The service alley was a dead end, choked with rusted machinery and collapsed fencing. Perfect.
Leo skidded to a halt, turning to face the Resonance Eater. It filled the narrow space, its void-face drinking the dim daylight. The pulling sensation began immediately, a terrible suction at his mind, trying to devour the complex engine of his talent.
He didn't resist. He embraced it. He focused on the anchor, but not to run. He focused on the most complex, potent, and useless skill he could muster. He focused on the memory of his shattering.
[Skill Recognized: Psychic Self-Annihilation - Lv. 0]
[Intent: Sustained Application. Multiplier: x50.]
He didn't release the power. He just let it build, holding it at the precipice, a roaring, chaotic inferno of potential energy held in check by a thread of will. It was the ultimate, five-course meal for a creature that fed on expression.
The Resonance Eater shuddered with ecstasy, intensifying its pull, glutting itself on the torrent of power Leo was offering but not releasing. It was a glutton presented with a feast it couldn't quite swallow, completely focused on him, its form swelling and distorting with the absorbed potential.
It was so focused, it didn't notice the figure drop silently from a broken fire escape behind it.
Kaelen, having circled around, landed without a sound. She wasn't holding her rifle. In her hands was a long, heavy, industrial wrench she'd grabbed from the transport. No energy signature. No complex intent. Just a simple, physical tool.
As the Resonance Eater strained to consume Leo's offered power, Kaelen swung the wrench with all her strength at the throbbing, diseased eye-like organ at its core.
There was a wet, sickening crunch. A sound that shouldn't exist from a creature of void.
The Resonance Eater didn't scream. It ruptured.
The stored energy it had been trying to consume from Leo backlashed. Without its central organ to process it, the power ran wild. The void-face contorted, and the creature imploded with a final, silent shriek, collapsing into a tiny, dense point of blackness that winked out of existence.
The terrible pulling sensation vanished.
Leo released the built-up skill, the energy dissipating harmlessly. He slumped against the alley wall, breathing heavily, the mental strain immense but manageable. He had held the line.
Kaelen stood panting, the wrench hanging from her hand. She looked from the spot where the creature had vanished to Leo. "You used yourself as live bait."
"You used a wrench," he countered, a ghost of a real smile on his face.
"Low-energy solution," she said, a grim satisfaction in her voice. "Come on. We have about three minutes before Valerius's remote monitors realize we're not where we're supposed to be and that a major entity just vanished off the grid."
She led him quickly out of the alley, not back towards the substation, but deeper into the derelict sector. "The transport's compromised. Valerius will have it locked down. We go on foot. There's a safe point."
As they moved through the ruins, Leo felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He was outside the cage. He had taken the first step. The anchor had held. The plan had worked.
But he knew this was just the beginning. He was a fugitive now, from the Gloaming and from the man who had tried to own him. The hundredfold path stretched ahead, uncertain and dangerous, but for the first time, it was his own.