Nitya gazed at the surroundings. Every single pair of eyes on the rooftop was locked onto her. Her heart was throbbing, beating faster with every passing second.
She had never felt this trapped before. She had escaped situations far more messed up than this, yet she had never once thought of herself as truly cornered. But here, she could see powerful Cultivators surrounding her on all sides—people who could easily kill her if she made even the slightest mistake.
However, she knew they wouldn't.
I am a precious resource to them.
That realization alone made her grin beneath her mask as she looked back at them.
But that wasn't the end of it.
The Breath Mark on her body was also theoretically protecting the alliance she had made. They couldn't simply go against a Breather Mark. It was an absolute contract. If their greed for her became strong enough to make them break it, they would have to sacrifice their own men, their souls, and even the Cultivation Realms they had spent years building just to withstand the backlash of destroying the Mark.
And that meant letting Nitya go.
Most importantly, Nitya wasn't someone who could simply be looked down upon. She had already built a formidable reputation within the underground Breather world. She was like a ticking time bomb. If anyone touched her carelessly, everything they had built could vanish with her.
And when the dust finally settled, she would be the one laughing last.
Vidyut, on the other hand, had none of this. His reputation had not even begun to form.
"Sir Kant, you are crossing the line. You are framing us just because we didn't follow your blind orders," Vidyut projected smoothly.
Yet, beneath his calm facade, Vidyut was desperate. He was not showing it physically, but feeling the suffocating, concentrated greed surrounding them, his body was trembling. His gaze shifted toward the two supreme monsters in the distance—Dhyan and Diya. He had never wished for Kruti to be by his side more than he did right now.
"Huh?"
Kant looked at him with a bored, condescending expression, not believing a single word he said. He glanced at Nitya and saw that she hadn't even flinched. But when he looked back at Vidyut, he could smell the faint, metallic scent of fear.
"Are you messing with me?"
Kant vanished as he spoke, his voice booming across the air. In the blink of an eye, he materialized directly in front of Vidyut.
It happened so suddenly that Vidyut didn't even have time to flinch or step back. He stood frozen, his eyes widening as he saw Kant's knife thrusting violently toward his shoulder.
CRACK! CRACK!
Vidyut stopped the knife with a materialized sword. He glared at Kant, his lips twisting into a snarl as the muscles in his arm strained against the heavy impact. At the same time, he could smell the polluted, mixed essence of Kant's Cultivation radiating from the blade.
"Hehe, how did you do it, huh, Mr. Pursuer?" Kant curled his lips into a wide, sadistic smile. "Not hiding anymore, are you? How did you stop my knife?"
One strike after another clashed in the air. Vidyut dodged, blocked, and parried. But just because his movements looked smooth didn't mean he wasn't struggling. It was quite the opposite. He was gasping for air, enduring the crushing weight of Kant's continuous strikes.
The mercenary's movements were too fast for Vidyut to track visually. He could only catch them at the absolute brink of impact, relying entirely on his Breathing Authority to sense the directional intent of each attack before it landed.
If not for that instinct, he would already be dead.
"Shut up. You tricked us by giving us a fake Mark," Vidyut grunted, parrying another heavy blow.
Vidyut had realized the trap the exact moment his Breath Mark failed to react when Kant attacked him. If the Mark had been genuine, Kant's arm would have been blown apart by the backlash of betraying an ally.
But nothing happened. There was only one logical explanation.
The Mark was a fake, and Vidyut was trapped in the center of a hostile army without any protection.
"Hehe, what are you blabbering about Marks for? Don't make me say it out loud," Kant replied, his strikes becoming faster and heavier with every passing second.
However, Vidyut also began getting used to the rhythm. With every single exchange, his mind grew sharper, adapting to the speed and weight of Kant's strikes. He was actively getting better as the fight continued, even as the air grew heavier and the atmosphere became blisteringly hot. Invisible fire seemed to rage through the air around them.
Neither of them was backing down.
Sweat streamed from their bodies as the surrounding crowd stared at the brutal beauty of the fight in absolute amazement. They were mesmerized by the battle, holding their breath as flashes of Authority and Essence clashed violently against one another. Yet, barely any of the onlookers could actually process what was happening at that speed.
"He is strong, huh?" Nitya whispered to herself, genuinely surprised to see someone hold their own this well.
She had never seen anyone fight quite like Vidyut—someone who systematically learned and evolved while the fight was actively progressing. And he wasn't merely learning.
He was beginning to dominate.
"He is predicting him." Nitya finally understood the mechanic after observing him carefully. She realized how he had started the fight purely on the defensive, and how he was now guiding Kant's strikes along the same predictable paths.
I have to distance myself from him if I don't want to end up going against him in the future, Nitya realized coldly. I shouldn't even think about playing around with him like I did when I was testing him.
She had remained silent for years after joining the university. Though it had been an interesting game to play with Lavanya and Yug whenever she felt bored, things had completely changed now. Lavanya had changed. And now, Nitya's only true prey was Yug.
"Girl, submit yourself."
Nitya felt a violent tremor run through her nervous system just from hearing the deep voice beside her. It made her instantly realize that she had miscalculated; she had been far too confident in her own backup.
