Consciousness returned to her in waves. The first was a leaden weight, a presence so oppressive it crushed her own life energy. The second was pain, a complex and burning network that ran through every fiber of her body, starting from her dislocated shoulder and radiating to her broken ribs. Each beat of her heart sent a new jolt, a brutal reminder of her own fragility.
She forced her eyes open, and terror took over.
Goro stood above her. The stone creature had changed. A red aura, dense and suffocating like a hemorrhage, pulsed around his massive figure. It was the materialization of his intent to kill, a bloodlust so pure it had become visible. His eyes, two incandescent embers, stared at her with the fascination of a predator contemplating its dying prey. Diana's fear was no longer a simple emotion; it was a physical certainty, a coldness seeping into her veins, far more chilling than her own power.
The monster crouched, his shadow covering her entirely. Then, without a word, his stone fist fell.
The first blow struck her squarely in the stomach. The air was expelled from her lungs in a silent spasm. Her body lifted from the impact before falling heavily onto the sharp debris. Before she could even catch her breath, the second blow landed, then the third. A mechanical, relentless violence. A trickle of warm blood flowed from her lips, a stark contrast to the cold that was invading her.
Goro grabbed her by the hair, tearing a strangled cry from her bruised throat. He forced her to lift her head, to meet his smoldering gaze.
Goro: "I tell myself it's not right to mess up such a beautiful face..." His voice was a low rumble, the sound of rocks grinding together in a tomb. He paused, savoring her terror. "...but my whole life, I've done nothing but steal, kill, and rape without ever caring about the rest. And that's not going to change now."
His free hand, a stone vise, closed around her throat. He lifted her from the ground like a rag doll. The pressure was absolute. The black dots dancing before her eyes began to merge, threatening her with final oblivion. Despair was a rising tide, ready to drown her. So this was the end. Alone, broken, in the hands of a creature born of hatred.
But in the depths of that darkness, a voice echoed. Emma's.
"Come back safe and sound."
A promise. An order. A thread of light in the void.
That thought was an anchor. The terror was still there, but another force, older and colder, awoke within her. The will to survive.
"I'm not going to die. Not here."
Her trembling hand, animated by that last spark, rose and placed itself on the stone arm that held her prisoner. She channeled what little Kara she had left, not as a wave, but as a needle of ice, a concentrated breath of pure despair.
Diana (thought): "Elemental Kara... Frosting Touch!"
This time, the cold was not a mere surface attack. It seeped into the very structure of the stone, a venomous bite born from her will not to die. A thick layer of black ice crept up Goro's arm, crackling under the tension. The ice reached his hand, his fingers, freezing them in their deadly grip.
With an effort of concentration that cost her almost all that was left of her consciousness, Diana used her elemental control. She didn't fight Goro's strength; she took control of the instrument of her torture. The ice that imprisoned the monster's hand obeyed her will. Slowly, inexorably, the stone fingers began to loosen.
One centimeter. It was enough.
She tore herself from his grasp, her body falling heavily several meters away. She coughed violently, struggling to fill her lungs with air that seemed to burn her, her hand clutching her bruised throat. Goro's arm, though intact, was now a mass of black ice, completely useless.
Goro stared at his frozen limb, an expression of pure disbelief on his stone face. But his surprise was short-lived.
Suddenly, the ground began to tremble. Not a tremor from an impact, but a deep vibration, coming from the very foundations of the world. The air grew cooler, then cold, then so intensely cold it seemed to burn. An invisible, ancient, and sovereign pressure descended upon the alley, crushing Goro's rage beneath its weight.
Goro (panicked, taking a step back): "Huh? What is this...?"
He scanned the alley, looking for a new threat, but he only saw Diana, still on the ground.
The atmosphere transformed. Sounds were muffled, absorbed by an unnatural silence. An aura of a blue so dark it was almost black began to rise from Diana's body. It was not the green and living Celestial Kara she had been using until now. It was something else. A dormant, terrible energy, awakening.
Her long black hair rose slowly, defying gravity, floating around her face like a crown of shadow. Her eyes, usually an ocean blue, lit up with a glacial, almost white glow, completely devoid of humanity.
It was no longer fear or determination that one could read in her gaze.
It was the void.
Absolute zero.
Winter incarnate.
Final Scene...
