The 9th floor itself was trembling.

  Not an ordinary tremor.

  Not the walls vibrating under an aura too heavy.

  No.

  The very dimension was shivering.

  Like fabric being twisted.

  Like the ground wanted to fold in on itself.

  And at the center, Belzebuth was drawing his incomprehensible symbols.

  Lines with no beginning.

  No end.

  Glyphs shifting shape the moment one looked at them, as if eyes weren’t made to understand what they saw.

  Thana felt her heart skip a beat.

  — …No.

  That’s impossible…

  But it wasn’t.

  It absolutely wasn’t.

  She understood exactly what he was doing.

  That Prince — that monstrous, arrogant, suicidal brat — was using a spell even Divines hesitated to brush against.

  A Dimensional Destroyer.

  — What an… idiot…

  The air vibrated.

  The walls rippled slightly, as if shrinking.

  A crushing pressure fell on her body, her ribcage, her cracked wings.

  She clenched her teeth.

  — He’s not even… fully here.

  This is only a projection…

  So he risked nothing.

  In theory… he couldn’t even die here.

  Rage surged.

  A cold, powerless rage.

  — And how am I supposed to stop… that?

  I… have nothing left.

  No energy.

  No stable body.

  And almost no usable power in this state…

  She searched.

  Through her memory.

  Through her Anima.

  Through the remnants of her Magia.

  Nothing.

  Then—

  A thought.

  Short.

  Sharp.

  Violent.

  — I only have one power that could…

  She froze.

  Her eyes widened.

  — Of course…

  Her hand went to her forehead.

  — I’m such an idiot…!

  A trembling breath escaped her throat.

  Not excitement.

  Not joy.

  Panic.

  — But…

  That power…

  She wouldn’t be able to hold it for long.

  Her body spasmed.

  She knew what it would cost her.

  She knew that as soon as she activated it, it would burn her from the inside.

  But she had no choice.

  She was going to use it.

  She only had a single second of respite, just one moment, enough for a window to open before her.

  A window before Veda.

  Thin.

  Unstable.

  Quivering, like she was.

  It opened right in front of Veda’s face.

  Its black glow pulsed weakly, reflecting Thana’s panic and urgency.

  And then came a phenomenon even the 9th floor wasn’t ready to contain.

  Thana regained an adult size — but not the one she usually showed.

  Her body unfolded into a shadowy silhouette, almost floating, as if her physical form couldn’t contain what she had just invoked.

  Her arms cracked.

  Then the cracks bled.

  First a trickle.

  Then a stream.

  Then a river.

  And eventually… a full cascade of shadow.

  Darkness gushed from her forearms, ran down her fingers, and poured across the entire central platform.

  The substance?

  Impossible to define.

  At times it was vapor — wavering, shifting.

  The next second, a viscous fluid, heavy, spreading like spilled ink.

  Then shards, blade-like, as if the shadow changed states with her breath.

  Nothing stayed stable.

  Nothing stayed logical.

  Only one rule applied:

  Everything this mist touched lost its identity.

  Color, texture, shape…

  Everything dissolved.

  Everything became the same.

  Everything merged into it.

  Existence swallowed.

  Silenced.

  Reduced to shadow.

  Belzebuth sensed the danger before he understood it.

  A shiver.

  A real one.

  A sharp, icy cold crawling up his spine like a serpent of frost biting each vertebra.

  — …What the…?

  His incantation faltered.

  His focus broke for half a second.

  Half a second too long.

  Thana, her eyes blazing with absolute black, clapped her arms and hands together.

  The sound was dry, brutal — like a muffled thunderclap.

  And instantly—

  Everything that was mist, everything that was shadow, everything that had been spreading across the platform…

  changed direction.

  In a single motion, the entire mass was torn from the ground, as if sucked by an absolute void, and hurled in the same direction:

  Toward Belzebuth.

  Not as a blast.

  Not as a projectile.

  Not to strike.

  To encircle.

  The shadow began to orbit him.

  A slow orbit.

  Dense.

  Crushing.

  Like a black moon born around a dying sun.

  And by pure coincidence…

  or by a twist as cruel as the cosmos itself…

  Adam was barely a meter from the Prince.

  The mist swirled around both of them.

  Enveloping.

  Deranged.

  Carrying that unsettling feeling that one step — just one — would get them swallowed without a trace.

  Belzebuth felt his forbidden incantation crack.

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  Adam, on the other hand…

  understood far too late into what tomb he had just been dragged.

  The fragments of shadow already orbiting the Prince began sliding toward one another.

  Slowly at first.

  Then with almost mechanical precision.

  Each piece found its place.

  Each shard sought a weakness.

  A gap.

  An unsealed spot.

  And when it found one…

  it locked in.

  Perfectly.

  A dull clack marked the first seal.

  Then another.

  And another.

  The fragments interlocked.

