The world went white out the moment Stellar Collapse was activated. Massive energy condensed into a single point, then exploded outward, shaking the layer to its core.
Afterwards, only darkness filled Eric's vision, and he lost consciousness for a period he could not measure.
For a moment, he felt the familiar coldness of silence wash over him. For some reason, it was very calming.
After a moment, his eyes finally twitched and opened to narrow slits; the howl of the cold air reached him before any thought did, and he understood that he was falling. The wind roared in his ears, whipped his short black hair behind him, and pressed his pink bodysuit against his skin as the ground rushed toward him through the dense, directionless darkness of Layer 102.
Eric's fingers twitched as he tried to clench them. No matter how hard he tried, his body refused to respond. Only then did he understand why.
He had given everything in the last exchange and had ended up damaging his World of Consciousness and Subconsciousness, so his thoughts formed slowly and painfully.
Eric entered a black cloud as the world went abyssal dark again. Soon, the cloud exploded outwards as Eric continued falling down.
He used all the strength in his body and looked down, the intense wind and air particles causing his eyes to close, but he managed.
Far below him, explosions of gold, green, blue, and black flared across the central land at irregular intervals, yet all he could do was watch them.
He gathered what little strength he had and turned his head upward, where the sky still carried the mark of his technique. A four-edged star hung there in grey silhouette, not bright and not burning, only etched into the darkness like a signature the technique had left behind as it ended. Eric watched it while he fell; only the cold against his skin and the slow understanding that the detonation had cost him more than he had yet discovered remained.
"Damn it..." he thought sluggishly, frustrated that he could not use his Aura, call out for help, or even ask the Gravitation Spirit for assistance.
Just as he tried to think of some way to save himself, he looked down and saw only a black mountain rising toward him, and then his vision changed.
His premonition of danger flared in his head like an alarm clock, yet he could do nothing but keep falling, and he only managed to put his hands around his head in a last effort to protect whatever he could.
Eric's body met the mountain with a force that seemed to swallow the sound of the impact before it could even register, and a huge cloud of black dust rose around him as the entire mountain shuddered under the weight of his landing. The ground did not simply absorb him but gave way beneath the force, folding inward as a deep crater tore open where he struck, and every bone in his body seemed to scream at once as the shock of the collision traveled up from his heels through his spine.
Cough! Cough!
Eric coughed out a huge amount of black blood as a wave of intense heat spread through him from the friction of his landing, and he could feel parts of his bodysuit fusing to his burned skin, each small movement afterward sending fresh needles of pain through muscles that had already been pushed past their limit.
Before he could even take another breath, the black soil beneath him began to shake and then broke apart entirely, and Eric felt his stomach lurch as the ground itself gave out and dragged him off the slope with it.
He had been enduring the pain of the fall for only a few seconds, but gritting his teeth against it, he twisted his body and managed to grab onto a passing branch, and for one brief moment the world stopped moving, and he could breathe. Before that breath was finished, though, a sharp snapping sound reached his ears, and when he looked up he saw the branch splitting apart above his hand.
With the branch gone, Eric had nothing left to arrest the fall.
He went down the black slope hard, his body scraping across jagged rock and torn earth as the mountain took him in stages. The first impact caught his shoulder and hip against a broken outcrop, punching the air from his lungs and ripping a fresh line of fire through skin already exposed where the bodysuit had burned away. He struck another ledge face-first, filling his mouth with grit and the iron taste of blood, and rolled again with no sense of which way was down.
The black soil did not cushion him. It sheared, caught, and tore. He hit a slab of stone with his back and felt something in his ribs give, then slid on, raw skin meeting rough mineral and cold dirt until he was wetter with blood at every meter. His fingers found only loose scree that came away with him, adding weight to the fall instead of slowing it.
A longer drop followed before the ground returned all at once against his left leg and flank, and pain detonated up through him, bright and nauseating. He struck a narrower spur of rock under his ribs and spun into a chute of broken stone that raked his back and opened a deep cut along his thigh. His vision flared white, then swam, then narrowed to streaks of motion and impact.
