As I clenched my fist the world shattered into a brilliant flash as the lightning bolt slammed into me. Time fractured, each agonizing moment stretching into an eternity. I felt the searing current sear my back, then splinter into a million tiny electric tendrils burrowing deep within me. It was a destructive power, yet it carried an intoxicating rush, a paradox of creation and ruin simultaneously filling and emptying me. I knew my body was being consumed, burning from the inside out, and that it was only a matter of time before the current's chaos rendered me powerless.
I knew my body was burning, consumed piece by piece. Still, I fought. I gathered the storm's wild energy, channeling it, shaping its destructive force with the disciplined control of my chi, trying to corral the rampaging energy within me, channeling its chaotic force for my own purpose. Suddenly, it was as if a thousand gears had meshed perfectly. My chi surged, and then, with a profound sense of rightness, everything clicked into place. The disparate gears of my will, my body, and the raw energy of the storm aligned. A profound clarity washed over me. The power was mine to command.
This was the moment. I released my grip on my own protection, letting the destructive fire take what it would. Every last shred of focus, every ounce of my strength, was now dedicated to this final act. My death was no longer a fear—it was an inevitability I had come to terms with. The certainty of it brought an unexpected peace. If I succeeded, this moment would become a footnote, ceasing to exist yet reborn as something else. If I failed, at least I would have died fighting, with everything I had. There was no one left to mourn me anyway.
I channeled my chi with a focus so intense I felt my very soul being pulled along with it. The strain was immense, a hair's breadth from collapse, but I held on. With a guttural roar, the words "Har Har MAHADEV!" tore from my throat, a prayer and a battle cry rolled into one. I pushed everything I was, every ounce of power, every memory, every flicker of my being, into the endless void. I held nothing back, clinging only to the hope that I would find light on the other side.
I could feel it, the sudden, overwhelming pull, a vortex of energy ready to consume my consciousness. Before all my energy went through, I deliberately separated two tiny, glowing pieces of it and embedded them deep within Logan's mind, like seeds planted for the future. The moment they were gone, I lost all feeling in my body. It was an instant, complete severance. My consciousness shot forward, leaving my body behind, an empty shell that fell to the ground, lifeless.
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Ryan felt his consciousness detach from his body. It was like being launched from a cannon, a raw, kinetic force propelling him forward through a tunnel of pure light. But instead of a destination, he was suddenly met with a crushing, unseen wall. The anchor to Logan's mind was ripped away with a violent snap, and he was left floating in a silent, desolate void.
In this place, the concepts of time and space lost all meaning. There was no up, no down, no beginning or end. An eternity could pass in a single thought, and a lifetime could be compressed into a single, terrifying instant. After what seemed like an eternity, he felt himself connect to a faint, distant signal—a fragment of himself, weak and struggling. Instinctively, his energy branched off and went to that piece, a desperate act of self-preservation. A second eternity seemed to pass, and he felt his energy flow toward it again.
Then, he felt it.
A cosmic tremor rippled through the nothingness, and he felt the gaze of colossal beings—behemoths of reality—turn toward him. Their awareness was a silent, cold presence, and in that moment, he knew he was not alone in the void, and he was not welcome.
Just as the gazes began to solidify, he was suddenly and violently pulled away by another piece of himself, a piece that felt different, stronger. The journey out was as instantaneous as his arrival, and he was no longer in the void. He was somewhere else entirely.
As he felt his mind leave the void he started to forget the concrete memory his time in the void. His mind would refused to remember that an eternity had occurred in an instant for the mortal mind was not made to withstand such memories, but the feeling of profound disorientation and the fleeting memory of those ancient, watchful eyes would be seared into his soul forever.