Valicera screamed.
A scream without sound, a scream that tore the throat apart from the inside, a scream of animalistic pain and cosmic terror born from the loss of self.
She opened her mouth as wide as physically possible, the veins in her neck bulging as if they were about to explode, yet not a single vibration emerged.
The void swallowed her scream before it could even be born.
In that moment of pure terror, the survival instinct awakened in its most extreme form: self-destruction to prevent the enemy from winning.
She tried to summon even the smallest particle of Aethra, any spark of the gravitational Aethra that defined her existence.
She focused every shattered fragment of her remaining will toward her heart.
She was an expert in controlling mass and gravity.
She knew how to increase the weight of objects until they collapsed into themselves.
If she could not resist, then she would turn her heart into a microscopic black hole.
