After Rea left the girl.
The tiger surged forward, a mesmerizing blur of vibrant energy—a living embodiment of raw power.
Its sleek, sinewy muscles undulated beneath its striking coat, moving with an elegance reminiscent of a comet streaking across the night sky, lighting up the remnants of chaos in its path.
As it charged, clouds of dust and ash spiraled up around it, swirling and twirling gracefully, almost as if drawn into a hypnotic dance.
Each mighty paw pounded the ground with force, sending up glimmers of shattered stone and fragments that burst into tiny sparks, illuminating the haze that enveloped the scene.
The air crackled with intensity as the tiger vanished momentarily into the swirling mist, leaving behind an echo of power and a trail of fleeting brilliance.
For a moment, the chaotic battlefield was awash in a vivid tapestry of orange and black. Then Rea plunged into the tumult with an explosive force, causing the very air around him to howl in response to his unbridled fury.
A Rank-two had been closing on David from behind, teeth bared, claws arcing for the silent back attack. It thought itself unseen, a killing motion practiced on weaker prey, but it never completed the arc.
Something hotter than fire struck the zombie's chest. Flesh steamed and vaporized in a hiss; bone flashed white before the corpse slammed back and disintegrated, black ichor fountaining like an overturned lantern.
The top half of the creature simply ceased to be—the head and shoulders blown to ragged smoke and ash that trailed like a bad dream across the cobbles.
No one cheered. No one spoke. For a moment, the entire field remained silent as they registered the new entity that had involuntarily inserted itself into the battle.
Rea stood where the corpse had been. Flickers of flame licked along his paws, a burning sweep of molten light curling down to claw tips.
David didn't look at Rea. He didn't need to. He tilted his head three degrees toward the far horizon, then scanned the survivors and the rest of the waking pockets of the horde with the same precise, hollow calm he'd worn since he'd stepped from the smoke.
His pistols whispered; each shot punctured a brain. As they both fought against the hordes together, where Rea tore and burned, David's bullets found the narrow spaces no blade could reach—between eye and brow, behind the jaw, in the tiny centers that let the dead fall finally quiet.
They moved like two instruments in the same dark symphony. Rea's approach was widespread destruction—claws, flame, a feral torque that scattered bodies like rag dolls. David's hands were tiny eclipses: two silent suns cutting out targets in tight, perfect measure.
When a Rank-two lunged faster than the others, Rea met it at full force, shoulder into flank, a burning swipe that sheared tendon and shattered metal ribs.
When a pack tried to swarm, David spun on his heel, a flick of wrist, and the ground between them was a field of smoking heads.
For several fleeting moments, the world around them became a chaotic blur: the rush of movement, the deafening crash of shattered concrete echoing through the air.
In the midst of this turmoil, David and Rea worked in perfect harmony—one a force of nature, the other an assassin with surgical precision. Rea, with his sharp claws glinting ominously, carved through the obstacles ahead, creating a blood bath through the chaos.
Meanwhile, David stood resolute, his pistols roaring to life, ensuring that any threat that dared to emerge was swiftly silenced, sealing the fate of their adversaries with each calculated shot.
Yet all the while David kept glancing—in the same direction. Buildings far down the avenue were listed and collapsed as if some invisible hand had struck them.
Dust rose in pillars, and the earth sent a low, keening tremor that rolled across the square like the breathing of a giant. The second Rook was no longer a distant dot. It was a moving continent.
Rea slowed at last, paw on a toppled slab, flames guttering to embers along his skin. He watched David's face—still a blank of unreadable intent—and then the horizon.
Rea's ears twitched as if picking up a frequency others could not hear. He exhaled in a sound that might have been a snort or a sigh.
"Don't bother about them," Rea said, voice low and somehow dry, the syllables coming from the beast as easily as from a man. "I can take care of the rest."
David inclined his head for a few seconds. No words. Before nodding, showing acknowledgment.
Rea's expression—if a tiger could be said to have one—tightened. He gave a short, weary rumble. "This one is a little different than the other Rook that fire and ice boy fought against."
David didn't react. Only looking at Rea with a confused look.
Rea looked at him and chuckled for a moment. "That sounds like a silly thing to say." Concern softened the intensity of his gaze. "Just be careful," he advised.
David turned away as if those words were nothing more than wind, but Rea knew he had heard him.
David began walking toward the direction of the rook, at first with a steady lumbering pace that betrayed nothing, then gathering speed until his coat was flapping like a dark banner behind him. He did not look back.
Rea watched him go, then blinked and turned back to the remaining horde. The tiger's tail flicked once, and the black stripes along his flanks—stripes that had always seemed inked into his hide—caught light and burned.
Flames threaded up the dark bands, and the tiger's mane flared as if stained with dawn. Sparks danced along his whiskers; embers ran like veins beneath the fur. Tooth and claw became incandescent, the tiger's silhouette now a walking brand.
"Now—time to clean the rest of you," Rea growled, low enough that the vibration moved the filling of their ears. "I need to finish here fast to assist him, so don't mind—I'll be a little rough."
He inhaled, and the air around him shimmered with the pressure of the magic he fed into his body. Claws flexed. Teeth gleamed.
"Now—who dies first?"