Kyle's eyes flew open, his breath caught in his throat. The fragments of the dream—the warning—still echoed in his mind, but more than the words, it was the emotion behind them that clung to his chest like a vice.
"God of War…"
He sat up slowly, fingers pressing into his temples. A sharp, throbbing headache settled in like iron chains clamping down on his skull.
It wasn't the usual fatigue of overusing mana—this was something else. Residual backlash.
Lucia's divine mana had reached him. But it had been fractured. Incomplete.
He could feel the imbalance in the flow—it wasn't just because of her urgency. Lucia had tried to reach out from a place where her mana couldn't fully function. A divine prison.
One designed to suppress a god's will and power.
Even in that state, she still found a way to warn him.
Kyle gritted his teeth.
"You stubborn idiot…"
She could have used her remaining strength for herself. To protect her mind. To break free.
But instead, she warned him.
