The bone-dry click of the giant cat echoed against the gleaming meteorite glass long after reality had mercilessly struck back. The silver sand slipped downward without pity, and with every millimeter that fell, Abysia's cheerful grin vanished like snow before the sun. Her eyes narrowed into silver slits once more.
"Satisfaction is a luxury reserved for the dead," Abysia's voice sliced through the harsh storm. "Triggering your form on pure adrenaline is step one. Maintaining it while the world crumbles around you is the doctrine. Bernard, break them."
Without a trace of the leniency just shown, the zone exploded into violence once again. Pope Bernard made no more triple flips; his movements became terrifyingly efficient. With a deep, trembling bass vibration in his breathing, his white form flashed forward, skimming right over the sharp obsidian sand. The massive staff in his fists hummed through the biting wind, a pure, white streak of absolute destruction driving straight for Jane's chin in a flawless, diagonal upward stroke.
Jane reacted out of her brute panther hybrid reflexes. She threw her body sideways into a low roll, her neon blue electric whip snapping out from her wrist with a loud crack to hook around Bernard's ankles. But the moment the surge of electricity touched the metal of his rotating staff, the error margin of her untamed form slammed right back into her face. The neon blue lightning did not conduct through the staff; instead, it struck straight back up into her own arm with a crackling, violent electrical feedback.
Her muscles seized with a painful, hissing sound. Her fangs bared in a raspy shout of pure frustration as the whip slipped from her fingers and sank into the black obsidian sand like liquid current. Bernard did not even slow down; he pivoted on his heel and delivered a bone-dry, hard strike to her sternum with the flat back of his staff, sending her sliding meters backward over the razor-sharp sand.
"Too wild! Too reckless!" Bernard thundered, his eyes spitting with the white fire of a possessed general. "The spirit beast grants you strength, not discipline! You are a predator breaking her own teeth on the very first stone she bites!"
Right beside her, Nyx tried to exploit the opening. Her liquid silver hair drifted wildly around her head as she executed an explosive slide beneath Bernard's spinning staff, extending her pitch-black hands straight toward his torso. She attempted to focus the hungry void energy to completely absorb his movement, but the ice earring in her ear refused to cooperate. The freezing chill of the glacial crown atop her head surged inward with horrifying speed. Instead of a focused void beam, an uncontrolled, jagged wave of crackling ice erupted from her palms, instantly coating her own forearms in a thick, numb layer of frost.
The void dissolved. The cold took her over. Her fingers became so stiff and icy that she could barely bend her own hands, while the icicles from her own attack bit painfully into her skin.
"You are fighting against yourself, Nyx!" rang the icy voice of Abysia, who suddenly appeared before her nose like a silver lightning bolt. Abysia did not even bother to strike; she simply elevated her silver battle aura by a fraction of a percent and brought her heel down into the ground directly in front of Nyx's face with a brute downward stomp. Gravity increased so exponentially that the shockwave shattered the obsidian sand into razor-sharp splinters, driving Nyx's knees hard into the black earth with a dull thud. "The void demands absolute emptiness; the ice demands absolute control. You are trying to strangle both simultaneously with your emotions. You are drowning in your own bloodline!"
Lila, who was still hovering halfway above the sand, tried desperately to intervene. Her meters-long vines with thick thorns shot across the floor like possessed snakes in a crisscross pattern to seize Abysia by her ankles and pull up a wall of leaves to break her line of sight. The royal purple energy flared brightly, but manipulating flora on this pitch-black, dead soil was a grueling battle of attrition that literally drained her cells empty.
Before the vines could so much as graze Abysia, exhaustion struck. Lila's face drained completely white. The wind of purple leaves ceased abruptly, her breathing hitched, and the thick, thorny tendrils withered into grey ash in a fraction of a second. She fell like lead out of the sky, her knees giving way, and she retched a bitter mouthful of bile onto the black ground. Her royal transformation collapsed completely; the true princess lay trembling, broken, and helpless at the feet of the ancient structures.
The minutes ticked away without mercy. The silver sand inside the hourglass kept falling, and the dark moon zone turned into an arena of pure, unadulterated humiliation.
