Nathaniel, knowing he had the range advantage, held his ground with steady confidence, but his mind raced, struggling to find a way to reach Yumiko's inner self.
"I can't see a way to get through to her, and I'm not sure how badly she'd be hurt if I shot somewhere vital. There's got to be a way out of this without injuring her."
As he weighed his options, Yumiko's monstrous form charged across the icy ground. She raised her sword high, crimson energy erupting from the blade, casting an ominous red eclipse that cloaked the entire crevice in shadow.
Uncertain of the danger, Nathaniel's eyes fixed on the eerie light of the crimson eclipse. He felt as if he'd been thrust into an entirely different atmosphere.
Loading his pistol, he braced himself, feeling a growing unease. "This place… it feels like a dark storm, like I'm in another dimension."
Nathaniel's breath caught as he aimed down the sight of his pistol. The crimson creature before him—the twisted, monstrous form that had once been his friend Yumiko—was exposed, wide open to a perfect shot. He could end this nightmare with a single pull of the trigger. He reloaded, fingers moving almost on instinct, each bullet clicking into place with a deadly finality. "Easy prey," he whispered, trying to steel himself.
But as he tightened his grip, ready to fire, something in the creature's eyes stopped him cold. Her fierce, blood-red gaze flickered, the raw rage seeming to waver. It was subtle, almost imperceptible—a glimmer, a spark of something else. And then he heard it: a faint, broken whisper drifting through the silence, fragile as a heartbeat, but unmistakable.
"Nathaniel… help… me."
The voice sent a shiver down his spine. It was Yumiko's voice—weak and distorted, as if from some faraway place, yet laced with an unmistakable desperation. His heart clenched. She wasn't gone. Somewhere, somehow, she was still there, fighting to reach him through the monster she'd become. Her plea echoed in his mind, unraveling every defensive instinct, every cold calculation he'd made.
He lowered the gun, his pulse thundering in his ears. The reality of her suffering hit him like a blow. She was trapped in this twisted form, battling alone, and she was calling out to him, clinging to the hope that he could pull her back. The horror, the isolation she must be feeling… He swallowed hard, his voice a broken whisper.
"She's... alive in there."
He could feel the weight of her pain, the terror she couldn't escape. Lowering his weapon, he steeled himself for trouble.
Nathaniel froze, his hand still gripping the pistol, Yumiko's desperate whisper echoing in his mind. He had hesitated—forgotten, for a critical second, that she had no control over this twisted, monstrous form.
The crimson creature wasted no time. With a guttural, unnatural roar, it raised its massive, jagged blade high above its head. A dark energy pulsed from its edges, radiating like heat from a furnace. Then, with savage force, the blade came crashing down, slashing through the air with deadly precision. The creature unleashed a colossal, blood-red arc of energy that blazed through the icy landscape like a wildfire, tearing up the ice in jagged, brutal trenches and scattering thick fog in its wake.
The crescent of energy surged forward, growing larger with every inch it closed on Nathaniel, its crimson glow illuminating the frozen crevice in a blinding, merciless light. He could feel the raw heat and fury bearing down on him, the ground trembling under its destructive force. The deadly arc carved a path through the ice, and in a fraction of a second, he knew—it was aimed directly at him.
A violent surge of crimson energy enveloped Nathaniel, its overwhelming power surging through him with such force that his body trembled uncontrollably. His eyes went wide with a mix of disbelief and sheer terror as the searing, pulsating wave of energy consumed him entirely. The air thickened with a crackling tension, and then, with an earsplitting roar, the ground beneath him ruptured. A cataclysmic explosion erupted, its deafening blast shredding the very fabric of the ice age around him. The shockwave surged outward like a tidal wave of destruction, tearing through the crevice with such unrelenting force that the earth seemed to groan under its strain.
Frozen debris was violently flung into the air, twisted metal, shattered ice, and jagged fragments of stones roaring like deadly projectiles in every direction. The violent tremors rocked the landscape, hurling everything in their path with the force of an unstoppable storm, as if the very ground itself had been torn apart by an unseen fury.
The scene was a blur of chaos, a maelstrom of destruction, where everything, from the smallest pebble to the largest boulder, seemed to lose all sense of weight or gravity, caught in the devastating embrace of the explosion. Nathaniel, consumed by the violent force, was mere seconds from being obliterated in the savage maelstrom of power.
Not far away...
Kyora stumbled, her senses reeling as the ground beneath her quaked with a violent intensity. The sky above seemed to ripple in response to the explosion, dark clouds swirling in a chaotic dance as if mirroring the devastation unfolding miles away. She steadied herself, planting her shoes firmly against the trembling earth, her mind racing. "That was no ordinary blast," she muttered under her breath, her sharp eyes scanning the horizon, already dreading what they might find.
Tarot, ever the calm observer, narrowed his eyes and raised a gloved hand to shield them from the dust that began to stir in the air. His intuition flared, the wave of power not only felt but sensed—like an ominous ripple throughout. "What even was that?!," he said softly, his voice steady but filled with an underlying ttension
Joker, standing a few paces behind, clutched the hilt of his marotte tightly, the tremor sending a surge of adrenaline through him. He turned to the others, his usual grin absent, replaced by a rare seriousness. "That explosion could level entire cities. If Nathaniel's caught in the middle of that, we won't be able to get to him fast enough."
Elliott, whose instincts were always sharp, clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white. The force of the blast had sent a shockwave through his bones, the raw power echoing in his chest as if it had struck him personally. "We don't have time to waste," he growled. "If he's still alive..."
Without another word, the group moved as one, their steps heavy but urgent, their determination now matching the sheer force of the catastrophe they were moving away from.
To be continued...