The battle crossed a threshold the moment Lunaria's aura surged again.
It wasn't sudden. It didn't explode outward like before. This time, it rose steadily, relentlessly, like a tide that refused to stop climbing. The air thickened until even breathing felt like resistance. The ruins of Lunaria City groaned under pressure that no longer came from impact, but from presence alone.
Ash felt it first in his spine.
Not pain—pressure. The kind that made instincts scream before thought could form. His vision blurred, then doubled, then fractured into afterimages that refused to align. He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to look anyway.
He failed.
Lunaria vanished from his sight entirely.
Not because he moved too fast.
Because Ash's eyes could no longer process him.
Kael staggered back, boots scraping against broken concrete. His breathing came shallow and sharp, chest tightening as though an invisible hand had wrapped around his ribs. He had faced dragons. He had stood before city-level calamities and never flinched.
This was different.
"This… isn't speed," Kael muttered hoarsely. "It's like he's stepping between frames of reality."
Riven didn't answer.
Blood dripped slowly from his nose, staining the dust at his feet. His eyes were wide, unfocused, pupils straining as he tried—desperately—to keep up. Every time he thought he caught Lunaria's movement, it shattered into fragments, leaving behind only pressure and aftermath.
None of them could track the fight anymore.
They could only feel it.
The Queen's special son screamed, its psychic shriek ripping through the battlefield like a broken siren. It lashed out wildly now, abyssal claws carving through space, chaos energy detonating in violent arcs that flattened what little remained standing.
But every strike met nothing.
Lunaria reappeared above the monster without warning, knife already descending. Shadows folded inward, chaos compressed so tightly it glowed black-red along the blade's edge.
The impact didn't explode.
It erased.
A section of the monster's armored shoulder simply ceased to exist, sliced so cleanly that the surrounding abyssal energy lagged behind, rushing in a heartbeat too late. The special ant reeled back, screeching—not in rage, but in something closer to disbelief.
Lunaria landed lightly, one foot touching the ground as if gravity itself hesitated to claim him.
His aura surged again.
This time, the ground didn't crack.
It bowed.
Concrete sagged inward around him, spiderwebbing outward in perfect circles. Loose debris lifted into the air, caught in the gravity of his presence. Shadows clung to his silhouette like a second skin, while chaos energy spiraled around him in controlled, razor-thin streams.
Ash was forced to turn away.
His vision burned. His head throbbed violently, a migraine blooming behind his eyes. Every instinct screamed at him to look away, to kneel, to survive.
"I can't…" he whispered, teeth clenched. "I can't keep my eyes on him."
Kael dropped to one knee without realizing it. His sword slipped from his grip, clattering uselessly against the rubble. The pressure pressed him down, not violently, but absolutely—like the world itself had decided he was no longer allowed to stand.
Riven followed moments later, one hand braced against the ground, breathing ragged. "This is… Overdrive," he forced out. "But not like the System describes. This is—"
He stopped.
Because Lunaria moved again.
The special ant lunged, forcing its abyssal and chaos reserves beyond stability. Its body cracked and reforged mid-motion, muscles tearing as it accelerated, claws slashing with desperate precision.
For a fraction of a second—
It matched Lunaria.
Knife met claw.
The collision detonated in a silent implosion, space folding inward before violently snapping back. The shockwave flattened everything still standing within hundreds of meters. Ash, Kael, and Riven were hurled backward, bodies tumbling across rubble until they slammed into broken walls.
The city screamed.
At the center of it all, Lunaria didn't move.
He leaned slightly into the clash, wrist rotating just enough to redirect force instead of absorbing it. Shadows tightened. Chaos compressed. His aura spiked again, climbing higher, denser, sharper—layer upon layer stacking without collapse.
The special ant froze.
Its claw cracked.
Not shattered.
Cracked.
A sound like splitting obsidian echoed through the ruins.
Lunaria stepped forward.
The pressure multiplied.
The monster tried to retreat, instincts finally screaming danger. Its wings beat furiously, but space itself resisted, folding inward under Lunaria's aura. Shadows latched onto its limbs—not binding, not restraining—simply denying escape.
"You keep reaching for power," Lunaria said calmly, voice cutting through the chaos with terrifying clarity. "But you don't understand it."
His eyes lifted.
There was no rage there.
No mercy either.
Only certainty.
The System pulsed violently within him, Overdrive fully engaged, limiters long since disengaged. But Lunaria wasn't losing control.
He was refining it.
Every breath aligned energy. Every heartbeat synchronized shadow and chaos. His presence continued to expand, pressing against reality itself, testing how much the world could endure.
Ash couldn't look anymore.
He turned his head away completely, hands shaking. "This isn't a fight," he said hoarsely. "It's an execution."
Kael nodded weakly, forcing himself to stay conscious. "None of us… could step in. Not even if we wanted to."
Riven swallowed hard, eyes fixed on the ground. "If we get any closer… we'd die just from standing near him."
At the center of the battlefield, Lunaria raised his knife.
The aura surged again—higher, heavier, more absolute than before. Debris vaporized. Shadows screamed as they twisted tighter. Chaos energy burned so hot it distorted color itself.
The special ant screamed.
Not in rage.
In fear.
Lunaria took one final step forward.
The world strained.
And the fight entered a realm none of the surviving hunters could even witness anymore—only feel, as the pressure crushed down on everything that dared exist nearby.