The trees of the Hollow Verge groaned like old bones as Kael stepped through the underbrush.
Behind him, the rest of the strike team fanned out — three experienced adventurers from Elandor's Gold-tier reserve unit, plus Leiya at half-strength. They'd been dispatched to clear a suspected Varnok straggler nest, tucked beneath the remains of an overgrown shrine.
None of them spoke as Kael led the way.
They didn't need to.
His aura did all the talking.
Gone was the flickering Stormtrail cloak. Now, Kael moved with steady ignition — his Essence dense enough to displace mist as he walked. Leaves curled from the heat. The earth hummed with kinetic tension beneath each step.
Leiya kept pace beside him, blades sheathed for now.
"You sure you don't want to hold back a little?" she asked with a faint smile. "Let the others feel useful?"
Kael glanced sideways. "They'll be useful by watching."
It wasn't arrogance.
It was truth.
At the base of the ravine, the nest revealed itself: a shattered shrine, stone arches slumped into the roots, and a yawning cavity beneath, dark and breathing.
From within came a hiss — followed by a swarm of figures crawling into view.
Varnok.
Old models. Mid-tier.
Six of them — bone-plated, spine-crowned, twitching with wild Essence. Blaze-ranked, maybe one at early Ignis.
To the others, it was an ambush.
To Kael… it was a warm-up.
One of the Gold-rank adventurers, a hammer-wielder named Toren, stepped forward. "Kael—formation or—?"
Kael didn't answer.
He vanished.
Kael's movement cracked the sound barrier. The ground rippled from the launch, and a second later, one of the Varnok dropped — split in half, bisected by a Storm-charged elbow strike.
Another twitched—
But Kael reappeared behind it, hand outstretched.
"Breakforce."
A single kinetic pulse collapsed the Varnok's chest inward, folding it like paper. Essence shockwaves rippled outward, scattering the others.
The third tried to leap back — too slow.
Kael's form shimmered into Voltbreaker Ascension — a lightning-speed step that ended with a crackling slam into the target's spine. Paralysis locked it midair before Kael drove a crushing follow-up knee into its skull, shattering the bone from the inside.
The others never stood a chance.
Kael launched into Stormfire Whip Barrage, threads of storm-wrapped flame whipping across the clearing, carving through the remaining Varnok in synchronized arcs. Their limbs detached mid-lunge. Their Essence cores shorted out before they hit the ground.
It was over in twelve seconds.
Not one enemy landed a strike.
Not one team member moved.
Silence followed — broken only by the settling of dust and the slow return of wind.
Leiya exhaled beside him. "You really don't know how to take it easy, do you?"
Kael rolled his shoulders. "I didn't come here for exercise."
Toren stepped forward slowly, eyes wide. "That wasn't… Blaze-tier movement."
"It wasn't," Leiya said softly. "That's Pyre."
The team stared at Kael with a mixture of awe and unease — not fear, exactly, but awareness. The kind of silence reserved for something that wasn't supposed to happen this fast.
Kael holstered his weapon, but his Essence still glowed around him — restrained, but ever-present. His voice was quiet.
"Let's finish the sweep. We're not done."
As they moved deeper into the shrine cavern, no one questioned his orders. Not anymore.
Kael wasn't just stronger.
He was the one they'd follow into hell.