The rhino man felt an intense pain, unlike anything he had ever felt in his life.
All of a sudden, he felt terribly weak. All his strength left him, and under the cruel pain he was subjected to, he could no longer hold himself up, so he fell.
He didn't know which part of his body to hold because most of it was in pain. The only part that wasn't hurting was his head.
Unfortunately, the more seconds ticked by, the more he realized that his head not being attacked wasn't a blessing but a curse. He could clearly feel everything happening in his body, and this made his suffering even worse.
At some unknown point, his transformation was undone, and he returned to his human form. What should have been a relief only made his torment more nightmarish. His body had reverted to a weaker state, and he no longer possessed the same resistance to pain.
Just when he thought things could not become more desperate, they grew even worse. Suddenly, he felt something moving inside his body. It was as if invisible hands were crawling through his belly, fingers brushing against his flesh, something prodding his inner organs. The sensation was as bizarre as it was excruciating.
The phantom fingers continued their ascent, and soon he began to wheeze and cough violently.
'I can't breathe!' he thought in agony.
Something was blocking the air from reaching his lungs. Worse still, whatever it was felt like the embodiment of pure, merciless pain—an unseen force crushing him from within.
No matter how hard he struggled, no air would enter his body. His vision slowly darkened at the edges. Realizing that he would soon die of asphyxiation if he did nothing, he began pounding his chest desperately, like a frantic ape beating its torso.
But nothing worked. In fact, things only worsened. Now that he was trapped in his weak and fragile human body instead of his rhino form, every sensation—every stab, every pulse, every burning throb—was amplified. The pain became so overwhelming that his thoughts shattered, his sanity slipping away bit by bit.
Yet even then, his suffering was not over. As he continued to strike his chest, a sudden, icy chill spread through him, forcing him to freeze. Despite the agony tearing through his body, he went completely still. It felt as though something had seized his heart—not figuratively, but literally. Cold, unyielding fingers wrapped around it, squeezing.
Everything happened too fast. Before he could understand what was happening, a crushing force closed around his heart. Something inside him broke. Warmth spread through his chest, his breath cut short, and his body went limp as he collapsed to the ground, unmoving.
To the rhino man's companions, everything happened so fast that they didn't even have time to react before his body stopped moving.
"What… the hell just happened?" the masked man who had been teasing him muttered, completely stunned.
Although he had been wounded when they arrived, the potions they gave him should have helped him recover quickly. Instead, he began to shiver uncontrollably, and before they could even assess the situation, he collapsed.
Not far from them, Alex stared at his opponent's corpse with an indifferent expression. It was as if the sudden death didn't surprise him in the slightest. And why would it? He was the one who had caused it.
From the moment he copied Lilia's smoke-element ability—even before becoming the Smoke Sovereign—Alex discovered countless ways to use it. After his ascension, those possibilities expanded even further. Although he wouldn't admit it, the truth was that his range of techniques and his mastery over smoke made him perfectly suited for assassination and covert operations.
In the final seconds before the rhino's companions intervened, Alex had been relentlessly pummeling him with punches, kicks, and crushing blows. But that wasn't all he was doing.
The moment the rhino was engulfed by the smoke Alex had conjured, every breath he took filled his lungs with thick clouds of it. What he didn't realize was that when he exhaled, only a small fraction escaped. Most of it remained trapped inside his body.
If the he had paid attention to anything other than the pain Alex inflicted, he would have noticed that the longer he remained within the smoke cloud, the heavier his body became—burdened by the massive amount of smoke accumulating inside him.
Keeping the smoke inside his opponent wasn't difficult for Alex. The real challenge came when Alex tried to move it deeper within him. It consumed a tremendous amount of mana—especially since his opponent was of a higher level, making control even harder. Worse, Alex had no clear idea how to manipulate gas through flesh and organs. How could he guide smoke through veins, muscles, lungs, arteries, and the fragile network of tissues inside the body?
Still, Alex waited. He maintained the smoke within the rhino's body, patiently waiting. He was certain that, sooner or later, an opportunity would present itself.
And it sure did.
