Near the back, Elara knelt beside Emilia, her hands trembling as they glowed green. Not just natural green pulses of pure energy, flickering with unstable waves of life and destruction.
Emilia's breath steadied.
Her broken ribs realigned.
But then Elara stood.
Emilia (whispering): "Elara… What are you doing?"
Elara didn't answer. Her eyes locked on Viresa.
She raised her palm.
A green circle flared around her—a pulse of energy so raw, so powerful, that even Viresa faltered mid-step.
Elara (softly): "Leave Papa alone."
She fired—a beam of green-dark light, not explosive, but focused—pure energy intertwined—slammed into Viresa's side, sending her stumbling.
But the cost was immediate.
Elara collapsed to her knees, clutching her chest, the aura burning her skin from within, but it instantly healed.
Elara (gasping): "Still… can't control it…"
Ronnie caught Viresa as she recovered and slammed his fist into her solar plexus, discharging a storm of pure electricity that lit up the entire tunnel.
CRACK-BOOM!
Viresa screamed, the first true scream of pain, as the gravitational aura around her shorted, destabilizing.
She leapt back, panting.
Her cloak reformed.
A deep, rippling hum vibrated through the stone—like the world itself inhaling.
Then—BOOOOMMM—!!!
The tunnel to the east collapsed inward, as if struck by a falling star. From the crater, she rose again.
Cloaked in molten obsidian, her eyes blazing white. Her singularity had grown: a shimmering black core floated behind her, lined with gold hex rings, pulsing like a second heart.
Viresa (voice echoing and like steel):
"I did not come for a debate."
"I came for the offering."
Henry stepped forward, his heavenly aura flaring to life.
Blue energy was lighting his fists. Sparks rippled across his body.
Henry: "You'll have to kill me."
Ichiro (wind building in his hands): "You'll have to survive us first."
Ronnie's coat still crackled with residual lightning.
Ronnie (gritting his teeth): "Then let's finish this."
Viresa extended both arms.
Two rings of gravity and mass rotated around her body. The ground beneath her compacted into black diamond. Even light slowed down near her.
She snapped her fingers—and three gravitational tethers shot out, latching to the group's limbs.
Ronnie vanished in a crack of lightning to escape.
Henry, glowing blue, burst into his Shooting Star dash, twisting the tethers with acceleration.
Ichiro, reacting instantly, sliced them with compressed blades of wind.
The tethers imploded seconds later—each one collapsing into razor-thin needles of mass.
Ronnie slashed at her. Viresa tightly grabs the blades, but Ronnie disappears quickly.
Lightning surged up Ronnie's back as a crown of electricity formed above his head. He launched into a zigzagging blitz, appearing and reappearing across the battlefield—each punch shattering chunks of stone around Viresa.
She spun midair—summoned a sphere of condensed tungsten mass and hurled it at him. The orb bent gravity around it, drawing debris, rebar, and heat.
Ronnie caught it mid-spin—then exploded it with a surge of divine voltage.
Ronnie quickly gets his blades.
Viresa raised her hands.
A field 200 meters wide erupted into shimmering distortion. Inside it, everything at the surface and in the tunnels doubled in weight every 3 seconds.
Emilia and Lenny collapsed, pinned by the sheer pressure. Elara stood still, green-dark energy formed around her, protecting her from the pressure.
Henry gritted his teeth, his blue aura barely holding as the weight tripled.
Henry (shouting): "ICHIRŌ—NOW!"
Ichiro's hands moved faster than sight. His wind condensed, spiraling like twin lances from his arms. He flew through the air—his feet never touching the weighted ground—and pierced through the Domain's outer shell.
Ichiro (roaring): "GET OUT OF HER SPACE!"
He landed behind Viresa and drove both wind-lances into the ground, creating a shockwave of pressure inversion.
It didn't break the domain. But it gave Henry just enough time.
Henry's body burst into radiant blue energy, wings of divine light fanning out from his back for a brief second.
Henry (softly): "Let's see how dense your pride really is."
He vanished.
And then reappeared above her—his fist covered in pure heavenly energy, brighter than ever.
Henry (divine roar): "SHOOTING STAR: ASCEND!"
He crashed into her like a meteor.
The entire tunnel exploded into blue light.
Viresa crashed into the far wall, her obsidian cloak shattered, blood leaking from her shoulder.
She stood again—but slower now. Weakened. Shaken.
But not broken.
Dust still hung in the air from Henry's Shooting Star: Ascend.
Then space snapped open above them.
A sphere of pure pressure dropped like a meteor.
She ascended in silence, her cloak gone, her skin cracked with glowing gold veins of overused mass-energy. Her eyes were no longer white.
They were black holes.
Viresa (echoes, broken voice): "I did not come to test you."
"I came to end you."
She floated in the air; the ceiling above them ripped open, and the ground underneath them raised them to the surface.
Viresa (echoes, broken voice): "SOUL DOMAIN: EIDOLON FALL."
The entire area froze.
Time didn't stop—weight did.
And then it returned all at once.
BOOOOOOOM—!!!
The ground buckled inward. Steel melted. Air itself is compressed. The area caved like lungs gasping for breath.
Everything inside her domain now weighed thousands of times more than it should have.
Even light bent downward.
The team collapsed.
Ronnie dropped to one knee, lightning flaring erratically.
Ichiro screamed as his wind aura shattered, blood bursting from his shoulder, forced into the ground.
Henry was crushed mid-sprint, slamming him into the ground.
Viresa (floating, echoes): "Welcome to my Soul Domain. Mass is whatever I want it to be."
She raises both hands.
Viresa (echoes): "I will take the offering. I will bury your future beneath your bones."
Above her, the air condensed into a dense golden spike—like a divine weapon forged by pressure itself.
She hurled it.
Ronnie stood and crossed his arms, absorbing all lightning in the area.
Then a circular dome of pure lightning formed over the group—
The spike hit it—
BOOOOOMM!!!
Lightning split in every direction. Half the area vaporized.
Ronnie fell unconscious instantly, smoke rising from his arms, skin burned.
But he'd blocked it.