my life.}
He drew his twin daggers with his left hand, his grip steady despite his bleeding chest.
"You called me a dirty leader while controlling Sun like a puppet," Lynx said, his voice dropping cold. "It worked out for you... otherwise, you would've been dead five minutes ago."
"Dead? You think you can defeat me like that?!" Karti yelled, his aura flaring as he charged straight at Lynx, aiming a lethal thrust at his throat.
Instead of backing off, Lynx mirrored Karti's high-speed dash, slipping right past the strike and appearing directly behind his neck.
Karti reacted instantly, sliding off toward the edge of the arena line.
Lynx thrust both hands forward aiming at the ground Karti was standing on. {Divine Destruction!}
The stone arena floor around Karti cracked into jagged pieces. The impact was way weaker than Lucia's version, but it did its job. The unstable ground threw off Karti's balance, keeping him from moving freely without slipping out of bounds.
{That's... my technique...} Lucia thought, her eyes widening as she watched from the sidelines.
Up in the participant stands, Joon gasped. "Did he just copy her ability?!"
"That's a pure mana technique," Marim muttered, her eyes narrowing as she watched the stone crack. "He doesn't have a drop of mana in his veins. How the hell is he doing that...?"
Rey kept yelling for Lynx to stop, but Lynx tuned out everything. The noise faded into total silence. In his mind, his only target was Karti.
By the time Karti regained his footing on the broken stone, Lynx was already in the air, leaping straight at him with crossed arms, twin daggers ready to tear through his neck.
Lynx's eyes were pitch black, showing the exact same unhinged, wild glare from the day he tore the meat off Karti's face.
{Shit! I can't dodge sideways! I can't block in time!} Karti panicked, cold sweat dripping down his forehead. {He's too close... he can kill me!}
In pure desperation to survive, Karti leaped backward, crossing right over the arena boundary line.
SWOOSH.
Lynx's daggers cut through empty air.
Isbell stepped into the center of the field, her voice echoing in the minds of the spectators. "Karti has exited the battlefield. The winner of this match is... Team Seven!"
The crowd exploded into wild cheers, but Lynx didn't stop.
Driven by raw instinct, Lynx charged straight toward Karti, completely ignoring that the match was already over.
"You wanted to make me kill my friends..." Lynx laughed menacingly, raising his blade to strike Karti's neck.
Before the steel could touch skin, Isbell blurred across the field and delivered a heavy kick straight into Lynx's stomach, creating a sonic boom.
BOOM!
The impact sent Lynx flying backward, crashing hard onto the stone floor inside the field. Rey sprinted across the line and caught Lynx before his head hit the ground.
Lynx was completely out of stamina, unable to lift even a finger.
"Now... taste death..." Lynx whispered, his eyes wild and unhinged.
Then, his posture suddenly softened. His expression returned to normal, replaced by genuine confusion as he looked up at the sky.
"...What am I doing?" Lynx murmured softly.
His eyes rolled back, and he completely passed out in Rey's arms.
Isbell turned her gaze toward Karti, who was standing frozen outside the boundary line. "You stepped out of bounds more than three times—"
Isbell cut herself off, her eyes widening in genuine surprise.
Karti stood frozen outside the boundary, his hands trembling as he reached up to his throat. A single dagger was plunged deep into the side of his neck, blood pouring out over his fingers.
Right at the exact millisecond Isbell had kicked Lynx in the stomach, Lynx had thrown his second dagger with the last bit of strength he had left, hitting Karti before passing out.
Karti collapsed onto the dirt, completely still.
...
Without wasting a second, Rey and Lucia carried Lynx's unconscious body back to the old clinic as fast as they could.
An hour passed inside the small shop. While Lucia and Lynx were getting treated on the medical beds, Rey quietly stepped out into the quiet alley behind the stadium.
He walked down a dark corridor, stopping in front of a group of masked figures standing in the shadows.
Rey looked at them, his eyes cold and devoid of his usual cheerful energy.
"It's time," Rey said flatly. "Be prepared."