Now we shift to the other side — to Riyy.

  A heavy silence hangs in the air. No voices, no footsteps — only the faint rustle of leaves swaying in the soft wind.

  Riyy stands quietly in one place, and a short distance ahead of him stand the two brothers — Zerath and Kareth — each holding a blazing Urumi sword. After a long moment of stillness, Riyy lets out a slow breath.

  And at that exact moment, the two brothers explode into motion again — their unnatural speed slicing through the air as they start circling Riyy at lightning pace.

  Blue, electric energy streams off their bodies, and their movement is so fast it feels like they’re shattering the sound barrier itself.

  But Riyy remains unmoving. A strange calm in his eyes — as if fear, pressure, or doubt simply do not exist in his mind.

  While the brothers race around him, they suddenly strike — lunging from both sides like twin bolts of thunder, swinging their Urumi swords straight at him.

  But before the blades can land, Riyy vanishes. A heartbeat later — he appears high in the air. It isn’t magic. It’s pure speed. Speed so extreme it feels like he’s outrunning reality itself.

  Before Zerath and Kareth can even process it — Riyy vanishes again from mid-air and reappears directly behind Zerath.

  Right now, Riyy has become a silent flash — no shockwave, no whooshing wind, no sound. He moves in the empty space between sounds.

  Feeling Riyy’s presence behind him, Zerath whirls around instantly and unleashes a barrage of furious strikes with his sword. Every slash splits the surrounding rocks, tears apart the ground, and sends dust exploding into the sky.

  But when the dust clears — Zerath realizes… There’s no one in front of him. He spins around quickly — and sees Riyy standing right behind his brother, Kareth.

  Before Kareth can even process what’s happening, Riyy makes a light jump — and lands a brutal, perfectly silent flying kick straight into Kareth’s chest.

  Kareth goes flying, rolling past Zerath and crashing into the ground with a heavy thud.

  Seeing his brother thrown like that, Zerath’s eyes flare blood-red. His whole body trembles with fury.

  But Riyy? Still calm. Almost too calm — as if this power isn’t even close to his limit. A faint green, smoke-like energy begins leaking off his body.

  Zerath loses it. He unleashes over a thousand slashes toward Riyy — each one fierce enough to crack the sky.

  But Riyy handles it all with terrifying ease.Every blade is redirected with less effort than blinking an eye. He catches and brushes aside every strike like they’re nothing but harmless sparks.

  And then — time itself feels like it slows for Riyy. In a blink, he stops blocking entirely and appears right behind Zerath. Riyy stepped back and thought to himself:— “This is it… the absolute limit of my power.”

  Before Zerath can even turn, Riyy locks him into a perfect, clean Rear Naked Choke, arms tightening around his neck.

  Zerath starts choking, thrashing in panic. His eyes redden, and both of his Urumi swords slip from his hands and clatter onto the ground.

  Watching his brother suffocate, Kareth snaps. Enraged beyond control, he tears through the ground as he charges straight at Riyy, swinging both of his swords in a savage, desperate strike.

  But before the blades can touch him, Riyy leaps again — switching positions mid-air in an instant.

  Kareth’s slash misses Riyy completely… and instead slices straight through Zerath, cutting him into pieces.

  After cutting down his own brother with his own hands, Kareth went completely silent. A strange emptiness washed over his eyes.

  He stood there for a moment, staring at the torn pieces of his brother’s body lying in front of him. Instead of tears, blood began to pool in Kareth’s eyes.

  He suddenly dropped to his knees. Zerath’s blood flowed beneath his feet, soaking the ground.

  Then Kareth broke — his voice cracked as he burst into a raw, animalistic cry. Blood streamed down his cheeks instead of tears.

