Inside the white cocoon,
Null was mid-sentence when it happened.
His voice flowed steadily through the mana link—warm, sincere, carefully measured.
"…so please, Sora-san—"
His voice died in his throat.
Something tore through his spine like ice.
A primal jolt.
Not thought.
Not logic.
Instinct.
Every nerve in his body screamed at once.
Danger.
His words cut off mid-sentence.
His mind dragged itself out of empathy mode and into survival mode in an instant.
His head snapped upward.
For the first time since entering the cocoon, he turned away from the mana thread connecting him to Sora and looked at the barrier above.
And what he saw made his pupils constrict.
The saw the sky burning.
Dark-orange fire.
Dozens of streaks.
No.
Hundreds—
Falling from the sky.
Fire lances.
For a fraction of a second, time stretched.
His mind accelerated.
Those aren't stray shockwaves from their clash.
That's targeted.
Trajectory analysis.
Impact spread.
Angle.
Density.
His eyes sharpened.
He understood his predicament instantly..
Mor'gan wasn't trying to break the cocoon by brute force.
He was saturating it.
Overloading it.
Forcing the barrier to defend everywhere at once.
Null's hand moved before conscious thought caught up.
He reached into his spatial ring.
Two hilts appeared in his grip.
Twin blades slid into existence with a metallic whisper—steel catching the cocoon's white glow in mirrored reflections.
Dual swords.
His posture shifted automatically.
Knees bent.
Weight lowered.
Breathing slowed.
By the time his preparation ended—
The first row of lances struck.
The cocoon detonated in blinding brilliance.
BOOM.
White and dark-orange collided like colliding stars. The impact sent violent ripples across the barrier's surface, cracks of radiant light racing in all directions like fractures in glass.
The lances screamed as they ground against the cocoon, burning, drilling, forcing it to spend its power.
Half of them died there.
Their energy spent tearing chunks of brilliance away from the radiant shell.
Cracks of light rippled across the barrier like fractures in crystal.
But the rest—
The rest punched through.
The weakened surface gave way.
Several lances pierced inside.
They descended toward the ground where Null stood.
Null saw them coming.
And then—
BOOM.
The ground where he stood exploded in fire.
****
The moment the lances pierced the cocoon—
Sora felt it through the mana link.
A violent rupture.
A tremor that did not belong to her.
"…Null—san?"
Then the connection distorted.
Distorted.
A surge of chaotic mana, heat, and impact feedback flooded her senses.
Her heart dropped so violently it felt as if her chest had been hollowed out.
"Nooooo!!!" Her voice broke the air, raw and filled with anguish as she flared forward
She didn't think.
She didn't breathe.
She vanished.
Light ripped across the battlefield as she abandoned the demon mid-exchange and crossed the distance in a single desperate flash.
Time twisted as fear drove her faster than thought itself, each second stretching into an eternity
Ash.
Flame.
Cracked earth.
Gone.
She arrived—
Too fast.
Too late.
The cocoon was gone.
Burned away.
Shattered.
Where radiant protection had stood moments ago, there was only a crater and a towering column of black smoke spiraling into the sky.
"…Null…?"
Her voice came out fragile.
Unrecognizable.
She stepped into the smoke without hesitation.
Burnt air clawed at her lungs. Heat stung her eyes.
Her hands reached forward instinctively—
Grasping at nothing.
Flailing through the thick haze as if she could touch him through it.
"…Null-san…?"
Nothing.
Her fingers cut through empty air.
She moved them again.
Wider.
Faster.
More desperately.
Each second that passed felt like something heavy was being tied to her heart and dragged downward into an abyss she knew far too well.
Something familiar.
Her vision began to blur.
Not from smoke.
From memory.
Visions of something profoundly haunting
Seven years ago.
A scene burned into her soul.
Rubble.
Dust.
Screams..
Hands reaching out the same way.
Too late.
Always too late.
Her mind began overlapping the present turmoil with the past.
The recollection of helplessness watching him fade away, memories of screams forever etched in her soul.
The smoke before her became the dust from that day.
The silence now became the silence from back then.
That unbearable sense of devastation.
That hollow, crushing despair of losing something irreplaceable.
Of watching her other half be torn away apart from her while she could do nothing.
Her chest tightened unnaturally.
No…
No, not again…
Her mind replayed the images over and over.
Then and now.
Then and now.
She had always believed—
That those extreme negetive emotions she felt seven years ago would never be felt by her again.…
That level of sorrow…
That kind of despair…
Would never return to her again.
Because it was impossible.
Impossible for someone to ever matter to her as much as that child did, now or ever.
That was what she absolutely believed.
That was how it was supposed to be.
Yet now—
This soul-wrenching fear clawed through her with the exact same intensity.
The same suffocating terror.
The same hollow, collapsing sensation in her chest.
The absolute fear, despair, powerlessness of having to exist in a world where her other half is no more.
The worst part—
She didn't even know.
Dead?
Alive?
Trapped?
Burned?
The unknown was far crueler than certainty.
