The elevator began to crumple like an empty aluminium can. The pressure was dropping rapidly, causing the two men's breath to shorten. Folorunsho could feel his heartbeat increase as it became harder to breathe. At this rate, they were either going to die of suffocation or be crushed to death before they reached the Placeholder.
This imminent threat of death did not stop Toby. He twirled his sword and tried to pierce Folorunsho's throat with the end of the blade. The freelancer narrowly dodged the strike by jerking his head sideways. Despite this, he felt the blade cut through his Revel again. He had tried hardening and focusing his Revel in that specific point but it made no difference. The sword went through it like a finger through wet paper. The blade went on to pierce another hole in the elevator, causing its loss of pressure to increase.
Toby's vision grew blurry as the fluids in his body heated up. This was hardly an issue as he could still make out the fiery aura of Folorunsho's Revel. Without a trace of hesitation, he lunged at the freelancer and pushed him towards one of the holes. Folorunsho crashed into the wall with his head almost going out the hole. His eardrums ruptured causing blood to ooze out of them. The escaping wind felt like glass shards as they ripped across his face, slowly freezing it.
With his sword raised Toby tried to stab Folorunsho but it was evaded yet again. The sword was immediately sucked out of the elevator through the hole. The energy blade did not immediately disperse as a large amount of Toby's Revel still lingered in the hilt. As it spun through the elevator shaft, it ripped open both the elevator and the bridge. Toby and Folorunsho were immediately sucked towards the gaping hole as the elevator struggled to ascend.
Toby quickly formed a blade at the end of his fingers to stop himself from falling out. However, the blade cut through the elevator just without effort, sending him hurling into the vacuum of space.
The two men's bodies spun around frantically as they drifted further and further away from the space bridge. With nothing to collide with or bounce off of, they were bound to remain stuck drifting endlessly, or until they died. They could feel their bodies expand as their skin turned blue and cold. Their breaths slowly ceased as there was no more air for them to breathe.
Folorunsho tried to halt the effects of the depressurisation with his Revel but there was little he could do. There existed Revel Arts that could manipulate and alter matter to a certain degree, but he lacked both the capacity and proficiency to turn the random molecules in space into air. The best he could do was fill his lungs with Revel as a means of extending how long he could hold his breath. However, breathing was not his only worry.
The dark-haired man crawled at his clothes as he tried to pull them apart. His eyes were swelling out of his head, making it almost impossible for him to see but he could make out what he was looking for. He dipped his hands underneath his shirt and pulled out a bomb that was strapped underneath it. The bomb was meant to be the means through which Toby was going to bring down the Placeholder, but if he did things correctly, he could use it as a means of propelling himself back to the space bridge and finding a way up to the fake moon from there.
He managed to take off his trenchcoat and wrapped the bomb with it. After fidgeting with it, he clicked a button and started the bomb's countdown. It was set to 10 seconds so he quickly placed the bomb under his feet, holding it steady with his hands. After 10 consecutive beeps, the bomb exploded.
A fiery explosion went off silently within the black vacuum. Due to the lack of oxygen, the fires from the bomb went out as quickly as they had come. That did not stop Toby from getting burnt badly. With his hands and legs now blown off, the man known as Umbra was sent flying towards the space bridge leaving behind a trail of frozen blood. His body came crashing into the space bridge and bounced off sending him flying backwards.
No! He yelled internally.
The Placeholder was just 5 minutes away. He could just make out the flashing lights of the metallic sphere with his mush-for eyes. Slowly, his consciousness began to fade into the blackness. He began to recall bits and pieces of his life, but none lingered enough for them to be remembered. He could see the faces of the children at the orphanage, Lumiere and the Shroud, the faces of those he had tried to bring down, several faceless individuals walking past him like a swarm.
In the end, he was unable to truly change anything. Toby was only left with the hope that the effects of the Ebon Shroud were enough to cause some form of impact. It did not have to be big, but as long as one person internalised the ambition of him and his associates, the black of the shroud would dawn again. Sadly, he was not going to be there to see it.
Though Folorunsho's body was being plagued by pain he never knew could exist to such a degree, he could not help but feel a bit of relief. He had managed to put a stop.to Toby's plan, even though it had cost him more trouble than it was worth.
Somebody better make it worth my while when I get back He thought to himself as he drifted further away from Pedtro.
As he continued to float around in space, Folorunsho made out the figure of Agbari in the distance. Unfortunately, this was a death he could not avoid. The infinite silence of space claimed two lives that day.