  Clutching his brother’s dismembered body, Kareth thrashed in the pool of blood in utter despair. Between desperate sobs, he screamed:— “Big brother… you can’t die… b-b-big brother… don’t leave me alone…”

  From a distance, Riyy stared at them wide-eyed. Seeing them like this made a thought echo inside him:— “Did I… make a mistake? I thought they were just killing machines… but they actually have emotions…”

  Before Riyy could process anything further, he noticed Kareth had stopped crying. Now his eyes were blood-red — shaking with madness, grief, and a terrifying rage.

  Slowly, Kareth lifted his head… and locked his gaze directly onto Riyy. Kareth’s entire body began trembling with rage — as if his fury had grown so massive it could touch the sky.

  He slowly pushed himself up, but he could barely stand; his body swayed left and right, like everything inside him had shattered… like he had lost everything he had left.

  With blood-red, razor-sharp eyes locked on Riyy, Kareth spoke in a cold, cutting voice:— “Y-you… you wiped out my whole family…”

  Hearing that ice-cold, soul-shredding tone, Riyy froze for a moment — instinctively taking one step back.

  Right then, a dark aura began swirling slowly around Kareth. His trembling grew worse, and his eyes faded into pure, blinding white.

  Suddenly — a monstrous scream ripped out of Kareth’s throat, so powerful the surrounding trees shook violently. Riyy’s fear spiked instantly.

  The force of Kareth’s terrifying scream tore the bandages off his face and body, sending them flying in every direction.

  And beneath those bandages — A body covered in old, burned, and twisted scars. Arms, legs, chest, face — every inch scorched, melted, mangled. Ancient wounds that had long dried now began bleeding fresh all over again.

  Kareth suddenly appeared right in front of Riyy — faster than the blink of an eye — and instantly swung both of his Urumi swords at him.

  Seeing Kareth get that close, Riyy was startled, and in that same moment, time seemed to slow down around him. He could clearly see eight blades slicing toward him from both sides.

  Just before they could reach him, Riyy pushed his full speed to the limit and leapt high — so high he practically vanished into the air.

  But from Kareth’s eight slashes, eight extremely powerful energy waves erupted, and those waves tore through the forest behind Riyy, splitting hundreds of trees into pieces.

  Witnessing such a terrifying slash, Riyy was completely shocked — and right then he noticed something else:

  Even though he dodged, fresh cuts had appeared all across his body… as if he hadn’t fully escaped the attack after all.

  Riyy immediately landed far away from Kareth, but Kareth didn’t stop for even a second. He rushed at Riyy again, unleashing continuous slashes.

  Dodging every attack, Riyy sprinted deeper into the forest, while Kareth chased after him with insane, storm-like speed — trying to slice Riyy into pieces.

  Kareth, now screaming like a beast starved for blood, charged forward wildly, cutting down every tree in his path like they were nothing more than vegetables.

  And Riyy, refusing to stop at a single spot, ran backward across the treetops, breaking the sound with his steps, dodging every slash while keeping his eyes on Kareth.

  Seeing Kareth’s demonic transformation, Riyy thought to himself:— “I have to stop him fast… or this fight is gonna spiral completely out of control.”

  Riyy gradually began slowing himself down, As soon as Kareth got close — he suddenly came to a complete stop.

  In that brief pause, Riyy slid one foot back and took a deep breath… and right then, time around him seemed to slow again.

  Green, smoke-like energy started rising off his body once more, And in the very next second — He dashed forward and smashed a clean punch straight into Kareth’s face, followed by a brutal straight power punch to the chest with his rear hand, then spun slightly and fired an explosive hook from the side.

  A perfect Jab–Cross–Hook combo — so fast it was practically invisible to the eye. Those three hits sent Kareth flying like a bullet, crashing through trees and tearing up the ground as he shot away.

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  With a bit of breathing room at last, Riyy stood still in one spot. The green smoke rising off him kept getting thicker, wilder, In a low voice, Riyy murmured:— “…Now.”

  The moment he said it, the entire ground began to shake. Power burst out of him like a violent storm. The earth under his feet was lifting, trees were being ripped out by their roots and hurled aside, The air itself felt heavy — dense — almost impossible to breathe.

