THE SUPERWEAPON DETONATES.

It was an unfortunate turn of events. Somehow, just before I could escape, the giant Zombie merges with the Zombie army to become a colossal mass of undead, even larger than before. And it grabbed me out of the air. It trapped me right as Beihal and Seiled’s superweapon of magic and technology launched into the air.

I tried to escape. With Void Walk, I managed to break free from the colossal Zombie’s grasps. But before I managed to fly away, the missile lands. The superweapon finally detonates, before I can escape from the premises of Warmthkeep.

I look back once as a pulse of black light shrinks back into ground zero. The explosion seems to contract first, forming a dense, tiny marble of pure black energy with the power of a sea of Lifeblood. Then all at once, it explodes upwards.

A pillar of intense black energy shoots upwards like a blade searing through the sky. I brace myself, watching this pillar expand and consume everything within its radius. The colossal Zombie turns unsuspectingly, not knowing what this overwhelming blast is just behind it. It stares for a single moment, before the blast touches it, and it is gone. Vaporized out of existence. Like dust in the wind.

I try to fly away as fast as I can. But in spite of it all, I know I cannot escape. I know that the explosion will reach me. Whatever it is— it is more power than even the explosion of Galgom’s Hive. I raise my hands, conjuring metal around me, forming a box of protection to save me.

With the School of Enchantment, I create another layer of protection over it. I create a second barrier over myself, hoping it holds up. But as the blast draws closer, I know it is not enough. The enchanted metal easily melts from the heat of a hundred suns.

I close my eyes, unsure of what to do. Is this it? the thought briefly crosses my mind. But I refuse to die here.

I know that there is still much I must do. Utana is still under threat from Idu’s fury. I need to find a way back to Jhisie. And most of all— I still have yet to attain true immortality.

I cannot die here, I tell myself as I scramble for my only way to survive. I need something to save me. Something that I have yet to use. And the Mark of the Elocunive calls me. One of my newest Feats. One which I have yet had the chance to test.

I raise a hand as the blast eats through my protections— I can feel the heat burning away at my enchanted clothes. I close my eyes and whisper the power that I have learnt.

“Imprisonment.”

It is a Feat that seems intuitive enough. A power to imprison my enemies. It is something I was granted by the Elocunive after defeating the Eternal Elementals. It seems like it can be useful in battle against singular, powerful foes. But I have no enemy here to trap. I could not use it on the colossal Zombie, for it is an amalgamation of undead, rather than a single one. And I cannot use it now to trap the explosion engulfing all of Warmthkeep. After all, it is a blast, not a target.

No— instead, I focus it on myself. I trap myself in this prison, not knowing what it is or what it entails. All I can hope for is safety. Sanctuary. And that is what is given to me.

I look back as the black explosion threatens to obliterate my entire existence in one moment. Then in the next moment, I am being sucked into a vacuum. A powerful void is pulling me just like when I use Void Walk. It is just like when I first escaped through the tear in the world in my battle against those five Springs.

And just like back then, I escape from certain death. I am pulled through space into another place. The world spins around me— I lose sight of where I am. My focus is gone. But I know I am safe. Even as I tumble down nothingness— even as an eternity passes in a single moment— I know survived.

***

I do not know how much time has passed. I never know how much time passes when I am traveling through space. It is not something I can quite understand. But I know that this is different from a Void Walk. I know that time has passed, but whether it is a hundred cycles or a fraction of a cycle is not something I can tell.

All I know is that I continue falling through nothing. That even though it feels like it has been an eternity of falling, it also only feels like an instant has gone by. Until, finally, I am spat out of the other side of the hole in space.

I come flying out, landing on a hard surface with a crash. I groan, lying where I landed for a moment, unmoving. I look down at the ground to see a metal floor. But it is not cold. Somehow, it is incredibly warm still.

I look up to see that I am boxed in. I am trapped in a prison as expected. But this is not the prison I thought I would end up in. I get to my feet as a tall shadow looms over me.

“This is—” I choke for a moment.

There is no air around me. I look up to see the hungering gaze of my fellow prisoner. The Eternal Elemental itself. The one that I trapped and left in a vacuum to forever be locked away.

It crawls my way, driven by a ravenous hunger. For the first time in forever, it has seen something that it can consume. And even in its reduced form, it is dangerously fast.

I barely have the time to escape it by pulling myself onto the ceiling with Aura Pull. The Eternal Elemental rages on below me as I hold my breath, quickly manipulating the ceiling with my Qi until it opens. I push a square hatch open before quickly mending it, keeping air for filling into the vacuum prison to prevent the Eternal Elemental from growing stronger.

I sigh in relief when I escape from the Imprisonment. I take in a gasp of fresh air, taking in my surroundings. Sure enough, I am back in the Flourishing Flatlands. Far from the Blazing Desert. Back in that prison where I had locked the Eternal Elemental.

I sit there, on the roof of the prison for a moment, just breathing slowly. “I can breathe again,” I whisper and lie back down. “And I lived.”

I just want to luxuriate in knowing that I lived. That despite all odds, I managed to survive. Even after so many years of experience in life-and-death situations, I find it exhausting to escape those situations. I look up towards the purple sky to see that it is coming to the end of the true day.

Soon, there will no longer be true days or false days, but only true nights or false nights. I close my eyes, meditating for a moment. Glad to have this moment of reprieve.

Then I get to my feet. “My job is not over,” I say as I shake my head.

I still have to ensure that my friends survived the blast. That the last of the Zombies in the Blazing Desert have been wiped out. And beyond that? I have to traverse the Desolate Caverns and the Frosty Mountains, searching for any stray clusters of undead that are still alive.

Sighing, I cast my gaze over to the horizon as my Aspect spreads wide behind my back. I ready myself to make the journey to Warmthkeep— or whatever is left of the city after that superweapon’s blast— to help escort the survivors back to Thornthistle.

But before I can fly too far from the vacuum prison, I sense a disturbance in the air. My eyes narrow as I cast my gaze towards the sky. And then I pause, staring in shock as a fissure begins to form above the clouds.

The same tear in space that bombarded Utana with Zombies— that unleashed the Eternal Elementals into the four domains— begins to once again… reopen.