Ethan dusted off his hands, thinking it was finally over.
Then a violent gust slammed into his back.
Cindara had looped under the bridge and come up behind him. The wind pressure from her wings hit like a wall.
Ethan grabbed the railing on instinct.
He bent his knees, then kicked off the deck and sprang upward, narrowly slipping past the sweep coming from behind.
Cindara’s ambush failed.
She twisted in midair, right hand clenched into a tight fist, and shot at Ethan again.
Ethan was still airborne.
Cindara was already on top of him.
He couldn’t drop back to the bridge and reset, so he snapped both legs back in a hard kick. His soles shoved the air, generating a tight, spinning ring of airflow behind him—just enough to "hang" him for a fraction of a second.
He lowered his hands.
Locked his eyes on the onrushing Cindara.
Cindara’s punch drove straight for his face.
Right before impact, her figure vanished from the front.
The next instant—
She reappeared behind him.
Ethan had been waiting for exactly that.
The moment Cindara popped in at his back, he planted both feet onto the vortex he’d created. His soles pressed the rotating air downward, and the reaction force yanked his body into a faster drop.
Cindara’s fist chased from behind.
Ethan twisted at the waist mid-fall, crossed both arms over his chest, and completed a full turn in the air.
BAM!
Her knuckles smashed into his forearms.
He protected the vital points, but he couldn’t absorb that kind of weight. He flew sideways like a thrown stone, his back slamming into the abyss wall.
Stone caved inward.
Cracks spidered from the impact point, chips and dust spilling down the face of the cliff.
Ethan kicked off the damaged wall and dropped back toward the steel bridge.
The moment his feet touched down, he spun around again, arms up, guard set.
Cindara was already in his face.
Another punch.
The impact drove Ethan back into the wall again. His arms blocked the strike, and at the last moment he tucked his legs and stomped into the shattered stone to slow himself—using the broken rock as a brake.
If he’d been half a beat slower, she would’ve punched him deep into the cliff.
Stone continued to rain down from above.
Fine grit poured out of cracks, dusting their hair and shoulders.
Ethan didn’t rush to break away.
He stared at Cindara’s face from point-blank range. Then, when a heavier sheet of sand and grit slid down between them, he suddenly leaned forward and blew a hard breath.
Hfff—!
Dust and grit blasted straight into Cindara’s face.
Particles got into her eyes.
"You—!"
Cindara clamped her eyes shut, and the pressure on Ethan’s arms weakened immediately.
Shameless.
Ethan didn’t waste the opening. He slipped out from under her fist.
As he peeled off the wall, he scooped up a handful of grit and small stones, keeping it palmed. The instant his feet hit the deck, he didn’t stop—he slid low along the bridge, then whipped his right leg out from the side, targeting Cindara’s thigh.
If he could smash the joint, he could at least take her mobility for a moment.
But Cindara wasn’t that easy to break.
Ethan’s foot slammed into her leg.
BOOM!
A ring of air burst outward from the collision. Loose rubble on the wall was blown toward the abyss, and the steel bridge answered with a deep, vibrating groan.
No crisp crack of bone.
What Ethan heard instead was a mechanical hum—metal under impact.
Cindara felt the force, eyes still shut, and immediately sank her body lower.
Her uninjured leg snapped backward in a kick.
Ethan twisted aside to avoid the first segment of the attack, but Cindara used the kick’s momentum to turn with him. Her fists drove in one after another, front and back, chaining strikes by pure spatial awareness.
Even blind, she knew exactly where he was.
Ethan’s gaze flicked to the leg he’d just hit, and a bad conclusion formed in his mind.
Mechanical.
Again.
No time to dwell—her fists were already colliding with his.
BAM!
This time the force that surged into his arms was far beyond before.
His finger bones and wrists flared with pain, and his feet skidded two long marks across the bridge.
With mechanical structure integrated into her body, Cindara’s strength had climbed again.
Ethan stopped hesitating.
He drove the thin thread of energy still lingering in Cindara’s lower leg as hard as he could.
Under the abyss’s rules, the white lightning was weak—pathetically weak—but it still latched onto the internal mechanical framework and pulled sideways, forcibly shifting how that leg took force.
Cindara’s wings accelerated.
Air blasted downward. She dragged Ethan off the bridge while they were still locked in the exchange, lifting both of them into the air.
Their fists still hadn’t separated.
Ethan was hauled upward by sheer strength.
Then armor plates on Cindara’s shoulders split open.
Two machine guns rose from inside, muzzles rotating down toward Ethan.
Ethan’s eyes sharpened as he saw the barrels.
And then a crisp fracture snapped out from Cindara’s leg.
CRACK!
Under Ethan’s continuous interference, that mechanical lower leg was wrenched apart from the inside—snapped clean.
Cindara’s balance broke.
She released Ethan immediately, no longer maintaining the close-range contest.
The two shoulder guns opened fire at the same time.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Dense rounds poured down, hammering Ethan’s chest, shoulders, and arms. A single hit couldn’t punch through him, but the sustained impact forced him lower and lower, driving him toward the abyss.
BAM!
Ethan was slammed into a steep fall by the barrage.
His arms stayed raised, eyes cutting through the shower of sparks as he stared at the steel bridge below.
Miss the deck, drop deeper—
And it would all be over.
In the air, Cindara didn’t even bother watching him anymore.
She beat her mechanical wings slowly and drifted back toward the bridge, not even looking down to question why that leg had suddenly "lost control."
The bridge rushed up fast.
Ethan’s right hand touched the railing first.
His fingers clenched—
But the grit he’d been palming made his skin slip, and his hand skated off the metal.
He kept falling.
At the last instant, his left hand locked onto the opposite railing.
Five fingers went white with tension.
Ethan hung outside the bridge, his whole body supported by a single arm.
He didn’t pause.
That abyss-enhanced strength surged through his shoulder. He kicked at the air with his calves, using airflow and pure pull to whip himself back onto the deck.
Feet down.
Safe—barely.
But mechanical Cindara was already waiting up ahead.
And as Ethan stabilized his stance, another figure appeared behind him.
Every instinct in his body screamed.
Ethan moved sideways at full speed, but a fist still caught his back.
BAM!
The punch skimmed just behind his heart and sent him flying toward the center of the bridge.
If he’d shifted even a little slower, it would’ve been a clean shot through the heart.
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