"Help, Wyatt! Dig with me!"
"What?!"
I attempt to comprehend her reasoning as she shouts at me again, spitting out words into the dirt we exist alongside. Faraway tremors vibrate our shared body, warning of the approaching death. How can I possibly help? I can barely move her jaw.
"Earthly Destruction can last hours! Leviathan ramps it up until her target is dead! That's her Sirza! There is no end until something stops her!"
My heart sinks as I realize the importance of this all. This is no typical move. These figures are going all out. To simply survive in the far reaches of their skills... Even Aniwye might need my help. Hedging my bets, I focus intensely upon the chains of Aniwye, once more weakening them as she siphons in a monumental gasp of air.
I fast find myself entrenched in a frantic battle for survival, the likes of which defy reason and imagination as Aniwye surges through the dirt further below. Above me, the apocalyptic meteor storm unleashed by the psychic Demigod rages on, an unyielding torrent of debris plummeting from the heavens. Each insane impact registers like a thunderclap, reverberating through the very marrow of our shared bones. The ground beneath my trembling form quivers in sympathy, each tremor sending shockwaves of panic rippling through Aniwye's body into my consciousness.
My sight stutters in and out with the agony, the brief lapses of Insight, but I hold on. Aniwye has saved me before. I have to, at the very least, repay the gift.
With a heart pounding like a runaway drum, I muster every ounce of strength and determination to force her chains to bend further, weakening as much as I can possibly cause. With the increased resilience of the body, she amplifies it further with her mind to dig a sanctuary within the earth, seeking refuge from the impending cataclysm. Her fingers claw at the compacted soil and rocky strata, carving out a meager haven, while the oppressive weight of impending doom presses down upon me.
More and more pain enters my mind through her, each smack and vibration enough to seriously damage my actual body. Anwiye is tough, but I can't help but worry about what would happen to her if I wasn't here to aid her. Would she die? Or would she be wounded like that fight with Kai? How did she even recover from that back then?
I would like to be able to think, but the unseen hand of Leviation's psychic Ether tugs relentlessly at my being. Aniwye seizes for a moment as I accidentally pull her hand and grasp at her head as if it were my own, a spike of pain prompting the move. I quickly relinquish the force, but the demon doesn't forget it.
"Focus! Create a mental barrier! Within the rocks she carries, she delivers a payload straight to your mind! Fortify yourself or lose yourself!"
It's as if I'm battling not just against earth and debris but against the mind of one who stands at the very peak of power. The mere notion of that frustrates me to no end.
"Can't you stop her? Don't you work for her?"
Aniwye chuckles despite the deadly situation, scraping even further into the depths of the earth. Her voice bounces off the claustrophobic dirt without a noise, delivering it only to me.
"Who do you think she is? A caring mother? No. If we are in the way, we either endure or die. Not to mention... we aren't on the best of terms anymore. She doesn't appreciate those who break free."
Anger rises like the flaming river from the depths of the earth that passes right past us, heading the opposite way of us. I don't bite my tongue.
"You knew this would happen! Are you insane!?"
Aniwye doesn't respond to me, choosing to descend instead of replying.
"You know what? Fuck it. You can deal with this yourself. If you won't even be truthful, I have no desire to help you."
I secede my Ether, letting it flow back to me, but Aniwye shouts before my skill drops wholly.
"Fine! Fine! I knew it would happen, yes! But we can survive! This is the best way to comprehend the higher levels of Ether, like plasmic, solid, and conceptual! I know the first two, but the last one is far beyond me! Just... help! And you'll learn something! I promise! Pay attention to the Ether, and you'll get better! I promise! You're your father's son. I know you can learn something from this!"
Verbal desperation exits Aniwye's mouth, so I halt my succession. The emotion, desire, and ambition are palpable in her words, so I believe them. Understanding Ether from watching it? That's... that's how I comprehended Painsforge, right?
But... what is she talking about? Plasmic is the 7th Sigiled Ether transformation, like a more advanced gaseous. Solid and conceptual? Are those the 8th and 9th? They must be. But how would she know about those?
A piercing wail, one that burrows into the depths of my mind and rips out every meaning within my thoughts, narrows my view to a pinpoint. I falter for a moment before redoubling my efforts with Aniwye, aiding her escape into the earth.
Desperation courses through our shared veins as we fight to descend deeper into the sanctuary of soil, clawing our way past stubborn roots and unyielding stones. The earth yields begrudgingly, our fingernails leaving trails of raw determination in their wake with lingering figments of our Ether. But the insatiable force from above prevails, tugging us upward with inexorable strength.
