"Use your decompose skills. Take cover." The group leader blinked through the haze, steadied himself despite the pain in his head and the blood matting his hair, pushed to his feet, and snapped the order.

At once, hands pressed to the earth, and the skills flowed downward—not into an enemy, not into their own bodies, but straight into the ground.

The crust loosened as if something inside had exhaled. Black seeped through like ink spilling into water, clods softened and slumped, and within seconds the ground under their hands turned to a dark slurry, a sheet of living mud that swallowed the moonlight.

It was the same family of skill that the Rank 2 Umbraen had used against Malrik a while ago.

The only difference was that this one was the Rank 1 variant. It didn't affect a wide area or carry the acidic effect capable of damaging a body; it simply warped the soil's form and turned it into liquid.

When the ground loosened enough to ripple, they dove together and slipped away. The surface sealed behind them with a slow, wet draw. Only a stain remained, a moving plaque of black that crept forward like a shadow crawling along skin.

It was the same sight Malrik had seen before, a creeping black he once called a shadow, but it was not a shadow at all.

The skill's real use was to trap the enemy by throwing an opponent's movement calibration off balance.

But the Umbraen had uniquely changed this skill's purpose for their own use. They learned to drown their own bodies beneath the surface, to move unseen, and to vanish and reappear where no eye expected them. Used this way, even Rank 1 Practitioners could strike first, break contact, and be gone.

The blackened swath kept sliding for a while like a moving shadow on the soil, and after about 10 minutes, the Umbraen broke the surface again behind a large rock, pushing up one by one from the softened ground.

"Did we lose our trail?" The Umbraen who was carrying the unconscious Vesha over his shoulder asked.

There was no splash of mud on the Umbraen and no dust on Vesha, as if neither had ever swum through the muddy earth.

The trick was the second piece of the combo, another skill that wrapped them in the air and kept their bodies clean.

The Spark was Rank 1, named Air Cycle. Its signature ability was surviving at the brink of death, whatever the cause.

Faced with injury, age, or hunger, it encased itself in an air crystal and sank underground into a long sleep. When the shell opened, it rose renewed into new life, a small echo of rebirth made real.

When a Practitioner used this skill, it formed an air bubble around them so they could breathe easily, and it served as a shield that kept most external effects off their body unless they were exceptionally strong.

Together, these two skills formed one of the Umbraen's oldest methods: travel invisible, strike unseen, and slip away. For years, this approach had turned battles even with nothing more than Rank 1 hands.

"I think so," another Umbraen answered, eyes restless as he searched the scrub and stone. "But what was that? Judging by the hit, it was not that strong, maybe only another Rank 1 Practitioner. But who would attack in a place like this?"

They did not believe Malrik could have tracked them here or attacked from the dark. In their minds, Malrik was already dead.

"We do not have time for this. Move." The team leader cut it short because their prior mission was to deliver the three women to their lord, so he would not waste the little time he had chasing a ghost, even though he wanted the shooter found.

But before they could move, another echo rang through the trees and hills. A rifle shot cracked across wood and stone, and one of the Umbraen fell hard.

"Fuck. They found us again." The leader bent over the fallen body and saw at once that the wound wasn't shallow. A wide hole had been punched through the skull, blood gushing and spreading. This time, the shot was strong enough to take a life.

"They have long-range skills. Be careful." His voice faltered as he understood the enemy's reach could kill them outright.

Shots kept coming, each sharp crack ending with another body thudding to the earth and another skull torn open. Panic pressed in as the leader tried to liquefy the soil again and throw himself back underground, but he was too slow.

A chill of dread swept him, the hairs on his body lifting. Behind him, a weighty, grinding sound rose, metallic and ravenous, gears finding purchase and chewing through plate. The air shook, and pain punched straight through his chest.

He looked down and saw metal jutting from the center of his breastbone, wet with blood, while rotating teeth churned and ripped, chewing him apart. The blades advanced with steady pressure, and his body came open in a single brutal line before he fell in two pieces.

"Huh. First time I tore an alien in half," muttered the man behind the long saw mounted to his heavy exoskeleton, as he stared at the bisected corpse without flinching.

The exoskeleton loomed almost as large as Eren, and inside the frame the pilot's lean body showed through armored ribs, white hair, and smoke-gray eyes, giving him a face carved by experience that looked cold and every bit a seasoned killer.

Another exoskeleton approached with measured, quiet footfalls.

"Commander Rhys." The newcomer raised a metal arm, gave a crisp salute, and reported in a formal tone. "The eight targets are down, and three captives recovered. Two researchers and one native from this region."

Rhys pulled his gaze from the severed body, glanced at the reporting soldier, and shifted to the other trooper kneeling by the women on the ground. "Their status?"

The soldier at the woman answered with professional calm. "Vitals are stable. They are unconscious, likely due to an unknown agent mixed into their blood."

Rhys Graves lifted one brow. "Unknown agent? You can just call it a fainting Spark skill or whatever."

It sounded like a joke, though his tone carried irritation. He had watched plenty of Players pull cheerful, showy tricks, and in the Beyond, he'd seen Practitioners use odd abilities that were not only flashy but genuinely effective.

It was not the strangeness that bothered him; it was the fact that he could not use those skills himself.

The research team had armed them well, and the new weapons paired with the exoskeletons tripled their raw power, yet in a world where others could leap meters high on a single skill or cast fire from a palm, the metal still felt crude to him, clever machinery trying to keep pace with miracles.

"Anyway." Rhys exhaled and looked up as the massive hoverjet drifted down through the night until its shadow swallowed them, and then he gave the order.

"Carry the women to the aircraft and inform Captain Eren that the mission is complete." He paused, let his eyes move over the eight Umbraen bodies, and added, "Take these as well. I am sure the researchers on Earth will be very happy to cut them pieces."

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