His arms had grown too slow to protect his head, and each collision arrived before the last had finished registering: a shoulder smash, a knee driven into stone, a long scrape that left a strip of him burning and exposed to the cold air. He went over two more short cliffs, and after the second his body stopped trying to organize the fall and simply endured it. Blood marked the black soil behind him in broken patches, and his breathing had become a ragged, involuntary sound.
The final grade flattened at last, and he rolled off the last ledge to strike the foot of the mountain in a loose, broken sprawl before finally stopping. For a moment, there was only the cold ground beneath his cheek, the wet heat of his blood, and the distant sense that the grey four-edged scar was still somewhere above him. His entire body trembled as he lay there, barely conscious and bleeding.
He had no idea how long he had just been lying there, constantly on the brink of losing consciousness.
However, he did not let himself drift into an eternal slumber.
He slowly tried to get back up; he gritted his teeth to the point that even his gums started bleeding as he planted both hands against the ground and pushed. His arms shook as he failed.
His breathing was shallow, as even his eyes refused to open fully; a deep hole had formed on his right chest, and he could feel his cracked bones.
Eric struggled for a few more seconds as he crawled some distance before his body started to revolt against him again.
Cough! Cough!
He coughed up some blood again as he looked down at it; his blood had mostly turned black due to the corruption on his body. As if to mock him, the black veins on his body twitched, causing him more pain. His right eye and hair had turned completely black too, making him half blind.
Eric looked down at his own blood as he noticed some small bubbles; cancer cells had formed and started to metastasize.
With nothing else he could do, Eric forced himself to assess his condition.
"My... Domain of Emotions... had been sealed... Only... forty percent Aura left... Meditation Aura... ten percent... left." He had just thought barely one sentence before a headache appeared to make his suffering worse.
...
Black sparks tore across the central ground as a great column of black dust surged upward, and when it cleared, a massive crater lay open beneath it.
At the center lay the Will.
Stellar Collapse had driven it down hard. Its form no longer held steady, flickering between solid and insubstantial with every breath of the layer's dark air, and the vast presence it once carried had diminished. Its frame was smaller now, thinner, the edges already fraying, and what remained looked less like a reigning force and more like a spirit on the verge of fading. It was still dangerous, but visibly closer to vanishing than before.
Just like Eric, it had reached a critical stage after such a long fight.
"Damn it..."
Even with nothing sealed, frustration settled deep in its chest. It had burned almost all of the resources left to it just to survive the explosion, and healing would not be simple recovery now. It had survived, but survival had cost it almost everything.
It did not grieve the loss. Instead, it turned inward and began counting what it still had, how many beasts remained under its command, how many could still be spent, and whether the remainder was enough to finish the fight before its own form finished unraveling.
Just then, a huge tremor shook the very core of the layer and made every beast in the fight freeze for a second as an intense pressure washed over them. With a loud squeal, a massive space rift tore open in the center of the layer, revealing a huge whale beyond it.
The whale let out a constant Pseudo-Hypernova aura that suppressed almost every beast around it. It passed through the rift and floated into the sky, towering over the entire layer.
"Black-blue skin. Abyss-black eyes, non-uniform scaling... a Sealing Abyss Whale?" Seraphiel, still locked in battle with the pseudo-Hypernova beast, recognized it at once.
It was a Pathway beast of the Sealing Pathway, a minor Pathway under the Darkness Pathway, with the innate ability to create sealed spaces.
"A Sealing Abyss Whale... It seems my luck has finally created an opportunity for me." The Will's luck had slightly increased when it had created the misfortune dragon; with the chaos increasing, an opportunity had finally appeared.
It used almost all of the remaining resources it had left and quickly started to stabilize its condition before sending Shadow Beasts to attack the whale.
The Sealing Abyss Whale roared and wailed at being hurt; it had high defenses, but as a beast of peaceful nature, highly sensitive to pain, it lashed its tail, whipping up fierce winds that rippled outward and injured the attacking beasts.
