The wind wasn't real anymore.
It moved sideways.
Henry and Elara stepped into the outer zone of the North Spire—where the ground floated in pieces, glowing fissures split upward, and all sense of direction began to fail.
Chunks of metal levitated. Trees curved. Sound echoed in reverse.
Henry: "That energy of yours…"
Elara: "My Awakening?"
Henry (shocked): "It's an Awakening!"
Elara (smiling slightly): "Yeah, it's part of my past. I don't really like using it."
Henry: "It is different from all the Awakenings I have felt. Even from mine."
Elara: "Where they experimented on me, they also experimented on Awakenings. I have an experimental Awakening."
Henry (shocked): "It's an experimental Awakening! Does that mean there are others who have that Awakening?"
Elara: "I don't think so. The labor was destroyed, but it is possible."
Henry: "You became very talkative."
Elara: "I don't know. But you are too."
Henry: "We're there."
Above them stood the Spire Anchor—a towering structure of gold veins and black stone, humming with the pulse of the Event Horizon. It wasn't made by humans. It pulsed like a living lung, exhaling gravity into the sky.
Elara (quietly): "It's alive."
Henry (gazing upward): "Feels like we're walking through the last breath of the world."
They advanced—slowly.
Each step felt like walking through invisible syrup, the air thick with pressure. Elara's aura flickered faintly, reacting to the unnatural energy.
Suddenly—BOOOMM!!
The ground ruptured in front of them—and from the rupture emerged a Gravity Wraith—a construct of compressed density, humanoid in shape but faceless, made of warped debris, stone, and gold fragments.
It screamed like bending steel.
Henry: "No choice. We go loud."
He activated his aura—blue divine energy erupting around his body.
He vanished.
Henry: "Shooting Star!"
He reappeared behind the Wraith, striking with his heavenly-infused fist—but the Wraith twisted, absorbing some of the momentum.
Its hand became a black prism, slamming into Henry's chest and sending him flying into a floating rock.
CRASH!
Elara stood still—trembling.
Then she exhaled.
Her palms were lit with unstable green energy, flickering like sunlight through leaves—but tainted with overcharge.
She stepped forward and lifted her hand.
Elara (softly): "Don't touch him."
She released a beam of energy—pure, pulsing life force—that ripped through the Wraith's chest. The creature collapsed backward, but not before exploding into a wave of mass.
Henry caught Elara before she fell from the recoil.
Henry (steadying her): "Are you okay?"
Elara (weak): "No… but keep going."
Together, battered but burning, they moved toward the Spire.
The Central Nexus was a brutalist maze of machinery and Halo technology. Gravity rings spun like gears in the air. Hundreds of glowing orbs hovered between towers, each linked to the fusion anchor embedded deep in the ground.
And guarding it: Halo Disciples—not normal ones.
These were in black armor, with helmets shaped like fanged halos.
Their bodies pulsed with implanted soul energy inhibitors.
Lenny (raising his arm): "They've got weapons…"
Jack (grinning): "Perfect. Let's break their toys."
Lenny (turning to Jack): "But I'm useless?"
Jack (grinning): "You used your beast. That plasma beam—it was you."
Lenny: "Yeah, but—"
Jack (grinning wider): "Then use it again."
A siren screamed. The Halo Disciples charged, wielding pulse spears and mass cannons.
Jack hardened his skin into obsidian-black scales, wings tearing through his back. Lightning danced across his claws.
He leapt forward, catching the first attacker mid-strike and hurling him into a tower.
Lenny didn't move at first.
Inside… Kaelvyn stirred.
Kaelvyn (from within): "Unleash my power. What you used before was only a brink of what you can!"
Lenny (growling): "Not yet."
He pulled a plasma disk from his belt, hurled it into the air, and then detonated it mid-spin, launching a blinding arc of energy across two enemy units.
BOOOOM!!
Jack landed beside him, panting.
Jack: "Still holding out?"
Lenny: "Still scared."
Jack (grins): "Then fight scared."
The air here shimmered with pressure.
Wind was crushed.
Mist was dispersed.
The closer they moved toward the Outer Ring Anchor—a levitating, spiraling shard of compressed darkstone—the less nature obeyed them.
Emilia (clutching her ribs): "I can't shift… the mist collapses instantly."
Ichiro (grim): "My wind's useless too… it gets pulled sideways."
But they kept moving—on foot, across warped terrain. Gravity pulled in uneven waves—one moment weightless, the next like swimming in lead.
Suddenly, black shards rained down—Graviton Shards, self-defending crystal constructs tied to the anchor's core.
They attacked with explosive weight—each strike bending the ground and punching through stone.
CRASH—BOOM—CRACK!
Ichiro grabbed Emilia and rolled aside as a shard struck the ground where she'd stood—imploding the surface into a bottomless pit of nothing.
Ichiro: "We split. Go right. I'll draw their fire."
Emilia nodded.
Ichiro channeled what little wind he could, then ran straight toward the shards, blades extended. He danced between them, each step barely dodging death, as the air around him screamed with collapsing mass.
Emilia reached the Anchor's control node—a pulsating gold prism buried in a gravity cocoon.
She knelt beside it, her hands already trembling.
Emilia (softly): "Come on…"
She condensed mist around her hands, shielding them just enough to touch the core.
Then—she reached in.
BOOOM!
The Anchor pulsed violently—then flickered.
A wave of air reset the gravity field. The area around them returned to semi-normal.
Ichiro stood among fallen shards, panting.
Ichiro: "Two left."
Emilia (smiling faintly): "Let's go save the world."
Above the burning ruins of Neoterra Prime, the singularity bloomed like a divine flower.
Zorath Veil hovered at its center—body half-fused with the Event Horizon, his outline no longer human. His arms glowed with gravitational runes. His voice was both sound and echo.
He floated in silence… until a voice called out from below.
Ronnie (coughing): "Zorath Veil."
The gravitational god looked down.
Far below, among broken steel and light, Ronnie stood alone—legs trembling, chest burning, lightning flickering in his veins.
Zorath (curious): "You still breathe?"
Ronnie: "Enough to stop you."
Zorath descended slightly, amused.
Zorath: "You think you can stop gravity's final form with a broken lung and empty fists?"
Ronnie (grinning weakly): "I just need to buy time."
He raised both arms—sparks returning.
Then he snapped his fingers—and the city lit up with neon-blue lightning.
Pre-embedded pillars across Neoterra—a last-resort weapon of the High Authority—ignited. They fired vertical beams of anti-mass energy, interfering with Zorath's fusion matrix.
BOOOOM!
Zorath screamed—distorted, not in pain but in interruption.
Zorath (furious): "YOU DARE—"
Ronnie (smiling): "I dare."