The air inside the van smelled of dust, tension, and the faint scent of Melanie's cherry shampoo. Elyion drove with a calmness that was almost unsettling, his eyes—brown and ordinary at that moment—scanning every shadow, every shattered window, every mound of rubble. Beside him, Melanie twisted her fingers, her pink aura pulsing with an anxiety that faintly lit the cabin. In the back seat, Rivka shrank into herself, trembling. The cold of the Sheol within her was tangible, a ghostly frost that fogged the glass beside her.
"Are you sure about the coordinates?" Elyion asked, his serene voice in total contrast with the tension in the air.
Rivka nodded almost imperceptibly, eyes still closed.
"The whisper… it grows louder here… it hurts…" Her voice was a thread of sound. "Turn… right… at the next crossing…"
They followed her lead, entering a neighborhood swallowed by weeds and fractured concrete. The silence was ominous, broken only by the low hum of the engine. Suddenly, Rivka straightened, eyes wide open, her orange marks glowing with an eerie intensity.
"Stop!" Her urgent whisper sliced the air. "Here! They're here!"
Elyion braked smoothly. Before anyone could react, a figure materialized in the middle of the street, blocking their path. It stood easily eight feet tall. Its armor was a pale, tarnished gold, like ancient bone. It had no face, only a smooth helmet, and from its back spread wings made of distorted energy. An Erelim.
"Get out…" Rivka gasped in terror. "Its whisper… is a void… only hunger…"
The Erelim raised a hand. The air rippled, and a long, sharp crystal— a spear of corrupted spiritual energy—formed and shot toward the windshield.
Elyion didn't flinch. He exhaled smoke from his cigarette and, with his left hand, made a quick but precise gesture. A hexagonal shield of electric-blue energy, compact and dense, appeared just in time before the glass. The spear struck with a dull crash that shook the vehicle. Cracks spread across the shield, but it held before fading seconds later. Elyion clenched his jaw slightly. The impact had been stronger than he expected.
From the back seat, Rivka watched in terror and awe. She, who needed the Bond to amplify and focus her gift until it became painful, had just seen a man create a spiritual shield strong enough to block an Erelim's attack… with a flick of his hand, no artifact, no sweat. It was unreal.
"Nice try," Elyion murmured, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray with a brisk motion that betrayed a trace of irritation. "Melanie, now."
Determination clouded Melanie's fear. She closed her eyes and tightened her bracelet Bond. Her pink aura didn't explode; it spread out like a sophisticated net of spiritual interference that fell over the Erelim. The being faltered, disoriented. Melanie's net tangled its orders, weaving static into its signals.
"It won't hold for long," Elyion said, hand already on the door. "Rivka, the survivor?"
"In that building!" she pointed with a trembling hand toward a structure with its façade collapsed. "Third floor! But there are more… whispers… coming closer!"
Elyion nodded.
"Cover me," he told Melanie, stepping out of the van with resolve, not arrogance.
The Erelim, though entangled, was relentless. Another spear formed. This time, Elyion didn't block it completely. He deflected it with a wrist movement—a redirection technique that cost less energy but demanded far more precision. The projectile smashed into a nearby wall, exploding into shards of residual energy that rained around him. He inhaled deeply. Efficient, but not flawless.
He reached the building's entrance just as two more figures materialized at both ends of the street. Reinforcements.
"Elyion!" Melanie cried, her voice cracking under the strain of holding back three Erelim at once. "There's too many!"
Inside, the stairs were dark and littered with rubble. Elyion climbed swiftly, yet cautiously. The third-floor door was open. The scene was clear as he entered: a young man curled up in the corner, sobbing. Over him loomed a different Erelim—slightly taller, with a single vertical crack glowing red across its smooth helmet. An officer. A claw of dark energy hovered over the boy's head.
Then Elyion activated his Angel Sight.
His brown irises dissolved into pure white. Thin veins of blazing electric blue spread from the corners of his eyes, radiating spectral light. The material world vanished, replaced by a maelstrom of energies. He saw the terrified, pure aura of the boy in the corner, the dreadful void of the officer Erelim, and the corrupted energy points of the others below. But he didn't just see auras; he saw their flows, their nodes, their vulnerabilities. The Erelim's strike wasn't a blunt hammer—it was a concentrated stream of negative energy. And every stream has a current, a point of least resistance.