Then, with a sudden and violent wrench, we are torn from the fragile refuge, ascending into the sky with all the grace of a leaf caught in a typhoon. My surroundings blur into a whirlwind of disorienting motion, and I find Aniwye's mighty form suspended high above the tumultuous battlefield below. A surreal sensation of weightlessness engulfs me as pain lathers my mind from the impacts of the rock.
I've never been this high up before. Is this what it's like to be a Bado? No. I'm way beyond that. I can see distant cities, their lights turning off from the incoming storms. A distance plateau, that of Gravecross, stands like a beacon in the distance as flickering fires hurry for it.
But at the center of all this chaos is a frenzied tempest of clashing powers and elemental fury. With their Godlike prowess, the Demigods commandeer the very pinnacle of Ether and Sigils to wage their cataclysmic battle. It's a spectacle of sublime skill yet also an inferno of unbridled power that threatens to consume all in its path.
Glancing around with Aniwye's psychic gaze that reaches in every direction, I discover that we are inside a mismatch of dirt, stone, and metal, as well as particles of sand ripped from Vincent's grasp. Yet, we are only one of dozens that are near an entire island in size. The air screeches as we fly forward, tearing toward Vincent Harvey in the heart of it all.
Aniwye can't even open her mouth to speak, so she does so psychically.
"We have to get out of this rock. How do you do that thing?"
What is she talking about? I eke out a question as another wave of remnant Ether burrows into my mind from the rocks, eating away at my sanity.
"What? What do you mean?"
She attempts not to get frustrated or panicked, but she clearly is.
"That... that thing! With your fist! You breathe in, and then you strike! How do you do it!?
Understanding finally smacks me in the face. Explosion. She wants to know how to do it. I suppose with all the Ether she pulled in... alongside her own strengths... she might be able to get us out of the pull of Leviathan.
I guide her with thoughts and words, attempting to help her understand my skill. I could simply use it on my own, but she must already realize it won't work as well with her flesh.
"You force the Ether out of the chains. I can do that, but after the Ether is retrieved, you compel it through your veins without pause. If it halts for even a moment, you will get severely hurt. Then, expel it out of an extremity, whether it is a hand, fist, or even mouth. Though, I don't recommend that last one. This is my most dangerous skill. If you fuck this up, you might die. No... you'll most likely will."
Aniwye nods, taking me seriously as she concentrates despite the outside world going to shit, and slowly makes the changes within her veins to prepare for the Ether. As I observe the battle, I wait for her word to release the Ether from the chains. Her ability to focus during this once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe is beyond measure.
The alabaster-skinned Ytern emerges from a coffin of sand as a figure of frost and ice. He raises the Pale Cavity above his head, and I sense a golden river connecting the artifact to me. It is invisible but present, yet not a single word is transferred as my heart nearly stops. I feel Ytern's gaze fall upon me for a moment, but the Nahullo turns around without acting on the river.
Yet, even as he ignores the debt he created long ago within me, a frigid deluge descends upon us, biting and unrelenting, carving intricate patterns of agony into Aniwye's flesh. She flinches, but the Ether in her body doesn't shift at all. The cold seeps into her bones, freezing the marrow and crystallizing my distress. Every island is quickly surrounded by orbiting icicles, the cold digging into the soil like a parasite as we rapidly approach Vincent.
As a part of the island, we move faster than even that of Kai Vinson's footprints through the air, hurtling for the strongest man. I hold no hope in my mind that he won't attack.
The heavens themselves tremble and groan under the weight of this titanic struggle, fractured and reshaped by the might of the Demigods. Behemoth places permanent fixtures into the land with every step, while Tonuyn builds his inscriptions toward something massive. The fact that Vincent is using nearly half his sand now to remove those writings is telltale enough of their danger.
The island we are in shatters through a cloud of dust, spinning Aniwye's vision every which way, but she holds firm. Like an anchor, her mind is unaffected by the outside world. It must either be a skill of Ether that compartmentalizes it, or she is simply that calm. I think it is the former, as I've seen her panic before.
I nearly accept death as Vincent's body turns distinct, visible from our distance of a hurtling rock. But, Aniwye roars with might, her fingers constricting into a fist.
"Now, little one! My furnace can handle it!"
I mentally nod, releasing the restriction I have had placed on the chains bolstering her form, and the Ether howls through her body. It is like that of an endless river. Strugglers Gasp siphons as much as its bearer can hold, and a demon's flesh of the 8th Sigiled can endure far more than I.
