Malik couldn’t hunt them all down, no matter how much he wanted to.

Though he could blast himself around with his fire, these bastards were of the Lightning Element.

In other words, they moved incredibly fast—not faster than him, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to catch up at all, but still...

They were fast enough to make chasing all of them a fool’s errand.

Malik didn’t expect them to react so fast.

In hindsight, he realized that he should’ve targeted them first, not the Water Magi, even if the water attacks seemed more threatening.

But, as it always was with hindsight, it came after the fact.

It would have been a completely different story if he had all of his Runes unlocked, but of course, he didn’t, and he had to make do with what little power he had left in this borrowed minute of strength.

And so, Malik was forced to choose his targets.

From the quagmire of bodies and rubble earlier, he had spotted the one who sniped the maid and then tried to do the same to Dunya.

That bastard was someone he had to kill, plain and simple.

He was also intent on killing the leader of their little group of factions, figuring that if the head of the snake was cut off, the body might disband and stop causing them such trouble.

Malik could have gone for their leader first, but he knew the sniper was slower, meaning that he would be easier to reach, relative to the leader, at least.

The leader would easily require him to cover more distance to catch him, but that wasn’t all. There was no doubt in Malik’s mind that the snake had some trick up his sleeve to delay him.

Going after the leader first would have been the riskier move, and with time already slipping away, Malik decided to take the sure kill first.

Not before long, he was upon the first of his two targets in a flash of white fire, a man who seemed moments away from soiling himself.

"H-H-How are you alive?!"

The coward wanted to delay his death so desperately that he was even willing to talk to the enemy he was supposed to despise to the bone.

As if words could somehow save him from the inevitable.

Malik found that funny, chuckling softly under his breath.

"If my Will was to return, who would dare stop me? You? Or that leader of yours who ran away even faster than you did?"

The coward had no response to that, his mouth opening and closing uselessly.

Nothing came out except a strangled whimper.

Actually, no, something did come out of him, and thankfully, it wasn’t anything... stinky.

Believing it to be his final moments, he launched an all-out, desperate attack, throwing everything he had at Malik.

The attack was shut down in moments, its origin utterly destroyed before it could even fully form. The man wasn’t even allowed a scream before the fire took him, his body turning to Rukh, gone to never return.

Malik turned to the side, feeling the burn of the timer in the back of his mind.

’...not much time left.’

There were only about thirty seconds remaining on the Soul Glyph, maybe a little less.

He had taken much longer than expected to find and reach this sniper. The bastard had fled far, forcing Malik to chase him across many thousands of miles of open desert.

The clock was winding down with alarming speed.

Malik had to make a tough choice, another one.

Was it worth the risk to still try to chase after their leader? If he lost the Rune’s power in the middle of the desert with no civilization around him for miles, he would basically be stranded.

An "old man" with no supplies and no way to defend himself against whatever lurked in the sands.

It would be incredibly dangerous, most definitely fatal.

Usually, he would have played it safe, cut his losses, and blasted himself toward the nearest city. But now, with the Rune still active and its influence pumping through his veins, something else stirred in his chest.

The influence of a Sultan with overbearing might, a man who didn’t back down from anything, no matter the consequence. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

’I’ll kill him.’

Malik disappeared, flashing in and out of existence as he blasted himself forward, leaving a trail of white fire across the darkening sky.

One second passed, then another, then ten, then another ten, and finally, with twenty seconds gone from his remaining timer, he spotted the leader in the distance.

Thankfully, his lightning was far from subtle, crackling and flashing like a beacon against the gray desert, enabling Malik to track him even from great distances away.

With less than ten seconds left on the clock, Malik was finally upon their leader, closing the distance in a final explosive burst that brought them face to face above the empty dunes.

The two attacked each other without a single exchange of words.

There was no room for talking when such powers clashed.

Malik’s fiery strikes blasted everything around them into nothing, the sand turning to glass and then to Rukh, not even ash remaining in the wake of his white flames.

And yet, the bastard wasn’t harmed, far from it.

He was attacking back freely, his lightning weaving around Malik’s fire and striking out with surprising ferocity.

’Is the Fire Element weak against Lightning?’

No, that didn’t make sense.

Every attack of his was Angel class, far beyond anything this coward should be able to withstand. Even if he were Class Five. There was no possible way he could handle even a single direct hit, let alone trade blows like an equal.

Malik focused on the man in front of him, searching his body for something, anything that could explain this anomaly.

’Ah.’

He found the reason.

It was something he knew of, a Holy Relic, hanging from the bastard’s belt, a miniature lantern that glowed.

This small thing seemed to be absorbing the fire from Malik’s attacks, drinking it in.

Even from afar, it appeared to be nearing its limit as cracks formed along its surface, greatly struggling to contain the power being forced into it.

Under different circumstances, Malik could have waited until it was full, until it shattered under its own strain, but he had no time—only about five seconds left on the Soul Glyph.

He needed to overwhelm it with a single attack.

To pour everything he had left into one final strike that would break the Relic and the man behind it in the same instant.

’Four.’

Knowing that the system would no longer do it for him, Malik began to count down in his head while sending out blasts of fire to keep the bastard on the defensive.

Each explosion pushed the Holy Relic closer to its breaking point.

’Three.’

A familiar white sword materialized in his hand, condensed so tightly that even Malik couldn’t handle holding it for long.

The heat seared his palm, making his arm tremble under the weight of so much concentrated power.

’Two.’

He raised the sword high above his head, and the light that erupted from it blinded everything that might have looked, turning the world white, silent, and pure.

’One.’

Malik swung it down.

The Holy Relic was overwhelmed in the first fraction of that final second, shattering into a thousand pieces that scattered across the desert.

Realizing what had happened, the snake tried to escape, his lightning carrying him sideways in a desperate dodge, but the fire was already upon him.

His right hand, along with much of his upper body, was cut off and annihilated instantly, the white flame eating through flesh and bone.

The rest of him was left with searing burns that began to spread across his chest and neck, blackening his skin and making him scream.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

But still, despite the great injuries that should’ve killed him, he didn’t stop running away.

His lightning carried him further and further into the desert, even as his flesh melted.

Another Holy Relic saved him, no doubt.

Malik could have attacked him again right there, and he would have been sure to kill him.

The cowardly bastard had no defenses left; this other Holy Relic be damned.

But Malik barely had a moment left on the Soul Glyph as well, the fire flickering at the edges of his vision, warning him that the end was coming.

There was yet another choice he had to make.

Kill the bastard now and be stranded in this desert, many, many miles from any town or city.

Or blast himself closer to safety and let the man live to fight another day.

He fluttered his eyes closed for just a heartbeat, then made his decision.

’We’ll see each other again.’