CLASH!
The sound of blade meeting blade split the air.
Kendal spun, his heart slamming against his ribs, just in time to see Jerom’s blade crashing against Malakai’s sweeping scythe, stopping it inches from cleaving his throat clean open.
His eyes widened. His instincts screamed at him. He leapt backward, his boots scraping violently against the stone floor as he skidded away.
“What the hell!” he yelled, but his voice was swallowed by the chaos.
No one heard him.
Not Malakai. Not Jerom.
Their focus had tunneled in on each other and everything else had ceased to exist.
Their gazes locked. Calculating.
No words.
Only the glint of steel and sparks that flared in jagged bursts, dancing in the reflection of their eyes, scattering like starlight across the polished floor.
The tension was suffocating.
Kendal’s hand brushed the spot where the scythe had nearly grazed him. His heart pounded.
“I almost died…” he muttered.
But then, the sparks stopped.
Malakai loosened his grip mid-clash. The sudden release sent Jerom’s blade surging forward, pushing the scythe back.
But Malakai wasn’t done. His left arm shifted. The scythe slid smoothly along his back before his right hand seized its staff mid-motion, redirecting it into a downward strike from a completely new angle.
The blade came crashing down like a guillotine, aimed straight for Jerom’s skull.
Jerom’s eyes widened. His pupils dilated.
‘What the—!’
Even in the heat of battle, he knew what he saw. The movement was too fluid, too seamless, too perfect. It looked effortless, almost casual.
But in reality, it was impossibly calculated, something only someone who’d dedicated all his life to training could pull off.
‘That wasn’t just reflex… He’s more dangerous than I thought.’
Jerom’s thoughts raced, but his body had already reacted.
His fingers clenched the hilt.
“Synaptic Overload.”
A pulse flared behind his eyes. Lightning flooded his nerves.
Time slowed.
His senses sharpened.
Every detail became vivid, the twitch in Malakai’s jaw, the shift of his weight.
CLANG!
Jerom’s blade snapped upward, parrying the scythe in a flash of sparks just as it neared his skull.
Their faces lit up in brief flashes of silver. But even as they clashed again, Jerom’s mouth parted, and his voice broke through the static of metal.
“Kendal!” he shouted, eyes blazing. “He’s betraying us because of the riddle! You saw it yourself, he just tried to kill you! We take him down first and think about everything else later!”
Kendal froze.
His expression darkened. Eyes sharpened.
He was a brute, true and through, a member of the Tauron Clan. Their traits were combat and instinct.
But he wasn’t a fool. He could tell blatant right from wrong. And right now, he knew what side the blade had swung from.
His lips parted.
“Muscle Form: First Gate.”
A deep pulse surged through his veins.
His muscles ignited, veins bulging, tendons tightening like coiled ropes. His frame bulked up in a second.
The ground cracked beneath his heels.
BOOM!
He shot forward like a cannon blast, sword tearing from his back mid-charge.
He brought down the flat side of the blade in a roaring overhead cleave aimed to crush Malakai.
But despite what many would think, Malakai didn’t panic. He didn’t even blink.
Before Kendal had even moved, Malakai’s body was already shifting.
He dashed forward, closing in on Jerom.
Kendal’s blade slammed into the ground, shattering stone in a quake of debris.
But despite the chaos, Jerom’s eyes glinted.
Malakai had just closed the distance between them, rendering the advantage of his long-range weapon almost obsolete in close quarters.
He had no intention of letting this chance slip.
His arm snapped back before thrusting forward with air-splitting speed.
But then, his eyes widened.
Before the thrust even reached full extension, Malakai had already moved, as though he knew that this was going to happen.
His body dipped, his back bending at an impossible angle, as he slid beneath the thrust, the blade cutting nothing but empty air.
Jerom’s pulse jumped. His mind raced.
Something was wrong. Malakai wasn’t just reacting to their movement, he was reading them like he already knew what came next.
“You slippery snake,” Kendal growled, letting go of his large sword. In the next instant, he surged forward with momentum, appearing in front of Malakai, who had just begun to rise from his dip.
Malakai’s eyes shot wide.
CRACK!
Kendal’s shoulder slammed into Malakai’s torso like a battering ram, driving the air from his lungs in an explosive gasp.
But Kendal didn’t stop.
He pushed, driving Malakai backward with sheer brute force, arms locked around him, surging forward like a charging beast.
Malakai struggled, he tried to move, to shift, but Kendal had him pinned.
Every attempt to twist away met unyielding muscle. Kendal’s grip was iron.
Malakai’s head turned slightly and saw the wall rushing toward him.
‘He wants to ram me into the wall.’ With the speed at which they were moving, he doubted if there’d be any bones left unbroken if he hit that wall.
But despite the chaos, his thoughts were eerily calm.
‘I have to escape.’
His gaze dropped to his utility belt.
Both his hands were pinned down, but his fingers were close. Close enough.
His hand dipped into a small leather pouch at his side, the Devil’s Fruit sack.
His fingers closed around the half.
‘The timing has to be perfect.’
He focused, calculating their momentum, mapping the trajectory.
Then, his wrist twisted, flicking the Devil’s Fruit up in an arc over his shoulder and into the air.
The wall came closer. Seconds left.
But Malakai’s eyes snapped up, and opening his mouth, he caught the fruit mid-air and instantly sank his teeth into it with a savage bite.
BOOM.
A surge of power detonated in his veins. Heat tore through his body like wildfire.
His muscles bulged. His blood roared. His eyes sharpened.
“HRAAAAH!”
In one violent burst of strength, he drove his foot down hard into the ground, carving a crater into the floor.
A pulse of energy erupted beneath him as he pushed back against Kendal’s grip.
Kendal’s eyes shot up, shocked by Malakai’s sudden power.
But before he could react, Malakai blasted out of Kendal’s hold like a cannonball, shoving his arms to the sides.
Malakai’s eyes sharpened as two words thundered in his mind.
‘Three seconds.’