Goro took a step back, then another, his monster's instinct screaming in the face of this primordial power emanating from Diana. His panic drove him to look behind, searching for a way out, an explanation.
Goro: "There's another one...?"
At the same moment, the wall at the other end of the alley exploded in a deafening roar.
A figure was violently ejected from the debris, his body covered in blood. It was Danky. He flew through the air, helpless, closely followed by the Superior Blood Burn with bone blades. The latter, though also bloodied, wore a terrifying smile of pure sadism.
Even in mid-fall, Danky's will did not waver. Still in the air, he stretched a trembling hand toward his pursuer.
Danky: "Elemental Kara... Retraction!"
An invisible impulse struck the Blood Burn squarely in the chest, pushing him violently backward. Simultaneously, two enormous sections of the destroyed wall rose and crashed into each other, sandwiching the enemy in an explosion of bricks and mortar.
The maneuver cost him all that was left of his control. Danky finished his trajectory by slamming into a metal pillar. A sinister CRACK! echoed, the sound of a breaking bone. He screamed in pain, sliding down the pillar to collapse on the ground.
Through a veil of suffering, he looked up. And he saw her.
On the other side of the alley, Diana, on her knees, enveloped in a dark and glacial aura. Her condition was worse than his.
Danky (panting): "It's... it's Diana... she's in a bad spot... I have to save her..."
He tried to get up, but a coughing fit shook him, and he spat a spray of blood onto the ground. He was at the end of his strength.
The scene was a picture of desolation. Danky, neutralized. Diana, on the verge of breaking.
The almost-black blue aura around Diana pulsed one last time, magnificent and terrifying. Before this ancient energy abandoned her, she gathered her last strength in one final act. She stretched a trembling palm toward Goro, and the entire glacial aura condensed into a small sphere the size of a snowball, crackling with unstable power.
Her voice echoed, not as a scream, but as a whisper from another world, an echo of winter itself.
Diana: "Embrace... of the Winter Queen."
She threw the sphere.
It flew slowly, almost without force, before exploding on contact with Goro. The explosion was not loud, but it released a spray of black ice thorns. One of them, massive, pierced Goro's shoulder clean through. Immediately, a dark and rapid frost began to spread from the wound, threatening to consume both his arms.
Faced with this gangrene of ice, Goro made a brutal decision. He roared in rage, not of pain, but of frustration. With his good hand, he materialized a shard of black rock, a "death crystal," and without a second's hesitation, he amputated both his own arms just below the shoulders with a dull, horrible sound.
The final effort had cost Diana everything. The ancient energy that had animated her dissipated completely. Her eyes lost their inhuman glow, and she collapsed heavily to the ground, face down, unconscious. Absolute silence fell.
Goro, now deprived of both his arms, and the other Blood Burn, who had just pulled himself from the rubble, looked at the scene. They saw the two Zeniths, on the ground, defeated.
A hoarse, almost hysterical laugh rose from Goro's throat.
(Blood Burn with blades) Ziziak: "Hahaha! She cost you your arms! Did they really think they were a match for us?"
Goro (his gaze burning with hatred): "I'll take the girl. I'm not done with her."
Ziziak: "She thought she could burn us with ice? Pathetic. Now she'll understand true heat, straight from hell."
Goro: "I'll finally prove that I deserve this spot more than that Number 5!"
They advanced, mutilated but victorious, ready to deliver the final blow. The despair was total. There was no more hope. No one left to save them.
It was then that a light appeared in the night sky.
A simple shooting star at first, a golden streak splitting the clouds. But it was growing. Fast. Too fast.
In a second, the star became a meteor.
A golden light descended from the sky at a dizzying speed and crashed violently in the center of the alley, right between the two monsters and their prey.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The impact was cataclysmic. The ground exploded into a smoking crater. A powerful blast swept through the alley, sending stones and debris in all directions. A burning wind forced the two Blood Burns to shield their faces, their laughter turning into growls of surprise.
Slowly, the dust began to settle.
In the center of the crater, in the lingering golden glow, a figure stood straight.
Tall, dressed in the Zenith uniform, two giga-blades erupted from his fists, the blades shining with a pure and intense energy.
His face was hard, his eyes fixed on the bruised bodies of his friends. Anger burned within them.
"It's over. I'm here," with a cold gaze.
This figure was none other than that of RAIZEN VITHAR, the Astroforge.
End of Chapter 35