Biolumine was already flying far beyond what sound should allow with the bridge blurring into a single line beside them, when both Veneri and Phaenora felt it at the exact same time. What they felt was a presence so monstrously heavy that reality itself seemed to flinch around it.
They turned their heads sideways at the same time. Obscenely far ahead, something walked.
It was humanoid in shape only by technicality. It was a silhouette so vast that calling it a body felt incorrect. Its legs vanished into the clouds below while its torso was completely swallowed by higher cloud strata. The scale was wrong in a way that made the mind recoil. To them, it was like seeing a mountain peak from far ahead but on a massive scale.
They could not see its face. That was until the head turned.
That motion alone bent the clouds, displaced entire weather systems and sent visible ripples through the sky. The silhouette tilted into focus for a fraction of a second and in that fraction, Veneri understood with horrifying clarity.
This thing was looking at them. He did not hesitate.
His Divinity of Protection detonated outward at maximum output. It kept overlapping into a spherical barrier that screamed as it formed with runes igniting along its surface and his Soul Energy flooding into it so violently that the air around him warped. He even summoned his Divine Transformation in the process.
Less than a blink later, a crimson beam was fired.
It was not light as Mortals or Immortals understood it. It was a column of annihilation so wide it erased the clouds it passed through. The beam was so dense it left nothing behind but vacuum and burning afterimages carved into the sky itself. The Dafes did not even have time to react.
They were simply erased.
The beam struck the barrier and the impact was instantaneous.
Veneri poured everything he had into the shield. Soul Energy was ripping free from him in torrents as the spherical barrier buckled and cracked. Spider web fractures raced across its surface faster than thought.
All of that happened in two seconds.
Phaenora saw it before Veneri felt it His body was beginning to fail.
Golden cracks spread across Vastarael's skin like fractured porcelain. Golden light leaked from them in erratic pulses as his Divinity strained beyond what his vessel could endure. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth as he coughed violently.
"Veneri—"
The barrier shattered. And in that moment, gravity changed twenty times heavier than what it was.
Biolumine screamed in pain as its massive form lost balance instantly. Its radiant body was dragged mercilessly toward the clouds below. They were being pulled at a speed that made thought impossible.
The second beam began to charge. Vastarael felt it before he saw another surge of annihilation gathering behind them.
There was no time.
His Mystic Eyes of Awareness flared violently. Veins around his eyes burst as the world fractured into coordinates, vectors, impossible angles and space itself unfolding like a wounded map before him.
One second. That was all he had.
They crashed into solid ground just as the second beam fired. The crimson column passed through where they had been less than a moment earlier.
Vastarael did not stop.
He shoved Phaenora away with all the remaining strength in his body, sending her skidding across the ground, then turned and hurled Asenane in her direction. He was careful even in that moment to shield her head. Her body tumbled safely beyond the immediate blast zone next to Phaenora .
"Run—"
No sound came.
He recalled Biolumine in a violent flash of light, forcing the Divine Creature back into his soul before it could be erased.
The beam hit.
Vastarael's skin tore in places as the pressure tried to peel him apart layer by layer. His body was flung backward like debris in a god's tantrum. The world went white, then red and soon, nothing. His consciousness slipped away mid-impact.
-------
The shockwave ripped her away from Vastarael with a force so abrupt that her fingers never even realized they lost him. Her body kept spinning as she instinctively clutched Asenane to her chest. Phaenora forced sapphire into existence.
Sapphire erupted from her skin with frantic speed. A crystalline cocoon covered both of them before the shockwave fully caught her. It hurled the cocoon through the air like a meteor. The world became a blur of inverted towers and colossal stone structures rushing toward her at the speed of sound.
The first impact obliterated an entire pillar. The second sent them ricocheting sideways through a wall thick enough to have once supported a giant's chambers.
The sapphire cocoon cracked as stress fractures emerged across its surface before the entire structure shattered in an explosive spray of crystalline fragments that disintegrated into particles mid-air, leaving Phaenora to slam into the ground hard enough to cause a miniature crater on it. Her body kept sliding across shattered stone before finally, she stopped.
For a second, she didn't move.
Her lungs spasmed and she rolled onto her side coughing so violently it felt like her ribs were trying to tear their way out of her chest. Blood splattered against the broken floor as she sucked in air that burned like glass. Her vision was swimming, her ears were ringing and her head was pounding like the aftermath of a bad dream she couldn't wake up from.
"Damn it..."
She forced herself upright with shaking arms. Sapphire particles still drifted around her like fading embers and the first thing she did—before fear could talk her out of it—was to summon her holograms. Her hands trembled as translucent panels flickered into existence,
The panel displayed text she had never, not once in her entire existence, seen before.
[Cannot Access The Divine Known as Vastarael Richinaria.]
She blinked hard and swiped the panel away as her hands kept moving faster, summoning it again.
[Cannot Access The Divine Known as Vastarael Richinaria.]
Again.
[Cannot Access The Divine Known as Vastarael Richinaria.]
Same result.
[Cannot Access The Divine Known as Vastarael Richinaria.]
Again.
[Cannot Access The Divine Known as Vastarael Richinaria.]
It all revealed a single result.
[Cannot Access The Divine Known as Vastarael Richinaria.]
"Veneri?"
If couldn't access him, if her system couldn't even detect him—
'He's dead.'
Her hands shook so badly the holograms flickered. She was one second away from completely losing it when she looked down.
Asenane was still asleep.
If Vastarael were truly dead, the Sleep Rune would have collapsed. It was anchored to him after all.
Her breath came out in a half-sob, half-laugh that hurt her throat. She pushed herself to her feet unsteadily and turned to the horizon. That's when she saw the silhouette.
The colossal humanoid figure was already moving like nothing had happened. Its presence was so heavy that it pressed down on her chest even from this far away. She hadn't sensed the beam at all. There was only one single second of charge and then it moved at the speed of light. If Vastarael hadn't reacted in that one second…
Her gaze dropped and that's when she noticed the warmth. She looked down at her abdomen and froze.Blood was soaked into her clothes. The pain was finally emerging now that shock had loosened its grip.
"Ah… damn it…"
She raised a trembling hand and activated Body Reconstruction on instinct and the hologram appeared again.
[Cannot Access The Divine Known as Vastarael Richinaria.]
She tried again but got the same message.
His ability wasn't responding. She couldn't access Soul Reconstruction either. Nothing was tied to him. Nothing copied from him. And yet, sapphire still shimmered faintly along her fingers.
"I can still use sapphire so why..."
Why couldn't she access him?
Her legs buckled slightly and she staggered back, sinking down onto the ruined floor beside Asenane. Her strength was draining out of her with every second as blood loss caught up to her.
Her eyelids felt heavy. Her thoughts blurred. She turned her head toward Asenane, making sure she was still breathing.
"I… lost too much blood."
The darkness took her.