The officer lunged. With his Sight active, Elyion didn't dodge randomly. He shifted by mere inches, out of the attack's flow, letting the strike pass close enough to shred his coat sleeve but not touch him. Efficiency in motion.
"Your turn to dodge!" Elyion growled, counterattacking. His unique power, "Precision Spiritual Manipulation," came into play. He didn't unleash a blind blast of energy. With his left hand, he wove a thin, razor-sharp filament of blue energy, as fine as a heated titanium wire, and struck—not at the Erelim's body, but precisely at the point where the flow of its right arm connected to its core. A weakness only his eyes could see.
The Erelim screamed, a piercing mental shriek, as its right arm faltered, energy scattering. Not a crippling blow, but a precise, maddening disruption.
Down below, the battle was chaos. Samuel, with his bracelet Bond, didn't cast beams. His voice thundered in guttural, ancient Hebrew, vibrating reality itself. With each word, golden energy expanded from his heart to his limbs, strengthening his muscles, quickening his reflexes. Not projectile magic—divine physical enhancement. He dodged an Erelim claw with superhuman agility and countered with a punch that rang like a struck bell, forcing the monster back.
Miriam was his lethal shadow. Spiritual swords of a dark, hungry violet materialized in her hands. She needed no enhancement; her style was pure, deadly technique. She danced around the Erelim, blades finding gaps in its armor, deflecting strikes with surgical precision, answering with cuts that scarred the air with corrupt energy. Two against one, they held it at bay—barely.
But reinforcements came. Three more Erelim descended. Melanie's net snapped under the strain. One hurled a spear at her. With a cry, Miriam threw herself into its path, deflecting it, but the nearby explosion hurled her against the van.
"MIRIAM!" Samuel roared, distracted for a heartbeat. An Erelim seized the chance, slamming him with a hammer of energy. He dropped to his knees, gasping in pain, golden light flickering erratically around him.
"Elyion!" Melanie cried, panic in her voice. "Samuel's hurt!"
Above, the officer Erelim seized on Melanie's cry, doubling its mental assault. "THE ARTIFACT. WHERE IS IT?" The voice drilled into Elyion's skull, raw willpower pounding his mind. Sweat trickled down his temple. The pain was unbearable. He couldn't keep his Sight active and defend at once.
He made a calculated choice. He didn't unleash his full strength. Instead, he compressed it. With superhuman focus, he forged a "Psychic Dart" of pure volition and fired it straight into the red crack on the Erelim's helmet.
The effect was immediate. The officer howled, a shriek of raw mental agony, staggering back, its attack broken. Vulnerable.
Elyion didn't waste it. "Samuel, now!" he shouted through the window.
Bleeding but still glowing faintly gold, Samuel nodded, grimacing. With one final cry in Hebrew, he channeled all remaining energy into a single punch that launched upward like a rocket. A golden projectile tore through the window and struck the officer squarely while it was still reeling.
The creature screamed one last time, dissolving into a vortex of bitter, dark energy that dissipated into the air.
The victory wasn't elegant. It was costly.
Below, Miriam had recovered enough to join forces with Melanie and a wounded yet resolute Samuel, driving back the remaining Erelim. Feeling their officer fall, they retreated, fading into the shadows.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by ragged breaths. Elyion deactivated his Sight, exhaustion flooding him. He looked at the boy in the corner—unconscious, but stable, freed from Erelim influence. He had done it. At a price.
Descending, he found Melanie leaning against the van, pale and trembling, but smiling weakly. Elyion flicked his Sight for a fleeting instant. Her pink aura, usually vibrant and expansive, was shrunken, dull, and frayed. His mental calculation was brutal: the effort of holding back so many Erelim had cost her about three minutes of her life.
"Not bad," Melanie whispered, reading the guilt in his face. "Just three minutes… for all those lives… a fair trade."
Elyion didn't answer. He nodded, jaw tight. It wasn't a fair trade. It was a debt he had helped create, one she paid willingly. Each stolen second burned his soul.
As Samuel bound his wounds with Miriam's help—her violet flame sterilizing a deep cut on his arm—Abraham's voice came over the radio, urgent yet relieved.
"Is everyone accounted for? Functional? Good. Save explanations for later. Bring the survivor back. Now." A pause, tense. "We have a bigger problem. The energy released in your battle acted like a beacon. Something larger… is heading straight for your sector."