Ironveil forest
Verdant Hollows, Thalorin Domain
Sol Continent, Terra
Tellus solar system
Luminary star sector
Milky Way Galaxy
21st Vetraeus cycle, 50 New Solaris Prime
Sam watched—helpless and horrified—as the version of herself within the Echo Field moved through the battlefield like a storm of blades and silence. She cut down entire formations of soldiers—Beastmen, Pleiadians, humans alike—without hesitation or remorse. Her presence radiated dread; those who caught sight of her turned in panic, abandoning weapons and comrades in their desperate flight.
But flight meant nothing.
Her blade always found them.
She gave no quarter, showed no mercy. Every swing of the greatsword cleaved through armor, bone, and soul. Her movements were an unbroken rhythm of carnage, fluid and elegant in the most grotesque way imaginable. She moved like a dancer on a stage made of corpses, and her performance was death.
And what chilled Sam to her core… was the joy.
She could feel it, emanating from the body she was bound within—an undercurrent of dark satisfaction, an intoxicating pleasure with each life extinguished. It wasn't bloodlust. It was something colder. Calculated. Refined. Beautiful, in a terrifying way.
Life, in that moment, had never seemed more fragile. More meaningless. Sam was forced to watch—not just as others died by her hand—but as a version of herself reveled in their destruction.
And with each swing, each scream, each severed breath, a question that had long haunted her crept back into her soul.
What is the value of life?
She had asked that question before—many times, in many forms. What gives life its meaning? Why are we born? What are we meant to protect, to nurture, to carry forward?
Her mother, Sophia, had once given her a simple answer.
"You must find that meaning for yourself. Seek it. Shape it. Live it."
And for a time, Sam believed she had. She believed that purpose had crystallized when she became the Asha'Yee—a protector of Terra, a guardian of the weak, a guide to those walking the path of ascension.
But now? Now, as she bore witness to this shadow of her past—a woman wreathed in power and slaughter, a goddess of death whose name sent armies into retreat—Sam began to question everything. What did it truly mean to be the Asha'Yee? Was it salvation? Or judgment? A symbol of hope? Or the hand that balanced the scales of life and death?
The battlefield stretched endlessly before her, and in that haunted moment, Sam no longer knew where her past self ended… and the questions began. The battlefield had fallen silent. Not because the war had ended—but because the slaughter was complete.
Sam stood in the eye of a storm of death, surrounded by the lifeless remnants of three armies. Her past self—still wearing the green, gleaming Symphony armor, still gripping the blood-drenched greatsword—stood with eerie calm, eyes distant, posture regal. She looked like a goddess forged in carnage, a spectral echo of someone who had embraced power not just as a tool—but as a truth.
Sam, trapped in this frozen moment, stepped forward. The air shimmered. The illusion trembled. And then… she appeared. From the ether, across the field of corpses, another Sam stepped through the fog. But not the one swinging the sword—no, this was different. She looked the same—same features, same armor, same burning eyes—but the presence she carried was colder, sharper. Timeless. She wasn't bound to memory—she was the memory, made manifest. The Echo had taken form. Her past self regarded her with a gaze that could pierce steel.
"So," the echo said, her voice low and resonant, "you've returned to the battlefield."
Sam swallowed. "This isn't my battlefield."
"Isn't it?" The echo stepped forward, boot crunching through bone and gravel. "You've always belonged to the battlefield, Samantha." Sam flinched at the use of her full name from this construct that was a mirror of herself.
"You're wrong," she whispered. "I didn't choose this fight. This path."
"But you walked it. And every step you took, every decision you made, whether in the past, present, or future made you who you are now." The echo gestured to the field. "This isn't some distorted fantasy. This was you. And this is you."
Sam's hands curled into fists at her sides. "I never wanted to be this," she said, voice trembling. "I… I never wanted to become a killer."
The echo's gaze sharpened. "But you did. Because life—true life—is conflict. It is a struggle. A fight to ensure one's continued existence. War is inevitable. Peace is temporary, fragile, an illusion that fools like you cling to until it shatters in their hands. You learned that lesson once. Why pretend you've forgotten?"
Sam looked away. Her breath caught in her throat. No. She hadn't forgotten. How could she? The memory rose unbidden—that night.
After her father's death… after the chaos that had ensued in that dam night, Sam had been the only one left from that chaos. She had survived—but barely. And worse, she wished she hadn't. The grief came in waves—then the guilt. The hollow ache of surviving when someone more precious had died. She had tried, more than once, to escape it. She remembered the pills, the blade, the blood from the cut.... the darkness she had thrown herself into.
