As Tiger stood against the three, blocking the only exit, K2 smiled with open mockery. K5 joined her, his laughter a low, grating sound in the ruined lobby.

  "Little tiger," K5 said, shaking his head as if addressing a foolish child. "Are you sure you want to just keep standing there? Instead of running, or hiding? You seem like a good fellow. We might have left you alone if you'd done any of that."

  K2 tilted her head, her voice a silken taunt. "There's still time. Trash this bravado of yours and run away. Like a scared little cat."

  Tiger didn't answer. He just stared, his battle stance unwavering. His silence seemed to fuel their amusement, their laughter growing.

  K5's tone shifted, turning artistic and cruel. "It's stupid. We can destroy this place to ashes and kill you within minutes, dear tiger." He eyed Tiger up and down like a sculptor assessing raw material. "You would make a great art piece. A painting made from your blood, your facial skin stretched on a frame. I'll arrange your bones, place your crushed brains near your severed hand. I'll call it... 'A Loyal Dog Dies in the End.'"

  K2 hummed in false contemplation. "No, no. He'd look better as a taxidermy piece. Many a wicked mind would pay for that. We could call it 'Good Boy.'"

  "What about his spine? The bones? The blood?" K5 countered, waving a hand. "It'd be a waste."

  Tiger's heart flinched, a cold spike of primal fear piercing his resolve. But he didn't move. He didn't speak. He locked his knees, tightened his fists, and kept his eyes fixed on them, absorbing their words like armor.

  The Yellow Weaver heard it all. In another state of mind, he would have joined in the creative cruelty, adding his own flourishes. But now, he was a vessel of pure, silent fury.

  The laughter, the taunts—they were distant flies buzzing around a bonfire of his rage. He was burning, his mind a single, repeating loop of vengeance: Find them. Humiliate them. Kill them. A hundred times over.

  His face was a rigid mask of anger, his eyes open but unseeing, locked on the internal theater of retribution. In a random, agitated shift of his gaze, his eyes swept across the room.

  They met Tiger's.

  He saw the loyalty, the duty, the unshakable determination staring back at him. To the Weaver, in his distorted, rage-poisoned state, that look wasn't defiance. It was judgment. It was pity. It was the calm gaze of the authority that had beaten him, now embodied in this one stubborn man blocking his way.

  A guttural, grinding sound came from the Weaver's throat. His teeth clenched so tight that muscles in his jaw stood out like cables.

  He took a single step forward, his voice emerging not as a shout, but as a low, vicious snarl that cut through the others' mockery.

  "How dare you look at me like that."

  As the words were uttered, the Yellow Weaver closed the distance in an instant.

  A punch, fueled by pure, untempered rage, slammed into Tiger's guard. The impact wasn't just physical; it was a concussive wave of malice.

  Tiger was lifted off his feet and hurled backward, crashing through the splintered remains of the reception desk and smashing through the office's front doors.

  He tumbled onto the street in a shower of glass and broken wood. He scrambled to his feet, stance still firm, but the world was tilting.

  Before his vision could clear, a roundhouse kick blurred toward his face. Tiger crossed both arms, covering his head. The kick landed. The block held, but the force didn't.

  It smashed him down into the cobblestones, cratering the ground beneath him.

  The Weaver was on him, a vengeful phantom. One kick. Then another. And another. Each blow crashed into Tiger's curled form with the sound of a hammer on an anvil.

  Tiger poured mana into a protective shell around his body, a desperate, shimmering barrier. It held the bones from breaking, but it couldn't absorb the kinetic fury.

  Each impact shuddered through him, rattling his teeth, compressing his lungs.

  The Weaver stopped, crouching over him. "Hey. Hey. Why is that look on your face?" he hissed, his voice a distorted scrape. "You weak-ass rat. How dare you give me that look. I'll wipe it off your face. I'll take those eyes right out of your head."

  As he ranted, one hand shot for Tiger's throat, the other, fingers clawed, aimed for his eyes.

  The moment of threat gave Tiger a split-second opening.

  He ignored the hand at his throat. Instead, his legs scissored out, locking around the Weaver's torso. With a raw, guttural roar of effort, he used the leverage and pushed, heaving the Weaver off him and throwing him sideways into a collapsed market stall.

  Tiger was on his feet, lunging after him. He grabbed the Weaver's wrists as the killer tried to rise, forcing them back against his own chest, attempting to pin him.

  The Weaver snarled, his muscles bulging with unnatural strength. For a moment, they strained, a brutal test of raw power—and to the Weaver's surprise, Tiger's strength was no joke. He was being contained.

  Fury overrode tactics. The Weaver didn't try to break the grip; he ignited.

  A concussive burst of flame erupted from his chest, not as a projectile, but as a point-blank explosion of force and heat.

  Tiger was forced to release him and throw himself backward to avoid being engulfed. The searing heat still grazed his forearms, blistering the skin.

  He landed, sucking in a pained breath. The Weaver didn't let him have it.