Time and time again, the girls tried to stand up. Time and time again, they tried to force their activated forms, but the choreography of their attacks grew sloppier and more painful by the minute. Jane's muscles quivered so violently from electrical fatigue that she could no longer clench her claws into fists, tripping over her own feet as she attempted to tackle Bernard. Nyx's arms were bruised a deep blue from the constant internal freezing of her failing ice crown, and every breath felt like liquid glass in her lungs. Lila simply lay on her side, her fingers clawing into the sharp obsidian sand, weeping from pure, deep powerlessness while her wounded mother watched from the sidelines.
Around the one hundred and eighty minute mark, precisely halfway through the frozen time, the flame was completely extinguished. The trio lay scattered across the floor like a heap of misery. Their forms had fallen away entirely. There was no silver glow left, no panther hybrid, no royal plant tendrils. Only three young girls, utterly scraped, exhausted, and mentally broken against the hard wall of reality. They felt as though these three hundred and sixty minutes were an impossible, sadistic joke.
The hissing sound of the storm seemed to mock their failure. Jane stared up at the purple-black thunderclouds above her with a hollow, bitter gaze. Nyx held her trembling, numb hands pressed against her chest. Their courage had sunk deeper than the void into which Silarias had been thrown.
CLING.
The sound was so bizarre, so absurdly clear and everyday that it sliced straight through the heavy, depressing tension in one go.
The girls moved their heads slowly, almost painfully, toward the sound. Abysia's pitch-black, terrifying armor was gone without a trace. The brute war goddess who had just been making the air pressure burst stood there once again in her down to earth, slender form, her white hair tied loosely in a messy ponytail. Between her divine hands, she held a large, gleaming silver tray.
The tray, however, was completely covered by a heavy, dull silver cloche, so that nothing could be seen of what lay hidden beneath it. No steam, no glimpse of the contents, nothing at all. Only the heavy, penetrating scent of a potent medicinal herbal tea, a scent that smelled exactly like the fresh bandages of Lila's mother, escaped subtly along the edges and drifted through the harsh storm.
Abysia strolled across the sharp obsidian sand with slow, relaxed steps as if taking a Sunday walk. With a loud clink, she set the fully sealed tray down on a protruding block of moon glass right in front of the three exhausted girls. She let herself drop onto her seat with a deep sigh, pulling her knees up and resting her elbows on her legs.
She surveyed the slack-jawed mouths, the smudges of soot, and the trembling bodies of the trio with a broad, thoroughly satisfied grin.
"Well," Abysia began, tapping her fingers rhythmically against the side of the closed silver cloche while whistling an innocent tune. "You look as though you just had to slaughter the Inquisition all by yourselves. Did you really think that structure and control would be poured into your bones within ten minutes? That those earrings and that royal blood would simply allow themselves to be tamed without you turning in a few liters of sweat first?"
She gave the top of the cloche another firm tap, but made no move whatsoever to lift it.
"Catch your breath first, ladies. Your muscles need fuel and recovery. When your cells are empty, there is no energy to keep those forms stable. You can want to avenge and fight as hard as you like, but on an empty stomach and with cramped muscles, you are nothing more than an easy target."
Her gaze drifted past Nyx, Jane, and Lila. The cold, ruthless general was gone for a moment; sitting there now was a mother who had sought out the boundaries of her students and knew the bow could not remain constantly bent.
"Let that herbal scent draw the freezing cold and the electrical shocks out of your muscles," Abysia said with a softer, yet undeniably firm tone, while holding her hand flat on the cold silver of the cloche. "Take these ten minutes of rest. Because when the second half of these three hundred and sixty minutes begins… that is when it will truly start hurting."
The penetrating scent of the medicinal herbal tea kept seeping out from between the edges of the heavy, silver cloche, but the girls barely had the strength to move their nostrils. Nyx let her head fall back against the icy formation of moon glass, her breathing a raspy and painful whistle. Right beside her, Jane dragged her trembling body through the obsidian sand until her shoulder touched Nyx's, while Lila heaved herself onto her knees with a deep groan and tried to pull her battered dress into decent order.
"Well… for a princess who spent half her life swinging a rolling pin," Jane brought out in a raspy, cracking voice, while a tired but proud smirk opened her battered face, "you flew through the air pretty well, Aureoflora. Those vines of yours looked almost terrifying. Almost."
