Jacob darted to the side just as the monster hurled itself forward, its claws slicing through the air where he had stood a heartbeat earlier. The choice of target surprised him, not only him, but Mathew as well, who had already planted his feet and raised his blade in anticipation of an attack that never came.

For a brief moment Jacob felt that surprise linger, but he pushed it away; he didn't have the luxury of dwelling on anything while the creature was already upon him.

He lifted his arm, a rune beginning to flare into existence over his palm, only for Mathew's voice to cut sharply through the clash of footsteps.

"Behind you!"

Jacob turned just enough to see a rank-ten monster creeping up on him, claws poised to strike, its eyes holding that dull hunger the creatures all seemed to share. He had nearly forgotten, these things never hunted alone.

He tried to shift the rune he was drawing, to adapt it mid-formation, but his mind was still frayed from the last exertion and the strain of forcing an inherent rune into place now made his vision blur at the edges. He hesitated, not even a full second, yet it was enough for the monster's claw to descend toward his chest.

Instinct twisted his body aside, his sword rising to deflect the blow, but he had dodged straight into the path of the other monster. Its hands, still soaked in darkened blood, reached for him, and Jacob felt a cold dread in his stomach; one touch from that thing would fill him with that same agonising paralysis he had experienced before.

He braced for it—

—but a blur passed between them.

Something whistled through the air, and Jacob watched as a katana carved cleanly through the creature's neck. The monster collapsed in a heap before he even processed that the blade had been thrown.

A few metres away, Mathew stood swaying on unsteady legs, chest heaving, the empty sheath at his side trembling with each breath. He looked utterly drained; he had pushed his aura far past anything sustainable, and now he was unarmed with more threats still all around them.

Jacob opened his mouth, intending to run to him or at least offer support, but Mathew's voice cut through the chaos before he could take a step.

"Don't you dare try and help me, focus on your own fight!"

Almost as if summoned by those words, two more rank-ten monsters lunged toward Mathew, their movements sharp and feral, their bodies still marked with dried blood. But Mathew only steadied himself and looked at them with a strange calm, almost a smile, tired yet unmistakably deliberate.

Jacob realised then, with a sinking clarity, that this was exactly where Mathew wanted to be.

Jacob didn't have the chance to even think about helping Mathew; the main monster shoved his blade aside with unsettling ease, its other hand already curving toward his throat. Fortunately the rune finished forming at that exact moment, a burst of light flaring outward as the barrier snapped into place and forced the creature back a step.

'Two hits… three at most.'

The thought settled in his mind like a stone. Jacob was beginning to regret the entire plan, because now that he was in the middle of it, now that he could properly assess the situation, he understood just how unrealistic it was to hold out for ten full minutes.

The monster outmatched him in every single measurable way, speed, strength, endurance, even raw resilience, and the only reason he was still alive was because the creature lacked long-range attacks.

Another pulse of mana surged from Joey, and for a moment the world was washed in an orange tint as the ambient energy swelled unnaturally. The air itself seemed to vibrate with potential, and Jacob risked a glance toward Joey, only to feel a bitter, near–hysterical laugh bubbling up inside him.

Joey was ascending, technically, but he looked barely conscious, his breath coming in ragged gasps as blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Less than half the allotted time had passed, yet Jacob could see the mana actively fighting against him, disrupting the process and forcing him to clutch desperately at his cannister just to keep himself anchored.

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It really did look like they were going to fail; the signs were all there, spelled out clearly enough that Jacob no longer had to guess.

"Fuck, I hate doing this," Jacob muttered under his breath.

"And what exactly is this?" Yggdrasil's voice echoed in his mind, calm but laced with concern.

Jacob offered a tired, almost absent smile as the monster slammed its claws against the barrier again, the impact sending cracks spiderwebbing across its surface.

"Jacob, what are you doing?" Yggdrasil asked once more, sharper this time.

Jacob didn't answer. Instead, he reached deeper into himself, far deeper than any human was meant to reach. He pushed past the surface emotions, past instinct and thought, until he touched something like a massive conduit buried at the root of his mind.

Rivers of emotion flowed through it, fear, anger, grief, hesitation, and Jacob forced it shut. He cut it off entirely, sealing it as tightly as he could, leaving himself with only clarity, only purpose.

And then he gave himself a single command, one that swallowed up everything else.

'Stall the monster and help Joey ascend.'

