The stone groaned as Judge pressed his back to it, muscles trembling. Cracks traced along his arms like lightning across marble, and his breath came in ragged bursts.
He had pushed a boulder into place using pure ether, sealing the crevice behind him. The rock still shimmered faintly with leftover energy, but its cost had been carved into his skin, deep cracks running all the way to his bones.
The cave was silent.
But his thoughts roared.
He couldn't afford to pass out. The moment he did, everything ended.
The flux core pulsed nearby, a dark heart beating in rhythm with the void it created.
The air around him was impossibly still, suffocating, and yet, within that nothingness, he could taste ether again. The pocket of void he had managed to stabilize before was gone, devoured. But this... this was different.
