The last golem crumbled under the combined weight of three Obsidian Wolves tearing at its legs. Stone fragments scattered across the parking lot as the construct collapsed, its mana core sputtering and dying. The wolves stood over the rubble, panting, their dark fur matted with dust and scratches from the prolonged brawl.

Rooley took stock. His mana was sitting at roughly forty-two percent. The wyrm was exhausted, its scales chipped and cracked from being used as a battering ram against ten rank 2 golems. The wolves had done their job but were in no condition for another sustained fight. The snake was injured from blocking those earth spears, green blood still dripping from the puncture wounds in its coils.

He made his call.

With a series of quick mental commands, he dismissed the five rank 1 wolves and the peak rank 1 wyrm. They dissolved into wisps of mana that trickled back into his reserves, a small but meaningful recovery. What remained at his side were his rank 2 roc, circling overhead on crackling wings, his rank 2 Obsidian Wolf, bloodied but standing, and the injured snake coiled defensively around his forearm.

"Roc. Wolf. Take the Astral Zenith bastard," Rooley ordered, jerking his chin toward the figure still watching from the third level.

The roc screamed and dove. The wolf bounded up the collapsed ramp of the parking structure, claws finding purchase on broken concrete. Both beasts converged on the student from opposite angles.

The student finally moved. He stepped off the third level ledge and dropped casually to the second, then to the ground floor, landing in a crouch that barely disturbed the dust. He straightened to his full height as the roc’s lightning-charged talons descended toward his skull and the wolf’s jaws opened wide for his throat.

Rooley didn’t watch what happened next. He couldn’t afford to. Vareth was already moving.

The criminal came in low, earth mana reinforcing his fists as he drove a punch toward Rooley’s ribs. Rooley sidestepped, caught Vareth’s wrist, and twisted. Vareth flowed with the motion, reversing his grip and slamming his forehead into Rooley’s nose.

Crack.

Blood sprayed. Rooley staggered back, vision blurring for a half second before he forced his eyes open. Vareth pressed forward with a knee strike that Rooley barely blocked with his forearm. The impact sent a shockwave up his arm that made his teeth rattle.

Rooley retaliated with a straight punch reinforced by residual mana. It caught Vareth in the jaw, snapping the man’s head to the side. Vareth absorbed the hit, grunted, and returned with a cross that clipped Rooley’s temple.

They separated, both gasping.

Rooley’s back screamed with every movement. The crack from the sucker punch hadn’t healed. Every twist, every pivot, every desperate dodge sent a lance of white-hot pain up his spine. But he couldn’t stop. Stopping meant dying and losing.

Now that sis is no longer here, it’s up to me to make the Slanders proud.

Vareth lunged. Rooley ducked under a wild hook and drove his shoulder into Vareth’s chest. Both men stumbled. Vareth grabbed Rooley’s collar and headbutted him again. Stars exploded across Rooley’s vision. He bit down on his tongue, tasting copper, and shoved Vareth away with both hands.

They faced each other at arm’s length, chests heaving, blood dripping from both their faces. Vareth was smiling. Rooley was not.

"Not bad," Vareth panted. "For a summoner who doesn’t know how to fight."

Rooley wiped blood from his mouth. "And you’re not bad for a criminal who hides behind golems."

Vareth’s smile vanished. He slammed both palms together, and a boulder the size of a car materialized above Rooley’s head. It dropped like a meteor.

BOOM.

Rooley threw himself sideways, but the shockwave caught him anyway. The boulder hit the ground and the explosion of debris and force sent Rooley and the snake tumbling across the parking lot. Rooley skidded across asphalt, his back scraping against broken stone, agony screaming through every nerve.

But his mind was already on the counter.

His hand shot up. Mana poured out in a rush that dropped his reserves by another eight percent. A second roc materialized in the air above Vareth, lightning wreathing its talons, feathers crackling with electrical fury.

Vareth had just dismissed his boulder technique. His earth armor was down. His mana was recovering from the sustained golem summoning and the boulder creation. For one precious second, he was exposed.

The roc struck.

Lightning erupted across Vareth’s body like a cage of electric snakes. The criminal screamed, muscles seizing, skin blistering where the current found gaps in his clothing. The impact launched him backward, smoking and twitching, crashing through a rusted support beam before slamming into a concrete pillar.

