The air split apart with a sound so violent that every conversation in the city just… stopped. A thunderous, all-consuming explosion tore through the skyline, shaking the ground beneath their feet.
Phaser froze mid-step. Hinesia did too.
They were only a few meters from one of the Fast Travel Buildings. The crowd around them had been noisy with tourists and locals talking about the upcoming fight between The Lone Nomad and Nefira. But when that sound hit, everything fell silent.
Phaser slowly turned his gaze upward and his heart dropped.
Above the skyline, where the massive floating arena hung proudly in the heavens, there was now a roiling sphere of fire. The entire floating arena was gone. A moment ago, it had been suspended like a jewel in the sky. Now it was collapsing into itself, flames devouring its shattered shell, leaving trails of metal streaking down through the clouds.
Hinesia whispered. Her eyes widened, reflecting the inferno above.
"No. No, no, no—"
The next second, the explosion's shockwave hit them, shattering windows and making car alarms scream. Phaser threw an arm in front of Hinesia instinctively as a gust of hot wind blew past, carrying embers and ash. People pointed at the sky, shouting, panicking and scattering like ants. Hinesia's hands flew to her mouth.
"My sisters…"
Her voice broke.
Phaser looked at her and saw the moment panic seized her completely. Her pupils dilated, her breaths turned shallow and quick, and her body began to shake. She wasn't seeing the crowd or hearing the chaos around them anymore.
"They were there, they were there! Father, he—he was supposed to watch them—"
"Hinesia."
She didn't hear him. She just kept muttering, her breaths becoming choked sobs. Her knees buckled and she fell, trembling so violently that her voice cracked.
"My sisters, they were... they were in the arena! He was with them! They they were there they were there—"
"Hinesia!"
She was slipping further into her panic, gasping like she couldn't breathe. Her nails dug into her arms, tears streaking down her cheeks as her mind spiraled into terror. The crowd was dissolving into hysteria but Phaser didn't move. He crouched in front of her.
He grabbed her shoulders hard.
"Hinesia! Look at me!"
Her eyes darted wildly until they locked on his.
"Breathe, now. Breathe!"
She tried—but it came out in broken sobs.
"I can't—I can't—my sisters—"
"I said breathe! Look at me. Look at me, damn it!"
"Why should I calm down?! My sisters are in there! My father is in there!"
Phaser froze for a half-second. Then he looked up, his eyes widening.
'If the arena had exploded then the debris—'
He looked back at Hinesia, who was barely holding on, and then up at the sky again. The fireball above was beginning to dissipate into waves of smoke, but something else was forming. A deep, thrumming vibration began to echo across the city. The air grew thick and black as if tar had started bleeding into the clouds.
A massive, horizontal portal tore across the heavens. lt stretched flat across the entire skyline like a gaping wound in the world. Phaser's stomach turned cold. He knew that energy.
"A Fluve Field."
The portal rippled like a black ocean, expanding wider until it blotted out the sun. The city's artificial lights flickered and the wind went dead still. It was as if the world itself was holding its breath.
Something fell.
At first it was a single piece of molten debris, as it streaked through the portal. Then came hundreds and then thousands. Massive structures, seats, walls and entire fragments of the arena's foundation came raining through the black sky. Someone had opened that portal deliberately. It wasn't random. It was forced open to drop everything faster.
Phaser's instincts screamed. He didn't think. He just moved.
He summoned the void. He threw out his hand, and a concussive burst of void erupted from his palm, blasting her back just as a shadow engulfed him.
"Phaser!"
The first wave of debris crashed down with apocalyptic force.
A slab of the arena—easily the size of a stadium—plummeted into the streets, smashing through skyscrapers and sending tidal waves of dust and fire across the blocks. The shockwave hit like a meteor strike, shattering everything within a kilometer radius. Cars, glass, and people were flung into the air. The ground split open as fragments of metal and stone punched into it like divine punishment.
Hinesia hit the ground from where Phaser had thrown her, her ears ringing, her lungs burning from the pressure. She screamed his name again, but her voice was drowned out by the cacophony of destruction.
The black portal kept spewing ruin and this time, bodies began falling next.
Figures that had once been spectators in the floating arena were now silhouettes tumbling lifelessly through the dark field. Their screams faded as they vanished into the smoke, only to be crushed by the raining debris. Buildings collapsed like paper. Fire erupted across entire city blocks.