  And Riyy’s eyes… they were glowing — pulsing — as if he had shattered his limit and stepped beyond it. Meanwhile, Kareth, wounded and trembling, let out a monstrous roar as he struggled back to his feet.

  Blood-tears began dripping from his eyes again — as if every ounce of pain inside him was bursting out all at once.

  Suddenly, Kareth lunged at Riyy with even more speed than before, wildly spinning his Urumi sword like a madman.

  The blades slashed through trees, the ground — and even tore into Kareth’s own flesh.

  But Riyy handled it all with unbelievable calm. He pushed aside each blade with his bare hands — as if they were nothing more than loose ropes.

  Once again, time slowed down for Riyy. In an instant, he appeared right in front of Kareth and began striking different parts of his body at lightning speed.

  He opened with two powerful jabs to Kareth’s shoulders, instantly throwing off Kareth’s control of his Urumi.

  Then Riyy unleashed a relentless barrage — Horizontal Elbow, Uppercut, Hook, Downward Elbow, Clinch Short Punch, Spear Elbow, Overhand — and countless more attacks one after another.

  To Riyy, everything felt slow. But to Kareth, the hits were impossibly fast — so fast he couldn’t even tell when the second blow landed after the first.

  Because of Riyy’s speed, his movements were nearly invisible. Kareth couldn’t process the pain — and everything around them was being shattered one by one.

  In mere seconds, Riyy completely broke him down. After enduring that overwhelming barrage, Kareth finally collapsed to the ground.

  Seeing him fall, Riyy stopped. He noticed Kareth could barely breathe, his entire body soaked in blood. Kareth couldn’t even move. Gasping for air, he whispered weakly:— “I’m… coming to hell…”

  Those were his final words. Right after saying them, he exhaled one last time and died. Riyy watched him die and slowly dropped to his knees.

  The fight was over, Riyy had won — but a deep pain rose in his eyes. His lips trembled. There was no victory in him after the death of those two brothers.

  Riyy lowered his head and sat there in silence. Meanwhile, on the other side, we shift to Nazar.

  The Emperor had pushed Nazar’s battered body even further. His clothes were soaked in blood, wounds everywhere, and he was struggling just to stand upright.

  Their fight had wrecked the entire area — broken pieces of the Hall scattered all around, thick dust hanging in the air, walls cracked and shattered in every direction.

  Through that swirling dust, the Emperor slowly walked out and stopped right in front of Nazar’s face. His eyes were cold — completely emotionless.

  Nazar coughed, swallowing blood as he tried to breathe. The Emperor knelt down in front of him and said in a calm, icy voice:— “What happened, young boy…? Looks like you can’t even stand properly anymore.”

  Nazar couldn’t respond — he just glared at the Emperor with pure rage. The Emperor continued:— “Well then… tell me something. Do you know what’s about to happen?”

  His tone suddenly sharpened — almost cheerful:— “Right this moment, thousands of my Gearborn soldiers are heading toward the city. And whoever they find… will die.”

  As he finished speaking, a terrifying metallic stampede echoed through the halls — thousands of Gearborn sprinting through the main corridor, racing toward the Exit gate.

  Meanwhile, the Emperor grabbed Nazar by the head and lifted him into the air.

  His voice turned cruel:— “Maybe more like you will come to stop us. Maybe we’ll even die someday… but before that happens, thousands in the city will already be gone.”

  He said this, then slammed Nazar across the hall. Nazar hit the wall hard, sending dust everywhere.

  At the same moment, the thousands of Gearborn reached the open Exit gate — and suddenly the entire gate slammed shut.

  The Gearborn immediately tried breaking through it together — but one by one, their bodies began to glitch, freeze, and collapse onto the floor.

  Even the Gearborn surrounding Haarun all suddenly dropped — like someone had ripped the batteries out of a bunch of remote-controlled machines.

