The sky fell.
That was the only way Raijin could describe it as countless fragments of black stone descended upon the battlefield.
Each shard was different. Some were small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, while others were as large as carts, slabs of ancient monolith torn apart by the masked Saint's control and sharpened into thousands upon thousands of cruel edges.
'No, not thousands,' Raijin's mind corrected itself with horror as he stared through the narrow gap between the columns. There were too many to count. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands. Maybe millions.
The entire forest had become a weapon, and every single piece of it was now falling toward the orange-haired Saint with enough force to erase anything beneath it.
The orange-haired Saint stood in the middle of the collapsing storm, his body surrounded by twisting orange distortions while the molten lines beneath his black armor burned brighter than ever before.
For a single breath, Raijin thought the man would accelerate again, that he would simply vanish from the center of the attack like he had done so many times already.
But the masked Saint had clearly accounted for that.
The ground beneath the orange-haired Saint had turned into a dense, glossy black surface that clung to his feet, and from every nearby monolith, thin stone chains shot out and wrapped around his limbs, waist and throat. He shattered some of them immediately, his accelerated movements turning several restraints into dust before they could tighten properly, but more came.
The entire forest seemed to be holding him in place, even if only for a moment.
And that moment was enough.
"Ah, shit," the orange-haired Saint muttered, his voice somehow carrying through the thunder of falling stone.
Then the air around him burst into flames.
Raijin's eyes widened as a massive shape erupted from the inferno behind the Saint, wings unfolding so violently that the nearest projectiles evaporated before they could reach the ground.
Fire rushed outward like a living tide, golden and orange and crimson all at once, flooding the battlefield with unbearable heat.
From within that blaze, a colossal bird screamed into existence.
Its body was larger than several monoliths placed together, covered not in feathers exactly, but in long burning strands that moved erratically. A crown of fire curved backward from its head, its eyes glowing like molten suns, and each beat of its wings sent waves of heated air rolling across the forest.
The great bird wrapped its wings around the orange-haired Saint a split second before the first wave of projectiles struck.
The impact swallowed everything and Raijin felt the shockwave that followed before he could even hear it.
It slammed into the column with enough force to crack the stone behind his back and tear the breath out of his lungs. Eliot was thrown sideways, his injured arm twisting in a way that made him scream through clenched teeth.
The world became nothing but heat, dust, sound and pressure.
Stone fragments whipped past them, some embedding themselves into nearby monoliths while others carved through the ground, leaving glowing trenches where the force of their passage had heated the ground into molten rock.
Raijin tried to curse, but all that came out was a strangled gasp as another wave of force struck the column and nearly knocked both of them into the open.
For several seconds he could not see anything.
The gap between the monoliths had been filled with dust and orange light, and the battle beyond had turned into a thunderstorm of breaking stone and roaring flames.
The phoenix screamed again, this time in pain, and the sound cut through Raijin's skull like a heated blade. He forced one eye open, blinking away tears caused by the heat, just in time to see the great bird burst out of the storm with its wings partially torn and several long strands of flame-like plumage scattered behind it.
It did not fly upward. Instead, it shot low through the forest, moving between the monoliths with surprising grace for something so massive.
Its burning body scraped past the ancient pillars, and wherever its fiery fur touched the stone, black surfaces cracked, hissed and glowed red.
"Raijin!" Eliot shouted, but Raijin had already seen it.
The phoenix was coming toward them.
For one absurd moment, he genuinely thought the Echo had mistaken them for enemies and was about to incinerate them. His spear started manifesting in his hand on pure instinct before his mind caught up and reminded him how useless that would be.
The phoenix descended with its wings spread wide, its burning eyes locking onto them with frightening intelligence.
Heat washed over the two Sleepers so intensely that Raijin felt his skin sting, yet it did not burn them. The flames curled around them like living hands, pulling back just enough to spare their bodies while still making every breath feel like inhaling through a furnace.
"Get down!" Raijin barked, though he had no idea why, because there was nowhere to get down to.
The phoenix reached them.
A massive claw made of fire and golden light swept beneath the two Sleepers, not cutting or crushing them, but scooping them up from behind the column.
Raijin's stomach dropped as the ground vanished beneath his feet. Eliot shouted something that turned into a half-scream as both of them were lifted into the air and thrown onto the creature's back.
The surface beneath them was not solid in any normal sense. It felt like fur, long and thick and impossibly hot, but there was no flesh beneath it. His fingers sank into the burning strands without being burned to ash, though pain still shot through his palms as if he had grabbed the surface of heated metal.
He immediately clutched harder anyway. Falling off seemed much worse than getting in the way of the two monsters below in his eyes.
Eliot landed beside him with a pained groan, his good hand desperately grasping a handful of flaming plumage while his injured arm dragged uselessly against the phoenix's back. His face had gone from pale to almost gray, sweat and blood mixing along his jaw as he struggled to keep himself from sliding off.
The phoenix beat its wings once, and the force of the motion nearly tore both boys away.
Raijin cursed so loudly his throat hurt, wrapping one arm around a thick ridge of flame-like fur and pressing his entire body flat against the Echo. The forest around them blurred into streaks of black stone, white frost and orange fire.
And behind them, the Monolith Forest exploded.
Raijin twisted his head just enough to look back and immediately regretted it.
The masked Saint had not allowed them to escape freely.