  Fused by a cold, lifeless force.

  They sealed the space around the Prince — and Adam — plugging every remaining gap methodically.

  It was no longer an orbit.

  It was a sphere.

  A sphere of eternal black.

  No reflection.

  No light.

  No direction.

  A world with no horizon.

  A cosmic coffin.

  And once the last gap closed—

  Silence fell.

  Not a normal silence.

  A smothered, crushed silence — as if even sound refused to exist in that prison.

  Inside, nothing could be seen.

  No Prince.

  No Adam.

  Nothing but that flawless black surface without a single crack.

  Thana staggered.

  Suddenly.

  Without warning.

  Her shadowed silhouette fractured.

  Her wings — too large, too dark — trembled like torn cloth in the wind.

  Her body shrank, collapsing rapidly.

  She partially reverted to a younger form.

  More human.

  Her skin lightened.

  Her features softened.

  Her size diminished by a breath.

  But it wasn’t a deliberate transformation.

  It was backlash.

  A violent return to what her body could still endure.

  She grabbed her temple.

  Shadow still dripped from her arms in unstable rivulets — a clear sign she hadn’t regained control.

  Her breath caught.

  Her knee nearly hit the ground.

  — …Tss…

  Even that single sound trembled.

  She tried to straighten, but fatigue cut her legs beneath her.

  Yet her eyes never left the black sphere she had created.

  She wasn’t proud.

  She wasn’t relieved.

  She wasn’t even sure she had achieved what she meant to do.

  She only knew one thing:

  This power was not meant to be used in her current condition.

  And her body… had just reminded her of that.

  This power…

  She had used it before.

  Once.

  But back then, it was only a whisper.

  A reduced version — thin, almost gentle —

  just enough to force Lyana into a coma to protect her from the Magia burning through her veins.

  A controlled black mist.

  Guided, thread by thread.

  Diluted to accomplish only one thing:

  expel the Magia and seal Lyana in stasis.

  Even activating that had been dangerous.

  But she managed.

  Directed it.

  Measured it not to destroy herself.

  None of that compared to now.

  What poured out of her on the 9th floor had nothing of a cocoon.

  Nothing of a precise, medical ritual.

  This was the raw form.

  The origin.

  The true nature of that power.

  A mass of shadow no structure could hold.

  A flux so dense it devoured the identity of everything it touched.

  The difference between the two versions was monstrous.

  — What I used on Lyana…

  Thana whispered, shaking, unable to hide the backlash,

  — was only a sample…

  She swayed.

  Her features grew younger.

  Her aura crashed down abruptly.

  — …nothing like this.

  She nearly collapsed to her knees,

  breath stolen,

  skin paling instantly.

  From the corner of her eye, Thana looked at the group.

  Not for long.

  Just enough to see their strained faces, trembling hands…

  and Kael.

  Still lying on the cold ground, the dagger buried in his chest,

  his breath ragged, nearly absent.

  She swallowed.

  Her throat tightened.

  She stumbled a step, as if just seeing Kael unmoving

  was enough to reopen the pain tearing through her nerves.

  Her voice came out as a whisper.

  A thread.

  A broken breath.

  — …The rest…

  …is in your hands…

  She could barely articulate.

  Fatigue dragged her downward,

  her power had hollowed her out.

  — I… I can’t do anything more now…

  She pressed a hand to her chest,

  as if trying to keep her heart from collapsing.

  Her eyes drifted back to Kael.

  His body convulsing with pain.

  Blood darkening around the blade.

  Thana inhaled.

  Weakly.

  — …Please…

  It wasn’t heroic.

  It wasn’t commanding.

  It was a prayer.

  Naked fear.

  — …don’t abandon him…

  Her voice trembled.

  She forced herself not to collapse.

  — Stay by his side.

  I’m begging you…

  She closed her eyes for a second.

  A tear hung at her lashes — or perhaps just raw exhaustion.

  Then, in one last breath:

  — Even if he seems distant…

  he is kind.

  And fair…

  Her voice almost died.

  — …don’t let him… be alone…

  Her body buckled,

  and she had to brace herself against the ground to avoid collapsing entirely.

  But even exhausted, even on the verge of breaking—

  nothing could stop her body from disintegrating.

  It started with a vibration.

  Microscopic.

  Almost beautiful.

  Then Thana lost all substance.

  Her silhouette cracked in a web of glowing fractures—

  and in a single breath…

  She shattered into a rain of black flakes.

  Thousands of them.

  Tiny fragments like starry ashes,

  each carrying a faint violet shimmer,

  a dark, unreal, almost cosmic reflection.

  They swirled, suspended,

  as if the world itself held its breath.

  Then, in a single movement—

  all were drawn

  into Kael’s gaping wound.

  The wound swallowed the particles

  like a hungry maw,

  as if the wound itself

  claimed that power

  to keep the Prince from killing him.