  Then, across the entire base, a voice full of smug, razor-sharp attitude echoed:— “We know you’re gonna die…and I’m watching exactly how far you think you can go to destroy that city.”

  Hearing that voice, both of them froze — but Nazar was the one who went into deeper shock. It was like he recognized that voice instantly. In a trembling voice, he whispered:— “Th–this voice…”

  And then we see it — in different corridors throughout the base, countless torn-apart Gearborn corpses lying everywhere.

  Acidic smoke rising from the walls and floor, as if hell itself had passed through just seconds earlier.

  The control room gate was completely obliterated. Inside — bodies stacked on bodies, and in the corner lay that evil scientist, slumped dead, drenched in blood.

  And at the center of all of this… Standing before the main control panelwas a Bloodfang.

  A blazing, ember-red sword strapped to his back, his suit ripped, and on his face — a calm, cold-blooded serenity.

  As the hologram screen’s light fell across his face, it became clear who it was. None other than — Rayn.

  The scene cuts to another corridor. There, leaning lifelessly against the wall, was Varkion — his entire body soaked in blood, head hanging down, motionless. All around him lay piles of shredded Gearborn parts.

  Back at the console, Rayn stared at the hologram and gave a small, quiet smile — the kind that carried a terrifying confidence:— “This wasn’t a fight…”

  He tilted his head slightly, eyes unblinking:— “…this was a Hidden Game.”

  Now we move into the flashback. After informing the Varkion Control Center, Varkion walked out and started moving forward. Behind him, Rayn lay motionless — only the sound of Varkion’s slow footsteps echoed through the silence.

  Varkion had barely taken a few steps when suddenly Rayn appeared right beside him. And in an instant, time around Varkion began to slow down.

  Feeling Rayn’s presence so close, Varkion jolted in shock. He instantly jumped back and returned to a fighting stance, every muscle tense with alertness.

  Seeing Rayn standing there alive made his eyes widen even more. Then he noticed — the contact device that was supposed to be in his ear… was gone.

  Right then, Rayn raised his hand and showed it to him. Before Varkion could react, Rayn crushed the device right in front of him.

  Watching his own device get destroyed in Rayn’s hand, Varkion froze even harder in disbelief. How did Rayn get so close without making a sound?

  How did he remove the device — and Varkion didn’t feel a thing? Everything felt impossible. In a cold, slow voice, Varkion asked:— “You… are alive?”

  Hearing that, a mocking smile slowly appeared on Rayn’s face. Confident, calm, almost taunting, he replied:— “How am I alive?

  You really thought you could kill me that easily? Oh, please — I was just playing a little game with you.”

  Varkion asked in a sharp, serious voice— “Game… what kind of game?”

  Rayn stayed silent for a moment. Then, in a cold, confident, attitude-soaked tone, he said— “You’re not supposed to reveal your plans to your enemy… but in your case? Even if I tell you, you still can’t do anything.”

  With that, he pulled a faint smirk at the corner of his lips, lowered his head a little, and began explaining:— “At the start of the fight, when you were smashing me against the corridor wall… and then when we were running all over the base, back and forth…”

  Rayn lifted his head, now speaking clearly and directly:— “During that time, even while standing right in front of you, I was already breaking through your entire base’s security system. And at the same time — I wiped out your thousands of soldiers.”

  As Rayn finished speaking, Varkion slowly dropped his fighting stance and stood up straight.

  A strange smile formed on his face — he closed his eyes slightly, let out a small laugh, and asked:— “Nice plan… but how are you still alive? I saw you dead with my own eyes.”

  Hearing that, Rayn answered without hesitation:— “Oh, that? When you were beating me up, there was a moment where I pressed down on one of the veins near my heart. That caused my heartbeat to completely stop for a while.”

  Varkion chuckled at that. His laugh slowly sharpened into something excited and predatory. He said:— “Finally… a worthy enemy. Now I’ll actually kill you.”

  Right after finishing his sentence, Varkion didn’t waste even a second — In a flash, he stormed forward like a hurricane and landed a strong jab straight on Rayn’s face.

