Inside the fractured, violet-lit dome, the air hummed with a fragile, dangerous stillness.
Milim's hands hovered in midair, her claws trembling. The raw, absolute certainty that had fueled her relentless assault was splintering under the pulse of emerald light radiating from the obsidian cube. But doubt alone could not erase centuries of agony. The emotional chasm between her grief and his intervention was still too wide to cross with words alone.
Loki knew it. Explanations would sound like excuses; arguments would only restart the violence.
He didn't speak. Instead, he closed his eyes and reached inward, touching the cold, absolute authority of Hades.
Through the soul-based connection he held with the imprisoned spirit, Loki bypassed the barrier of the cube. He didn't try to rewrite the memories or polish their jagged edges; he unlocked the raw, unedited stream of consciousness he had just received and projected it outward, broadcasting Gaia's surviving memories directly into the shared psychic space of the crimson domain.
The domain's atmosphere warped. The heavy scent of ozone dissolved, replaced by an overwhelming, suffocating wave of ancient, raw emotion.
The memories didn't flow as a neat, chronological story. They struck like physical blows—fragmented, chaotic, and searingly intimate.
First came the light of a distant, untroubled era. A small, clumsy dragon tumbling through sunlit skies, chasing the shadow of twin pigtails. The boundless, reckless joy of an ancient friendship forged when the world was young, the absolute, unquestioning adoration of a companion who knew no greater purpose than standing by Milim's side.
Then came the sudden, agonizing rupture. The sky turning a sickly, burning red. The brutal, final impact of an overwhelming force that shattered scale and spirit alike, extinguishing the little dragon's life in a flash of violence that left Milim screaming into an empty sky.
Next was the cold, terrifying confusion of resurrection. Milim's awakening had called the dead dragon back, but the return was incomplete. A violent rebirth into a colossal, corrupted shell whose damaged spirit could no longer control its own body.
And finally, the creeping darkness of the corruption. Centuries of isolation, followed by Mariabell's sharp, agonizing commands tearing through its consciousness like rusted hooks, drowning the ancient affection beneath endless, raging waves of artificial madness.
The psychic projection crashed over Milim like a tidal wave.
Her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened in horror as she experienced her own ancient loss from the other side. Not as a distant memory, but as the dying, terrified perspective of the small dragon trying desperately to reach her through the suffocating dark.
She saw Loki standing above the roaring jaws of the corrupted Chaos Dragon. She felt the sudden, quiet realization in Gaia's buried mind: He isn't here to finish the destruction. He's stopping it.
"Ah..."
Milim stumbled backward, her wings snapping outward to catch her balance. Her hands flew to her head as the sheer weight of Gaia's perspective tore through her defenses. The anger that had sustained her, the burning wrath she had directed at Loki for days, vanished into a hollow, crushing grief.
"You... you saw it all," Milim whispered, her voice cracking violently. Tears welled in her blue eyes, spilling over her cheeks as the crimson aura around her flickered and died. "You saw how much she was hurting... and you didn't let her die."
Before Loki could answer, a violent, sickening shudder tore through the air.
Crack.
The sound wasn't coming from the domain's sky. It was coming from the obsidian cube clutched against Loki's chest.
'Warning!' Manas: Loki reported, his synthetic voice carrying an unprecedented spike of urgency. 'Soul-resonance projection has destabilized the internal spatial anchors! Outer containment shell breached. Infinite Prison layers remain active, but the corrupted physical mass is extruding through the spatial rupture!'
The translucent faces of the cube flashed blinding violet. The black, spiderwebbing fractures that had remained dormant suddenly erupted outward, shattering the obsidian outer casing from within. Jagged shards of divine metal and dark crystal exploded into the air as an immense, roaring surge of corrupted miasma burst violently from the container.
Yet beneath the shattered casing, the multi-layered white-and-gold seals of Infinite Prison held firm, keeping the true core of the soul contained while a massive, writhing extension of dark scales and tattered wings forced its way through the gap.
The Chaos Dragon's partially freed physical form materialized directly into the confined space, its instinct driven entirely by centuries of pain and spiritual mutilation. Its corrupted instincts recognized neither friend nor protector. Milim's immense Draconic aura became the nearest overwhelming stimulus, and the beast lunged.
With terrifying speed, the massive, corrupted head snapped forward, its jagged fangs aiming directly for Milim.
Milim froze. Stunned by the overwhelming flood of memories and the sudden eruption of the very entity she had mourned, her body refused to move. She stood immobilized, staring up at the gaping maw of the monster that had once been her dearest friend.
Loki didn't hesitate. Milim could easily survive the physical bite; her durable dragonoid body and divine resilience were more than enough to shrug off the kinetic trauma. But it didn't matter. If Gaia ever woke as herself again, he refused to let one of her first recovered truths be that her corrupted, agonizing form had sunk its teeth into the person she loved most.
With a surge of Nephalem authority, Loki interposed himself directly between the snapping jaws of the Chaos Dragon and Milim. He threw his arms wide, absorbing the full, crushing impact of the massive beast's lunge against his own chest.
Crash!
The impact drove Loki backward, his boots plowing deep trenches into the bedrock. The corrupted dragon's teeth slammed into his shoulders, tearing through his flesh with brutal force.
Milim gasped, her eyes snapping back into focus as she saw Loki pinned beneath the snapping jaws of her corrupted companion, deliberately taking the violence meant for her.
"Loki—!" Milim cried out.
"Don't look at her like a monster, Milim!" Loki strained, his voice cutting through the deafening roar of the beast as he gripped the dragon's massive upper jaw with his bare, bleeding hands, holding it back from his face. "She's terrified! She's still in there!"
He was bleeding onto the scales of the creature he had sworn to protect, shielding the one person who had tried to kill him moments ago, proving through absolute, physical sacrifice that his only goal from the very beginning had been preservation, not possession.
The Chaos Dragon roared again, thrashing its colossal body as it broke more of the domain's internal structure.
Milim stared at Loki, bleeding and unyielding beneath the jaws of her past, and the last remnants of her misunderstanding finally dissolved into ash. Her blue eyes hardened with a fierce, heartbreaking resolve directed entirely at the dark miasma consuming her friend.
"I know," Milim breathed, her voice steadying as a terrifying, pure wave of divine Draconic power surged from her body, eclipsing the violet light of the dome. She raised her hand, her gaze locked onto the corruption choking the dragon. "Get out of my way, Loki. Let's save her together."
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