Return of the Fallen Volume 9 Chapter 92
Kazuki’s time was done to seconds. Any moment and he would be sucked in and crushed by the first black hole. Hurtling towards it, he needed a tiny bit more energy.
(Just a bit more…just a bit more and I can break this damn seal but where can I get more energy.)
Kazuki had seemingly exhausted all of his options. He used up nearly everything inside of his Mage core. If things were under normal conditions, his Mage core would simply absorb and take in the magical energy in his surroundings but due to not only one black hole but two, 99.999% of all magic energy was being drawn into them. What he could grasp hold of left him with thin wisp-like strands of energy, not enough to do anything now.
He used his ki as well and was now depleted. Talismans wouldn’t work in this situation just the same as the ancient hand symbols would do him no good as one drew in energy from the surroundings and the other required you to supply it with outside power.
Kazuki wracked his brain but nothing came to mind. One second in the outside world was equivalent to one hundred inside his soul world. This seemed like a godsend but to Kazuki it was torture. Every moment he failed to come up with an idea, was another passing moment he could not get back and was one moment closer to his inevitable death.
(Zetrazz and Torzz wall of darkness and flames are too far to devour any of the power and even trying to draw in the outside world energy are granting me empty promise. Can’t use ki, can’t use the ancient hand symbols nor would talismans do me any good but this can’t be it. There must be something, something I haven’t thought of.)
Kazuki’s mind was in a spiral and another two seconds had passed.
Time was running out. After sacrificing so much energy and purposefully falling toward the black hole, risking death, Kazuki had fed the spinning void as much as he could muster. In response, his soul had just barely begun to move and he could sense it more clearly now but it wasn’t enough. It was right on the edge. A minuscule amount of power and growth would give Kazuki just what he needed but he could not find the energy no matter how hard he thought about it.
As death was ever approaching it wasn’t fear that Kazuki felt but instead regret and rage.
(So close and yet that bitch is going to getaway. She and her mother will live out in peace and me and my brother, all that have fallen, we will be the ones damned for eternity. Why is this world so unfair? Why is everything upon my shoulders?)
Kazuki thought about his golden compass wrapped around his neck and felt bitter disappointment.
(A god watching and observing all this time but for what? I’ve nearly died so many times and even now, no response, no help. For what purpose does this thing exist?)
Kazuki’s senses returned to the real world and he snatched the compass off of his neck. There was an energy within the compass, Kazuki knew this and he had been able to absorb it before when he was trapped within the Abyssal trench but since then the godly aura has resisted him. Even now at the 7th stage, Kazuki could not pull any of the energy from the compass. He had figured if something or someone really was watching him, whatever being it was, had no real care for his life. He figured that gods were similar to Titans and sought out entertainment by watching lowly creatures such as he fight and die.
(Such a cruel joke my life is. Gods, Titan’s Fera, the bitch above, fuck them all and fuck this stupid compass.)
Kazuki had cherished his compass since his childhood. Ever since his adoptive father gave it to him, it was the only object from his past he valued and cared about but now things were different. Knowing something or someone watched him and offered him no help. Knowing there was energy within the compass yet he could not access it, Kazuki no longer held sentimental value for the golden piece of metal but instead, he felt contempt.
(DAMN THIS ACCURSED THING!)
Kazuki cocked his arm back and was about to toss it into the black hole ahead of him. However the moment he did this, a large boulder-sized piece of metal struck him in the side, leaving a small cut on him.
This annoyed Kazuki but his attention quickly returned to the compass.
“Hmph, like my hopes, become crushed.”
Kazuki then tossed his once favored object ahead of him. It flew at incredible speed but to Kazuki’s surprise, the compass did not get crushed once it reached the black hole, instead, it stopped just before it entered the black void, turned around, and flew right back at Kazuki hitting him directly in the face at such a speed that his nose broke on contact.
Kazuki’s head was knocked back and the compass wrapped back around his neck.
As the blood poured down his face and then reversed as he was healed almost instantly, it was like he was struck by lightning. a sudden idea came to him and the compass had kind of given it to him.
He wanted to be surprised by the compass’s sudden rush at him, he wanted to be shocked by it resisting the black hole when even he who was at the Convergence stage could not but the small chance at living trumped all of the weirdness and he quickly threw those thoughts to the back of his mind.
Without another thought, Kazuki looked at his arm before grabbing himself at the shoulder, and then in one smooth motion, he ripped his own arm from his shoulder. Zetrazz was still fighting Torzz currently but he was still observing Kazuki from afar. He had witnessed Kazuki go limp and then suddenly jolt awake and throw his compass away. If that wasn’t strange enough he then saw the compass miraculously resit the power of a black hole and come racing back to Kazuki. The cherry on top, Kazuki grabbed his own arm before ripping it off.
Zetrazz had never been more confused in his entire life.
Kazuki on the other hand was perfectly clear. His body was relaxed even after tearing off his own arm. At this moment his inner self was filled with calm. In his mind, he called out a single word.
(Devour.)
The spinning void had never stopped in the first place but as if to reaffirm his call it spun faster and faster. Kazuki’s flesh and blood arm vanished from the outside world and instantly reappeared in his soul world. In the blink of an eye, it was sucked into the spinning void and devoured. The very next moment, energy poured out of the spinning void and seeped into his soul tree.
In response to this newfound energy source, his soul grew more and more and with it, Kazuki took full control. Under his guidance, he moved his soul and came into direct contact with the inscriptions within the seal. His soul became like a blade as he located the weak link in these millions of inscriptions. Inscribing onto said seal, he instantly ruined a single character and with it, the links making up the inscriptions were damaged.
This single, tiny bit of damage was all Kazuki needed. A small crack in the seal appeared and Kazuki’s aura was unleashed.
(AURA SHOT!)
Kazuki’s aura spun like a chaotic storm yet it was fully focused on a single spot. The same small crack that had allowed his aura to start to break free, Kazuki fired an aura shot at this same weakness. His aura hit this vulnerability and drilled into the seal. The seal tried to sacrifice some of Kazuki’s soul to defend itself but that was precisely the part of the seal Kazuki had ruined.
The seal failed to counter the attack and in a single moment, like glass it shattered and broke.
The entire seal was destroyed by this single shot and Kazuki’s soul tree was once more pure, and he was fully in control. Kazuki immediately mimicked the element of space and tried to teleport away but it was too late. He was simply too close to this singularity, to this black hole.
His eyes widened in shock as he felt his body being crushed under the terrifying force.
(How can this be!? I managed to free my soul, free my aura but my power over space can’t compete with this black hole, not at this close range.)
Kazuki had miscalculated or rather he did not predict the second black hole would fuel the first. Kazuki’s power over space was not great but he could still teleport nearly anywhere in the world at his level but the power of the black hole and his distance to it had thrown his entire last-ditch effort into the trash.
Just as he was about to get sucked in, something grabbed him and held him firm. To his absolute shock he called out to the one who saved him.
“ZETRAZZ!”
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