The shift was subtle at first, so subtle that even Lector almost missed it, but Heriot did not. The air around Enjin changed as though sothing within him had been unlocked rather than triggered.
His breathing slowed, his stance relaxed instead of tightening, and the faint strain that had shown earlier began to disappear, replaced by a quiet, controlled stillness that felt far more dangerous than his previous aggression.
It wasn't the exhaustion of a man nearing defeat; it was the calm of soone who had decided to stop holding back.
Heriot's eyes narrowed sharply as the vibrations he had woven into the battlefield began to distort unpredictably. His Sound System had been shaping perception, bending Enjin's awareness and disrupting his reactions, but now it felt as though those distortions were being resisted, no, not resisted, understood.
"Lector..," he said quietly, his voice low but urgent, "...sothing's wrong. He's adapting too fast."
Lector didn't respond imdiately, but the surge of energy around him spoke volus as the roots beneath floor began to thicken and multiply, preparing for a decisive strike.
"Then we end him now," he said firmly, raising his hand as the ground trembled in response, massive layers of reinforced roots spiraling together into a crushing formation designed to overwhelm Enjin completely.
The air grew tense, heavy with intent, as both Guides prepared to finish the fight before whatever shift was occurring could fully take shape. But they were already too late.
Enjin moved. Not with the explosive speed from before, not with reckless aggression, but with sothing far more refined. His body seed to glide forward without his will. Moving as if he had found a weak spot in his enemy.
The tallic fragnts around him no longer erupted wildly. Instead, they ford smoothly, seamlessly shaping themselves into extensions of his body that moved as naturally as his limbs.
Heriot reacted instantly, releasing a deeper wave of sound distortion, a far more invasive layer that targeted Enjin's inner perception directly.
"…I see it," he muttered quietly. His head tilted slightly, just enough and the illusion broke.
Heriot's eyes widened for the first ti.
"That's not possible—" he gasped in shock.
Enjin was already in front of him. The distance had vanished in an instant, his arm already shifting into a sharpened tallic blade as it drove forward with terrifying precision.
Heriot reacted on instinct, his Sound System spiking violently in an attempt to disrupt the attack at the last possible mont, but it wasn't enough.
The blade pierced through him clean and direct.
For a brief second, everything froze. Heriot's body trembled slightly, his eyes wide as the realization hit him not of pain, but of failure. The sound around him collapsed, the carefully constructed distortions fading instantly as his control slipped away.
"So this… this...th..is how…" he whispered faintly.
Enjin didn't hesitate his blade shifted and with a single fluid motion he tore it free. Blood spilled across the ground as Heriot's body collapsed, his form hitting the ground with a dull, final sound that echoed far louder than it should have in the sudden silence.
"Heriot!" Lector's voice cut through the hall, sharp and filled with a rare edge of anger as the reality of what had just happened struck him fully.
But Enjin didn't give him ti to react. His gaze locked onto Lector and in that mont, the killing intent behind it was undeniable.
The ground responded instantly as Lector slamd his hand down, summoning an enormous surge of roots that erupted toward Enjin in a layered, crushing wave ant to overwhelm him completely.
The attack was massive, far greater than anything he had used before, fueled by anger, the roots surged forward. But Enjin stepped into them. The tal around his body expanded again, but this ti it wasn't chaotic, it was controlled, dense, refined into a form that sliced through the incoming roots with brutal efficiency.
Every movent he made carved a path through the attack, his blade cutting, his body advancing, his presence pushing forward without hesitation.
Lector's expression hardened as he reinforced the roots again and again, layering them, thickening them, trying to hold the line but it was breaking.
Enjin was breaking through and in an instant he was right in front of him.
Lector's eyes sharpened as he prepared to counter at point-blank range, drawing every remaining ounce of his power into a final strike.
But before either of them could move, sothing else appeared a hooded figure. Silent but emitting a trendous amount of arua.
It stepped between them without warning, its presence so sudden, so absolute, that even Enjin paused not out of fear, but out of recognition that sothing had just disrupted the flow of battle completely.
The figure moved once, just once. And Lector felt it a force pulling him backward, not violently, but irresistibly, as though space itself had decided he was no longer allowed to remain where he stood. His body shifted instantly, dragged away from Enjin's range of shot.
Enjin's blade cut through empty air. His eyes narrowed slightly in disbelief.
"…You interfered!!" he said quietly. The hooded figure didn't respond.
It simply stood there, between him and Lector, its presence calm yet suffocating in a way that neither of the Guides had been.
There was no visible aura, no overwhelming display of power, yet sothing about it felt… wrong. Like it existed on a different level entirely.
Lector steadied himself a short distance away, his chest rising heavily as he processed what had just happened. At first Heriot's fall, Enjin's sudden surge in power, and now this unknown figure standing between life and death.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice sharp despite the strain in his body.
The figure remained silent. Enjin watched it carefully, his expression no longer calm, but focused in a different way now not as a predator closing in, but as one evaluating sothing unknown. Then he smiled faintly.
"Interesting," he muttered.
And for the first ti since the fight began he grinned widely.
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