The first rays of dawn crept over the crystalline horizon, a faint golden glow piercing the forest's oppressive gloom. An armored figure stumbled through the underbrush, his obsidian armor gleaming faintly as it knit itself back together, sealing gashes and dents with an eerie, silent grace.
Blood seeped from within, dark and thick, staining the edges of the self-repairing plates—a contrast to the ruin beneath. His body was a battlefield of its own, organs bruised, bones fractured, each step a testament to sheer willpower over a failing frame. In his arms, he cradled Belial, whose sweat-slicked form trembled faintly, the horn of water still clutched in a death grip against his chest.
Belial's mind flickered, half-lucid, as the jostling roused him.
Raven..found..me? The thought was sluggish, drowned in the haze of pain and exhaustion.
His golden-bronze skin, once a mark of vitality, was marred with bloody scars and black veins snaking up his neck...tendrils of poison etching their cruel map across his flesh. He assumed Raven had tracked him somehow, but the how didn't matter. Survival did.
Raven's gauntleted hand tightened around Belial as he quickened his pace, the cave's shadowed mouth looming ahead. The sun's light was a threat now...its warmth a blade that could finish what the beast had started. He ducked inside just as the first rays kissed the treetops, plunging them into the cool, damp embrace of stone. Xin lay slumped against the wall, his chest rising faintly, the Dharma Wheel's dim glow a fragile lifeline. Raven knelt, setting Belial beside him with a gentleness his battered form shouldn't have allowed. He pressed the horn into Xin's limp hand, water sloshing faintly within.
"Drink," Raven rasped, voice rough as gravel. Then he waited, collapsing against the opposite wall, his breathing was shallow and labored.
An hour crawled by, each minute a weight pressing against Raven's chest.
The cave was silent save for the drip of water somewhere deep within and the faint hum of his armor's repairs. Then—a gasp. Xin's eyes snapped open, wide and wild, a sharp intake of breath echoing off the stone. Panic seized him, his hands trembling as he clutched the horn.
He'd been running EMR the whole time, draining his reserves to keep himself alive after the creature's scythe had torn through him. Now, only a flicker of ether remained, a dying ember in his core.
His gaze darted to Raven, slumped and bleeding, the obsidian armor a fragile shell around a body on the brink. Blood pooled beneath him, stark against the cave floor. Then to Belial—panting, sweating, eyes shut tight, his face a mask of agony. Black veins pulsed beneath his skin, climbing like roots toward his jaw, his scars weeping crimson.
How the tables have turned, Xin thought, a somber pang twisting in his chest.
The man who'd once stood unshakable was now a broken husk, poison gnawing at his essence.
"Xin," Raven croaked, catching his gaze. "Heal him first. I'll be fine."
Xin hesitated, torn.
Raven's words were firm, but the blood said otherwise.
Yet Belial's state was dire—his breathing shallow, his body trembling as the poison waged its war. Xin nodded, steeling himself. He activated his ether vision, a faint white shimmer overlaying his sight. Belial's aura flared into view—a chaotic swirl of his own ether particles clashing with foreign ones, dark and jagged, devouring his vitality like ravenous parasites. Xin's stomach churned. He'd never seen this strain before—its composition alien, its structure elusive.
He reached out with his dwindling ether, weaving it into Belial's aura, trying to reconstruct the poison particles into something benign. Sweat beaded on his brow, his hands trembling as he fought to reshape them. But the particles resisted—slippery, unyielding, their makeup a puzzle he couldn't crack. His ether flickered, then guttered out entirely, leaving him gasping.
Nothing.
He'd accomplished nothing.
Belial's black veins pulsed stronger, a mocking reminder of his failure.
Panic clawed at Xin's throat.
"What do I do? What do I do?" His voice cracked, echoing in the cave.
