The heat in the hall was becoming unbearable. The flames engulfing Parabellum's body burned with an intensity never seen before, turning the air around them into a hellish furnace. Marshmallow watched the scene with a strange excitement. He'd seen a lot during the Survivor Games, but the power unleashed by Parabellum was truly impressive.

Not even King Balor the Immortal's flames could compare. And maybe not even mine.

Next to him, Lynx shielded her eyes with one hand, trying to peer through the blinding glare. It felt like staring straight into the heart of the sun.

"The temperature must have exceeded five thousand degrees Celsius," Raven observed grimly. "If this continues, it risks melting the entire structure of the castle."

Marshmallow nodded, sharing Raven's concern. He couldn't stop Parabellum from going all out, but he could at least protect himself and his companions. With a fluid hand gesture, he summoned a light barrier around himself and his teammates. The intense heat was now kept at bay, allowing them to observe the clash without risking being roasted alive.

"Thanks, Marsh," Lynx said with a grateful smile. "I was about to become barbecue."

But while the Wyolanders began to feel safe behind Marshmallow's barrier, their gaze remained fixed on Zal'Gorath, who stood at attention. Despite the inferno of flames surrounding him, the knight showed no signs of anxiety or panic. His posture was relaxed, almost as if he was waiting for the right moment to act.

Marshmallow had a bad feeling. "Parabellum! Watch out! That bastard's still got something up his sleeve!" He shouted urgently.

Marshmallow's warning came too late. Zal'Gorath raised his left hand and let out a shout so loud it shook the foundations of the inverted castle.

"OVERDRIVE! ABSOLUTE VOID SINGULARITY!"

The words echoed in the hall like an explosion, and suddenly the air around Zal'Gorath's hand seemed to distort as if reality was being sucked into an infinitesimal point in the center of his palm. Immediately after, a dark light enveloped the knight's fist.

Zal'Gorath threw his fist forward with lightning speed. Where his knuckles met Parabellum's flames, they simply vanished as if they had never existed.

"What the..." Lynx said with wide eyes. Parabellum, caught off guard, leaped backward, returning to his elemental form. His face, though not human at that moment, betrayed a clear expression of pain and confusion.

"How did he do that?" Lynx continued, turning to Marshmallow for answers.

Marshmallow narrowed his eyes, his mind working frantically to analyze what had just happened. "His Overdrive must allow him to concentrate gravitational energy at a point, creating a space-time distortion that generates an absolute vacuum. Basically, he erased part of Parabellum's flames as if they never existed with a single punch." He concluded while withdrawing the light barrier. Since Parabellum had stopped creating an inferno of flames, the temperature had returned to an acceptable level.

"What can we do then?" The Dragon Goat asked as he continued to watch what was happening beyond the line. And before Marshmallow could respond, Parabellum was launching into attack again. He began to run, rotating around Zal'Gorath, unleashing a relentless barrage of fireballs with both arms.

"Parabellum, wait!" Lynx shouted but was completely ignored. Zal'Gorath didn't need to move, he remained motionless, this was enough for him to cancel out the attacks. His left hand moved, predicting every trajectory and nullifying every attack that dared to approach him.

"It's not working," Raven growled in frustration. "We need to change strategy."

Lynx nodded decisively. "Raven's right. Parabellum! Let us help you!" She shouted.

"No! This is my battle!"

"To hell with that!" Lynx exclaimed. She wouldn't stand by and watch; sooner or later Zal'Gorath would go on the offensive, and then they'd be in trouble. With a quick gesture of her hands, Lynx summoned a wave of roots from the hall floor. The wooden offshoots launched towards Zal'Gorath like entwined serpents, but the knight traced an arc in the air with his giant sword, and the roots, hit by an invisible force, plummeted downwards, crushed by an impossible weight.

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"Damn it!" Lynx hissed between her teeth.

Seeing his companions in trouble, Raven also decided to intervene. Concentrating intensely, he cupped his hands and generated a tiny particle of antimatter, then hurled it with full force at Zal'Gorath. For an instant, it seemed the attack might catch him by surprise, but at the last millisecond, the absolute void singularity came into action. The antimatter particle was repelled, returning towards Raven at a dizzying speed.

"Shit!" Raven exclaimed, forced to generate another antimatter particle to cancel out the first quickly. The two collided mid-air in a flash of blinding light, canceling each other out.

Marshmallow observed the scene while reflecting. His companions were engaging in combined attacks, Parabellum had even resorted to Overdrive, yet it seemed they couldn't scratch Zal'Gorath's defenses. That Absolute Void Singularity was proving to be a formidable defensive ability, capable of neutralizing practically any attack.

At that moment, Marshmallow understood: it was his turn to take action.

Without a word, he got into a starting position, like a sprinter ready to burst from the blocks. His muscles tensed, ready to release an explosion of power.

"Marsh! What are you gonna do?" Lynx said forcefully. It was a rhetorical question, it was clear. But Marshmallow turned to her with a determined smile on his face, taking the question seriously.

"Solve the situation."

Before anyone could stop him, Marshmallow activated the ability of the Helmet of Valhalla's Fury, and a feeling of well-being enveloped him. Suddenly the world around him seemed to slow down, and with a burst that defied the limits of physics, Marshmallow crossed the line drawn by Zal'Gorath. In a fraction of a nanosecond, he covered the twenty meters that separated him from the knight. Zal'Gorath hadn't even seen him move, and for the others, it was as if he had disappeared and reappeared instantly.

When everyone realized what had happened, Marshmallow was standing beyond Zal'Gorath with his right hand tightly gripping Zal'Gorath's head, cleanly severed from his body.

Zal'Gorath's headless body remained standing for three or four seconds as if it hadn't yet realized it had been decapitated. Then, like a puppet without strings, it collapsed to the ground with a dull thud. Marshmallow had ripped off Zal'Gorath's head with a surgical and terribly precise movement, and now red blood was gushing in spurts from both the head and the lifeless body. It wasn't a pretty sight.

Silence followed in the hall for a dozen seconds. The Wyolanders stared at the scene, unable to believe what they had just witnessed.

Congratulations! You’ve just obtained the Very Unique Skill “Gravitokinesis”!

But Marshmallow ignored the screen as if there was nothing in front of him. His gaze was fixed on the head he still held in his hands. Something didn't add up.

How was this guy so strong?

Yeah, because it wasn't normal for the strongest Wyolanders, all maxed out, to struggle so much with a single enemy. There was something to investigate.

With slow and deliberate movements, Marshmallow began to extract the contents of the helmet. The metal creaked and squeaked as if resisting his efforts.

Lynx noticed that Marshmallow was fiddling with that head. So she approached him, trying to understand better.

"Marsh, what's going on? What's inside?"

Marshmallow didn't respond immediately. His eyes were focused on what was emerging from the helmet, and his face was a grimace of disgust.

Finally, with a final yank, Marshmallow extracted all the contents of the helmet. He held it in front of him for a long moment, studying it in silence. Then he turned abruptly towards his companions. He raised the arm holding the head by the hair, showing what the helmet was hiding inside.

"Zal'Gorath was a zombie. BloodLust has the power to monsterify his companions. This is bad, really bad."