Alex couldn't freely move the smoke inside his opponent's body, but that didn't mean he couldn't harm him from within. One of the most dangerous aspects of the smoke element was its ability to inherit different properties depending on what had been burned—or rather, what had been used to create it...each source granted the smoke a different attribute.
Although Alex often exploited this trait of his element, he rarely—if ever—used its more lethal properties in a direct, life-or-death confrontation. But the moment he realized his physical attacks were barely damaging the rhino, he chose that path. That was the true reason he went through the trouble of keeping the smoke inside his opponent's body.
Thankfully, when he briefly unleashed more of his power, he managed to grievously wound the rhino man, forcing him on the defensive and abandoning his initial plan. However, the instant he saw the rhino's companion attempting to heal him, Alex immediately reverted to it and activated every harmful attribute contained within his purple smoke.
That was what caused the sudden, excruciating pain the rhino man felt.
Unfortunately for the latter, combined with his previous injuries, it weakened him to the point where he lost control of his transformation and reverted to his human form. The moment that happened, Alex felt the resistance inside his body lessen. Controlling the smoke became significantly easier. Without hesitation, he gathered it and compressed it violently around the man's heart—crushing it before his ally had time to intervene.
Now, the two remaining leaders of the invaders could only stare at their companion's bleeding corpse in stunned silence.
But that silence did not last.
The first to recover was the levitating masked man.
He slowly turned toward Arcanor. "You will pay for this." His voice was calm—too calm. It didn't sound like a threat, rather a statement. "I admit that we underestimated you. That mistake won't be repeated."
"Cover me," he added, glancing at his companion, who was still standing near the fallen rhino's body in stunned silence.
As the words left his mouth, his body began to tremble. Then it started to grow—visibly, rapidly.
The masked man, who appeared to be the leader of the invaders, began to grow. His clothes tore apart as his frame expanded, becoming bigger and more muscular.
His hood was thrown back as a wild mane of black hair spilled free, cascading down his back like a beast's crest. His mask fell apart, unable to contain the changes beneath, as two long, sharp canines pushed past his lips, glinting menacingly in the dim light. His body became covered in a dense layer of black and white fur, spreading across his expanding frame while his muscles swelled violently. His bones cracked and shifted beneath his skin, his body growing larger and larger until he stood at a towering three meters tall.
His mouth stretched wider than any human's should, revealing a menacing row of jagged teeth, while his jaw elongated forward, reshaping itself into a protruding muzzle.
His nose flattened and darkened, his ears sharpening and rising higher atop his head. His fingers lengthened, nails thickening and curving into vicious claws capable of tearing through flesh with ease. Each breath he took came out as a deep, guttural growl, more beast than man.
If the rhino had been terrifying, then this… this was something else.
Something far more fearsome.
Thud!
The currents of wind that had been keeping him levitating collapsed under his sudden increase in weight, and he dropped to the ground. His landing sent a violent shockwave through the earth, causing the ground beneath his feet to crack and fracture outward.
'Like hell I'm going to let you transform,' Alex thought as he charged forward.
After everything he had endured fighting the rhino, there was no way he would stand by and allow something even more dangerous to fully emerge before him.
Unfortunately, he had reacted too late.
"Not so fast."
The hooded man standing beside the rhino's corpse suddenly appeared in front of him, a cold grin spreading across his face.
Alex tried to dodge past him, but his opponent had anticipated it. The hooded man stepped into his path and slammed his forearm into Alex's chest, stopping his momentum before driving him back with overwhelming force.
More unfortunately for Alex, by the time he prepared to charge again—ready to use everything he had to break through—it was already too late.
A massive figure loomed before him. A wild grin stretched across its inhuman face, and a pair of crazed, glowing red eyes stared down at him with pure, malicious intent.
'Fas-'
Alex hadn't even had time to process what was happening when all the air was violently knocked out of his lungs.
In that instant, his mind teetered on the brink of collapse, his consciousness flickering as if someone were toying with a switch—one moment fading into darkness, the next snapping back into awareness.
One moment, he was standing near the auction house at the center of the city. The next, he was violently ripped from the ground and sent flying like a ragdoll, tearing through streets and buildings alike before slamming into the inner city wall with bone-shattering force.