The Shadow Cousin
Meanwhile, deep in the lower level of the civil defense shelter, Rion stood near the back wall, away from where his parents were sitting on their folding cots.
His fingers twitched nervously inside his pockets. Every time the heavy subterranean concrete shuddered from distant surface detonations, his pulse spiked. It had been nearly an hour since Ruyi and Kael slipped away.
What's taking them so long? Rion thought, biting the inside of his cheek as he kept a vigilant eye on the shelter stairwell door. It’s a Class-1 gate. If an Alpha caught them...
He shook his head violently, forcing the dark thoughts away. He had seen the terrifying, cold certainty in Ruyi’s amethyst eyes before they left. She wasn't reckless. But still, the silence was agonizing. Every minute felt like an eternity, and holding back the urge to go out there after them was taking every ounce of his self-control.
Five miles away, the descent from the high rafters was silent. But the moment Ruyi’s boots touched the blood-stained marble of the mall floor, the Spatial Distortion Alpha reacted.
Its six eyes flared with a blinding violet light. The spatial distortion around its form rippled violently, recognizing the intrusion of two energies that dared to mirror its own domain.
"Kael! NOW!" Ruyi shouted.
Kael didn't hesitate. Ignoring the sheer terror clawing at his chest, he slammed both hands toward the air. "Spatial Tether—Double Anchor!"
Two hyper-dense spatial lines slammed into the concrete pillars on either side of the Alpha, crisscrossing directly over its torso. Kael yanked backward with every thread of strength in his body, attempting to pin the beast's movements for even half a second.
The Alpha let out a guttural, terrifying screech that vibrated through the structural foundation of the building. The space around its shoulders folded inward—a localized spatial shear designed to snap Kael's tethers like dried twigs.
SNAP.
The feedback violently lashed back through Kael's mana veins. He gasped, blood spurting from his mouth as his left arm shattered under the sheer pressure of the spatial backfire.
"Kael!"
"DON'T LOOK AT ME! KILL IT!" Kael screamed, his right eye blinded by a torrent of blood pouring from a gash across his forehead. He gritted his teeth, forcing his remaining stamina into a third tether, wrapping it around the Alpha’s neck to buy Ruyi a single breath.
Ruyi moved.
She was no longer hiding, no longer holding back the boundless abyss in her chest. She unleashed her void in a full combat state. She used Spatial Jump in micro-bursts—teleporting three feet, four feet, five feet at a time—appearing like a flickering phantom in the Alpha's vision.
The beast lashed out with its massive, razor-sharp scythe legs. Each strike tore through reality, leaving black, jagged tears in the air.
Clang! Boom!
Ruyi evaded the first two strikes by jumping into the split-second gap of her own void, but the third leg caught her mid-teleport. The kinetic shockwave slammed straight into her ribs, throwing her across the atrium. She crashed hard through a glass storefront, coughing up dark crimson as her breath was brutally stolen from her lungs.
A repeated clash with death.
Every muscle in her body screamed in agony. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. But as she looked across the ruined floor—seeing Kael kneeling in a pool of his own blood, stubbornly holding the tether with one arm to keep the monster from turning toward the civilian shelters—a burning, primordial desire ignited deep within her.
The desire to protect. The desire for power.
Ruyi forced herself back onto her feet. Her body trembled violently, weak and unsteadied like a newborn fawn trying to take its very first steps. Yet, her amethyst eyes burned with a cold, absolute intensity that outshone the crimson sky above.
"Void Seam..." Ruyi whispered, her voice dropping into a register that wasn't entirely human. "...Full Open."
She didn't just open a seam; she merged her Spatial Jump and Matter Erasure.
Whishp!
She vanished, appearing directly inside the spatial aura of the Alpha. The beast tried to warp the space around her to crush her instantly, but Ruyi’s void was a vacuum that consumed energy. The beast’s spatial warp didn't detonate—it was swallowed whole by her core.
Before the Alpha could register the absolute failure of its ability, Ruyi placed both of her blood-soaked palms directly against the center of its glowing, crystalline chest.
"Cold Storage."
She didn't try to slash it. She opened a massive portal to her zero-time, zero-atmosphere void pocket directly inside the creature’s core.
The effect was instantaneous and horrific.
The super-heated, highly dense spatial energy driving the Alpha’s life force was instantly sucked into absolute zero vacuum. The creature’s eyes widened in sheer, frozen agony as its internal organs, mana core, and spatial glands were flash-frozen and drained down to absolute zero in less than three seconds.
The towering behemoth stiffened. The violet light died in its eyes. Its obsidian armor turned brittle, covered in a thick layer of frost.
Ruyi pulled her hands back and stepped away.
CRASH.
The massive commander-class beast collapsed onto the marble floor, completely dead, its body inert and cold as stone.
Silence fell over the ruined mall.
For a long minute, neither of them moved. The only sound was the ragged, agonizing panting of the two cousins standing among the bodies of the dead Guild hunters.
Kael collapsed onto his knees, clutching his broken, useless left arm, his right eye bloodied and swollen shut. He stared at the giant, frozen corpse that had almost claimed both their lives.
"Should... should we leave it?" Kael wheezed out, his voice hoarse and trembling from exhaustion. "The responders... they'll be here soon..."
Ruyi leaned heavily against a concrete pillar, her legs shaking so badly she could barely stand. Her throat tasted of iron, her core drained to absolute empty. She stared down at the frozen corpse of the Alpha, her mind working through the heavy haze of pain.
If she left the body, the Guild’s investigative teams—and Vance—would analyze the cause of death within hours. They would find no elemental fire, no blade wounds, and no standard mana signatures. They would find a high-tier Alpha drained down to absolute zero from the inside out.
It would lead Vance straight to her door. And it was no longer just her secret to protect—it was Kael's and Rion's, too.
"We should just go. Can't stay here," Ruyi panted, her voice faint but resolute. She looked up at Kael, then at the massive corpse. "Leave with that."
Ruyi stumbled forward, resting her trembling palm on the icy armor of the beast.
With the last lingering drop of her strength, she unsealed her void pocket. The air distorted around the massive corpse for a fraction of a second, and then—with a low, hollow gasp of air pressure—the towering body of the Spatial Distortion Alpha vanished entirely into her storage space. She would deal with disposing of its indestructible remains at a later, safer date.
Where a Class-1 commander beast had sat moments before, there was now only empty, scorched tile.
"Hold on to me," Ruyi whispered to Kael, reaching out her hand.
Kael grabbed her arm tightly, using his one good leg to push himself up.
Using the spatial anchor she had left near the shelter stairwell where Rion was anxiously awaiting their return, Ruyi initiated one final, agonizing jump.
Whishp.
The ruined, blood-soaked mall vanished, leaving behind only quiet, empty dust and the lingering echo of an impossible fight.