Henry crouched for a heartbeat, observing the chaos around him.
Steel pillars spun past, Caius lunged with raw force, Blyke moved recklessly but Henry didn't flinch. His mind worked at a scale no ordinary combatant could grasp.
Every fragment of marble, every floating altar shard, every beam of reflected light from Agripha's vanished Lambda shield, every human reflex in the cathedral—it was all data.
In less than a second, he... Henry memorized positions, velocities, angles and potential trajectories.
He recognized the monster's gesture. Caius's attacks were unrelenting but not random; his brute strength relied on instinct and simple efficiency. Henry saw the consequence of every strike in the environment. How air would flow, how debris would ricochet. He constructed an entire battlefield map mentally, projecting the next dozen moves for every participant.
Every variable no matter it is force, resistance, rebound, even the faintest pressure of air in the cathedral's warped space... was accounted for.
He could predict not just what Caius would do, but what he would become if a particular sequence of events unfolded. It was horrifying in its scope, a preternatural foresight grounded entirely in observation, pattern recognition and ruthless logic.
Meanwhile, Blyke charged, throwing fists, trading blow for blow with Caius. Fists collided, reverberating through the cathedral, sending shockwaves that rattled suspended stone and shattered floating debris.
Every punch was massive yet precise, the air itself cracking under the force. Caius's elbows swung like wrecking beams, Blyke countered with twisting uppercuts and spinning hooks.
Each strike tore into the marble floor or ricocheted off floating altar fragments. Scarlet lines flared along Blyke's arms as he met Caius toe to toe, their clash lighting up the cathedral with kinetic brilliance.
Henry's mind raced, plotting the sequence; a subtle angle of debris, a timed pivot, a shockwave redirection.
The plan he constructed could funnel Caius's brute strength against itself, turning the environment, even his own reckless momentum into a trap. All he needed was the perfect timing.
All he needed was the right moment...
Blyke's next punch connected, a deafening explosion of energy and the battlefield seemed to hold its breath.
Henry didn't rush in. He adjusted the battlefield carefully from a distance.
The cathedral floor fractured under each step. He charged, faster than before with unfiltered rage turning him into a living siege engine.
Henry stepped sideways. Not to dodge to reposition the things up.
"Blyke. Left pillar, in three seconds."
Blyke didn't question it. He disengaged mid-clash, taking a brutal forearm to the ribs which made him shake,
But he still twisted toward the cracked support Henry had already memorized. Caius pursued, blinded by momentum.
Henry grabbed a fallen steel rod and hurled it—not at Caius but at the ceiling beam Caius had weakened earlier.
The impact shifted weight distribution across the fractured structure. Invisible stress lines snapped.
Caius swung at Blyke. Blyke ducked.
The pillar behind him collapsed forward to force Caius to pivot.
Henry had calculated the exact angle. The debris redirected Caius's charge sideways into shattered marble. He got up again.
He tore free of debris and lunged straight at Henry. Henry didn't retreat. He stepped into Caius's range intentionally.
"Now."
Blyke struck Caius from behind with a full-force kinetic burst. Not to knock him out, to tilt him two degrees off balance.
That was enough.
Caius's own forward punch collided with a half-toppled steel beam Henry had angled minutes earlier. The rebound torque twisted through Caius's shoulder.
His stance buckled.
Henry moved in close and drove a precise strike to the diaphragm, right where overextended musculature left a fraction of vulnerability.
Caius dropped to one knee. He tried to rise again. Henry didn't give him the chance.
Each time Caius pushed past his limits, Henry reshaping the field.
Until even a monster ran out of breath.
In a battle of death, Murderer of Death always wins.
Caius rose on both feet again. His stance tightened narrower now.
A tremor ran through his spine, not from rage but activation. His nervous system ignited.
Motor neurons began firing at abnormal synchronicity. The inhibitory signals that normally prevent muscle overdrive were suppressed.
The cerebellum recalibrated in real time, trimming reaction latency. His visual cortex filtered unnecessary stimuli, isolating only threat vectors. Pain receptors dulled. Reflex arcs shortened.
It was a neurological override.
He was accelerating the processing speed of his next sequence of attacks, compressing decision-making into near-instinctive execution.
A few seconds only. But within that window, he would move faster than his body should allow.
Agripha, watching from above, laughed.
"Neutron Dash."
Caius vanished forward with compression of motion. Three steps became equal to one for them. The cathedral floor cratered behind him.
He wasn't charging randomly. He was calculating a target point. Henry saw it.
There was... Cagaro positioned at a specific angle, aligned with fractured marble, open air behind him.
The perfect vector for maximum acceleration without obstruction.
Arcee reacted instantly, launching forward to intercept without any second thought but Cagaro shoved her aside.
"No—!"
The impact came before the word finished.
Caius's fist struck Cagaro's head with velocity multiplied by neurological overdrive and full-body torque.
The force detonated on contact.
There was no graceful fall. No cinematic slow motion. Just a brutal, sickening explosion of bone and blood.
A red burst in the air. Fragments scattering across shattered marble.
Cagaro's body collapsed as if strings had been cut from a puppet. Arcee froze.
Agripha's laughter echoed from above, sharp and delighted.