The air in the contemplation cell had congealed, like thick amber being violently torn and twisted by the rampaging energy within.
Wolfgang sat at its center, his form no longer the unshakable mountain of usual, but a piece of metal thrust into an invisible forge, hammered under immense pressure and searing heat. Beneath his bronze skin, veins bulged like coiling dragons, throbbing violently. Sweat beaded and was instantly vaporized by the high-temperature energy swirling around him, creating a wispy, shimmering halo.
Erika stood frozen at the doorway, breath held. He didn't need to consciously sense it; the surging energy fluctuations washed over his spiritual perception like a physical tsunami, making his scalp prickle.
This energy wasn't chaotic. It was being violently drawn from the void and surging forth from the core Mark within him, like a hundred rivers returning to a tumultuous sea. Forced into convergence by his indomitable will, it all streamed into the space between his fiercely pressed-together palms.
There, a miniature sun seemed to be gestating.
Blinding golden light stabbed from between his fingers, throwing the entire cell into stuttering pulses of stark light and deep shadow. A low, deep roar—not from the outside world, but a resonance that acted directly on the soul, born from energy compressed to its limit, annihilating itself in violent collisions. Erika could 'hear' the sharp shrieking of energy streams moving at impossible speeds, could 'see' countless tiny golden lightning snakes flickering into existence in the air, only to be forcibly drawn into the maelstrom between his palms.
The agony on Wolfgang's face was a stark mask. His jaw was clenched, the line of it hard as rock. Each breath was a monumental, drawn-out effort. With each inhalation, the surrounding energy rushed in madly; with each exhalation, foul air and the impurities scoured out by the energy's refinement were expelled on a wave of scorching heat.
His pressed-together hands trembled minutely, a titanic struggle against a world-shattering force contained within his own grasp. A single misstep, and that power would backlash, obliterating him. The light between his palms flickered unpredictably, sometimes stabilizing and contracting like a forming star, other times flaring wildly, golden tendrils lashing out as if on the verge of catastrophic rupture.
It was a process of walking a razor's edge, the most dangerous and magnificent metamorphosis preceding an ascent in one's state of being.
Erika watched, his mind and spirit reeling. He understood, with visceral clarity, that obtaining a more powerful Mark wasn't simple accumulation, but a brutal war against oneself and the fabric of reality. The willpower, control, and understanding of energy Wolfgang displayed here were realms beyond his own comprehension.
He was an ant gazing up at the starry sky, granted a terrifying glimpse of its vast, indifferent mechanics.
Wolfgang's chest heaved like bellows. His bronze skin stretched taut over muscles locked to their absolute limit. The energy around him was no longer flowing light, but a seething, near-solid mass of golden magma, emitting a grating, high-frequency hum. This frenzied power was bound and compressed by his will, funneled entirely into the crucible of his clasped hands.
There, a pulsating orb of intolerably bright light throbbed. At its core, a new, impossibly complex energy architecture was struggling to form. It writhed with a life of its own, fighting to break free from pure potentiality, to brand its unique laws upon the void and fuse with Wolfgang's very life essence. It was like sculpting a divine artifact at the heart of chaos, each stroke consuming unimaginable focus and strength.
"Hgh—!"
A sound tore from his throat, dredged from the depths of his soul. It was feral and final, the roar of a dying beast mustering its last strike. The fine bones in his body groaned under the strain. All his consciousness, all his power, were cast into this single, desperate moment—the final, defining press to permanently fix this nascent Mark! To complete the ultimate leap!
But in the breathless instant between triumph and failure—
"Crack…"
A faint, crisp sound, sharp as an ice needle, pierced Erika's eardrums and stabbed into his soul.
Erika's gaze snapped to the room's corner—to the miniature Eternal Circuit set into the base, the unremarkable device that steadily powered the cell. Now, its normally gentle glow was a chaotic, epileptic flicker. A web of ugly, black-cobweb cracks raced across its surface, spreading with terrifying speed!
It had reached its limit. It could no longer sustain the near-plundering, frenzied energy drain of Wolfgang's breakthrough!
"CRACK!"
The sound was clear. Hopeless. Before Erika's horrified eyes, the circuit maintaining the balance shattered completely. It didn't explode, but crumbled like a sand sculpture weathered for millennia, dissolving into a puff of dull energy-ash and metallic dust.
HUM—!!!
The world seemed to lose all sound, replaced by the pure terror of energy running amok. The carefully constrained field within the cell, the one Wolfgang's immense will had held in check, collapsed as if its spine had been ripped out. Deprived of external stability, the pent-up, frenzied power at its peak lost all restraint. It was a dam breaking, a catastrophic backlash!
The nascent Mark between Wolfgang's palms, on the very brink of permanence, was plunged into darkness as if drenched in ink. The energy patterns, clear and sharp moments before, were now being brutally erased, blurring, fading. The entire structure flickered and twisted in a final, desperate spasm, ready to dissolve into chaotic streams. All progress, lost.