  Veda stood still.

  She expected it.

  The window had told her everything.

  Thana had warned her:

  she would block the Prince for three minutes.

  No more.

  And she would seal Kael’s wound from within.

  But the price would be the same.

  After that, she would fall into a state of…

  hibernation.

  Forced.

  Close to death.

  Veda had understood.

  Yet seeing it happen…

  twisted her heart.

  Among the flakes,

  three drifted apart from the cloud.

  One for each of them.

  One touched her forehead.

  One Gravyor’s.

  One Kiyoshi’s.

  The contact was light.

  Almost gentle.

  But the impact…

  The impact was brutal.

  A torrent of images pierced them.

  Not blurry memories.

  Not symbolic visions.

  Real scenes.

  Lived.

  Endured.

  They saw Kael.

  His face twisted by his loss of control.

  His screams.

  His skin torn by his own Magia.

  His broken nights.

  His climb through the floors,

  alone,

  exhausted,

  one heartbeat from death with every step.

  They saw fear.

  Solitude.

  The crushing weight no one had ever lifted from him.

  The battles he won screaming.

  The ones he survived crying.

  Their breaths stopped.

  Gravyor almost collapsed.

  Kiyoshi covered his mouth with a hand.

  Veda…

  turned ghost-pale.

  None of them spoke.

  No sound escaped.

  Because no word existed

  to describe what they had just seen.

  What they had just felt.

  What he had endured alone.

  But one truth—

  one alone—

  carved itself into their bones:

  They would never let him carry that alone again.

  Not for a second.

  Not for a step.

  Not for an ordeal.

  They looked at one another.

  No words.

  No hesitation.

  Just a silent pact,

  as clear as an oath:

  They would help him.

  No matter the cost.

  Whatever came next.

  Suddenly, a system window burst open before us.

  Violent.

  Unexpected.

  Its borders pulsed with a blinding white glow.

  ? Main Objective Completed ?

  → SURVIVE 5 MINUTES

  A tremor shook the entire chamber.

  And behind us, without warning, a massive portal tore open in space.

  Five meters high.

  A gaping vortex screaming unstable energy.

  The last survivors — those still standing — didn’t hesitate.

  They ran.

  Like madmen.

  Like trapped animals.

  They didn’t look at anyone.

  They said no goodbyes.

  They leapt into the portal, desperate to flee this cursed floor.

  And very soon,

  only the four of us remained.

  Veda.

  Gravyor.

  Kiyoshi.

  And Kael, unconscious.

  We exchanged a glance.

  No words.

  We knew what we had to do.

  Gravyor grabbed his legs.

  Kiyoshi lifted his shoulders.

  Veda kept the wound shut as best she could, fearing it might open again — just enough to prevent the worst.

  We advanced, step by step, carrying Kael together.

  The portal almost pulled us in,

  as if the exit wanted to drag us out before the floor collapsed.

  But as we crossed the luminous threshold—

  The portal turned red.

  Not a soft red.

  A crimson.

  Violent.

  Aggressive.

  Like a scream of refusal in our faces.

  We tried a second time.

  Same result.

  A third time.

  Still that blood-red glow.

  That absolute rejection.

  So we set Kael down, just one step behind.

  Without him — nothing.

  The portal turned blue again.

  Stable.

  Inviting.

  It let us pass.

  But not with him.

  The air froze around us.

  Our breaths too.

  We understood.

  Instantly.

  No explanation needed.

  This hell — this fucking floor —

  wanted Kael’s life.

  It wouldn’t let him leave.

  Not escape.

  Not even dying.

  And as that truth hit us one after another…

  The sky of the 9th floor — that eternal moon where that Prince and the other vermin were sealed —

  began to tremble.

  A crack.

  Then another.

  The white light fractured.

  As if someone had driven an invisible spike into it.

  And suddenly—

  The moon exploded.

  Into a thousand shards.

  Clean.

  Sharp.

  Like shattered glass falling into the abyss.

  The fragments rained around us,

  vanishing into the black void above the platform.

  When the light faded and our eyes could finally see—

  He was there.

  Standing.

  Perfectly fine.

  As if nothing — absolutely nothing — had touched him.

  Belzebuth.

  Beside him, equally unscathed…

  Adam.

  And behind them—

  A new arrival.

  A man with edges too sharp,

  too perfect,

  too defined to be human.

  His gaze scanned us like a scanner.

  And his mere presence made the walls vibrate.

  He smiled.

  — The Guide is… unavailable.

  … I will be your replacement Administrator for what comes next.

  The ground trembled.

  Veda stepped back involuntarily.

  Gravyor’s teeth clenched.

  Kiyoshi felt his heart stop.

  And we remained there.

  Motionless.

  No exit.

  No portal.

  No salvation.

  Facing those three.

  The Prince.

  The betrayed friend.

  And the Administrator.

  Thank you for reading ??