  A fist, wreathed in afterburn, detonated against Tiger's left side. The punch landed solidly, cracking a rib. A micro-explosion followed a fraction of a second later, meant to hollow him out.

  Tiger, already twisting from the initial blow, managed to pull back just enough.

  Even after the slight dodge, the secondary blast was enough to scorch his uniform and peel skin from his flank. The pain was immediate and severe.

  He shoved it down, his focus narrowing to the enraged figure before him.

  The Weaver saw the focus, the enduring will. It infuriated him. Furthermore. He lunged, feinted high, and drove a knee up into Tiger's jaw. Stars exploded behind Tiger's eyes.

  Before he could fall, the Weaver had him in a headlock, Tiger's neck trapped between his legs.

  Then the fists came down. Wild and brutal blows straight to the crown of Tiger's skull. Once. Twice.

  "Wake up, you bitch!" the Weaver screamed into his ear, each word a punctuation to the pounding. "You're tough, right? Take this! And this! Show me that look! Show me, you bitch! I won't kill you. I'll just give you a taste of the misery I'll give your friends! Remember! Remember what happens when you fight the Yellow Weaver! What happens when you lay a finger on the Weaver Club!"

  Tiger was losing consciousness. Darkness crept at the edges of his vision. He pushed against the Weaver's legs with all his remaining strength, but it was like pushing against stone.

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  In the end, he didn't try to break the hold. He used it.

  Gathering every last shred of power in his legs, he jumped. Not to escape, but to carry his entire weight—and the Weaver's—upward in a desperate, soaring arc.

  He twisted in midair, aiming to drive them both back-first into the unforgiving stone of the street.

  The Weaver vanished from the lock just before impact.

  Tiger crashed into the ground alone, the impact driving the air from his lungs and sending fresh agony through his broken body. He rolled, gasping, forcing his eyes to track.

  He was learning. He saw the Weaver reappear, a flicker of green and yellow. He saw the kick coming. He dodged, that missed strike sent a blast of air screaming past him, shattering the silence beside him.

  A flurry of punches followed. Tiger blocked, his hands moving on instinct, each parry sending shocks of pain up his scorched and battered arms.

  He saw an opening—a fraction of a second, where the Weaver's left side was exposed.

  Tiger took it. He sacrificed a clean block to lunge inside, driving his own fist into the Weaver's ribs.

  A solid hit. At the same time, he managed to grab the wrist of the hand that had just detonated against him.

  The Weaver just grinned, a horrifying sight on his burned face.

  The hand in Tiger's grip detonated.

  Tiger ripped his own hand back, but it was too late. The blast wasn't full force, but it was point-blank.

  The fingers he'd used to block and strike were now a mangled, bloody mess, bones glimpsed through torn flesh. He staggered back, his offense shattered.

  A straight punch, distilled rage given form, blasted into Tiger's face.

  He had nothing left to block with, no strength to dodge. His head snapped back, and his body followed, thrown like a rag doll.

  As he hit the ground, five solid, canon-like kicks crashed into his back and ribs, each impact a fresh explosion of pain, ensuring he could never regain his footing.

  The Yellow Weaver caught him by the collar of his ruined uniform, hauling him up like a grisly prize. He wrapped an arm around Tiger's chest from behind, locking him in a brutal hold.

  Then he began to bend him backward, against the natural arch of his spine. A sickening groan of stressed bone and torn muscle filled the air.

  Tiger screamed—a raw, helpless sound of pure agony.

  The Weaver’s eyes burned with a perverse, joyful light. This was the sweetness he craved. "Hahaha! Hah! Look what happens! This is what you deserve, you runt!"

  K2 and K5, watching from the sidelines, offered slow, mocking applause.

  "Bravo! Wonderfully thrown!" K2 called out, her voice light.

  K5 added, his tone hungry, "Come on, it isn't enough. Show some more firework. There's not enough red."

  "I'd say just tear him apart now, and" K2 mused. "Let's join the city's buffet. There's so much on the menu today. Not to forget, we have yet to get our main dish."

  The Weaver slammed Tiger face-first into the ground with earth-shattering force.

  Then he looked past the broken man, his gaze settling on the Department of Law Enforcement building. The rage in his heart hadn't cooled; it had merely found a new, more terrible focus.

  "No. Not yet," he said, his voice dropping to a sinister whisper. "I will deliver a scar that can never be healed."

  He grabbed Tiger by the ankle and dragged him, a limp, bleeding weight, back toward the building he had sworn to protect.

  Tiger could only watch with swollen, barely-open eyes as the shattered entrance loomed closer.

  With a final, contemptuous heave, the Weaver hurled Tiger back through the broken doorway, sending him skidding across the lobby's floor.

  "You asked for extra fireworks?" the Weaver called to his comrades, a mad grin stretching his burned face. "I'll give you a whole show of it."

  He raised both hands, palms facing the building's dark, vulnerable interior. Mana coalesced, violent and searing.