...
Sharp white and golden sword lights continued to split the sky above the dark layer, trailing afterimages that burned briefly against the black before fading.
The Ancient Angelic Dragon had been constantly suppressing the two Abyss-inhabiting Wyrms, each pass of its blade carving another line of light into the darkness.
Blood ran from their wounds, yet neither Wyrm looked away. Their pain had not diminished their admiration; it had only made the gap between them clearer.
"Do you have anything left to show?" it mocked them, its gaze already shifting past them toward the Sealing Abyss Whale.
"That Will will definitely try to claim the Sealing Abyss Whale as one of its Shadow Beasts." It had ignored the arrival until now, focusing entirely on the two Wyrms, but an opportunity of this size could not be passed over.
The sooner these pests were dealt with, the sooner it could take the Whale.
"However..." It looked back down at the two Wyrms, its expression unchanged. "These two eyesores will continue to disturb me."
It closed its eyes for a moment, hearing the beating of its own heart.
It soon contacted Seraphiel, who was already flying away and had used his other allies' help to damage the Pseudo-Hypernova Beast. The escape chase was still going on when it was seemingly called back and headed to attack the Sealing Abyss Whale by the Will, giving breathing room to Seraphiel.
"Seraphiel... I am going to use that technique." The message soon resounded in Seraphiel's head as he looked in the direction of the Ancient Angelic Dragon; his eyes widened in shock.
Adrian had recovered substantially in this period of time, able to fly by himself, constantly being protected by Seraphiel.
He noticed Seraphiel looking at the sky where sword lights had etched themselves into the layer, and he could feel that another massive change was about to happen.
...
Eric was still lying at the foot of the mountain, using what remained of his Meditation Aura to stabilize his injuries. His breathing had grown more stable and uniform, though he was nowhere near well enough to stand.
With his fingers, he traced symbols into the ground beneath him, drawing them out in his own corrupted blood. His Domain of Emotions had been sealed, which made it impossible for him to use any charms and stripped him of every technique he might otherwise have activated, leaving this as his only option.
Eric was a Dual Pathway Walker of the Energy and Formation Pathway, and though the Formation Pathway was only a minor one, it carried a wide range of utility, the use of symbols being one of them. The small formations he managed to draw barely did anything, but even that was better than nothing.
He kept at it, hoping only that no beast would find him there, when a golden light caught his eye, drawing closer.
"Seraphiel?" he thought, and after a moment his guess proved right, as Seraphiel and Adrian came into view and closed the distance to reach him.
The instant they landed at the foot of the mountain, Adrian screamed his name and ran to him, dropping down at his side with his whole body trembling and his eyes already wet with tears. His hands hovered over Eric's ruined shoulder and torn side, unsure where it was even safe to touch, before settling lightly on his arm as if afraid the slightest pressure would break him further. Eric could barely sit up even with his help, and though he tried to keep his expression cold and calm, the pain betrayed him, tightening his jaw despite himself.
"I am... fine. Do not worry about me." Eric said with great difficulty, each word costing him more breath than he had to spare.
Adrian was still worried, his breathing growing heavier and heavier as his gaze moved over every wound. His fingers curled into the fabric of Eric's ruined sleeve and would not let go.
"I am sorry if I had been stronger..." Tears dripped down his cheeks and fell onto Eric's arm, and his shoulders shook once before he pressed his lips together, trying and failing to hold the rest of it in.
Eric stayed silent for a few more seconds before shakily lifting his head and gazing up at Adrian's face.
"You had been very brave during this ordeal. You do not need to lower your self-worth through your Rank." Eric wanted to say more, but the pain in his body made him unable to say or think of anything else.
Seraphiel had been looking inside his Domain of Emotions and checking up on Eric's injuries as he activated a technique, helping heal Eric's most vital injuries.
"Your World of Consciousness and Subconsciousness had been damaged." Seraphiel soon found this out. It also found out that Eric's immune system and Domain of Emotions had also been sealed, but for the moment, it had nothing with it to help against it.
