The air thickened with dust and the acrid smell of burnt earth.

Smoke spread from the blast zone where, just seconds before, Kade’s hired companions had stood. Now, only empty space remained.

Kade coughed, a dry, hacking sound that sounded through the sudden silence. His composure, before a mask of absolute control, cracked like shattered glass. He spun around, eyes wide with fury and dawning humiliation. He saw the scorched ground, the splintered trees, the complete absence of his team.

"Runes...?" he muttered, the word spat through gritted teeth.

The capture point was a lie. The tree was an illusion. The entire encounter had been a stage, and he had walked right to the center of it.

He snapped his head back toward where Ronan had knelt to "tie his shoes."

But Ronan was already gone.

Kade turned around too late.

A blur of motion from his left. Ronan lunged from the side, a perfectly timed strike that bypassed Kade’s front-facing stance.

Ronan drove a punch deep into Kade’s gut, the impact stealing the air from his lungs. Before Kade could brace or counter, Ronan twisted.

A kick followed, landing in the exact same spot.

The second impact was a hammer blow. It sent Kade stumbling backward, gasping, his mind reeling from the physical shock and the sudden isolation.

Behind him, a shimmer of blue light confirmed the extraction of his companions. The Academy’s magic swept them from the field, Academy employees grabbing them.

Ronan’s own node, strapped to his forearm, glowed with a brief, victorious pulse. The transfer had worked. The points were his.

Kade struggled to rise, his face a mask of rage. "You tricked me!"

Ronan offered no answer. He simply sent a fireball flying toward him.

Kade dodged, instinct overriding the pain of his burning stomach.

He rolled to the side, the fireball detonating against the ground where he had just been.

For a moment, it seemed he had recovered. He pushed himself up, ready to retaliate, to reclaim control.

But Ronan was already there.

A flicker of fire, and he closed the distance instantly through Flame Mirage.

However, Kade expected that.

A small, vicious smirk touched his lips. This was the opening he needed.

A shadow sword, black as pitch, formed in his hand.

It was a swift, lethal skill of the Assassin Path, designed to punish an opponent for a devastating follow-up.

Ronan had used his trick in the duel with Brutas, making it predictable. Now Kade would show him what a mistake that was.

He prepared to swing, to cut through the arrogant Ashbourne who thought one trap could decide a fight.

But before his arm could move, he staggered.

The world tilted uncontrollably.

A wave of nausea washed over him. The shadow sword in his hand flickered, its form wavering like a candle flame against strong winds. Then, it dissolved into harmless specs of mana.

Ronan’s Soul Attack had landed.

The disruption was brief, a mere split second of spiritual vertigo, but it was enough.

Kade’s focus shattered.

He drew a ragged breath, trying to curse, to speak, to understand the wrongness that had just washed through him.

His opponent gave him no time.

Ronan stood less than an arm’s length away.

He conjured another fireball, this one held in his palm.

He drove it directly into Kade’s stomach.

The impact was a sickening thud. The heat seared through Kade’s uniform, the fabric blackening and peeling away to reveal scorched skin beneath.

Kade dropped to the ground, wheezing, his body no longer coordinated enough to find its footing.

Ronan walked toward him casually, his expression unreadable.

"For someone on the Assassin Path," he said, his voice low and clinical, "you talk a lot when you fight."

He reached down, his fingers brushing against the node on Kade’s arm.

One last, desperate surge of fury. Kade screamed, a wordless sound of outrage, and forced another black sword into existence. He swung it from the ground, a clumsy, emotional arc that had none of the precision from before.

Ronan sidestepped the attack with an almost bored motion. He kicked Kade hard in the face.

The world went black.

Ronan took the node, crushing it in his hand without celebration.

A faint glow pulsed from his own node, absorbing the points.

Academy staff appeared in a flash of blue light, retrieving Kade’s unconscious body.

Ronan did not watch them go. The moment the elimination was confirmed, he activated Stealth and melted back into the trees, leaving the smoking clearing behind.

Only once he reached the cover of a dense trees did he stop. He found a hiding spot behind the wide trunk of a massive tree and leaned against the bark, finally letting the tension in his body release.

He closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath.

Fuck.

His soul hurt.

It was not a physical pain, but a deep, internal ache, as if something fundamental inside him had been scraped raw with a sharp blade.

It was vile.

He had used Mind Bender to trick Kade and his group. The false capture point, the altered perception of the tree, the way he had manipulated their spacing and delayed their realization – all of it came from forcing a Rank 3 skill through a Rank 2 core. This caused his soul to take the brunt of the damage.

The damage was not crippling, but it was noticeable. His thoughts felt dull and frayed. His vision took a moment longer to steady. His breathing required a conscious effort to control. He understood the cost immediately. If Kade had not been so overconfident, if the rune trap had failed, if the group had somehow stayed coordinated, he might not have been able to win without using lethal force.

And lethal force was not allowed here.

He could not rest long.

A faint, ethereal shimmer appeared through the trees behind him, closer than he had expected.

The boundary was shrinking again, and he had to move.