They soon got to the lava sea.

It moved like a living thing, slow and deliberate, as though the earth itself had decided to breathe its anger to the surface.

It glowed a violent orange, streaked with veins of white-hot brilliance that pulsed and shifted beneath a skin already blackening and cracking.

The sound it gave off was worse than the sight. It was a low, grinding roar, like mountains being chewed apart from the inside.

It boiled extremely hot, and if not for the crystals that helped the ship levitate above the sea, it could've swallowed the entire ship in one bite.

The lava sea, besides the heat, was mostly calm but…

There were rumors about an obsidian golem that lay beneath the boiling water.

According to legend, upon waking, the boundary between lava and the beast became indistinguishable. The molten surface would rise, distend, and then rupture as something massive tore itself from the depths.

The golem of living stone and fire would emerge, its body forged from jagged obsidian plates fused together by glowing seams of magma. Its limbs were massive and uneven, as though carved by an amateur god.

Its face, at least where it should have been, was a mask of cracked stone hovering, featureless except for those two burning eyes, white and merciless.

It didn't walk or even attempt to, as it could reach every inch of the sea even trying.

Yet the beast remained dormant somewhere beneath, fated to appear only when roused from sleep.

No one truly understood what might rouse it, but the sea obviously despised sound. An unspoken rule governed passage here, absolute silence, lest someone wake the creature.

But whether the golem was real didn't matter. This was the perfect opportunity for everyone to rest after the exhausting storm sea. Making noise wasn't an option.

Like everyone else, Halo slept for days, untouched by the heat. When he woke, his body felt impossibly heavy, and he could barely shift position.

Such deep, extended sleep should've produced at least one dream, some escape, but his mind had been empty. Pure unconsciousness, like a corpse.

Even so, the extended sleep had taken its toll. Plus, he'd woken to find Saint, Light, and Kysa had demolished his room yet again.

Moving sluggishly and irritably, he grabbed some tasteless food, then dragged himself to the training room to loosen up his rigid muscles.

There Arlen lay, motionless on the floor, her eyes wide and unblinking, locked on the ceiling.

Halo was startled.

She was their most listless member, yet here she was, awake earliest? The room's oppressive heat and the sweat in the air told him she'd been training well before he showed up.

Sighing tiredly, he started to walk away, but Arlen called out before he could leave.

"It's you. I want to chat with you."

The request was so languid, so unexpected, that Halo doubted his ears until she repeated herself.

Halo looked at her, puzzled. She'd settled cross-legged on the floor and was motioning for him to sit beside her.

Halo was no pet… he didn't.

"What do you want?"

Arlen's eyes were fixated on the floor, only glancing at Halo occasionally.

"I heard you can actually give people motivation. You did it for Lyra, and for your sister as well."

She turned to Halo.

"I want some."

'Huh? She talks as if motivation comes in candy wrappers.'

Halo sighed deeply.

"I'm not sure what you think, but I hardly did anything for Lyra and Delilah. You're feeling lazy, I take it? Just do whatever helps you enjoy your downtime, no matter the circumstances."

Arlen stared at him for a hot second.

"Okay."

She said and lay on the floor again.

Halo could only shake his head. She'd misunderstood entirely, but explaining wasn't worth the effort.

He immediately headed to the main deck, desperate for fresh air. He got the opposite: heat so savage it nearly scorched every hair off his body.

He rested on the rail, watching the heat roll off the lava in crushing waves, thick enough to taste, burning his throat with every breath.

The sound?…

The crust hissed and bubbled, sparks jumping up only to extinguish mid-flight, while beneath, the lava churned relentlessly, roiling and folding like an open furnace that would never cool.

He gulped bile and tilted toward the sky.

Smoke choked the area, but the rays of the sun managed to break through anyway. The heat should've driven him away, but he hadn't seen the sun in god knows how long.

The heat might've been affecting him, because he wished he'd spoken more plainly to Arlen. Her ability, Zero, could reduce any attack to nothing, genuinely impressive.

Yet Procrastination, her Flaw, killed that potential. She was aware of her stagnation, and it troubled her, but she simply couldn't muster the motivation.

However, while his mind wandered, two things snapped him back.

First, the thick smoke that their ship was about to sail into, they were only moments away. Second, something in his peripheral vision.

A ship similar to the one White had destroyed with a tornado back in the storm sea was heading directly toward them at incredible speed.

Maybe it was the same one.

Halo shifted position to see better, but before he could make sense of things, a volley of spears came hurtling toward him. Magnus appeared in his hand just in time to bat them aside.

They looked furious, their group drastically reduced. The storm had nearly wiped them out.

They were pathetic fighters, the kind Halo could defeat without effort under normal circumstances. But right now, stuck mid-air while they had projectiles? They'd kill him easily.

"Tsk. I need to get Saint."

He barely had time to react when the lava erupted. A colossal creature breached the surface, the force of its emergence throwing both ships skyward before gravity claimed them, sending them hurtling downward.

Halo, meanwhile, was in serious trouble. Flying, technically, if you could call plummeting through empty air "flying."

His heart pounded violently as he tumbled through the air, his sight going hazy as the dark smoke swallowed him. He shifted Magnus into chains, desperately reaching for the ship, with nothing to grab onto.

He panicked.

"DAMN!!"

Then, everything went dark.

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