But she always lived. Whether by miracle or curse, she survived. And it was in one of those lowest moments, waking up from her attempt to kill herself that something inside her shifted. A realization took root.
She wanted to live. Not because life was kind, or easy—but because in some strange, quiet way, she had come to believe it mattered. That her life mattered. And if hers did, then so did everyone else's.
That belief had guided her. It had been her anchor. It was the reason she couldn't take a life—even when justice demanded it. Even when Nabu stood before her, soaked in the blood of her Aunt Stella, smiling with no remorse.
She had the chance to kill him. And she hadn't. Because when the moment came, she couldn't put any killing intent behind her attacks. She had been forced to leave it to someone else to do it for her. And Emily had done what she could not. The echo of her past self tilted her head, as if sensing the memory.
"You think mercy makes you stronger," the echo said. "But in this world, it makes you vulnerable. Mercy is a luxury, and only those willing to do what you cannot will ever shape the future."
Sam looked up, eyes blazing now. "You're wrong. Mercy is a strength. It's harder to choose restraint than violence. Anyone can kill. It takes real power to choose not to."
The echo's expression twisted into something between admiration and pity. "Idealism is a beautiful shield. But it won't stop a blade."
She raised her sword and pointed it at Sam.
"Tell me—if you had to kill to protect Terra, to protect those close to you, to protect June… to protect Leon, would you still hesitate?"
Sam already had the answer in her heart. And the answer was a profound no. And that answer echoed through her soul. The battlefield around them trembled. The fog pulsed. Her past self smiled, slowly.
"That's what I thought."
Sam stood still, her breath shallow in the heavy air, the weight of the echo's words pressing against her like an unseen force. The battlefield around them had grown unnaturally quiet, the world suspended in a frozen breath—as if waiting for her answer.
The image of Nabu returned. The blood on his hands. The smirk that had haunted her dreams. The moment she had faltered. The guilt that came after—not just for failing to avenge Stella, but for placing that burden on Emily's shoulders. She had believed that mercy was sacred. That preserving life, even when it was undeserved, proved her strength. But now, standing in the heart of this Echo Field, surrounded by death dealt by her own hand in another life, she was beginning to see a different truth—one far more difficult to swallow.
"Why did I enjoy it?" Sam whispered. Her voice cracked. "Why did it feel right?"
Her past self—still poised with blade in hand, still wreathed in the aura of divine wrath—lowered her weapon slightly, just enough to acknowledge the sincerity of the question.
"Because it was right," the echo said, her tone quieter now, almost gentle. "Not in a moral sense. Not in a righteous sense. But in the fundamental, inescapable logic of existence."
Sam looked down at her hands. They were trembling.
"All life," the echo continued, stepping closer, "exists because something else dies. That's not poetry—it's the natural law of the universe. Predators feed. Trees choke out the weak. Even stars collapse to create new worlds. War isn't the opposite of life, Samantha. It's the engine of it. And as the Asha'Yee, you are the one behind the wheel that stirs the direction of life itself."
The battlefield shimmered, scenes flickering like broken film: the fall of cities, the rise of heroes, the birth of revolutions—every moment of triumph carved from conflict.
"You believed life had value because you survived death," the echo said. "Because you pulled yourself from the brink and chose to keep walking. And you were right. Your life does have value."
Sam lifted her gaze, eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
"But so does struggle," the echo went on. "So does death. You cannot separate them. You cannot cling to one without accepting the other."
Sam opened her mouth to argue—but no words came. Because deep down, she knew. She had lived it. The harsh lessons she had learnt during the Merge. Sam's decision to Awaken Terra's core allowed the planet to keep on living, for most of the souls within to survive. And yet, millions of people had still died. She thought of the desperate cries of those she had saved. The horror in the eyes of those she couldn't. She had felt the cost of survival, and the truth behind every scar. And yet—despite everything—she had clung to the belief that war was a detour. A deviation. Something to be avoided. But now she saw it for what it truly was. Her Eyes of Mathias was activated, and she could see the truth, the pattern woven into existence.
Life and war were not opposites. They were reflections. Two truths held in the same breath. War was the crucible in which life proved its will to persist. Without struggle, life did not evolve. Without sacrifice, life did not endure.