It raised its right hand near its chest as it took out a strangely shaped golden stone.
"A mind heart stone?" Eric recognized this rare stone after a few seconds of staring at it.
"Forgive me, but I only have this with me. Considering the damage to your mind, World is not vital; this shall do the work." Seraphiel pressed the stone to Eric's head as Eric opened his World of Consciousness and Subconsciousness; a small portal opened and absorbed it.
The stone soon dissolved into a mouthful of golden and blue liquid before starting to heal the cracks in Eric's mind world.
Eric heaved a deep sigh of relief as he gestured for Adrian to get back and finally stood back up; his body staggered a little as the pain in his head slowly started to cease.
His gaze drifted past the forest toward the distant silhouette of the whale. Eric desperately wanted to join the fight. The wings Seraphiel had gifted him still rested on his back, but without his Aura, he was no better than an ordinary man. Looking down at his bruised body, he began to draw minute symbols across his skin, weaving them into intricate, miniature formations. He poured the last drops of his residual Aura into the markings, activating a faint, minimal version of Gravitational Reconstruction in a desperate bid to mend whatever he could.
Seraphiel glanced back over his shoulder, his expression grave. "I will be needed for the upcoming assault on the Will," he said. "Thank you for buying us this opportunity. I cannot guarantee Adrian's safety in my current state, so I am leaving him here with you. Please, stay safe."
Eric didn't reply—he didn't need to. He simply nodded as Seraphiel took to the sky and flew away. Before leaving, these two exchanged one last look of a silent agreement.
Steeling himself, Adrian wiped away his tears and walked over to stand beside Eric. Together, they looked out over the battlefield. Eric placed a supportive hand on the boy's shoulder. Adrian's eyes flickered with emotion as he looked up, a small, grateful smile touching his face.
...
The Ancient Angelic Dragon heaved a long, deep sigh, a sound like grinding tectonic plates. Slowly, it opened its eyes. Its gaze, ancient and heavy with a millennium of absolute authority, drifted right past the lesser chaos of the battlefield, locking onto the four monstrosities waiting ahead.
The two Abyss-inhabiting Wyrms. The Will. The Pseudo-Hypernova Beast. The space around the dragon began to warp, the sheer density of its presence making the atmosphere grow suffocatingly thin. For ages, these four bastards had been nothing but eyesores—plagues it had clawed to incinerate the very moment the request came down to reinforce Seraphiel and Eric.
Now, the waiting was over. Finally, it could unleash hell. The air grew dead silent, the calm before a cosmic storm, as a blinding, celestial pressure began to bleed from the dragon's scales.
Attempting to stabilize its fractured form, the Will suddenly froze. Its gaze snapped toward the upper reaches of the sky. A jolt of pure panic rippled through its consciousness as it realized what was coming: the Ancient Angelic Dragon was about to unleash a calamity.
Deep within its Domain of Emotions, the dragon had been quietly laying the groundwork for this single, devastating technique. Now, the first phase was complete.
Instantly, the temperature plummeted. An aura descended upon the battlefield—cold, graceful, and blindingly virtuous, yet fundamentally terrifying. The Pseudo-Hypernova Beast let out a guttural shriek. Every primal instinct it possessed screamed at it to flee, but bound by the iron shackles of the Will's commands, it could only throw itself back into its desperate assault on the Sealing Abyss Whale.
Sensing the shift, the two Abyss Wyrms lunged forward. They opened their jaws, unleashing two massive, long-range torrents of destructive energy aimed directly at the dragon. But as the attacks tore through the sky, the air warped. The heavy, suffocating pressure vanished into nothingness, swallowed up until the incoming blasts died out into mere flickers of dying black light.
From the heavens, golden feathers began to drift down, catching the light in a slow, hypnotic descent. Through the glittering rain, Seraphiel materialized, looking down at the two Wyrms with eyes of cold fire.
