The ash of Jaeren Whiteflame hadn't yet settled on the obsidian floor before the environment shifted to Kova's whim.
He didn't move a muscle. He simply willed the darkness to act. The air itself wove into a translucent, ribbed cage of Void energy, rising from the dust to swallow the children.The children were swept inside as the cage sealed with the finality of a tomb.
Kova didn't care about their grief. He didn't care about the way they screamed for a father who was now nothing but grey flakes on a cold floor. To him, they are just variables. Pressure points.
Kova turned his cold, single eye toward Juno. She stood alone, her chest heaving, her hands still slick with the residue of her father's passing. She looked like a ghost standing in a world of shadows.
"I am exhausted," Kova said, his voice flat and drained. Maintaining this world and masking my Yen is taking its toll, Kova thought.
Kova focused his intent.
Two spheres of pure Void energy formed out of the thin air beside him. They merged and stretched, flattening into a wide, obsidian Void Disc.
Kova settled onto it, crossing his legs and closing his eye. As the platform hovered effortlessly, he began to meditate, his breathing becoming slow and rhythmic. This meditative state was restoring his Yen, the dark essence flowing back into his core to mend his fatigue.
It is his perfect traversal tool, consuming nearly zero Yen or Yan, allowing him to enter a deep state of cultivation while he observed the molding. He looked like a sitting god of stone.
As he drifted, his lower body began to slowly phase into the disc, the obsidian energy sucking him up as if he is being submerged in a dark pool until only his torso remained visible.
"Begin," Kova whispered, his voice steady despite his meditative trance. The demons lunged. Their claws screeched against the obsidian floor like metal on bone.
Juno let out a primal scream, her hands sparking with a faint, flickering obsidian light that vanished as quickly as it appeared. She tried to summon the White Flame, the heat she had known since she was a child, but the Void swallowed it.
If I want to protect them I have to learn the flame, but why won't it listen to me? This isn't fire, it is just an empty, cold rot that's trying to swallow me whole. I can't do this, it's too much, and it's not fair, Juno thought.
She grit her teeth, her fingers clawing at the air as she tried to pull the darkness into a shape. Her palms burned with a numbing frost, yet no flame appeared. The more she pleaded with her core, the more the Void seemed to mock her. It felt like trying to hold onto smoke with broken fingers.
"I am reaching for something that does not want to be found. Every time I think I have it, the blackness just slips through my soul like water. Why can I not grasp it? Is it me? Am I too weak to hold a sin?" Juno thought.
She dodged a swipe from a three armed horror, her boots skidding on the obsidian dust. She felt the coldness of the Black Flame scratching at her ribs. It's an ice that burned. It's a fire that froze. Every time she reached for it, she felt a piece of her own soul being nipped away.
"It is like a hungry animal that only wants to eat me instead of the demons. I am trying to light a fire in a place that only knows how to extinguish things", Juno thought.
Kova continued his slow, meditative orbit on the Void Disc. He didn't blink. He didn't cheer. Even with his eye shut and his body half phased into the disc, he sensed the geometry of her movements, looking for the moment the "rot" would finally take hold.
"You're hesitant, Juno," Kova remarked, his voice echoing from the rafters of the abyss without him ever breaking his posture. "You're still trying to protect yourself. Stop. You're already dead. The girl who lived in the estate's gone. Only the blade remains. If you don't strike, the price is paid in blood."
Juno looked at the cage. The children's eyes are wide with terror. A demon's tail slammed into the Void energy, making it ring like a funeral bell. She felt the Black Flame pulse again. It's a jagged, ugly thing. It didn't want to be used. It wanted to be unleashed.
"He's watching me like a scientist watching an insect in a jar. If I don't find the spark, they die. If I do find it, I'll become his blade. Either way, the Juno I knew is dead. I am a monster in the making", Juno thought.
She planted her feet and closed her eyes. She stopped fighting the cold. She stopped fighting the absence. She let the silence of the Void flow into her hands. For a microsecond, the darkness around her fingers didn't just flicker.
It roared. A wisp of black fire, jagged as a lightning bolt, tore through the chest of the nearest demon. The creature didn't bleed. It didn't scream. It just ceased to exist, turning into a grey smear that evaporated into nothingness.
Kova's single eye snapped open for a fraction of a second, his meditation momentarily interrupted by the raw power. He didn't smile, but the atmosphere in the room shifted. He had seen it. The Primordial spark.
"Again," Kova commanded, his voice a low, satisfied vibration as he returned to his inner focus, his body sinking even deeper into the obsidian disc until only his head and shoulders are visible above the surface. "Until there are no more demons that's left of this world."
Juno fell to one knee, her arm shaking with a numbing frost. She looked at her palm. It was charred, not by heat, but by the sheer weight of the void she had just touched. She looked at the cage.
"They are still alive. Jester's fingers are still there.For now. I did it. But at what cost? I can feel the ice spreading. I'm not a girl anymore," Juno thought.
Kova continued his slow orbit on the Void Disc, returning to his meditative silence as he completely disappeared into the energy of the disc, leaving only the sound of his breathing behind. He is patient. He has all the time in the world, and a mountain full of demons to throw at her until the Whiteflame name is nothing but a memory of ash.