She rears back an arm, the dirt around her elbow shattering into nothingness from the simple movement. Then, I watch as spinning rings of Ether, invisible to the naked eye of any Sigiled other than another Mentalist, encapsulate her forearm, thrusting it forward into the rocky island.
Aniwye doesn't say a word or release a grunt as her body flinches from the shock of the Ether rampaging through her. Yet, she endures it as she said she could. And less than an instant later, before we slam into another hurtling aspect of sand, an explosion rocks our surroundings.
The dirt that blocked her physical vision is obliterated, transfigured into oblivion as the island around us heaves outwardly, breaking into a million pieces in every which way. Then, Aniwye dives, contorting her flesh like a pen as she sinks toward the ground. The demon screams inside her mind as she does so, lessening my burden.
"Little one, if it gets any worse than that, leave! I want you here to grow and aid me, but I do not want you to die! I've taken too much and failed you far too many times to dig into your life as well!"
I can hear not personal guilt over the consequences of her failure but actual, sincere remorse over the full situation, something that she did not have the last time we met. It's like even though she doesn't care for me as a person, she is extending her love for my father to me. She couldn't do it while I was a child, but she can now.
She's not Ma.
She won't ever be Ma.
She took Ma from me, that loving figure who never stopped caring. She ruined her. Desecrated every memory with her.
But...
I can't not see Ma when I look at her.
And...
I miss Ma.
I don't hold any hope that she can recreate that version of her, but I can't let her die. I don't know how much I can help, but I've lost too many people I care about.
She's a demon. She's a murderer. She's a man-eating monster. She took away my childhood and has conspired to kill the most important man in the world.
Yet, amidst it all, I find so much truth within her words. A deep, grating truth that rings throughout every bit of my mind.
A little bit of madness...
I got way more than a little, Aniwye.
The demon dives for the ground, using her mind to dodge stray bits of sand, rock, and ice. A zephyr created from Behemoth's swing almost a mile away nearly knocks her unconscious, but she remains steady even after the weakening effect of Strugglers Gasp.
She must be tired. She must be exhausted, barely hanging on. Angels gather Ether saturation, too, even if it is far slower than mortals like myself.
"Why are you truly here? Learning Ether is just a distraction. Tell me the truth, Aniwye."
Aniwye doesn't answer me, choosing to ignore me as she sinks to the ground even faster, gravity building up her speed. Frustration soars in my mind, opposite to how we move through the air, but I don't leave her. Not yet. I just can't bring myself to.
She ducks, dips, dives, and flips over an uncountable number of dangers, but when she nears the ground, that is when the most insurmountable task comes. Beading sweat drips from her every pore as sand parasitizes itself off the ground, turning into solid Ether that pours into the sky.
The sight is mesmerizing, but it doesn't give me even the slightest hint of how the Ether works. Yet what is even more mesmerizing is that as Aniwye touches the ground, a multicolored phenomenon comes from her body, shrouding her entirely like that of a wintery aurora. It condenses closely to her body, preventing any of the nearby Ether from touching her.
I catch a whiff of a sigh of relief from her as she stumbles past an erupting spire.
"Phew... Good thing Aurored Ether blocks his decaying Ether from this far."
I want to ask her what she means, as all this high-level Ether talk is far beyond me, but Aniywe sprints away with as much speed as she can. My focus can't leave the aurora, though. It's incredible, like highly dense Ether that flows faster than a gas with even more intense effects. Aniwye must be using it to defend herself from whatever Vincent's sand can do.
Even just a touch of the sand here transforms the target into more sand. Far away, like we were earlier, is simply an impact, but this close, it's a dangerous infection.
Aniwye's escape smoothens out for a few moments until the ground shakes again, those islands crashing against Vincent. The rocks, stones, and sands break through his defenses, and for the first time since the battle started, the eldest man steps back with a pained grunt, shards of ice cutting into his flesh and opening his insides for the world to bear.
I can't hear what Eli says to him, but Vincent simply pushes the two back, throwing Eli and Richard into the sand as they vanish from sight. What? Did he just kill them? No. If he can do this much with his Ether, then he can surely control it so as not to hurt them.
But after Vincent removes his two allies, things rapidly turn worse for him. Behemoth forces his sandy opponent aside, rushing past it and diving for Vincent as Tonuyn places his hand against the ground. The entirety of the earth rumbles to Tonyun movements, and my heart races in turn.
My concern for humanity's prime soars as Aniwye flips her head back for a moment, finally delivering me an answer as all of Tonuyn's inscriptions ignite with a thunderous blue.
"I was... I was hoping he'd come despite his chains. If there was ever a man to break a deal with the Devil... it'd be your father. He couldn't miss this."