Her mind split into two warring parts.
One part wanted to fall to her knees and let herself be swallowed by utter despair.
To accompany her other-half in death.
To not exist in a world where he wasn't.
The other part clung desperately to a fragile thread of hope—
He's alive.
He has to be alive.
I have to find him.
I have to save him.
Her hands kept moving through the smoke.
Desperately.
Frantically.
"…Null-san… please…"
She could not have imagined she would ever feel this soul-wrenching sadness again.
Especially—
For a boy she has been in contact for no more than a dozen days.
When did this happen…?
When did that playful, strange, mysterious boy become this important to her?
Yes—
He was handsome.
No.
Absolutely Bewitching.
He was the most handsome, most beautiful boy she had ever seen.
The gasps of priests.
The murmurs from the royal guards during the otherworldly summoning ritual.
The way the commotion rivaled the one she caused when she debuted as a saintess.
Even she had been momentarily dazed.
Bewitched.
To find someone whose appearance rivaled her own unreal beauty felt surreal.
She wasn't narcissistic.
It was simply a fact of her existence.
In the span of her life—
She had only encountered a few girls who could rival her beauty.
They can be counted on one hand.
Maybe two, if she took in the entire cosmos and included those she doesn't know yet.
And then—
He appeared.
Matching her.
No.
In some strange way, surpassing her.
It would be a lie to say she wasn't attracted to him as a woman.
She had been.
So extremely attracted that she had nearly mistaken it for love at first sight.
No…
Perhaps it really was.
Because the moment she laid eyes on him—
Her soul had shuddered with an indescribable sensation that she still unable to articulate.
An emotion that was the exact opposite of what she was feeling right now.
Only now—
Kneeling in smoke,
hands trembling,
heart breaking—
Did she realize how irreplaceable he had become in this short span of time.
A bitter, self-mocking thought surfaced.
What's the point…?
Just like seven years ago—
She realized it too late.
And just like back then—
All she could do now was wallow in despair...
While desperately trying to ascertain whether her beloved she could no longer imagine living without—
Was still alive.
Time stretched on, messages of agony echoing in the ambiguous silence. The world around her dimmed as she struggled against the rising tide of hopelessness.
Smoke coiled thickly through the crater.
Ash drifted like black snow.
Sora's hands still moved through the haze—slower now, trembling, searching for something that refused to be found.
"…Null-san…"
Then—
A voice cut through the darkness.
Low.
Amused.
Cruel.
"Sacred bitch…"
The words slithered across the scorched earth like oil on water.
Sora did not turn.
She did not react.
Mor'gan's heavy steps crunched over broken stone as he approached the ruined site of the cocoon, molten-gold eyes gleaming through the smoke.
"Don't tell me," he chuckled darkly, "that boy was your boyfriend?"
A pause.
A grin stretched across his face.
"If so, he must be the unluckiest bastard alive."
He tilted his head slightly, peering at her through the haze.
"Did you see how pathetically he died?"
His voice dripped with mock sympathy.
"Burned. Obliterated. Without even understanding what happened."
He let out a harsh, satisfied exhale.
"Such is the misfortune of trying to swallow a swan of your status."
His lips curled.
"If he had even a shred of sanity, he's probably cursing you in the afterlife right now."
"For dragging him into something way beyond his worth."
"For getting him killed for nothing."
A wicked grin widened.
"Damn… this feels good."
He laughed under his breath.
A deep, ugly sound.
"I always hated you heavenly prodigies. Whether human or demon, you brats are all the same."
"Gifted. Sheltered. Worshipped."
"Walking around like the world owes you reverence."
His eyes gleamed with malicious delight.
"But look at you now."
He spread his arms slightly.
"I made one of you crumble."
"I made the 'Saintess of Living Radiance' kneel in smoke like a broken child."
A low chuckle escaped him.
"Hahaha…"
"Pathetic."
Sora didn't move.
Didn't answer.
Didn't even acknowledge his presence.
Her blue eyes—
Once radiant, once unwavering—
Were empty.
Lifeless.
As if the world in front of her no longer existed.
Mor'gan's voice continued, trying to dig deeper.
"What's wrong?"
"Say something."
"Where's that righteous glare?"
"Where's that divine dignity?"
He leaned slightly forward.
"Or did that die with him?"
Mor'gan savored the silence.
"Or did that die with him?"
A pause.
Then—
From deep within the smoke—
khh—khh—
A cough.
Ragged.
Human.
Both of them froze.
Mor'gan's grin faltered.
Sora's fingers stopped mid-air.
Another cough echoed through the haze, followed by the faint crunch of shifting debris.
And then—
A voice.
Hoarse.
Lightly amused.
"…Hey, greater demon…"
A chuckle slipped through the smoke.
"Don't lump me in with the likes of you."
A silhouette shifted faintly behind the curtain of ash.
"No way in a million hells would I have the heart to curse my Sora-chan…"
A small pause.
"…let alone in the afterlife."
Sora's sky blue eyes widened.