Hinesia forced herself to crawl forward, her vision blurred with tears and smoke.
A nearby explosion ripped through a gas station, engulfing the street in a wave of crimson fire. She shielded her face, the heat searing her skin. The air stank of burning fuel, flesh and ozone.
A massive section of the arena's underside smashed through a residential tower, sending a plume of black fire and dust hundreds of meters high. The shockwave rolled through the streets, knocking people off their feet, breaking bones with invisible force. And still, the portal above kept bleeding ruin.
The screams were endless now. Bodies, debris, blood, and light rained from the heavens like the end of the world.
Hinesia coughed violently, her throat raw from smoke, her hands trembling as she tried to stand. The Fluve Field expanded once more, swallowing the clouds entirely. The scent of burning metal and charred bodies suffocated everything else. Hinesia's vision blurred. Her ears were still ringing so loud she couldn't even tell if she was breathing anymore.
Her entire body trembled as she looked at herself. The void element still shimmered faintly around her skin. It was Phaser's doing. He had used his power at the very last second, shielding her. That was when she noticed the iron rod jutting out from her side. Her pupils dilated as she realized what it was.
She gritted her teeth and pulled it out. The rod clanged against the concrete as blood poured out. The pain was so sharp that her knees buckled but she couldn't stop. She stumbled, slipped, caught herself on a cracked wall, then forced her hands into the ground.
"Move, damn it!"
The earth beneath her roared, responding to her desperation. Chunks of debris the size of cars and houses trembled, then lifted. Her earth element wrapped around them like invisible hands, flinging them aside. She clawed her way through the wreckage.
Her mind raced with one single thought.
He can't be dead.
Every second she moved, she saw burnt faces, bodies flattened under concrete slabs, twisted limbs and cries for help that ended before they could finish. The city she'd laughed in just hours ago was gone. And still, she ran.
"Please. Please, don't do this… please…"
Her voice was breaking apart. Her throat bled from screaming his name so many times.
Then, finally, she saw him.
He was lying under a collapsed structure, a crater carved beneath him. His right arm was mangled, the skin torn open like shredded silk. Blood pooled beneath his back, spreading too fast. His eyes were half-open, dull and lifeless.
She dropped beside him, her hands trembling as she grabbed his face. His skin was cold. Her fingers smeared with his blood as she cupped his cheeks, shaking him violently.
"Phaser! Wake up! Wake up! Please don't do this!"
Her voice cracked, turning into an ugly sob. She could barely breathe, her tears mixing with the dust.
He didn't move.
She pressed her ear to his chest. Nothing. There was no heartbeat or pulse. Her chest tightened so violently it hurt to inhale.
"No… please, not you too…"
Memories flooded her. She remembered her best friend's funeral and the silence that followed with guilt that clawed at her for years. She had sworn never to feel that emptiness again but here it was.
"Why… why can't I save anyone? You saved me, you idiot… you were supposed to protect yourself too!"
Another explosion echoed far away. She didn't care. Her whole world had shrunk to just this.
"Don't leave me… please don't leave me. I can't— I can't lose you too—"
A single, hoarse cough shook through his whole body.
"Phaser?"
His head turned slightly. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth but his lips curved faintly upward. He was alive. Relief hit her like a wave, so strong that her body collapsed over his chest.
"Oh, thank the Goddesses, thank you, thank you—"
"Hinesia…"
"I'm here, I'm here!"
He exhaled shallowly, her eyes flickering between focus and haze.
"You… need to get away…"
"What? No! I'm not leaving you!"
He forced a small, strained smile. "I said… run."
Before she could even process what that meant, she felt a surge of something beneath her palms. The ground beneath Phaser began to crack. Black crystals erupted from his skin, tearing through his flesh as if something was forcing its way out.
"Phaser, what's happening? Stop!" She screamed, trying to hold him still.
He grabbed her wrist weakly, eyes glowing faintly now with fractured light.
"Go…"
"Stop talking like that!"
He pushed her.
A burst of void energy exploded beneath her, hurling her backward through the debris. She hit the side of a broken wall, pain surging through her ribs but when she looked up, she froze.
Phaser's body was glowing. His veins lit up with silver-white light and crystal vines with thorns burst out from his chest and back, spiraling upward like monstrous thorns. They pierced the ground, carving through the street like roots.
Hinesia clutched her bleeding side, shaking as she stared at him in horror. The crystals spread faster, devouring everything in their path.
"Phaser?"