Inside the sealed crimson domain, reality broke.
"...Nova!"
The word didn't carry through the air; it shattered it. From Milim's outstretched palms, a blinding stream of pure stardust erupted. Not ordinary magicules, but the terrifying, absolute light of Star Magic. The catastrophic energy surged forward, vaporizing stone and superheating the atmosphere in a fraction of a millisecond.
Loki didn't reach for Farce.
Milim had already taken every attempt at levity as pure mockery, and deploying a conceptual joke here would only convince her that he was treating her grief as a spectator sport. He needed something she could recognize as a serious, unyielding defense. Drawing upon his Nephalem resilience, his spatial mastery, his gravity fields, and his divine forged arsenal, he set his stance.
"Hephaestus: Aegis Matrix!" Loki shouted, his voice echoing through the enclosed space.
A towering, multi-layered phalanx of divine metal shields manifested before him, interwoven with dense gravity wells and folded spatial barriers. But Drago Nova was a catastrophic force of nature.
The first divine shield vanished without leaving even molten fragments behind. The second lasted long enough for its protective runes to flash blinding white before disappearing into the glare. By the third layer, Loki had already shifted the gravity field sideways, desperately trying to bleed even a fraction of the beam's momentum away from the box.
It barely mattered. The stardust stream smashed through the layered defense, shearing the spatial barriers like parchment under a furnace.
The seals around Gaia screamed against Loki's ribs as the radiant heat washed over him. One corner of the obsidian container flashed translucent under the extreme thermal pressure, and Loki immediately rotated his torso, placing his own shoulder and a fresh spatial cushion between the cube and the reflected glare. He braced his legs, feeling the skin on his back blister under the radiant backscatter, refusing to give up a single inch of ground.
[Warning,] Manas: Loki reported urgently within his mind. [Outer containment temperature rising. Three reinforcing seals approaching failure. Drago Nova's stardust output exceeds defensive capacity. Spatial displacement vectors are collapsing.]
"Yeah, I noticed," Loki gritted out through his teeth as the sheer radiance of the stardust pushed him backward, his boots grinding deep furrows into the bedrock. The atmospheric shockwave expanded violently, slamming into the inner walls of Milim's personal domain. Spiderwebbing fractures split the sky above, dark crimson cracks bleeding unbearable radiance and pressure into the atmosphere outside.
Outside the fractured barrier, Rimuru Arashi, Guy Crimson, and Frey remained fixed on the increasingly unstable dome as the surrounding mountain range shook violently and the sky turned a bruised, violent violet.
"The domain is cracking!" Rimuru insisted, shielding his eyes as beams of crimson light leaked through the sky like liquid fire. "Raphael, report!"
[Report,] Raphael's voice resonated in Rimuru's mind. [Milim Nava has deployed Star Magic: Drago Nova inside the enclosed space. Structural integrity is falling rapidly. Multiple internal layers have failed. Complete collapse is becoming increasingly likely if energy continues to vent.]
"If that domain breaks from the inside, the explosion will erase the surrounding region," Guy Crimson said, his crimson eyes narrowing as his own aura flared to stabilize the outer perimeter. "Loki is meeting it head-on. He's refusing to dodge."
Frey hovered near them, her hands clenched tightly as her feathers ruffled in the turbulent wind. "He cannot dodge! If he moves, the residual wake of Drago Nova will destroy Gaia's soul container! He is deliberately taking the full weight of her Star Magic to keep the box intact!"
Inside the inferno, Loki looked down at the obsidian cube tucked tightly beneath his left arm. The translucent box was trembling violently, its spatial anchors groaning under the radiant heat of the stardust stream.
Dodging was impossible. If he stepped through a spatial fold to escape the blast, the residual momentum of Drago Nova would incinerate the cube instantly. He had to absorb it. He had to meet her with serious, undisguised power.
Loki planted both boots into the bedrock, letting his Nephalem authority ignite. A Dual-Aspected aura of light and shadow burst from his body, his eyes burning with a cold, intense focus that stripped away every lingering trace of levity.
"Hephaestus: World Anchor!"
With a deafening roar, Loki thrust his right hand forward, manifesting a massive, multi-layered spear of pure divine conceptual metal reinforced by a localized gravity field. He didn't aim at Milim. He aimed directly into the heart of the incoming Drago Nova, meeting the stream of stardust at its point of convergence.
The collision tore the sky open.
A blinding column of white and crimson light erupted upward, tearing through the cloud layer and into the upper atmosphere. Loki manually tilted his spear's axis, forcing the catastrophic beam of Star Magic upward at a steep sixty-degree angle.
The redirected beam tore a narrow fissure through the top of the domain, venting the stardust into the high stratosphere away from both the ground and the obsidian cube. Crimson power immediately knitted across the wound behind it, sealing the opening imperfectly while leaving the entire dome webbed with unstable cracks.
Through the blinding glare of the explosion, Milim saw it.
She saw the true, formidable magnitude of his power. An authority that could deflect and tilt Drago Nova itself. And she saw that he had been holding back from the very beginning.
Her blue eyes, submerged in crimson rage, flashed with bitter, agonizing fury.
"You were holding back...?" Milim whispered, her voice cutting through the roar of the blast like a razor. "You were pulling your punches the whole time?!"
She surged forward through the dying embers of Star Magic, her jet-black battle armor gleaming, her claws laced with concentrated Draconic force.
Loki caught her wrist with his bare right hand, the impact shattering his knuckles, but he didn't let go. He looked directly into her tear-streaked, furious face, his own breath coming in ragged gasps.
The realization struck him. Passive restraint wasn't compassion. Hiding behind defensive walls and absorbing her blows wasn't respect. It was cowardice. By refusing to engage her as an equal, by treating her rage as something to be weathered rather than faced, he was denying her grief and insulting her strength.
If he wanted her to hear him, if he wanted to save Gaia together, he couldn't keep shielding himself behind passive walls. He had to stand before her as a warrior, match her resolve, and earn the right to be heard through an honest, serious clash.
"All right, Milim," Loki said, his voice quiet, serious, and resonant with absolute resolve as his Nephalem aura flared to a level he had deliberately withheld until now. He stepped into a full combat stance. "No more hiding behind defense. If you want to fight for Gaia, then fight me as an equal!"
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