Monica’s eyes analyzed the space in an instant.

  The Scholar was at the center of the narrow lane, held by Nosfraet’s puppet just a few meters before her.

  Just beside her was the crashed Yellow Weaver, who had already taken his stance and was clearly ready to attack at any moment.

  Directly opposite him stood Nosfraet, while every other exit was sealed off by his dolls, leaving four puppets surrounding the area, ready to strike.

  As she processed this, Monica prepared her response. She knew the other party’s intent.

  Most likely, Officer Nosfraet will attack the bird mask first. His technique is shadow doll manipulation—they can appear from anywhere. But is there any limitation to how many he can control? He is already commanding four ready to strike, plus one holding the Scholar, and maybe six more blocking the passes. His condition also doesn’t look good. He must be exerting himself.

  The bird mask will know it, too. He’s hostile toward the one he called his accomplice. It’s subtle, but I can feel it. He’ll aim for him. But he’s right beside me. Which means—

  She ducked.

  A sphere of condensed light blasted through the space where Monica’s head had been.

  At the same moment, four of Nosfraet’s shadow puppets lunged at the Weaver. Two seized his limbs, swallowing his arms and legs into their dark, formless bodies.

  Before they could solidify their grip, their shapes twisted, elongating into worm-like forms studded with jagged, scythe-like mouths designed to rip and tear.

  The Weaver didn’t resist. He let them catch him, then spun violently in their grasp, using their own hold as a pivot. With a wet, shredding sound, the dolls were ripped apart into dissipating smoke.

  “Would you quit using these fragile pieces of shit?” he chirped, and triggered a mini-explosion in the direction of the two puppets still guarding Nosfraet.

  It was a feint. Before the flames cleared, he was already moving—a streak of green and yellow lunging toward the pinned Scholar.

  But the Scholar was not that harmless. He had not wasted his few moments of distraction.

  His threads of violence were already set. One sliced clean through the shadow puppet holding him, reducing it to tatters.

  Another web of threads swept across the ground, wrenching up cobblestones and rubble, weaving them into a dense, sudden wall reinforced by his mana.

  The wall slammed forward, meeting the Weaver’s gauntlet as he closed in, halting his advance for a crucial half-second.

  It was all the opening the Weaver needed. To unleash a single attack—one meant to burn the entire area to nothing, leaving no path of escape for anyone.

  His gauntleted fingers pointed past the rubble-wall, directly at the Scholar's chest. His voice twisted with glee.

  "Flame Spear!"

  As the words were uttered, the Yellow Weaver was smashed downward into the cobblestones by an immense, unseen force. The direct, enhanced fist of Monica impacted the back of his neck with a sickening crunch.

  "Gravity," she muttered.

  Every bone in the Weaver's body compressed under the sudden, overwhelming pressure. He was driven deep into the fractured stone. Fire blasts erupted from him in wild, panicked bursts, only to be smothered and flattened against the ground by the same invisible force that held him.

  On the other side, the Scholar felt his own body cease. His planned retreat became a struggle. The sudden, immense pressure forced him to one knee, tendons straining.

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  Monica’s gaze snapped to him in a flash.

  He acted on pure instinct. Threads, sharp as monomolecular wire, erupted from his sleeves in a net, aiming to decapitate her in a single, encircling slice.

  Monica didn't block; she flowed. She tilted her head, shifted her shoulders, turned her torso—each movement minimal, precise, effortless. The lethal threads shredded the ground and walls around her but found only air.

  In the space of a dodged breath, she closed the distance.

  Her hand locked around his throat.

  He twisted, desperate, his remaining threads whipping to ensnare her body. The strings of death touched the soft skin of her and were thrown back as if striking solid steel, disintegrating into dissipating mana as they recoiled toward the Scholar.

  She then drove him into the ground with a force that cratered the stone beneath him.

  The Scholar did not give up. With the last of his focus, he wove the remnants of his power.

  In the few feet of radius around her, he formed a cylindrical spear—a final, desperate construct of layered barrier magic and interwoven threads. It was his last gambit, to buy a single second to vanish.

  But his body still could not move properly under her spell. He remained knelt, the spear trembling in the air, his vision darkening at the edges.

  Nosfraet watched, his rage momentarily stalled by shock. "Force manipulation magic," he breathed, his voice a low rumble of astonishment. "How rare. I was not told she commanded something like this."

  A great, enraged howl tore from the crater. The Yellow Weaver, surrounded by a final, desperate detonation spell, roared against the pressure. He almost rose, mana flaring in a suicidal bloom.

  Nosfraet’s focus snapped back. He took the opening. A shadow puppet fist, solid as forged iron, hammered into the Weaver’s mask.

  Another doll pinned the Weaver’s arm. Nosfraet himself descended, sitting astride the killer, his own fists rising and falling with mechanical, vengeful fury.

  "For Dave," he growled, each word a punch. His anger was a raw, yielding thing.

  In his rage, he released his other dolls, all of them converging on the pinned Weaver in a wave of darkness.

  The Yellow Weaver growled, and even under the immense pressure, his hand moved—a final, monstrous act of will. It shot up, grabbing Nosfraet by the front of his uniform.

  "Flame Spear."

  The blast was not grand. Its scale was low, choked by Monica's gravity. But it was point-blank, and it was pure, violent hate.

  It erased the converging shadow dolls in a flash of white heat. It was just enough to force Nosfraet to cross his arms, shielding himself with the last remnants of his puppets' substance.

  It was also enough for the Weaver to drive his other fist, wreathed in dying flame, into Nosfraet's chest.

  The impact was wet, final. A violent smile twisted behind the yellow mask.

  With a heavy thud, Nosfraet fell backward, blood bubbling from his lips.

  Now, the Weaver turned his head. His masked gaze, blazing with pain and fury, found the Scholar still trapped in Monica's gravity field.

  The Scholar could not move. If he released the spear-construct holding Monica's attention, he would lose his only defense.

  If he did not, the Weaver—even crippled—would launch a final, long-range attack. Its scale might be low, but in his current state, the Scholar knew he could not survive it.

  Holding Monica inside the construct for too long was a fool's errand.

  In the end, he released her.

  The cylindrical spear of threads and barriers fell apart instantly.

  Monica’s eyes left the Scholar, taking in the scene: the dead body of Nosfraet, the Weaver gathering the dregs of his mana for one last strike.

  She tightened the gravity spell on the Scholar, who collapsed completely to the ground, unable to even lift his head.

  Then she moved.

  She crossed the space toward the Weaver in a blur, her leg sheathed in a visible distortion of compressed force. With a heel-strike that cracked the air, she drove her foot into the Weaver's mouth.

  The yellow mask bent inward. His face contorted under the pressure. He resisted with nothing but raw will and sputtering mana, screaming back a garbled, distorted sound.

  "YOU BITCH—"

  His hand twitched, trying to rise, to chop at her leg. It did not move.

  In the end, with his last conscious trick, he tried to envelop them both in the heart of one final, point-blank Flame Spear.

  The Scholar’s vision blurred, his body a leaden weight against the crushing stone.

  Then he saw it.

  Through the dust and the settling debris, an electric-blue light began to bleed through the cobblestones.

  It wasn't a glow. It was a network—a spiderweb of brilliant, pulsing veins that etched itself across the ground with silent, terrifying speed.

  It slithered past his immobilized hand. It branched under Monica’s boot as she stood over the smoldering Weaver.

  “What…”