The cold bit into my fingers as I held the ancient band between my hands. The rough surface of the Space-element stones scraped my skin — dark blue, deep, dense.
Beautiful, even. A kind of silent, dangerous beauty, like the sea seen from underwater just before the air runs out.
— What the hell am I doing? I murmured, pressing my lips together as the wind eroded what little courage I had left.
But then the image of my parents crossed my mind — fast, precise, like a blade that didn't ask permission to cut.
And that was it. There was no room left for doubt.
— Forbidden? — I murmured, already tying the band around my forehead. — Fine. Because "allowed" isn't saving my sister.
The stones pulsed once.
Just once.
Then they vanished into an uncomfortable silence, as if they were holding their breath along with me.
I straightened into the absorption stance.
Closed my fists together against my chest, took a deep breath.
The Chi inside me answered with a strange heat along my back. First gentle, like a hand resting on my shoulders. Then… a growing burn, as if something inside was boiling, trying to tear me apart from within.
I had felt pain before. Everyone has.
But this…
This felt like an internal fight between two animals trying to devour the same body — mine.
The Chi, normally transparent and light, began to thicken, to darken.
A blue so deep it swallowed light instead of reflecting it.
Fragments of it — tatters — tore loose and floated around me. Rags of living darkness, as if space itself were peeling away from my body.
When the dark-blue liquid began to seep from my skin, I thought I was bleeding.
But no. It was Chi. Chi that had lost its composure.
It crawled up my face like a living shadow, pulling my hood and turning it into an irregular, ethereal mantle.
As if my own clothes were being swallowed by some rotten dimension.
I looked at myself — or tried to.
Arms, neck, torso: half human, half distortion.
Half Ark. Half… that.
When their presence tore through the air, my stomach turned to ice.
Two Sentinel Devanadors.
Marks of authority, impeccable black tunics, always appearing like cracks in reality.
One of them locked eyes with me and almost choked on his own breath.
— What is this boy doing?
— Wait… this looks like Yuron… but he shouldn't know this. — another Devanador said, intrigued.
— You there! Stop immediately! This is forbidden!
— This is… corrupted Chi, he said, his voice drawn out, reverent, as if standing before a ghost.
I reflected.
If before I was just a fugitive… now I was an official criminal.
Perfect. Everything following the unhappy line of my life.
He attacked.
Fast, precise, irritatingly professional.
His white gauntlets shone as the embedded stones activated. A pale light bloomed on his forehead and raced down his arm with electric speed.
Three shots.
Three projectiles.
Fast enough to punch a hole through the chest of even a Chi master.
— Damn it, now they're shooting stones too.
But I moved.
I dodged.
Twisted in an impossible spin.
Tilted my torso by centimeters.
The stones whistled past my ear and shattered behind me.
The Sentinel narrowed his eyes.
So did I.
Because that — that wasn't normal.
I struck back.
A punch wrapped in that distorted Chi hit his chest and the world seemed to pause.
Silence.
A dry impact.
He flew, hit the ground, rolled.
The fight went on. Hard, sweaty, ugly — exactly like almost every real fight.
And in the end, I won.
Staggering, gasping, my hands trembling not with fear… but with power.
I was stronger.
Faster.
More dangerous.
And still… it wasn't even close to enough.
— I need to run. This is all too new, I murmured, spitting out the metallic taste of adrenaline.
And I ran.
Mid-sprint, I felt the band slip from my forehead.
It fell to the ground, dragging dust, useless.
It didn't matter anymore.
The stones — the ones that had once shone deep blue — were now dead.
No color.
No pulse.
Nothing.
And yet…
the corrupted Chi kept following me.
Breathing with me.
Living in me.
I ran as if my entire body were made of electric impulses and urgency.
The Chi rippled behind me like a torn astral cloak, dragging shadows along the ground.
In the Blue State, Imi was waiting.
And nothing — absolutely nothing — was going to make me stop.
The ruins rose like broken teeth, and among them more Sentinels appeared.
— It's impressive how they never give up.
All ready.
Fists raised.
Gauntlets glowing.
The stones flew.
I rolled, dodged, turned, let the Chi go beyond the limits of my body.
Stones whistled past my ribs.
One nearly tore off my ear.
Another exploded against the wall behind me.
— You won't stop, fear whispered.
I didn't stop.
When I reached the border of the Black State, the air changed — heavy, denser, almost oppressive.
Three new Devanadors appeared.
Hooded.
Silent.
But their hands were empty.
The one in front touched his own forehead.
Pressed a Psychic Stone.
Gravity around us twisted like wet fabric.
A light-red wave exploded from his forehead to his fist.
The air vibrated.
The ground kicked up dust and stone.
Roots swayed.
Rocks flew.
The ground folded beneath my feet like crumpled cloth, pulling me sideways.
My balance failed, just like the first time I used the band.
"Great," I thought.
"Now they bend space too."
I dodged.
Jumped.
Rolled.
A floating rock grazed my shoulder and tore a piece of my shirt.
Another nearly crushed my head.
— Why so much aggression? I only absorbed stones.
And still… I ran.
Feeling every muscle burn.
Every breath scrape.
Every heartbeat threaten to split in half.
The Chi around me vibrated like an unstable gravitational field.
I felt its strength.
Its hunger.
Its promise.
"Will I change?" I thought, dodging another psychic attack.
"But this won't control me."
No.
It was a weapon.
And it was mine.
The Devanadors behind me bent the world.
Their ideas of physics and morality dripped through the air like ink.
And I ran.
Because there was no choice.
Because if I stopped, I died.
Simple as that.
I turned a narrow corner and almost fell down a slope.
Plants tore up the ground, turning the corridor into a dark-green tunnel — a vegetal labyrinth, ancient and forgotten.
Perfect to hide.
Perfect to be hunted.
I dove into it, dodging leaves that tried to scratch me like impatient fingers.
And then…
The impact.
The Devanador's psychic wave hit me in the chest.
Direct.
Merciless.
The psychic energy burned its way in, like acid in my blood. For a second I thought I would explode from the inside.
Then… it was mine.
My body tingled, the air around me cracked like breaking ice.
The enemy energy came like lightning — but stopped, sucked into my chest, filling the void with a strange, living heat.
My fist clenched tighter, ready to return it.
The distortion around me exploded in silence, pulling the psychic wave into itself like a vortex.
I vanished.
Literally.
The world turned into blurs of plants and shadows.
— DAMN IT! one of the Devanadors shouted. — You gave him psychic energy! Now he's faster!
Another hesitated.
Fear in his voice.
Resolve in his eyes.
— He'll stop, he said.
— We'll continue.
Idiots.
I wasn't going to stop.
My body barely touched the ground — it floated, driven by something I barely understood.
Every turn of the labyrinth seemed to open before I arrived.
Every shot vanished into leaves, into air, or… into nothing.
Because I was already gone.
Toward the Blue State.
Toward Imi.
And nothing — not the Chi, not fear, not the entire world — was going to make me stop.