The change was instantaneous. The faint smile vanished. The barrier shattered like brittle glass under the monster's next strike. The creature roared as its claw swept toward him. More monsters, three of them, rushed toward Mathew. Joey coughed out another thick mouthful of blood, teetering at the very edge of collapse.

And Jacob moved.

Jacob exhaled slowly, almost calmly, and a ring of runes materialized behind him in a single fluid ripple of motion. He didn't have the mana to sustain even half of them under normal circumstances, but Joey's ascension had saturated the air with power to the point that the runes drank it greedily, siphoning every loose thread of mana and leaving a faint vacuum in their wake.

He vanished. The monster's claws tore through empty air, shredding the stone where he had been standing, and Jacob reappeared beside Mathew. Four burning spears shot forward the instant he arrived, skewering the rank-ten monsters that had closed in on Mathew, pinning them like grotesque ornaments against the ground. Before the bodies even fell Jacob vanished again, the main monster's charge biting only dust as he reappeared beside Joey.

He placed a hand against Joey's trembling back, pouring the vast stream of borrowed atmospheric mana directly into him. The mana stone's volatile energy reacted at once, no longer clawing at Joey's core, but turning violently toward the intruding mana Jacob was channeling.

And in that brief moment of conflict, Joey regained enough control to steady the process; Jacob felt his core click into alignment, the surge stabilizing just enough for the ascension to continue properly.

He teleported a third time. This time he appeared directly in front of the monster, close enough to smell its breath and feel the heatless rage pouring off its skin.

He raised his blade, flames spiraling upward as the enchantment flared to life, shaping the fire into something combined with aura, dense, heavy, and tinged with a faint predatory haze.

"One final slash to end a life," he said, not dramatically but declaratively, like he was stating a simple fact.

Naturally, something so absolute meant nothing against a creature ranked above him, but the force behind the attack was still immense, far beyond what a rank ten should reasonably produce.

His blade came down in a single blur, and only then did the monster feel the temperature spike. It turned toward him mid-charge, confusion flashing in its eyes because it shouldn't have felt heat at all; heat and flame meant nothing to it.

But the sword struck its skull before it could process the sensation.

For the first time in its life, it felt the burn, brief, dim, almost inconsequential and yet that subtle, foreign sting did something far worse than pain ever could.

It made the monster feel fear.

It roared, loud enough to rattle the stone, and hurled itself backward with a speed far beyond anything it had displayed before, one massive hand clamped against its bleeding, faintly smoldering skull as it fixed Jacob with a look that brimmed with hatred and something less familiar: fear.

Jacob hit the ground hard, the impact sending a dull echo through the corridor, and when he tried to rise his legs simply failed, folding beneath him in a graceless heap. His skin had taken on a sickly pallor, drained of every trace of color, and although he had not been touched a single time, blood seeped from his nose, ears, and even the corners of his eyes. His mana reserves were empty, emptier than empty, almost torn raw.

"Mathew."

His voice came out flat, cold, stripped of every hint of emotion, as though he neither recognized the agony running through his body nor cared about the fact that he might very well die in the next few seconds. There was no pride in the impossible strike he had landed, no panic at his condition, just an empty, clinical command.

"Two minutes. Stall it for two minutes and I'll be back."

The moment the words left him he forced himself upright, moving with slow, deliberate precision. Now that Joey's mana overflow was stabilizing, the atmospheric mana was returning in thick waves, and Jacob shut his eyes, immediately slipping into a meditative absorption as if the monster roaring nearby was a distant concern and not an immediate threat to his life.

Mathew stared for a heartbeat, trying to piece together what he had just witnessed, but a single heartbeat wasn't nearly enough. What he did understand, however, was simple enough. First: Jacob was far, far stronger than he had assumed, even if achieving that strength required tearing himself apart. And second: Jacob was not normal at all, he was a lunatic, the same brand of lunatic Mathew saw in himself.

"…Alright," Mathew muttered, pushing himself to his feet with a strained groan. His katana was somewhere behind the monster, so he raised his arms instead, aura gathering thickly around them, nearly everything he had left. He looked at the monster and a crooked sneer pulled at his lips.

"Fine. I'll listen this once," he said, voice rough but tinged with a kind of reckless excitement. "Jacob showed what he can do. Now it's my turn."

Mathew flexed his fingers, aura crackling faintly around his fists. "Come at me!"

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