Sam stepped forward. She met the eyes of her past self—those familiar, unknowable eyes—and for the first time, she didn't flinch.
"I was wrong," Sam said softly.
A pause.
"But I wasn't completely wrong," she added. "War may be part of life… but it doesn't have to define it. We fight to survive. We struggle to grow. But the choice to protect, to show mercy, to believe in more—that's also what life is. To me, those lives that I took, those lives that are gone because of my decision, they had meaning. They had value. Just for the fact that they were born in the first place."
The echo of her past self stared at her for a long moment, then gave a nod—not of approval, but of acknowledgment.
"Then carry that truth," the echo said, her voice beginning to fade with the mist. "Let it break you. Let it forge you." The world trembled again. The fog thickened.
"And when the time comes… don't hesitate."
Then, like a ripple disturbing the surface of a dream, the past unraveled.
The battlefield crumbled into ash—mountains of corpses dissolving into dust, bloodstained earth fading into soft loam. The echo of her former self dissipated into the wind like smoke, vanishing as though it had never truly existed. The heavy fog receded, drawn back like a curtain, revealing the quiet serenity of the real forest beyond.
And Sam stood alone in a clearing—herself again.
Yet not the same.
A presence stirred deep within her, vast and ancient.
[Host has awakened additional Ability Factors: classified as Domain Factors. Initiating Gaea Spell System integration.]
[Domain Factors unlocked: Forge Domain and War Domain.]
[Forge Domain—synchronizes with Terramorphosis to craft, shape, and imbue constructs with mana-based properties. Allows direct manipulation of elemental substrate and mythic material.]
[War Domain—grants perfect weapon mastery. Host may wield any weapon with maximum efficacy, regardless of form or type. Special Condition: Host can execute strikes at the atomic level, severing bonds beyond material limits.]
The information surged into her mind like lightning arcing through a soul—forged not in pain, but in revelation. Her Ethereal gland pulsed, glowing faintly within her chest as it translated the raw data into instinct, memory, and skill.
She felt her strength rise—not as brute force, not as numbers climbing on an invisible scale—but as clarity. Her spirit sharpened, her body honed, her connection to the world refined. It was as if every fiber of her being had been tempered in a divine forge.
She was power, not wielding it but embodying it.
Sam clenched her fist and opened it slowly, watching faint runes shimmer along her fingertips—subtle, golden, and alive with purpose. She could feel it now. With the Forge Domain, her Terramorphosis would be more than terrain manipulation—it would be creation. And the War Domain... it made every weapon in the universe feel like an extension of her will.
No Master-tier Ascendant would stand a chance now. Maybe—maybe—Emily could, if she fought with everything she had. But they were sisters in arms, never destined to cross blades with fatal intent. That kind of battle would never happen. Not between them.
And so, with renewed composure and sharpened focus, Sam turned her gaze forward.
Ahead lay a cave—its entrance dark and silent, mouth gaping like the breath of the earth itself. From within, she could feel the steady thrum of ancient power. The Key was inside. Sam drew in a slow, calming breath, letting the forest air settle her spirit. And without hesitation, she stepped forward—into the cave.
Sam's gaze was drawn toward the object suspended at the heart of the cave—floating in silent reverence beneath a shaft of pale, divine light. The chamber around her pulsed with ancient power. The stone walls were adorned with sweeping murals, each etched in faded gold and silver, depicting events long buried by time: battles fought across burning skies, celestial beings descending upon mortal worlds, titanic hands lifting the fractured earth. Between the images, runes spiraled in elegant, intertwining patterns—arcane inscriptions that whispered forgotten truths into the air.
And there, at the center of it all, was the Key.
It shimmered like liquid sunlight, a golden artifact inscribed with intricate constellations that danced across its length. The weapon—if it could be called one—was shaped like a dagger forged by starlight. Its blade was long and serrated, layered with ridges and curves that reflected not design but purpose. The hilt, carved from radiant gems of unknown origin, gleamed with soft hues of violet, blue, and rose-gold, each pulsing gently as if echoing a heartbeat older than the world itself.
Sam had felt divinity before—on battlefields soaked in blood and in temples consecrated by ancient rites.
But this was different.
This was pure.
Unfiltered, raw, elemental divinity radiated from the Key. It didn't just sit in the cave; it anchored it. The unstable World Energy that had once made Terra tremble with imbalance now flowed in perfect alignment, harmonized and stabilized by the Key's presence. The air itself was cleaner, the mana more coherent. Her own cultivated energy surged in response, rising as if the very laws of the world had bent to accommodate her growth.