Dozens of monoliths bent toward the phoenix as if they had become living things, their massive stone bodies groaning under the strain as they leaned across the path like the fingers of a colossal hand. Some tried to close around the Echo from the sides, while others rose from the ground in front of it, forming barriers and cages of black stone.
The phoenix answered with a furious cry, its wings folding close to its body as it dove between two collapsing pillars.
The tips of the monoliths smashed together behind them, sending a shockwave through the air that threw Raijin's body upward for a split second before he slammed back down onto the burning back.
"Hold on!" Raijin screamed, mostly because screaming was the only thing left to do.
"I am holding on!" Eliot screamed back, his voice filled with panic and pain.
A line of stone spikes erupted ahead of them, each one taller than a house and sharp enough to tear through the phoenix's body if it struck.
The great Echo did not slow.
Instead, it rolled sideways mid-flight, its enormous body twisting between the spikes with grace while its flaming tail cut through several of them and turned their tips into glowing rubble.
Raijin's entire world tilted. For a moment the sky was beneath him and the forest above, and only his death grip on the burning fur stopped him from being flung into open air. Eliot was not as lucky. His hand slipped, and his body slid across the phoenix's back, his legs dangling over the side for a terrifying breath before Raijin released one hand and grabbed him by the collar without touching the skin.
"You owe me twice now!" Raijin shouted, yanking him back with everything he had.
"Please just pull me up!" Eliot screamed, clutching the fur again with his one usable hand.
The phoenix shot through another gap between moving monoliths as the two boys screamed, but the stone around them was becoming faster and more organized.
It was no longer merely trying to block them, but chasing them.
Entire pillars tore themselves free from the ground and glided through the air behind the Echo, propelled by the masked Saint's will like gigantic spears.
Smaller fragments gathered around them, forming swarms of jagged projectiles that curved after the phoenix.
And several managed to hit its side.
Flaming strands scattered into the air, and the bird cried out again, its body dipping lower for a moment before regaining height.
Raijin felt the tremor pass through the Echo beneath him and realized with fresh horror that even this majestic creature could be hurt.
Then something landed on the phoenix's back behind them.
Raijin felt the impact through the burning plumage and turned so quickly he nearly lost his grip.
A figure stood several meters behind them, one knee bent, one hand pressed against the Echo's back to steady himself.
For a moment the heat and speed made it hard to recognize him. Then the orange hair tipped with crimson came into view, whipping around a face now streaked with blood and dust. The Saint looked horrible. His smooth black armor was cracked in several places, one shoulder guard missing entirely, and a large gaping hole had been torn through his side, deep enough that Raijin could see blood spilling down his waist and vanishing into the fiery fur beneath him.
His breathing was heavy, his expression twisted with irritation, and several glowing orange lines beneath his armor flickered unevenly as if whatever power he had used was starting to strain his body.
Despite all that, the man still grinned. "You two alive?" he asked, raising his voice over the roar of wind and fire.
Raijin stared at the hole in his side. "Are you?!"
The Saint looked down at the wound as if he had almost forgotten about it, then clicked his tongue. "More or less, don't worry kiddo."
Eliot tried to shout something, but his words got caught in his throat as another swarm of stone shards tore past them close enough to make him flinch.
The Saint ignored him and turned toward the back of the phoenix, his burning eyes narrowing as he watched the moving monoliths pursuing them through the forest.
His smile faded slightly and only the irritation remained.
He raised one hand, and the air around his fingers twisted.
Several of the smaller stone projectiles chasing them suddenly accelerated sideways, their own momentum redirected so violently that they smashed into the larger floating pillars behind them.
Black stone exploded in the distance, but more fragments immediately gathered to replace them. The masked Saint was not giving up. Somewhere behind the storm of stone and collapsing pillars, he was still controlling the forest, still shaping it into claws and spears and cages.
"Annoying bastard," the orange-haired Saint muttered, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
The phoenix screamed beneath them and beat its wings harder, rising above a row of collapsing monoliths just as they snapped shut beneath it.
Raijin pressed himself lower, his eyes burning from the wind and heat.
The entire forest below looked alive now, with pillars bending, twisting and reaching upward like the limbs of stone giants.
The barrier that had trapped them earlier flickered in the distance, visible for a moment as a faint dome of distorted air before the phoenix slammed through one of its weakened sections. The world warped and Raijin's stomach turned violently before the suffocating pressure that had surrounded the forest finally loosened.
The phoenix burst out of the Monolith Forest like a comet escaping a collapsing world.
Behind them, countless pillars continued reaching after it, stretching impossibly far before finally cracking under the strain and crumbling back into the frozen land. Stone projectiles still followed, but their speed faltered the farther they moved from the forest.
The orange-haired Saint remained standing despite the wind and blood loss, his eyes fixed on the chaos behind them. After a few moments, he exhaled slowly and lowered his hand.
The phoenix continued flying over the frozen wasteland, its burning body leaving a trail of light across the pale sky. The heat surrounding it kept the cold away, but the two Sleepers still shook from exhaustion, fear and pain. Raijin glanced once more at the Saint's wound, then at the distant Monolith Forest shrinking behind them.
He had many questions in his mind, but his body and brain were slowly giving up on him, exhaustion taking over. Eliot was in a horrible as well.
The moment the two Sleepers understood that they are safe, their bodies collapsed, eyes shutting and their minds simply turning off exhaustion forced them to simply feint.