Raijin pressed his back against the cold stone column and tried to breathe as quietly as possible, which was a ridiculous thing to worry about considering the entire Monolith Forest was being torn apart only a short distance away.
Eliot sat beside him with his injured arm clutched tightly against his chest, his face drained of color and his lips pressed together so hard they had almost turned white.
Neither of them dared to move from behind the slanted monolith they had chosen as cover.
It was thick enough to hide both of them and wide enough to withstand the stray fragments that kept flying through the air, but Raijin had no illusion that it would actually protect them if either Saint decided to attack in their direction.
Another impact shook the forest, and Raijin nearly cursed when a crack spread across the stone at his back.
He leaned slightly to the side, peering through the narrow gap between their column and the one beside it, just in time to see the orange-haired Saint blur across the battlefield.
Usually, Raijin could follow fast things. He himself was fast after all, but the Saint did not simply move quickly.
His body seemed to skip through the distance in uneven bursts, as if every step was being hurled forward by an invisible force that accelerated him faster and faster the longer he remained in motion.
One moment he stood near a shattered monolith, and the next he appeared in front of the masked Saint, his fist already descending with enough force to bend the air around it.
The masked Saint raised his black blade calmly.
Stone moved before the strike could land. Not one pillar, not two, but dozens of thin slabs peeled away from the surrounding monoliths and layered themselves between him and the incoming fist, forming a wall so dense that it looked more like a mountain compressed into a single shield.
The orange-haired Saint did not stop. His fist struck the first layer, and for a split second nothing happened. But then, the impact accelerated.
A sound like thunder echoed across the forest as the first slab exploded, followed by the second, then the third and the fourth, each one shattering faster than the last until the entire wall burst apart in a violent wave of black fragments. T
he masked Saint slid back several meters, his robes fluttering from the force, but even then his posture remained steady and almost insultingly calm.
"We have to run..." Eliot whispered, his voice hoarse and weak.
"Shut up, one wrong move and we are minced meat!" Raijin hissed immediately, though there was no real bite behind the words. His eyes remained fixed on the battle, his mind desperately trying to understand what he was seeing.
The orange-haired Saint's ability had to be related to speed. Every movement he made seemed to build upon the previous one, each step feeding the next, each strike arriving with more force than it should have possessed.
Yet the masked Saint was just as terrifying in a completely different way. He barely moved, but the entire forest moved for him intead. Monoliths twisted, cracked and bent under his orders, the ground rising in jagged waves, stone spikes forming out of nowhere and shooting forward like arrows loosed by a hundred invisible archers.
The orange-haired Saint vanished again, and this time the snow beneath his feet exploded in a straight line behind him, the entire trail flashing orange for half a breath before igniting from the pressure of his passage.
He appeared above the masked Saint with one leg raised high, his heel descending like a falling star.
The masked figure tilted his head and lifted two fingers.
The ground between them erupted upward, forming a thick pillar that rushed to meet the attack, but the orange-haired Saint twisted in midair and kicked the pillar sideways before his heel could touch it.
Raijin's eyes widened as the entire mass of stone changed direction instantly, accelerating so violently that it shot past the masked Saint and tore through five monoliths in a row before exploding somewhere in the distance.
'He can accelerate what he touches too,' Raijin thought. 'Not just himself.'
The masked Saint finally moved with more purpose.
He raised his left hand and the entire battlefield followed his command.
Every broken stone fragment scattered across the ground rose into the air at once, surrounding the orange-haired Saint in a dense sphere of jagged debris.
For a moment the fragments hovered motionlessly, each piece pointed inward like the teeth of some enormous mouth.
Then the masked Saint closed his hand and the sphere collapsed into itself.
Thousands of stone shards shot toward the orange-haired Saint from every direction, leaving no opening, no path, no space to dodge. Eliot's breath caught, and even Raijin felt his heart jump as the fragments converged.
A circular shockwave exploded from the center of the sphere.
The shards did not simply break.
They were flung outward faster than arrows, faster than bullets, tearing through the surrounding forest with horrible screams as they pierced monoliths and carved trenches into the frozen ground.
At the center of the destruction, the orange-haired Saint landed lightly on one foot, his armor marked by shallow scratches and his crimson-tipped hair drifting around his face. His expression had not changed much, but Raijin could see a faint line of blood running down his cheek.
The orange-haired Saint reached up and wiped the blood away with his thumb, staring at the red smear for a moment before exhaling slowly.
Something around him changed a moment later.
The smooth black armor covering his body shifted and separated along thin hidden seams, revealing bright orange lines beneath it that glowed like molten metal trapped under skin. The air surrounding him began to tremble. Loose stones near his feet vibrated, then slowly lifted, circling him in uneven orbits that grew faster and faster until they became streaks of dark light. His orange eyes brightened, and for a brief moment Raijin saw something behind the human shape, something narrow and predatory, with long limbs, a burning spine and a tail of light dragging behind it like the trail of a comet. Then the image sank into the Saint's body, and the ground beneath him cracked in a perfect circle.
Eliot swallowed with difficulty. "That's his Transformation?"
"I don't know," Raijin muttered, unable to look away. "Maybe. Maybe just part of it."
The orange-haired Saint moved.
Raijin saw the beginning of the step and the end of it, but nothing in between.
