Unfortunately, the world lurched back into motion before Kain could push Serena away, meaning all that he could do was place her behind him.

Stone fragments that had been suspended midair clattered to the ground as the air ahead of them twisted violently, folding in on itself like glass being crushed by invisible hands as the Abyssal's attack, no longer stopped by time, continued towards them.

A dense distortion surged forward—compressing space, sound, and light into something resembling a heat wave in the air. It reached them… and then unravelled.

Barely a foot from where they both stood, the warped air shuddered, lost cohesion, and dissolved into nothing with a violent hiss, as if the attack itself had been erased mid-existence. The sudden release sent a sharp pressure snap through the battlements, leaving behind cracked stone, scorched sigils, and a silence so heavy it rang in the ears...but no actual harm was done to Serena or Kain.

'That's it?' Serena thought.

The supposedly strong attack barely even moved her hair out of place?

For a single breath, Serena thought it was over.

Then something cold slid across her thoughts.

It was not pressure like before. There was no crushing weight, no force pushing her body toward the ground. This was quieter. Sharper. It slipped past skin and bone alike, threading directly toward the mind.

Kain felt it as well.

The incoming presence carried no rage, no spectacle. It was a focused intent, honed and deliberate, like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. The Wrath-born demigod had changed tactics. This was not meant to flatten walls or shatter bodies.

This was meant to erase.

The air around Kain vibrated faintly, not with sound, but with tension. His vision blurred at the edges as foreign thoughts pressed against the boundaries of his own—anger not his, commands that seemed to come from a formless figure, impulses that did not belong to him yet tried to root themselves deep within.

Serena staggered, one knee dipping as her breath caught. She could feel something wrong, even if she did not fully understand it.

Kain did.

Somehow, against all of his beliefs of being 'immune', he knew that they had somehow been contaminated and were at risk of turning.

'Dammit, and Aegis can't help me right now. Maybe Chewy can help absorb some of the abyssal energy?'

But before he could react or try to figure out a solution—

Something slammed down between him and the invisible attack.

A bodyless (nagging) Hand manifested with a sharp crack, fingers splayed wide as if bracing against an oncoming avalanche. The space around it warped violently. Lines rippled outward like fractures in glass, and Kain felt a sudden spike of pain lance through his skull.

Blood ran freely from his nose, splattering against the stone and, disturbingly, from the blood he had just coughed out, there appeared to be millions of writhing and squirming worms.

Serena too, spat up blood...only to be met with the same horrifying sight.

"Oh my god!"

Clearly, those worms had somehow been carried into their bodies when they thought that attack had dissolved, and even very nearly managed to control them.

Kain felt like throwing up. He had had some arrogance that he'd be more resistant to the attacks and efforts to control him compared to others. After all, he can absorb Abyssal energy for fuel. When facing abyssals, part of himself regarded himself as the predator, and them as the prey.

But now he realized that whatever advantages or immunities that he thought he had were completely meaningless before a true demigod.

"Do you have any idea—!" the Hand snapped, voice strained and vibrating as it pushed back against the mental assault. "What you are up against! How stupid do you have to be to run forward like that! Fortunately for you, that thing isn't trying to destroy you completely. Rather, it's trying to turn you. Maybe it saw some potential in having you as its underling, otherwise it wouldn't take special care to implant these in you under the guise of an attack if it thought you were worthless."

"...Wow...I am so honoured" Kain replied with a deadpan expression. Meanwhile Serena just looked sick.

"Oomf" Kain suddenly doubled over again.

His thoughts fractured for a heartbeat. Images that were not his flickered across his vision—endless slaughter, burning skies, a world screaming itself hoarse beneath an eternal crimson sun. Some scenes looked like they came from the Abyss, others from the Underworld.

Slap

With a burning sensation on his cheek, Kain woke up again, not even realizing when he'd almost been affected by the abyssal demigod again.

His heart pounded with fear that it's attempts to control him could be accomplished so easily.

