Rell tuts his tongue. "A real shame, mind you I just decided I'd let you live."
Bein watches from the shadows. "Dang and I thought these fellas would win, well they were interesting for the few days they were around." He begins walking away.
But for a reason unknown to him he stops. He thinks to when Kaito had saved him just a few hours prior. When he had called him friend. "No, Bein, he's a human you can't be friends with humans." He said beginning to walk again.
He sighs. "Well, I guess I can buy a little time, until the strong lady gets here. Not because he's my "friend" but because I owe him one." Bein explains to no one but himself.
He reaches into the little bag he keeps at his side and he pulls out a weapon of some sort. "Good ole fire wire."
He tosses it at Rell, an explosion engulfing the area as fire fills the field. Bein swirls his hands around swirling the fire into his palms.
Dashing forwards through the grass his tiny body helping him stay hidden. Bein leaps into the air blasting all of the fire at Rell. Reaching into his bag once more to grab something else.
But Rell quickly spots him using gravity magic in him aswell.
Bein groans. "This is why I don't get involved!"
Toni smiles at him anyways. "Hey that was really cool friend!"
Bein rolls his eyes. "Whatever were dead anyways."
Kaito smiles at Rika. "Don't worry about us, i'll still save you I promise."
Rell rolls his eyes. "Save her? Are you really that dense?" Rell says.
As he was about to begin monologuing a flash of something flew by them all snatching Rell by the face. He was drug through the ground before being thrown slamming into a nearby wall.
The two guilds respectively are surprised by the sight. The thieves are shocked. "Who's that now?!" They question.
Grape scoffs. "That's some washed up ex adventurer."
Haruko landed in the middle of the battlefield with a bright smile, brushing a bit of dust from her shoulder as if she'd simply arrived late to a meeting.
"Washed up?" she laughed. "How rude!"
Rell pulled himself from the wall, coughing once before dropping back onto the ground. He drew his twin swords, spinning them in his hands as gravity magic slowly began to distort the air around him.
"I'm not afraid of some washed-up lady."
Haruko drew her dagger, casually twirling it between her fingers before glancing back at Kaito with a grin.
"Hey, if you don't mind, I'm gonna show off a little." She pointed a thumb toward him. "The newbie's watching, and I don't get opportunities like this very often."
Rell scoffed. "Then I'll make sure it's embarrassing."
The pressure around the battlefield suddenly increased. Gravity slammed down onto Haruko with enough force to shatter the stone beneath her feet, sending cracks racing across the floor as she was driven to one knee.
Rell smiled as he looked down at her. "All that big talk, and you lost to my first move."
Haruko's groan slowly turned into laughter. It started quietly before she laughed loud enough for everyone to hear, placing a hand over her face as she struggled to compose herself.
"Oh..." she sighed, wiping a tear from her eye. "You actually thought that was serious?"
She planted one hand on the ground and stood back up, stretching her shoulders as though the crushing gravity had been little more than an inconvenience. "Kidding."
Before Rell could react, Haruko disappeared.
She crossed the distance between them in an instant, forcing him to raise both swords just in time to block a devastating punch. Even after stopping the blow, the impact launched him across the battlefield, carving two deep trenches through the stone before he stabbed both blades into the ground to stop himself.
His arms trembled from the force. "...Impossible."
Haruko smiled. "Those cute little tricks aren't gonna cut it."
Rell clicked his tongue before flipping backward and bringing both swords together. Hundreds of enchanted nails erupted from the blades, flying toward Haruko in a relentless barrage that swallowed her completely.
The sound of metal echoed throughout the jungle.
One after another, every nail split cleanly in half before it could even reach her. Haruko's dagger flashed so quickly it became impossible to follow, leaving nothing but perfectly sliced pieces of metal raining harmlessly onto the ground around her.
She looked down at the pile of broken nails with a disappointed sigh. "Really? I thought there'd be something interesting."
Rell charged in himself, refusing to give her another opening. His swords blurred through the air as gravity magic accelerated every swing, each strike faster and heavier than the last. Horizontal slashes, thrusts, overhead strikes, he attacked without hesitation, forcing enough power into each blow to split apart the floor beneath them.
Haruko met every attack with effortless precision.
She ducked beneath one slash, stepped around the next, and casually parried another with the edge of her dagger. Every movement was small and controlled, as though she wasn't fighting at all but simply humoring him. The more Rell attacked, the calmer she seemed to become.