She stepped forward, hand lifting slowly toward the object—fingers tingling with anticipation.
Then she heard it.
A faint sound—movement, leather against stone, subtle but deliberate.
Sam's eyes snapped upward.
Above her, on a raised platform hidden in shadow, three figures stood beneath a crumbling archway. Black robes cloaked their forms, each one distinct in build and posture. She could sense them now—their presence, their intent, the ripple of their Odic fields brushing against her own.
The one in the center stepped forward slightly. He wore a sleeveless black robe that revealed bulging, scar-marked arms. His face was mostly obscured by a matte steel mask covering the lower half, but his eyes—pale, colorless, cold—gleamed with a predatory sharpness. His aura wasn't just powerful—it was inhuman. And his towering frame, easily over eight feet, left no doubt.
A Giantborn.
"Tch," he grunted, voice like gravel grinding through ice. "After everything we went through to bypass the damn barrier... and someone just walks in through the front."
"Shut up, Golan," the figure on the right muttered, a hand resting on the hilt of a long, narrow sword strapped to his hip. His voice was dry, unimpressed.
Then the third figure stepped forward, a woman whose robe fit her lithe, curvaceous form like a tailored shroud. Her presence was less brute force, more precision—like a dagger hidden behind a smile.
"That's the Asha'Yee," she said, her voice a silky echo laced with venom and awe. "The one who walks with the authority of life and war."
Sam narrowed her eyes. They weren't just opportunists. They had purpose. And now that purpose had collided with hers.
"The Asha'Yee? Really?" Golan scoffed, his voice rumbling like distant thunder.
Then, without warning, he moved.
Despite his immense size, the Giantborn lunged with startling speed—closing the distance between them in an instant, his massive fist crashing down toward Sam like a meteor. The air cracked from the force of his strike.
But Sam was ready.
Her hand snapped upward, catching his fist with her palm. The sheer momentum of the blow drove her back, her boots grinding against the stone floor as the impact forced her into a crouch. A shockwave burst outward from the point of contact, splitting the ground beneath her. Jagged cracks radiated in every direction as dust and debris lifted in a ring around them. Her arms trembled slightly from the impact, but her eyes remained steady.
So strong... Sam thought, teeth clenched. She hadn't expected that kind of raw, brutal power. His physical might was monstrous. Golan staggered a step back, surprise flickering across his face beneath the half-mask. His scowl deepened.
He had only used twenty percent of his strength—just a test. But to his astonishment, the Asha'Yee had not only endured the blow… she had matched it. He had always believed that no human, regardless of how special, could rival a Giantborn in sheer physicality. And yet here she was—smaller, leaner, mortal—and she had stopped him cold.
Sam didn't give him a chance to recover. She reached into the fractured ground beneath her, drawing power from the leylines with her Terramorphosis. In one fluid motion, stone surged to her call. Through the synergy of two Domain techniques—Earth Sculpt and Metal Forge—she shaped the raw earth and refined metal into precise forms.
Gauntlets.
Twin constructs encased her forearms, thick silver plating lined with glowing runes, fused seamlessly to her arms by a layer of living stone. With a flick of her wrists, the gauntlets hissed—thin slits opened near the forearm, and from them, blades retracted. Sleek, razor-edged, and forged with a gleam that shimmered like polished starlight. Sam stood tall, her breathing calm, her stance poised.
"You're not the only one who brings force to a fight," she said, voice low but steady.
The gauntlet blades clicked into place with a metallic whisper.
And this time, she moved first.
Golan barely had time to reset his stance before Sam surged forward. She moved like lightning forged from will—her figure a blur, her gauntlet blades gleaming with elemental power. Every step she took left behind a pulse of kinetic energy, distorting the ground beneath her with shockwaves as her Domain-enhanced footwork rewrote the very friction between her boots and the stone.
The Giantborn roared, raising both arms to block, but Sam's first strike came low. She twisted her hips and swept her left gauntlet in a rising arc, the earth beneath them bulging upward to augment her force. Her blade caught his wrist with a flash of silver, drawing sparks and blood. Golag stumbled back, stunned—not from the pain, but from the precision. She wasn't just swinging. She was calculating. Every strike followed the laws of form and flow—perfect weapon usage granted by the War Domain.