Lila let out a weak, bitter laugh and wiped a mixture of sweat and black sand from her forehead with the back of her hand. "Oh, really? Look who's talking, panther girl. That whip of yours made so much noise I thought the whole cosmos was coming down. A pity you electrocuted yourself with it, otherwise you might have almost hit Bernard."
"Shut up," Jane muttered with a weak shove against Lila's arm, though she kept chuckling. "At least Nyx acted like an ice queen before her own fingers froze off."
Nyx looked sideways at the pair with a sleepy, half-open gaze, her voice cold but with a rare, playful undertone. "I heard both of you screaming like kitchen maids when that shockwave from my mother passed by. So no big talk."
For a brief, fragile moment, a flash of pure, relieved joy flickered between the trio. They sat there, utterly exhausted, their friendship and mutual pride indelibly baked into them by the shared pain. But the adrenaline was only now truly beginning to subside, and with the vanishing heat, reality struck back over their shoulders like an ice-cold blanket. The gazes fell silent. Jane stared at her trembling, split claws; Lila looked with a choked gaze at her mother who sat waiting in the distance wrapped in bandages. Their courage sank noticeably, unstoppable deep into their boots. Three hundred and sixty minutes outside of reality, and half was already over without them having been able to land even a single targeted blow. How on earth were they supposed to retrieve Silarias or protect the Bastion if they were broken already?
"Ahem… ehem…"
The dry, fake cough of Abysia cut directly through their heavy thoughts. Abysia was still sitting with her elbows on her knees, her hand flat on the cold silver of the cloche. Her gaze had grown serious, stripped of its earlier mockery.
"I want to leave you with one thing before that cloche goes up," Abysia spoke, her voice low and compelling, echoing through the storm. "You are focusing on the pain in your muscles and the mistakes in your technique. But you are losing sight of the goal. Find the motivation. Even if it is a specific person, someone who loves you with all their soul, or an entire people you care about… remember why you bleed on this sand. Without that anchor, every form you assume is nothing more than an empty shell."
The girls looked up, touched by the sudden depth of the goddess, but the words were given no chance to land.
VRRSHHHT!!!
Without a single bit of warning, the purple-black sky behind Abysia split open. It was no silver tear and no moon glass; a swirling, violent portal of pure, deep red smoke exploded out of nowhere with a hissing violence. The heat blasting out of it was so intense that the obsidian sand immediately began melting into glass.
Before Nyx or Jane could even consider their weapons, a figure stepped through the red mists with a heavy, hurried stride. It was Faustus. He landed directly on one knee, breathing heavily, with thick plates of ash on his shoulders and his clothing partially burned away by a hellish fire. He did not even look up or around and had no idea what kind of bizarre, frozen training ground he had just fallen into.
"You were completely right," Faustus brought out with a raspy, triumphant voice, his gaze fixed tightly on the ground as he gasped for air. "I was just in time. Not a second too early, the barrier barely held."
Abysia did not even blink her eyes, as if this blood-red intruder were the most normal thing in the world. She simply leaned back a fraction further and raised an eyebrow.
"Well now," Abysia said with an icily calm voice, although her silver pupils focused tightly on the exhausted man before her. "And how is he doing now then? Is the damage manageable?"
Faustus finally raised his head, wiped a smear of soot from his neck and shook his head with a grim look. "It's tipping, but he lives. The foundations are still standing."
On the other side of the tray, the world had ground to a complete standstill. Nyx, Jane, and Lila were literally standing there with their mouths full of teeth. Their exhausted bodies were completely stiffened, their gazes wildly darting back and forth between the deep red, smoking portal, the battered man on his knees, and Abysia's terrifyingly calm reaction. The confusion was so total, so overwhelming that the fatigue was pushed into the background in one single blow.
Their voices broke out simultaneously, tumbling over one another in a chaotic, whispering stream of pure bewilderment.
"Who… who in god's name is this?!" Jane brought out with a trembling voice, her claws half raised.
"Wait… that red smoke… that feeling…" Lila muttered, while her eyes grew larger than saucers.
Nyx took a trembling step forward, her gaze locked onto the facial features of the kneeling man, her breathing abruptly catching in her throat.
Doesn't he look… doesn't he look a little bit like Sil?!