"This all you've got?" she asked with a smile.
Rell growled before suddenly throwing his hand into the air. The ceiling groaned.
Dozens of massive boulders ripped free from the ruined fortress and came crashing toward Haruko from every direction. Before the first one could reach her, her dagger flashed once, then twice, then again. Each swing carved through solid stone as though it were paper, reducing enormous chunks of rubble into clouds of fine sand that drifted harmlessly across the battlefield.
Rell refused to stop. More rubble rose into the air, entire sections of broken walls following behind it as he continued pouring magic into the attack.
"Come on," Haruko sighed while weaving through the destruction. "Do something else already. This isn't gonna work."
She stepped through the storm of falling debris as if taking a casual walk before suddenly appearing directly in front of him once again.
Rell barely had time to widen his eyes before Haruko buried her fist into his stomach. The air exploded around them.
Rell folded over her arm as blood escaped his mouth, but before he could even be launched away Haruko grabbed him by the shoulder, pulling him back toward her.
"Oh no," she said with a grin. "I'm not finished yet."
She drove her elbow into his jaw, spun with the motion, and followed it with a kick that shattered several of his ribs. His body bounced violently across the battlefield, smashing through broken pillars before rolling to a stop.
Haruko slowly walked after him. "You rely on gravity way too much," she said. "What happens when somebody stronger just decides it doesn't matter?"
Rell forced himself back onto one knee, breathing heavily as every part of his body screamed in pain. His vision blurred while he looked up at Haruko, finally taking a proper look at her face.
"This woman..." he muttered. His eyes slowly widened. "...Washed up?" Recognition struck him all at once. "No..." His voice trembled. "You're no washed-up old mage..." He stared at her in disbelief.
"You're the Queen of Destruction... the strongest of the Unevolved."
Haruko rolled her eyes. "Looks like you've done your homework." Her smile disappeared.
The playful warmth she'd carried throughout the fight vanished instantly, replaced by an expression so cold it sent a chill through everyone watching.
"But I know who you are too, Rell Smith." She slowly walked toward him, each step echoing throughout the jungle.
"You've taken jobs all across the Liberty Region, and even into the Clove Region. You've robbed noble families, slaughtered innocent civilians, and left entire villages in mourning. Everywhere you go, all you leave behind are bodies and grief."
She stopped only a few feet away. "A man buried beneath so much sin..." Her eyes slowly began to glow.
"...So tell me, Rell." The air became deathly still. "Are you afraid of the dark?"
Darkness erupted from Haruko's body like a tidal wave.
It spread across the battlefield in every direction, swallowing the light itself as enormous tendrils of shadow burst from the ground. They tore through shattered walls, wrapped around broken pillars, and split the earth beneath them as if the world itself could no longer withstand her presence.
The overwhelming pressure forced every remaining thief onto their knees.
Weapons slipped from shaking hands. Some couldn't breathe. Others couldn't even raise their heads.
Even Rell's gravity magic collapsed beneath the sheer weight of Haruko's mana, the invisible force binding the others disappearing as though it had never existed.
Kaito stood frozen. His heart pounded so hard he could hear it in his ears, yet he couldn't take his eyes off her. This wasn't just overwhelming magical power anymore.
It felt like standing before the embodiment of judgment itself.
The darkness behind Haruko slowly gathered together, rising higher and higher until it formed the outline of a colossal throne overlooking the battlefield. Countless glowing violet eyes opened within the sea of shadows, silently watching every person present while the tendrils coiled around Haruko like loyal servants awaiting a command.
She stood at the center of it all, looking down on Rell with complete indifference.
"And let this be known," she said, her voice echoing unnaturally throughout the jungle. "The Queen of Destruction is old news."
The throne behind her expanded as the shadows continued swallowing the battlefield.
"My name is Haruko Yami... the Judge."
Her glowing eyes locked onto Rell.
"You've spent your life believing you could escape the consequences of your actions." She slowly raised her dagger, the darkness around her responding to the movement like an army answering its ruler. "But every criminal stands before a judge eventually."
The tendrils stretched toward every thief in the room.
"And today..." A cold smile spread across her face. "...my court is now in session." Silence consumed the battlefield. No one moved. No one dared speak.
The only sound that remained was the endless whisper of the darkness surrounding Haruko as every person present realized the same terrifying truth.
The battle had ended the moment she arrived.