Sam followed up with a series of rapid strikes—fist, blade, elbow, reverse kick. The gauntlets weren't just armor or tools; they were extensions of her nervous system, responding to the minute shifts in mana flow across her lattice. Golan reeled, using his sheer size and strength to deflect the blows, but Sam adapted, her War Domain constantly optimizing her movements in real time.
When he attempted to stomp the ground and break her rhythm with a tremor wave, Sam countered with Terramorphosis. She pulled the ground upward beneath his foot, warping his balance mid-strike, and used Earth Sculpt to launch herself into a spin. Her gauntlet blade caught the air just right—compressed mana forming an edge so refined, it vibrated at the atomic level.
[Atomic Severance]
Invisible slashes traveled through the space and Golan howled as the slashes nicked his side—not because it was deep, but because it had cut through his flesh's molecular cohesion. His skin burned with dissonance. A wound that wouldn't clot. He had tried to avoid the attack due to the danger he sensed, but due to it's unique nature, he had been unable to avoid it truly.
"You... witch," he growled, retreating a few paces. He summoned his Odic force and reached behind him, conjuring a massive warhammer forged of obsidian and bone. It crackled with void lightning, powered by his inner bloodline arts. "You want to dance? Then DANCE, Asha'Yee!"
He charged, the cave quaking beneath each step. The warhammer came down like a mountain falling from the sky. Sam didn't block. She shifted. Her body arced to the side at the last second, and with a pivot powered by Forge Domain–reinforced movement nodes in her legs, she drove her elbow into his ribs. Her gauntlet blade retracted mid-strike—a feint—and her other fist slammed into his chest, metal meeting flesh with a sonic boom. A concussive burst of seismic force erupted from the impact point.
Golan was flung backward, his massive body slamming into the far wall hard enough to fracture stone. The echo of the impact rolled through the cave like thunder. Sam exhaled, letting the gauntlets vent excess heat from their seams. White steam hissed into the air. Her armor pulsed with the runes of the Forge Domain, regenerating micro-fractures from the feedback.
Golan staggered to his feet, breathing heavy, face bloodied, mask cracked. Sam stepped forward, her eyes glowing with authority, the cave reacting to her presence as if recognizing her dominion.
"You're strong," she said. "But I don't need to overpower you."
She lifted both arms. The gauntlets glowed as she activated a dual technique:
[Terramorphosis: Cradle Maw.][Forge Domain: Binding Seal.]
The ground beneath Golan erupted—chains of molten stone wrapped in silver-gold runes shot up, binding his arms, legs, and neck in a crushing grip. He struggled, roared, but the more he thrashed, the tighter the forgebound prison became.
"You should've stayed in the shadows," Sam whispered.
She raised her arm. The gauntlet blade hissed forward one final time, gleaming with silver light. And struck.
Or at least—it would have.
But before the blow could land, a sudden blur cut through the air. The second figure—the sword-wielder—descended with chilling precision. His blade swept in a wide, semicircular arc, its edge aimed to take Sam's head clean from her shoulders. It was a masterstroke of intent and timing.
But Sam's instincts flared.
Full Guard activated at the edge of her perception. Her internal senses screamed of incoming death, and her body responded before conscious thought could. She twisted back and away, her form slipping beneath the sweeping blade like a shadow beneath the wind. In the same motion, she rolled toward the center of the chamber.
Her hand closed around the Key.
Without hesitation, she channeled her Odic force and transferred the divine artifact into her Gaea Spell System's personal pocket dimension. The Key shimmered for a moment in her grip—pulsing once, as if acknowledging her claim—before vanishing into the ether, safely secured in the invisible vault linked to her soul.
Now, focus.
The woman in black had joined the fray, her movements fluid and deliberate as she knelt beside Golan, her fingers weaving through the air in precise patterns. The chains of molten stone and forgebound runes that Sam had conjured with her dual Domain technique—seals powerful enough to bind a Giantborn—began to unravel under the woman's touch.
Sam's brow furrowed in surprise. She's undoing my seal?
That shouldn't have been possible—at least, not without intimate knowledge of her Domain mechanics. Yet the bindings cracked and peeled away like dry clay, and Golan rose, his breathing heavy but no longer strained. The sword-wielder clicked his tongue in annoyance and turned on the Giantborn.
"You idiot," he snapped. "What made you think you stood a chance against the Asha'Yee? She's a Master Realm cultivator—you're barely scratching the Warrior Realm."