She had never thought he would approach her directly. She hadn't predicted that woman, Diya, would actually leave him alone to do as he pleased.
Nitya slowly shifted her pupils to the side, then turned her head to look at the man.
He had a neat beard, long black hair, and fathomless dark eyes. He possessed handsome, aristocratic features, pale skin, and an average-height, muscular build. He looked to be around thirty. He showed absolutely no expression, his deadly, serious gaze fixed squarely on Nitya.
She analyzed him from head to toe.
A man of few words. Am I going to die?
She froze, her hands trembling slightly. His concentrated essence alone was enough to physically suppress her without him even needing to take a step closer. She could barely move or breathe.
Yet, her Breather instincts flared, her Authority automatically accessing and analyzing his essence, allowing her to slowly push back against his invisible suppression.
"Have you never met a Pursuer before?" she asked.
She had a mask on her face, yet she made sure her voice did not stutter. Revealing her weakness to him was the equivalent of losing her life. She made sure not to appear as someone who could be easily thrown aside.
After all, pride was a Breather's absolute, defining trait—the one core belief they followed above all else.
Never let another suppress you.Even if death comes for you.
Nitya had noticed that Diya had left the perimeter, and she accurately guessed that the two leaders had come to a quiet agreement. Dhyan and Diya must have made a deal to split the remaining targets equally.
That meant Diya's targets had changed to Lavanya and Kruti.
As for her current situation, Nitya knew she had to abandon her calm facade and fight for her life alongside Vidyut. Otherwise, she would be captured by a Cultivator and forced to beg for assistance just to survive.
And she absolutely refused to do that.
"Tsk!"
She clicked her tongue, deeply unwilling to fight him. She knew that in a direct clash of raw power, she would lose.
His Realm was impossibly pure compared to the other Cultivators on the roof. Although his essence was still technically "mixed" when compared to a Breather's pure inner passion, his physical body had already been refined to an entirely different plane of existence. Invisible, crushing pressure filled the air around him, making his presence feel terrifyingly heavy.
"Just submit to me, or it will be painful," Dhyan warned.
His expression remained completely serious, his body perfectly relaxed yet tense with coiled power. He could see the building frustration behind her mask.
Dhyan could predict her movements easily. She was already on the absolute brink of losing her patience, almost ready to burst. At the same time, his peripheral vision remained on Kant and Vidyut. Kant had visibly begun to struggle against the masked man's predictions.
"Do you think I'm weak?!" she shouted in pure rage, having had enough of his condescending tone.
His words felt as though he were whispering them directly into her ear, sending involuntary goosebumps rippling across her skin. It only made her more furious.
His arrogance was getting on her nerves, and her blood boiled at the direct challenge to her Authority.
SHSHSHSH…
She dashed through the air. A sonic boom erupted as the wind exploded around her, and within a fraction of a second, she was already standing directly in front of Dhyan.
Dhyan's eyes widened a fraction of an inch as he saw her fist coming toward his face. The movement appeared slow to his eyes, but he could immediately sense the sheer, raw strength behind it—far beyond what he had predicted for her level.
More importantly, her Breather strength was pure enough to actually damage him.
BANG!
Space itself seemed to shatter beneath her fist, yet Dhyan tilted his head, easily dodging the lethal blow by a millimeter.
She didn't stop there. She unleashed a torrential flurry of strikes—left, right, up, down—weaving devastating kicks into her punches. Every single strike carried her full strength. She was giving him everything she had.
She was boiling with absolute rage.
Yet, Dhyan continued dodging her attacks fluidly, barely putting in any effort. He merely observed her movements closely, as though he already knew he had won the fight before it even began.
The crowd watched them in absolute awe.
Nitya was getting faster with every passing second. Her rage, strength, Authority, and essence were all synergizing, rising exponentially. She was passively building her power with every second she remained in combat.
As she fought, hushed whispers began spreading rapidly through the crowd of Cultivators.
It was as though they were witnessing a miracle from an entirely different world—the absolute pinnacle of the cultivation world they had been living in, yet had never truly understood.
They couldn't believe their eyes. They were seeing a level of purity and passion they had always struggled to reach, something they had only ever dreamed of. And right in front of their eyes, this masked woman was tearing her own body apart just to reach it.
"Let's join her!" one Cultivator suddenly yelled, entirely captivated by her display of pride.
"Shut up!" another snapped.
"What? Are you blind or something? We are from the Knight Colony!"
"What are you saying?! Don't you see it? She has all the core beliefs of a true Knight! Can't you see? She isn't afraid! She is facing him head-on!"
"Don't you understand you fool?! She is going against Lord Dhyan! Lord Dhyan—the absolute mystery of our Knight Colony!"
"Don't say another word! I'll personally kill you and anyone else who goes against our Order!"
A tense, suffocating silence returned to the crowd.
Yet, their hearts were beating faster, pounding louder against their ribs.
Excitement coursed through their veins, sending goosebumps across their bodies. They were witnessing the exact kind of pure, unyielding warrior they had once dreamed of becoming when they first started their paths.
And she was fighting for her life right in front of them.