The longer Sunny stared, the more he felt like the world was holding its breath. Pressure weighed on the air around him, like so unseen hand had pressed a knife to the fabric of the sky and was slowly dragging it downward. The figure hadn’t so much as twitched. Still, Sunny could feel it preparing to move.
His hand shifted slightly as he prepared to summon a mory, but it was a useless gesture. That thing — whatever it was — could erase Seele before the edge of his blade even began to form. He didn’t need a second guess to know it was aiming for her. Just like the puppets.
Still blind from peering into its soul, Sunny leaned forward ever so slightly and let his awareness drift into his shadows. His vision jumped.
Sunny grit his teeth as he augnted himself with Gloomy and Haughty, leaving Happy behind to serve as his eyes.
Through his shadow’s perspective, he could see the ghost-white figure above the cliffs.
The air underneath its feet bent unnaturally, like so invisible floor held it aloft.
Like the very rules of the world were bending to its will.
Sunny didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know why it was here. But he was certain of one thing. It was strong enough to erase him, and everyone else, in the space between thoughts.
His fingers twitched.
The figure casually shifted its weight.
***
And then, sothing shifted beneath the world.
The sea of stars that sprawled across the Sky Below — those distant, sleeping lights that shimred from the abyss far beneath the floating isles — began to change.
At first, it was subtle. Their usual glow, warm and dim like breath caught in crystal, began to pulse with a strange rhythm. One after another, the stars stirred from their quiet slumber. Their incandescent hues, so long dulled by distance and ti, brightened.
Then twisted.
Their light deepened — burning red.
Not the red of firelight or sunset, but sothing heavier. Like molten tal catching the eye. Like coals pressed against the skin. The glow bled upward, slow and steady, turning the chasm beneath into a lake of smoldering crimson.
The stars were no longer still.
They pulsed like hearts.
Lines of crimson light began to bloom within that abyss — searing arcs and lances of fla-like energy trailing skyward, carving through the air in defiance of gravity and distance. They curled upward like whips of wrath, stretching across impossible space toward the figure in the sky.
They didn’t rise in chaos. They rose with purpose.
Each trail of red light felt like a silent scream, an accusation flung across the miles of empty air between the depths and the intruder. They weren’t aid at the camp. They were ant for the one watching. For the one who didn’t belong.
The white figure stood at the edge of the Sky Above, unmoving, gazing down at the burning world.
Then the flas rose.
Each lance of crimson surged upward from the Sky Below, piercing the heavens like inverted lightning. The stars had twisted, their gentle glow warping into searing red, and now they scread. The air bowed under the pressure.
One of the strikes t him.
The result was not combustion.
It was silence.
Where fla t him, reality didn’t burn — it disappeared. The scarlet inferno flared outward, then folded in on itself, vanishing as if it had never been. Space buckled, color drained, heat ceased. For the briefest mont, it was as though the Universe had skipped a beat.
But the fla reasserted itself.
Another arc followed, stronger, faster. This ti, he didn’t catch it. He let it pass. The trail of heat curved behind him, tearing through clouds, and slamd into a distant island. The floating landmass vaporized.
He closed his hand slowly, exhaling.
It was not resistance that made him struggle.
It was restraint.
The force within him wanted to reject this plane, to reverse everything it touched. A white hole — a wound in existence that refused to accept matter. If he opened it fully, he could have erased the flas.
But the pressure might kill him.
Not the white-clad figure. The one far below.
So he allowed the red to graze him. Held his blade loose. Tilted each clash to bleed just enough montum. Yet still, every ti their powers t, sothing fundantal broke. Causality slipped. Vision shattered. The rules of the world warped around him.
The flas did not care.
They were blind.
Each strike threatened to erase the region.
***
Far below, shadows scrambled.
The ground quaked, cracking beneath unseen weight. Sunny stumbled through dust and smoke, vision still black, relying on the gaze of his shadow to guide his steps.
He tripped on rubble, cursed, and crawled toward the others.
"Wake up, wake up!"
March blinked awake, dazed. She reached for her bow.
Another tremor rocked the platform.
One of the neighboring islands tilted sideways. Its chains tore free from the adjacent islands, swinging violently before the whole mass cracked in two. Sunny didn’t watch it fall — Happy did. His shadow twisted, trembling in distress as the sudden change in geography caused the island they were on to quake.
Dan Heng gritted his teeth, already on his feet. Seele was too slow to get on her own.
Sunny dragged her by the shoulders, grunting. The cliff edge was too close. The sky was too loud. The world was ending in layers above and below.
Still blind, he tilted his head — sothing called him.
His shadow looked up.
Through cracked space, the white figure still stood. Surrounded by burning snakes, untouched, unshaken.
Sunny couldn’t see its eyes, but he could tell that it was watching.
Looking straight at him.
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