Golan growled low in his throat but didn't argue. Sam stood across from them now, her stance relaxed but her aura still sharp, coiled like a spring. Her eyes swept over them, analyzing with her Mystic perception. Despite their realm being lower than hers, their cultivation wasn't ordinary. Their foundations were dense, their Odic signatures interwoven with something darker, refined through more than just training. These weren't common Ascendants. Their mana cores were honed like weapons, and their bodies moved with the certainty of those who had survived real war.
Battle-hardened. Disciplined. Dangerous.
"Who are you?" Sam asked, her voice even, but commanding.
The woman rose from Golan's side and dusted off her robes. Her eyes, sharp and dark as obsidian, met Sam's with calm defiance.
"I suppose it's only fair you know," she said, her tone tinged with theatrical venom. "We are the Eclipse—the ones who shall bring down the dawn."
Sam raised an eyebrow, her gauntlet still humming with residual energy. "Dramatic."
The woman only smiled.
But Sam felt it—the weight behind that smile. It wasn't arrogance or bravado. It was conviction. Cold, genuine conviction. Whatever ideals drove this woman, they burned deep and real.
"I'll bite," Sam said, tilting her head slightly. "What do you Eclipse want? And what are you doing here?"
"The downfall of the Convention of Golden Dawn," the woman answered without hesitation. "And the rise of the Mightists."
Sam let out a low, amused chuckle. "The Mightists," she echoed. "Is that so?"
She didn't feel threatened, not yet. But her mind moved like clockwork, cycling through possibilities and inconsistencies. No one—no one—except Aria, Vuelo, and Sophia even knew she was after the Key. And none of them knew its exact location. This cave was hidden, sealed, protected by dimensional barriers only someone with precise arcane knowledge could bypass.
So how did Eclipse get here? It wasn't betrayal. That much, she was certain of. Which meant they hadn't come because of her. Her eyes flicked to Golan and his earlier words.
They had targeted the cave.
But why? Her mind reeled, threads of thought spinning outward—and then snapped sharply into focus.
June.
A tremor ran through her bond with Avis. Through their soul link, Sam reached out—and her blood went cold. A presence. Immense. Refined. Dangerous. Her connection to Avis flared with warning, and through his eyes, she saw it: June—unconscious, limp in the arms of a figure cloaked in silver and shadow.
"You've got to be shitting me," Sam growled, realization dawning like a blade drawn at her throat. "You three... you were just distractions."
Without another word, Sam snapped her fingers. Her lips whispered a string of arcane syllables, casting an Intermediate Dimensional Magic spell: Mirror Gate—a spell designed for precision warp, opening a mirror-like portal to any location within one's known coordinates or direct line of sight.
Thanks to her link with Avis, she had the exact spatial signature. A luminous, glass-like surface materialized in front of her, warping inward like liquid silver. She stepped through.
The world shifted.
She emerged in the midst of cracked earth and broken trees, the air thick with mana. Wind howled past her ears as her eyes locked instantly on the enemy: a tall figure, garbed in flowing silver robes, long argent hair rippling like silk in the wind. His face was mostly obscured by a matte black mask covering the lower half, but the presence he radiated was undeniable—Sage Realm, at the very least. Maybe higher.
In his arms, unmoving—June.
Across the clearing, Avis stood amid shattered branches, feathers ruffled, eyes blazing with helpless fury. He'd been pushed back. Hard.
"Asha'Yee," the masked man said, his tone cool, almost reverent. Sam didn't reply. She moved. Her body surged forward as she activated Gale Sprint, a high-speed movement spell that drew upon compressed air currents to launch her forward like a living projectile. Wind screamed past her as she blurred across the battlefield, gauntlets reactivating, mana igniting. She reached out—fingers brushing the edge of June's robes.
Too late.
A singularity bloomed around the enemy's feet—a black dot, impossibly dense. It expanded in the blink of an eye into a sphere of distortion, swallowing them whole in a spatial rift. Teleportation—Void Skip, or some custom variant far beyond conventional tier. Sam's fingers snapped through empty air. The rift collapsed. And they were gone. A moment of silence passed. The trees rustled in the wake of the spell's departure.
Then Sam screamed. It was the kind of scream that shook the trees. One of rage, of helplessness—a cry she hadn't let loose in years. Not since her father's death. Not since the day she vowed never again to lose someone without a fight. Her voice cracked the stillness of the forest. And the storm inside her was only just beginning.