"As long as I draw breath, abandon all hope of disrupting him," Seraphiel commanded, his voice a chilling absolute. In a flash of blinding light, he clad himself in his radiant gold-and-white armor once more before vanishing completely into the air, intercepting the two Wyrms.
High above, the Ancient Angelic Dragon grew utterly still. It completely abandoned its defenses, casting aside even the slightest thought of its own safety. It trusted Seraphiel wholeheartedly to shield it from the chaos below.
Deep within the dragon's Domain of Emotions, thousands of ethereal charms swirled into the sky, binding themselves together in complex, interlocking configurations. Unlike Eric, the dragon possessed no foundation in the Formation Pathway.
Instead, it relied on raw, unadulterated power. The dragon poured its purest Aura Essence into the floating charms. With every drop of energy instilled, the talons of light burned brighter and brighter. In the physical world, the dragon's massive form began to glow with blinding intensity, radiating a pure, virtuous light that intensified at a terrifying, suffocating rate.
The Will grew increasingly erratic, barking orders to force the beasts into a frenzied, desperate assault on the whale. Suddenly, it froze. The crushing, heavy gaze of a colossal predator locked onto it.
Looking up, the Will's eyes widened in horror as it met the stare of the Ancient Angelic Dragon. A blinding shroud of golden light enveloped the dragon's massive form before shifting into a pure, brilliant white and surging directly into its horns.
Golden blood began to drip down its majestic head. As the fluid flowed, a profound, maternal warmth spread through the dragon's body, causing it to gently close its eyes just before the golden blood reached its claws.
"Is that..." one of the Wyrms hissed, finally recognizing the terrifying technique the dragon was weaving.
"The Seven Heavenly Virtues Myriad Divine Slashes!" the second Wyrm shrieked, their hearts hammering in sheer terror.
Like the other thirty Primary Pathways, the Goodness Pathway branched into three distinct domains: Self-Sacrifice, Angel, and Blessing. This catastrophic technique belonged to the Self-Sacrifice Sub-Pathway, wielding the absolute Authority of Virtues. Written in the blood of fallen empires, this spell stood as history's stark reminder to all Walkers: being kind did not mean being harmless.
Throughout the ages, it had earned a far darker moniker. "The Golden Calamity..." Seraphiel whispered. His brow furrowed as he stole a grim glance at the dragon, before pivoting to strike the two Wyrms with renewed fury.
"No!" The Will contacted the two Wyrms. "It is just a modified version. The real Seven Heavenly Virtues Myriad Divine Slashes takes the seven virtues from the creatures around it to power itself, but the Ancient Dragon is using its own virtues to power the technique, not to mention it doesn't have any technique, and the user must be an Angel Spirit to use it."
"No!" the Will hissed into the minds of the two Wyrms. "It is merely a modified imitation! The true Seven Heavenly Virtues Myriad Divine Slashes strips the seven virtues from surrounding creatures to fuel itself. This beast is burning its own virtues to power the spell. Besides, it lacks the proper formation technique—and only an Angel Spirit can truly wield it!"
Hearing this, the terror gripping the two Wyrms eased by a fraction, though it did little to boost their confidence.
Seraphiel was hiding himself flawlessly, striking only at the most critical junctures and rendering them completely incapable of disrupting the dragon.
Finally, the technique reached its zenith!
The Ancient Angelic Dragon chuckled, fixing the Will with a fierce, predatory glare. It slowly raised its left claw, which was now enveloped in a colossal sphere of light, illuminating the dark expanse of the abyss as if a new sun had just been born.
"Protect me!" the Will roared at the Wyrms. Desperate, they abandoned their clash with Seraphiel to shield their master. Though Seraphiel stayed locked onto them, he couldn't force them back before one of the Wyrms threw its massive bulk directly between the impending strike and the Will.
First Slash!
Fast! Fast! Fast!
In the blink of an eye, an unimaginably swift streak of golden sword-light pierced the entire distance from the heavens to the Will, halting only when it slammed into the purple wall at the very edge of the layer.