"URGH—!!"
A grunt, laden with agony, towering rage, and sheer disbelief, was wrenched from Wolfgang. His body convulsed as if struck by a giant's hammer. A trickle of blood, faintly glinting with gold, escaped the corner of his mouth, tracing a path down his jaw. The violent backlash from the aborted breakthrough was a storm of white-hot blades, madly careening through his energy channels, ravaging him from within.
His eyes were blood-red, fixed with a near-feral intensity on the fading light in his hands. The look was pure, thwarted fury, mixed with something never before seen on him—a profound, shocking weakness born of power violently ripped away.
In that cataclysmic, final moment—
Erika's mind, all its weighing of risk and fear, was scoured clean by a more primal instinct. One thought, a wildfire, consumed everything:Not like this. He can't fail like this, from a stupid, mechanical failure!
He moved.
A released arrow, he shot into the cell! He didn't feel the lashing sting of chaotic energy on his skin, didn't register the dangerous mix of shock and fury in Wolfgang's gaze as he intruded. His entire being was focused on the shattered circuit base.
In the split-second Wolfgang was paralyzed by backlash and surprise, Erika was there. Without hesitation, he pulled the backup circuit from his inner pocket—the cold, silent piece of metal left by the technical brother, now their only hope.
He aligned the interface. With all his strength, with a prayer's desperation, he slammed it—home.
Click.
A clean, stable, physical sound. Faint, but perfectly clear amidst the roar of out-of-control energy.
The moment the backup circuit connected—
A trickle of energy, weak compared to the previous torrent but utterly stable and pure, flowed into the nearly depleted, crashing system. A life-giving draught. A final stimulant for the dying.
That tiny, precisely timed infusion.
The despairing fury in Wolfgang's bloodshot eyes ignited into a final, blinding, desperate light! Clenching against the agony of shredding channels, driven by battle-honed instinct and iron will, he seized this one chance at reversal. He marshaled his last dregs of spirit and strength and brought them down upon his palms in a final, defiant hammer-blow!
The nascent Mark, on the verge of dissolution and almost invisible, found anchor in this new, fragile support. Like embers gifted a breath of air, its light steadied. The fading patterns reignited, firmly. It stopped dissolving, stopped twisting. Fixed by an invisible hand, it contracted sharply, completing its final, crucial solidification—
HUM—!
A deep, resonant, complete thrum of energy sounded steadily. No more violent shrieks, but the lingering toll of a great bell, echoing in the suddenly still room. All frenzied energy gentled, converging, until finally, upon his upper chest, just above his original Mark, it coalesced into a perfect, new structure—intricate, precise, radiating a deep and potent golden light.A Mark.
Success. Against impossible odds, after heart-stopping twists, he had succeeded.
Wolfgang's iron-tense body went utterly slack, all strength spent. He could no longer maintain his posture. He lurched forward, hands slamming onto the floor to keep from collapsing entirely. He gasped, ragged, broken breaths, like a ruined bellows. Great drops of sweat fell like a storm from his brow and temples, striking the smooth floor in a continuous, darkening patter.
With immense effort, painfully slow, he lifted his head. His gaze, through sweat and blood-blurred vision, hazy with aftermath and raw exhaustion, found Erika—still frozen by the base, pale and panting.
The look was a chasm of complexity. The fleeting triumph of breakthrough. The shock of a brush with death. Anger at his own vulnerability. But most of all, a new, naked, almost soul-piercing scrutiny.What was he seeing?This audacious boy?The one who had invaded his moment of ultimate weakness and offered the crucial hand?Or was he seeing an… unpredictable variable?
Then, inevitably—
HUM—
The familiar, cold tremor of system surveillance arrived. The Silent One's streamlined, lifeless white form coalesced swiftly in the room's center, its golden facial circle rotating with indifferent, mechanical precision.
[Anomalous fluctuation detected in local circuit. Energy supply source unconventionally switched. Error 67. Querying case logs…]
The flat, synthetic voice echoed, a judge's pronouncement in the room now silent save for ragged breathing.
[Brother Wolfgang.] A pause.[Do not appropriate or replace standard energy channel components. This incident has been logged.]
Duty declared, the Silent One's avatar vanished like chalk wiped from a slate, leaving no trace.
Silence returned.
Only Wolfgang's ragged breaths, and the frantic pounding of Erika's heart.
As if pulled by an invisible thread, both men slowly, heavily turned their gazes from the space where the Silent One had vanished.
Their eyes met again, across the still-settling motes of energy.
This time, there was no roar, no collapse, no interference.
Only the suffocating silence of a crisis narrowly averted.
And the vast, heavy, unspoken question hanging between a newly ascended, vulnerable-yet-stronger Instructor and a precarious, rule-breaking novice clutching secrets—
A wordless stare.
The silence was louder than any sound.