  The moment Varkion’s fist connected, a massive shockwave blasted through the entire corridor with a roaring whoooosh.

  Inside the acid-filled smoke, it felt like a vicious cyclone had exploded into existence.

  But when the cyclone finally calmed, Varkion saw — Rayn had tilted his head slightly to the side and cleanly dodged the attack. Not a hint of fear or worry in his eyes.

  With a faint smirk tugging at his lips, Rayn said casually:— “My name doesn’t mean Rayn… it comes from Rain. A cyclone can’t do anything to me.”

  Right after saying that, Rayn grabbed Varkion’s extended arm, twisted his body, and slammed him to the ground from the opposite side.

  The impact made blood spray from Varkion’s mouth — the floor and walls cracked open under the force. But Rayn didn’t waste even a single second…

  He immediately dove down in a curved line, going for a devastating overhand power punch from above. But right before it landed, Varkion rolled away at high speed and saved himself.

  And Rayn’s overhand was so strong that the entire corridor slowly started splitting apart from the force. Varkion grabbed his sword and, in the blink of an eye, appeared right in front of Rayn.

  He raised the blade above his head and brought it down with a Vertical Drop Cut — a pure intent to split Rayn straight in half.

  But before the strike could land, Rayn vanished from right before Varkion’s eyes and reappeared behind him.

  His movement was so calm — yet so unbelievably fast — that Varkion couldn’t catch even a flicker of it.

  Varkion didn’t stop. He instantly spun around and unleashed a Reverse Back Slash — and the attack blasted out a violent shockwave that rattled the corridor.

  But even that didn’t work. Rayn disappeared from behind him again and ended up standing calmly a short distance ahead — steady, composed, like some internal limiter had just been removed.

  Now Rayn was in a strange, deep silence — every slash, every high-speed strike Varkion launched, he dodged effortlessly, as if time itself had slowed down just for him.

  Varkion began trembling with rage. His body started erupting with raw, fiery energy. He gripped his sword tighter — and twisted it into its pure form: a Lightning Whip Sword. The electric-blue blade crackled like living thunder.

  Seeing that transformation, Rayn quietly released a blue flame-like energy from his own body.

  The air in the corridor grew heavy — tiny sparks flickering where their auras clashed.

  Varkion stepped back once, settling into his stance — and then launched himself at Rayn like a bolt of lightning.

  But just like before, Rayn evaded every whip strike, every lightning slash with ultra-fast reflexes — moving back just in time, slipping past everything — as if he had risen far beyond his own limits in this very moment.

  The two of them burst through the corridor again, darting back and forth like streaks of lightning. The energy pouring off their bodies flooded the entire hallway in blinding white light.

  Without a single pause, Varkion unleashed a relentless storm of deadly slashes at Rayn — shoulder-height cuts straight into an overhead smash, a waist-level 180° sweep, a rapid light slash followed instantly by a heavy finisher.

  Rising Upper Slash, Spinning Slash, Thrust, Horizontal Sweep, Dual-Stage Combo — one after another, firing out so fast it felt like the sword had caught fire and was dragging him forward.

  Each slash tore the corridor apart. The floor split open with sparks bursting out, the walls burned with molten metal dripping down in glowing lines.

  The long stretches of the base collapsed under the force of their attacks, dust and smoke swallowing everything. And in the middle of all that destruction — Rayn remained strangely calm.

  Sometimes ducking his head, sometimes bending his body, sometimes simply pushing Varkion’s blade aside with his bare hand — he dodged every attack with effortless ease, as if it were a game to him.

  That familiar joyful smile stayed on his face — clear as day: Rayn wasn’t dodging to survive… he was dodging because he was enjoying every second of it.

  As they fought, their impact shattered the floor beneath them, and both plummeted into the lower section of the base.

  The energy trailing off their bodies left behind two long blazing streaks — like two meteors dragging across the inside of the facility.