Eric and Adrian stood entirely frozen, their senses completely unable to perceive the speed of the attack. For a second, the universe seemed trapped in stasis. Then, the shielding Wyrm's eyes twitched, glancing down at its own underbelly where a glowing golden line had fractured its scales.
Purging torrents of blood, its lower body severed, it plummeted toward the earth. With its final breath, the dying beast activated a desperate swap technique, trading places with its brother to absorb any residual damage meant for the Will. Its corpse crashed heavily into the central lands, the light of vitality entirely extinguished from its eyes.
Following the first slash's initial force, a second golden streak flashed forward. It was much weaker than the first, but it struck the remaining Wyrm hard enough to make it wail in agony. Overwhelmed by its wounds, the beast lost consciousness and plummeted heavily to the central land below.
The Will had completely lost the upper hand. In a frenzy, it roared desperate orders to kill the whale immediately. The pressure was so intense that the Pseudo-Hypernova Beast clenched its head and shrieked into the air, causing the Will to panic even further.
As if its luck had completely run out, the technique it was using to stabilize itself suddenly malfunctioned. Its body began to flicker erratically between solid form and incorporeal mist.
"Now!" the Ancient Angelic Dragon roared, its voice echoing to Seraphiel and every Angelic Dragon in the layer.
A single slash was the dragon's absolute limit. It would need massive recovery time before it could ever use the technique again, but this opportunity was too perfect to waste. The dragon knew that if they gave the Will even a moment to breathe, it would bounce back and drag them right back into a life-or-death struggle. Above all, they could not let it take control of the whale.
With a final, thunderous roar that ignited the morale of its troops, the dragon charged. Seraphiel instantly teleported to the opposite side of their target, and together with the fleet of dragons, they launched a massive pincer attack from all sides.
The Will's frayed form flickered wildly as it tried to twist free of the closing ring, throwing what little strength it had left into a burst meant to carry it clear of the pincer before it could close. It barely broke past the first line before a lance of golden light caught its flank, and the impact spun it sideways through the air, its form losing cohesion for an instant before snapping back together. It tried again, lower this time, skimming close to the broken ground in an attempt to slip beneath the net of attacks, but a dragon on the outer edge cut off the gap and forced it to veer upward into the open.
That was the opening the others needed. Another volley tore into it from the side it had turned toward, and this time the Will could not recover fast enough to dodge cleanly; the force of the hit staggering it mid-flight. Its flickering form dimmed further, stunned, and it dropped toward the ground with the ring still closing around it, every path forward now sealed off by dragons converging from every direction.
For a brief moment, the Will seemed completely cornered.
Eric's premonition suddenly flared as his eyes widened; it felt that something was wrong. He wanted to do something.
However, the cruel reality was that he could do nothing
However, just as they all closed in on it, a low chuckle was heard as the Will raised its head, speaking in a low tone.
"You all fell for it."
Suddenly, two Hypernova Level Domain Cards of the Darkness Pathway manifested on either side of Seraphiel and the Ancient Angelic Dragon. Even in their prime, evading such a trap would have been a near-impossible feat. Exhausted from back-to-back battles, their reactions lagged by a single, fatal second.
The darkness surged forward, ensnaring Seraphiel, the Ancient Angelic Dragon, and the entire fleet of Angelic Dragons.
Yet, just before the dark abyss swallowed him whole, Seraphiel managed to trigger a final technique. A shimmering shroud of concealment rippled across the layer, masking their exact location right as they were sucked into the domain.
Free from the pincer attack, the Will instantly snapped the Pseudo-Hypernova Beast out of its stupor. Burning through its remaining Aura, the Will glided up to the massive head of the Sealing Abyss Whale. It plunged its left hand deep into the beast's skull. Corrosive energy flooded the titan, and black, necrotic veins erupted across the whale's colossal body at a terrifying speed.
Within moments, the ancient protector was fully corrupted into another puppet for the Will.
