Across the arena, Alaric parried Ace’s dagger and caught a brief glimpse of Yoha rising from the crater with a different goal in mind.

"Seems like two Surpassers wasn’t enough to deal with him."

Ace’s dagger scraped along Alaric’s blade. His head tilted slightly to look past Alaric’s shoulder, confirming what he had already sensed.

He sighed.

"Seems like it."

Their blades came apart. Both of them reset stances. The exchange continued without either of them commenting further.

In another part of the arena, Baaron saw it.

Yoha, one of his own trusted subordinates, had just flipped his allegiance in the middle of the battlefield. To Baaron, who had known Yoha for over a decade, knew this was one of Moon’s tricks.

His grip on his cleaver tightened until his knuckles cracked.

The plan had failed. Completely.

Klein’s ambush had also failed, Sierra was still alive.

The corpse bombs were also dealt with. And now Moon had taken control of one of his Surpassers and was actively turning him into a weapon against his own former teammates.

The dark organization had committed months of resources to this operation.

They were losing on every metric that mattered.

Baaron’s rage bled into his next strike. He committed harder than he had before, his cleaver arcing toward Tom.

Tom stepped sideways at the last moment.

His gloves flared again.

Golden flame pushed Baaron back dozens of meters.

Tom laughed. Again.

"You are getting desperate aren’t you?" Tom smirked, "That boy is a thorn in your throat, haha."

On the other side of the arena, Farid drove his staff into Ian’s chest and knocked him ten meters backward.

Ian hit the rubble hard.

His left arm was gone. Farid had taken it two exchanges ago in a clean strike that had punched through Ian’s collapsing guard. The stump had stopped bleeding, but his combat prowess was greatly reduced. His spear was in his right hand only. His breathing was ragged and his face was pale beneath the dirt and blood.

He wasn’t thinking about the wider battle.

He wasn’t thinking about Baaron. Or the failed operation. Or the two Surpassers Moon was ruining across the arena.

He was thinking about not dying.

He was failing at that too.

Farid advanced across the rubble toward him. Blue fire coiled around his staff. His expression was unimpressed, he had no intention of dragging this fight, he wanted to end it.

Ian raised his spear.

His arm was already shaking.

♢♢♢♢

Emma parried a strike from a five-star warrior and drove her feet into his sternum with a powerful kick. The man doubled over, but her dagger went into the back of his neck before he hit the ground.

She barely had time to catch her breath before another one closed on her from the flank.

A bolt of purple lightning caught the second attacker across the chest before he reached her.

The assassin dropped where he stood.

Emma’s head snapped around.

Moon was already moving toward her, cutting through the outer edge of the reinforcement wave that had been trying to press her position from multiple angles. His sword was up, and his energy levels were still high. Yoha moved behind him, engaging targets on the other side of the line.

Moon took down two more attackers before he reached her.

He came to a stop beside her, sword lowered, his eyes scanning the surrounding fight for the next threat.

Emma grinned.

Her face was smeared with blood that was not her own. Her braid had come loose in the fight, and her breathing was hard.

"Selene’s man came to save me." Emma managed to joke, "I’m flattered."

Moon’s mouth twitched.

"Don’t get used to it."

"Wouldn’t dream of it." Her grin didn’t fade. "Selene would kill me."

Moon huffed a small breath that might have been a laugh.

Then he raised his sword again as another wave of reinforcements began pushing toward their position, and the two of them fell into formation without needing to discuss it.

Not long after, Emma’s eyes tracked a specific figure at the edge of her vision.

A broad-shouldered Surpasser in heavy dark plate armor. He had been in her engagement radius just minutes ago, pressing her with a two-handed hammer, but he had drifted backward since then, letting the Four-Star and Five-Star reinforcements take over the front line. He hadn’t drifted back into the fight either.

He was clearly trying to retreat. Emma caught the exact moment he committed to it.

"Moon. A Surpasser tank is about to bolt." Moon’s head turned, his eyes locked on the armored figure at the edge of the fight.

"Then he’s ours."

They moved together.

Neither of them said anything to the other three team members holding the perimeter. Yet, they coordinated well, filling in the gap that Moon and Emma left.

The two of them sprinted toward the retreating Surpasser at their combined maximum speed.

Five of the elite reinforcements peeled off from their engagements and threw themselves to intercept their paths.

Four Four-Stars and one Five-Star. Their orders were obvious. Buy the Surpasser enough of a lead that Moon and Emma couldn’t catch up before he cleared the collapsed wall.

Moon’s sword swept sideways in a single Tempest Symphony sequence, his fast and powerful strikes opening two cuts across one of the interceptors chest.

The man went down without breaking Moon’s stride.

Another rushed after Emma. She caught his weapon on the crossguard and rolled her body inside his reach. Her second dagger opened his throat before he knew that she had closed the distance. She stepped over the body without slowing down.

The Five-Star came for both of them at once.

His attack was serious. A wide arcing swing of a great sword that carried enough force to destroy a five-story building if it landed. Moon and Emma split in perfect unison.

She went low, he went high. His sword caught the greatsword’s edge and turned it upward. Her daggers went into the Five-Star’s exposed side twice in a row, punching through the armor between his ribs.

The Five-Star grunted and his swing continued out of pure inertia. Moon’s blade slid off the redirect and came around in a rising cut that opened the Five-Star’s chest.

He fell and they kept running.

Others continued to try and stop them, but Moon and Emma dealt with them quickly and efficiently.

Just seconds after his escape, the armored figure heard quick foot steps coming.

He glanced back and his face inside the heavy helm darkened. He knew he wasn’t going to make it to the wall. His plate armor was built for absorbing damage, not sprinting against people like Moon and Emma. His own tactical retreat had been calculated on the assumption that his five reinforcements would keep both Moon and Emma occupied for at least another minute.

Unfortunately for him, they hadn’t been able to buy seconds, let alone an entire minute.

The two of them were closing in fast.

The Surpasser stopped running.

He turned to face them. His hammer came off his back in a smooth two-handed grip. His stance settled into a defensive posture, hoping to buy himself time above anything else.

Even a minute of stubborn defense could be the difference between life and death in this battlefield.