Vogue’s eyes widened as he realized the attacks were too fast for him to dodge.
Moreover, they had easily broken through his ti stop! He was still in mid-air with no way to change direction.
The attacks landed on him in an instant.
The phoenix struck first, its blazing flas surged through Vogue’s entire body. His skin charred imdiately, his blood boiling inside his veins. The heat was so intense that his dragon scales actually started to crack and peel away.
A fraction of a second later, Jas’s Sword Intent slash hit him from the opposite direction. The cutting force sliced completely through Vogue’s torso, separating his upper body from his lower body at the waist.
But it didn’t stop there. The Sword Intent continued traveling through his bisected body, creating dozens of additional cuts. His right arm was severed at the shoulder. His left leg was cut off at the knee. His head was nearly separated from his neck.
The combined attacks created a cascading explosion of fire and sword energy that consud everything in a massive sphere of destruction.
"KA-BOOOOOOM!"
The entire area within a one-hundred-ter radius was instantly shattered and reduced to ashes. The dead tree that had held the Evolution Fruits was vaporized completely, not even leaving charred wood behind. The asphalt lted into bubbling tar before evaporating entirely, leaving a perfectly smooth crater.
Buildings within the blast radius collapsed, their support structures destroyed. Cars were reduced to scattered atoms. Even the air itself seed to burn away, creating a temporary vacuum that drew in oxygen from surrounding areas with a massive whooshing sound.
When the explosion finally faded and the smoke began to clear, there was nothing left around. Just a massive crater in the ground.
Elena landed on one side of the crater, her phoenix flas dissolving back into wisps that flowed into her body.
She was panted hard, having used a significant amount of energy for that attack. Her eyes scanned the destruction, looking for the thief.
Jas landed on the opposite side, his sword as he too searched the crater for remains.
"Did we get him?" one of Elena’s Death Protectors asked.
"Nothing could survive that," Jas said confidently. "A direct hit from both our full-power attacks at the sa ti? Even an Upper Moon Rank Knight would have been severely injured."
But Elena’s expression was grim. She didn’t think it was that simple.
"Search the area," she commanded her Death Protectors. "I want to see a corpse, or at least remains. And check your abilities—can anyone sense if those fruits are still nearby?"
The treasure-sensing Death Protector closed his eyes and concentrated, extending his senses in all directions. After a mont, he opened his eyes and shook his head.
"The fruits are gone. Completely gone. Either they were destroyed in the blast, or whoever that was managed to store them sowhere we can’t detect."
Jas cursed violently. "Fucking bastard—"
He was interrupted by a faint sound from above.
Everyone looked up simultaneously.
On a building rooftop three blocks away, barely visible as a small figure against the sky, stood Vogue. He was completely intact, showing no signs of injury whatsoever.
He had stored the fruits in his inventory and had used Clone Jump the mont their attacks landed.
The body they had just destroyed had been a clone.
Vogue waved casually at the stunned group, a mocking gesture.
Then he turned and disappeared from view, using Big Dipper Step to flee before they could pursue.
Elena and Jas stared at the empty rooftop for a long mont.
"I’m going to kill him," Elena said quietly, her face cold but her eyes burning with real flas.
"Get in line," Jas growled as his Sword Intent raged; cuttting the air and the ground with invincible sharp strokes.
"Kill him!" Elena roared, her voice echoing across the destroyed street with raw fury.
She suddenly activated a rare technique that her family had spent years teaching her, one that only those with the Phoenix Bloodline could use.
"Phoenix Wings!"
"Boom!"
Massive flaming wings erupted from her back in an explosion of fire and power. Each wing was easily three ters long, made entirely of condensed flas that burned with white-hot intensity. The wings weren’t just for show—they provided actual flight capability and incredible speed.
Elena’s body lifted off the ground imdiately and she surged forward like a flaming teor streaking across the sky. She pursued Vogue with the speed and determination of a heat-seeking missile, leaving a trail of fire in her wake.
Her four Death Protectors didn’t have any Earth-Grade flying techniques, and none of them possessed movent abilities that could match their mistress’s Phoenix Wings. But they weren’t slow either. They activated their own techniques and chased after Vogue with enhanced speed, leaping from rooftop to rooftop and using their montum to cover large distances quickly.
Jas wasn’t slow in the slightest either. He activated his own movent technique, a legendary skill called the Traveling Sword that was passed down through the royal family.
"Traveling Sword!" he commanded.
Imdiately, his elegant blade floated up from his hand and hung suspended in mid-air, horizontal to the ground. The sword stabilized itself perfectly, becoming as steady as a platform.
Jas jumped onto the blade with practiced ease, landing in a standing position with perfect balance. With a single ntal command, the sword shot forward with a whoosh of displaced air. He soared after Vogue like a shooting star, standing on his flying sword with his arms crossed and his expression cold with determination.
The sight was straight out of legends—a swordsman riding his blade through the air at incredible speeds.
Vogue saw the two closing in behind him and his face changed slightly with genuine concern. He had hoped his head start would be enough, but these two were far faster than he’d anticipated.
He didn’t hesitate to activate Ti Step, pushing the technique to its maximum capacity. Everything around him imdiately slowed down dramatically in his perception. The world beca a crawling, sluggish place where he could see individual movents happening fra by fra.
He moved with astonishing speed relative to the slowed world, his legs pumping as he ran across rooftops and leaped between buildings. Each step carried him dozens of ters as he used his enhanced strength and the ti dilation effect to maximize his velocity.
But even with Ti Step active, the two pursuers were closing in incredibly fast. Their movent techniques were simply too powerful, too refined. Not even the ti manipulation could create enough distance between them.
The gap was shrinking with every passing second.
Vogue imdiately activated Dragon Form without bothering to conserve energy anymore. His right side erupted with silver scales, his wing burst from his back, and his muscles expanded with enhanced power. Then he leaped from the edge of a tall building, his wing spreading wide to catch the air.
Elena caught up to him at that exact mont, having closed the distance with her superior flight speed. She didn’t waste ti with words. Her hands moved in a complex pattern, weaving fire into a specific shape.
"Phoenix Arrow!" she shouted.
A massive phoenix ford in the shape of an arrow, easily five ters long from tip to tail. The construct was made entirely of compressed flas that burned so hot the air around it shimred and distorted. The phoenix-arrow shot toward Vogue with incredible speed, trailing fire and leaving a smoking path through the air.
Vogue flapped his dragon wing with desperate strength and twisted his body in mid-air. The phoenix-arrow passed within inches of his torso, close enough that he could feel the intense heat singeing his clothes. The attack missed him by the narrowest of margins.
Using the montum from his wing flap and the air displacent from the near-miss attack, Vogue glided over one hundred ters in length through the air. He aid his trajectory toward a nearby skyscraper and crashed directly through a glass wall on the twentieth floor.
"CRACK!"
The reinforced glass wall shattered into thousands of pieces as Vogue burst through the building like a cannonball. Shards of glass flew everywhere, glittering in the sunlight as they fell toward the street far below.
Inside the building, Vogue was like an unstoppable tank. He didn’t slow down or try to navigate around obstacles. He simply crashed straight through everything in his path.
Office cubicles were demolished as he passed through them. Desks were reduced to splinters. Computer monitors exploded. Conference room walls were destroyed as he punched through them without slowing. Filing cabinets were crushed flat.
He charged in a straight line through the entire floor, destroying dozens of internal walls before bursting out through the glass wall on the opposite side of the building.
He was now on the other side of the skyscraper, having used the building itself to break line of sight with his pursuers.
In mid-air, Vogue imdiately sliced off five fingers as he tossed them to the ground.
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