Rooley climbed to his feet, breathing hard. The snake coiled tighter around his arm, hissing softly. He turned to check on the fight he had delegated.

What he saw made his stomach drop.

The Astral Zenith student was standing in the exact same spot where he had landed. Unmoved. Untouched. The roc’s lightning strike had hit him directly, electricity arcing across his body, and he had simply stood there. Not blocking. Not dodging. Just taking it.

The wolf was hammering him with punches, each blow carrying the full force of a Mana Heart Rank 2 beast. The student’s body seemed to ripple at each impact, like stone dropping into water. The force was being absorbed. Every single bit of it.

And the fucker was grinning.

A maniac grin, wide and unhinged, stretching across his face. His eyes were bright with something that wasn’t sanity. Every punch the wolf landed, every lightning strike from the roc, his grin got wider.

"Is that all?" the student laughed, voice cracking with excitement. "Come on! Hit me harder! HIT ME HARDER!"

The wolf snarled and lunged, fangs aimed at his throat. The student caught the wolf by its jaw with one hand. The impact absorption ripple effect surged down his arm, but he held firm. Then he punched the wolf in the skull with his free hand.

BOOM.

The wolf flew. Its body tumbled through the air like a broken doll, crashing through two concrete pillars before skidding to a stop in a heap of fur and dust. It didn’t get up.

Unconscious from one punch.

The roc screamed and dove, talons extended, lightning trailing behind it like a comet’s tail. The student looked up at the incoming bird with that same insane grin and didn’t even bother to raise his arms.

Rooley’s expression darkened.

The roc was strong. Fast. Its lightning was devastating against most opponents. But against someone who could absorb impact like this, it was like throwing stones into the ocean. The more the roc hit him, the more energy he absorbed, and the more dangerous he became.

Rooley’s mana was at thirty-one percent. The snake was injured. The wolf was down. The roc was effectively useless against this particular enemy. And Vareth was already recovering from the lightning strike, pushing himself up from the rubble with a bloody scowl.

He was out of options. Almost.

Rooley closed his eyes for a single breath. When he opened them, the green irises had hardened into something cold and determined.

He reached deep. Past the surface layer of his mana reserves, past the comfortable pool he used for daily summoning, into the deeper well that he rarely touched because of what it cost.

I will double your resources from now on, he thought, projecting the words through the summoning link that connected him to a presence he hadn’t called upon in months. So don’t hold back. Go all out.

A pause. Then, a flicker of interest.

"STARLIGHT FOX."

The shadows behind Rooley erupted.

A fox materialized from the darkness, three meters tall, its fur a deep midnight blue that shimmered with points of light like a living constellation. Nine tails streamed behind it, each one leaving trails of starlight that hung in the air like glowing ribbons. Its eyes were molten gold, slitted and ancient, carrying an intelligence that was unmistakably not animal.

It turned its head slowly toward Rooley. Then it turned toward Vareth, who had just finished pulling himself upright.

The hostility that rolled off the starlight fox was physical. The air pressure dropped. The temperature plummeted. Every hair on Rooley’s body stood on end.

A Mana Heart Rank 3 aura exploded outward from the fox’s body, washing across the parking lot like a tidal wave. The remaining golem fragments crumbled to dust. The cracked concrete spider-webbed further. Vareth’s eyes went wide.

The fox was beside Rooley in one heartbeat.

In the next, it was where Vareth stood.

CRACK.

Vareth didn’t even have time to raise a defense. The fox’s paw connected with his chest, and the criminal went flying like a missile. He crashed through the wall of the parking structure, through an interior pillar, through the opposite wall, and slammed into the side of a neighboring building with a sound like a bomb going off.

Bricks rained down. Dust billowed.

The fox appeared where Vareth had been sent flying, moving so fast it seemed to teleport. It drew back its paw and punched outward. Vareth, somehow still conscious, managed to raise an earth wall in the fraction of a second before impact.

The wall shattered like glass.

The fox appeared at his side, having circled the debris in the time it took to blink, and kicked him directly in the ribs. The sound was grotesque, bones cracking audibly as Vareth was launched horizontally through the air, tumbling end over end before slamming into a rusted vehicle frame that collapsed on top of him.