Back on the ground, Eric and Adrian stood utterly paralyzed. The battlefield had turned upside down in the blink of an eye. Adrian's mind raced, struggling to process the sudden catastrophe.
Suddenly, Eric's danger instincts flared violently. He sensed a lethal presence—an invisible Shadow Beast creeping up right behind them.
Acting on pure adrenaline, Eric grabbed Adrian, unfurled his pink wings, and took to the sky to escape.
As they flew, Eric desperately began calculating how to activate the Imperator's Cross. But before he could form the thought, a crushing weight slammed into the air behind them. The Pseudo-Hypernova Beast had intercepted them. Eric turned his head, locking eyes with the monster for a fraction of a second. The beast hesitated for a fleeting moment, then threw a brutal, full-force punch directly into Eric's back.
Without his Aura, Eric could no longer deploy his Repulsion Charge. Defenceless, he did the only thing he could: he pulled Adrian tight against his chest, shielding the boy with his own body as he took the impact head-on.
The sheer force of the blow shattered several of his vertebrae. The impact sent Eric hurtling through the sky like a broken doll, smashing through multiple mountains and jagged cliffs before finally crashing down right where the Will had just been ambushed.
Eric's vision began to blur into darkness, his body broken and battered just as it had been during his initial fall. But in the final microsecond before the impact, he had thrown Adrian clear of the wreckage.
He slowly looked up through the dust and saw Adrian lying on the ground, bleeding. "Adrian..." Eric let out, the words costing him through the pain, and he began to crawl toward him.
Adrian's head was bleeding as he coughed and slowly opened his eyes, pushing himself back up, and for a moment Eric felt relief settle in his chest. It lasted only a moment, crushed the instant the pseudo-Hypernova Beast appeared before them.
Adrian's body went rigid. His breath caught somewhere in his throat and refused to move, and his hands, still braced against the ground, began to shake without his permission as he slowly lifted his gaze to the beast towering over him. "Is this... where I die?" His premonitions screamed at him, some deep animal part of him already certain of what was coming, and the fear did not stay contained in his chest. It spread down into his limbs until they would not answer him, his fingers digging uselessly into the dirt as if the ground itself might hold him together.
But perhaps because he was too weak to matter, posing no threat worth its attention, the pseudo-Hypernova Beast ignored him and turned its gaze upward instead. Eric and Adrian followed it, and above them a black layer of light was already descending, slow and absolute, folding the air itself into the shape of a sealed space.
Eric screamed at Adrian to run. Adrian heard him; some part of him did, but the fear had already locked itself into his muscles, and no matter how hard he willed his legs to move, he could not make himself so much as flinch.
Adrian looked at Eric lying on the ground, and past him, at the broad back of the pseudo-Hypernova Beast as it advanced.
He wanted to fight, wanted to force his body up and throw himself between them, but he already knew how little that would accomplish. He looked up at the black light descending overhead, slow and patient, and the dilemma closed around him like a fist: help Eric, or save himself, when he was too weak to manage either.
A deep sense of helplessness crept into him, cold and total. He took one step forward, then one step back, his hands opening and closing at his sides with nothing to hold onto. He opened his mouth, some half-formed plea or apology rising in his throat, but no words came, only a breath caught halfway out. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his breathing grew heavier with every second the light kept falling, until his chest was heaving from fear alone.
The black light gathered speed as it neared the ground, the walls of the sealed space drawing tighter.
Then a wave of force slammed into him from behind, and the world tipped as he fell off the cliff's edge; the last thing in his vision was Eric's hand raised toward him, already fading behind the closing seal. Adrian reached back with both arms as if he could still catch hold of him, as if refusing to let go could undo what had already happened, and tears streamed down his face even as the distance between them kept growing.
The sealed space closed a moment later, leaving only Eric and the pseudo-Hypernova Beast inside.
Eric rose slowly, his body coated in nothing but dust and blood, but his gaze had lost none of its edge as he stared into the beast's eyes without a trace of fear. The beast froze for one second, then took a step back.
"38 percent Aura left..." Eric almost laughed.