The masked Saint reacted instantly, dragging an entire monolith out of the ground and swinging it like a colossal club. The monolith was larger than a tower yet it moved as if it weighed nothing.
The orange-haired Saint appeared on its surface, running along the side of the moving pillar. Each step left a glowing footprint behind, and with every footprint the monolith accelerated further, its own momentum turning against its master. By the time the Saint reached the end of the pillar, it was moving too fast for even the masked figure to fully control. The orange-haired Saint stomped once, and the entire monolith shot forward like a spear.
The masked Saint raised his blade and the stone split in half. Both halves passed on either side of him, carving through the forest and crushing anything in their path.
Before the masked Saint could lower his weapon, the orange-haired Saint appeared directly in front of him and this time his fist landed true.
The impact struck the masked Saint's chest and released a burst of orange light that expanded in a narrow cone behind him, shredding the ground and shattering the monoliths in its path.
For the first time, the masked figure was thrown backward. He crashed through one pillar, then another, then a third, before vanishing into a storm of dust and broken stone.
Raijin's eyes widened despite himself. "He got him!"
"No," Eliot said immediately, his voice barely above a whisper.
Raijin looked at him, but the taller boy was staring at the battlefield with a terrified expression. Suddenly he pressed himself harder against the column, as if trying to disappear into it.
A second later, the entire ground beneath the orange-haired Saint turned black.
The cracked earth liquefied into a dark, glossy surface, swallowing his legs up to the knees before hardening instantly. Hundreds of thin stone hands burst out from the ground around him, grabbing his arms, waist, shoulders and throat with horrifying speed.
The masked Saint emerged from the dust with a dent in his chest armor, but no visible panic whatsoever. The crimson lines along his robes glowed brighter, and the broken halo around his head rotated slowly.
The orange-haired Saint clicked his tongue.
The hands tightened, the stone around his legs crawled upward and then his entire body accelerated.
Raijin had no better way to describe it.
The Saint did not break the restraints through sheer strength alone. Instead, every tiny motion he made became faster. His fingers twitched, and the hands gripping them shattered. His shoulder rolled, and the arms holding it burst apart. His knee bent, and the stone encasing his legs exploded outward.
The entire process happened in less than a second, but Raijin somehow understood that the Saint had performed dozens of movements within that tiny span of time, each one accelerated until it became impossible to see.
By the time the masked Saint raised his blade again, the orange-haired Saint was already free.
They clashed again.
This time Raijin could barely follow anything. Orange light and crimson-gold lines flashed between the monoliths as the two Saints tore through the forest. T
he masked Saint controlled the terrain with absolute authority, raising walls, spikes, chains, hands and blades from every surface around him. The orange-haired Saint meanwhile answered by accelerating himself through the smallest gaps, striking before defenses could form, touching enemy attacks only to turn their momentum against them.
A stone spear shot toward his head, and he tapped it aside with two fingers, making it accelerate sideways so violently that it impaled three other stone constructs before vanishing into the distance.
A wall rose before him, and he ran up its surface before stomping down, forcing the entire structure to collapse faster than gravity should have allowed. Every exchange looked impossible, and every impossible thing was answered by something worse.
Behind the column, Eliot was shaking. He had thought the golems were terrifying, that being hunted through the forest was the closest he had ever come to death.
But now, watching two Saints fight, he understood that death had simply been playing around earlier. This was different. This was the kind of battle where a Sleeper could die because a stray pebble flew too fast or because one monster decided to throw another monster into the wrong direction.
Raijin slowly lowered himself next to Eliot, finally tearing his gaze away for a moment. "Can you move?"
Eliot looked down at his arm and gave a strained smile that looked more like a grimace, "Maybe."
"Good enough," Raijin muttered, though he did not actually move yet. The barrier around the forest was trembling with every clash, and he could feel something loosening in the air, as if invisible chains were being snapped one by one.
Leaving now might be possible, but running blindly while two Saints destroyed everything around them sounded like an even stupider way to die than staying behind the column.
So he remained where he was, breathing through clenched teeth and watching through the narrow gap again, hoping that the orange-haired Saint would win quickly and that nothing worse would appear afterward.
The masked Saint suddenly stopped retreating.
For several seconds, he stood completely still while the orange-haired Saint circled him at impossible speed, striking from every direction.
Stone rose to block each blow, but the defenses were slower now.
Raijin almost thought the masked figure was being overwhelmed, but then the broken halo above its head pulsed once, and every monolith within sight responded.
A deep groan rolled through the forest as the colossal pillars began bending inward. Hundreds of them moved at once, leaning toward the battlefield like worshippers bowing before an idol.
The orange-haired Saint stopped moving for the first time in several minutes, his burning eyes narrowing as he looked around.
The masked Saint finally spoke.
His voice was low, distorted and strangely calm, carrying through the battlefield despite the distance. "Where is the Child?"
Raijin frowned, not understanding the words beyond the obvious meaning. Eliot looked just as confused, though neither of them had time to think about it.
The friendly Saint's expression changed slightly, and in the next instant he shot forward with more speed than before. The masked Saint raised his blade, and every bending monolith suddenly shattered at once. The fragments did not fall, instead they hovered above the battlefield, thousands upon thousands of jagged stones blotting out the pale sky.
The orange-haired Saint accelerated.
The storm descended in response.
And behind the cracked column, Eliot pulled Raijin closer to the ground as the world turned into thunder once more.