Third Person's POV

Heat licked at his skin as a shimmering white claw of energy burst into existence in midair out of nowhere and sliced toward him from the side.

It was sharp, and he could feel the sharp winds on his waist and arm, and he felt as if sharp blades were slicing his skin already.

Even before it touched, he could feel its edge biting into his skin, and its sharpness was undeniable, but his instincts, shaped by his battles, saved him.

He bent back at the waist and dropped into a sliding crouch with the grass blades tearing under his knees.

As he bent down, the claw shaped like a wolf whistled past his waist, so close it cut two strands of his violet hair.

He felt a faint sting along his scalp, and he could feel that it was solid proof of how near he had come to a serious injury.

But Ethan did not stop as momentum carried him forward.

He backflipped smoothly and landed directly against the tree's trunk.

And as he ascended to the top with an inhuman agility, his senses screamed again as another silent bony needle whistled by, and he had to twist his head by an inch through pure instinct that led to the projectile brushing past his ear.

He climbed like a predator in a fast and fluid way, with his hands and feet gripping bark with practiced ease.

His focus narrowed to his goals of the fruit, its stem, and the fact that he had to cut it to claim it.

But just as he was about seven or eight feet from his prize, he suddenly froze mid-motion as a strange sensation flooded around him, and as he felt them viscerally in such a state where his senses were heightened to the extreme, only a single word came to his mind.

Dust!.

His mana sense prickled, and in no time, the air thickened around him.

From nowhere, an alarming surge of grit and ash swirled into existence, and a violent and suffocating dust storm materialized unnaturally with a clear intent on destroying him.

The world blurred in front of him, as his vision and mana perception alike were cloaked in shifting gray.

The dust particles were unnaturally heavy and rough, and his lungs stung as dry particles scraped at his throat, leading to internal bleeding, which he could already feel.

As the dangerous dust storm forced his eyes to clamp shut, a realization dawned in that choking blindness that he had forgotten about the blond pair who had been so silent, and so inconspicuous in the corner of the clearing, but he knew now that they had finally made their move.

---

Outside the towering tree, the gray blur resolved into the beautiful, doll-like, expressionless werewolf girl.

She stood still with her petite figure framed against the sunlight and her cold eyes focused on the storm of dust and distorted air currents whirling through the crown, while her small hands and their white fingers seemed to burn and shine with waves of sharp white mana that cut the surrounding air to nothingness.

She had truly been surprised that her silent and sudden sharp claw had been dodged by the pretty vampire boy whose name she still didn't know, but now, looking at the dust storm ravaging the tree, she wondered if he would be defeated eventually.

The entire treetop seemed alive, and started shuddering under the turbulent force of the dust storm as countless leaves and branches started falling on the ground, while the precious fruits were strangely untouched and still glimmering faintly like beautiful red jewels under the glaring sun.

At nearly the same moment, the bamboo-thin Alrin appeared a few paces away from her.

His hollow eyes carried no ripple of emotion, and his lanky body was as stiff and sharp as a stake driven into the earth, though his unblinking and locked gaze on the tumultuous crown of the magical tree showed that he was not as calm as he appeared to be.

The four werewolves, who just seconds ago had worn stiff faces of shock, suddenly erupted again into a fit of harsh, barking laughter that sounded like a group of jackals laughing off in the woods.

Their voices tore through the clearing, too loud and too strained to sound genuine.

"I knew it!!" one howled as he clutched his fists and waved them in the direction of the tree dramatically.

"That pipsqueak could never be an expert!"

"Hell yeah! He must be blinded for sure! What a fool! lol!" another roared with an animalistic pleasure and schadenfreude on his face as he bared his sharp teeth in a grin that was more desperate than amused.

"Trying to show off in front of us, now look what happened to him! Those bloodsucking parasites are indeed pathetic and weak like I expected," shouted the dwarf-like one as he slapped his thigh, though his eyes darted nervously toward the storm.

Their jeers echoed with exaggerated confidence, but anyone watching closely would see it for what it was, the flailing pride of children who had been frightened out of their wits moments earlier, who were now scrambling to cover the tremor in their hearts with noise.

While their mocking chorus rattled through the clearing, two figures advanced slowly toward the base of the tree, the blond man and woman who had been waiting in the wings.

Their movements were deliberate, measured, and almost smug as their hands were already raised and glowing faintly with a thick, turbid yellow radiance.

The glow wrapped around their palms like molten stone and hummed with restrained violence.

They grinned at each other knowingly, eyes filled with self-assurance and arrogance, as though the storm above were nothing more than a curtain that had been drawn to shield their prize.

Step by step, they drew nearer to the tree, and their aura pressed outward like an invisible yellow wall that stirred the grass into a restless shiver.