The moment the dark crimson aura finally began to fade, it felt like my body had stopped fighting itself.
The pressure crushing the battlefield loosened little by little. The violent currents snapping through the air weakened until they became nothing more than flickering sparks dissolving into the cold atmosphere of Floor 39.
I could finally breathe again.
Not properly.
Not without shaking.
But enough.
My demonic armor cracked apart slowly into fragments of black-red particles, dissolving from my skin piece by piece until my body shifted back into my usual form. The horns disappeared first. Then the claws. Then the suffocating pressure surrounding my mana.
The only thing that remained was my eye.
I noticed it because Zeref's exhausted gaze lingered there weakly.
One brown.
One red.
The crimson eye glowed faintly even after the transformation ended, like the tower had carved the class into my existence permanently.
Proof.
A mark I couldn't undo anymore.
But Zeref…
