DUUUUUM!!!
The sound tore through the silence as Dan’s presence surged. Collapse bled from him in waves, his aura unraveling outward, his very existence bending the fabric of the absolute blank paper world. It wasn’t a blast. It wasn’t a force. It was a sheer inevitability, an aura that declared everything it touched would be collapsed.
The ground beneath his feet fractured, collapsing as though the conceptualizing of the paper world itself had been denied. The horizon warped. White vastness folded into itself, only to reveal the same endless expanse again, an eternal recursion of destruction and rebirth. The blank paper world endured, not because it resisted, but because even in ruin, it circled back into its own nature: endless, immutable, eternal.
The Eradicator’s armor hissed violently as the green smoke wrapping its form twisted, unraveling like strings torn from cloth. Its body buckled inward, parts of its existence flickering out before returning with strain. The groaning of collapsing essence filled the air, deafening yet soundless.
Behind, where Liz, Jett, and Emma stood, the Collapse Aura stretched like an unseen storm tide. But it never touched them. Threads of the aura, collapsing all things in their path, simply cancelled the moment they neared, as it was made meaningless by Liz’s quiet thought. She stood with her arms folded, coat drifting in the pressure of forces unseen, her gaze sharp, serene, as though swatting away the end of worlds was no more effort than brushing snow from her shoulder.
Emma watched the absolute blank paper world crumble. Seeing the Eradicator’s form collapse under Dan’s aura, she finally understood what Liz had meant earlier. The uniqueness of Dan's Lime-state, his Collapse Aura, was incredibly dangerous. It was destruction unbound, unable to distinguish between enemy and ally, as Dan himself could not yet control its destruction...
And even as she realized this, it was clear... Dan was still not using the Lime-state to its full potential, to avoid causing more destruction that cannot be handled..
And then, as sudden as the storm had begun, silence returned.
Dan’s eyes dimmed back to a calm, steady blue. He slowly lifted his boot from the Eradicator’s chest. What had been a body was gone now, only the collapsed remains of a concept, the idea of a body shredded into nothing. Yet Dan lingered, gaze steady, breathing heavier than before.
Even in ruin, he could feel it. The Eradicator’s was still willing itself to exist, even with no vessel left to anchor itself. The sensation pressed faintly against his skin like the aftertaste of ash.
He let out a faint sigh. “Make sure you don’t make a fuss again,” he muttered, more to the air than to the fallen opponent. His tone was casual, though edged with a slight fatigue.
Stepping back, he turned toward Liz, Jett, and Emma. His boots echoed faintly in the stillness as he walked, every movement unhurried, like one who had already weighed the outcome and found it lacking. “Let’s get going,” he said evenly,
But before he could take another step
Thwack!
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A sharp sound cracked through the quiet as Liz’s palm smacked the side of his head lightly.
Dan’s body froze for a moment, shoulders stiff, before he reached up and rubbed the sore spot. He didn’t argue, he only grumbled silently. He already knew that she hit him because she feels he's playing bossy again..
Liz simply lowered her hand, puffing her cheeks in irritation, with a Hmph! escaping her lips,
And with that, they began walking away,
****
While they were already leaving, Emma turned to Jett as she asked, “Jett… are we just going to leave the Eradicator here? It's still trying to will itself back into existence. How are we going to permanently destroy it?” Her words carried both caution and unease.
Jett’s pale gray eyes flickered to Emma, calmly she adjusted the heavy pelt coat around her shoulders before answering, her voice measured and quiet, but certain.
“I’ll leave it here for now,” Jett said, her gaze lingering behind on the faint distortion where the Eradicator’s collapsed existence once writhed. “When it fully regains its body, the blank paper world will trap it, bind it in isolation where it can’t cause more danger.” She let out a small exhale that left a cloud of mist in the cold, empty air. “And besides… I’ll hand over this world to the elders. They’ll know how to assess the Eradicator.”
Emma lowered her head slowly, strands of silver falling across her cheeks. Her lips pressed together, and she gave a faint nod. Yet her thoughts refused to stay still. They drifted back, to the moment Dan’s boot had pressed the collapsing force into the Eradicator’s body, collapsing its very being.
She heard what was said by the Eradicator at that moment. Through her mind, it felt like a thousand jagged knives scraping across her head as she remembered it even now.
“KILL! KILL! KILL!!!
KILL ALL OF THEM!!!
I MUST KILL!
HATE! HATE! HATE!!!”
The words had burned themselves into her. The will of the Eradicator. A pure echo of malice so thick it refused to vanish even as its body dissolved.
Her fists clenched tightly at her sides, the soft fabric of her coat folding beneath her grip. That was why she had asked Jett that question: because it seemed the Eradicator harbored such a vast hatred for everyone that it wanted to kill them all. It desired annihilation so complete that it wouldn't even leave existence after its manifested body had collapsed..
Her white eyes grew sharp, reflecting a pale glimmer in the empty paper world. They really seem to just be mindless entities… She concluded.
And soon after, their figures began to shimmer, breaking into faint silhouettes. Their bodies dematerialized, fading like breath on glass. In the next heartbeat, light bent, and they reformed.
Snow crunched underfoot as their forms solidified again, the world returning with a biting chill. The cold wind rolled past, carrying with it flakes of frost that clung to the edges of their coats. Emma blinked, her eyes adjusting from the blank white void to the endless white of real snow.
They stood on a wide, snow-covered plain. Around them stretched an open serenity, broken only by the whistle of the wind. But ahead, Emma’s gaze fixed sharply, the distance glowed with a shimmer that almost stole her breath away again.
A colossal frost wall stood firm in the horizon. Its surface glittered faintly beneath the pale light of the snowy night, translucent in some parts, opaque in others, like frozen glass sculpted by hands far beyond normal skill. The wall spread endlessly, circling the land, its sheer presence emanating an aura of protection. Beyond it, the region of Xin laid, safe and untouchable.
Emma’s lips parted in awe. Her eyes softened, a small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. The smile was fragile, fleeting, yet it warmed her chest.
She could feel it. She was close. So close to learning transmutation magic...
Emma let the cold air fill her lungs, her gaze never leaving that towering crystalline wall. And within her heart, a thought pulsed, almost too bright to contain.
Anna… just you wait.
Joy swelled inside her chest, chasing away the residue of the Eradicator’s hatred.
Their breaths rose in thin streams of fog as the four of them began walking forward, boots crunching into snow, each step drawing them closer to Xin.
Under the glow of the snowy night sky....
...A goal was about to be accomplished.
[END OF ARC 8: MISHPACHA]
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