The Hand shook, fingers digging deeper into the warped space as if physically isolate the space they were in from whatever other 'invisible worms' may be lingering in the air trying to infect them.

"Tch—insufferable—!" it growled, muscles in its wrist bulging unnaturally. "You nearly let it slip straight through again. Harden your mind!"

With a sharp twist, the Hand tore sideways.

The mental pressure shattered.

The backlash slammed into Kain like a hammer. His knees buckled, and he caught himself just before collapsing entirely. His ears rang, and for a moment, he tasted iron at the back of his throat.

The Hand withdrew slightly, hovering closer than usual, fingers trembling.

"That," it said, exhaling sharply, "is not something I can do twice in quick succession."

After all, helping Kain and Serena remove what a demigod had implanted on them, took much of its energy.

Kain wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand. His head throbbed, but his thoughts were his own again.

There was no time to waste.

He turned immediately toward Serena.

At some point she'd grabbed the boy's body after the Vespid guard that carried him seemed to lose its mind. Clearly, the normally quite resistant Vespids, like himself, were also at risk of turning before a demigod. Now all he could see was the corpse of the guard, head separated from its torso.

"Kain—" she started.

"Don't worry, I get that you probably needed to do it. No time to talk. Bring him closer," he said, already moving.

She did not argue.

The moment she stepped within reach, Kain placed one hand against the boy's chest and closed his eyes.

In the System's Lab he had stored a translucent glowing orb was a trapped wisp of mist. A soul.

The devide he'd used to store boy's soul, something he'd purchased from the System in the past in the event that the Knight from the Black Order committed suicide and he quickly needed to capture his soul to question. Fortunately, he didn't need it at that time, he didn't have any means of committing suicide, and Bea was able to read his thoughts directly.

The orb where the boy's soul had been stored opened carefully, deliberately. Kain guided it back with a precision that bordered on reverence, threading it through the pathways it had been torn from earlier.

The boy's body twitched.

A faint breath shuddered out of his lungs.

Color returned slowly to his skin, warmth following as his pulse stabilized beneath Kain's palm. The connection sealed with a soft, almost imperceptible click that only Kain could feel.

Serena released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding upon feeling the corpselike body warm up.

"He's alive," she whispered.

"Alive," Kain confirmed. "And staying that way."

He shifted his hand lower, pressing it against the boy's abdomen.

The reaction was immediate.

Abyssal energy surged violently, thrashing against Kain's grip like a living thing. Black-red tendrils flared briefly beneath the boy's skin before being forcibly dragged free, writhing and hissing as they were pulled into the open.

Serena flinched back instinctively.

The Hand watched closely, saying nothing this time.

Kain did not hesitate.

He purified the extracted energy in one smooth motion, grinding the corruption down until it lost cohesion and collapsed into raw Source energy. The process burned, sending sharp pain through his arm and chest, but the effect was immediate.

The boy's body relaxed fully.

However, Kain felt that there was a difference in the body from before. Something had been irrevocably changed in him after being possessed by a demigod.

But he had no time to investigate.

Not when another demigod was breathing down his neck and barely kept at bay by a space shield formed by a disembodied hand.

Fortunately, some of his depleted energy reserves got restored by absorbing that abyssal energy from the boy's body just now.

The exhaustion weighing down his limbs eased slightly. The hollow ache in his core receded, replaced by a thin but steady warmth.

The fortress shuddered violently as another distant impact shook the walls. The demigod was not waiting.

Kain's gaze snapped up.

"Serena," he said sharply. "Go. Now."

She didn't fight him again this time, already having tried to convinve him to let her stay.

Without another word, she turned, summoning her elemental guardian in its wind-attribute form, to assist as she carried the boy away from the collapsing battlements. She glanced back once, meeting Kain's eyes across the chaos.

Then she ran.

Kain watched until she vanished from sight.

Only then did he allow himself to breathe.

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