The thought shot like an electric shock through the heads of all three girls. The angular jawline, the unyielding, tormented aura breaking through the soot, it mirrored a terrifyingly familiar energy. Who were they talking about?! Who had just been saved in the nick of time?! Hadn't Silarias been cast into the absolute, bottomless void?!
"Who the hell is this about?! Abysia, who is that man?!" Jane demanded with an cracking voice, stepping desperately toward the tray.
But Abysia gave no answer. She simply placed her hand firmly back on the heavy, silver cloche, while Faustus slowly looked over his shoulder and noticed the three transformed, trembling girls for the first time with a look full of cold surprise. The red smoke swirled wildly behind him, the hourglass ticked on unmercifully, and the unanswered question hung like a ticking time bomb between them.
Faustus kept his gaze fixed tightly on Abysia and seemed to completely overlook the three girls at first. The red smoke behind him hissed on while he stood up hastily and immediately made a deep, formal bow.
"Sorry, Your Highness, haha… but I had to let you know how it was going," Faustus spoke with a raspy, hurried voice, brushing the soot from his sleeve. "He is sleeping, but… The whole time he keeps complaining about Nyx in his sleep. He is in a sort of coma, but he will be awake and coming back soon."
He bowed deeply to Abysia once more, as if his life depended on her approval. Only when he stood upright again did his head turn a quarter turn and his eyes glided over the rest of the space.
Jane, Lila, and Nyx stood there half broken, their courage completely in their boots after the humiliating training. They had only caught half of Faustus's words through the rushing wind in their ears, but the fragments they did catch, Nyx, coma, coming back soon, left them dead silent. They looked at the stranger half scared, completely questioning, and with open mouths, as if seeing a ghost.
The grim, serious atmosphere around Faustus, however, flipped completely in a fraction of a second. A broad, almost theatrical smile broke through the ash on his face.
Without a single bit of warning, Faustus began teleporting through the space from a kneeling position. FLASH. FLASH. His form turned into a succession of flickering red shades moving over the obsidian sand at a bizarre speed.
"Don't worry, ladies… Faustus at your service!"
With a loud WHOOSH, he flashed up right in front of all three of them one after another. With a wild, friendly energy, he shook them one by one and gave all three of them a firm, encouraging pat on the shoulder. First Jane received a hard pat on her hand, then Lila who recoiled in fright, to finally end with a loud pop right in front of Nyx's nose.
Faustus examined the silver, liquid locks of the girl, the ice earring in her ear, and his eyes began to glisting with pure pleasure.
"AAHHH Nyx, hahaha, now I get it!" he called out, while giving her one last firm pat on her hand with a broad grin.
FLASH!
Before they could extend a finger to grab him or ask a question, the red smoke portal imploded with a loud hissing sound. Faustus was gone, leaving the horizon behind with nothing other than the smell of burned wood and the icy storm.
The sudden, hyperactive whirlwind the man had brought with him left a bizarre emptiness behind. Somehow, Faustus's chaotic, friendly energy had washed the deep frustration and the fear out of their bodies. The girls felt strangely calmed, as if the heavy weight of the training had been completely reset for a moment by his appearance.
Jane lowered her claws, looked at the spot where the red smoke was just hanging, and shook her head. "What… what in god's name was that whirlwind?"
Lila stepped cautiously forward, her gaze still locked onto the spot of the portal. "He talked about a coma… and he mentioned your name, Nyx."
Nyx looked trembling at her own hand, where the warmth of Faustus's pat was still echoing in her cold skin. She looked slowly up at her mother, her voice now calm but filled with a burning, unstoppable curiosity. "Mother… who was that gentleman just now?"
Abysia, who was still leaning with her hand on the heavy silver cloche, let out a soft, rolling laugh that echoed clearly through the dark zone.
"Oh… do you really want to know??" Abysia asked with a mysterious, challenging twinkle in her silver pupils.
Jane, Lila, and Nyx turned their heads in unison and looked at each other. The looks of hesitation were gone; the pure drive for answers bound them in one fraction of a second.
"Yes," Jane said resolutely, taking a step closer to the tray.
"Tell us," Lila urged, her royal chin unyieldingly high.
Nyx set her teeth and locked her mother with a gaze that accepted no no. "We want to know. Now."