"Look out!"
The instant he saw the Crownless wind up that lethal point-blank punch, Rover didn't hesitate. His Grappling Hook fired, the cable latching around her waist, and he hauled the other Rover straight into his arms.
The collision was unavoidable. She slammed into him with a force that belied her slender frame, a body that by all appearances shouldn't have been capable of trading blows with a Tacet Discord. But the situation left no room for lingering on how she felt pressed against him.
The Crownless was already in pursuit.
Its killing blow had missed, and fury radiated off it in waves. Wings snapped wide and a storm of dark violet feathers erupted outward, each one laced with Havoc energy and screaming through the air no slower than bullets.
Both Rovers raised their swords in the same breath, blades carving through every last feather before it could land.
"Don't waste the time-stop. Save it for when it counts," he said between strikes.
"Got it!"
She understood immediately. Her first instinct had been to freeze the Crownless's punch with the Temporal Mandate, but that would've been overkill for a dodge. The ability was their strongest card: offense, defense, crowd control all in one. Its only weaknesses were the brief duration and the cooldown that followed.
Over ten seconds between uses. It didn't sound like much, but in a fight where a single heartbeat could decide the winner, every second was a lifetime.
Holding one in reserve kept the pressure on their enemy. Made it think twice.
"Let's get a feel for its rhythm first," he said.
"Then we find the opening and end it."
They reset their stances and threw themselves back into the fight against the Crownless's second phase.
"How... how are they still fighting like that?"
Baizhi stared at the battle unfolding before her, disbelief written across her face. The two Rovers showed no sign of being affected by the Crownless's Frequency distortion, even as her own was spiraling toward collapse.
This enemy was beyond terrifying. Its mere existence disrupted the Frequencies of everything around it, inflicting weakness, confusion, and fatigue on anyone nearby. She could barely stand. Outside the barrier, Yangyang and Chixia were in no better shape, their heads ringing, legs buckling beneath them. Fighting at the level these two Rovers were displaying was unthinkable.
"Is this enemy... some kind of ultra-high-tier Whisperin?"
The question slipped out as a murmur. Tacet Discords weren't classified by strength alone; they were also categorized by type. Whisperins were born from absorbing massive quantities of human Frequency, granting them forms that mimicked human anatomy. Some could even replicate human behavior to a degree.
But this...
"Even for a Whisperin, mastering human language and combat technique to this extent is absurd!"
Baizhi had dedicated years to studying Tacet Discords. She'd never encountered a Whisperin that could imitate humanity so completely. Tacet Discords were mindless creatures, driven by instinct alone.
A Tacet Discord with a will of its own...
The only thing that came to mind was a Threnodian. Born alongside Civilization itself, growing stronger as humanity grew stronger. An enemy that stood equal to the Sentinels.
The name alone sent ice through her veins.
"Could this Tacet Discord be connected to a Threnodian?"
She forced herself upright, limbs trembling. Her combat ability was compromised, she knew that. So her eyes stayed locked on the two Rovers, ready to provide healing the moment it was needed.
Even now, the researcher's mind couldn't stop working. Thoughts raced through her skull, assembling the puzzle despite the crisis.
"This Tacet Field itself is anomalous."
Tacet Fields naturally generated large volumes of chaotic Frequency, which spontaneously coalesced into Tacet Discords. Depending on scale, a single field might produce anywhere from dozens to over a hundred of them, most at Common or Elite Class.
Yet this field had produced only one.
The Crownless's power and uniqueness far exceeded any ordinary Tacet Discord. It was as if every drop of chaotic Frequency in the entire field, enough to birth dozens or hundreds of creatures, had been funneled into a single vessel. That alone would explain its overwhelming strength.
The realization made her pulse spike.
"No, wait. That's not all."
A single field's worth of chaotic Frequency wouldn't account for this level of power. But then it clicked.
Years ago, a Tacet Discord of catastrophic strength had appeared near the Gorges of Spirits. The casualties had been staggering. The surrounding terrain had been reshaped by the violence of the battle, forcing every state in Huanglong to mobilize reinforcements.
It had taken the Sentinel Jué herself, descending upon the battlefield alongside a mysterious hero, to finally bring the creature down. The Tacet Discord was later classified as Overlord Class.
Maybe this one absorbed the residual Frequency left behind by that Overlord Class Tacet Discord, along with the Frequencies of every human who died here. That would explain everything.
Baizhi turned the theory over in her mind. Every blow the Crownless landed was lethal enough to kill an ordinary Resonator outright. The only viable strategy she could imagine was wearing it down with overwhelming sustained firepower.
Which brought her to the new question.
Against a monster this terrifying, these two Rovers were fighting it to a standstill. More than that, they were adapting, reading its patterns, and starting to push it back.
"Who on earth are these two?"
She watched their backs as they moved in perfect concert, the question falling from her lips like a prayer.
...
"Alright, I've got its rhythm down."
"Same. Our turn now."
The Rovers deflected another barrage of strikes. The Crownless swept through the darkened sky on its wings, pale armor gleaming, the dark violet lance in its grip driving home thrust after thrust.
Every attack carried killing intent. The ground beneath them had cratered and buckled from the sheer force of their three-way clash. But compared to the opening exchanges, both Rovers moved with fluid ease now.
They fought back to back, covering each other's blind spots.
The Crownless dove from above, lance aimed to impale.
The impact rang like thunder.
Rover met it head-on, his sword catching the lance with everything he had. The collision sent a shockwave rippling outward, and both combatants felt the shock numb their hands to the bone.
The Crownless rocked backward, balance broken for a fraction of a second.
But Rover had his partner's back braced against his. She absorbed his recoil with a single step, and in that same instant launched herself at the staggering creature without a heartbeat's hesitation.
One to parry. One to punish.
The Crownless reeled, scrambling into retreat. Its wings beat savagely, conjuring a violet tornado on the ground below.
"Echo, resonate with me!"
She activated the Temporal Mandate without flinching. The tornado froze in place, suspended mid-spin. A second later, she detonated the stored temporal energy and the whirlwind blew apart into nothing.
Seeing her burn her ultimate, the Crownless seized the opening and charged straight for her.
She smiled.
"Echo, resonate with me!"
His cooldown had come off at the perfect moment. A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
The unspoken coordination between them needed no words.
She'd burned her ability on purpose, knowing his was ready. The tornado was never the point. It was bait. The Crownless took it, lunged in, and slammed face-first into his time-stop. Locked in place. Unable to move.
Had the creature kept its distance, used its second-phase speed and aerial advantage, landing a time-stop would've been nearly impossible. But it had come to them.
The prey had walked into the trap.
"Now! Together!"
They pressed their backs together, swords raised. In the next instant, their silhouettes vanished from sight. Only the shriek of Originite: Type II cleaving the air filled the Tacet Field.
Three seconds. A hundred new slash marks carved across the Crownless's body. The arm gripping its lance fell away, severed clean.
"How... is this... possible..."
Even for a boss-tier Tacet Discord built to endure punishment, this was a death blow. The moment the time-stop released, the Crownless's knees buckled. It knelt before the two Rovers.
It had once been called the harbinger of endless war.
A creature drunk on slaughter and starving for victory.
The symbol of strife and sacrifice, of corruption and dread.
And now, kneeling before two humans, something it had never felt before flooded through its Whisperin Core.
Fear.
Two Rovers was too damn unfair.