After Tristan barked the name, a hand suddenly grabbed my collar and yanked me backwards.
Tristan and the lady clashed. The pure force alone was devastating — if he hadn’t grabbed me back, I would’ve been knocked out clean. Despite being pulled several meters away, I still felt the brunt of it, the shockwave rattling through my bones.
"Can you run?" The young man’s voice cut through the chaos as we jumped down from the platform.
He seemed to be in his mid-twenties. Lean build, sharp features, heterochromia — one red eye, one green — partially hidden beneath messy black hair that fell carelessly across his face.
I glanced back. My attention was on Lira.
He noticed immediately and snapped me back to reality with a sharp, almost casual tone — as if he’d known me for years, not seconds.
"Don’t worry, trust Tris. This is nothing for him." He paused, eyes narrowing. "Dispel your summon!"
I quickly gathered myself, remembering Emma. I sent a sharp mental command to Kassie while simultaneously dismissing Pyre Saint.
With a sudden explosion of force, she tore out of the mix of paladins, sending them all spraying into the air like ragdolls. Red tides — like a river of blood — flooded the ground, devastating everything around her and launching her forward in a crimson wave.
The guy next to me stared, eyes wide with shock.
I collected Emma from Kassie’s arms and immediately dismissed her. She vanished into a spray of red sparks. I turned to regard the man, Emma’s unconscious form cradled against my chest.
My gaze held his. Firmly.
"I’m not leaving without her."
His surprised expression coalesced into a frown. He looked almost pissed, but he stared deeply into my eyes — which didn’t falter, not even for a second. Then he exhaled, letting the frown dissolve.
"Tch... whatever."
As he spoke, he suddenly seemed to glitch. Then there were three of him.
’Clones.’
One grabbed Emma. Another grabbed me.
"I don’t want you slowing me down. We have to get you out of this city tonight."
Shock overran me as I was hoisted onto the shoulder by one of his clones, while another cradled Emma with surprising gentleness.
The paladins that Kassie had knocked down with her signature ability were already getting back up, pulling their lances free. Meanwhile, Tristan was on the platform, bombarding the lady in a relentless assault. I could hear the powerful ring of metal on metal — by the quality of the sound alone, I could tell that one of those blows would’ve shattered my common-tier gear. Maybe even torn clean through my chest.
The young man — Levi, I’d heard Tristan call him — walked forward with a small smile frozen on his face, his heterochromatic eyes glowing coldly in the rain. He glitched again, splitting into two.
Then he did something really strange.
He punched himself.
He groaned as though the pain hit the real him, but he didn’t stop. He literally bit himself, tore at his own flesh inside the rain and the darkened atmosphere, blood streaming down his face.
The scene was macabre. Even the paladins looked uneasy, shifting their stances.
He smiled through it — smiled and groaned with intense pain as he brutalized himself. Finally, he slowly stood up, raising his face into the gentle rain. He used his bloody hand to slick his hair backward, crimson water streaming down his face and neck.
Then he fixed a small, cold smile on the paladins.
I saw them instinctively stagger back.
Even from behind them, the air felt cold. Unnerving. It felt wrong in a way I couldn’t explain, like reality had bent slightly around him.
He said without raising his voice.
"Go. Someone’s waiting for you at the back gate."
He exploded forward as the order left his mouth. I watched him cover the distance in one powerful leap and descend on the paladins with a bare fist. The armor of the first unfortunate Light Paladin caved in like tin foil, and he rolled away across the sand, refusing to stop as he crushed through mud and dirt, leaving a trench in his wake.
Levi was already wrecking someone else as his clone carried me farther away. I caught a faint glimpse of Tristan moving like a literal hurricane, silver daggers flashing, forcing the lady into full-time defense.
Whoever these people were — Levi and Tristan — one thing was brutally clear to me as I was hoisted away by the clones.
They were strong. Truly strong.
’If only...’
I wanted to wish for their strength, but I stopped myself. Because the truth was, I had something comparable to theirs. Maybe even more powerful.
I was just stupid. Too in my head. Too fucking naive.
I never expected something like this. Even though I knew I wasn���t particularly safe, this... I’d thought about it all too shallowly. I’d assumed I had time. That I could figure things out gradually, like this was still some game with tutorial hints and second chances.
I gritted my teeth as pain lanced through my body, dangling against the rhythm of the clone’s galloping steps.
All of it was my fault. My misery — I’d caused it myself.
If I’d used the power I had, really used it, I could’ve cleared that gate in three days and been there to save Lira. If I wasn’t so weak, so naive, so unknowing of the true perils of this world...
Lira’s death was eye-opening in the most saddening way possible. Because it forced me to see that I’d truly arrived in another world. No police were coming to save me. There was no law, no father to swing his authority and make everything okay again.
There was absolute freedom.
And that freedom didn’t just mean everything was in my hands now. It also meant my misery, my pain, my vengeance — all of it was my responsibility. Mine alone.
I glared at the tall peak of the church as I was carried away into the darkness between buildings, rain streaking across my vision.
’I’ll destroy them. Every last one of them.’