Going back to before the battle between Solwyn and Ephraim started.
In the dimensional room, Reena and Amber were safe from the panther-like voidling. It had tried to claw its way back inside, but all it caused were ripples across the dimensional surface.
"Ha! Take that, you lousy animal!" Reena gloated, even doing a little celebration dance, which would have likely enraged the voidling if it could see or hear her.
Amber took this moment to sit down on the floor and rest. Though the fight had been short lived, she'd used a lot of mana just to keep the creature restrained. Normally she would've used potions to maintain her energy, but that wasn't viable here.
"Haha! Hope I never see you again!" Reena waved off the voidling as it gave up and drifted away, rejoining a pack of others not far in the distance. With her job done, she walked over to Amber and plopped down beside her.
Reena let out a long exhale and turned to her with a smile. "Nice job! You did amazing holding it back."
Amber gave a simple nod. "Good plan. And kick."
"Heh, it was nothing. Maybe I should've become a martial artist." Reena joked, flexing her arms. Unfortunately for her, while her strength stat was high, her body didn't reflect it. Her clearly untrained muscles barely showed. While raising her strength attribute did increase her power, it didn't change her appearance much. And thanks to her extremely high vitality, building visible muscle would require a far more strenuous exercise regime than a normal person's which she couldn't be bothered to do.
As she kept trying to flex what little muscle she had, Reena looked at Amber and suddenly realized, 'Wait! Why am I being so chummy with a human?!'
Because of everything that had happened, she had almost forgotten who she was with.
Immediately, she scooted a few feet away from Amber, a cautious look in her eyes.
Amber noticed her shift, but gave only a quick glance, unconcerned. She was more focused on recovering her mana in case another fight broke out.
She's the reason I'm even here to begin with… Though I can't really blame her for it, Reena thought.
While Amber was the one who shoved her into the black portal, Reena was the one who had cast the divine spell that launched her companion into this dimensional prison in the first place.
Thinking back on how it all started, Reena sighed. She was too tired, physically and emotionally, to dwell on it. Instead, her gaze drifted to Solwyn, now locking eyes with the strange humanoid voidling.
"Who is that?" she asked quietly, knowing Amber didn't know either.
Not long after, Solwyn flickered behind the Void Lord and unleashed a blazing tornado. When it was dodged, the Void Lord summoned hundreds of black swords, only for them to vanish instantly. She instantly recognized what had occurred.
"He can suppress that guy's law techniques too? Why am I not surprised…"
She tried to follow the battle, though she could barely keep up. Only the occasional explosion and their flashing figures gave her some idea of what was happening. But this moment of peace was suddenly interrupted by a loud bang from above.
"Oh come on!" Reena groaned, exasperated. "What now?!"
They both looked up, and to their disbelief, the panther-like voidling was back. It was tapping at the dimensional barrier, seemingly testing it again.
"It's useless." Reena said with a tired but smug tone. "Now that I fixed the wall, there's no way it can—"
The voidling raised its head and let out a loud screech.
Reena blinked. "…Why is it calling for—?"
In an instant, the rest of the nearby voidlings flickered and appeared beside the panther voidling, landing on the roof. The moment they touched the barrier, they all screeched together and began attacking in unison.
Fists, claws, tendrils, teeth and even beams of void energy struck down from above.
Reena stood, her eyes wide in disbelief. "W-what…?!"
When only the panther voidling had attacked, it caused little more than faint ripples across the surface. But now, with all of them striking at once, the ripples were much larger. Worryingly so.
The dimensional barrier trembled.
Its membrane, once clear and solid, began to distort. Black veins slowly crept across its surface, tainted by threads of void energy seeping in.
Reena turned to Amber with panic in her eyes, silently asking if she could do something about this.
Amber met her gaze and shook her head. She couldn't leave the safety of the room without being corroded by the void and even if she could, there were too many of them to hold back.
Reena's heart sank.
"No…" she whispered. "No, no, no. This is my spell. I made this. I can fix it!"
She rushed to the wall, placing both hands against it and channeling her mana directly into the barrier. She knew the room was made of space and maintained itself with dimensional energy from its connection back home so she used that connection to channel more of that energy into the barrier.
The black veins began to slow… but they didn't stop.
"I'm… I'm stabilizing it." Reena muttered through clenched teeth. "But it's still spreading too fast."
Her expression turned grim. The amount it was recovering by couldn't keep up with the spread of void corruption.
"I can't hold it back for long." She admitted to Amber, who now stood ready but equally helpless.
"If this keeps up… they're going to break through."
They both looked up at the spreading veins and the screeching monsters above them. At the rate it was still spreading, it wouldn't be long for them to break through.
…
"Do you understand the difference between us now?"
A short distance away from the two women, Solwyn held Ephraim by the neck. The Void Lord's body was burnt and broken in many places, and his helmet had shattered in half, revealing part of the face beneath. It was vaguely human, but like the other voidlings, his skin was pitch black and his eyes an unnatural, glowing purple.
"Tch!" Ephraim spat as he summoned ten black swords behind Solwyn. They flew forward, but with a casual swipe of his free hand, Solwyn unleashed a wave of lightning and fire, disintegrating them all with ease.
"Still keeping up the tough guy act?" Solwyn sneered. "Admit I'm superior to you."
"You're going to kill me anyway, so why should I?" Ephraim growled. He was a mighty Void Lord, a being that had risen from nothing to a position of power. If death was inevitable, he would rather die with dignity than bend the knee.
Solwyn nodded. "You're right. I am going to kill you. But there's a benefit to admitting it now…"
He released Ephraim's neck, and in the same instant, four floating draconic claws gripped Ephraim's limbs, yanking them in different directions. The Void Lord grunted in pain as his joints were stretched to the limit. But it didn't stop there, the claws ignited, inflicting his limbs in searing flame.
"It'll end your suffering sooner." Solwyn said with a cold smile. "Are you starting to reconsi—?"
He stopped midsentence as a loud voice rang inside his head.
'Sol! They're in trouble!'
Solwyn rolled his eyes, already gathering more mental force to push Thorwyn back down. 'I told you to stay quiet. I'm aware. I'll get to it. I'm in the middle of teaching him—'
But Thorwyn's voice exploded in volume, louder and sharper than before.
'NO! WE HAVE TO GO—NOW!'