Beginning's fist followed, hammering the same spot. The old man gritted his teeth as fractures spread through the invisible shell. Lily's shadow loomed from behind, her mouth opening and closing in a broken rhythm as she forced her damaged body to move.

Prince's new shadows seeped outward, five more puppets forming, this time also from the demonic supernaturals that had already fallen.

The old man's eyes flicked around the battlefield.

Ghost. Beginning. Lily. The ants. The puppets. The human soldiers. The remaining demonic supernaturals.

And Michael.

His jaw clenched. Another tremor ran through his body. Poison seethed through his veins like molten tar.

He understood.

If he stayed in the middle of this circle, he would die here.

There was no more dignity in this fight, only the cold calculation of survival.

The next moment, something changed in his gaze.

The murderous light did not fade, but it cooled. Hardened.

Then he turned his back.

"...Huh?"

Varun froze.

Ruel's eyes widened.

Even Michael stiffened for half a heartbeat.

The Rank Four elder simply pivoted away from them. His tattered robes snapped as he stepped toward the far edge of the battlefield.

He was running.

"Is he escaping?" Ruel whispered, disbelief cracking his voice.

The answer came an instant later.

Space twisted in front of the old man.

Not the wide, heavy folding of a Domain, but a thin slit, a jagged scar in the air that tore open with a shriek of protesting reality. The frozen plains on the other side distorted into a narrow tunnel of warped light.

He stepped into it without hesitation.

"Stop hi...!" Varun began.

Ghost was already moving, mandibles screeching as he hurled himself after the old man. Beginning lunged as well, but the elder's body slipped through the crack like smoke.

The slit snapped shut.

The old man's presence vanished from the center of the battlefield.

He reappeared hundreds of meters away, staggering as he came out of the spatial tear, one hand clutching his chest. Black blood dripped from the corner of his lips, hissing as it hit the ice.

He had escaped the encirclement.

Michael's pupils shrank.

"How did he...?"

Then it hit him.

When the Domain had descended, it had swallowed everything.

The frozen plains. The sky. The undead. The demons. The soldiers.

And the human undead that had been holding the dome barrier.

Inside the Domain, that positioning had been erased.

When the mirror sea shattered, everyone had been thrown back into reality according to the Domain's fading influence, not their original arrangement.

Some undead ended up scattered.

Some demons landed farther away.

And the undead mage's anti-space barrier, which had already been forcibly overridden by the Domain, was in tatters.

Right now, there was nothing left that could truly cage a Rank Four's understanding of space.

The old man had seen that gap before anyone else.

Michael did not waste time cursing.

"Ghost. Beginning. Lily. Spartan. With me."

His voice cut across the battlefield.

Prince glanced at him, eyes flashing.

"You are chasing, Master?"

"Yes," Michael replied. "You stay here. Support the soldiers. Kill every demonic supernatural that tries to escape."

Prince nodded once.

Behind him, the shadow puppets spread like a black tide, surging toward the nearest demons. The soldiers, now breathing freely and no longer crushed by Domain pressure, rallied with a collective roar.

Varun whirled toward Michael.

"Boy!"

"I will not let him leave," Michael said, already moving. "If he escapes like this, all of this will have been meaningless."

He did not explain further. There was no time.

He blurred from his location.

Behind them, the battlefield exploded into a separate storm.

Prince's puppets slammed into demonic supernaturals who had been moments away from charging Michael's exposed back. One demon tried to flee, only for a shadow to shear through his legs.

"Push them back!" Varun shouted, spear sweeping outward in a wave of light. "Do not let any of them escape!"

The humans and undead formed a brutal wall, sealing off the battlefield in layers.

Michael did not look back.

His focus was on the figure in the distance.

The old man stumbled across the ice. Every step left a smear of black blood. Spatial distortions trembled around him, trying to rise into another protective shell, but each attempt collapsed halfway as the poison gnawed at his control.

He clearly wanted to open another crack and flee farther.

Michael could not allow that.

He activated Phase Shift again.

The world blinked, and he was suddenly far closer, so close he could see the elder's shaking shoulders, the faint tremor in his raised staff.

The old man heard the air tear.

He looked back, eyes burning with poisonous light and hatred.

"You still chasing me?" he rasped.

"You came for me and attacked," Michael said. "Did you think I would let you walk away?"

The Venomfang Spear leveled, its tip locked on the elder's chest.

The old man stared at the spear tip for a long breath.

Then he laughed.

"Idiot boy," he rasped. "Still playing hero for the federation?"

Michael's eyes did not shift.

The old man tilted his head, shoulders shaking with another low, hoarse chuckle.

"You really think they will thank you for this?" he asked. "You really think they will watch you grow and smile and clap like proud parents?"

He spat black blood onto the ice.

"The federation. The associations. The old clans. The races outside this little planet. All of them are the same." His gaze sharpened. "They do not nurture things they cannot control. They cage them. Or they break them."

He lifted his staff slightly.

"They will fear you," he continued. "That talent. That army. That ridiculous potential." His lip curled. "Today you killed a Rank Four that should have erased all of you. Tomorrow some old monster in the federation will read a report and ask a simple question."

His eyes bored into Michael.

"How do we chain him? And if we cannot chain him, how do we remove him?"

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