The air on the Stardust Weaver's bridge crackled with the aftermath of Kuro's shocking deduction. Nirvana, the Heartdeath Monarch, radiated fury like a collapsing star, the shadows around her boiling, the mundane steel Rod in her hand humming with amplified malice, drinking the light until it resembled a shard of solidified void.
"DIE! KNOWING THAT CHANGES NOTHING!" Nirvana shrieked, her voice a ragged scrape of cosmic hatred. The Rod snapped up, pointed unerringly at Kuro. The insidious weapon pulsed, poised to shatter his resonance and feast on his fading colors.
Kuro stood panting, crimson hair stark against his ashen face, blood trickling from his temple. The disorientation from the last Rod strike warred with the adrenaline-fueled clarity of his mind. He met the void where her eyes should be, a grim, almost feral and provocative smile touching his lips. "Predictable."
Nirvana didn't hesitate. She flowed, a streak of vengeful darkness, the Rod lashing out not with a beam, but aimed for another debilitating physical strike; to break him utterly before ending him.
"NO!" Miryoku's voice rang out, raw with protective fury. Despite her exhaustion, the luminous blood drying on her lip, and the unnerving lightness of her green hair, she threw herself between Kuro and the oncoming Monarch. Harmonic energy, dimmer than before but still potent, flared around her in a desperate shield.
THWACK-CRACK!
The Rod struck Miryoku's hastily conjured barrier. It held for a microsecond, radiating turquoise light, before shattering like glass under the Rod's negation field and Nirvana's focused rage. The blow continued, glancing off Miryoku's raised arm. A sickening crack echoed, followed by Miryoku's cry of pain. Luminous blood, brighter than before, sprayed from a deep gash. She staggered, her green hair whipping around a face contorted in agony, but she remained standing, shielding Kuro.
"Idiot girl!" Nirvana hissed, already recoiling for another strike. "Your light is gutter-filth!"
Kuro didn't waste the sacrifice. While Miryoku took the blow, his mind raced, calculations flashing behind his pain-glazed eyes. *Physical attack. Direct energy ineffective. Rod requires contact... Chain dispersion? Amplifier overload via contact detonation? *His tech-gauntlet whined, not gathering energy for a blast, but reshaping its emitter field. Thin, crackling tendrils of blue-white energy, woven with disruptive harmonic frequencies Kuro had scanned from Miryoku's earlier attacks, erupted from the gauntlet. They weren't beams, but chains; ethereal, crackling lariats made of pure, amplified force.
He lunged sideways, not away, but towards Nirvana's recoil. The energy chains snapped out, not to bind, but to ensnare and transfer. They wrapped around Nirvana's extended Rod-arm and torso with shocking speed.
CONTACT. DETONATE.
Kuro triggered the chains not as explosives, but as high-frequency energy conduits. The chains flared, dumping a massive, localized surge of disruptive harmonic resonance and raw concussive force directly into Nirvana at the points of contact.
FZZZZT-BOOM!
A shockwave of light and sound erupted. Nirvana grunted, stumbling back half a step, smoke curling from the points of impact on her shadowy armor. A faint, hairline crack appeared on the Rod's surface. The damage was superficial, barely visible against the Monarch's dark form, but it was damage.
Nirvana looked down at the faint scorch marks, then back at Kuro, her unseen expression radiating pure contempt. "Pathetic," she spat, her voice dripping with scorn. "You grow weaker by the second, mortal. That tickle wouldn't scratch paint. Your 'science' is a child's sparkler against the void." She flexed her arm, the shadows swirling to obscure the minor blemish.
YOU ARE READING
Trascender : The Fourth Gust
FantasyWhat happens when death becomes impossible? Nineteen-year-old Shinji Kazuhiko's life shattered the night a masked killer invaded his home. Left for dead, he made a horrifying discovery: he cannot die. And with each death, something inside him grows...