He snatched the horn from the ground, stumbling to the wall, his mind racing. Water sloshed as he dipped a finger in and began scrawling a biochemistry formula on the rough stone—half instinct, half desperation. "If I can somehow break it down… isolate the bonds… maybe...maybe I can neutralize it," he muttered, his words tumbling over each other. "Carbon chains here… sulfur maybe? No, too unstable… nitrogen bonds? Could be… damn it, think!"
His finger traced frantic patterns, equations spiraling into chaos.
He muttered faster and faster, His voice rising each time he thought he had a breakthrough. "If it's ether-based, it's got a signature—something I can latch onto. But the composition… it's shifting, adapting—how? Maybe if I—yes, yes, that could work!" A spark of hope flared—a trinket of ether igniting in his core, faint but real.
An idea crystallized, reckless and wild: consume the poison himself. If he could analyze it from within, feel its structure, he might reconstruct it...or die trying.
He froze, staring at the dripping poison.
It was a gamble—a mad, desperate throw of the dice.
But Belial was fading, and Raven wouldn't last much longer. Xin's hands shook as he lifted the horn, water gleaming faintly in the cave's dim light. He could still taste the blood in his mouth from his own wounds, could feel the strain of his near-empty reserves. But he had no choice.
Before he could act, Raven's voice cut through. "Xin...stop."
Xin turned, startled. Raven had dragged himself upright, one gauntleted hand braced against the wall, blood dripping from his armor's seams. "Don't," he said, voice firm despite the rasp. "You're running on fumes. You take that poison, you're dead—and we're all screwed."
Xin's grip tightened, desperation warring with logic. "But Bel—he's—"
"I know," Raven snapped, wincing as he shifted. "But you're no good to us dead. Figure it out another way."
Xin's shoulders slumped, the horn trembling in his hands.
Another way. He didn't have another way.
His ether vision flickered again, weaker now, showing the same grim scene: Belial's particles losing ground, the poison spreading. He sank to his knees beside Belial, staring at the black veins, the sweat-slicked skin, the faint shudder of each breath.
*I'm Loosing him!.
The cave seemed to close in, the air thick with the weight of their fragility. Xin's mind churned, grasping at fragments of knowledge—bioether theory, biochemistry, anything. He muttered again, softer now, a stream of half-formed thoughts. "If it's foreign, it's got a source… a catalyst… something I can disrupt.
Maybe the water—dilution? No, too simple. The ether signature—it's unique, but if I can match it, amplify it—"
A groan from Belial snapped him out of it. The warrior's eyes fluttered open, glassy and unfocused, a weak rasp escaping his lips. "Xin… stop… Panicking damnit."
Xin flinched, a flicker of relief cutting through his panic. "You're awake. Good. Stay with me." He leaned closer, forcing calm into his voice. "I'm figuring this out. Just please hold on."
Belial's head lolled, a faint smirk tugging at his lips despite the pain. "What are you… the hero?"
"Shut up," Xin shot back, but his hands were already moving, tracing the air above Belial's chest. The trinket of ether pulsed faintly, a lifeline he couldn't waste.
He couldn't heal Belial...not yet...but he could try something else. An idea sparked, dangerous and untested. If he couldn't reconstruct the poison, maybe he could isolate it, trap it, buy time.
"Raven," Xin called, voice steadying. "Hold him still."
Raven staggered over, dropping to one knee beside Belial, his gauntlets pinning the warrior's shoulders. Blood dripped onto the stone, but he didn't falter. Xin closed his eyes, focusing the last of his ether into a thin, white thread. He wove it into Belial's particles, not to heal, but to encase—building a fragile barrier around the poison particles, slowing their advance. His hands shook, sweat dripping down his face, but the black veins hesitated, their spread stalling.
"It's working," Xin breathed, disbelief threading through his exhaustion. "Not a fix...but it'll hold. For now."
Raven grunted, a faint nod his only reply. Belial's breathing eased slightly, the tension in his frame lessening. Xin slumped back, the horn clattering to the ground, empty of answers but heavy with hope. They weren't out of this yet—but they had time. Time to fight, to plan, to survive.
Outside, the sun climbed higher, its light a distant promise they weren't ready to face.