  Bang. Bang. BANG!

  Three compact spheres of explosive flame shot from his hands, rocketing into the heart of the office. They detonated in sequence, blowing out walls, shredding files, and igniting everything flammable.

  Then he brought his hands together, fingers interlaced. A continuous, roaring beam of white-hot fire erupted from his clasped fists—a sustained Fire Pillar—and he swept it across the building's first floor like a painter laying down a base coat of annihilation.

  In an instant, the office was not just on fire; it was a furnace. Flames climbed the walls, devoured wood, and roared through broken hallways.

  K2, K5, and the Yellow Weaver stood side-by-side, gazing at the growing bonfire. The light danced across their faces, painting them in hues of orange and hellish shadow.

  "Should we go now?" K2 asked, her voice almost dreamy as she watched the spectacle.

  The Weaver's answer was flat, absolute. "No. I will make sure they die slowly. Painfully in there. No one escapes. You two, do the same." It was less a request for a favor, more an order issued in a tone that brooked no dissent.

  The other two exchanged a brief look but didn't refute him. The atmosphere had shifted.

  The three of them stood in silence watching the bonfire he had built, waiting for the desperate heroes who would now be forced to come running into their trap.

  And after a few minutes, they felt it—the presence of an individual daring to come to the den of monsters.

  A figure clad in black, a crimson cape flaring behind him like a wound in the night air, descended not with stealth, but with decisive speed, leaping from a nearby rooftop directly toward the inferno.

  K2 and K5, already bored with their discarded knightly personas, were more than ready to intercept some fresh fun.

  K2 unleashed a volley of air slashes to cut his approach, but the figure wove through them with fluid, lightning-fast dodges.

  K5 lunged, aiming a bone-shattering punch at his core, only to be met with the haft of a spear that slammed into his chest, throwing him back with surprising force.

  But to K2 and K5's surprise, the figure didn't press the attack against them.

  Instead, he used the opening to dive straight toward the roaring bonfire of the building.

  The Yellow Weaver recognized that silhouette—the black form, the defiant red slash of the cape—more than anyone.

  As the Red Cape plummeted toward the flames, his voice cut through the roar, clear and commanding from behind his helm.

  "Fifth Circle: Water Pyramid!"

  A massive, geometric wave of shimmering water manifested above him. It didn't fall—it crashed into the heart of the fire with the force of a collapsing glacier.

  The pillar of water slammed through the burning structure, not with a gentle douse, but with a concussive, drowning deluge. Steam exploded outward in a thick, scalding cloud.

  The main inferno was choked out in an instant, reduced to sizzling embers and isolated, minor flames licking at soaked wood.

  The building, though scarred and smoldering, was saved from total annihilation.

  With a midair twist, the Red Cape changed his trajectory, landing with a solid impact on the street between the ruins of the building and the three predators.

  He stood, spear in hand, his back to the smoking structure. His crimson cape settled around him like a pool of blood. His helm hid his face, but his posture was a coiled spring of controlled fury and horror.

  He wanted nothing more than to turn and search the wreckage for survivors.

  But he knew. He knew the three in front of him wouldn't allow it. Charging in blind would only corner any survivors further.

  He had to send a message. To anyone alive in there. Help is here. Stay hidden. Don't move. I'm drawing their focus.

  He forced his voice into a savage, ringing tone that echoed off the scorched stones from behind his helm. "Which one of you dared to do this? You thought I'd let you run wild in my area? Huh? Prepare for your punishment, you dumb fucks! All three of you, say your last words! Because I will be your judge, jury, and executioner right here tonight!"

  It was a performance. A desperate play to sound like a vengeful outsider, not an officer, to give any survivors a sliver of hope and a clear directive: Hide. Don't help me. The threat is being held here.

  Inside, he was weaving threads of frantic hope against the cold, heavy dread of reality. He pushed it down. He couldn't afford that pit now.

  He looked at the three. Two watched him with detached amusement. One looked at him with the raw, visceral desire to peel him apart layer by layer.

  The Red Cape's gaze locked onto the Yellow Weaver. From the build, the manic hatred, he recognized him.

  So you're the bird mask. His eyes flicked to the two knights. And they're the bad guys, after all. Good. I won't have to hold back.

  He forced a hard, mocking laugh, the sound metallic and strained behind his helm. "Oh, it's you! Without your mask, I couldn't even recognize you. Finally, finally... but looking at your face?" He made a show of tilting his helmeted head, as if inspecting damaged goods. "I'd suggest you go back to wearing it. A face like that shouldn't be shown to the world so openly. Even if it is night."

  It was a deliberate, dangerous provocation. An attempt to center all their volatile anger squarely on himself. He didn't need to try hard.

  The Yellow Weaver's face twisted. It wasn't just a grin; it was a rictus of pure, unfiltered malice.

  His eyes burned. His teeth ground together audibly. His hands, wreathed in flickering, hungry flame, curled into claws. The Red Cape had just poured oil onto a volcano.